Appointed Servant
Seven days later, he woke again in the dark forest. He had journeyed far through the arboreal terrain and had endured more biting insects than he would have ever believed possible to exist. These seven days were a test of his will in the struggle against monotony. It wasn't that the Tester was a morose country, it was the opposite. It had many, many exhilarating and breathtaking vistas once one was able to see the forest past the trees. It was a test of monotony in that these past seven days offered him nothing substantial in the way of memories. There was little story he could tell after his encounter with Samarin and Pitak. He had travelled many miles and he had fought thousands of insects but other than that, there was nothing to tell.
Of Samarin and Pitak and of the lost child, Martok, he had seen or heard or smelled no sign. He had come across no indications of any humans whatsoever. Of the legendary huge carnivores, herbivores and omnivores that dwelled in the Tester, he had seen or heard or smelled no sign. It was only the little things that he encountered and the little things were eating him up in more ways than one.
He was beginning to feel that he was on a bogus and bland Challenge that nobody would ever want to recite a second time. There was supposed to be more excitement to this journey than what he was experiencing. Every story that he could think of in the Challengelore far surpassed what his own tale had amounted to thus far. Could it be possible that all those magnificent and spellbinding stories that he had heard nightly at the Commons were nothing more than this – just fabricated tales and not actual travel accounts? But if they were all stories, why were they being perpetuated? Surely there would have been one disappointed and disenchanted Challenger who would have returned to the village and spoke the truth. The people of Rainwater might love their stories but they loved the truth even more. Sadly, Chiapos was beginning to conclude that he might be on the first dull Challenge ever and that his tale when he returned would be one filled with tedious elements that no one would want to listen to.
But it was shortly after rising on this seventh morning after his encounter with the two rogues, his eleventh morning in the Tester, that Chiapos would forever forget his doubts about the validity of the innate excitement of the Challenge.
He had been up about half an hour and had fed his fill on the berries that seemed to abound everywhere in this forest when he heard the shrill cry of a woodcock. At once, he thought of Martok for he remembered hearing the same bird call shortly after the strange, silver-eyed youth from ancient Cresswell had disappeared. It was an association that he would always link. Could the young lad be not too far off?
Feeling fairly certain that he had managed to elude Samarin and Pitak, the Rainwaterman decided to venture a call out into the wilderness. "Martok!" he called out, using his hand to strengthen the volume of his voice. “Martok, Martok. Are you nearby? It is me, Chiapos!"
Nothing responded to these shouts and he tried a few more times before he started to think that what he heard was actually a woodcock and not some half human half bird hybrid that his mind was gradually beginning to interpret as Martok’s true essence. There had been tales from the Challenge that had spoke of strange creatures that seemed to be composites of other more mundane beasts. He could not recall any such story about a birdman but he was willing to accept the plausibility of such an abomination.
Then, suddenly, from behind a close cluster of white birch trees immediately to his right a voice said, “Challenger, pay heed to the woodcock!"
Chiapos turned in that direction and saw a man's head gaping through a break in the leaves about fifteen feet in the air. Without seeing the rest of the man, Chiapos had the ghostly feeling that perhaps there was no body attached to this head. And what a head it was - it was the head of a grizzled old man with wrinkles that so dominated it that it was hard to see any of its facial features. What the wrinkles didn't hide, a long gray beard did.
“Who are you?" Chiapos asked meekly.
The head remained motionless as if it had hung from a limb for centuries and had become severed from the rest of its body through the natural forces of decay. “Who are you?" he repeated, squinting his eyes to better see the disembodied mien.
Through his enhanced vision, Chiapos could see that there were insects crawling all over the head and that others were hovering nearby as the agents of decay. The head did not answer again.
This time any timidity that he might have felt before had dissipated in his growing tension for communications with the deathly object. "I demand that you answer me!" he said with ferocity. "Who are you? Come out from your hiding or else the Redeemer will fetch you!" He shook his walking stick menacingly at the head.
Still, other than the random movement of the insects upon it, the head did nothing. There was no indication that it was going to respond at all. He dared to step closer, holding his Redeemer out like a club ready to make a blow at it. He spent the time carefully studying the grizzled grey wrinkled form hanging in the trees.
Then he burst out in hysterical laughter. He fell to the ground clutching his belly as he chortled wildly and unabashedly. His sides were beginning to ache from his incessant laughing. He had come to realize that all this time he was talking to a beehive! It was not a severed head at all!
".... ...... laughing at?"
Chiapos lifted his head. He thought that he had heard something over top of the droning hums of the bees.
"What are you laughing at?" the voice repeated and then Chiapos saw the actual speaker coming out from behind a large pine tree. It was a woman about the age of his grandmother. Her hair was as black as any from the village, her face was worn from too much exposure to the sun. She wore a dark tunic whose jagged ends rubbed against the ground. This robe hid a frame that might have at one time been lithe but now was growing soft with age. As she drew nearer Chiapos saw that she had large eyes of a piercing blue colour. The expression she held upon her face was not friendly but it wasn't altogether hostile either.
"I'm laughing at the beehive," Chiapos answered when he realized that this woman was expecting an answer.
"Bees have no sense of humour," the woman answered, glancing up at the hive. "Millions of yellowjackets have worked hard to erect that shrine to their queen. Millions have died defending it. It is unwise to mock it for its denizens won't tolerate anything less than respect for it."
