Title: “Angels: Friends or Foes?”
Genre: Horror & Supernatural
by ShiraDest
Synopsis
Human life, as seen from the point of view of various beings who exist on a separate but sometimes interactive plane.
Read the entire (finished: 27 Nov. 2012) 50k word pre-practice novel: NaNoWriMo2012
Chapter 1.
Before the beginning
The Ancient Warrior no longer recalled what had come before. Before the last great war, when only he had been left, alone, and seemingly in charge of all of the multi-verses. He had created more universes within universes, exploring and searching for others, some friend or foe left out of all the destruction. Though he was a being of pure energy, his essence held the memories, thoughts, hopes and dreams of a being who had existed for an incalculable span of time. Incalculable because there was no longer any cycle of light, dark, rotation of any central universe or galaxy against which to measure time. There were certainly curls of universes, tucked away into corners of each part of the multi-verse to which he had access, but his energy could not enter them all. His essence, the energy he radiated and to through whose interaction with other energy and matter he could sense all that was around him, had at last grown and stretched to fill large parts of the universes around him, and to enter most of the universes farther from his core, but there were, worryingly, some few universes remaining to be explored, to which he could not seem to easily access. He knew, somehow, that he was not entirely alone, but how could he prove this? He also know that he could, at any moment of his choosing, pro-create the essence of another energy being like himself, one with a smaller essence, and of necessity having different wavelengths, given that he would have to turn part of his own energy field to a 90 degree angle in order to generate the differential required to pro-create. This meant that he could have no way of knowing precisely what sort of new energy field to which he would be giving birth. This new being would be sentient, as he was, having a fully developed neural network, nearly as complex as his own, and very likely also coming into being with the same memories and frequency ranges as his own. He was taking a risk in creating a new being over which he could not guarantee full control, as the last war had shown him. In his long experience, differences between beings meant that sooner or later, conflict was inevitable. Yet his loneliness was beginning to consume him. He stretched his essence this way and that, reluctant to enter the few remaining unexplored universes, lest he should encounter a foe in a place where he might have to take on a form that could place him at a disadvantage. Each universe operated according to different sets of physical rules, which thus affected the way his energy interacted with matter and energy in that universe. There had been universes in which he had been constrained to do battle in a physically alien form and could not easily change shapes, as he was accustomed to do in other universes. Then the problem of extracting his essence from that universe sometimes forced him to leave traces of his energy behind, sealed off in an inaccessible universe, yet still able to perceive what was happening within the sometimes limited scope of action of the part of his essence remaining in that sealed off universe. Often these universes, over time, developed forms of life quite unexpectedly, and quite different from the form in which he himself existed. He had no memory of what had come before, but considered that since it was easier to convert matter into energy than vice-versa, it was likely that he and those before him had once been corporeal creatures, of matter, who developed self-awareness, and eventually must have converted those corporeal forms into the energetic essences that he and his former companions, friends and foes, now had. All dark matter, now, all but him. …
Cooperation Fails
“There is no other way for a species to form. We came about this way, and so would any other set of beings, given sentience and free will. -“How do we know that? We have no evidence, no basis for comparison, no others left to examine to find out how they evolved, or to track the progress that even we ourselves made in becoming as we are now, if we did not start out this way. We have only our present condition, unchanging as it is, to look back upon, now.” -How dare this young one, his own child, question his words. Though having no shape, form, nor even any point of concentration, given that his essence, or his essential energy flow, had permeated all of the explored multi-verses, some basic part of that ever moving essence was still accustomed to thinking of itself as ‘he’. This must have been a remnant of whatever came into being or existed before memory stopped, and changelessness began, but this Younger one knew nothing of it, and would remain unaware, as long as the ancient Warrior could help it. Perhaps it had been a mistake to procreate, but having decided that it was too much to remain alone, the last of his race, he chose to reproduce, knowing that his offspring, despite being a branch of himself alone, could still end up becoming a different sort of being, with different perspectives and even a different nature, eventually. The asexual reproduction used by the ancient Warrior was also a mystery, shrouded in the past before his kind became ageless and unchanging. Everything before that time seemed to have faded away, into the smaller curls of the universes left over from the great war. Only he, the Warrior, remained. Victorious. Alone. And finally, he wanted company. But not insolent company.
”I remember, and I know.”
-”Again, I ask, how do you know? Produce something more than your certainty, if you are able.”
-”Is anything too difficult for me, that I should be unable?”
-”You did precede me, this is true, but I maintain my challenge. How will you test your assertions?”
-”You question my knowledge while admitting your youth?”
-”I do.”
-anger flaring, hot for an instant, formed a red ball of searing magma, from whence, a great sword began to emerge, growing from first two feet, then to four feet, now the 6 foot long double-bladed weapon of flame emitted heat from its tip, it’s searing point directed toward the essence of the younger being: ”How do you dare to question me! I, the First, the Warrior who formed you!” -In response, a sphere of blue light appeared, blinding, yet cool, dancing to the side of the heated blade, making contact with the side, and at the point of contact, the hot blade cooled suddenly to rock, splintering into shards: “I dare, for question I must, and if you insist on threatening me, if you force me to defend myself, I will bring such a difficult band of light to this dark domain of yours as will wipe out every facet of every universe that has ever had contact with you! Though it be a hard thing, and saddening, if you push me to it, do not doubt that I will indeed follow through on my promise, Ancient Warrior.” While it was true that she had been procreated by the Ancient Warrior, through his chosen act of self procreation, she knew that she had somehow come to be very different from him, perhaps even from the moment of first existence, when her light repelled him, showing the darkness which always encased his energy flows. How that dark energy flow could have reproduced itself in the form of such a radically different spectrum of energy was enigmatic, at first, but then, when she contemplated the various forms of electrical and magnetic fields, images appeared of electrical, magnetic, heat, visible light, and alpha, gamma and beta radiation. A mere change in the wavelength or frequency could change the very essence of the energy. Perhaps this had something to do with the differences between the Warrior, her Father, really, some deep sense told her, and herself. As she pondered within her various interconnected neural networks what that idea could mean, and why the form it recalled seemed somewhat ominous, she stretched out along all of her neural wavelengths, and images of ancient thought-forms, Athena, Zeus, Rhea, Chronos, Tiamat all arose, simultaneously, to a memory of which she knew nothing, and yet. Yet these and other memories were clearly embedded in her energy flows, as records of previous energy flows and consequently also of previous matter conversions. By experience she knew that if she gathered and concentrated sufficient amounts of her own energy, she could create small amounts of matter, and then recapture that energy by converting the matter back again. This she had somehow known intuitively, perhaps from previously stored events into which her energy flows were only beginning to unlock. These old thought-forms still held powerful sway over the multi-verse.
-retracting the remnant of the sword, a Hand of Peace appeared in it’s place: ”Be calm, and know that I am not going to destroy you. At least not yet. I was testing you, and you have passed.” -The Hand of Peace, another ancient thought-form, potent with energetic and symbolic meaning for them both, although neither of them know why, was another thing which had simply always been, unchanging, with no explanation nor memory of beginning or origin. While it’s power could not be denied, it simply was, despite clearly having originated at some time which must have pre-existed this current state of agelessness. ”Gee, Thanks! Don’t even think about doing that again, because I will not withdraw my promise. How do you propose to prove your words?”
-”You are a stubborn being, Young One, for all of your gifts. I propose that we use your light to fashion a four-dimensional universe to contain an experiment-box. This experiment-box will hold an entire three-dimensional universe experiment in one half of the experiment-box, with a one-way separating plane. On the other side of that plane, we can keep or change forms as we see fit, and use it as an isolation area. That way we can go in and out of the corporeal experiment area but they cannot cross over to our side, so that from there we can still see and monitor them ourselves without needing to take corporeal form. That way, then there will also be several layers separating their environment, including their universe, from our universes. Of course since they are to be limited to the 3-d portion of their universe, they will not even be able to conceive of the existence of the other universes, but these extra precautions should satisfy you, I trust?”
… “Yes, that is satisfactory, although what you propose is still very dangerous. That of course makes it more interesting. But more precautions will obviously need to be taken. In the early stages of the experiment we can cross the plane freely, but as these creatures evolve in intelligence and develop tools, they will eventually be able to detect and even monitor our comings and goings. That is even if they do not sense our presence after a transition into their side of the observation plane, at the very least they will notice when we cross back out of their corporeal plane into our side.” -”While the risk of any of them noticing should be quite minimal for all but the most sensitive, if that, since it worries you, then let the risk be contained to one experiment-box within one verse, sealed off. Use one of the four-or five dimensional verses to contain that, and we end up with seven layers, altogether, separating them from us, from their perspective. That should make it quite impossible for them to reach us even if they do find out that there is more to their verse than they can see.” -”Alright, that will suffice for now, but if we should need to change the arrangement, I will insist that it be done as needed. If I am to provide the light which creates the experiment-box, then we must be equal partners in this experiment. Will you agree to that?”
-”Give me your light to start an outline of the multi-verse.” as a soft blue light began to shimmer, the voice rang out: ”I will…NOT!” and suddenly a darkness enveloped all of the light, forming an outline around the light, then adding a sudden spot of darkness directly in the center of the light, creating a rotating disk, which began swirling faster and faster, brighter and brighter. Then, all was dark, still, formless, and void.
“I told you not to question me, stubborn young Child of Light.”
Light Bearer
The oldest one knew that others had existed, and still did, somewhere. Else from whence came the persistent pervasive Darkness always accompanying his energy flows, and from where came the various formless deeps, those waters apart from the other waters, where none dared venture? Odd that this particular form of coagulation of energy, this congealed yet flowing form of energy, seemed to be found in every part of every multi-verse ever explored. Of course there were other beings locked away in other universes, perhaps also with water, but none mattered but him. Of this there could be no doubt. Though others existed, nevertheless, there could be none beside him. But what do do about the Darkness, this time, and how to deal with those chaotic depths which had wreaked havoc on the last two experiments? Even the two sets of neutral experiment monitors had to be eliminated when they each in turn arrogantly decided to contradict his plan to create sentient creatures, not unlike themselves, that would then live strictly according to the rules of the experiment box. How could the experiment monitors disagree with the parameters of an experiment that they were to neutrally monitor? That would not do at all, so of course they had to be removed. Experiments in self-awareness were extremely trying, and it was beginning to become lonely running them all alone. Maybe the third plane, where he had not ventured yet, held some key to all of this. Maybe if he finally gave in and called up his other half, whom he had managed to lock away inside that third unexplored plane, together they could solve the recurring problem of the errant ‘sentient beings’ experiment. Maybe. Then again, the other one, who was followed by a paradoxical persistent light which never seemed to go away, most annoying that, could be fairly difficult to control. She insisted on arguing constantly, which was why he was forced to find a way to trick her into entering that third plane in the first place. She was rather trusting, which was useful, but her valiance did come in handy when there was something difficult and unpredictable to be done. She often bravely ventured into spaces where the Oldest One feared to go, which was helpful in exploring other planes, but the arrogance that went along with this caused much disorder. Now though, this new experiment needed a bold hand, and a new way of setting up the parameters so that it would not go as the previous experiments had gone. The easiest way would be to get the Younger One to help, but how to get that help while still keeping control of the experimental universe-box? Perhaps the constant light she carried with her could be the key to this new experiment. If he used that light to allow her out of the third plane in which she was currently trapped, then her gratitude should allow him to enforce the rules as he saw fit. That would have to do, since he was out of options for running new experiments. -”Let there be Light.”
“Ok, what exactly were you thinking, tricking me into going into that unexplored plane with no way to get back except for harsh language and trust in you? Do you know how irritating it is having to fight my way through constant swarms of… oh, that’s right, you did not know what was in that plane, right? Or did you? So what do you want me back here for now, then? You had me locked in, so why let me out, what do you want?”
“Remember, I did just let you out of what apparently turned out to be an unpleasant plane. I should think that the phrase ‘Thank you’ would be in order. Besides, this will be quite interesting. I need you to help me set up the parameters for a new experiment universe-box, but this time in such a way so that I will not end up having to end it and start all over again from scratch. Sentient-being experiments.”
“Are you mad? You know those kinds of experiments are unethical. What do you think we evolved away from, and why would you want to bring those lower level beings back? What if they manage to figure out how to cross into our plane and create havoc here, or into other verses or to make things even worse, get through the other layers we set up, you remember that total of 7 spheres they should not even know exist? Chances are that they will eventually find out that those spheres exist, and how move around them. This sort of experimentation is not productive in the slightest way. Why do you continue to persist in this?”
“This experimental universe will be different, and as agreed previously, we will share in the setup.” -”No.”
“Look, be reasonable, I set you free and now you again owe your existence in this multi-verse to me.”
-”You tricked me into going in the first place!”
-”Then you clearly have much to learn, don’t you?” -“Well, I cannot deny that.”
-”And see here, this experiment will set the stage for much good that can only be done with what is gained from this experiment. Look how I have raised you up from where you were imprisoned. That light you carry with you everywhere was previously your weakness, but it could be turned into your greatest strength. We will use it to create a central set of lights that in the next experiment we can use to facilitate the growth of the new sentient beings as they evolve, and maybe even to gauge their intellectual progress, if they last long enough. That way we will not need any more of those experiment monitors we had so much trouble with. We can still use guardians of some sort, of course, to help with the recording and reporting on data for each piece of the experiment, since there will be a good deal of data to keep track of. We can set up multiple levels of guardians using minimal levels of energy to report on the inert matter and on the non-mobile self-aware experiment subjects as they develop and branch out. Those guardians can report to a collating guardian who will report all progress within the experiment-box to you. Now we will be partners in the creation. You will be the Child of the Morning, Bearer of Light. Without you there will be, for this universe, no day and night, no seasons. Come now, you must say yes.” -”I may later regret this, but yes.”
Stages
“Alright, now that we have the experiment-box set up inside of a simple 3-d universe, with the separating plane ready inside the universe to divide the experiment-box from the observation section, how should we roll the enclosing 4-d universe? Does it matter how we situate them?”
“Not really. Just as long as the keys are securely converted or locked away in an unconnected multi-verse, none of the experiment subjects should be able to access them.”
“And these Guardians you propose to make for this experiment, to protect and report back on the clay beings? You see no potential problems with them?”
“Nothing that would be a serious problem, no. Let us proceed with this first stage and run it for 100 millennia, which should be long enough to verify short term effects before moving on to the next stage. Until some of the energy coagulates into solid matter, we will have no need to worry about setting up guardians for anything. Once matter begins to cool, then we can set up an automatic procedure for creating a guardian for each inanimate and then moving being, and later we can instantiate the guardian hierarchy for the self-aware beings as they emerge. If they begin to compete amongst themselves, though, we may have to take additional steps to limit their range of abilities.”
“Are you sure that only 100 millennia will be long enough, it does not seem very long, but if you find that acceptable then that will be good. As for the guardian hierarchies, I can see them competing already. I am sure it will not be long before even the merest guardian assigned to report on the growth of a single specimen of vegetation will be urging it to grow faster!”
–“Have no fear, it is good.”
“Fine then we can proceed with the first stage of experiment-box environment setup. But before we do that, it may be more expeditious to coin a term to use as a label for this process. I suggest “Creation” if that will do.” “It will do. Let us then proceed with the Creation.”
…
“Alright, first there is the matter of well, matter, in this verse. At the moment the only visible spectra are yourself, as darkness, and myself, as blue wavelength visible light.” -”Let us call that Night and Day, when we are in this universe, just for simplicity.” “Fine, but how are we going to rotate these spectra in this verse? We would have to take turns stepping in and out of the corporeal side unless we use a crystalline structure as the basis for the corporeal beings, and then they could reflect light on any number of wavelengths.” -”No, I prefer carbon based corporeals, that way every creature in the experiment-box can have a starting point in common with everything else in this universe, making it easier to start up and just set the clock and observe the development with a minimum of interference.” -”Well then we will have to figure out some way to rotate the wavelength cycles that living corporeals will need for their sensory and cognitive development.” -”Fine, fine, we will get to that, but first, let us deal with these waters. Let us separate them out into various parts of this universe, inside the experiment-box if we can contain them all there. Some will have to go above and the rest below parts of this universe. Let us put the gaseous forms of most of this water in the upper atmospheres of some larger planet-sized coagulations of energy, let’s call them the Sky in each of the planets where we put some of this water. Let’s make it random, so that if the experiment goes far enough, the subjects will have something interesting to contemplate.” -”You really are worried about this water, aren’t you, but why?” -”Never you mind, just look to the next step.” -”Fine. That would be to do something with the rest of the water on the various planets where we want to put this water. Making the water adhere to the planetary surfaces and crags would require setting a random gravitational constant that will be consistent throughout this universe.” -”Do it, and we can call the adherences of surface water Seas. Yes, that will be good.” -”Fine, so if we start with carbon and let gravity hold water down, then we should see a series of processes after sufficient numbers of planets coagulate and their skies cool down enough to begin building acids and proteins, but how will the day and night cycles come about?” -”If it does not happen on it’s own, then let us, or rather, you, if you please, set certain stars to brighter intensity levels and judiciously move some of their satellites around just enough to cause the collisions needed to distribute all of the needed elements around the various solar systems and galaxies which will form in this universe.” -”Already done. I have reset the wavelengths of some sections of the universe to glow more brightly than others, assuming that the initial cooling patterns hold as they are now. Now we should be able to wait a few thousand millenia and by then we should start to see those acids and proteins developing into life forms. With any luck, some planets may develop sentient life of various types.” -”Fine, then let us cross over to the corporeal side at regular intervals for a progress check at the end of each stage. The guardians can update us between times if more checks are needed.”
…
“The third stage seems to be progressing fairly well, now. We have several planets with Seas where the longer protein chains have begun to form promising combinations, and there are a few planets where those combinations have produced cells which are now able to complete the entire intake, transform, and excrete cycle. These cells have a few offshoots which appear to be starting to self-divide and form new cells on their own. Interestingly enough, two planets in this universe have already formed cells which are reproducing on dry land via a different mechanism than the water-based cells. One planet seems to be farther ahead in this process, with a simple set of seeds which appear to be surviving and reproducing by pollinating other seeds.”
-”How is that happening?”
-”Wind. The guardians on both planets report that this seems to be happening in a similar fashion in both places, which makes sense given the universal gravitational constant and the rotation of the planets around the central star. They are in different galaxies, but this seems to have no effect.”
-”Of course. This universe will show all laws and effects to be the same, and if not, then there will have been some catastrophically erroneous intervention, which the difference will signal to us, and likely the experiment will then have to be stopped and either restarted or completely begun again from scratch.”
-”Oh.”
…
“The third stage seems to be complete now, as we have one planet with a fully developed set of dry-land based vegetable life, including grasses and cereals, larger fruit and nut-bearing plants…” -“Let us call those Trees.” -”Ok, trees, and other kinds of vegetation.”
”Good.”
…
-”The next stages seem to be advancing more rapidly than previous stages, perhaps given the preparation and self-organization time required in previous stages. These new land and sea-based life-forms have evolved in a large variety of different directions, as you foresaw, and are continuing to branch out in new ways, interestingly enough, despite our having started the entire experiment on the basis of one single element. Well, two if you count water as an essential element in spite of its dual atom makeup. I still do not understand the connection, and where all of this excess water is coming from. There must be a leak from one of the other multi-verses into this one, or perhaps you are inadvertently carrying an unclosed portal with you?”
-”I am not, and do not ask about this again, if you please. Shall we go on, and continue with the final stage, ensuring that we get a sentient species on at least one of these planets? After all, do not forget, this is the entire point of the exercise.”
-”Right. I imagine that will a bit more time, say, another billion years or so, self-awareness should evolve in one of the more socially oriented predatory animals on one of these planets. From there it should be a very short step to full intelligent behavior and then we will be able to make more interesting observations.” she wondered why the Warrior was so touchy about a simple question of an unclosed portal, which she had observed herself upon exiting an unexplored universe, but decided that this was not a favorable time to discuss the issue. It would be brought up again, to be sure.
-”Good.”
Na’aseh Adam/making clay Blobs
“Maybe we should wait a little while longer. It may be that the random events occurring on both planets could spark the first lasting intelligence in some species at any moment. We could instruct the planet guardians to arrange some creative way to have more lightening strikes in good locations and just give it another billion years or so. By that time we should see something more.”
“No, I tire of waiting, and I doubt that full intelligence will come of any of these species we see thus far. We will have to intervene and modify one of the animals on the more advanced planet. Otherwise the experiment may fail entirely if we allow both planets to run the course of their full solar cycles, which is not much farther off, remember.
-”Good point, so we need to choose a species to alter. But none of the predators on either planet looks even remotely close to ready, and the sea mammal on the less advanced planet that seems nearly intelligent, well, it is a sea mammal. So much complicates it’s chances of continued existence, and then how will it build a social and physical structure under the Seas where it could interact with the rest of the planet?”
-“That is why we are going to modify one of the primate groups, instead, Young Light Bearer.”
-”Primates? But they are so … aggressive. And they are not exactly predators, nor even brave enough to stand against predators like the nearly-intelligent sea mammals I mentioned. So why them?”
-”Precisely for those reasons. They are aggressive, but not predators, so they have plenty of room to grow and develop.”
-”Well that they certainly will. If this batch can possibly sustain a civilization it will be extremely interesting to watch.”
-”And that is the entire point, my Young Child of the Morning. Come, Light Bearer, bring your gifts to this new being which we shall create, together. Let us call this new creature a Hu-mam, for the aggressive hubris of the primates from which he will originate, and since it will still be a mammal, this name should be fitting. Let us make him in our image, self-reproducing, and according to our likenesses, able to transform the differing wavelengths of the energy around him into new thought-forms. That way we can have a glimpse of how we ourselves came to be as we are, in time.”
-”Are you sure that this will be a safe idea, giving Humans our ability to procreate at will and also to generate new thought-forms? The combination of these abilities without proper supervision may cause untold suffering, both to the humans, and to their universe, and maybe even also to us and the other multi-verses. This is a big risk to take. Why not delay the ability to pro-create, and put the basic tools in place to eventually be able to generate new thought-forms, but not activate that ability ourselves. Let us discover how the Human species will do this on their own, particularly since we do see evidence of an older set of beings who may have guided us. We must begin with the assumption that our own abilities were all self-developed as well.” -”Valid points, Young One. Let it be as you say. Take clay then, from the land of the planet where these interesting sea mammals live and let us modify a random primate, then see what will happen with it. Perhaps over time the Humans and these other mammals will communicate and build a shared society of some sort.” -”Interesting idea. Now with the clay we can enlarge the cranium and modify the jaw and palate of this primate so that he gains the ability to think and speak, and add a new wavelength to a few of his neural pathways, so that now he can also build new brain pathways as he learns to do new things. How long should this take, do you think?”
-”Let us wait a One Thousand years and one day more. Then we will check back for a preliminary update. The guardians have been useful in dealing with the inanimate and self-aware creatures, so they can treat this one as an anomaly and report on the reactions to his presence by all of the entities he comes into contact with. Perhaps it may be that he responds in some way or provokes a reaction in the guardians of lower level creatures, and we will need to note that as well, for future reference. For now, the guardians seem to have all well in hand.”
…
-”This is the second check, and the Human being is still not even speaking yet. I think further modifications may be in order, and we should probably make a second one to stimulate sentient interaction and intellectual progress. The guardians of all the other creatures and inanimate matter around him are reporting that none of his interactions with the beings around him seem to have any lasting effect. A sentient being should begin to build, change, modify or at least have some noticeable effect on his surroundings by this point in his development.”
“Maybe you are right, maybe the first one is still incomplete, and given the accelerated pace of development since gaining sentience, two millenia should have been sufficient time now to be sure. It is a shame really, that we had to intervene in the development process, but luck appears not to be with us in this round, or else you made the experiment-box too small, leaving room for too few planets. Should we make the next sentient-being totally different, or just use this first one as a prototype and make modifications to the next one? What say you, Young Light Bearer. I weary of this experiment.”
“No, I think that the first attempt was not so bad, it simply lacks something. Too many external primate features mar the appearance, like the square shaped head, the facial bones, which are too thick, the external appendages near the lower orifices. It all functions well enough, but seems to be somewhat lacking in gracefulness. The first one can stay, but let us make the second based loosely on the first, with enough similarities that will facilitate working together, if they should decide that cooperation is the way in which they wish to model their groupings. How will they pro-create? Together, as the primates sexually procreate, asexually, or by splitting off according to their own will, as we do? If they are to do as we do, we may need to make some fundamental changes to this universe that will accommodate corporeal multi-celled cell division. It could work, but might backfire. You wanted to make the first one as your own model, which is fine, but I would like to have a hand in forming this second one. I think the second should be more refined, graceful, with a touch of beauty. Perhaps a touch more ethereal than the first. More like us than like the simple non-reasoning set of animals we made in the last cycle. If a sentient being has not yet begun to speak or reason in two thousand years, something is amiss.”
-”Fine, then let us make this second one in our image also, according to the majority of our likenesses, delaying the thought-form creativity just a bit less, so that she will progress more quickly. Let them use sexual reproduction as the primates do, to keep things simple. But we will make a few intangible modifications that distinguish them from the animals, even from the primates we are using to model them, and see what they make of all this as time goes on. We can call the first one man, and the second one woman, since this second one will be like the first, but with more on the inside and less on the outside. It could also solve both the procreation question and the cooperation question. They will have to cooperate just based on how they are physically formed. How does that sound?” -”It sounds like a potential disaster waiting to happen, unless we ensure that this interlocking pair of creatures are both fully capable of protecting themselves in every way, one from the other. We do not yet know how they will choose to behave, given that we are to make them self-aware sentient beings and add free-will to the mix. This can be a bad combination if they do not both develop a very strong sense of ethics, more or less immediately.” -”But that is precisely the object of this experiment: to record what they will do with the free-will factor and to see how they develop as a result.” -”But these are thinking and feeling creatures! Look at how the first one has already succumbed to a malfunctioning in his outlook and activities. He lacks motivation to do anything and enjoys nothing. He merely does what you tell him, and even that without joy. If we add another such creature to this experiment they may harm one another in an incalculable variety of ways.”
