Karux woke in his father's house. His aunt and uncle had moved him back as soon as he was able to stand and walk with assistance. They never said anything, but he knew they were tired of being awakened during the night and early morning hours by his screaming. The nightmare visions of death and destruction had continued since he first saw the stone, this being the first morning he had awakened peacefully. He lay on his pallet for a while enjoying the moment until his father rushed in to check on him.
"Er, how do you feel?" he asked confusion clearly written on his face.
"Fine," Karux smiled up at him, knowing his father must have been concerned about the strange silence, but enjoying it anyway. "I think I'll get up today."
"Are you certain you're well enough?"
"I'm tired of lying around," Karux groaned as he slowly rose to his feet. He reached for a shepherd's staff and leaned on it trying not to sway too much. "I need to speak with the elders."
"The elders? Why?"
"The visions. I remembered being on the mountain last night. I was shown a threat that will engulf all the lands between the ocean and the mountain. I must warn them."
A strange look of caution came over Arrain's face. "And what would you have them do?"
"We must gather all the tribes and prepare them for the conflict to come."
"All the tribes? Would you have them just leave their homes and go…go where? Come here?"
Karux tried to envision that conversation. It would not be easy to convince them, but when the disaster came, they would have to flee for their lives. A little planning could save a lot of lives. "We'd have to speak with their elders first, get them to understand the threat they face."
"What exactly is that threat?"
"I saw beasts that walked like men and everywhere they went, death and destruction follow."
"Are you sure they are real and not just phantoms from your dreams?"
Karux stared into his father's eyes, willing him to understand. "They will be real, and they will sweep over us like the wind."
Arrain paused thoughtfully. "You know I sit among the elders. I'll speak to them and see what they say."
Karux watched him leave, the doubt still clearly visible in his father's eyes. Karux knew Arrain would not be able to convince them. His father didn't fully believe it himself, so how could he convince those who might be too afraid to believe? He only hoped his father would not oppose him.
-=====|==
An ancient oak grew near the village's entrance. It was the elders' custom to sit under that tree, drinking beer from a single large ceramic bowl with straws while talking to anyone coming or going from the village and discussing the issues of the day.
Karux shuffled forward, dragging one leg and leaning heavily on his staff. The elders normally ignored the youth around them when they gathered, but as Karux approached, they fell silent.
Ghett, the most senior of the elders, spoke first. "Greetings, young Karux. It is good to see you recovering. How do you feel today?"
"I am much better. Thank you, bidra, for your concern."
"Do you have something you wish to speak to us about?"
"I do." Karux glanced at his stiff-faced father who lowered his eyes in response. Karux could tell that he had already spoken to the others and he had not been believed. Karux knew he had to convince them somehow, he couldn't hold anything back. "I have a message from the Lord of the Mountain."
The elders set upright and at least one hissed in surprise and, likely, disapproval. "Are you saying you have been to the top of the mountain?"
"I have. And I have a message from the Lord of the Mountain."
Thoma, a wiry old man on Ghett's left interrupted. "You do realize speaking falsely on the Lord's behalf is a grave offense?"
"I do."
Several elders took turns whispering urgently in Ghett's ear a few moments before Ghett could address Karux again. "Very well. What is the message?"
"We are all in very great danger."
"From whom are we in danger?"
"The n'kroi."
The elders gasped and one, Rennon, leaped to his feet. "I refuse to sit here and listen to this outrage!"
Karux stood his ground as the elders argued amongst themselves. He knew mentioning the evil spirits of the Void would shock them, but he needed to be taken seriously and so refused any euphemisms, but instead boldly named the ancient enemies of all creation.
Ghett held up a hand and the others quieted down. "I do not think he is lying."
"What?" Rennon exclaimed, "Are you saying you believe him?"
"No," Ghett replied calmly, "only that he believes this. Let us speak with him further and perhaps we shall learn why he believes this."
Rennon slowly took his seat and the elders all turned once more to Karux. "Seeing as the…," Ghett hesitated at the name n'kroi, "…enemy all lay trapped in the Void beneath the mantle of the Lord's glory, in what way do they threaten us?"
Karux smiled. "I am not so young that I do not know the sayings of the ancient fathers, of how the spirits of the Void whisper in the ears of the foolish and ignorant and how they may sometimes find allies among the n'phesh–especially the spirits of certain animals." He knew this last point was the subject of some controversy, but it was still widely believed and at least a couple of elders shuddered at its mention.
"And you say the High Lord told you this?" Ghett continued.
"He showed it to me. When I stood upon the mountain, I saw the future unrolled before me like a blanket."