Chiapos gathered himself up to his feet and said, “They need not worry about me, I am smart enough to know that a beehive is no place for me to be snooping about." Extending out his hand to the woman, he added, "My name is Chiapos. I am from ..."
"I know, Rainwater," the woman stepped back to avoid his hand. "You are on your glorious Challenge and you think that you are going to make a difference in this world."
At once, the Rainwaterman felt rebuked for the stranger's words were sarcastic and demeaning. He thought that he might as well return to her her level of courtesy. "And what is an old cow like you doing mucking about in the middle of the Tester? From what I have heard the only women of your age in this forest are lurking powerless witches whose magic dried out with their wombs!"
"Then you have heard only half the truth," the woman responded. "Just like all your wonderful tales of the Challenge, half the truth!"
"Tell me, old woman, why is it that everybody holds such low opinions of the people of my village? You all act as if we are mindless simpletons bumbling about in lands where we have no business!"
"Precisely!" the old woman snapped. "Praise be to the Mammoth of the Tester! A Rainwaterman who actually managed to speak one sentence of truth!" Then her voice was no longer lilting. "Don't call me old woman! I have more years left to me than you or your village spawn have left put together."
"Then what do I call you? At least I had the politeness to introduce myself!" Chiapos did not feel any intimidation or reverence towards his counterpart. She was a hag and a mockery to everything else that was beautiful in this forest.
"Your tales of the Challenge have not familiarized you with my name? I was under the impression that you Rainwatermen memorized every last minute detail of those self-aggrandizing stories."
Chiapos shook his head indicating that he did not have any notion at all as to the identity of this woman. At this particular moment he didn't care who she was. She was old and she was ugly and he would rather have been left alone in the forest rather than have to put up with the likes of her.
"I am Cenan! I am the Appointed Servant to the Mammoth of the Tester." She stretched out her arms to embrace as much of the forest as she could in a display of her intimate relationship to the Lord of the Tester.
"You are Cenan!" Chiapos scoffed. "You are as likely to be Cenan as I am to be the Mammoth! Cenan the Appointed Servant is a character from the very first tales of the Challenge! If you are Cenan then you would have to be at least a hundred generations old!"
The woman claiming to be Cenan stepped closer to the disbelieving youth. Chiapos noticed that there was great age in her face yet it was not the brow of one who was in the last years of life. There was something arcanely timeless about this woman.
"Have you heard any stories where I have died? In the great mythos of Rainwater and the Challenge, there is no account of my demise and I can tell you why, young Chiapos. I am still alive! I have watched your kind over the centuries as you made your little forays into the world and I have watched most of you return to your little village with your tails between your legs. The people of Rainwater are a large disappointment to the Mammoth. He draws nigh upon the decision to have the crops fail in your village and make your race a people of refugees."
Chiapos was not convinced that this was Cenan. He had pulled a similar ruse himself when he had claimed to be the Mammoth of the Tester when he had first encountered the highwaymen, Samarin and Pitak. This was just an old spider that has gone spinny with time, he thought.
"And you know what the Mammoth is thinking? Likely! Out of my way, old one, I have my timetable to follow!" He started to walk past the woman. As he did so, he mumbled, "The people of Rainwater are the true heirs to Mallog’mor’ach."
The woman grabbed him by the arm. "Not so fast, Chiapos!" she sneered. The strength of her grip was far beyond what Chiapos had imagined any person of her age could possess. He tried to break loose but he was unable to do so.
"Let me go!" he barked in protest at the woman.
"Not until you acknowledge who I am!" Cenan demanded. "You will bear testament to your foolish kin that Cenan still lives and must be respected the accord of the Appointed Servant of the Mammoth of the Tester!"
"You are not Cenan!" Chiapos growled. "The Cenan in our tales was a kindly and beautiful force that always abetted those who had the good fortune to cross paths with her. You show nothing in the way of an altruistic nature. As for beauty, it is as foreign to your haggard mien as old age is to mine!"
"The Cenan of your early tales held great hope that the people of Rainwater were the true heirs to these lands. But for over a millennium, the villagers have displayed only a remarkable sense of stagnation and an unwillingness to expand their horizons. I have grown weary with your kind and your adolescent excursions that you dare to call Challenges. A truly worthy Challenge has not been made by anyone from Rainwater since the days of Carmikel. All those other rompabouts since then have been increasingly poorer imitations of the true artifact. And nowadays, they are a complete mockery of what the original grand design of the Challenge was all about. I have only a contemptible regard for your village and your people, Chiapos. They are an obscenity to me as they are to the Mammoth, himself." The old woman was still holding the youth in a painful grip. Her breath was hot and acrid and smelled of the ages of man.
"Enough!" Chiapos cried. "I do not want to hear your poison any longer! I cannot believe that you are Cenan until I see positive proof. I hear only bitterness in you. The world hasn't grown that sour to demoralize the great high priestess to this sad point, has it? There is a tale that we villagers never tell to anybody outside of our own gathering that relates to the ancient Cenan, Appointed Servant to the Mammoth of the Tester. No outlander would know this story except for Cenan and the Mammoth. If you are Cenan, you will know the story I am talking about and you will be able to tell me it. If you are capable of telling me this tale, I will accept the proposition that you are indeed the Appointed Servant of the Mammoth, Lord of the Tester."