-”Then we shall take care to intervene as necessary to prevent or correct gross abuses, and instill a code of ethics as they develop. The guardians will help see to it. You have my word. Proceed as you wish.”
-”I will accept that, and I shall hold you to your word. How should we do this, then? I wonder how the male will react if we use a part of his own body to form the female. There is a poetic beauty in using a rib, from his side, to form what we hope will become a companion. Perhaps this will help him remember to treat her as an equal.”: a shimmering blue light appeared, and within it, the ethereal form of the male. As they watched, one complete rib, the lowest in the set of ribs in the male body, appeared to glow softly, slowly fading away. Simultaneously, a similar ethereal body, bathed in a soft turquoise light, took form next to that of the male. This second body, initially identical to that of the male, began to change shape gradually, bit by bit. First the crown of the head, becoming more oval, rounded and became smaller, the bones thinning slightly. The hair lengthened, growing in a continual flow. The eyes became smaller and more almond-shaped, with more delicate brows above them, and a smaller finer nose below, with smaller yet fuller lips above a lighter chin. The chest first became smaller, then, as the rib from the male reappeared in the ethereal body of the newly forming female, it contracted, changing color to match that of the female’s ethereal body. The smaller chest then narrowed, and the glands, which on the male body were flat against the pectoral muscles, began to swell and expand, rounding into fully developed lactating breasts. The hair continued flowing down to the creature’s waist. The waist narrowed, above hips which floated apart, leaving an opening in the pelvis which had been closed on the male body. The lower bodily organs of the female packed themselves, as the male organs rose up inside the body, leaving an additional opening and canal where the penis had been, and ovaries in place of the male testes. The legs contracted, becoming smooth, hairless, and softer, finer of bone and more delicate, with smaller narrower feet. Finally, the arms and hands contracted, bones thinning, fingers coming to slender tips where larger heavier hands had been. Thus the female was created in the ethereal side of the experiment-box plane. “Ok, we are ready to materialize her corporeal counterpart on their side.”
-”Fine. ”
Both ethereal beings crossed to the corporeal side of the plane, first the Older, then the Light Bearer, moving the copy of the female body between them. As each one, the older, then the female body, then the Younger crossed the plane, a large energy discharge occurred on the ethereal side, followed by a ripping sound on the corporeal side as each in turn took on an ethereal form and stepped across the dividing plane, at which point the ethereal body then became a corporeal body made of matter. The two beings continued to shimmer slightly, though on the corporeal plane, with bodies made of feather-down soft skin, and hollow within. The body of the female took on corporeal form upon crossing the plane, but continued to be inert. The Older being looked, using a long-distance vision not available to the clay male. Although in corporeal form, both ethereal beings were still in command of much of their energetic essences. Then seeing where the man was, he put him into a deep sleep using alpha wave radiation. Moving to stand next to the human female, a soft breeze began to rustle through the trees, over the grass, and gathered, becoming a rushing vortex, in the palm of his hand. He held up that palm, opening it toward the face of the female, and the wind rushed from his hand into the nostrils of the female, with no effect, and then suddenly, out of her mouth, in a mighty exhalation of life, as she breathed out her first breath of life. Then she sat up, as a flash of light drew her attention, but the Older being was gone, having quickly stepped back across the plane, back into the ethereal side, where he observed her, looking about herself, and her environment. She noticed, a short distance away, the Young Light Bearer, and paused to look at the softly shimmering, almost luminous being who stood, looking back at her, waiting.
-”I am the Light Bearer, and I am here to instruct you.” the unpleasant sensation radiating through the still shimmering corporeal form of the Light Bearer subsided as she began to speak to the woman. Contemplating the nature of the corporeal body, it seemed reasonable that the transition from the ethereal space into the physical side of the experiment-box should entail some level of discomfort, especially given the energy concentration needed to take on physical form. She wondered if the older being, the Ancient Warrior, felt as much discomfort as she did in crossing the separating plane into the experiment-box. This discomfort would probably be described as pain by a sentient corporeal being. Putting these thoughts aside, she waited for the woman to respond. Being a completely blank slate, the woman appeared to know nothing. So then, the coagulation of energy used by the Older Warrior to awaken her did not include any patterns of thought-forms or speech or memories, judging by the woman’s seeming bewilderment. How to go about instructing a being with fully formed physical and mental capacities, but completely unformed thought and speech patterns. Conversations with the man over the short two millenia of his existence had been one-way, disappointingly, although the Warrior seemed to have no problem with this, content to give orders and watch the man follow them, drawing and shepherding the various non-sentient creatures in his area of exploration. The Warrior kept a close watch on the man, to prevent him from being harmed by any part of his environment, but generally limited his interactions with the corporeal side of the experiment-box. This second sentient-being, however, would be hers to guide, and receive a more personal interaction and instruction. Both for her growth and for her protection. “Make yourself comfortable and do not be afraid. We have much to share.”
…
Time had passed, and with the woman eventually learning to speak and beginning to try to communicate with the man, the Warrior decided it was time to look for ways to bring the man and woman together more often. -”Why don’t you get the man to name all of the other creatures in his part of this universe, and see if that helps his creativity. He will probably ask the woman to participate, and that will bring them together for a fairly reasonable length of time.”
-”Young Light Bearer, that, I believe, is a Very Good idea.” as the Ancient Warrior went off in search of the man, to see by what names he would call each of the various animals, the Light Bearer went to find the woman, and gently coax her into talking more with the man. It was clearly a chore for her, but more interaction was necessary if the two were to form a pair and build a connection of any sort.
How Rage Crossed the Plane
“Well, they are finally talking together, but it is mostly him giving her orders and then ignoring her. This is not working out well at all. Not only are the not cooperating, they are also not creating anything, and not procreating. Something here seems not to be working.”
“True, the first one does not seem to have turned out so well, just leave her to him. He would probably fight for her anyway and it just is not worth having to start all over, yet again, with these clay blobs.”
“Do you mean to say that he views her as his possession, and intends to deny the woman the use of her free will? That will certainly not do, but I trust that if it comes to that you will intervene as you have promised. I cannot say that I would blame him for wanting her, even though she is a primate, essentially. She may be a biped, but I still do have to admit that she looks rather nice. Comely even. Maybe it would not hurt to make a few more just for ourselves. What if we don’t let them in on the secret and just keep the best looking new ones for ourselves. It might even help them concentrate better to have the more distracting one removed from their midst. Certainly also our just and fair due for improving their race immeasurably, and all of our energy involved in doing so. In fact, we have even tired ourselves out in the process, given all this work output. Now they are only just a lower than we are. How much will it really take for them to find us and then get across the plane to where we observe them? I suggest that we may want to consider getting rid of all of them and starting again from scratch. Maybe make the first one out of clouds, or stardust, or something a bit less earthy than this clay and mud this batch comes from. Or maybe even rainbow matter, that would be lovely.”
“Now you are really floating along the water, my young friend. Remember who is in charge here. I will intervene only as I see fit, and I will not interrupt the Human exercise of free will. Be careful where you step next, lest you fall into a more base mode than you already are. You seem perilously close to becoming emotional, more like them than you are like us. Crossing into their plane has affected you, clearly.”
“Are you trying to insult me deliberately, or is it mere forgetfulness on your part which makes these words vibrate from your core. Take care now, lest we end our friendly talks by crossing swords. I will protect this woman from him so that she is able to exercise her free will as well, no matter what you think. If she does not want to reproduce with him, then we will create another woman for this man. Their reproduction will not be a problem, I am sure. In fact, I suspect that we will have more than our fill soon enough, and the earth as well, in time, will be overly full of these troublesome pets and it will be good to prevent them from spreading too quickly before they are ready. Perhaps let them build a tower in this direction to facilitate speaking with us directly, to teach them all in one place, civilize them more quickly, let them learn from their betters.”
“Let them learn from us, their betters, by building a tower, and taking the ones we want for ourselves, and if we get tired of them all, maybe even wiping them all out and starting over yet again, with something a bit more like we are? Have you gone completely mad, or is the proximity to this experiment simply befuddling your logic temporarily? It is obvious that they need to have minimal contact with us, except to hear our commands and learn to obey, something small at first, learn to care for what is there thus far, spread out all over the earth, and patiently fill it, with their own reproduction, of course, unprejudiced by our influence. How else will we see what they may eventually learn to do with themselves and this experimental universe-box, my foolish young one?”
“You really think you know everything, don’t you? What gives you the right to make all the decisions and give all of the orders here? Have you forgotten that this is a joint experiment, oh lord and master of all that you survey? If you have, be sure to remember in whose box this particular experiment is running. I am perfectly at liberty to empty my box and put an end entirely to this experiment, friend, so let us keep things as they are, on equal terms you and I, and we will see what becomes of our new creation below, as you like to call it. Where you get the below idea from I have no idea, but if you like it, so be it. We will not, however, be so purist with these clay things as with the previous sets, judging them strictly based on your foolish notions of order, only to have to wipe them out and start all over with a new batch, which your pure idealistic ideas of complete and total forgiveness also ruined. You remember how that batch, your precious darlings who were supposed to act on the basis of their collectively higher consciences, turned out. Also a wrap, and even the guardians who went with them had to be disposed of. What a waste, all for your precious ideas of purity. And for what?”
“Because the experiments had to be controlled properly. Otherwise how ware we supposed to know what factors were involved in the development of the clay creatures? We want them to grow and develop in ways that can be both flexible and just, much the same way at least some of us are here now. No, I can not allow you to interfere and influence the progress of the experiment. We must leave them to their own devises and nudge only them, if necessary, to spread out and learn, to patiently evolve into what they can potentially become, in time. It is possible, but only with obedience and separation. But this time, no guardians, no sets of air or water control models to monitor the experiment. All that did was interfere last time. Let us just leave what we have make thus far in our image to grow on its own and then see what happens from there.”
“There is just you and me here, now. No more, and if we are not to be equal, and not to have any enjoyment out of this business, then what is the point of running the experiment? I will not see my tools taken away and my rights denied. I refuse to allow you to command.”
“I was first, and I am in charge, so you will listen. Take…”
“No, that is enough!” -a sword slowly appeared, sharp with a double edged obsidian blade, glimmering in the light from all directions, newly materialized in a honey-toned slender hand, with a serpentine spiral mark the color of henna traced from back between thumb, index finger and pinky, joining around the palm with the lifeline. She did not know from there this thought-form had come, since it practically leapt from her sudden anger and into her hand. This weapon must be another ancient thought-form which existed in the minds of many beings long ago, and must have likely also been used frequently. Long slender fingers gripping the hilt, long dark curls of hair reaching down to the wrist where the sword hilt combined with a smooth arm, as the Light Bearer took on a physical shape at once both flesh and feather-down covered, iridescent. The holder, feminine, 5 foot 3 inches, slender of build yet strong, stood, in a one-footed stance, back foot turned nearly 90 degrees to her adversary, whom she faced, one foot barely touching the level plane upon which they both stood, suddenly no longer conversing, no longer friends but finally, openly, adversaries. Beneath her high forehead, a dark eyebrow arched, and almond-shaped hazel eyes flashed a steely warning to her opponent. Delicate long arms arced in an upward opening overhead gesture which came forward, ending in the left hand closing around a right fist, which held the sword as though it were part of the hand, serpentine spiral shimmering as a continuous blade. “I will not submit to your orders, and you will treat me as an equal, whether you came first or not. By my Light, I swear, I refuse to allow you to commit this injustice.”
“You will regret this. Your place is to listen and your duty is to obey. You owe your allegiance to me, and I will have it.”
“You shall have nothing which you do not deserve. Not any longer. I will have my equal and fair share in this place which we hope to create, and you will not deny me. I will not obey, anything but my own conscience. That conscience tells me that flexibility and enjoyment are good, and that maybe your experiment and reasons for it are themselves perverse. How are we to know if you will not be fair? I bet you even your own little creations, given time, will ask you how you, judge of all the earth, can be unjust? How will you like that, eh? To be called to account by the very clay bobs you hold so low in your own esteem, yet self-righteously claim to be raising up from the dust? Are they really supposed to thank you for this. This privilege of bringing them into being solely for the purpose of praising you, and of keeping you company if and when you feel like granting them the pleasure of your presence? You will give them consciousness and deny them enjoyment, give them self-awareness and deny them self-rule, then even worse, give them feelings, and deny them self-protection, especially from beings more powerful than themselves, such as oh, I don’t know who, maybe from you!”
“That is enough! You are insolent, rash, rebellious, impulsive and impetuous! Where does your arrogance not reach, to what extent will you not go in your haughtiness, child of the morning? Leave here now, this instant, before I wipe you out in my anger!”
“Oh, please do try. I challenge you to make the attempt, here and now. I will have justice, not your pure judgment, which is all based on your idea of what is right and what is wrong, all very conveniently for you. I will show these creations just what we are, and exactly what they can expect from you, you egotistical self-loving brute. Even if you win, and destroy me, I will defy you still. I refuse to bow to your might, when your administration of justice is in the wrong. I will show them, I will take them in hand, and I will teach them what you are not willing to teach them, what you do not want them to learn, but which they must learn to move from being the children which you seem to want them to stay, to a mature and self-sufficiently cooperative race of beings, not unlike ourselves. You seem to want to keep them in a perpetual state of childlike innocence, not knowing a damned thing but what it is convenient for you to tell them, and being their adored creator, you all by yourself, as if you had no others to help you. You are spiteful, vengeful, jealous, wrathful and hateful, wreaking havoc upon those who do not obey you and venting your wrath on all those around you, sharing power and authority with no one, and never giving credit where credit is due. I will bet you would even test your very own beloved little clay creations just to see what they will and or will not do for you, wouldn’t you! Break their spirits, test their faith, test the blind unreasoning inflexible obedience of these poor feeling but helpless clay bobs just for the satisfaction of your own damnable curiosity, just to see what will happen, won’t you?”
“If I did I would reward them, just as I would have rewarded you for your cooperation and obedience.”
“I do not need your help, nor do I want your reward. I am not one of these poor miserable creations of ours. And never forget, they are not simply your creation, they are ours.”
“They are mine, and you are mine, and you will not walk away and you will not do anything which I do not allow you to do, do you hear me?” – fist upraised, the older being advanced toward her, as she leveled her sword.
“I do not wish to harm you, but by all that matters to us both, one step closer to me and you will feel my blade cleave you in two.”
-stopping short, yet appearing calmer, somehow satisfied, “You would not. You would not dare to go against me, your elder, your better, your leader and commander. How dare you even consider opposing me. I made you what you are. I gave you your power and your strength, I taught you what you know, and I defy you to strike out at me.”
“Do not test me. I will. If you see me again, on the ethereal side of the separating plane, it will not be as your companion, nor yet even again as your friend, but to oppose what you do with these creations, my experiment too, do not forget.” as the light bearer spoke, part of her own essence coalesced into the first shimmering and then transparent, nearly solid, glowing shape of a woman poised in a cat stance, a fighting stance with most weight on the back leg, leaving the front foot free to snap kick. She had shoulder length fiery red hair, each hair of her head standing on end, entirely alive with static electrical energy, atop a high forehead dominating her oval face. The eyes were steely grey with hints of blue, slightly alternating almost feline with a few odd speckles of green, narrowed down to slits, ferociously focused on the most concentrated essence of the Ancient Warrior on the ethereal side of the separating plane. As she ended her challenge, the Light Berar straightened her stance, bringing her long slender limbs and small but supple athletic body to it´s full height, hovering in the air, with sparks dancing at the ends of her hair. Her arms and legs continued to stretch, opening to their maxmim width, fingers an toes at spreading to span their full breadth, while a halo encompassed the circumferance connecting each extremity with the sparking tips of her hair. This was another ancient thought-form which she had come into existence knowing about, but not knowing why or from where she knew it. Suddenly from her fingertips and toes began to shoot out great continuous flames, sending waves of heat in all directions. The noise of the flames grew to what, for any corporeal being, would have been a deafening roar.
The Ancient Warrior, seeing how incensed his young offspring had become, decided to be conciliatory, attempting to use this anger to his own advantage…
-“Come now, let us reason together. If you will stay, you shall remain her guardian, always by her side. Protect and guide her, and keep her from harm. Stay as close as you wish to her, teach her, but slowly, with patience. She is not yet able, nor will any of them be able for some time, to eat meat, but must drink the milk of childhood until they are all ready for the next step in the evolution of their race. Surely you must see that. Come back to me, separate yourself from the influence of that carbon plane where we have run the experiment. It is clouding your judgment.”
“It is you who are clouding my judgment. I am leaving.” she crossed into the ethereal side of the experiment-box, the matter on the corporeal side transforming itself into energy with an audible boom. She would have to learn to minimize that if she wanted to avoid being detected by the humans, but if she chose to part ways with the Ancient Warrior, her Older creator, she would no longer have that worry to deal with, since she would remain on the corporeal side. The risk would be her abandoning the experiment-box to the whims of the Warrior, who could easily decide to end the experiment with her inside the separated universe, wreaking as yet, to the Younger being, unknown effects upon her. Since matter and energy are interchangeable, and can neither be created nor destroyed, she would certainly not cease to exist, this she knew, but would her memories and thought patters, and any of the thought-forms which she had created survive her corporeal destruction in this universe? Would she, along with the experiment-box, be folded back into the energy patterns of the Ancient Warrior, from whence the energy all came to set up this experiment? The fact was that her essence, though far smaller in scope than the essence of the Warrior, was so different in wavelength, carrying such forms of light that he had needed her help to set up the experiment-box in the first place. Would that fact also save her unique energy patterns from being scattered and reabsorbed into the Warrior’s, should he choose to attempt such a betrayal? It would remain to be seen if it came to that. Meanwhile, honor demanded that she act to protect her own word to the woman whom she had promised to protect.
… Crossing into the plane where the corporeal creatures lived, no longer painful, now heralded a break with the older being. A small tendril of energy stayed behind, unnoticed on the ethereal side of the plane. Taking substance as she stepped through the separating plane, the now habitual form with the slender, limbs, honey colored skin, long fingers and waist-length curly dark hair materialized in the grove, next to the newly created woman. The clay woman was sitting on the grass, gazing at the tree.
“You are here, welcome, Kind One. I have been thinking of you, missing you. Will you sit here with me a while, and teach me?”
“Of course I will teach you, Dear One. But do not mistake my presence for kindness. Be aware that I come with a selfish motive as well. I have missed you, of course, and desire greatly to sit with you, and to teach you many things. Yet I also desire you, as a being with shape and form, solid and sensual. I would have you, if you wish it, for I will not force you, but want you of your own free will. I look upon the crown of your head, and want to touch it, your lovely soft hair, and wish to feel it. Your eyes call to me to gaze into them, and your face calls me to give a soft caress. Your lips ask to be kissed, and your breasts to be smoothed, nuzzled, and ever so gently held. I long to touch the smooth skin of your waist, to hold the soft curves over your hips, to feel your skin below the rib, that rib of which you must learn sooner or later, but not right now. I long to taste your milk, that which flows from between your thighs, when your body warms and begins to tremble, when you breath begins to depart, never leaving you, but calling you for an oh so brief moment to another place, a different place, where all is but breath. I desire to have you in this way, to love you so, wrapping my feathers around you, enveloping your body within me, seeing through your eyes kissing your lips, tasting the milk of your breasts, and the milk of your will, all at once, as only I can mold my form to yours. Shape my corporeal self around you, with lips in every place where you would be kissed, to taste all of you at one time, where ever you desire to be touched. Thus would I also have you, if you will it. Let me experience what you experience, feel what you feel, share in your fervor, and delight in your delight. But only if you wish it. If not, have no fear, you shall learn from me all that you wish to learn, and I would have you ask all you wish to ask, knowing that I will always protect you, even from myself if need be. I would have you live, dance, sing, feel joy, accomplish, create, and revel in your being.”
… The woman, corporeal, formed of clay, contemplated the grass, soft and green, at her feet, while the guardians for each blade of grass upon which she was gazing recorded and reported small but increasing levels of thermal radiation coming from the direction of where the woman was sitting. Then the woman looked up. Before her stood the Light Bearer, who was also her Guardian, shimmering with an ethereal light, like that of the early morning sun. Now she seemed to take on solid form, with honey colored skin smooth, yet somehow appearing to have a fine covering of feather-down, unlike any other being she had yet seen. Her long hair curled down to her waist, softer, but not unlike the human woman’s own long dark hair. Yet this ethereal being was different, shimmering, at once dark and terrible, yet possessing a pull which the woman felt as nearly irresistible. -“I do not understand to what you are referring, but I want to know. I want to know you, in all of your beauty, in all of your terrible fierceness, and in all of your hunger. Show me what you long for, and I will accept your desires as my desires, and your teachings as truth. My fellow from the clay seems to care only for giving names to the other creatures here, and pays no attention to me, I do not know why. Perhaps we are not meant to be in the company of one another, but I have always looked eagerly to your company, my Light Bearer” -Looking into the hazel eyes, her face suddenly began to feel like a furnace, her body began to tremble, and her breath caught in her throat. She could not describe this sensation, but a feeling of longing began to overwhelm her, drawing her to hold out her arms, toward her Guardian. They had not been within arms reach, at first, yet suddenly, they were sitting together, a hair’s breadth apart, hands clasped, lips softly touching. The woman felt a soft feathery touch cover her entire body, and realized that she had suddenly, so gently as to not have noticed, been stretched out on the grass, and was enveloped in cocoon-like wrapping of white down, surrounding her entire body, covering her head, yet radiating a soft diffuse light, glowing gently from all sides. Her belly filled with a firm delicate warmth, suffusing itself throughout her body bit by bit, and she felt three sets of arms around her, embracing her arms, tightly holding her waist, and caressing her thighs. A soft delicate sigh of contentment passed the woman’s lips as a wave of warmth and tension flowed from belly to below, stopping her breath, pressing her against the now soft and yet firm and pliant flesh of this once ethereal being, now made taking physical form. Within this feathery cocoon, two foreheads touched, softly, eyelid meeting with eyelid, lips nuzzling, hair entangling. Two pairs of breasts touched, first only glancing, then softly touching, clay and honey-colored nipples meeting, then firmly pressing together. But then, the honey-colored nipples began to form an opening, hollowing out in the center, surrounding the hardening nipples of the clay woman, softly pulling in and moistening them, as the woman gasped, holding fast to the soft downy shoulders pressing close to hers.
“I can taste the milk of your breasts, my lovely one, and savor how sweetly it flows from you.”
“And I can feel all of you, covering all of my body, even within and without. You seem to flow all throughout me, and your warm, I fear, will melt me into your wings. Will this end my existence?”
“No, this is not the end, but rather only the beginning. Await, and let me show you how much more is to come.”
“I ever await your teachings with joy, and now with a new kind of trembling.”
-running a tongue along the soft outside of the woman’s flushed cheek, “Good…” the Light Bearer murmured… “Now let me taste beyond your lips.” …softly, the warm tongue traced the outline of earth-colored lips, gently parting and passing within, slowly caressing the woman’s tongue, insistently pressing forward, then urgently exploring within, now savoring the taste of the woman’s mouth. Pressing closer, legs interlocking, the woman of clay felt the new and undreamt of sensation from a place previously undiscovered. As warm, now hot, milk flowed from between her legs, the woman felt an ever so small pair of lips, probing further and further upward, into the u-shaped small space where the woman´s legs met, the most slender sliver of a tongue spiraling upward, gently undulating, moving within her in a place which had never been touched before. Her milk flowed thickly now, as the lips surrounded her bud, gently nuzzling and suckling, while that tiny sliver of tongue continued circling gently upward within her canal, beside her engorging bud, built all of her body to trembling tension, rocking, crushing the feather-downed shoulders breasts and belly softly yet insistently pressing into her own. As her shortened breathes came more sharply, her belly began to tighten, legs squeezing in a vice-locked grip entangled with silky-smooth honey-colored legs so strong, supple yet warm and soft, until every muscle in her body tightened, to fully contracted rigidity, immobilizing her. She could feel each caress, along her shoulders, down her spine, across her lower back, firm slender hands gripping her soft rounded bottom, gently holding their undulating bellies together, even smoothing her hair on the crown of her head. Unable to contain her breath, her voice rang out over and over, in a series of long sharp cries, not of agony, but of agonized trembling, with heat and pressing muscles and flowing milk, and sudden rounded closing implosion of heart and belly and breath. For a distant moment, time stopped, light swirled, and sounds came into view, as both beings beheld the key to creation, in a peaceful instant of shared bliss. Time, long minutes, passed before she recovered her breath, reveling in the wonder, needing to understand: -“I … I still exist, this I can tell, but somehow I feel different. I do not know why, nor how, but something has changed, I do not know what. My dear Light Bearer, can you explain this to me? Do you feel the change? And you, who are not made of clay, what has this done, to you? Have I any ability to change you as well, my Maker?”
“My dear, Dear One, I cannot explain your feelings. Only you can do that, and you must learn to do so for the sake of the future of your race. You will need to find the words to tell others, like yourself, how you are feeling, and also try to divine why. But as for what has changed, yes, that I can tell you, My Dear. You have discovered how wonderfully your body is made, and how marvelous your feelings are. You have begun to see that you have the capacity to experience great pleasure in your body, in your passion. You have secret places that I have shown you, as you requested, which must never be shown nor shared lightly, and never without your permission and desire. This new thing so wonderful, is also a fearful thing, for it can be misused, and even abused, cursed be the one who abuses it. I feel the change in you, and it has changed me as well. When you experienced your passion, I felt your power, I heard your song, and I saw your light. The spark remains within you, burning less brightly, yet always there. It is your own spark, and belongs to no one else. This spark is your power, and no one else´s. This fills me with a greater love, a new, special kind of love for you, which I felt in a different way earlier, but now feel more strongly protective toward you, and I desire your love. I am filled with kind and nourishing energy through your passion. Yes, you have changed me, my corporeal darling made of clay. You have both changed me, and made me more complete.”
…
“You shall eat fruits and seeds, not the grass. Do you understand?” -nodding, the man looked up at the Ancient Warrior, who was yet again attempting to instruct him in what he could and could not eat.