"And you saw the evil spirits?" Thoma asked.
"Yes. They rose up out of the ground and first appeared as black and shadowy beasts. Then they stood on two legs like men and everywhere they walked, ashes and death covered the land."
"Assuming this was true," Ghett said, "what would you have us do?"
Karux had been thinking about this all day and felt he had determined the correct course of action. "We must gather the leaders of all the tribes between the mountain and the sea. We must find a place to hide the people when the beasts come, and we must make sure all the men are armed with spears and know how to use them."
Ghett pondered this in the long moment of silence that followed. The other elders looked quietly thoughtful as well and Karux began to hope that he might have convinced some and that they might at least consider it.
Then Ghett sighed. "I'm afraid that none of that is possible. I don't think we could convince all the tribal elders to gather, nor do I think we could convince them to abandon their homes and move all their people."
"I doubt we could even find a valley big enough to hold them if we did," Rennon chimed in.
"No," Ghett agreed. "All that would be accomplished by this would be the sewing of a lot of fear and confusion and that is one crop, now that I come to think of it, that the spirits of the Void would love to tend."
"What?" Karux swayed and nearly fell. He was trying to stop the n'kroi. How could they think the n'kroi might be behind this?
"When Naipho's boy found your son," Thoma turned to Arrain. "Did he not say he was dead?"
"He thought Karux was dead, but when Naipho and I found him, he was still breathing."
"Still breathing or resumed breathing?" Rennon cut in.
Arrain stood with his mouth open, unable to reply.
"And when you got him home," Thoma continued, "did you not expect that he would die?"
Arrain lowered his head and spoke to the ground, "Yes."
"And was not one of the reasons you thought he would die was that his skull had become cracked in the fall?"
"Well, I did think I felt a crack," Arrain muttered. "Still, he lived in the end did he not?"
"It is believed by many," Rennon added with conviction, "that a hard blow, such as a fall, can drive the spirit out of a man, and that if a wandering spirit comes across such a body, they may put it on."
"What are you suggesting?" Arrain shouted.
"And a cracked skull, "Rennon continued, raising his voice, "may not be able to keep a man's spirit in his body, or hold a foreign spirit out."
"My son is not possessed by the n'kroi!"
"Peace!" Ghett cried out, rising from his seat and turning to face the other elders. "He's obviously trying to stop the …evil ones. I don't think he's possessed by one. But with his injury he may not be beyond their influence."
"Are you saying my visions are from the n'kroi?" Karux demanded.
"Very likely."
"But I was there! I stood in a cave of light. I saw the High Lord and spoke to his servants. None of this is from the n'kroi, of that I am certain."
"Yet you awaken the whole korion every night with your screaming. How can that be from the Lord?"
"It is the future! It is what we have to change. We've been given a gift and if we ignore it we'll all be living in that nightmare!"
"Enough!" Ghett declared. "I will not argue with a child. Unless you can show me these visions are from the High Lord, we can do nothing."
Karux glared at each of them. He wanted to lash out. He wanted to tell them how stupid they were being, how people were going to die because of their cowardice and inability to face the difficult. He wanted to tell them some of the things he'd seen night after night, of villages burning, columns of smoke rising into the sky for miles, of blighted fields and bodies, bodies everywhere, bloated, blackened, eyes pecked out by crows, scattered like rotting leaves in the fall.
He wanted to tell them, but he didn't. He just turned and walked away.
Warn them of the threat, prepare them for the conflict and learn to command my servants.
That would show them. If he could call down the servants of the Most High, surely that would force them to agree to take action. But how to find their names?
As Karux walked along meditating upon the symbol that would lead him to the one who knew the names of the High Lord's servants, he passed Eiraena, Dressela's six-year-old daughter, playing in the dirt.
It had become painfully obvious from her birth that something was wrong with that child. She didn't respond to other people the way a normal child would. She wouldn't look at them or respond to their voice. She had never learned to talk and would usually strip off her clothes when she became upset, which was often. From her infancy, she hated to be held and would scream uncontrollably in her mother's arms. As Karux passed, she sat naked in the dirt, carefully arranging rocks as she often did while, at the same time, grumbling to herself deep in her throat, making a sound that wasn't words though it had a strange word-like rhythm to it.
"Hey Karux," Theris called from across the commons. "You've got to hear this!"
As Theris came running up Karux stopped and looked back, suddenly remembering the pile of small rocks Eiraena played with. They formed a circular wall around a central cone-shaped pile.
No, he thought. It couldn't be.
As if reading his mind, she turned and looked directly into his eyes scowling, and the world went white.