The grip on his arm was relaxed and then was released altogether. "I do not know why I bother to try and gain your faith," she sighed. "You are a people that are not worth it. But I will tell you what you want to hear only at the cost that I will reveal to you once you have accepted me for who I am. Is this term agreeable to you?"
"If you prove to me that you are Cenan, I will submit to any price you demand as long as it does not endanger my people, myself, or my completing my noble mission." Chiapos was certain that the woman wasn't Cenan but he did not want to jeopardize anything that was important to him in the remote possibility that she actually was who she claimed to be.
"Then you offer me little reward for telling you your story." Cenan shook her head. "Just like a Rainwaterman, cautious to the end. Your people have never learned that there is at times great benefit to be reaped from taking some risk. You are going to have to up your ante if you want me to tell you the story of Carmikel's bastard daughter, Zergo." She said the name with a winter's blast of ice from her breath.
The name froze Chiapos. Zergo was the story to which he was referring. The name of Carmikel's daughter was a secret that was kept guarded very closely by the village. Her name had cast tremendous shame upon Rainwater. She was well known throughout the lands but nobody knew that she was from the village and the village wanted to keep it that way. Zergo was the slayer of the Mastodon of the Fire Mountains, the Mammoth’s twin who was Lord Protector over the rugged lands far to the west of Rainwater. Zergo had ignominiously and horrifically murdered and butchered the highly born sibling of the Mammoth of the Tester. Her actions had brought a hundred years of blight and pestilence upon all of Mallog’mor’ach. It was through Zergo’s deceitful deception of posing as Cenan after capturing the true Appointed Servant that she was able to get close enough to the elusive spirit king of the wildlands of Mallog’mor’ach and destroy him. Only the true Cenan would have known that Zergo was a village waif from the inauspicious and little known village of Rainwater and that the woman was on a Challenge. Once she was freed, it was the true Cenan's decree that the story of this infamous murderer must be passed on secretly through the generations. It was her will that the villagers would never forget that the evil that lurked within Zergo emanated from Rainwater and that all Rainwatermen had to cleanse their hearts of any similar inclinations before embarking on a Challenge.
Chiapos had undertaken this purification rite the night before he started his Challenge. Cenan's Absolution was an integral part of the ritual every Challenger has to undergo before commencing upon his or her journey. The shame that was Zergo's would never be repeated by a Rainwaterman. Since Cenan was not completely without fault, she had made a pact with the villagers that she would never reveal to anybody else that Zergo was from the village. It was a secret that all Rainwatermen had assumed went to the grave along with the Appointed Servant.
But Cenan never went to the grave, it seemed. "I'm not going to need to hear that story any more," Chiapos said, after a moment thinking over the tale of Zergo.
"Then you accept that I am indeed Cenan?" the woman asked.
"You are none other." Chiapos replied, starting to feel a strange tingling throughout his body with the realization that he was truly encountering a powerful character from ancient history. "Only Cenan would know the significance of the name Zergo to the people of Rainwater!" The tingling was growing in intensity and was starting to overwhelm him and humble him with an oceanic wooziness. This was Cenan! This was the Appointed Servant to the Mammoth of the Tester!
Cenan’s Milk
"Wake up my young buffalo!" a gentle voice sounded softly in his ears. He felt the movement of the lips stroke his lobe and tickle him.
Before he opened his eyes, he could not remember where he was, what time it was, or what he had been doing before he fell asleep. He felt so much at ease and in such comfort that he assumed that he was in his bed back at his father's place in Rainwater. He opened his eyes dreamily and whimsically and as they worked their way into focus, he saw that another pair of eyes was gazing maternally into his own. For a moment he believed that he was an infant again, suckling at his mother's breast, and that all that he had believed was his life had never happened. But as his eyes gained clarity, he saw that this was not his mother, dear dead Lepti, looking down upon him but an older lady, a much older lady. Everything that had happened came back to him at once. This was Cenan staring into his heart. This was Cenan's warm wet motherly nipple that nestled rigidly upon the edge of his lips. He pulled sharply away with a start. He felt Cenan's arms restrain him. "What are you doing?" he cried.
"Suckling my found child," Cenan whispered, pulling his head back to her breast. "You must have more to regain your strength." Her nipple rubbed against his closed lips, trying to find the entrance to his mouth. Chiapos would not open it. He felt both repulsed and severely aroused by her action.
"You must feed from me, little Rainwaterman," she cooed at him, petting the hair away from his forehead. "If you do not take nourishment from me, your people will be forever lost."
"But..." Chiapos was about to protest, when she softly stroked his jaw, drawing his mouth shut and instinctively he began to suck on her breast. Droplets of a sweet milk crawled along his tongue, enchanting his taste buds with a flavor they had never known. It was a mesmerizing fluid and he found that his body craved it like it had never craved anything before. He drew in the milk more thoroughly and it filled his mouth so rapidly that some of it seeped from the corners of his lips. He had never experienced such a sedating moment before in his life, he found his mind lapsing, as he slipped in and out of consciousness. All the while, Cenan spoke a lilting gibberish to him, that he knew made no sense yet made all the sense in the world to him.
