Tree of Life Book III

Part II - Chapter 08

I stayed with her that first year. The following year, I began my travels again. She did not come with me. She was far happier here. Though she never told me so, she never missed me when I was gone.

Sometimes, even though I was in the vicinity, I would not enter the village to look in on her, speak to her face to face. I would only pick my way out to the original spot where she and I had first found the village and spy on her, hidden, from that perch among the bushes overhead.

I would see her. I would see her going about her way in the town, in whatever business she was on. I would see her training in the square. I would see her learning to control her powers.

In time, in the years that came after, I saw her grow and mature and fill out into the role where she herself had become the teacher and trainer and tutor to many in her turn. She was older now, about ten years older than when we had first met the others. New villagers had come. New members were added to the community. She was now a leader in her own right. She was a full-grown woman.

I would get up from my hiding place and wander away again.

~~~

In my meanderings over the mountain, I came upon a secret place in the heart of it. Through a crevice in one of the sides, I wended my way inward until the path yawned open ahead of me into an enormous cavern within the belly of the mount itself.

It was gigantic. The cavern could have held two, no, five Nephilim villages inside it, with room enough to spare. There was a flattened, rectangular floor of sorts, a hundred yards wide and half a mile long, covered over in perfect soil, optimal for the planting of crops. A river, as a source of water, ran along one side. Light shone down from above through an aperture in the roof, much like a skylight in a house. Smaller in-pouchings pockmarked the rock face along the far wall, with just the right dimensions to be used for individual dwellings and homes for the people, should a community choose to move in here and settle down for an extended period of time.

When I first chanced upon it, I didn't think to share with anyone my little slice of paradise. I only led in animals, birds and other things to keep me company, whenever I felt like staying nearby and yet not so near that I was living in the village itself.

~~~

Another two years drifted by. The world continued to change. I continued to change.

I had now come to a point where in the mornings when I woke up, I would always be in the form of a weary old man, bent over with years and fatigue and frailty. No matter how hard I tried, I could not for the life of me, change back into a younger form again. I was locked into it. What's more, I felt ill. I coughed and wheezed with the slightest exertion.

And the cause was obvious. I knew exactly what it meant.

What I did not know was how much longer I had.

I decided I wanted to see her again. For the last time or no, I knew I must go and see her again.

I gathered my things together and headed out of my cavern paradise. It took me several days in my condition, but I made it somehow.

Shuffling into the village, I marched right up to her side and peered up into her face and she did not know me.

I had found her standing along one edge of the village square, watching, coaching some of her students as they trained to use their powers more correctly. She was taken aback by my appearance at first, as she realized who it was finally, but she dropped it right away and didn't question me on it. For my part, I didn't press the issue.

We smiled, exchanged pleasantries. We began to catch up and we talked of many things.

As it turned out, changes were coming to the village too. Oberon was getting old. The council was holding special meetings. They had to choose a new leader. The choice, to everyone in the council at least, seemed obvious.