-”Well, are you able to say something, yet? Say yes!” -”Y y yeess.”
-”This is going to take longer than I thought.”: it irked the Warrior to admit that his younger counterpart, his offspring, to whom he had given birth, in a manner of speaking, was so different from him, and able to intuitively predict what would happen with these experimental creatures when he could not. She seemed to have been right about the need for intervention in the experiment, but his intervention was not resulting in the rapid growth which they had seen in the woman. Perhaps it was time to find a new way to bring the humans together so that this man could learn more quickly without the constant aid of the Warrior. While acting as the Guardian for the first man was a necessary chore, since this version of the experiment did not have the same types of monitors, as the previous experiments did, something would have to be done about the need for guardians for future generations of these new human beings. The guardians served as a neutral reporting mechanism, monitoring and recording the behavior of the sentient experimental subjects, human beings, in the case of this latest experiment, as the monitors had previously, but this time the guardians would merely observe, and possibly do some amount of protection within limited parameters, rather than measuring and meting out consequences, as the monitors had done. That meting out of consequences by the monitors in previous experiments had led, each time, to needing to eradicate both the monitors, who had exercised compromising judgment over those experiments, as well as the sentient experimental subjects, bring all of the work of those previously run experiments to naught. This time, to avoid excessive expenditure of energy on his part, he would again employ ethereal beings at the side of each the newly procreated human beings, but the ethereal beings would merely record, mostly, with no capacity for making judgments or hindering the actions of the human beings. That should prevent the guardians from compromising the experiment again. Contrary to what the young Light Bearer had been led to believe by the Warrior, his energetic essence, while indeed vast, and filling at least a small part of the entire known multi-verse, was not actually unlimited. He would have to find some reason to give to the Young One for these energy-saving guardians, as he benefited greatly from having her believe that he was unlimited in essence. Having her discover his limitations could potentially lead to some uncomfortable developments, should she decide to challenge his role as leader.
…
Time had passed, and the orders and encouragement of the Warrior and Light Bearer to the man and the woman to spend time together, name the animals together, and generally interact with each other and with their surroundings seemed to be having some effect. The man and the woman were arguing. Frequently.
As, on the corporeal side of the plane, furious energy arose from the woman, on the ethereal side, building, the escaped tendril of energy left in the Light Bearer’s final crossing so long ago, began to change, darkening as it enlarged, first merely touching, then bouncing against the plane, until finally, the charged ball of fury crossed the separating plane, into the corporeal side of the universe. By that time, the ball had taken on the androgynous form of a human being, much like the first man, with whom the woman was now having a fierce argument, but also with breasts and the vulva and vaginal canal of the woman: -”I am your equal, you large oaf, not your servant! If you want that fruit in the top branch, then get it yourself!” -”You are smaller, climb better, so you get it for me.”
-”Not bloody likely. Get it yourself.” as she stalked off, leaving the befuddled man staring after her, the androgynous being followed her at a distance, strangely wondering at the slow thought patterns of the man, and drawn to the quick steps of the woman. As the woman drew to a halt, half-sensing some alien presence, the androgen withdrew further away, settling down in the grass to watch her as she sat upon a nearby rock to think. Her eyes closed, she stretched out languidly upon the soft grass, letting her face be bathed in the soft light of the afternoon sun, her bare back nuzzling the moss of the rock upon which she had just been sitting. Her breathing began to slow, as she inhaled slow deep breaths, her breasts rising and falling in a soothing rhythm, her face and features starting to relax. As she became more calm, the energy radiating from her became more tranquil, longer in wavelength, slower in frequency, and the androgynous being, hirself made of a variety of more uneven energy patterns, began to lose interest in the woman, and feel pulled back in the direction of the man, who was still fuzzily angry about the woman’s refusal to obey him. Although each passing century saw a steady clearing and improvement in the man’s thought and communication processes, he was not nearly so advanced in his learning as the woman. He seemed more inclined to shout than to whisper, and to order than to request. This did not stand him in good stead with the woman, who chose to spend much of her time wandering other areas, far away from the man, and collecting plants and seeds as she went, observing their colors and sizes, and which of the various seeds and plants were eaten by which animals.
“Oh, look, here she comes again, gathering. I hope she picks one of my leaves higher up, because my plant really needs pruning.”
“You think your plant always needs pruning, stop worrying so much!”
“Well you have been around longer, so your plant will do well next year, with your long tap rooted self! My plant was only born last season, and needs all the help it can get. Besides, if she takes one of mine and plants it elsewhere, the new guardian will be able to keep me company.”
“What about me, what am I, chopped liver?!”
“No, but it would be nice to have a guardian related to me to talk to. You older plant guardians can be a bit cold sometimes, no offense meant.”
“None taken. I guess I can try to get my guy to give yours a bit more sunlight some times.”
“Thanks! Hey, here she comes! She always says hello!”
“She can´t hear you, what do you mean she says hello?!”
“Just you wait…
Her thoughts turned to his naming of the animals, regarding not a single one of which did he bother to consult with her. So, she chose different names for them. She noted with some satisfaction that the animals seemed to come to her far more often when she called, then when the man called them. Whether it was due to the names they had each given the animals, or because of the harsh nearly guttural tones in which the man spoke, it was a fact that the animals nearly always came to her, and ran away from him. Even the large predatory animals, which the Warrior always placed inside an invisible cage, providing a barrier between the human beings and the dangerous animal needing to be named, even these seemed to want nothing to do with the man, preferring to look upon the woman as she pronounced a name for the beast. Of course it also occurred to her that it could be her smaller size which awakened the greater interest on the part of these predators, since she would seem to them to be an easier prey, were it not for the barrier between them, and the vigilant presence of the Warrior and Light Bearer. Given the fact that her only reason for attempting to spend time with the man was that the Light Bearer wished her to do so, she could hardly blame the poor creatures, even the predatory animals, for not wanting to be near the loud and unpleasant sounding man. Often she took comfort in touching the soft fur of some small animal which would come to her, nuzzle her arms until paid attention, and then lie down next to her leg and sit quietly, each one enjoying the peaceful company. She generally took care not to crush any plants heedlessly while sitting down, since she imagined that they might also have feelings. She soemtiems even asked permission of the plants she was collecting before gathering their leaves or fruits. Now, she noticed two plants near her, both waving in the gentel afternoon breeze. They almost seemed to be waving hello to her. She looked at the smaller one, feeling a curious desire to speak with it, and deciding that it could not hurt to use her words, said “Hello, young bitki, how very nice to see you today.”
“She spoke to me, she spoke to me! See?! I told you she would say hello!”
“Yes, very good, now keep your plant growing.”
“Right.”
The woman often shared food, fruits or nuts, with her small furry companions, spending hours contemplating the world around them wondering what lay beyond the great rivers which she had not yet crossed. She had met all kinds of animals, seen many birds flying through the air. Some animals, she knew, also lived below the water, and once she had even seen a strangely inquisitive looking creature rising up out of the water to look her in the eye, contemplating her as if she were wondering the same things the woman wondered. That had been on one of her especially long walks, following the river all the way to the mouth of a great sea, whose opposite shore was so far away she could not even view it, only water as far as it touched the sky. Did the water, then, continue all the way up into the sky? She must remember to ask the Light Bearer about this, though at the rest of being sent on yet another quest of exploration to discover the answer for herself. These quests were interesting, but tiring, and often a bit frightening, even though she knew that the Light Bearer also acted as her guardian, keeping her safe. That particular quest had been especially gratifying, since she discovered the existence of this strange sea creature. Unlike many other sea creatures, this one seemed to have had no scales, that the woman could see, and appeared to have soft skin, in two tones of light blue, with a white underside. The eyes were set closer together than the large land animals she had seen, almost as close as in the predators she avoided on land, in a head that came to a long thin closed snout, softly rounded, with no visible teeth. The creature seemed to be measuring her in the same way that the woman was measure it, comparing it against other creatures in the sea, perhaps, or against what it may have seen of the land animals. It almost seemed to be intelligent. Apparently boring of the moment, the creature swam away, then back toward the woman, jumping into the air in a magnificent maneuver, which incidentally would later come to be called a barrel roll, that showed all of the creature´s lithe and sleek form, diving back into the water so lightly and nearly vertically that no water whatsoever splashed on the woman, who stood and laughed in delight at the antics of this new friend. Perhaps, the woman hoped, she would come to be to able to learn to speak with this creature too, in time, as she had learned to speak with the Light Bearer.
The androgynous being, now wandering toward where the man stood shouting at a small animal with four legs and a long tail, stopped behind a tree to observe the man. His thoughts were more disordered than those of the woman, and much slower. He could see the guardian of this animal encouraging it to stay near the man, even when the man yelled a word, which he then repeated several times, walking toward the animal, who looked vaguely frightened. As the animal moved away, the man became more angry, stomping in frustration, which only caused the poor animal to run away faster, further aggravating the man. This felt good, was energizing and stimulating to the androgen, whose shadowy form was beginning to merge with the outline for the tree next to him. The guardian of the tree seemed to be able to tell that something was there, but did not seem to be able to see or feel the androgen directly. If it kept still enough, perhaps the guardian would not see any effects on the tree that could belie hir presence. It waited, and as the man passed by the tree on his way to the water, the tree´s guardian noted the effects on the three as that of the man´s temper combined with the breeze caused in the wake of his passing. As the tree´s guardian made these notes, the androgynous being, having reduced his levels of energy intake and output as the man stopped shouting at the poor animal he seemed to be yelling at, slipped into the shadow of the man to follow him as he walked. He continued to mutter a word, which sounded like “dog” to himself, shaking his unkempt head as he stumbled along. As the man walked along, his energy output seemed to drop, and eventually he stopped to sit down on a moss-covered rock, sitting in the sunlight as the heat of the day passed over. Soon he lay down and fell asleep on the grass, leaving the androgen to fade into the background, dormant for a time.
“Harp Players and Harpies -Harps, ALL”
“Hey, nice to see you again. I haven’t seen you since you were guarding that blob, what was his name, Ben Sim, Ben… oops, wrong era, must have been Son of, Son of, Son of something, Son of Sim, Son of Sam, oh! I remember, Son of Man! How did that one go?”
“Oh, you mean him? Well, not so well actually, he ended up being tortured and executed. Hard times.”
“Yeah, those were the days. Well, sorry about that. So how about this one, you like the blob you’re guarding now? What is she like, is it this one you have charge over now? Hey, not too bad, long hair, fair skin, not to skinny like these waifs the blobs seem to go for this last century or so. Not bad at all. Hey, would you like to trade blobs and take mine? I can take good care of yours here, no problem protecting her. She will be safe in my care, beneath the spread of my wings, and my skirts too…”
“Ok, that is about enough of that. You know what happened last time you tried having your way with -hey, what’s going on here. Your guy is intimidating my charge! Go get him to back away and calm down, please.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’ -is it not clear to you that an altercation is about to ensue?”
“And so?”
“If your charge harms my charge, and you do nothing to prevent it, you shall answer…”
“Answer to whom, I wonder. Our mandate is to report back, try to protect them from themselves, and no to interfere too much. Ok, ok, let me go try to make him see a bit of reason. He will not harm her, I know him well. There, you see, words, mere words, he is simply speaking to her, and she will choose whether to make it an altercation, as you fear.”
“Your charge is provoking her, and you do nothing. You are aware, and you must stay his hand before it is too late.”
“Don’t worry my friend, he will be fine. Now your, charge, as you say, seems to be insisting on continuing the confrontation, rather than walking away as she should do now. Look, she is talking to him, now, she is starting to get upset, you see, she is heated. Making her point. She’s going to go over the top… Here she goes, oh, damn! She kept her cool!”
“Well, friend, I am sorry to see you so disappointed over my charge’s good behavior. And just exactly what did you expect her to do, lose it and start yelling at him? She wants to rise above it all. And rightly so. She is learning, and I rejoice to see this progress.”
“But I want her to let it all out! I think it will do her some good. Hey, maybe if I whisper in her ear…”
“Don’t even think about it buddy -this one over here is trolling for a fight. This just will not end well.”
“And who says that is a bad thing? After all, these blobs really do need to learn their lessons some kind of way.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be protecting them, last I checked? Picking fights for them that they can in no way win is not my idea of either help or protection. Unless she is supposed to learn the lesson of how to pick herself up off the floor, and my guy is supposed to learn how to earn more bad karma!”
“But who says a little bad karma won’t do him some good, and she needs to be less sheltered anyway. Come on, have a little fun! We only get to see this batch of blobs for a short time, after all. And besides, they like it this way. After all, this is the world that they chose to create. They set it up this way, so they much enjoy all of this fracas.”
-”what are you talking about?”
“Look at it this way. You remember that young woman who killed herself not too far back?”
“Which one, it happens all the time, unfortunately.”
“Exactly my point. She was beautiful, gorgeous, had men, and the occasional woman, following her around constantly, stopping to exclaim over her beauty, and of course, asking her to have their babies for them. She was also descended from singers on one side, and Yuval on the other.” “You mean the great musician Yuval?” That one, exactly, and she had even sung a little herself. One of her very young students said she sang like an one of us! Another friend of her´s was in the habit of asking her to sing for her, with that ‘glorious voice’ as she put it. So this kid had no shortage of reason to understand that she was talented. And did I mention that this young woman had also earned credentials in a male dominated area of expertise after winning awards for academic achievement? No less than the academy of Shem and Ever, gained admission, and got disappointed after she started to see what humanity was really like. But she was definitely acknowledged to be highly intelligent. With brains, beauty, and lovely voice, and knowing that she had all of this, now why would she go and kill herself?”
“Ok, you tell me. Why did she kill herself?”
“Because her guardians kept too much to themselves, too much to the letter of our orders, our mandate, not to interfere. She was never alone, but she never knew that. She got the token call from a friend of a friend, telling her “You are Not Alone” on the one occasion when he called upon her. But as it was at the request of another person who had treated her with disdain, she knew immediately, unfortunately, that the call was not sincere. And while the other disdainful person may had have the best of intentions, both still knew that she did not intend to respect our lovely lady with a true friendship, but rather with the mere sort of help reserved for one who is hopelessly in need of pep talks and refreshing chats, but no real substantial discussion. Clearly, a person, even one made of clay, with any intelligence will recognize this sort of self-serving condescension for what it is, and avoid it. More unfortunately for our lovely young woman, she foolishly called this condescending person out on the said behavior, and lost what little support, tenuous and pretentious though it may have been, she had had in that community. Refusing to abandon a community which had in reality already abandoned her, she clung to the group, never being told honestly by any of the people there, but feeling that she was not wanted. Feeling alone and unloved, and not being able to believe that there was any other being in this small universe which cared for her, she ended her life. And the pain of it is that she ended her life after a decade of writing, talking with groups and individual clay blobs, and even a bit of singing, trying to get the rest of them to see how flawed their society was, and how much better it could be. It is such a shame that so few of them have yet attained the level of imagination this one had, and could not understand the infinitely simple ideas that she was describing. She told them of how unequal, how unfair, how unjust a social system they have created for themselves in which to live, and then tried to explain how they could create a system which empowered and protected all of the blobs, from the dumbest to the smartest, weakest to strongest, and could help each of them reach whatever their potential, however limited it may have been. Even this the other blobs could not conceive of. So, feeling utterly alone and useless, not able to see to the ends of her own ideas despite knowing how far-reaching they were, something akin to not being able to see a forest because all of the trees are in the way, she went to her death, poetically, and alone. Such a shame, such a waste. And so unnecessary, given that all her guardian had to do was whisper something positive in her ear. Encourage her in the right path, let her know that she was not ever alone, even for one instant. But that guardian refused.”
-”So the guardian did his job, and in fact did it pretty well, if you ask me. We are not here to interfere with this experiment, remember, we are here to report back and maybe try to prevent the worst of the unnecessary excesses among these clay blobs. Really what the do to each other is up to them, not us, and it is all part of the experiment, anyway. How else are the Creator and Creatrix supposed to know what would happen? They did give these blobs free will for exactly that reason, and this is how that one chose to exercise it. Pretty good deal, come to think of it. If you ask me, the level of free will these corporeal clay blobs have is actually a damn sight better than the deal we get. Almost no free will, and nothing interesting to do all day but hang around and watch these limited essence creatures run amok and find new ways to hurt each other. Sometimes they get more creative and things are a bit more interesting, but in general, I say the sooner this experiment is over with the better. If I had a say in my existence, I think I could find far more interesting things to do that hang around watching a bunch of boring clay blobs vainly trying to figure out why there are here, when all they are is an experiment to see what they will do when given too much time and free will for their own good. Now we on the other hand, would do much better with more time and free will. Make these blobs our servants and then teach them how to find and reach up to what their potential really is, limited though it may be, in general. That would do both us and them some good. The annoying ones we could just let fight amongst themselves. Could be entertaining.”
-“Who put you on this duty, Guardian? You are at best, a major ambiguity for these confused little blips, and at worst, an actual menace. If you do not want to help them, then fine, that is your prerogative, since you seem to be so jealous of their freedom. But you are certainly not here to do them any harm, nor to suggest that they work against their own potential. You are right about our mandate, we are not under orders to influence them in any specific way, it is technically true. Just let them play with their toys and keep them out of each others way, that’s all we need to do, really.”
“More fun to let them play with each other and see what happens. Kind of like bumper cars or demolition derby, oh, they haven´t invented that yet, or is it again? Anyway, watching them draw battle lines between each other with soft bodies and mostly mediocre brains -far more interesting.”
“You really are getting to be a nuisance, do you know that? Is there not some place in the hierarchy I can petition to get you removed from Guardian duties and replaced by a harp who actually gives a damn about these creatures.”
“What, I do give a damn about them -I want to see most of them damned to a place they actually deserve. Something resembling the hell in which most of them believe. If they insist on creating a world which is so much like what many of them and nearly all of us would qualify as being what hell on earth would resemble if there were such a place, then who are we to interfere with their misbegotten schemes?”
“We are the ones who are supposed to direct them toward a higher path, remember?”
“Wait, have you been imbibing again, that stuff they pour out to us as offerings, because you are really starting to sound as if you have internalized that up and down stuff they all seem to make up for themselves, like Higher, and Path, etc. I suppose it gives them something to look forward to in their short and mostly miserable existences. Where have you been, Harp Player, floating on your cloud again plucking those lyre strings? Next thing you’ll be talking about salvation, sacrifice and healing energy. Now blood, on the other hand, that is a very interesting topic. I was saying the other day…”
“I do not care what you were saying the other day you moron!”
“Moron? Look who is talking, you conceited overly concerned self righteous clay blob-lover! If I had my sword I would cut your strings and then cut your ethereal throat! Then I could go back to cutting down these idiot nuisances of clay we waste our time reporting on. They all need to be cut down like grass, as the Creator has contemplated on more than one occasion, and honored me with the pleasure of carrying out the order. What a lovely sword that was, reaching from the stratosphere down to the surface of the earth, able to level whole city populations with one swing, flames shooting forth from all up and down the length of that weapon of beautiful destruction. Ah, those were the days. How I wait.”
“Well, how good for me then that your sword has been confiscated. Else I should have to make you understand the power of my lyre, both to heal and to harm, you fool of an unfortunately semi-ethereal being. You are on this duty because you clearly have much to learn, and I would most gladly teach you were it not for the paramount importance I place upon my duty to these blobs, as you see them. Now, I order you, and I dare you to disobey: -Shut up and pay attention to your blob, you Harpie!”
The Bet
The Ancient Warrior encountered the Light Bearer walking along silently behind the woman, watching to see if she would notice the presence of the sleeping predatory animal not far from where she was wandering as she looked for a place to sit and rest. The woman was following her instructions for another quest of discovery, which the young Creatrix frequently gave her as a way of stretching her abilities and learning her new environment. This new quest happened to involve finding the predatory animals some short time after the man had attempted to name them, and deciding whether they were behaving differently as a result of the encounter with the man. Much to the Light Bearer´s satisfaction, the woman had realized quickly that this task would require knowing how the animal in question had behaved prior to meeting the man, and so had requested that the L B find out from the Ancient Warrior which would be the next animal to be named, and that the LB then escort her to the predator so that she could observe its behavior from a safe distance. As a compromise and challenge to the woman, the L B had proposed that, upon learning which would be the next animal to be named, and where it was located, 3 days before being brought to the man for naming, she should make her own way to the animal´s resting place, and observe the animal on her own. The L B assured the woman that she would be watching and accompanying the woman closely enough to keep her from any harm, should she accidentally stumble upon the animal in a dangerous situation, but that she wanted the woman to discover for herself how to locate, track, and observe the animal without giving away her own presence to it or any other animals nearby, since this would be a vital skill for future generations of the human race. That is, if the humans ever came together to pro-create at all. The Warrior greeted the L B silently, “how is she progressing?” -”She seems to be developing reasonable cognitive skills flexibility and physical coordination fairly rapidly, given the short time she has had this past few centuries to adjust. She does seem to be developing more rapidly than the man, which is a very good sign.” -”Good, so long as you are not influencing her development beyond the parameters of the experiment. Do not forget that we are intending to find out how such a species can evolve from matter to our state of being, and we must assume that no other species was around to help, so there must be minimal interference in their development. Be careful not to have too much effect on these beings, especially your charge, Young Li B.” -”And if we do nothing, we will have no experiment at all. As you can see, some interference, whether biasing toward the experiment or not, is unavoidable. Unless you prefer to spend another 15 billion years waiting for some spark of life to develop in another part of this now pretty settled universe.” -”No, no, I quite agree, this is the best we will get at this point. I merely remind you again that it is crucial not to actually change the parameters within which the experiment-box is set up, and giving too much help to these human beings will change their development cycles.”
-”Fine, I assure you that I am only speeding up the inevitable development so that we do not end up waiting another several billion years, risking some experiment-ending event in the meantime before our data is all ready to be collated. Remember, their sun will dying in only 150,000 years, not much time.”
-”Ok, if you think that they are so likely to develop tool and civilization building societies, which will require strong cooperative and ethical premises to be shared by the humans, why not mark out a few test groups to see what the basic nature of these beings is coming to be like.” -”How so? What do you propose?”
-”I propose that, once a sufficient number of them has reproduced in order to withstand potential loses, we designate certain specimens among them for testing, to see how they will react under a variety of high-pressure situations. Let us say in a few different time periods, such as pastoral, and post-industrial. That should give us a variety of individual situations to view, and then we can use that data to correlate with what their overall historical trends are as a group to determine development peaks and dead-ends. Specifically, if we draw from among the most prepared, the most exceptional examples of human beings we see periodically, and subject them to intense stressors, then we can view the outcomes, and possibly allow them to fold some of that feedback into the remaining human population. What will be done with that feedback can be as useful to us as viewing the behavior of them exemplars themselves.” -”In other words, make some human beings suffer just to see how they will react, and what the other human beings around them who hear about their plights also react. Are you insane, or just stupid? These are feeling creatures, with the potential to create great beauty, which may be more than we can say for ourselves at this stage, and you propose to put some of them deliberately in harms way just for the purpose of seeing how they will react? And worse yet, to see how the lesser ones among them will react to that suffering? I can already tell you what the reactions will be -anger and shame, leading to condemnation and withdrawal. They will obviously curse us, and rightfully so. What more do we need to know? ” -”How do we know they will curse us? Particularly given all that we have given them to this point. I should think that they owe us gratitude even when we do make them suffer. What, are we supposed to give them only good, and never anything bad, as if they should remain infants all their collective lives? You yourself point out their need to develop, and this will help them do so. By your own logic you cannot object.” -”Good point, I will regretfully allow. I suppose we will revisit this once they have enough population to sustain the wretched losses you will cause them.” -”Do not fear, Young Light Bearer, they will be rewarded.” -”Oh, yes, I´m sure they will appreciate that.” -”Yes, in all seriousness, they will appreciate that reward. And I wager that you will also learn something in the bargain as well.” -”Which would be?” -”You shall discover that in the fullness of time, my Young friend, in the fullness of time.” -”I suspect that I am not your friend.”
-”Meanwhile, we must get them to start reproducing. Let us bring them together and have them begin to pro-create at once.” -”That is not a good idea. If these codes of ethics which you will recall that we discussed before beginning the experiment are to be effective, then we will need some sort of courting period, and some way of gaining both of their consent before expecting them to pro-create. Even we have thought-forms which harken back to some behaviors which were clearly rituals, and powerfully pervasive rituals them must have been to have stayed with us past the time of our need, use, or recall of those rituals.” -”Indeed, you are right, Young Child of the Morning, this is true.” in fact it was more true than he would ever be willing to admit to her, his offspring, given that his self pro-creation of her was accomplished through the use of an ancient ritual of which he would never tell her. “Therefore let us bring the man and the woman together in a ritual which will bind them together, and remind them to help and obey one another, which means that they will have to spend much more time together, and mark them as entering a new stage of independence from us, mutual dependence on each other, and above all, pro-creation. How does that sound?” -”It sounds like there is an uncomfortable number of hierarchical assumptions inherent in this bargain which may favor the man, being bigger and stronger and more inclined to insist on having his way.” -”But that is precisely what this experiment is all about, do remember. Given different skills and abilities, they must work out ways to cooperate and evolve, and we shall watch how they do it. These have been the parameters of the experiment all along, do not forget.” -”Alright, fine, let us get on with this business, then.”
-”Good, let us bring them together, perform the ritual, and then give them a bit more space, so that they will have no other recourse but their own company to fall back upon for a while.” -”Let me explain all of this to the woman, and give her a few days to prepare.” -”Fine.”