A half an hour may have passed as the Rainwaterman and the Appointed Servant engaged in a mother-child union. These minutes Chiapos would never forget. They were sublime and they felt that they were from beyond time.
At length, Cenan nudged his head away and covered her mammary with a midnight black shift. Even though he had more than his fill, Chiapos craved more and he tried to draw her near again but she brushed off his efforts. "You have had more than enough," she said. "Now, it is time for us to walk and chat. There is much for you to learn."
Chiapos was thoroughly enthralled by the woman - the raw aged homely hag that he saw at first was now transformed into a beseeching enchantress. He would have walked to the ends of the earth to be united with her again.
Cenan rose to her feet and dusted her shift. Chiapos did the same. "We will walk towards the north," she announced.
"But I am heading east to the city of Tanejul. I cannot go to the north," Chiapos said, gathering his knapsack and his walking stick, the Redeemer.
"Tanejul? Why would you want to go to Tanejul?"
"Because I am on the Challenge and all Challenges must go through that city." Chiapos expressed some surprise that the great priestess would not know this.
Cenan's face went sour. "There is that small-minded provincial Rainwater thinking again!" she rasped. "Why is it that you would think that Tanejul is an integral component of the Challenge? The city is a place for people. The purpose of the Challenge is to discover the essence of nature."
Chiapos felt somewhat provoked. "Because every Challenge that was ever taken by anybody always involved Tanejul at some point or other. They all went through Tanejul and the city in some way or another changed each and every one of them."
"When will your people learn that the Challenge is the journey of the individual? It is not some running course to be raced along garnering only observations that have been seen many times before!" Cenan replied with disappointment in her timeless eyes. "Tanejul offers personal growth to very few Challengers. Most that pass through that city only get contaminated by its corrupt way of life. They think that the ability to overcome this corruption is the ultimate goal of their quest. Why get corrupted in the first place? The Challenge is not to be thought of as a mission to deny the more base passions that undeniably course through a human being. More often than not, the true meaning of the Challenge is to make these instinctive passions an integral part of the self. You are only human when you accept that you are human."
Chiapos reflected on the base passions he had felt for Cenan only moments ago. Was she saying that he would be able to indulge in them, celebrate them, and make them the ultimate meaning to his existence? There were some stories in the Challengelore of men and women getting into lurid situations in the bawdy houses of Tanejul. These tales always ended with the villagers realizing the evil of their ways. The remainders of their epic struggles were battles to beat the whims of the body. They would eventually reach a higher spiritual plateau further down the road after their conquest over their desires. Now, here was the great Cenan saying that these Challengers were missing the true point of the grand mission. He did not know what to think.
"You are confused by what I say?" Cenan asked as she took him by the arm and started leading him on a leisurely stroll through the thick forest in a northerly direction. "I know that it sounds different from what your stories have taught you. Yet you must believe me that your stories have become quagmired in a static approach to the meaning of The Way. You think of them as adventure tales and pursue them with that state of mind. That is not the way to The Way."
"The Way? You say it as if it were more than merely a direction. What do you mean by it?" Chiapos intuited that there was some spiritual significance to the simple term, the way. If it was more than just a simple term, he had never encountered it before.
"My way is different from your way, but at the moment, our way is to the north," Cenan replied somewhat mysteriously. "We have had enough talk for the moment on this subject matter. You must experience the sights and sounds of the Tester."
Chiapos laughed. "I have been doing nothing but experiencing the sights and sounds of this endless forest for nigh upon a fortnight! It never changes!"
"It never changes? And you say that you have observed it all?" Cenan stopped abruptly in her tracks. "Then you can tell me about the frothing frogs of the treetops?" She eyed him carefully with a faint smile pressed upon her lips.
He gave her a queer look. "Frothing frogs of the treetops?"
"You must have seen them. They are everywhere. There's a pair of them now." The ancient woman pointed up at a leafless sagging branch of a nearby dead oak tree.
Chiapos followed her arm and finger and saw nothing.
"Do you see them?" she impeached.
Not wishing to have an older person see better than him, Chiapos answered. "Yes, I see your frothing frogs. They are as plain as day."
"Then, you have not experienced the sights and sounds of the Tester, for if you had, you would have known that these frogs are only found in broad liana leaves where they live out their lives from tadpole to desecration." Cenan was the one laughing now. "You have much to learn Rainwaterman if you want to consider yourself a Challenger. There are no frogs where I am pointing."
"What do frogs have to do with the Challenge?" Chiapos did not like being made the object of mockery and ridicule. Why was the woman playing these games with him?
"A better question for you to have asked is what do frogs do that is not a part of the discovery of the Challenge? To call yourself a Challenger you should be well versed in the ways of the plants and animals. You should acquire the same nature as these living things possess. The problem is that you and your people have separated yourselves too much from all that is around you. The people whom you have bestowed the honored and illustrious label of Challenger know not what they have challenged."
"I thought that the Challenge dealt with overcoming your own internal difficulties and coming out of it a proven man or woman," Chiapos chirped his own opinion. This woman was proving to be his own internal difficulty. She has said absolutely nothing that was positive about his village and its long history. This was a history that he had been proud to inherit as his own. To hear her ridicule it spurned him. If it had been anybody but the great Cenan herself to have voiced these uncomfortable thoughts, he might have considered using his Redeemer upon that person’s skull. But it was the Appointed Servant to the Mammoth who was saying these things. Chiapos felt that the basic premises of his understanding of the world had been pulled out from underneath him.
"I sense hostility in you Rainwaterman," Cenan commented as they came upon a ravine that the boy had not noticed previously. It cut a broad swath through the Tester in a wavering yet generally northerly direction. It was the first time that he was able to see more than a hundred yards ahead of him since he had entered the forest two weeks ago.
"Well, how would you feel if someone mocked everything that you have learned and believed in? To you it might be all wrong what we Rainwatermen stand for but we have come upon these values honestly and we stand by them proud and firm." The words exploded from his mouth. It did not matter that this was Cenan. There were other people in the great wealth of the Challengelore that would not hold the Rainwatermen in such disdain. Cenan and her Mammoth of the Tester were major characters of the early lore but they had disappeared in the later tales and the Challenge was more than just what happens in the forest.
Cenan did not answer his complaints at first. She did not seem hurt by them. She walked a few yards ahead of him. He watched her stoop down and pick up a curious beetle that was wandering aimlessly along the forest floor. She stopped and held the dark bug between her fingers, its antennae and its legs still working trying to examine what was happening to it. "You would say that I have more intelligence than this insect, wouldn't you?"
Not knowing what she was getting at, Chiapos nodded "Right now, I don't know. The things you have said seem stupid to me. Even that beetle should have more intelligence than to accept what you have been saying!" he quipped but upon seeing that she found what he said humorless, he quickly modified his statement. "Of course, you have greater intelligence than the beetle. What a silly question!"
"Would you say that I have a better understanding of my world than it does of its world?" Cenan continued, not reacting to the Rainwaterman’s snide remark.
"I would say that that bug has no understanding of its world."
"Its world is the world of beetles. I would say that it has a pretty good understanding of that world. It displays everything anyone would expect a beetle to display. It has got beetleness perfected in all of its nuances. It knows its nature and it acts accordingly. Would you say that I have more of a right to the true meaning of existence than it does?"
"You are confusing me," Chiapos said. "Of course, you do! It's only a beetle!"
"It's only a beetle who has perfected the art of being a beetle. It's only a beetle that is in touch with its nature. Now, if I tell you that there is only one nature, would you say that I have more of a right to the true meaning of existence than it does?"
Chiapos found this conversation frustrating. It made no sense to him. "Would you say that you have more right to the true meaning of existence than that bug?" As if the beetle understood what he was saying, it opened its mandibles in a threatening posture towards him.
Cenan chose not to remark on the new aggressiveness of the insect in her hands. "I would say that I have just as much right as our little friend to the truth. I would say that Rainwatermen have just as much right to the truth as well. If this beetle were to suddenly behave like an antelope, it wouldn't be adhering to the essence of its being, its beetleness. Now, what I am telling you about your race is that you are not listening to the internal truth that comes from the pit of your stomach. Rainwatermen have lost touch with the reality that exudes from them and it is my hope that I will be able to correct this tangential flaw in your people through you, Chiapos. I want to set you, and through you your fellow villagers, onto the true course again."
The beetle was struggling to get free from her hands. Chiapos could only postulate that what it sought was to menace him with its powerful, nasty jaws. It wanted to get at him the way a guard dog wants to get at an intruder. "I would say that your beetle is not acting appropriately for a beetle. Why don't you set it straight as well?" He was being openly flippant. He had not bought into anything Cenan had said. It was all just camouflaging verbal smoke. He wondered what her true purpose was.
"Snideness was never a quality that Rainwatermen wear well," Cenan said sharply, her dark blue eyes flaring at her words. "This beetle is acting just the way any beetle would act when trying to break free from what binds it. Your sense of the way the world works is just incapable of seeing the truth. Now, if this beetle were to act in some fashion that is diametrically opposed to the way a beetle is supposed to act, I would still be powerless to steer it straight. It and I do not have the means to communicate with each other in any strong semantic sense. But you and I do Chiapos. We have the tool, no, the magic, of language at our disposal. It is through this medium that I hope that I can teach you about the Challenge and The Way."
The beetle turned about sharply in her grip and it managed to close its mandibles upon the meat of her thumb. She made a small gasp of pain and tossed the insect unceremoniously to the ground. "Get out of here before I crush you with my feet!" she barked at the scurrying insect as it made for cover under the leaves.
Chiapos laughed. "I see the truth in your nature Cenan! You treat that bug with as much dignity as I would treat it!"
She glared at him. "That's enough talk for a while. We have a lot of ground to cover before nightfall." She started to stomp her way ahead of him without turning her head to see if he would follow.
And as he started to trace her tracks, he wondered why he was following her. She had not coerced him into going the same way as she was traveling. This was not the route of the traditional Challenge. It should have been to the east to Tanejul. Instead he was going in a northerly direction towards an unknown destination. Why was he following her?
The only reason he could think of was that he was starved for company and that he enjoyed the way her body sashayed about within her clothing. But, whatever the reason, he was still following her.