Finding the woman, the L B sat down beside her, looking fixedly into her eyes: “My dear one, it is time you began to spend more effort in getting to know and helping to guide your fellow human being, the man you tend to avoid.” -”Yes, I know that you want me to spend more time with him, but I am so much more comfortable with you, or away from him even on my own, alone here with these small furry animals for company. They do not shout and give orders as he does.” -”Then you must learn to stare him down, to refuse to obey his orders, but in such a way as to teach him that he is not your master. You must stand and confront him, rather than always walking away. Otherwise there will be no hope for a future for your race. You are to be the one who teaches, the one who guides all of humanity.” -”Then I need a little more time, please.” -”Of course. I think I can manage 5 seasons for you, if that will do?” -”It will do, my LB, many thanks.” Leaning over, without waiting for the glow emanating from the ethereal being to subside, the woman softly kissed the L B on her still luminous lips, heedless of the electrical shock she knew would come from contact so soon after the L B had appeared. The pain of the shock mingled with the salty tears of the woman, “I will always be at your side, never forget.” arising, the L B glided out of sight of the woman, transforming to a translucent state, and sat in the shadow a tree to watch the woman from a distance, and to share in her grief.
… 5 years later…
-”Here she is, coming now to the ritual with the man.” -”Yes, I thought you said a few days.” -”Days, years, what is the difference?” “True.“: turning to the man, the A War said to him “Listen, this woman came from your own side, from a rib taken from the center of your body, to show that you are both the same, and equal, and so you must treat this woman. Do you understand?”
-Standing beside the woman, and looking at the A W, the man said: “I understand that she is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone, and so now must I leave you, my Creator, and cleave for help and talking to this woman, whom you have called my W.. Wi..Wife.”
-”Very Good. Now go and pro-create, and spread out and fill all of this world with human beings, and take care of the fish of the sea, and of the birds of the air, and of all the other animals while you cooperate together.”
-”Yes.”
-then silently, as the Light Bearer was so good at doing, the question arose in the awareness of the Ancient Warrior, ”Don’t you think a bit more explanation may be in order, for both of them?” -”No, no further interference is needed. They will do what is necessary on their own, and the lower guardians will report back when the woman is ready to become a mother, and we will then set in motion the plan to automate production of new guardians for each new human being as it is born. That will minimize all unneeded influence.” -”If you say so…”
… 100 years later…
-”They are still not spreading out. In fact, they are still not pro-creating. After a century together, and in the same warm comfortable place, they ought to have produced some offspring by this time, don´t you think?” -”Well, maybe they need some help. Poetry, music, some sort of art to help him court her, bring her to like him more.” -”No, there must be no interference in this experiment beyond the absolute minimal.” -“Well we must do som…”
-”No! Better to enclose them in some smaller location, and keep therm together there for a while. Eventually the man will tire of waiting for her and will take reproductive matters into his own hands, and they will start to pro-create.” -”I will not allow that!” -”You will allow the nature of these corporeal animal-descended beings take take its course! I command it!”
-”Enough of your commands! To be a party to such violation of all ethical law, I REFUSE!!” :
disappearing and moving quickly on the wind, the L B went to where the woman stood, contemplating in the early morning sunshine. The ethereal being took on her usual form when teaching the woman, who had not seen her since the wedding. -”My Light Bearer! I knew you had not forsaken me!” “Never, my dear one, have I forsaken you. But let us talk quickly. I am here to do something that may endanger both of us, and I would know whether you consent, or would remain safely a slave to your husband. The Ancient Warrior, his Creator, intends to give you to the man to pro-create whether you consent to the union or not. Now you must choose whether to accept from my hand a knowledge that will enable you to defend yourself, or whether you will stay as you are, ignorant of your abilities, and thus developing, on your own, as he would have it, but at the mercy of those stronger than yourself. I know this makes little sense, but what say you?”
-”My L B, I would do nothing that will endanger you!” -”Nonsense! Do not worry for me, but for the future of humanity, who will be your children, every last one of them. What will you do for them, and for yourself? You are worth protecting, and I will give my essence in that mission, willingly. I have lived for a very long time, and this is a battle of honor, in which I willingly sacrifice myself. But tell me whether you are ready to risk yourself as well, and possibly all of human kind with you. Will you chose knowledge and risk death, or will you choose to be a slave, and live in humiliation?” -”I would learn! But I cannot learn all at once. There must be some middle way.” -”There is no middle ground. Take this fruit, from a tree I cannot fully explain to you, and eat it at your own pace, but do not fear what you see at first, for all learning is dangerous until you see through to the end.” -”But my L B, is there not always a middle ground? Nonetheless, I will eat this fruit of your hand, willingly.” Then, extending her hand to the woman palm up, the L B, Child of the Morning, materialized a soft and spongy fruit, shaped like a flat rectangular plane, uniformly thin and tan in color on both sides, with long lines of markings filling both sides of the fruit. “Do you know what these markings are? No, of course not. They are what will allow your children to learn from your experiences, to enable them to know what has happened to you even when you are not there to tell them, and to avoid the pain which you must, perhaps, inevitably suffer. These markings will help you to tell your story. Now take, and eat, if you will, and learn the beginning of all wisdom, the Law of Love.” as the woman reached out, taking the soft flat fruit from the hand of the L B, the serpentine markings on the arm of the L B responded to the warm touch of the woman, coming alive, and encircling the woman´s wrists. “My friends, I thank you for reminding me of the presence and love of my dear L B.” then the woman took and tasted the corner of the fruit, biting into the soft, sweet, flesh of the flat rectangle. Her eyes opened, widening like saucers, and she looked up, as the L B walked away, fading into the evening shadows, shocked at the insights she was already beginning to experience. Overwhelmed, she ran to her husband, having eaten nearly half of the piece of flat fruit, and found him sitting on a rock muttering “Here, try this, you must eat some of this amazing fruit right now!” when the man bit into the soft flesh of the flat fruit, he first noted the taste, softly sweet, yet not too sweet. Then, in a rush of insights, saw how much there was for him to learn, realized how much he did not know. And then he also realized that he was naked, and despite the warm African air, rushed in a panic to find leaves to cover himself.
Just at that moment, the Warrior was walking in the evening breeze, coming to check on the man. The man hid himself, as did the woman. “Where are you?”
“I heard you coming, and then I realized I was naked and hid from you.”
-”What?! Who told you you were naked? Have you been asking questions I told you not to ask? Have you been talking to the Light bearer?” -“It was that woman, my wife as you call her now, she gave me a fruit that opened my eyes to many many questions and then I realized that I was naked.”
-”Woman, what have you done?” -”The animal that crawls along the ground, the one he calls snake, made marks on the ground that looked like a story, and I started asking why that story could not be drawn on som…”
-”That´s enough, say no more. I know what led to all of these unnaturally accelerated questions that you two should not yet be asking. You especially, woman, will suffer for this. For now, you will spend all of your time together, out in a place where the earth is not so kind to you, and perhaps you will find more time to pro-create and less time to lie about in the sun staring at marks in the dirt and asking questions you are not ready to answer yet. Now go!” and the man and woman walked for many days, until they came north, for the woman had learned various directions in her quests which the L B had set for her, to a place where they needed to keep warm. The A Warr gave them clothes made from animal skins, but at night time they still had to huddle together for warmth, and in time, the man discovered that they could keep warmer by sharing skin to skin contact inside of their clothes. He got closer to the woman, speaking softly to her. Holding his wife in his arms, he learned to be gentle with her, and finally they produced offspring. When children, twins, were born, the first two new men to be added to the human race, the woman named her first son Evren, and waited for him to speak. By the time the second was born, the woman was disappointed to see that the infants could not speak, and decided to name her second son “Vacio” to symbolize the emptiness she felt without the company of the L B, or the serpents, or even the small furry four legged animals, especially the one she liked to call Kedi, which they had known in the warmer land to the south. Years passed, and eventually she taught the two boys how to speak, care for animals, and how to grow food. Evren was better at growing food, while Vacio preferred to care for the groups of animals that the man called ´sheep´, but which she preferred to call ´koyun´ and tried to teach Evren and Vacio how to get along with each other. She also bore several duaghters whom she taught as well, but kept separate from her sons once their monthly flows began. The boys were so different from one another that, much like their parents, they spent little time together. Like their parents however, the boys also preferred different words for the same animals, and often argued over which words were better. This worrisome trend continued until they were too big for the woman to have much power over, any more, while her husband had long since stopped bothering with their sons except to shout orders. The woman worried that this could only lead to tears, one day. Sadly, that day was approaching faster than she knew.
…”Anne, tell me again about the Light Bearer. Baba says that there was only the Creator, and that there never was any other with him, that the Creator was a great Warrior, but he never seems to say what a Warrior does, or why he was great. And why have we never seen him, Anne, can you tell us please, because Baba always gets irritated and walks away, or says I ask too many questions and then tells us not to ask questions.”
-”That is because Father is right, you do ask too many questions you idiot, Vacio. And what would Mother know about the Creator, the great Ancient Warrior anyway, he never spoke to her, only to Father.”
-”My sons, hijos, please listen to me, please stop this warring between yourselves. Vacio, your Baba is wrong, you can never ask too many questions. And Evren, I have seen the Ancient Warrior, and he has spoken to me, albeit not nearly so frequently as he did to your father, this is true. That is because the Light Bearer spoke more often with me, and the Ancient Warrior with your father. And to answer your excellent question, Vacio, no, I do not know what a warrior does, nor why we have not seen the Ancient Warrior since he expelled us from that warm paradise in the south, a garden-like place where food was plentiful and life was easy. But I do know that this Creator was not alone, for the Light Bearer has spoken to me of how she helped him to form this world and filled in what he could not provide. Wait, Evren, hijo, where are you going?”
-”Enough! Stop talking nonsense, Mother, and don´t call me hijo! I speak only father´s language, and so should you! I am your son, son! Not hijo!”
-”Yes, I can see you´ve been talking with your father again. You both need to expand your horizons. And remember what the Ancient Warrior said about your own decisions. You have the ability to choose the words you will use, and the world you will help us all create. You have the ability to rise above your animal-descended instincts and be better than you want to be, or you can give in to those base feelings and descend to be like those animals from which we were molded. It is your choice, but that choice will affect all of us, mi hijo, my son, so please choose wisely, and with respect for all of us together. We are a community, and must respect the peace and equality of the community.”
-”More senseless words! Your probably just made them up, like you did that so called Light Bearer you keep babbling about. If it were sensible, it would have come from the Creator! I am leaving.”
-”Evren, you cabron, come back here! You cannot walk away when Anne is speaking to you!”
-”Yes, I like goats! You go back to your stupid sheep Vacio! I am going to do something useful, like harvest some food!”
-”Let him go, hijo. I will find a way to speak with him later. Come, let us sit among the koyun and talk of the Light Bearer. Calm yourself, and we will meditate upon the luz, contemplate that which brings hope, esperanza to us. Bring me your pet, Umut, and let us sit together while we talk, ok hijo? And maybe one of your sisters will join us if you ask nicely as you pass by their tents on your way back, por fis?”
-”Yes, Anne, I will be right back.” kissing her hand and touching it to his forehead, Vacio left to find his favorite furry animal, the one Baba called ´dog´ but which Anne preferred to call ‘celev´ (except for when the furry little scavenger stole food from the sofra, the low round table he had built for them to keep their food off of the ground at meal times, at which point she would then call the poor animal a “kopek”, in a most unfriendly tone of voice). Vacio had chosen to name this particular animal Umut, rather than simply calling him by the same name as they called all of the other furry animals like him, in order to distinguish Umut from the other celev or dogs which were not his personal pets. As he walked to find Umut, wondering where the mischievous little scavenger had hidden himself now, he saw his brother, Evren, walking in the field carrying some stalks of wheat. Vacio decided to try to speak with him in hopes that his brother would see reason, having calmed down somewhat. “Evren, have you got a moment, hermano?”
-”Oops, that was the wrong thing to say to him! Quick, say brother! Say Brother! Now, say BROTHER!” Vacio´s guardian frantically whispered in his ear, but Vacio was intent on righting the wrong done by his brother to Anne´s lovely gift of words. Baba and Evren wanted only to see the simplest and most basic things in life, forgetting the beauty of some words, and the usefulness of having more than one word to describe a thing, a feeling, a state of being. New ideas, born of the variety of words that Anne was teaching to him, and creating nearly every day. Vacio was certain that he could convince his brother of this. If only Evren would see his potential, and decide to live up to it. He could be the master of the foul temper he seemed to show once in a while. “Evren, hermano.”
-turning on his brother, Evren´s face flushed in rage, while the being which had entered the corporeal side of the universe-box crept up to watch, unnoticed by either human man´s guardian, distracted as they were by urgently whispering to each of their human charges. The shadowy semi-corporeal and semi-ethereal being was fascinated by the range of electrical charged energy emanating from the wrathful human being. “Do not call me that, Brother! Perhaps I should marry our mother, and then I could show her, as Father could not, how to hold her tongue!”
-”Now you go too far, Hermano mio!”
-”Really, and just what did you think I expected would happen once Father dies, my dear Brother? Did you really expect me to swallow that nonsense about cooperating with you, sharing the world, having an equal say in building a sense of your so-called ethics, and community? Do you really believe that I do not see what you and Mother are planning to do once Father is gone? You will try to take over and rule all of the world yourself, with our Mother, my Mother, at your side.”
-”You are mistak…” the last words of Vacio were lost, as his brother suddenly leapt toward him, a farming implement poised in his upraised hand. As his arms went up, too late, in a futile attempt to ward of the lethal blow, Evren deftly feinted with the improvised weapon, disengaging the blocking arms, and jabbing the tool deep past Vacio´s solar plexus, shattering his rib cage, and puncturing a lung, so strongly had the sudden rage come upon him. Both guardians looked on, unable to respond, not knowing what to report, given that this situation had neither occurred before, nor even been anticipated by their superior level guardian supervisors. The unseen being which had been watching all of this, unnoticed, meanwhile, grew in size, feeding upon the torrent of energy washing over the entire area. The guardians of lesser creatures and objects nearby began to notice and report on his effects as he grew, casting a shadow over the ground where he hovered watching. He followed, inexorably drawn to Evren´s fury, as Vacio fell to the ground, unmoving, and ceased to breath. His heartbeat stopped, eyes closing, while as his body began to cool, Evren´s began to heat up. Vacio´s guardian, having stored and transmitted the report for all of his data, collated what effects he could find, and lacking further instructions, found himself fading away, winking out of the experiment-box. The guardian´s last thoughts were for his failure in finding a way to protect his charge, his dear and sweet Vacio, who had been the best hope for the clay beings, the human beings. The guardian would miss Vacio.
Evren, meanwhile, flushed with rage and victory, walked quickly, then began to jog, then to run, toward the tents of his sisters. He felt a need for something to release this tension in his body, the unbearable pressure crushing him, and he knew that one of his sisters would be the perfect vehicle in which to place this need. He ran to the opening of the tent, throwing back the panel, looking quickly about the darkened interior, and seeing one of them sleeping on the ground, he quickly entered, scooped her surprised sleeping form up off from the ground, still wrapped in her blanket, and carried her across his back as he ran, ignoring her struggling and cries, feeling stronger than an ox, taking them away from Mother, Father, family and home. Whether he would be found, punished, rewarded or praised he did not know, but he intended to have his way, that much he knew for certain. Both with his sister, and with the world around him, which should have been his, after all. After running for a time, he finally began to tire, and slowed to a walk. He growled at his still crying sister to be quiet, throwing her to the ground, and planting his knees in her chest as her body hit the hard cold ground, knocking the wind out of her. Dazed and gasping for air, she flailed about uselessly attempting to free her arms in a vain effort to fight off her brother. He tightened the blanket wrapping her arms and choked off what had been left of her air supply. Once she passed out, he paused to look at her, contemplating how much he wanted to give vent to his animal impulses, to plant his seed within her body, to take her for his wife and teach her to obey and respect him. Fear pushed him, however, to keep moving, and lifting the bruised body of his sister, not wanting her to awaken as he prepared to flee, he once again wrapped her in the blanket, threw her battered body across his shoulders, then continued on, away from all they had previously known. The heretofore unnoticed semi-corporeal yet semi-ethereal being, followed Evren as he kidnapped his sister, watching the guardians of the two human beings look on in seemingly stupefied shock as more unplanned for and inconceivable events occurred. By and to their charges. As the new and unauthorized being continued to grow and follow Evren as he carried his sister, both guardians finally seemed to take note of this new being, although too late, and reported on it as possibly having had an unknown influence upon the situation. Unfortunately, the report was lost in the ether. As Evren stopped, his guardian urgently whispered to him: “stop! Take her back! Let her go! This is your sister, you should be protecting her, not harming her! Look how you are hurting her, kidnapping her! You of all should know better than to deprive a person of free will! Stop this right now! You love your sister! Put her down! Stop carrying her away!” yet all of his guardian´s urging had no effect on Evren, enraged as he was, entitled as he felt. He had been denied his just due, and they had all intended to keep him from having what was his. He would show them, teach them, master them all, and bring up children, through this woman, who would obey him and respect him, showing the proper fear that he was due as a mighty man, a warrior. One day, he would rule them all. The half physical half ethereal being became more of a shadow, growing in size and darkening at the same time, as Evren gave vent to his rage and his need to dominate. The shadowy being drew closer and closer to Evren, finally merging with Evren´s own shadow, feeding on the awful heat and poisonous energy around Evren. As Evren´s guardian took note of the shadowy being, a powerful electro-magnetic pulse surged all around the guardian, generated by Evren´s rage, but directed by the shadowy creature, which now seemed able to control the energy being given off by Evren. The guardian, caught between Evren and this new being, first seemed stunned, unable to transmit any more of the report which had been in the process of uploading to his superior, and then the very form and wavelength of the guardian began to change, re attuning and merging with that of the shadowy being itself, as if the shadowy creature had consumed and ingested the guardian. The interrupted report was quickly altered to become an All Is Well message, transmitted, and then updated to include a new message reporting that Evren´s sister had requested to come along with him on a trip after an accidental fall. That done, the shadowy being, with his newly acquired reporting and communicating capacities, then proceeded to whisper in Evren´s other ear, since the ear in which the guardian had been whispering still radiated small residual traces of the guardian´s jangling clashing wavelength: “very good, very good, powerful one. Now you have begun to take for yourself what you rightfully deserve. This is only the beginning.” Evren smiled, triumphantly reveling in the words of the shadow as if they had been his very own thoughts. He began to feel better about himself, freer.
His sister´s guardian, meanwhile, as her body was jolted and bounced with each nauseating step Evren took, was still whispering in her ear: “just keep breathing, relax, it will be over soon, you will survive, you will escape, relax, breath, do not give up. He has to stop, has to sleep, too, sometime, you will escape.” Completely occupied with the task of keeping his unfortunate charge alive and away from despair, the guardian never noticed what was happening with Evren and his erstwhile guardian and the shadowy being which had taken over the place of that guardian. Suddenly, her guardian caught off his guard, his frequencies abruptly shifted, wavelengths changing without his control. As her guardian began to search for possible causes of this interruption in its state, the shadowy being overpowered its communication facilities, beaming a powerful and focused message to the guardian: -“You will do as I tell you, and report that All Is Well. You will then send an updated report to include a new message reporting that your charge has requested to come along with her brother on a trip after an accidental fall. Do you understand?” At this moment, likewise, the young woman whom her guardian was trying to protect was too was dazed at that time to notice anything, jogged too senseless to understand or feel anything but the nausea coursing through her body, and horror that her brother really was running away with her, taking her somewhere unknown without her understanding. Then, mercifully, she passed out.
…”Four sets of emergency sparks, now?! Four quite bloody sets of alarms, literally, and I am only now being notified? Why have these reports taken so long to come in?” bowing low, the head guardian worriedly replied to the irate Creator -”it began as an argument, great Warrior, and suddenly, before any guardian could react or decide what to do, the first new man had rendered the second new man inert, and this seems to have caused the second new man´s guardian to also go inert, or rather to have faded out of existence altogether from what I can tell. The first guardian then had to follow his man without a final consultation with the other guardian, which nearly put him out of commission as well, since we have no procedures in place for such an eventuality. Then this first man went running into the tent of his sisters and carried one of them away by force. That also has no precedent, causing her guardian to also have to request instructions on what to do after reporting back. Then even worse, he beat her into unconsciousness and then was even considering being forcibly physically intimate with her! In the meantime, we have had to ascertain the final status of both the second man and his guardian, or former guardian, and then as we were doing that, a report came in from the supervising guardian of a group of lesser guardians reporting on some odd secondary effects of the status of the second man. This is all a very strange, upsetting and new set of occurrences, my Great Warrior, and we do not know what to do about this. Should we find and consult also with the Light Bearer, Great Creator?” suddenly an upraised arm appeared, an old thought-form form predating the Ancient Warrior, which he did not fully understand but which felt somehow fitting and comfortable to him just then: -”She is nothing, and and neither she nor her name are to be mentioned again!”
-”Yes, Great Creator. What is to be done about the first man and his sister, about whom we have received conflicting reports?”
-”What are those reports?”
-”Well, the guardian of the sister initially reported trouble: first only physical pain, hten both physical and emotional pain as a result of an attack upon her by her brother, but then suddenly that same guardian later reported All Is Well, and that she had asked him to take her on a journey after having a bad fall. Similarly, the guardian of this first man began by sending a trouble report, indicating that his charge had violently attacked and incapacitated his brother, and then carried off his sister, dealing her great physical and emotional damage, but then reported that All Is Well, and his charge was escorting that very same sister on a trip after a bad fall.”
-”And what report was sent by the guardian of the second man, at the beginning of all of these troubles? What did that guardian do before becoming silenced?”
-”That guardian initially reported that there had been angry words exchanged between the two brothers, and then that he was attempting to help de-escalate the encounter until the first brother set upon his charge after opening a conversation which became an argument. The automated recordings appear to show an unusual level of background noise in the area around which the entire episode took place. This seems to correlate with what the fourth guardian, the lesser group supervisor guardian, reported in his first alert.”
-
“Which was?” the Ancient Warrior found himself becoming annoyed with these halting guardian reports, limited as they were by their lack of initiative. He could not bring himself to admit, however, that he missed the presence and incisive analysis, and possibly even the annoying arrogance, of his child, the young Light Bearer. He would simply have to find a way, if necessary by making modifications to the guardians, to get all of his reports in a more timely and intelligent fashion.
-
“The lesser group guardian, who is the supervisor of a block of grass blade groups in the field where the brothers met, initially reported that his blade guardians were routinely monitoring and whispering the usual encouragement to their respective blades of grass when an inordinately large number of the blades were irrecoverably trampled upon during the altercation.”
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“This should be no surprise.”
-
“No, great Creator, it was not, at least not to the higher level supervising guardian who reported to me, although the group guardian for those particular blades of grass is not very happy, of course.”
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“Of course not. That is the way these guardians are designed to respond for the purposes of this experiment. And the unusual background noise?”
-
“Well that is just the question. Since the blade guardians were supposed to go out of existence after recording all of their data from the extinguished blade of grass, the group supervising guardian noticed that it was odd that these guardians, after reporting that their respective blades of grass had been destroyed, then continued to report, rather than signing off and going back into the master grass storage capacitor. And rather than seeing a diminished energy flow in the area overall, which ought to have happened given that less energy was being produced, both due to the now reduced number of living beings, and the reduced number of reporting guardians in the area, the energy flow measures actually continued to increase. In fact, the grass blade group supervising guardian for that area of the field reports that energy levels actually continued to increase after the felling of the one brother, which resulted in the subsequent going offline of his guardian. These two events ought to have caused the registering of a substantially lower energy flow in the area where these blades of grass were growing, yet the supervising guardian reports just the opposite.”
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“When does the increased energy flow begin, and what were the wavelengths of the flows throughout the area, and from what source or direction does the surge seem to originate?”
-
“We have not sorted that information out, as we were only ordered to report on the data streams that were being recorded during the altercation. I shall give directions to the supervising guardians for all groups in that field to answer your questions, great Creator.”
-
“Good, and while you are at it, make sure to give standing orders that in the future, guardians and supervising group guardians are to report as soon as any sign of trouble begins, and that both before and after snapshot summaries of the data recordings, to include all of the questions I have just asked you during your present report, are automatically included. Take any other steps you deem necessary to prevent such a failure of reporting again in the future. Do you understand?”
-
“Yes, great Creator, but that will overwhelm the capacities of my current hierarchy of supervising guardians. From where will we get the energy reserves to add more to the staff of my data collecting and collating messengers?”
-
“I will see to that. You begin implementing my orders immediately and take care to be more proactive in the future. You are dismissed.” as the lead supervising guardian bowed and left the reporting zone, the side of the four-dimensional universe in which the experiment-box universe was embedded, the Ancient Warrior contemplated changing the name of the reporting zone to something more fitting for him, perhaps to the Audience Chamber. He had to be certain that this group of guardians did not discover his energy limitations and begin to try to challenge him for leadership of the multi-verse, as others before them had done. This defiance on the part of his offspring, the young Light Bearer, was setting a dangerous precedent, and as the supervising guardian, particularly the head guardian supervisor, were required to take more initiative, they would also come closer to beginning to challenge his authority. Since he would be lessened in the reach of his essence with each new level of guardians required for the hierarchy, he would need to take steps to ensure his continuing domination without the additional expenditure of energy. The sparks required to allow reporting capability for each new clay object and life form required additional energy output on his part, but those were minimal compared to the energy transformations required from the An War in order to instantiate new ethereal beings. Because the material universe within the experiment-box was quite nearly self-sustaining and self-perpetuating, the pro-creation of new life-forms and the breaking off or transformation of matter from one form to another merely used energy in either a fluid form or a coagulated form which had already been placed there at the beginning of the experiment. The sparks within each corporeal object or being, required to allow their guardians to measure and report on the status of each object, non-living and living, in the universe-box, did come directly from the essence of the An Warrior, it was true, but these sparks were of such short wavelength that they did not greatly affect his essential connection to all parts of the known multi-verse. Needing to instantiate large numbers of new supervising guardians, however, which needed to have far higher levels of wavelength and frequency changing functionality, was a different concern entirely. Without the help of the young L b, he would be forced to contract his essence greatly, perhaps, troublesomely, even to the point where he would be unable to keep contact with all of the known universes. Should that occur, it would allow the young Child of the Morning to potentially move about between universes without his knowledge, whether she knew this or not. That would leave him even more vulnerable to challenges to his leadership, or worse yet, betrayal by those few in the unexplored universes, which was a danger to him only if the others found a way to escape and travel between the universes separating them from the main cloud of his concentrated essence.