Auras of the Forest
The trail they were on was so much different from what he had experienced of the Tester before, yet it was so much the same. It was the same trees that stretched out vertically into an overwhelming canopy above him. It was the same roots, leaves and small rocks that sought to impede his progress. Yet, everything appeared so unlike what he had seen before. There was more of a verdant richness in the vegetation and still so much more that was not obscured by it.
In the first hour of his walk, he had seen more varieties of birdlife than he had seen in the weeks before. The birds came in all shapes and sizes. Their songs and their calls filled the air creating an almost happy, musical atmosphere. As he walked he tried to identify some of the birds but outside of the sparrows and finches and blackbirds and jays, he found that he had no names for the dozens of other species. Perhaps, he was lacking in his vocabulary skills or perhaps the language of his village did not have names for these feathered creatures. He doubted that any Rainwaterman had ever encountered these species before throughout the ages. Were these newly sprung creatures? Had Cenan or her Mammoth just created them? Or were his people as blind as the priestess claimed?
Perhaps his powers of observation have been sharpened by Cenan? She was the one who said that the village of Rainwater held the future promise for Mallog’mor’ach. As his eyes picked out a multitude of winged creatures amongst the flora, it suddenly occurred to him that he had not seen a woodcock. He recalled the first words Cenan had said to him, "Challenger, pay heed to the woodcock!" What had she meant by that?
He enjoyed the silence of the Tester too much at this present moment to inquire about what the cryptic statement was supposed to mean. But as nightfall approached and Cenan chose a cozy little setting alongside one of the brooks that had grown more numerous as the pair wandered north, he decided to bring forth his question.
"You couldn't wait until darkness before opening your mouth again," the high priestess admonished. "The Tester at dusk is the telling Tester, but it seems that you do not want to listen to it tonight any more." She sat herself down along the stream's edge and hung her feet into the water. Chiapos did the same. He found the brook's icy waters the perfect tonic for his sore toes and soles.
"Challenger, pay heed to the woodcock!" Cenan said again. "What does it mean to you?"
"I'm not sure but woodcocks seem to be involved somehow or other with many of the more important elements of my journey thus far," Chiapos replied. "I have heard their shrill cries often since I entered the Tester but what makes them really stand out to me is that I met this young child on my first night in this forest. He was a very strange fellow with golden hair and silvery eyes. He did not say much to me but I knew that he was extremely frightened. He had become separated from his family who live far, far away in a distant land that I have never heard of and he has been lost a very, very long time. He did not accept my help when I offered it to him and I do not know if I could have helped him as much as he could have helped himself. He was able to catch small game without the aid of a weapon and he did not require a fire to cook his food. He was a very strange lad and when he chose to leave me he was gone as fast as the wind and the last thing I distinctly remember was the screech of the woodcock. I know that this sounds silly but is it possible that he was a changeling of sorts and that he escaped me by transforming into a woodcock?"
Cenan had listened to his tale in silence. Her eyes and face betrayed no sense of what she was thinking. At length, she asked, "Have there ever been stories in your Challengelore concerning changelings?"
"There were a few but when these stories reached their ends, they always exposed the changeling as a fraud," Chiapos answered. "Somehow I get the impression that Martok is not a fakir. Whatever he is he is genuine."
"Ah, it was Martok whom you encountered?" Cenan said with some spark to her voice. "He's still running around lost in the Tester, is he?"
"You know Martok?" Chiapos was astounded. He had not suspected that the great Cenan might know of the young Malagan.
"Martok has been roaming this forest since the early years."
"What? The early years? He is only in the early years of his life!"
"He's been around much longer than even I have been," Cenan answered. "I must admit that it has been quite some time since I last saw him but I always encounter others who have run into him. Surely, your Challengelore must have some tales concerning the Malagan imp, Martok?"
"There are none that I know of, unless, it was Martok who was the changeling in some of those stories. I can't believe that he could be that old! Is he a changeling?" Chiapos felt the boy in him well up at what the truth may be. He certainly was on a Challenge whose stories would never grow old with the years.
"Martok can be many things," Cenan said. This was the exciting answer Chiapos wanted to hear. Then she added, "In his own mind. Did he tell you of the land that he claims to be his?"
A little let down, Chiapos said, "Yes, the land of Malaga where there is a king and queen who rule benignly over the people."
"Let me tell you something about that kingdom of Malaga," Cenan said, drawing her feet out of the brook and rubbing them against each other to wipe off the excess moisture. "In its' time, it was the most powerful nation in all of Mallog’mor’ach. The citizenry swept the breadth of this island from north to south and east to west. Even your present day Rainwater was at one time part of the Malagan kingdom. It was a golden period for Mallog’mor’ach where the people lived prosperously in conjunction with the natural world. The Malagan kings and queens always sought to ensure the general happiness of their subjects while making sure that the environment did not suffer. Things remained in this wonderful harmony for century after century. But gradually this state of equilibrium began to wither until the time of the latter day kings and queens who could no longer inspire their subjects to lead lives devoted to gregariousness and unselfishness. There was no great war or holocaust that brought the cataclysmic end to the Malagan dynasty. It could never be said that the Malagans were killed, they just died by fading into the many states and regions and towns that Mallog’mor’ach has become today. Thankfully, the spirit of humanity that shone so brightly under the Malagans has not completely departed this island. It has sunken itself into the hearts of a few men and women who still live along the eastern shores of the Great Endless Sea. They will once again emerge as great sovereigns if certain conditions transpire."
This was a fascinating tale to Chiapos. He wondered how such a rich heritage had never surfaced before in the Challengelore. "Why is it that I have never heard of Malaga before?" he asked his thought out loud.
"At the height of their glory the kings and queens of Malaga lived a very long, long time ago. The Mammoth himself had not risen to be the Lord of the Tester as of yet."
This notion took Chiapos' breath away. "That is unbelievable!" he cried. "That little boy I met is as old as the Mammoth of the Tester!" He had thought nothing could pre-date the Mammoth.
"You asked if Martok was a changeling," Cenan said. "In a sense, Martok is a changeling but he is not quite what you think he is. He is not of this world or this time."
Chiapos' face displayed that he did not know what she meant. "At one time, there was a little Malagan boy with golden hair and silvery eyes who was traveling with his parents through the Tester on their way to the May Shores on the western coast of this island world of Mallog’mor’ach."
"The May Shores was around back in the time of the Malagans?" Chiapos interrupted.
"The May Shores was a prosperous fishing community on the southwestern corner of the island back in the time of the Malagans as it is still today," Cenan answered. "Now, as this family of traders made camp one night in the Tester, the boy wandered off and got lost in the dark. His parents' searched far and wide for him but could not find hair or hide of him. Nearly a month had passed when they finally came upon a badly decomposed human organ in a brook much like this one where we are resting at now. It was the heart of a small boy. Along the brook’s banks, the soil was upset showing evidence that there had been a struggle there. Blood could be seen staining the grasses. Yet outside of the heart, there was no body to be found. The Malagans knew at once that their son Martok was dead and this was the heart of their missing son. They did not know what had killed him. It was not an animal. The brook and its banks had an overwhelming pervasive aura of evil about it. The mother and father took the heart and returned home. They remorsed and grieved for decades because of their child's demise. Then about twenty years later some merchants who were crossing the Tester met a small child who claimed that he was lost and was in search for his way back to Cresswell and his family."
A chill went up Chiapos' spine. "That was the same story that the boy Martok told me!"
"It's the same story hundreds of travelers have heard over the centuries and every one of them were like you in that they wanted to help the child but the child would refrain from the aid and disappear. A lot of people would say that what you and the others have seen was the ghost of the little lost Malagan boy. They would say that he was a spirit ill-at-ease and searching for his final peace because his body had never been laid to the ground. But, I don't accept that story. I believe that what you had experienced was an Aura of the Forest who took on the boy's identity because it had no identity of its own." Cenan's eyes opened wide at the remark.
"An Aura of the Forest? I'm afraid that I don't understand what you mean," Chiapos apologized for his ignorance.
"An Aura of the Forest is a type of life-form that is unlike the life forms that you are used to, be they plant, animal, or fungi. An aura has no body of its own. It might be likened to living air, a breathing wind. Auras are very, very long lived and they have the ability to make the particles that compose them to take on different shapes. Now, this particular Aura that you encountered has a penchant for making itself appear as that poor, lost child from eons ago. It also has the tendency to take on the appearance of the woodcock. You were right, when you thought that the boy and the bird were somehow connected."
This was very fascinating to Chiapos. "So, you are telling me that Martok is a changeling."
"As I said, in a sense he is a changeling but a true changeling has some corporeal mass from which it molds itself into the various shapes it wants to assume. A changeling is always composed of the same amount of matter. An Aura of the Forest can give the illusion that it is as big as the sky or it can make you think that it is as small as a caterpillar crawling along the underside of a leaf."
"But I recall actually having physical contact with Martok!" Chiapos cried. "Wind cannot fall from the sky and knock you down. Martok did!"
Now, it was Cenan's turn to look surprised. "He knocked you down? Are you sure that you were not just blown down?"
"I have felt strong winds before and I know how they can blow right through you as if you were not there. But when Martok fell from the tree I felt something solid and substantial smash smack dab into me. No wind can do that! This kind of blows a hole in your Aura idea, doesn't it!" Chiapos chuckled at his pun.
But Cenan was not laughing. Her demeanor became suddenly disturbing as if something very sinister was gnawing at her. "You actually felt the Aura!" she said again.
"If it was an Aura, that was what I felt."
"This is not very good, Chiapos!" she said at a level barely above a whisper. "There are thousands of Auras in the Tester. Most are satisfied to be left on their own as they interact with the wind, sun and rain. Others have somewhat mischievous natures to them and they revel in being tricksters and playing with the minds of more sanguine, corporeal entities. That was what I thought your Martok was but if you actually felt his presence in a bodily sense, I'm afraid that this Aura is transforming itself into the final stage of this type of being. The Mammoth, himself, falls into this final category."
"The Mammoth is an Aura?" Chiapos found this intriguing. The Challengelore was never very clear on what exactly the Mammoth of the Tester was. His Challenge would be remembered for finally adding some detail on this elusive and mysterious being.
"He was an Aura as was his brother the Mastodon of the Fire Mountains. The two siblings shared rule until the Mastodon fell because of the evil act of your foolish ancestor, Zergo. Then the Mammoth reigned as Protector by himself. But now from what you tell me, I am afraid that a new Aura has decided to challenge the Mammoth for his supremacy." Her words were menacing and Chiapos felt a cold fear in his gut even though he did not know what exactly the Appointed Servant was trying to tell him.