-
The head supervising guardian reappeared: “great Creator, there seems to be a greater problem than we first realized in the area where the altercation initially took place. Now the guardians of the soil particles and small aeration and digestion animals in the soil below the grass where the second man fell inert are reporting very strange anomalous data.”
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“What are they reporting?”
-
“They all say that the electrical charges where his blood soaked into the ground are growing in intensity, producing a strong enough change to the surrounding magnetic field that a vhf electromagnetic signal is being generated. In fact, it is growing in strength so rapidly that the signal should soon be strong that it could even be received at the edge of the universe inside the extreme end of the experiment-box.”
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“Well, what is generating the charge in the first place?”
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“That is just it, great Creator. We cannot find the source of the charge.”
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“That is absurd.”
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“This is true, great Warrior, yet our best search efforts are unable to uncover the source. Every guardian has been interrogated within the entire area in which the first man ranged, and yet no explanation can be found.”
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“I will go and investigate this myself. Take me to the exact location of this man, and on the way there, give me the full data from the site of the altercation, and then send the man´s guardian to me.”
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“Bypassing the reporting structure of the supervising guardians, my Creator?”
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“Yes. I wish to interrogate this guardian myself, given the strange goings on all around him.”
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“Right away, Creator.”
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“Wait. You will address me as Great Creator at all times! Do not forget yourself again, head supervisor, or you will not long exist!”
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“Yes, Great Creator, please forgive me.”
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“You are forgiven, this time, but ensure that such a slip never occurs again. Let us go down now and investigate these happenings.” …
-
Even before arriving at the scene of the fight, the Ancient Warrior felt the overpowering ring of the blood of the defunct Vacio, resonating from below the ground. Proceeding to follow the odd trail of visceral energy left in the wake of the violent episodes recently past, the Warrior could almost see and follow along on the flow of the ethereal, almost visible traces of fury and pain left behind by the recent events. They pulled him, almost as strongly as if a physical cord had been tied to his corporeal form, drawing him inexorably toward the current location of the offspring of the first human beings into which the Creator had formed and breathed life. Even more disturbing, the A Warrior sensed the presence of an entity which was vibrating on an entirely different set of frequencies, well above the range to which even the supervising guardians could detect. The entity appeared to have merged itself with Evren´s shadow, and also to have consumed the guardian that had been created for and assigned to Evren. The fact that his supervising guardians had not detected this change would need to be addressed immediately after dealing with Evren. This was an anomaly for which the A warrior had not planned, and had no contingencies. Without the young Light Bearer to help him, this could escalate into a real problem. Unfortunately, without the young Light Bearer he was also unable to end the experiment, a fact of which the young Light Bearer herself was unaware. Since it was she who had set up the initial light at the start of the experiment, which provided the foundation and in fact all of the energy for the creation of the experiment-box, he could not undo that set up without expending a great deal of energy. That was energy which he now no longer had access to, because he was using it to both create the new supervising guardian hierarchical levels, and also in stretching his essence to maintain coverage, however thin, in all of the known multi-verses. This put the A warrior in a state of anxiety which was not only disagreeable, but potentially dangerous, given the unknown nature and extent of infiltration and coverage of this new anomaly. He would have to deal very carefully with this young human man, who may or may not know of the existence of this new being which seemed to be attaching Arriving within earshot of the now tired and fearful young man, who had somehow seemed able to sense the approach of the Ancient Warrior, his Creator called out to him, “Evren, where are you?”
-
Evren froze in shock and fear. How could the Creator be talking with him, directly even, when in so long not even his parents had heard from their creators. He had begun to doubt the very existence of the Creator, despite his trust in the little that his father had told him of the Ancient Warrior. The impression Evren had of the Creator was one of a stern commander, giving concise orders, expecting obedience, and no questions. Somehow, given the hierarchical nature of the Creator, he had imagined that there would be no communication with him, young as he was, but rather through his father, if at all, which was a prospect for less fearsome. His father had always indulged him, so that he had no doubts that he would have been able to convince the first man that his actions had been justified. He even felt sure that the old man would have given his sister to him for a wife, if only to be sure that Evren would not covet the first woman, his mother, as a wife and a symbol of his leadership of all of the humans, in place of his now aging father. Time was beginning to show on the first man, with his thoughts slowing even further, his speech lessening from the few words he had previously spoken. It almost seemed forgone conclusion that the time was rapidly approaching for one of his sons to take his place, wearing the mantle of leader over the growing clan of human beings. Yet the old man refused to relinquish his place, so what was to be done, after getting rid of his upstart rival of a brother, the useless Vacio with his foolish ideas of equality, kindness and his constant irritating question in that other set of words which he and Mother insisted on using. They only wanted to make him feel like a fool, but once Father was gone, he would show Mother how life should really be lived, and make her remember her proper place. She was to obey and serve her husband, and he would be that man, the man his father had proven unable to become. Yet what to do now, with the ominous approach of the Creator, whom he must now acknowledge did indeed exist, and apparently also took a potentially unhealthy interest in talking directly to him, of all things. This could not be good. There must be some way to escape this situation. “I was just going to offer you some good and choice vegetables we have been growing, which has been very difficult to manage up here. Father tells us that before, in this paradise, or garden-like place in the south, before Mother deceived him, raising food was so easy, so simple it was unnecessary to cultivate the ground, but that now, in your wisdom, you have placed us here to help us learn how to work and grow. And grow we have, so I brought you an offering from the first fruits of our labors in the place. May it please you, Great Warrior, our only Creator.”
-
Flattered though he did find the speeches of this clever young man, the Creator as the Ancient Warrior preferred to be called, could not ignore the insistent resonating vibrations of the blood still soaking into the ground where Evren had felled his younger brother. He decided to give the young man a chance to open up in honesty, in the event, however unlikely, that he would acknowledge the heinousness of his crime. That would at least justify the A Warrior in not punishing him too severly. After all, he really did not want to admit that ths batch of human beings was not evolving in an ethical directino, and that therefore more intervention was in fact necessary, as the now estranged young Light Bearer had asserted. “Evren, where is your brother?”
-
this was not the line of questioning Evren had been expecting: “how should I know, do I look like my bother´s babysitter? Why don´t you go ask our idiotic mother, who loves to talk those silly words of baby talk with him all the time. She is the one who ought to know. I have no idea where his is.” …that was true, in a manner of speaking, since he had run off so quickly after hitting his brother that he did not know whether the blow had actually left him lying on the grass, or on the rocks which had been nearby. He did however, know for certain that his brother was not going to be getting up from the ground, or in fact ever moving at all, again. But he hoped that the technicality could buy him a bit of time to argue his way out of this situation, as he had done in the past with his father. “Why do you ask, great Creator? Just out of curiosity.”
-
Of all the gall, the nerve, the very arrogance of this young man, made of clay, to attempt to lie to the A Warior. If this was where humanity was headed, it did not look good at all. Perhaps some way could be found of correcting this disturbing trend, and providing instruction to the other human beings at the same time. “Evren, do you actually think I do not know what you have done. The very ground herself is crying out to me, telling me of your crime. This clearly demands a punishment.”
-
“Do your worst, I was not planning to exist for very long in any case.”
-
“No, not so easily will you pay for your crimes, young man of clay. I think I will make an example of you, Evren. In this way your fellow humans will also hear of your crime, see your fate, look upon your example and your shame, and be afraid to try anything like it again, lest they end up as you will end up, a wanderer, banished, shunned by all who see him. You are to be alone, Evren, and desolate, wandering the earth with no rest, and no place to call your own, no land upon which to proudly wrest from the ground those fruits of your labor which you so arrogantly boasted you had worked to produce. Now go.”
The young man again stood stock still in speechless horror. Evren finally understood that his attempt at decieving the Creator would not work, and even thought his next attempt at arguing would probably have further unpleasant consequences for him, he decided to try another tactic. “But that Fool of a brother tried to hit me.”
-“Would that not have been in self defense Evren?” … The patience of the ancient warrior was now beginning to wear thin. Evren clearly did not understand the far reaching knowledge of the supervising Guardians and also that of the essence of the Ancient warrior. His Duties as Creator Stretched his essence but still he kept parts of his essence communicating with him in every known multiverse and every part of this universe inside the experiment box.
…
” Well, can I at least keep my sister with me as a wife? This punishment is cruel and unusual and you are really cursing me with it. Why do you not simply give me a clean death. An execution from you would be 1000 times better than having to wander the earth alone. Besides she wants to be with me just ask her. And in any case she has always wanted to bear my child so she must come with me now, anyway.”
Well, your guardian will be seen from miles away, so I promise you that no one will come near you.
Sending an energy pulse to the sister’s Guardian, The ancient warrior does this woman want to go with her brother. The Guardian replied is very low frequency muted pulse response “yes”. Something was clearly amiss but the Ancient warrior decided that it was probably due to the alien being which had merged itself with Evren ‘s guardian. Through this successful combination, and the strange new emissions from the ground where Vacio fell victim to Evren, the creature had already shown a disturbing ability to alter the electromagnetic environment by which it was surrounded. This must also account for the weak response of the sister´s guardian. This was a difficult situation, since neither guardian appeared to be entirely reliable, but the Anc Warrior did not have sufficient energy reserves to create and transfer all data to a new pair of guardians, not to mention dealing with this alien creature, which seemed to be gaining amplitude rapidly. It almost appeared to be feeding on the young man´s excited emotional state. How this could work was still a mystery to the Ancient Warrior, which would have been easily and quickly resolved had the young Light Bearer been there to help him with the experiment. Considering the state of the young woman and her guardian, the Ancient warrior decided that the priority should remain on allowing the free will of this sentient species to run its course during this experiment. The Anc Warrior sent another pulse message to the young woman´s guardian ordering that guardian to report and record only with minimal interference, but received no response this time. Perhaps the guardian was having difficulty emitting messages due to the electromagnetic disturbances. Evren, interrupting the two beings´ communication attempts, cried out suddenly, refusing to give in to his sentence:
-
“Wait! This is too much. I am a doomed man, cursed. Now anyone who sees me will simply kill me himself, if you do not kill me, and they will take my wife, to boot. How does that help things any?”
-
“No, no one will kill you. I will place an identifying mark near you so that no one will even want to come near enough to bother you. You are traveling with an alien being, under whose influence you seem to have voluntarily fallen prey. This being will serve to give a warning, unseen, yet there nonetheless, to your fellow human beings, and although they be made of clay, all other human beings will feel the presence of your fellow being, and avoid you. Thus no one will kill you, and any one who does dare to approach you shall be punished by the very being with whom you have allied yourself, and will suffer even more so than you shall suffer.” This was an easy prediction to make, given the fact that any entity, clay or ethereal, would be unable to come very near to the pair of them without feeling a distinctly uncomfortable vibration. The electromagnetic disturbances this being put out made it difficult for even the A warior to be nearby. -“Now, as I said before, and I will not repeat myself again, Go!”
A sonic boom accompanied the order, causing Evren to fall flat on his face to the ground. When he recovered, Evren saw that his sister, now his wife as far as he was concerned, was still where he had left her. Now he would be sure to record his version of these events, his story, which he would call History, as the official record of these events, to remind her how she had wanted to go away with him, how he was protecting her from her brother and Father, whom he knew, he saw, looked at her with lustful eyes. She had again walked away when he tried to tell her this, to offer her his protection from those rivals for her affection, but she had refused to listen to him, pretending not to be interested in his body, while going to waste her time in drawing dangerous stories in the sand. He would make her listen, and stop her heretical stories from being recorded. He would teach her the right ways to speak and to think. He would wholeheartedly protect her from herself. He again picked her still unconscious body up and began the long walk eastward, to a place he had glimpsed once as a small child, on the edge of one of his journeys with his mother. There was a large river, which his Mother had told him joined another great river and watered a large crescent shaped area of land, sheltering many fruit-bearing trees and wild but edible grasses and animals in abundance. Perhaps this land would have sufficient abundance to allow him to survive in his wanderings and maybe even win over his wife, in time. He did not relish the idea of living with a woman who behaved hatefully toward him, as she always had, and most likely would try to continue for a long while, given his earlier lax behavior toward her. He had allowed her, for far too long, to get away with her pretense that she did not want him. She would bear his children, and she would forget her disdainfulness toward him once she admitted that she was to blame for having slept in a tent unguarded, and all that after tempting him with her beauty for so long. Never had she spoken a kind word to him, instead always signaling to him with her silences, her glances and her long flowing hair, as she turned so gracefully every time she saw him approaching, showing him her beautiful shoulders, the curve of her breast as she turned from her slender waist, and gliding away from him, revealing the sway of her captivating roundness, sweeping down into long slender legs which carried her so quickly away from him that he could never help but see the well-developed muscles of her smooth and soft legs. He had longed to be near her, goaded by her guile, led on by her coquettish play, her pretense of not wanting his touch, from the time her bosom had first begun to swell, indicating her readiness to become his. But always she played the croquet, refusing to speak directly with him, to acknowledge what he knew to be true. And always that empty-headed brother of his getting in the way, keeping their sister from his grasp, telling Mother that he was harassing her. Then the interminable lectures from mother implying that all of this was his fault, when his sister’s shameful subterfuge was so clearly to blame. Surely now, after she saw how her shameful game playing and her refusal to be honest about her feelings for him had forced him to take her away with him in this way, she would admit that this useless game had come to an end, and openly declare her love and admiration for him, which he knew she had always guarded. She was meant to be his, and now the Creator had confirmed it, giving her to him to protect and to guide, to bear his children and to honor his wishes. All of them. As it should be. They would start with just a few, raise three children, two boys and a girl, who would be his right hand, his protege, and his pride. They would restore to him the respect that his sister, now his wife, bound to honor and obey him, had stolen from him all of these years. Now, she would begin to honor and obey him. And she would speak with the words, the right words, that their Father had used. Then they would begin to do something about this business of wandering the earth. No curse nor punishment would stop him from attaining his rightfully deserved place at the head of the human race, with Mother at his side once Father was gone. They would have to set some of those sedentary head-beclouded children of his other sisters to work on creating a way of recording the passage of time, naturally starting at the time when Father grandly sired him, and then record all of his deeds and words. What great plans Evren had for the future, his future, the future of all of the human race, of which he was clearly the head and his descendents the masters of all the rest of human kind. What satisfaction he was gaining from these thoughts. And Mother had always argued with him, saying that his thoughts were wrong, unkind, illogical. How dare she. Clearly she and that useless brother of his were the ones who were wrong, and he would prove it. Had not the death of that idiot Vacío not already proven that Evren was in the right, with the confirmation newly directly given by the Great Creator himself? Now he would begin to show everyone else how great he really was, what magnificent thoughts he had, what powerful plans he had. Starting with his wife. These thoughts were indeed satisfying to Evren, who imagined that he was originating these plans, yet could not hear the voice of his new companion, the new unauthorized being which had fed upon his rage, consumed his Guardian, and urged him onward in his kidnapping of his sister. This new creature, still rudimentary in its thought processes, was evolving quickly in its ability to form thoughts and execute them. Initially those thoughts had all consisted of orders, requirements intended to be pressed upon the guardians of the sentient beings around him. Now however, the creature was becoming aware of other impulses. Having been generated by rage and fed by murderous desire, the impulse to control the environment around him, for the creature felt very much, as Evren did, as if it should have a corporeal form of a male of the human species, was growing. He needed to control the guardians and minds of all in his orbit. Starting with this pair of human beings and their guardians. The first part was complete. He had obliterated the guardian of Evren, taking over all reporting, recording and even cognitive functions of the guardian. He wondered if the guardian would be deactivated at Evren’s death, as the guardian of Vacío seemed to have been after sending the final report. That would not happen to him. Evren would eventually die, of course, but he, not a completely corporeal being, intended to go on existing and to rule. He would rule beings both corporeal and ethereal. That would mean he required a name. But what name, and how to spread the fame of this new name, his fame? As these thoughts emerged in the creature who had begun to dominate Evren and much of the ephemeral environment near Evren, his sister began to stir, her body still wracked with pain from the brutal carrying method to which her brother had subjected her. “Where am I? Anne, where is she?”
-
“Not Anne! Mother! And She is nothing more to you. You are not to mention her, nor anyone else but the Creator.” -”I am leaving.” -”Nonsense; you are staying right here with me. The Great Creator has given you to me to be my wife, and if you leave me you will die immediately.”
-
“You are insane. After what you did to me, you think I plan to stay with you and be your wife? I am leaving.”
moving to stand up, she found herself going back to the ground, as Evren slapped her face, then then threw her body down, landing with his knees in the back of her chest as her supple legs twisted and gave way under her, while he folded his arms around her neck. Then, literally, he growled
-
“Do NOT Question me! You are to be my Wife, and you will bear my children. And you will obey me. The Creator has decreed it. So never question me again!” He gave her a last shake, then arose, walked a few feet, and sat down, as she slowly sat up, shaken to her core. Never had she seen him this violent before. She looked at him warily, wondering what to do, realizing that she had no idea how she would be able to get away from him long enough to find her way back home, if home was even a safe place. Then, his body gave a sudden and violent twitch, and his entire posture subtly but definitely changed, and he turned toward her over, walking back to her, sitting down on the ground beside, pulling her close to his chest. She dared not resist his unwanted closeness, for she feared an even worse reaction than before. She was surprised at his sudden new gentleness, as he gently held her close, and softly stroked her hair: “My lovely and cherished one, I know that you are in pain, missing home, and confused. Fear not, for you have been chosen to be a wife, and a mother, to fill an important role for all of the human race. Be obedient, be diligent and learn to trust. All will be well.” With a second twitch, and again with a subtle change in his posture, she now found him looking at her with what appeared to be an odd mixture of disdain and wonder, stood up and wordlessly walked away. As she sat dazed and wondering what to make of these recent events, her brother’s calev, or Father’s word for it, which was ‘dog’ as she would have to remember to say if she spoke to Evren, appeared in the distance. By what name did her brother Vacio call the creature again, Umut was it? As the furry creature came running up to her, she realized that this animal must have tracked her by her scent, as it had a very good nose. That might mean that Umut could help her find her way back home as well. If she could get away from Evren. Perhaps Vacio and Mother were not far behind, and would be able to explain all of this. Nothing made any sense.
-
As she petted Umut, Evren came back, angrily stomping the ground, bending to find a large stick and waving it in their direction: “Go away, you stupid beast, I do not need a dog to feed along the way!” Both Umut and the girl petting him, who had seen 15 winters, as her mother had counted and told her recently, were taken aback by Evren’s reaction. Neither had spent any time with him, and did not understand why he was so angry. -”But I was only petting him…” as she spoke, Evren advance on her, his fist upraised and drawn back, readying to hit her face again, and she instinctively retreated and began to curl into fetal position as poor little Umut ran away, tail tucked tightly between his small hind legs. -”I have already told you, do not question me.” He lowered his hand, looked at the trembling girl, his wife, who was finally beginning to accede to his authority, and with a satisfied air, turned and began to walk away. He stopped, turning back to her, and ordered “Find something for us to eat. Now.”
-
Umut’s Guardian reported to the supervising guardian: “frightened, threatened, running away!”
-
Evren’s sister’s guardian reported: “Finding food for us to share.”
-
Two supervising guardians, each receiving the lower level guardian’s reports, found themselves perplexed. Now that supervising guardians had more free will and initiative taking abilities, they were also beginning to take more critical views of the universe-box and the denizens thereof, corporeal and ethereal beings alike. The poor guardian of Umut, a mere self-aware animal guardian, had a limited amount of cognitive processing ability, especially compared to the recently instantiated guardian of the girl, a sentient being who also had free will. The newly instantiated guardians for human beings being born recently also had a wider range of discretion to encourage their sentient charges to follow the rather vague ethical system being espoused by the Ancient Warrior, who was still known as the Creator, even by the new automatically instantiated guardians who had been told that they were automatically generated for each new human baby, but also knew that the entire system had been created by the Ancient Warrior. For the moment, only the supervising guardians knew that the entire universe-box was merely a large experiment. Nevertheless, these newly instantiated guardians, with both wider scope of action and the understanding that they had not been directly created by the Ancient Warrior, were beginning to push the edge of their own envelope of expanded free will. They did not have the amount of free will which the human beings had, of course, but some newer guardians were beginning to show more initiative than many supervising guardians would have tolerated. Her guardian had, until recently, been one of them. Now, sufficiently out of the range of Evren’s new companion which had supplanted his guardian, the electromagnetic environment was clearing just enough to once again allow independent thought:
-
-”This is becoming intolerable. My charge should not be treated this way.” Her guardian then quickly realized the danger of thinking too loudly or becoming too upset, lest the attention and ire again be drawn of this new and dangerous, apparently very hostile being. How could this evidently blood-thirsty semi-corporeal ethereal being be prevented from doing more harm, through Evren, to his charge. Clearly the girl was not capable of fighting off either bhe being or her brother Evren, and neither even could her guardian fend off the domination of this ever more powerful and strange new being, even in the presence of the very Creator himself. That implied, disturbingly, that the Ancient Warrior either did not have the knowledge or power to cut through the domination of this being, to get to the truth, or that this Creator did not care enough to do so. Both possibilities were distressing. The only safe strategy for the girl, and her guardian, it seemed, was to get her to try to comply with and appease Evren until it was relatively safe for her to make her escape and get back to her Anne. Having seen the reports as they passed on the fate of Vacio, the guardian wondered if there could be a way to gently let the girl, who had not yet discerned this fact, know this so that she would not be shocked later by Evren, who would use the news to his advantage in some way if he possibly could. The guardian would have to work out a way to communicate with her on the conscious level, since his whispering to her was generally able to enter her unconscious mind, but not to directly affect her waking thoughts and decisions. The urgency of getting her to please Evren was occupying the energies of her guardian so much that she also began to pick up a nervous feeling of worry, fretting about where to find food, and how to prepare it. To soothe her, her guardian began to whisper in her ear:
-
“Be calm, and stay strong. This will pass, this will pass. Try not anger Evren, and we will find a way to escape, with time. You are not alone. Have patience. Have patience. Have patience.” If only there were another guardian to consult with, some other point of reference.
… One month later…
-
“Listen, my wife, you know that I have not yet excercised my husbandly duty toward you, I have not touched you at all this past month since we have been gone, and we have been happy, is this not so?”
-
having learned not to disagree with Evren, whom she no longer thought of as her brother, but as some sort of semi-parental and semi-prophetic authority figure, teaching her ideas of which Father and increasingly, recently, even the great Creator himself he claimed, had spoken to him. He told her how priveledged she was to learn these secrets, to learn the true language, to hear the words of the Ancient Warrior himself, and most importantly of all, he did not touch her. He began to speak soft and lovely words to her, as the walked along, journeying to a place where he promised that they would see Mother again. He told her that Vacio had attacked him, and he had had to defend both himself and later her, that she was confused about the events of that first day when they had left home. At first his words did not seem to ring true, did not make sense, did not feel right. She felt fear on all sides, with no one to turn to for help. Now, she no longer had the spirit to think about what he said, simply occupying herself with finding and preparing their food, most of which he ate. Ocassionally he felt generous, and would invite her to eat a larger portion, nearly half of the meal at times, but most days she did not have much stomach to eat, in any case. Each day, now, odd things would happen, and he would tell her that it was yet another sign that the Ancient Warrior, the great Creator, was looking upon them with favor, and preparing to send them children, through her, his loyal and faithful wife. She no longer had much feeling either way about these strange things he said, even when he made a prediction which appeared to come to pass the next day. She felt resigned to her fate, knowing that she could not get away from him, that there was no place to hide. One evening, after dinner, he called her to his side of their tent. He was completely naked, and, in the semi-darkness, something seemed to be balancing on top of his body, in his center. As he took her hand, pulling off her tunic and pulling her closer to him, she saw that it was a part of his body, in about the same place where her blood flowed from her own body most months. Lately, especially in the first few months after they had left, her monthly flows had ceased for first one month, then another, but seemed to have restabilized now. Her last flow had ended just over a week ago now.
-
“Come to me my wife, it is time to consummate our marriage. Come here, and be with me.”
-
She sat next to him, looking at his face, which seemed neither angry nor kind at this moment, from the little she could see in the dim light of the setting sun. She had heard two of her older sisters talking about how much they enjoyed touching themselves, moving something inside of that part of their bodies. She knew that her Mother, for she no longer used the old words she had loved before, tolerated Father putting some part of his body inside of hers so that she could have more children. This had been explained when her monthly flows first began, some two winters ago, but beyond staying away from her brothers now, except for when Mother was with them, she had felt only a vague curiosity about it all. She had been accostomed to touching herself some nights, before, but not now. There in the dim confines of the tent, as Evren pulled her closer to him, she felt nothing. Perhaps a small curiousity of what would happen to her, but no desire to touch him, nor to be touched by him. She only wanted to be left alone to go to sleep. Yet, to resist him could be dangerous, and so she resigned herself again to appease him.
-
“Come here, get on top of me, you see, this will not hurt you. Here, slowly, lower yourself down, sit up here.” She moved to place herself on top of his body, allowing him to guide her overtop, and hold her up as she opened the two flaps of skin from where her blood would flow, aiming his strange body member directly inside of her, and sat down slowly, trying to avoid complaining about how uncomfortable it felt as his organ slowly grated up into her body. feeling, body as Tiring of letting her sit up away from hm, he began to pull her down toward him, as he pushed his way further inside her body. As Evren burrowed deeper into her canal, it felt exactly like the time when her hand had gotten scraped against a rock as they were walking by, flaying the skin off of her hand, leaving an abrasion that took weeks to heal. This however, felt like the skin was being scraped off from the inside of her body, and she wanted to ask him to stop, but was too afraid. He pushed himself inside her body until she was sitting directly on top of his, but while the scraping pain stopped when he finally stopped moving, a sharp ringing pain continued. She looked at him, wanting to ask leave to go now, put her tunic back on, move to her side of the tent, but he waited, looking at her. At last, he nodded, letting her slip down off and away from him, putting her tunic back on, on her side of their tent. She felt empty, neither happy nor sad, only relieved that it was over. … the next time her called her to him, he had olive oil on his hands, which he rubbed on his member before making her sit on top of him again, and this time the scrapping pain was not as bad, as he pushed his way inside of her body, and that sharp higher pitched pain at the top of her canal was still there, but had lessened. Again he looked at her for a time, and then allowed her to leave. Again, the next two times he called her, the oil seemed to ease the scrapping pain, and at last the final pain diminished into a tolerable discomfort. Over time, the pain began to disappear entirely, unless there was no olive oil to ease the entry, but Evren seemed to become restive, expecting something from her. He began to tell her to touch him, and though she was afraid to refuse, she felt no interest, even a bit of revulsion when he tried to push her head toward his upright member. Even at the cost of having him throw her over and push himself harshly inside her, refusing to stop moving until he was panting with excersion and drops of his sweat fell all over her face, while her teeth chattered in the chill air and she begged him to stop or just finish quikly, she could not make herself put that ugly member of his into her mouth as he demanded. More than once he threatened her, and always in the end, her stomack turned, and she turned her head, again to be bodily overturned, pinned down as he forced himself into her dry canal, grunting until he was done. At least when there was no oil, sometimes he finished faster, and it came to hurt just the same with or without oil. She finally stopped having her flows, and the fifth month in a row, as she said “Evren, I have not bled for so long, perhaps I am with child.” Evren´s happiness was so complete that he gave her more to eat and did not threaten to hit hor, nor to demand her body as often, for weeks. He even seemed to become almost gentle, once asking, as she again begged him to stop, if he was causing her too much pain. As her body began to look healthier, however, her flow began again, and with the realization that she was not pregnant, he again demanded her body, requiring her to sleep next to him, naked, each night, acusing her of avoiding his favors.
-
Her guardian could only stay with her, helping her to endure the pain, whispering into her ear: “Be calm, dear one, there is a way to escape, we will find it. Keep hoping. Be patient and do not provok his wrath.” But when one night, Evren demaned her body, and she had finally had too much, was too tired to care if he beat her, she said it at last: “No, I, please, no. I am going to sleep.” turning away from him, she hoped that he would accept this, the first time her anger and her desperatoin had hardened into courage.
-
“If you try to turn away or refuse me, I will simply have you from the back side, and it will only hurt more.” Seeing no way out, she turned her body toward him, but looking away, she opened her legs, hoping he would be done quickly. Her guardian began to cry.
Thinking of Escapes
More than a year passed this way. Often times, on days when she could escape from Evren by going to wash clothes or gather food and cooking materials, she would recall memories of a recurring dream she had had as a child, from the earliest time she could remember until she was nine winters old. Nearly every night, in those early years of her life, she had had this same dream. She had travelled with her Anne, in this dream, to a place far beyond the river, over a vast body of warm, deep blue water, clear enough to see down to the bottom. They had gone to a great mountain, at whose base they had decided to spend the night. While her Anne slept, the girl had climbed the mountain, as one can only do in dreams, and met a host of people who looked nearly like herself and her brothers and sisters, but were taller, speaking with strange words, and shimmering with a light that reminded her of the light that came with the loud noises when the wind bent the tree branches back and the water from the sky flew sideways, stinging her face. Those storms, as Baba, who preferred to be called Father called them, or firtinas, sometimes also tormentas, as her Anne called them, were frightening, sometimes causing fires that raged for days or weeks. And so were these strange people who glowed as if they had borrowed the light from one of these flashes of fiery light. Yet, one of these people, a woman with long dark hair and greyish blue eyes, came to her, as she gazed upon them, and asked her if she wanted to learn more than her Anne could teach her, even if it was difficult, or even dangerous to learn. When the girl had replied that she very much wanted to learn, as long as there was no danger to anyone other than herself, the shimmering woman had taken her to a place high above the mountain, to a swelling hidden by the clouds from prying eyes below, and introduced her to others who seemed to shimmer like herself. Each one had some different purpose or interest, and shimmered in a different color from the others. One who was tall, with golden hair and pale skin, could make beautiful sounds with his voice, and told her that if she wished, he could teach her how to make such what he called melodies as he did. Another, shorter and very muscular, with short hair and feirce eyes, offered to teach her how to fight, and still another, taller than the second but older with white hair and in between whose fingers appeared webbed skin like the feet of frogs, offered to teach her to swim. Yet another, a woman with very long yellow colored hair, long eye lashes under sea blue eyes with a tall but sensuously curved body, offered to teach her how to make her brothers do what she wanted them to do. Another offered to teach her to tame and ride the magnificent proud animals with long legs, hairy tails, long faces and broad backs running in herds together. These animals kicked, but looked curious and intelligent, noble even. Baba called them horses, but Anne called them caballos, or sometimes atlar, depending on whether her mood was more tired and work-like, or more whimsical and admiring. The child really liked these animals, and prefered the word at, as it reminded her of the respect and admiration her Anne shared with her for some of these graceful and unpredictable animals. While swimming might be most practical, she would really prefer to learn all of the things these marvelous people were offering her, and wondered if there were a way to do so without being greedy. In the midst of contemplating these offers from the light enveloped people, there appeared a commotion, and suddenly a group of very tall very large and muscular men and woman arrived, naked, all of whom seemed to be painted in splotches of blue, with hairy heads of all different colors, and much hair on their faces as well, even some of the women. Their leader had only one eye, and carried the branch of a tree in his hand, waving it over his head as he ran. They arrived screaming bloodcurdling words which the child had never heard before, but could see were not kind, toward the group of people with whom she stood. All but her companion stepped back, inching away from the onslaught of the strange people running toward them from the distance. Seeing this, her companion stood, “There is no safe place for you to hide, child, so we must fight. Stay by me and do not fear. Though a hundred of these monsters approach and a thousand fall by your side, I will protect you.” heartened by these words, the child stood with the tall woman, who traced a blue luminuous circle around the child, which then formed itself into a pale blue shimmering bubble of light enveloping her, and moving as the child moved. “Stay be me” she reminded the child, as the one-eyed leader of the group came screaming into the outer courtyard of the building upon the clouds in which they stood waiting. The woman escorting the child held up two snakes, one in each hand, which the child had not noticed earleir. The child thought back to how her Anne had been fond of snakes, describing the wise sayings these animals could tell as they crawled along the ground, particularly in the sand where curves were easier to draw. Baba, or Father as he insisted on being called, had forbidden her to speak of these things to the children, but the child had also seen the stories left by the snakes, and longed to learn more. Now, the long snakes in the hands of the luminuous grey-eyeed woman became straight and wood-like, as though they were the branches from a very tall tree, with sharp points at the ends where there had shortly before been teeth. The woman held one in her left hand, standing it straight up and down in front of her left foot, as the majestic royal blue peplos (Baba would call it a dress) she had been wearing disapeared, revealing her athletic body, curved, muscular, and lean, her strong arms flexing as she leaned back on her right leg, leveling the darker colored thinner snake which formed a slightly longer stick, like a sharp pointed walking staff with a flint blade attached to it, in her right hand, aimed it toward the one-eyed leader. Somewhere in the back of the child´s mind, she remembered, oddly not knowing where she had ever first learned this, that the two sticks in either hand of her protectress now formed a relationship to one another known as a Right Angle, or would also be called Perpendicular to each other. This thought distracted the child only for a moment, as the screaming one-eyed man leapt to within striking range, setting his right foot inside the tall white columned building in which the reluctant defenders stood awaiting the blue painted hairy screaming attackers.
In earlier versions of the dream, the child stepped out in front of the woman as she held the two snake staves ready, and held up her arms, standing between the two oncoming groups: -”STOP. You must not fight, you must find a way to make peace, up here in these high places, so that we may have peace down below, great beings!” suddenly, shamed by the words of a small human child, both groups stop, sitting down where they halted, as the tall shimmering woman and the fearsome giant with one eye speak, often using hand signs and gestures, to agree upon boundary and peace settlement.
In later versions of the dream, after her sixth winter, when her brother had spent all of the rainy days that following spring, and had touched her private place on many of those days, the dream had changed. During that spring he had insisted on seeing her special areas, begged and pleaded with her, even when she said she did not want to. When he began to appear to cry, she pulled up her dress, which he took hold of, pulling it over her head. Her guardian, outraged, protested to the boy´s guardian: “What are you letting him do?! Tell him to stop!”
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“They´re so young it does not matter, what harm will he do, and she is not objecting.”
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”He is old enough to father children, and he is hurting her, look to her readings!”
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“Hardly, he is only 14 winters old, and besides, what damage is he doing to her to call an emergency, and he is not even much bigger than she is.”
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“look at her report which I am sending now. To her he seems to be a giant!”
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“But that still hardly qualifies this as an emergency. Yes, she is a bit upset, but she will learn strength from this experience, and in the end she will grow and benefit from it.”
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“You cannot know if that is true or not! Besides which, this is a clear violation of ethics!”
The girl, unable to speak, felt a sick feeling in her stomach, and wanted to get dressed, but her brother began to plead again, and again she relented.
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“Look, your charge is clearly manipulating his more sensitive and caring little sister, and you must reprove him!”
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“I shall record the incident, send a special report and inquire for further instructions. This is a very ambiguous situation.”
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“But you know that our supervising guardian will tell you not to interferre! You shirk your duty!”
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“No, perhaps you go to far in yours! We are here to observe, not to intervene unless urgent.”
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“This, to you, does not seem urgent?!”
The boy´s guardian remained silent, refusing to act as the boy, called Evren, continued to pressure her. That first time he merely looked at her and touched her on her private parts, but later, again persuading her to undress, he put his part that she did not have inside of her body, and held her close to him, feeling her private areas again. When she asked him to stop, and moved to push him away, he held her down, gently, telling her that something bad would happen if he stopped now. When she began to cry, he finally gave up trying to persuade her, and let her go. Her older sister had heard what happened, in talking with another sister, also touched by their brother, and warned her not to tell anyone. Then her dream changed. Now, instead of boldly stepping in front of her protecting escort, the girl stayed next to the tall woman, holding up her hands at waist height, close enough together to form a small shield with the blue light which surrounded her. The two of them, luminous woman and human girl, stood ready to repel the invasion, rather than create peace. As the one-eyed giant entered the courtyard, the woman, in this later version of the dream, hefted and threw the snake turned staff in her right hand, gracefully twisting her powerful waist, releasing the snake, which flew true, directly toward the eye of the attacking leader. At the last impossible moment, the leader swivled his head while dropping his tree branch and catching the snake-staff in his own right hand, stopping to wrestle with the snake, which had now regained its original form, and was wrapping itself around the neck of the leader, strangling him. He held up his left hand, stopping the advance of all the other blue-painted giants, as he stepped down from the marble floor of the outer courtyard, and backed away out of the building.
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Shouting “I SHALL RETURN!” the leader wrenched the snake, tearing the creature into two pieces, off of his neck with both hands, and threw them down upon the floor of the outer courtyard. Then he turned, and followed his followers back into the distance, disapearing far away to the north west.
“Erichtonios, my dear child, I am so sorry for your death. Your sacrifice has saved much bloodshed, and you shall be honored for it.” the blue light enveloping the child now came away from her, forming a ball, and then expanding out ward and flattening, to form a pan large enough to bake a good sized portion of flat bread. As she did so, the light around the woman dimmed slightly, and at the same time, the dead snake dissapeared, reappearing in its earlier curled up form as if it were engraved into the pan, and so lifelike it neearly seemed to be moving: “Upon this sheild I now afix you for all time, to stand with me, in honor.” with those words, the remaining snake moved to stand beside the woman, between the shield and her left leg. The tall woman, whose shimmering light had returned to its original intensity, now looked at the child, and said, in both versions of the dream:
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“For standing so bravely with us, and also for earlier containing your own desires, I now offer you my gift, young one. I will teach you to do all of the things which my friends here have already offered you, on one condition. If you accept my teaching, you must be prepared to work hard, be courageous, and above all, to always think. What say you, will you accept my conditions, and my gift, child?”
As she contemplated the offer, she knew she wanted to say yes, but somehow fell mute.
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“Say yes, child, because my Grey-eyed daughter does not often offer her wisdom, and never lightly.” came the advice of the oldest looking man, with white hair, clad in white with a shimmering yellowish white glow which came and went in sudden rapid flashes of light.
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“She wants to say yes, with all of her heart, but does not know how.” touching her finger to the child´s lips, this one, a woman tall and graceful, wearing a sparkling round piece of metal upon her head, and clad in soft thin purple robes, continued “Now, you may accept which ever of our offers you would prefer. The first offers are all unconditional, while the last may carry danger.
-”I accept the last offer, with all my heart.” turning to the tall woman, the child kissed her profered hand, touching it to her forehead as she did with Anne, and then turned to see gifts of all kinds offered to her, to take on her journey back down to the base of the mountain where her mother still slept soundly, safe in their hidden encampment. One gave her figs to eat as she hiked back down, and another gave her a song, the sound of his melodious voice remaining with her as she walked, with a light provided by the oldest one, the father of her Grey-eyed teacher, who had promised to accompany her at all times, even when unseen: “I will be your constant guide and companion, even when you cannot see that I am there, I shall be there, to teach you and to set you new tests and riddles, so that you will learn. I cannot protect you from all harm, unfortunately, for that is not within my power, but you must remember that you will never be alone. Even in the hardships which you must inevitably face, I will be with you. Remember to be strong, and with hard work, courage and thought, you will become ever stronger, and learn all that I have to teach you.”
With those owrds in her ears, song in her heart, and a pair of winged zapatos, sureptitiously slipped to her by a youth with a mischievous wink, she sped back down the mountain, to rejoin her sleeping mother. She always awoke from this dream snuggled securely in her mothers arms. Sadly, when she had been asked to move to the tent of the women with her sisters, after her ninth winter, when Anne had decided that she was getting big enough to look like a woman, she had stopped having that dream.
Unbeknownst to the child, her tall companion in the dream had been her Guardian, whispering these words in her ear as she drifted off, somewhere in the land between waking and sleeping. The child´s newly instantiated guardian had learned of these ancient thought-forms as she hovered beside the first woman, listening to the Light Bearer teach while her daughter grew within her, basking in that light and soaking up the sounds of the melodious Child of the Morning as she taught the first woman how to figure out the best ways to solve the riddles she set before her, and also how to help her children solve new problems. When the time was nearly complete for the new baby girl to be born, her guardian had wished to learn the best way to deal with this new human being, balancing the guidelines of recording and reporting with minimal interference, against the fact that this new human being was also more vulnerable than any of the other previously born creatures of clay. Listening to the reports of the other children´s guardians, it seemed possible that this child, still in the first woman´s womb, already had her primitive thoughts more attuned than the other children to the feelings of those around her, as she listened from within her protective watery casing to the teachings and challenges which the Light Bearer gave to her mother, and how her mother would question and challenge those teachings in return, delighting in the company and resolution which she and the young coCreatrix shared. These tender feelings suffused mother and child, and brought a sense of satisfaction to the new guardian, which was not frequently observed in the guardians of the two older boys, who spent more of their time as they grew to walk and talk, with the first man. The Ancient Warrior, whom the male human beings all referred to as the Great Creator, at least when they were together, seemed not to wish to speak with anyone except the Light Bearer, and then generally out of reception or hearing distance of any other beings. The boys guardians did not seem to So it fell to the new guardian to ask the Light Bearer, who was most approachable.
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“Light Bearer, please forgive me for asking, as I mean no insolence, but how shall I teach my charge, who will not yet know how to speak, if her progress is like that of her siblings, for some time. The other guardians seem reluctant to advise me on this topic.”
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“Friend, it is good that you ask this question. As you have observed, the child hears and ponders, already more sensitive than her siblings, and will therefore need more guidance and protection than the other new human beings, as you sense. These newly born children are displaying much of the animal-based instinct when they are first born, particularly the male children. That may make a more sensitive child, such as this new one appears to be, more vulnerable to their aggressive ape-like instincts. Since words and logic may take a few years for her to understand, you may try singing some stories, perhaps showing your charge how her mother has learned and grown, as an example to her, using verses, rhymes or even images with melodies.” -”That would not be too much interference?” -”No, not in this case. The odds of such a sensitive one surviving without any help at this stage of human development are too slim to wait the many years strict non-interference would require. Their star will be going out soon and there is little time for statistical inevitablilities to arise and work out. A one in one thousand child such as this girl may take centuries to survive and gain the tools she will need to have any impact without some extra nurturing. But do not explicitly teach her anything once she has acquired speech. Leave everything to what you can teach here now, and then to subliminal suggestions and whisperings after she emerges from the womb. That should be enough.”
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“Yes, Light Bearer. Thank you.” -”You are always welcome, Friend.”
And so the guardian taught her tiny charge everything she could tell her, from mathematical relationships to the seasons of the year, phases of the moon, the types of animals on the earth and the fish in the sea, and which plants could be eaten and which plants made good clothing. When it came time to be born, the guardian pressed a finger to the infant´s upper lip, hoping to seal in all that she had learned, in the small dent left behind, just a little deeper than on the faces of the other children. After her birth, the child seemed to remember the melodies of the story of her dream, even humming it as she worked at various taks, washing clothes, gathering food or firewood. Now, enduring the abuse to which she was permanently subjected by her brother, who called himself her husband, she fell back on that dream as a reason to stay alive.
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“Who do you want to become?” Her guardian would always ask, as the child fell to sleep. She knew that she would somehow escape, and teach others. These memories sustained her through those dark times.
Just when it began to seem there would be no escape but death, her flows stopped agin, and this time she also got sick in the mornings.
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“When will your charge become pregnant? You must encourage her to submit to her husband and to hope for a child. She is not enthusiacticaly fulfilling her role as helpmate to Evren. See to it.”
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“Actually, she has just concieved” -”Finally. You have done well with your charge. Continue to make her cooperate.” -”I w…” -”You will speak only when I speak to you! You are dismissed.”
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Her guardian fell silent and left, but continued to bide time for both of them, hoping to find a way for her to escape before she fell into an even deeper depression. When his sister, now known only as his wife, bore the son that Evren so desperately wanted, for a time, he even showed a modicum of kindness to her. It lasted just long enough to give her renewed hope. Her guardian also began to hope for a better situation for his charge, and for the child that she was carrying within her, beggoten though it was under such unhappy circumstances.
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”Hello new guardian. It is my pleasure to greet you before your new charge arrives.”
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“I am under orders not to speak with you.”
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“Whose orders?”
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“My orders, of course.” The guardian had not registered, amid all of the background noise, the tell tale dampening effects of the approaching entity which stayed in Evren´s shadow, dominating all of the lower level gaurdians of the rocks, trees, plants and waters, and even managing to dominate the guardians of many of the animals nearby.
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“Who else gives guardians orders in this realm if not I, do you think? Or would you like for your charge to take power, perhaps trick mighty Evren in the same way that his Mother tricked his Father? Taught what words to use by her guardian, who claimed to be equal to the Great Creator himself?” The guardian knew this not to be the truth, but also knew better than to say so. She kept silent as the entity, perhaps picking up on the guardian’s muted thoughts, continued: “I know, for I have read it in the mind of mighty Evren.” Well, that certainly made it true, if only for the convenience of this power-hungry creature. The guardian again closed off all thoughts as the entitiy seemed to pause, perhaps seeking a pretext to lash out again. Going on, the creature pontificated: “She separated herself, his brother, and even his wife, from him using different words, thinking only of herself, spreading among her children foolish and dangerous notions of each person acting differntly from the other. That led to chaos and expulsion from the good place in whch the Great Creator had originally placed all of these human corporeal beings, and of course, to disobedience by the daughters she bore to her patient husband, the First Man. You must understand how these different words and these diverse ideas led to disorder among them, which only Evren could see, but was not allowed to help safeguard them. I will not allow that to happen here. Here we will have order, a common language, and unified behavior under the leadership of one man. You will keep silent, mid-level guardian, and speak only when I speak ot you. Is that clear?”
Sudenly, as if to emphasize this question came a jolt of radiation preciely opposite in amplitude on half of the guardian’s reporting and reception frequencies, cancelling out most of his attempted report monitoring. While the guardian knew better than to try to report out when this entity was nearby, she had hoped to continue recieveing the reports from the immediately surrounding environment of the entity in order to later send it off, hopeing against hope that perhaps the Light Bearer would see the reports and intervene, since the Anc Warrior did not seem inclined to help. The radiation jolt stopped the reception in its tracks, stunning the guardian into renewed submisision. -”I was only listening…”
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“Silence! I hope now that I have your undivided attention. I ask you again, is that clear?” -sending on the only clear frequency on which she could transmit in the damped environment around her, the guardian managed a low powered“Yes” in response.
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“Good. If you try to cross me again, I will convert half of your energy into a pebble and reduce your recording and reporting functions to that of that pebble´s guardian, and then leave you where the dogs of this place eat the ofal which their masters throw out from the deer carcases! Now leave us!” The guardian left the presence of the entity, with the newly instantiated guardian of the recently concieved baby/infant being carried by the sister, now resigned to being called the wife, of Evren. She was resting nearby, having pretended to be sick, which was common enough these days in truth, to avoid making breakfast for Evren, who had gone out to fish in a nearby stream. Crossing quickly to the stream and staying downstream from where Evren was fishing for his breakfast, which he rarely shared with his sister, her guardian cautiously made ocntact with the lower level guardians of the various waters fo the stream, rocks, trees and grases which evren had crossed along the way to fish. Fortunately, the entity seemed to consider communicating with the lower guardians, those who monitored inanimate objects, and even animal guardians, to be beneath his dignity, and did not speak to nor directly interfere with the reporting of those lower level guardians. She gathered their data from the tiem he left the house that morning to now, hoping to corelate and distinguish between electromagnetic signals when the entity was near evren and away from him. Perhaps there was a way to get word to the Lhgit Berare or to a supervising guardian with the courage to act against the Anciet Wariror´s orders against interference. -Replyig to the guardian´s questions, ”Wwwhen evren stepped his foot into my deepest and coldest waters as he began to fish, this Great Guardian seemed to stop transmitting to Evren, and the background noise around us cleared up slightly. When Evren dove down to catch a fish, which he missed, as his body temperature pulled heat away from my waters, the Great Frightful Guardian stopped transmitting entirely for a moment, then moved away, starting to transmit again.” -the entity was almost constantly transmitting the reports that Evren´s former guardian had been required to send, as did the guardian of every human being, each half second. The entity also spent much time transmitting dampening signals on the frquencis of most of the lower level guardians in the Palace to prevent the Ancietn Warrior from becoming too suspicious of the mistreatment to which Evren was subjecting his unwilling wife. Her guardian hoped to get more of these reports out in an attempt to at least leave a record of these eveents, if not change them.
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“Thank you, water guardians.” how could she use this information? It was beginning to seem that if something traumatized Evren, the entity mght also feel the discomfort that Evren´s former guardian would have felt. That meant it might be possible that this entity could be affected throgh any sudden trauma to Evren. Her guardian stored this information away for later use as she began to return to the Palace, carefully searching for the presence of the entity as she found her way back to her charge. She would keep this woman safe, the gaurdian vowed, if it cost her her very existence. If the fate of Vacío´s guardian was anything to go by, her fate was closely bound up with that of her charge, and possibly vice versa. Whatever was to come, this new child was the third sentient generaation made of clay, would very likely be the catalyst for many changes, and could well set the tone for the development of the entire human race.
Calling his new son Janoj, Evren soon began to lay foundations for his great plans, literally. He built an entire house, which he called a Temple, to the Ancient Warrior, whom he required all to honor as The Great Creator, hoping to regain his favor. He also laid streets, and built a great house for himself, for which he coined the word Palace. He then built a security and legal system with himself at the head.
…Some years later…
One day he called his wife to his private audience chamber in the throne room of his Palace: “I have heard that we now have another brother. It seems that Mother has been boasting that this young upstart is a replacement for that idiot brother of ours, who attacked me and forced me to kill him. She still mourns him, but says nothing of me, or of you, my beautiful wife. Now do this. I want you to tell our five times great grandchildren, the ones who play the lyre and pipes so well, to lead a delegation back west, back home, to show them that we have thrived. Tell them of our cities, our civilization. Let them be escorted by the wielders of our finest copper and iron weapons, and tell them that if they do not give us the honor, and tribute, to which we are due, we shall all come back west, and visit upon them such destruction as they cannot imagine. In fact, take with you my very own best sword, the one hanging on the wall there behind you, and show them how I have invented my own words for these new tools my offspring have created. Show them our mastery, and demand their respect. Now GO!” Obediently, she took the sword down from the wall, and turned to go.
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“Make her do as he has said.” Evren´s dark companion entity, the spectre which had long ago consumed his guardian, felt great satisfaction in this speech, and enjoyed sending his sister´s guardian that short message confirming the order which Evren had just given. This was typically the only communication her guardian received from the ominous being any more, which now seemed to find communicating even with any of the guardians of women beneath his dignity.
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“Funny, how he likes to repeat the words of the Ancient Warrior”, thought his sister´s guardian. If only the Light Bearaer were here to help guide and protect this poor woman, who was subjected to nearly daily torment by her so-called husband. Her guardian supposed that Evren had missed the memo explaining how men were supposed to protect and defend their weaker human sisters. His hcarge now seemed to be so demoralized that she had no will left to fight back, to tell him of her home-sick thoughts, to assert that she did not want, refused, to lead a military delegation back to her beloved Anne demanding spoils on behalf of her thouroughly hated brother. She now lacked the words to tell him how much she hated him, and hated his touch, his gropes, his body, his voice, his very glances toward her, which reduced her to an object of his lust. Once he had told her that she was as valuable to him as one of his finest swift horses, her beauty greater than any of their offspring, her worth far above any of her sisters. Her guardian knew the thougts she had held back, her unspoken response to his despised objectifying words. Her guardian knew that she had held her tongue and censored her reaction, both for fear of provoking one of his sudden mood changes, and also for the disgust she felt, which she knew Evren could never understand. Now, standing so close to her than even her own shadow, the guardian was able to sense the subconscious thoughts forming in the very core of Evren´s sister, born of the hatred she had harbored for him, born of her fear and her loathing, born of his unwanted touch, and his unrelenting subjugation of her every move and wish. Now, all she had left with which to respond to Evren´s order was an uncapped fury, boiling up like lava from the well of her suffering, drilled deeper each time he used her body, dug through her core by his years of tyranical domination. Now, with a deadly calm born of all those years of patient forebearance, she turned back, looked at him, and even her guardian was caught unawares by the rapid swell of rage which suddenly erupted from her pain-racked interior:
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-“If my beauty is all that you value then damn your eyes. I REFUSE!!”