"There have only been three manifestations of this final category of Aura in all of my living years. Each one tested the Mammoth and me to our ultimate capacity, each manifestation stronger than the one before. If it is true what you say about this Aura transforming itself, I truly do not know if we are capable of defeating it this time." Cenan had gotten to her feet and walked about nervously along the brook’s shores.
"Why would you want to defeat it? It is acting only as a small, helpless little boy. What kind of harm could it do?" Chiapos knew that he was only grabbing at the wind. There was something very, very foul afoot.
"You described to me how it ate the rabbit like a ravenous beast. You described to me how its eyes glared an icy silver. Did these not seem to you to be the hallmarks of something very malevolent and evil?"
"I thought it unusual for a child to display those behaviors, yes. But the Challenge has always taught us that there are people in this world who are very different from the villagers of Rainwater. I just accepted Martok as someone from another background, that's all."
"Believe me there are peoples of this world who are very different from you Rainwatermen. But, there are none with the ability to make their eyes glow unnaturally or the ability to change their forms. Your Martok is indeed an Aura of the Forest and one that is evolving itself into a sinister force. Describe to me once again your entire encounter with the boy. Don't overlook any detail. I must have a full understanding of what we are dealing with. The Mammoth needs to be informed of this as soon as possible!"
Chiapos described everything as clearly as he could remember it of his encounter with Martok. Cenan asked him to repeat certain incidents several times. The intensity of her questioning made him nervous. He was afraid that he might slip up in the facts and raise her wrath but Cenan displayed no temper. What she did show was a very unusual amount of concern if it could not be described as fear itself. He had never dreamed that his passage with the lost boy could be the subject of intense scrutiny by the Appointed Servant, herself.
After redescribing the feel of the boy's body falling from the trees for the tenth time, he asked, "So, what does this all mean?"
Cenan responded that only the Mammoth of the Tester would have the answer to that and that he had to be contacted immediately. This led to Chiapos asking the question that did raise her ire. "Is there really a Mammoth?"
She slapped him hard across the face. His cheeks stung and felt hot. "Do you not hold any truth in your early tales of the Challenge?" she barked. "Has their significance been degraded so much that you Rainwatermen do not believe in their veracity?"
Rubbing his warm, smarting cheek, he replied, "Well some stories are nothing more than that, stories."
"Not stories of the Challengelore, they are not merely fables to be rhymed off to entertain bored children in the evening." Cenan was livid. Chiapos wished he had never made the remark.
"The Challengelore is supposed to be the history of the people of Mallog’mor’ach and the villagers of Rainwater are supposed to be the documenters of this saga," Cenan ranted. She continued, "I can see very clearly from your accounts that the villagers have become sloppy and derelict in carrying out their charge. Even I would never have believed that a Rainwaterman would question the existence of the Mammoth!" the Appointed Servant moaned with lament.
Chiapos felt an urgency to rectify the situation. "All the stories in the Challengelore that contain the Mammoth of the Tester only refer to him as someone who is murky and unclear and in the background. I don't think any of my people actually saw the Mammoth!"
"That is because the Mammoth has no visible form, you silly child! The Mammoth of the Tester is an Aura of the Forest just like the one who manifests himself as Martok. He has no substantive body that could be seen or smelled or touched. However, the Mammoth differs from your Martok in that he is the guardian and champion of this forest and of all wildlife upon the island of Mallog’mor’ach. He has no impish ways, he seeks to ensure and safeguard the lives of every creature that inhabits this island. You can liken him to a King among the Auras but just like every king, there is always someone there to challenge his authority. I'm afraid that your Martok has decided to take on the Mammoth. Your Martok is rapidly progressing into skills that are forbidden for Auras to try to master. It is forbidden and taboo for Auras to gather substance.
“The three previous Auras who tried to develop this transformation grew very powerful and intolerable of the laws imposed upon them by the Mammoth. The first one who achieved a material form had successfully battled the Mammoth for nigh upon a decade before it was finally defeated. The second one learned from the first's mistakes and that war lasted nearly forty years and had just about killed the Mammoth before a stroke of luck gave the Mammoth the upper hand. The third one that rose was the worst. A century of terrible holocaust was inflicted upon the Mammoth and every living thing in Mallog’mor’ach before an uneasy truce was settled upon. It was during this stalemate that the Mammoth for the first time in his existence had to behave dishonourably and deceitfully. He took advantage of the fact that nobody would ever believe that the Lord of the Tester could act deviously and murderously, but that was how the Mammoth had to behave to finally squelch the third Aura.
“And now the Mammoth doesn't have this weapon of deceit in his arsenal any longer. The new Aura in Ascension has the knowledge that the Mammoth can sometimes play outside the rules of conduct. It will equip itself for this consequence and who knows how long this impending war could last, how much life would be destroyed, and what the outcome of this horrible, horrible confrontation will be! I do not know if the Mammoth has it in himself to do battle. He has grown old and weary." Cenan had reduced herself to tears in her brief lament of the past.
She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at the Rainwaterman through obvious moral pain, and then she started walking north into the darkening skies. She had not asked him to follow.
Share
Print
Save