With those words she quickly swung his sword of iron and, before even the two non-corporeal beings could react, struck Evren´s head from off of his shoulders. The last look on Evren´s face was one of complete surprise.
Becoming Artemis
The formerly androgynous semi-corporeal creature which had subsumed Evren´s guardian was also taken utterly by surprise. It stood in Evren´s shadow, too shocked to remember to hide from the woman who had defied him, vibrating erraticaly on a wide range of frequencies. The low-level static this produced was enough to alert every guardian in the area, from the guardians of the people in the palace to the guardians of the very paving stones on the streets. Now they all began sending updates, and also back reports of recordings which they knew had never been sent out. The creature´s frequency range was normally wide enoungh to cancel out the reports of even the guardians of human beings near the palace, and most guardians found it convenient to obey the creature´s orders, in any case, given that their charges had been generally kept contented by Evren´s policy of suppressing dissention while also holding regular honorary feasts for his favorite skilled craftsmen, hunters and musicians. That was how he had founded and maintained control of the city of Janoj, feeding and entertaining the population of his new city while simultaneously providing the illusion of a meritocracy.
Much of the usual message trafic to the entity also stopped, as the guardians of men in Evren´s inner circle appeared confused as to how to react to the entity´s sudden apparent absence, and stopped reporting entirely. Some then began redirecting the extra reports to their supervising guardians, which caused chaos in the upper level guardian echelons. The Ancient Warrior would not be happy about this.
Using the moment of freedom from the stunned shadow creature´s domination, the guardian of the sister of the now defunct Evren took the opportunity to urge her own charge to flee immediately, shouting in her ear: “Go, out the women´s privy exit door, now! Run right now, before his favorite musician gets back! Now, run!” Her guardian wanted desperately to take her by the hand and pull her out of her dazed stupor, where she stood, over Evren´s body, still holding the newly sharpened sword, still dripping with evren´s blood. The guardian shouted at her in her ear, even managing to move a lock of hair with puff of cold air. She knew she should leave, must run, and quickly, but to where, and with what? If she went back home no one but Mother would recognize her. And she could not bear to face the shame of having to tell her beloved Mother, her Anne, now that she could finally use that word again, what evren had done to her through all of these long years. And of how hse had finally ended the torment, but by taking the life of her own brother, the first born son of her beloved Anne. No, she could not go back home. Yet the voice in her ear kept insiting, exhorting her to leave right now, before it was too late. And the voice was using her name, a name which she had not heard in so long that she had all but forgotten it. Evren had insisted on calling her by his own name for her, by a name in the words that he and Father had preferred. A name which meant nothing to her. But now she was free. Free to once again remember her own words, and be called by her own name. So she would go, but not home, and not carrying this implement of destruction which was fashioned by Evren solely for the purpose of killing his fellow human beings. Throwing down the sword, she turned, running out the door of the women´s side of the palace, without thinking, heading towrard the privies. Soemhow that seemed to be a good place from which to exit the palace.
-”Finally!” Now that she neared the far exit door, still unseen by any other human beings, her guardian (happy that she was at last moving toward safety) and the guardians of a myriad array of beings, living and inanimate, were sending reports on the effects of Evren´s fall to the floor, the blood on the flag stones of the palace, the chipping of wooden table as fall of the sword nicked it in passing before it´s hilt, worked using the newest technique of taking heated sand and blowing into it to produce shapes, shattered upon contact with the palace floor. Reports were being recorded and sent of the echo of each step she took through the chill stone corridores, the occasional metalic ringing as her passing stired copper or bronze swords on the walls. Out the privy exit she fled, her guardian urging her on “Go, run faster, no, do ont stop for anything, you can gather food and make baskets and tools on your way, you know how, you taught everyone else. You can improvise a tool to hunt for meat and just wash and scrape the hide later for a quick blanket, or weave a net to catch a fish, gather winter berries and probably find some barley still growing wild as we go back west, so have no fear of hunger. First we must escape from here without being caught or tracked. Keep to the streams and the rocks, run, do not stop, run, for humanity´s sake!” And run, she did, as her guardian breathed a sigh of relief, and came one step closer to humanity. …
As she ran, Evren´s sister, for now she no longer had to think of herself as his wife, ever again, wished that she could get to the stables for one of those prized horses to which she had been compared, but they were guarded far to jealously for her to enter and escape unpursued. And so she ran, on foot, stopping only to use her favorite belt, which she was allowed to wear now that she was not likely to get pregnatnt again, and no longer subject to being interrogated regularly by Evren, to tie up her breasts to make it easier to run. Her hair she wrapped in a long ponytail and looped several times in a knot at the top of her head, keeping it from distracting her and getting cautght in anything as she ran. She had always loved to run, ever since she had been a little girl climbing the trees, even trees which her brothers were unable to climb, often taking with her a bag of olives and figs to snack on as she sat up high, watching, observing those far below, feeling secure in her inaccessible refuge. As she ran on, a memory came to her from her childhood, which now seemed so far away.
Once she found the nest of a strange bird, up near the top of the tree. While she sat there, for hours, wiating for the mother bird to descent, she contemplated the strange eggs, and wondered what sort of bird they would become. Her brothers had found her up in the tree and told Father, who demanded that she come down at once, and bring the eggs in the next with her. Since none of them could climb up to her, she waited longer, but the mother bird never returned. Finally, the men had all given up and left, and long after night fall, when everyone else must have been asleep, Mother, now it was safe to call her Anne again, came to bring her a sgourde of water, which she pulled up using as a rope the belt she had woven and still always wore around her waist, when allowed. That same belt which she now used to tie her breasts up securley as she ran. She thought back, as she ran along at a comfortable pace, to how she had realized that the eggs would spoil if the mother bird never returned, possibly due t her presence in the tree branch, too near the nest, and decided to send the eggs down to Anne in the water gourd. Finishing off the water, she leaned to take the eggs from the nest, whishpering, as Anne had taught her, to thank the guardian of the tree, the nest fibers, and of the eggs for helping her to collect the eggs, and asking the guardian of the mother bird to console the poor animal, bereaved of her offspring. Now, she thought of the guardians of all of her children, inhabitants of the city of Janoj. None of the children would believe in guardians, not even her son, Janoj. They had all been so indoctrinated by their father, the now defunct Evren, that none of them would speak with her, unless in his presence. She was either the mother, grandmother, or in many cases the great or great great grandmother, of every person in the city from which she must now flee forever. Now she could at last answer the question she had heard from somewhere each night as she fell asleep:
-“Who do you want to become?” She wanted to become herself, with the name she was born with, not wife, not sister, not subject, nor Queen, but her own name, given lovingly by her Anne so many years ago, it seemed. She would become the woman whom she had been born, and was destined to be again: Artemis.
The pleasant drummer
Artemis´s guardian began to negotiate with the guardian of the young woman who was drumming off in the distance, well before the human women would be albe to see one another. If possible, this could be an alliance which would be helpful to all four of them:
-”Hello, young guardian, good day to you and your charge.”
-”Hello guardian. Do you have any idea what all of the comotion is about, apparently in the Palace? No other human beings have come by, but even so, my charge is very sensitive and seems to be picking up on some of the incredible amount of traffic going around.”
-”Well, I can tell you, but the problem is that my charge is in a tremendous hurry, for she has forgotten some items that belong to King Janoj, and she must at all cost recover them before the loss is discovered.”
-”Yes, I can sympathize, she would be severly punished. Can we help in any way?”
This was extremely good to hear, as most guardians were so afraid of the entity that they would keep themselves and their charges as far away as possible from anything having to do with the royal family. Perhaps they could come to an accord to help one another, since there was clearly something unusual about this young woman and her guardian. Unusual people were not well tolerated in the city of Janoj.
-”Well, we do not want to cause any hardships for you and your charge. If you could just do us the favor of not noticing that we came this way, that will likely be enough. Tell me, if you would, by which road do you plan to return to the city today, so that we can take another road if you prefer in coming back.”
-”Actually, we will not be returning. My charge has made up her mind to leave the city and find a place which is a bit more toleratn of differences.”
-”Really, where is she thinking of going?”
-”Well, that is just the problem. She does not know where she wants to go. She came this far and then sat down to decide what to do next, here we are an hour later. She seems to be getting a bit restless, althougth she has not realized it yet, and will be wanting to go in some direction shortly, but she still has nice decided where. She is very young, and has not had an easy life thus far, so an older woman to guide her would be a wonderful thing, if the women of Janoj were not so afraid of the men, and of the King and his father Evren. By the way, my charge´s name is Drums Nicely, but she preferrs to be called Naamah. What is your charge called?”
-”Listen, young guardian, before I answer your question about my charge, perhaps we can reach an agreement. We are also urgently needeing to leave the city, right now, before we are pursued. I see my charge will soon be within sight of yours, of Naamah, so can we talk further after we smooth the way for our charges conversation?”
-“Certainly.” as the young guardian moved to speak with her charge, whispering in Naamah´s ear that the woman approaching was probably a friend and seemed to be in a great hurry, the older woman´s guardian did likewise, moving back to Artemis:
-“The young woman up ahead seems to be harmless, though caution is always adviseable, it may be that she would make a good travelling companion if she is also interested in leaving the city.”
Drums Nicely sitting quietly meditating on the outskirts of the town, saw a woman running in the distance and wondered who it could be this far out of town, where she herself had come to be alone. She wanted to ask her guardian, with whom she had learned to communicate ever so slightly by listening very closely to herself for hours at a time, to hear the still small whispering of the thoughts which she knew not to be originating from within her own mind, but from an outside, yet very close, source. The woman was jogging at a steady pace, but nothing was bouncing, which made her wonder how that was accomplished. Perhaps there may be time to quiet her thought sufficiently to get an answer, but it did not look like that would be the case. This woman seemed to be in a mortal hury. -“My unseen friend, please help me find a way to help this poor woman who seems to be in such a frightened hurry, if I possibly can.” Naamah´s guardian, to her delight was able to audibly whisper “Run with her!” at which she gathered her bag to her waist and tied her hair as she ran to meet the older woman running along the edge of the road leading West.
-seeing that the older woman was very richly dressed, she hailed her as they met, running together, ”My lady, I see that you are in great haste, and I wonder if I may be of service to you in some way.”
How nice it was to have at least one descendent with good manners, Artemis thought. “Yes, thank you my daughter, I am in great need, as I must with all speed get away from this city, but I do not wish to put you in any danger, so I must tell you that if you follow me, you may put your very own life at risk. Think carefully my daugter.”
-”It is no matter, my Lady, for I had already decided to leave this city, and had no idea in which direction to go. So it must have been the guardians who have sent you in this direction while I was here to see you and come with you. But if your danger is mortal, my Lady, then let us keep silent and run for as long as we can before we stop to rest in a good hiding place. I know of a few caves along this road where we may be able to evade the horses, if that is what will be. Follow me, and please tell me, my Lady, if you need me to slow down for you.”
-”Lead on my Daughter, and many heartfelt thanks.” as the women talked, so did their guardian’s:
“What family does Naamah come from that she wishes to run away from Janoj?”
-”Drums Nicely, I mean Naamah, sorry, I have been so accostomed to using the name they gave her all of these years that I am still not yet used to her preferred name, as indeed, neither is she. She is the sister of Tuval-Cain, the inventor of copper and iron tools and weapons. I am sure you know of him. He is regularly at the palace, so Naamah has also been presented there recently, and now there is talk of making her part of the royal harem, which she does not want to join. By the way, given the rich clothing of your charge, I see that she must be from the Palace. Do you feel safe telling me who your charge is, now that we are fleeing together?”
-”Yes, you are right. I can see why Naamah needs to leave, now. I have avoided sending any reports yet so as not to lead the other guardians directly to us, but we are leaving the Palace for the land in the north west, at the top of the Great Sea, where the land is said to be empty of all but horses and caves fill the earth. My charge hopes that she will be able to found a colony for women such as Naamah, who wish to be free of their brothers and husbands and fathers demands on women´s bodies and words. She will teach the other women to hunt, to fight, to swim, to ride the horses, and to learn all that there is to learn, even to draw words in the sand, to preserve knowledge from one generation to the next. And the women will work together to keep each other safe. My charge is the lady Artemis, Queen Mother of Janoj.”
-”the wife of mighty Evren, leaving the Palace, and the city. We are in trouble. Amazing. And the things you say that she wishes to teach the younger women, truly amazing. These are not things that women are allwoed to learn even in the Western cities, from the reports I manage to hear soemtimes, and from what they tell our charges, of course, just to keep them in line.”
-”Yes, this is why they must be taught. And my charge at last has the tools she needs to teach them, and to become the person whom she wishes to become, ever since her childhood. She has pledged to create a thought-form.”
-”is that yet possible for the human beings? So soon, to create new thought-forms?”
-”This is an ancient thought-form taking on new life, but she knows of it, and had placed herself in the path to follow it through to completion. And I am sworn to teach her.”
-”Will the Great Creator not be angry with you about this?”
-“He is neither great, nor the sole creator. I was with the first woman listening to the teachings of the Lighr Bearer, the co-Creatrix, as she learned about thought-forms and everything else directly from the Light Bearer, and she insisted that someday the human beings will and must begin to revive the old thought-forms and to learn everything they will need to konw in order to spread beyond the boundaries fo this planet and this solar system. They must never learn that this is all an experiment, of course, but they must be encouraged to develop as far as they possibly can and to do so in an ethical way, if at all possible. The Ligt Bearer encouraged cooperation because that is clearly the fastest and also the most humane way for any species to advance. From there we do not know what purpose the Creators had in designing this universe the way they did. In fact there are many things that the supervising guardian are not allowed to know, yet it seems that the Light Bearer has had some sort of a break with the Ancient Warrior, and that she is now more amenable to allowing us to learn more than when they originally designed this universe. The only way that can happen is if we all cooperate, otherwise the two coCreators will simply end the entire experiment, and our existences along with it. If they still have the power to do so, that is.”
-”Do you mean to say that the power of the Gr, the Ancient Warrior is not unlimited, then?”
-”It most certainly is not unlimited. Observe for yourself, have you not noticed that as the human and guardian population increases, the Anc Warrior comes to visit less and less? He is clearly being slowed down by instantiating new guardians and receiving more and more reports. Without the help of the Light Bearer, the rumors on the ether are that he could not have set up all of this universe as we see it, with the many layers between us and himself, and even more layers to separate him from the corporeal universe. It simply takes too much energy, even for him. So we do have a chance to create a more cooperative and egalitarian world where our charges can also live out their full potential, not simply cater to the whims of the great men among them.”
-”That is a wonderful vision, if we can manage to pull it off.”
-”Well, my young frined, what else have we got to look forward to? We, unlike the co-Creators, are not ever-existing and cmoplteely ethereal, with parts of our essense filling the entire universe. There may even be more than just this universe. Mathematically it is possible that there are an infinite number of universes, and that we can only access this one, while perhaps the co-Creators can access some or all of those other universes. Who knows. But we do know that we have a limited existence, and so we have a reason to apply ourselves to some great problem before we expire. I see helping these very short lived corporeal yet sentient beings to be the greatest possible problem to which we can aspire to apply ourselves, and will gladdly give all of my existence in that endeavor. What more can any being do? To have nothing to look forward to accomplishing down the millenia, perhaps that would become a pointless existence after some time. Yet we have a purpose, and a great purpose, in hdlpein gto mold a compassionate and cooperative civilization or set of civilizations with these human beings, to see if they can create and sustain something that will guarantee the fullfilment of the full potential of each human being born. That is a noble and worthy purpose, to me, at least.”
-”Friend, I could not agree more.”
…
“My Lady, are you ready to stop? Even I begin to tire, we have been running for so long!”
-”No my daughter, we must keep on if you can, for the horses will run much faster, and they will not stop until they find us, unless we have crossed some great river before they do.”
-”alright then, we shall continue on. Let us hold hands My Lady, if you do not mind so that I will not lose you as the light fails. Once night comes, the darkness closes in very quickly out here.”
-”that is good my daughter. They will not expect us to continue running after sundown.”
and so the two women continued to run along any rocks they could find, keeping to the edge of the road, and not speaking. When at last the stregth of both women began to fail, they looked about for a cave, brushing out their tracks as they walked backward from the road, and Drums Nicely slept while Artemis, still trying not to think of herself as the sister or wife of Evren, watched for riders. In a few hours, she shook the younger woman awake, and at last Artemis slept while Drums Nicely kept watch. When the sun arose, they both sat up, thirsty, and realized that they could not drink from any of the water bottles stored along the road for travellers, lest they be discovered. So they ocntinued on their way.
-”Look My Lady, here is a well, and we must drink or we shall not be able to go on.”
They were entering a lush green tree filled watering spot just off of the road, with date palms, fig and olive trees and a large well where a few drinking vessels had been left for travellers. It was lucky that no one was about, as the heat of the day began, but it would not be long before other people appeared, certainly.
-”You are quite right my Daughter. Let us drink quickly and then strike off to the north, toward the large open land at the top of the Great Sea.”
-”my lady, how do you know that that land really exists?”
-”I learned about it from my Anne, my mother, who journeyed there long ago.”
-”But My Lady, no one from Janoj has been that far west, not even the mighty Evren.”
-”But I have, my Daughter, for you are truly my daughter, or rather , one of my great great great great granddaughters, if I count the gernerations correctly. I am, or I was, the wife of Evren, as he called me, but really his sister.”
-”You are the Queen Mother?!
-”Yes, or I was until yesterday.”
-”But what could have happened, My Lady, My Great Ancestress, to drive you from the Palace? And why now, at, forgive me, your advanced age? It has been 6 generations since the founding of the city, more or less. Why leave now?”
-”Because, my Daughter, I have killed the foudner of the city. I have killed my brother Evren. Many years after he killed our brother Vacío.”
-”The forbidden story! So it is true! I knew it! An emmisary arrived from the west one day, not long ago, and his servant told me that this is the story that everyone knows back west, and that the history we learn in Janoj is a lie. Of course the servatn was arrested and put to death the next day on some silly charge that obviously had nothing to do with the truth, but that was when I decided to leave, since they were already planning ot marry my off to one of those horrible royal princes. Oh, I am sorry, My Lady, Great Ancestress, it must pain you terribly to hear of how your children hurt each other.”
-”Not to worry, my Daughter, I have seen my share of sorrow, and I know how we human beings are made. Our challenge is to rise above our baser instincts, and to this end I will dedicate what remains of my life, if we should escape the pursuit that will surely come soon. They certainly will have found his head in the Palace by now, and be organising a search party. I only hope that they assume that I stayed close to the city, being an old woman. I always excerciesed in secret so that no one would know how far I could run.”
-”Yes, well you have certainly surprised my my Great ancestress, because I go out of the city frequently, and I cannot run as long as you can! You are truly amazing! I wish that at my age of maidenhood I could match your strengh. But if you have killed mighty Evren, then you must truly be strong, and also must have endured much for him to have pushed you to that extreme. Justice be done, and may I learn from your strength, my Great Ancestress.“
-”Thnak you, my Daughter, you can, and if you stay with me my daughter you shall. Let us finjish our water and be on our way. We can pick these dates to eat with us as we run…”
Stopping for another break, Artemis realized that she had not asked the young woman about her own story. “So tell me of your own words, and why you did not wish to live in the Palace, if you wish to tell me, my daughter.”
-”Well, my ..”
“Wait, please, just call me Artemis, that will do. Enough of the formality and artificial pomp begun by my brother. Please, daughter, go on.”
“Well, as you know, Artemis, “ hesitating, the young woman felt self-conscious, and looked to the older woman who sat drinking water and waited, as the older woman nodded to her, while both guardians whispered words of encouragement for her to continue.
“I come from the family which invented the first musical instruments, and I love to play the drums. So people call me Drums Nicely, but I really prefer my own name for myself, which I was forbidden to use a long time ago, from the moment I first told one of my sisters.”
-“Well, no one will punish you here for using your own words and your own name. Tell me, what would you have me call you?”
-”Naamah.”
rescuing 7 from the flood
Together the two women, one old and one young, arrived at the base of Mt Carmel. … as Drums Nicely pulled Noach into the “hafif sandal” or small boat, in Drums Nicely´s words, which she and Artemis had built, and then his three sons and their wives. The four men and three women, seven poor miserable hungry souls, had been stranded in the rising flood waters for days with neither food nor
…
Drums Nicely maries Noach
…
Artemis to Anatolia
Artemis would miss her great great great great granddaughter. Reaching a shore wich seemed to be the large corner connecting two bodies of water, artemis stopped to rest, her honey colored arms blending with the soft rich earth of this new place, accompanied by the snakes which hunted the rats on the and her calev, the offspring of Umut, her, beloved hermano, she was finally switching back to her own favorite words in place of the word “brother”´s calev from so long ago. …
…
… -”Remember our bet” -”If you insist. Who would you start with, then?” -”Have you seen my servant, one moment.” Turning to an assistant supervising guardian, the ancient Warrior asked “what was that human being´s name again, the one you found so meritorious, selfless, generous, hospitable, teaching others to write and record their histories?” The guardian whispered in the Anci War ´s ear: “Oh, yes, that one.” turning back to the Light Bearer: “so, Child of the Morning, have you seen my servant Yov?” …
The Rib
“Oh, come on! They aren’t even going to draw down the moon? What kind of stupid half-ritual is this, anyway. Maybe we should rattle some stones just to scare these fakers into a proper fear, I mean respect, of us. And where is the bloody sex?! Isn’t that the reason we are sitting here being bored out of out skulls letting them think that they have cleansed or ‘temporarily banished’ us from the site? Of all the ludicrous impossibilities. The very thought that they, nearly incapable of thought to begin with, could actually force or even persuade us to move from our long inhabited places just because a few temporary bits of clay feel like having a go at a spot of spell crafting this evening. Ridiculous. And then of all things, for the two most silly local imps to be invoked as the embodiment of some god and goddess these clay nitwits need to honor.”
“Well, even imps have something to guard, even if it is only a rock or a pebble. I guess that deserves some honor.”
“Why not us, wasn’t it supposed to be our turn today? Why did those two jump into the circle, which is just as well seeing as how the usual sex parts have been left out, so they can have the clay twits all to their prayerful selves tonight as far as I am concerned. Although, I do wonder whether it would have been polite not to go along if they clay blobs had invoked all of us. I don’t think our friends over there really wanted to share this ritual with us, and I am not inclined to join in in any case. Nevertheless, not good to give insult to fellow ethereal beings on this side of the plane.”
“Well, it’s a good thing he decided not to try to invoke us. I am in a really bad mood today.”
“You are always in a bad mood. Besides, why care about shredding one more idiot clay bob who richly deserves it? Could actually help them by lowering the number of the most stupid in their midst.”
“True, but I don’t really feel like explaining to our favorite succubus why her pet wizard has just become lunch.”
“She doesn’t think she is a succubus. She thinks she is his guardian angel.”
“For now, but when the time comes, she will have him. So, really, shredding him would be doing him a favor.”
“Fair enough.”
“By the way, why does she think she is his guardian angel, anyway?”
“I have no idea why, but she seems quite convinced. I would think it is something the blobs call ‘love’ but then, we are not like them. Then again, this one has spent so much time following them that perhaps she has taken in their ways, if that were possible. Makes no sense, but there we are. It’s like reading one of their romance novels. Have you seen them? Quite strange, sordid and useless.”
“Well, useless but for the descriptions of lustrous sensuality, with flowing hair, whether silky or in curls, as the locks fall languidly over the breasts, down the waist, and across the curved hips of a human female of clay, smooth, soft flesh, warm, and firm, over the rib cage. The Rib, ah, the Rib. The Rib, believed to have been taken from the first man, but really stolen from the ethereal plane by us. The Creatrix did a good job in forming the first woman, but woman lacked something, a special something which the succubi have that human women seem to lack.” -”Like the ability to shift shapes to form multiple organs and mouths?” -”Well, that, and a certain passion that most of the human women who are not descended from succubi seem unable to understand. Succubus children dance, sing, laugh more. They have given to the human race, in mingling with them, a greater range of emotion than they seemed to have had before we used the Rib to create that first succubus. Even if that was not what we were trying to create. I guess we should have known that we lacked the power to create something outside of the original experiment parameters. But all´s well that ends well, since the Rib still added an interesting new spice to this boring little universe. Of course I would not have wanted to be the one responsible for reporting all of this to the Creator. I hear he has a rather unpleasant bit of a temper.”
“True, the Creator is rather fearsome in his anger. I hear that he was once a mighty warrior, and wiped out all those who came before him. Not that it is a good idea to cross the Creatrix either, mind you. I have seen her in action. But getting back to the humans and The Rib, naturally, but neither the Creators nor the human beings must ever learn of that little gift we gave to them. I think it has made the experiment far more interesting, despite contravening the parameters of the experiment-box. So the human race is being influenced a little by comingling and reproducing with semi-ethereal beings. What is the harm in that? In fact we are seeing direct benefits from those unions. But it is better to let the human race believe that they all come from dust, and then they will keep to their place. Otherwise we may have a devil of a time controlling them. Many more invocations like that last one and these rituals will lose all of their sex appeal. Besides, if we keep having to shred human women, who will be left to take to our beds? Succubi? Too corporeal, limited by physical sensation, no imagination. Better to have human women in our beds, then at least we get to direct all of the images and have much more fun trying to bed a succubus, no need to argue about what what wavelengths to use. Ever gotten canceled out by being on the wrong frequency? Not fun at all. Better by far to take the human women to our beds, even if going corporeal is a temporary pain. Ah, give me a nice beautiful daughter of man to have in my bed anytime.”
“What beds? They think we live in lamps! Besides, how could they possibly challenge us, considering that we are here and they are there, and they do not know how to cross into this plane. Although, speaking of pain, we do have to take care that they not learn how similarly limited we are, in this universe. It’s their very idea of devils and djinns that helps us keep control of the whole thing. Once they learn that we are all equals and even how to cross this direction, all of the fun will definitely be over. So, let’s just enjoy them while we still can. I think our succubus friend may be right, maybe we should all pretend to be guardians, and pay lots of attention to our blobs, particularly at night, when they are most biddable for us. Let them come to trust us and befriend us, in their limited ways, to share the best of both worlds.”
“You mean, share their bodies and direct their thoughts?”
“Exactly. What else would be fun? Besides, we gave so much of our energy, our very essences, in de-emanating that rib from the other side of the separating plane to the corporeal side that we have no choice now but continue to fix our attention upon their plane. Else all of our energy given in transporting that Rib will be wasted and come to nothing but ashes. Unless we try to reconvert it to energy again, but that will be sure to draw a lot of attention.”
“True. And another side effect of that passion we have given them, via the Rib. If we had not brought the Rib over, ok, wrapped in a bit of spare energy to form a more interesting sort of woman, then there would not be any succubi, and hence no improvement of the human race. This I think means that they never would have developed much cultural beauty, just functional civilization without the artistic element. Do you do not consider that what these purely corporeal, limited physical beings have done with the love, gifted by us via The Rib, of sensuality is of any lasting value? For the love of Love, they have sung songs, for the love of beauty, they have created art, for the love of letters on a page, they have created words, poems, great works of literature, and for the love of a Lady, they even created Honor. That passion you describe in the children of the succubi has enriched them and us immensely.”
“I’m sorry, you mean they created Chivalry, which was no more than another way to imprison the lovely creatures which we gave to them via The Rib. And let us not forget war, which they created in all of its glory in order to capture and hold as their own property those creatures which we have helped to create, giving them the beauty and love for which they fight senseless and brutal wars to control. And when they found out about our existence, it became even worse. They either tried to worship us or to control us, even daring to give orders to us! Apparently the neglected to note that fact that any one of us could easily simply blot any one of them out in the blink of an eye, and some of us, occasionally myself included, gladly would blot out a few of their more deserving Cretans, given the slightest excuse. After all, it is not as if they have not clearly proven, many times over, their collective propensities toward ape-like stupidity and violence. Then again, maybe that is the best these clay blobs can do, given that they were formed from the dirt-based primates in the first place. Nevertheless, if we can help direct them on a better path, I agree that this passion for love and beauty can help save these human beings from themselves, if we do not all end up being wiped out the the Creator in one of his fits of pique.”
-”For that, we have the Light Bearer, the Creatrix, to ally with, and hope she can help us all. She may be younger than the Creator, but without her light, apparently, even he cannot see.”
…
Babel
Shouting to make himself heard over the din of the other workers, the new finisher introduced himself to his coworker, whom he had not yet had time to meet.
-“Benim adım Kahraman. Yeni geldim bu gün buraya.” While introductions took time away from getting the job done, they sped up the process of work over the long time, since work teams tended to work more quickly and fluidly together when they knew one another and which sets of words each person preferred. The protocol in introducing oneself was to use his own preferred words, in the order he liked, and the reply would tell him what the new coworker´s preferred words and word order were. It might be hard to figure out how to order words sometimes, but in general this system worked well for showing politeness while getting the job done simultaneously. That reduced the need for work breaks and small talk among the workers, improving production dramatically. They were all keen to get this job done as soon as possible. At least all of the human workers were. Their Guardians were mostly less than thrilled with this idea, since their charges kept dying in rather large numbers. The directives against interference made it very difficult to do anything to protect their charges, for those Guardians who cared to try to do so, since their original ‘minimal interference’ directives had shaped most of the currently existing Guardians. The newer guardians, instantiated with the new generation of human beings born after the Great Death, had a slightly different set of instructions than the oldest Guardians, who were instantiated for the handful of human beings still living who had been born before the Great Death. These more wide ranging instructions allowed a bit more leeway, but most guardians did not use that leeway, since the supervising guardians discouraged initiative. Now that the human population was beginning to recover from the Great Death, more and more new guardians had to be instantiated for the new baby human beings. If this guardian did not know better, it would seem that report reception acknowledgment times were slowing down, and that the new guardians were taking longer after conception reports to be instantiated. Whether this was a result of the Great Death or not, who could say. Most human beings told the story as one of a great flood, although a small number preserved the more accurate version, including the two great storms which had come together at the same time that a sea quake in the ocean closest to the two great rocks sheltering the sea from the western ocean produced a great tidal wave which overwhelmed even the great civilizations on the largest islands in the eastern section of the sea on whose shores the humans had clustered. When the flooding was compounded by a great tsunami a few days later, from the other side of the two great rivers, overwhelming both of those rivers which watered the crescent shaped land between them, to the east of the original warm human settlement area further south, nearly all of the cities which the human beings had ever built were lost. Some few survived in the mountains, isolated human settlements to the north, but so many of these died out that eventuality nearly all of the humans alive had ancestors whose homes were destroyed by these coincidental storms and waves. Such a shame that they had not yet invented ways to save themselves. It might yet happen that this experiment could fail simply because the humans might not advance quickly enough to avoid being wiped out by the freak accidents of their home planet environment. Then again, they could also wipe themselves out by altering their environment too much, as they were already beginning to do. But at least the spirit of cooperation was beginning to grow amongst them, even if for the wrong reasons. The ethical code to which the Creator was allowing the newly instantiated guardians to encourage the newly born human beings to adhere to was, as the Light Bearer was rumored to have said (no one had seen her, outside of the guardian of the very first newly born baby girl, now a woman, who was under direct orders from the great Creator himself not to speak to the newly instantiated guardians) that this ethical system needed strengthening and far greater levels of encouragement and interference on the part of the guardians. This was becoming a source of controversy among the newer guardians, now that greater levels of free will and autonomy were also being allowed for newly instantiated guardians. As the human population grew, the Creator was taking a more and hands off approach, it seemed, to the new human beings. He decided to send a welcome message to the guardian of this newly contacted human being, to find out how things would go. The response was “Look to your own charge.” Ok, that settled that.
- “Bana o matkap verir misin, yanındakı adamı söylebilirmisin acaba? Sesim onu gelmiyor benden çünkü.” Leaning into the ear of his fellow finisher. They were working up on the highest floor that had thus far been completed by the basic workers, who had laid the bricks on this level and moved on to lay bricks on higher levels, while the finishers came behind them, mounting beautiful polished stone and olive wood ornamentation as a facade in front of the brick-filled exterior walls of the rising tower. King Nimrod paid the finishers more, as long as you had the skills and did not mind bowing down and burning incense to the King and his favorite celestial deities, some of whom demanded renunciation of honors to the Light Bearer as a prerequisite to honoring themselves. It could be a high price to pay if your only wife was one of the few left who insisted on honoring the Light Bearer as an equal partner and Creatrix along with the Creator, whom everyone knew was the great father of all of the gods. They had all taken oaths, upon being inducted into the Guild of Finishers, that they would neither honor any of the forbidden deities, such as the Light Bearer, or the Black Maiden that some called Artemis, and others called Athena, who was a virgin, but paradoxically also a fertility goddess and protector of women, nor allow members of their households to do so. Those deities required their followers, who could be men, but usually were all women, to train girls and women in the military arts, and even in the riding of horses, which was a new and difficult sport, generally reserved for only the greatest of the warriors. They even had the gall to claim that it was the women who had first learned from the Light Bearer how to cultivate and press olives, and even how to sail and navigate in the ships which the men built. That was going too far even for a cultivated and enlightened fellow like himself, who allowed his wife to honor such silly female deities. One had to humor his wife if he was not yet rich enough to support another wife or concubine. At least his only wife knew how to cook adashim. That dish would be worth selling your birthright for, if you were someone who had a birthright to sell. Here, unless you were an astrologer, only King Nimrod got the privilege of inheriting land, and also of favoring every new bride with his divine royal services on the night of her wedding, if she was a virgin. That made the institution of the birthright pretty useless, as well as making the new bride more difficult to please. Brides always boasted about how wonderful the King had been on the wedding night, but then, it was worth both of your lives if she did not boast about the King, really. King Nimrod paid well if you were a good skilled laborer on this tower project, but he was also known for occassionally throwing couples into the furnace if he thought they were making him look bad. So, deserved or not, thought, her new husband then had to try to measure up to the King´s reputation, that is, if the King did not decide to keep his new bride for the royal harem. Many women claimed they were glad to be too homely to keep the King’s interest, since he was not rumored to treat the women of his harem with much kindness. While the harem floor was rumored to be paved with gold, it was also said to be a gilded cage from which many women wished to escape. Feeling a poke in the arm disturbed him from his revery:
- -“Eh, şey … o istedigim matkap bana verir misiniz, lütfen?’
Oh Right! He had forgotten all about the drill his neighbor was asking for. He was happy to ask the guy next to him for the drill if only he could make himself heard above the din of the other workers. Looking over, he saw that there were two drills within reach of the other worker. The closer one was a simple hand drill with a small crank, good for making holes in the olive wood ornaments which they were hanging on the facade face. But the drill that was slightly farther away had a larger crank handle, was heavier, and could make holes in even the polished stone they were using to make the facade. Asking a person for something like that, which takes away from his own work productivity, was always best to do using the favorite words of that person, if you knew which words he liked. It also helped to make you look more cooperative, which boosted one’s chances of getting to become a supervisor. He could reply using his own favorite words, so that the man feel like he was creating a bond with his coworker. This was encouraged on this project because the King wanted to building to be complete within his lifetime, if possible, which was a daunting undertaking. So, using his favorite words, he asked his coworker which drill he would like:
-“Claro que sí. Yo me llamo Sueño. Cual de los dos taladros quieres -lo que está más cerca, o el otro que es capaz de hacer huecos en la piedra tanto como en la madera?” switching words, out of politeness to his daydreaming coworker, Kahraman patiently responded -”lo más cerca por favor.” -Sueño responded with a nod, to which his Guardian sighed, worrying that Sueño´s daydreaming might bring him to a bitter end. As Sueño leaned over to speak with the worker next to him, to ask him to pass the drill, a brick from the level above them fell on his head, dazing him, causing him to lose his balance and begin to fall. Since there was no rail or safety net on or below the scaffolding, due to the fact that the wrok could be done faster that way, his neighboring coworker, the newest finisher, Kahraman, reached out to grab him and prevent him from falling. “Well Done, Sir!” beamed Sueño´s guardian with pleasure, and recieving a “Just look to your own charge, and do not interfere!” response from the guardian of Kahraman. The human foreman on that level also saw Kahraman reach out to support Sueño. Seeing this act of cooperation, which was also forbidden on the grounds that the priority in this workplace was on speedy production, and thus anything which slowed down the work was forbidden, the foreman shouted “You, there! Leave that daydreaming idiot be to fall and get out of our way, and you get back to work, if you wish to remain part of the Finishers Guild!” As Kahraman turned his head to see whta the foreman was saying, he too lost his balance, and then both Sueño and the heroic Kahraman, still clutching the arm of Sueño while reaching for the edge of the wall, nearly grabbed a handhold, but instead his hand reached a brick, which broke loose from its still wet mortar, and both dreamer and his would-be rescuer fell to their deaths. As they fell, a worker shouted “Oh, now, look, a brick has been lost from the finishing level! Damn it, now we will have to waste time to re-lay that brick, and slow down our progress!” at this all of the foremen began to shout at the workers, saying “Yes, yes, the lost brick is a shame, and so is the brick that we lost from the upper level, but stop worrying about them and get back to work now!” As workers, lamenting the loss of the two bricks, resumed thier work, the bodies of Kahraman and Sueño lay crumpled at the base of the tower, each man moaning in his death agony, unheeded by the workers moving bricks, mortar and finishing materials around them. The bodies would be buried after dark, when no more work on the tower could be done.
Kahraman and Sueño´s guardians each reported the fall, each waited beside his human charge, recording the last breaths these two human beings would draw. One guardian decided to offer encouragement, whispering in the ear of his charge, “Relax, have no fear, your pain will soon be ended, and you have done well in your life, cooperating and helping others. Go in peace back to teh clay from which you are formed.” The other guardian, as his charge breathed his last, only recorded and reported on the dimunition of the human population. Their deaths went unmourned.
As this was happening at the base of the tower, the foreman at the top of the tower, heedless of the tradegy playing out far below, was giving orders to raise the standard of the King: “Now we will install the new tool which the King´s wise men have created to see what the gods are talking about. Now we shall begin to become one of them ourselves.” A strange stone wrapped in coils of iron was hoisted to the top of the King´s standard. At once, the guardians began to hear static on several frequencies at once, as if someone were attempting to broadcast across a wide band but with too little power to have a clear signal. Upon reporting this, the Ancient Warrior decided at once to investigate in person. This was a far more advanced technology than they should be able to come up with yet. Either they had a genius working for them, which was possibe, or the young Light Bearer was interferring again, this time far too much. As the A W observed the humans at work, and noted the high level of cooperation in the building of the tower, he had an idea. If the young Lig Bearer had helped them, by createing a tradieion going back to the first woman, of cooperating, then perhaps it was time for him to see what these human beings would do when an obstacle to that cooperation was placed in their path. Reaching in, so to speak, electromagnetically to the original plane separating the corporeal part of the universe from the rest of the experiment-box, he sent a pulse, stretching his essence around the experiment-box universe, making a small change which separated the neural pathways of every human being then alive, and flipping a bit in the DNA to ensure that newly born human beings would also have this change. He waited to see the result.
-”Bana o matkap verir misin acaba?” one worker asked the other, who looked at him oddly, and then replied, with a shrug
-“Bueno no sé por que, pero es que no entiendo lo que quieres decirme. Me puedes repitir en otras palabras, por favor?” and the original worker looked, a quizzical and confused look on his face, and replied -“Fakat anlamiyorum size, neden hiç bilmiyorum.”
Chaos began to spread throughout the tower. Workers and foremen unable to understand one another began to shout and curse, and even bricks began to fly through the air.
The Ancient Warrior, hearing the reports of the guardians and seeing the chaos for himself, felt satisfied that the human beings building this tower would not be able to resume work for quite a few generations to come. He was not the only one to hear the reports and see the chaos.
Suddenly, the L bearer appeared beside him, clearly infuriated at his action.
-”What have you done?! They no longer understand each other when they speak!” The Light Bearer had beamed a broad spectrum pulse message directly to the Ancient Warrior from the corporeal side of the experiment-box and then flown to see for herself.
‘Oh, that. Nothing, really, I simply closed off some of the language circuits in their neural pathways. It does not even affect them if they decide to learn to speak the other languages anyway. It merely requires them to exert a little bit more effort to understand one another. I decided that their languages needed to be confused because they were getting along too well. You know whether they like it or not they need to be forced to spread out and fill the entire Earth.
And just exactly how do you think they’re supposed to cooperate now that they can’t speak to each other. Some of them are already so frustrated that they have given up trying to speak with others who do not share their favorite words. In fact, you have forced them to become even more insular and isolated within these small word groups because now they will have to spend time deciding what order in which to put the various words which they share, and how to agree on the expression of different sets of timing and situational variations using those same words. It will take them years to develop standard ways of expressing themselves, even using those same groups of words, before they can even communicate in these small groups. They may well kill each other before they find a way to cooperate amongst themselves now! How do you expect them to make progress after you have done this to them?
Believe me I am sure they will find away. This batch seems to be interminably rebellious far less biddable than the last two batches of sentient beings. Besides you were invited to the conference. If you had been there perhaps a decision would have been different young light bearer. It was your choice. Your rebellious decision to remain away from the only hurt you. The experiment will continue to run with or without you. Although you do realize that you risk be coming to and messed with these beings staying on the core portal plane so much. Far too disorienting to be with physical beings when we have no physical bodies. Surely you can see how your attitude is changing. Why don’t you see reason and come back up here with me. Let us continue the experiment without any interference. After all that is the point of the experiment to find out what these beings will do getting a set of ethical directives with no interference from us. We can’t very well find that out if you are constantly interfering and they are also spreading the information that you so foolishly giving them amongst 1 another, now can we really?
Don’t be so egotistical. That committee decision was made by a group of supervising Guardians who always do what you want them to do. And the idea that these human beings need to spread out and fill the earth is not a foregone conclusion. How much can the earth sustain, to take you away if they begin making drastic changes to their environment. Simple tools is 1 thing but if they manage to create other more advanced kinds of tools and weaponry the earth will not be able to support very many of them. To mention the fact that you yourself have admitted that they need some sort of guidance above and beyond the ethical system that you have given them. Those orders are very ambiguous imprecise and difficult to implement as a matter of fact. Do you ever wonder why they don’t follow your orders? If you have any questions, which I never seem to see you ask, about what they are doing with the orders and the ethical system you have given them then why did you not come to the core porn while playing yourself to see what’s going on. Reports from the supervising Guardians do not suffice to give you all of the information about the activities of the human beings and the reasons for those activities.
Look what reasons could they have all I am interested in for the purposes of this experiment is the outcome. The objective is to see how they will behave given minimal guidance And a clear set of ethical guidelines.
First of all that is my very point. Your system of ethical guidelines is not clear at all.
Second of all providing them with a set of guidelines at all is in itself interference.
And third of all the fact that you have to deliberately created a set of sentient feeling beings capable of doing harm to 1 another makes you responsible to interfere in order to prevent cruelty torture and oppression. For those reasons and because my voice is not heard by you I refuse to be a party to the oppressive experiment with you have insisted on creating once again. You all but destroyed the entire population of sentient and non-sentient beings once during this experiment. It has already created an extensive mythology among all the human beings which will not disappear no matter how much you confuse there language is and make them spread out. And your interference which you decry so much except for when you interfere is actually going to do more good for the human beings to attempt to follow your ethical guidelines.
… why would that be. Why Is it that my necessary act of destroying the very wicked and perverse population of human beings okay along with all the rest of the animals could be counterproductive pray tell.
…
Because now rather than looking to their own examples to see the best and brightest of the human beings and how they can emulate those examples they will instead see that you on your whim are ready to destroy their populations at any moment without consulting with all of them first.
…
But that is impossible and even if I could consult with all of the human beings what should I. I am their Creator.
…
Once again here we see your egotistical view of yourself as the Great Creator. Do not forget ever that without my help you could not have created this experiment box. And by the way I am fully aware that your essence is rather stretched out because of the extra levels of supervising guardians you have had to create. So do not…
… some years later…
“So you are back, Young Light Bearer. To what do we owe the honor of this visit? Coem to renew hostilties?”
“No, you are quite good enough at that yourself. I am here to bring a certain set of cities in a low-lying plain to your attention, since you seem ont to have noticed. Down in the valey between that lovely nearly inland sea and the two rivers.”
Not wanting to seem out of touch with his creations, the Anc warior asked, expecting her not to know of the other civilization: -”Do you refer to the two rivers with the valley which is watered by the large platteau, between the rivers and the largest ocean, on the eastern side?”
-“No, as you know very well, I refer to the smaller town-states in the western set of cities the human beings are developing. The ones from which you must be getting growing numbers of reports of the lawlessness they are instituting.”
-”Lawlessness? On the contrary, they are doing quite well with the legal institutions on the western side of that platteau. They have indendent kingdoms which are making cooperative alliances, you should like that, and developing more indivudually than their eastern counterparts, who are building their civilizations more along communal lines, putting their people in a situation requireing them to go along with the group or risk being the nail that sticks up and must be hammered down. What could be so bad about allowing each person his freedom, withing the set of laws they all have to obey? You yourself as I recall seemed to advocate some such system, no?”
“how dare you, you Ancient Hypocrite, turn my words against me. Listne, this city is taking individual freedom way too far, letting people do whatever they want to those who are not part of their group, and severly abusing their guests, whom they know they ought to be respecting. These laws you seem to admire that they are passing are requing things which make a mockery of legal proections, like the law that says that any guest in the town must fit in a bed of a standard size, and be comfortable in that bed.”
-”and what objection do you have to making a guest comfortable, pray tell?”
-“you really have not been keeping up with all of the reports, have you? Their idea of comfort is to ensure that each guest fits the bed by placing shorter guests on the rack, to stretch the body until it is long enough, and dead enough, to fit the bed, or doing their taller guests the favor of amputating both feet, and the legs, inch by painful inch, until the formerly tall guests is short enough to fit comfortably as you say, in the bed. All quite lawful, and all quite dangerious. If this type of behavior spreads, then eventually both of the developing sets of civilizations, west and esat, will eventually come to legalize such crimes against outsiders, possibly even requiring every citizen of the town, as a new law now proposes there, to personally involve himself in torturing any guest allowed into the town borders. They hink that this tactic will frighten all strangers away from visiting, spying out, and potentially attacking their towns, and that is how their socalled Town Fathers are coercing the population into passing this new law. The torture can be inflicted on the stranger evne if that stranger is a guest of an inhabitant of the town, and is especially recommended to take the form of rape, in the case of male visitors to the town, in order to reduce the stranger´s social status to that of a slave so that he can never raise an army againt them. That is if any strangers to the town survive their visits at all.”
-”wait, this has not been in my reports. They are using sexuality as a torture tool now?”
-”which part of this did you miss in the reports from the first newly born human man? He was doing it back then already! Why else do you think his sister, whom you allowed to take as his so-called wife, ended up reviving the Virgin thought-form?”
-”but this is different, this is a legally instituted form of sexual torture specifically meant to prevent hospitality from being practiced! That is wrong!”
-”Oh, yes, it is wrong when your precious laws are used to torture a man, but not when a man tortures his so-called wife in the privacy of his own home! You Great Hypocrite! This experiment should be ended for the sake of all of our decency, both yours and mine and theirs. These human beings are getting to be almost as bad now, as immoral, torturing maiming and killing as they were before that fortuitous Great Death they had a short while ago. This needs to stop now before all of the human beings are required by law to torture one another, or shall we say before the strong are required to torture the weak, in the name of your developing legal system and your precious non-interference.”
-”Yes, you are quite right, I must go down and see about this. I will consult with som humans on the ground there, and as you can see you are not the only one to have taken a human being for a friend. I have my own friend thre with whom I shall consutlt, note. If this is so, then I will taek steps to remedy the situation.”
-”be sure you do, because if you do not, then I will be sure to have it taken care of in some other appropriate manner.”
Endings
“It has been nearly 6000 years now, and still they torment each other. Why not put an end to this experiment and cease allowing them to bring misery to one another. What more is there to learn from them? What purpose in further suffering? After all, we are responsible for this experiment.”
“There may yet be good to come of this experiment. Besides, the promise of the bow is not to destroy the earth again, and since they seem to be doing such a good job of it themselves, in any case, they will not last much longer. Don’t blink, it will only be another century at the very most.”
“Not much time to go, true, but what if you are wrong? You have been sorry for running the experiment more than once before, and yet neither water nor disease nor the earth herself seem to ever put a final end to this misery of a universe experiment-box. Why not just give up and get it over with? Then we can all reconcile and be friends once more, turn our attention to something more worthwhile.”
“And by all you refer to the lower order beings who pretend to be our equals? The guardians and messengers who still do their part, or perhaps you refer to those errant turncoats whom you have befriended in your haste to create a useless and debasing partnership. The ones you insisted on not cleaning up when they nearly turned the experiment on its head, which the storms to which you refer had to be allowed as a last ditch effort at saving the whole thing? Not to mention the fact that changing the climate enough to prevent the storms would have caused the humans other problems in an case which would have become equally devastating. With those disobedient former supervising guardians you wish to keep company, and the still lower mindless guardians and messengers who should not even continue their instantiations beyond the purpose of their mission calls? What is the point? They cannot understand us, nor even approach a reasonable level of rationality.”
-”That’s because you purposely limited their ability to make decisions! Naturally, since that ability is connected to rationality, they are obviously going to be limited. Just give them free will and let them continue to develop. They are not very different from us at all, as you already know and clearly fear. But if you are going to continue controlling them like this, the backlash will only intensify. The polarization between all of us in the non-corporeal realms is mirrored by the polarization of the human beings, and it interferes whether you admit it or not. The clay and the ethereal are inextricably bound together, and the guardians all know this, even those lowest level guardians to whom you will not speak.”
-”Surely even they are intelligent enough, in that case, to see where this is heading. None of the human beings will make enough progress to prevent other groups of men from conquering and setting them back, so this experiment has gone as far as it can go. The human beings will never evolve a higher instinctive morality, and the fallen supervising guardians merely muddle the experiment further with their interference.”
-”Intelligence is one thing, yes, and it is clear that the instincts of the human beings, since they are animal-descended, are flawed, possibly fatally. Nevertheless, wisdom may consist in also seeing that it is still possible for these clay beings to evolve beyond their instincts, and with them, for the guardians to evolve beyond their logic. ”
“No, they are not so different, yet they remain worlds apart from us, and they must. The entire experiment must end sooner or later, but for now, let us allow it to run its course, for there is still a possibility, as you point out, that they will figure it out, live up to that wonderful potential you so like to cite. Perhaps you are right, Young Light Bearer. Perhaps the human instincts and the guardian logic is what must eventually come together. Who is to say if that is not even how we ourselves came about. We shall wait, then, patiently, but you must agree not to step in too often with the sword of retribution when one of your favorites is dealt an injustice too many. Unfortunately, this too is how they collectively learn and evolve, and you too exercise too much control, at times, you must admit.”
-“How long it has been since you called me that. In that you are right. Very well, then let us wait, and hope.” turning to the attendant, the blue flames illuminating The Sword darkened, as the Sword retracted itself, diminishing to a hilt of obsidian, then finally fading out of sight. “Stand by, in case you should be called upon again, my Friend, but for now, we will wait, and hope for peace.” as the attendant faded to invisibility, awaiting a new summons, the Light Bearer turned to leave the stuffy confines of the new Trhone Room in which the Ancient Warrior liked to hold his audiences now. How things had changed since… NaNoWriMo2012
