Divine Deception: The Will Traveller Chronicals (13 page)

“You people have
learned to communicate with us?” The male’s surprise was rather
clear.

“Only myself to my
knowledge” I told him truthfully.

“Why? Who are
you?” He asked congenially, as the three of us glided silently over
the treetops.

“What do you know
of human culture?” I inquired of them.

“Only that black
humans are always killing and eating every living thing they find”
The female replied “And that white human technology seems to
dominate and very often change the whole environment of wherever
they choose to live” She added. I briefly explained the human
propensity for having Gods to guide them and found that they too
revered the Creator. But theirs was reverential gratitude, for all
that the Creator had already provided, not prayers for even
more.

“So you are an
emissary of the Creator?” The male asked, awe creeping into his
tone.

“In a way you
could say that” I agreed “But I have no authority, or ability,
beyond the will of all those whom I’ve come to help” I hoped they
understood. I told them who I was looking for and, of course, they
knew where the wild people were living, but they were extremely
reluctant to take me there.

“We’ll all end up
looking like dead porcupines” The male warned.

“I’m told it’s
worse on the ground” The fearful female contributed.

“You can
communicate with all the animals down there?” I asked.

“No, only other
avian creatures” She replied “There are a few who can’t fly, poor
things”.

Sure enough, as we
reached the foothills of that mountain range, we saw plumes of
smoke. The eagles bid me farewell, as I cautiously approached a
small circular village of grass dwellings. In all, twelve huts,
three metres in diameter and linked by an above ground pathway,
were built on metre high stumps. Four of the dwellings turned out
to be the source of the smoke and, from the smell of it, it was
lunchtime. Though I could hear people’s voices and general noises,
I could see no one. I landed gently on a thick branch, a metre over
one of the smoking huts.

“I don’t like this
guerrilla style stuff” A man’s voice complained “We’ve got the
numbers, we know they’ve gone soft I think…”.

“Hey man, no one
cares what you think” A similar aged voice cut him off “Martin
knows what he’s doing” A deeper, older voice affirmed the second
man’s opinion. “Why waste our blood?” Another male voice agreed,
then came the sounds of a group of men eating noisily. It appeared
that there were no women in that hut. After flitting from branch to
branch, like a big, awkward red bird, so that I could listen over
each one, there were no women in any of the others. The eight
non-smoking huts were completely empty. The ground below the circle
of huts had been completely cleared, out to a three metre band
around the perimeter, and steps led down from all four sides. While
I was still debating whether to wait and continue listening in
secret, or zoom in and say hello, all of the men came out of the
four huts simultaneously.

The twenty six,
huge, half naked black men all carried ridiculously small, cross
bow type weapons, which they all fired straight at me! The twenty
six, pen sized missiles all found their target, not too surprising,
given the close range, and then they disappeared! It happened too
quickly for me to think about it, or get frightened.

“You guys are not
very hospitable are you?” I pointed out to the dumbfounded group of
warriors, all wearing body paint as armour.

“Not even the
giant elephant could survive such an assault” An older member of
the group said softly, clearly awe-struck.

“Perhaps you
should check before you shoot next time” I suggested rather
coldly.

“We were not told
that white men had such technology as you have displayed” A man
whom I recognised as the deep voice from the first hut said to
me

“I do not see any
weapons, are you an emissary?” He queried, obviously hoping for a
positive answer.

“Should I so
choose, all of you would cease to exist” I answered grimly “That is
the normal penalty for firing upon any member of the Supreme Family
of the New World. Futile though that act might be” I told them.
Instantly, all of them fell to their knees, their weapons
clattering onto the metre-wide boardwalk, then falling onto to the
ground below.

“Forgive us
Excellency, we would never have contemplated such impudence had we
known Sire” Somehow I didn’t believe him, because, despite their
fear, I could sense their anger at this unwanted extension of white
dominance.

“Martin is your
Commander or the Chieftain?” I asked.

“He is our
hereditary Leader Your Excellency” He answered.

“I will speak with
him” I commanded authoritatively.

“Clearly we are
defenceless against you, Excellency” The big, forty something black
man conceded, adding “Kill us all if you so choose, but not one of
us will guide you to our people, or our leader” There was no doubt
he believed his words to be truth. I thought of my recently made
friends in the sky, assuring them no harm could come to them.
Within seconds, the two gigantic eagles glided into the clearing
and sat atop a hut each, dwarfing the simple round structures.

“I want you to
take this one for a lip loosening ride” I told the male, pointing
at the apparent leader of this little band. The man’s low voice
shot up several octaves, when the huge bird’s mighty talons clamped
both his shoulders, drawing copious amounts of blood in the
process, and flew him to a few hundred meters.

“Who’d like to
join him?” I asked the rest of them. The female bird waited
eagerly. With their once confident leader screaming like a spoilt
child, high above them, the twenty five men, still on their knees,
heads bowed, were thoroughly cowed and confused.

“Either I get
directions or my feathered friends will pick you up, one by one,
and drop you out there” I pointed to the thick jungles all around
“Then you can become the food of those you kill so wantonly” I told
the frightened group of warriors.

“You speak of the
beasts as if they were humans Sire” One of the older men spoke out,
not willing to lift his head.

“You know” I told
him “I heard that said of you, just this morning, by a white man
who was one of those who sought to eradicate your people three
decades ago” I added coldly “Now all of you stand and look up at
your colleague” I ordered. He hung limply, silently.

“Just fainted” The
huge avian assured me. I told the men to go down into the centre of
the village and form a circle, then, I had the male eagle bring the
seemingly lifeless body back down and drop him in the middle.
No-one moved forward to try to help the man, as he groggily fought
his way back to full consciousness.

“Do you think you
would still be alive were I not compassionate?” I asked the
still-sitting, still-hazy, low voiced leader.

“I do not wish to
do harm to you, your people or your leadership” I told him “Quite
the contrary, I am decreed to prevent harm to all, especially the
weaker and the defenceless” The once proud and confident leader,
now bleeding profusely from six ugly wounds on the front and back
of his shoulders, looked decidedly weak.

“I have no
understanding of your powers” The big man looked up at me, all fear
gone, just an acceptance that death was near, which, without
medical attention, was true. That distressed me greatly.

“Do not trouble
yourself so Sire” My circling male eagle sensed my distress “This
man and his kin have caused much pain and suffering throughout this
jungle for many decades” He added.

“It is just and
fair that he should die in this way” The female eagle contributed.
Still, I desperately wished that I could undo the damage I’d done.
Suddenly, a white powdery cloud of smoke enveloped the mortally
wounded, two metre plus black leader. His twenty five colleagues
leaped back to crouch, terrified, around the supporting stumps of
the huts. I floated down to investigate. As soon as my boots
touched the ground, the thick cloud, which had hidden the man
completely, began to dissipate. By the time I walked over and
looked down, the mist had all but gone, and I looked down on a
peacefully sleeping, slightly smiling, completely uninjured man!
His eyes opened slowly and he raised his hands to his face, looked
at his now undamaged body then looked up at me.

He, like the
twenty five other men and two massive eagles that circled above,
obviously attributed this miracle to me. All I’d done was wished he
hadn’t been mortally wounded, I had no idea how it had happened,
but I was really grateful that it had.

“Until now, I had
believed the white man’s Gods were false” The man’s voice was deep
and reverential “I was wrong” He apologised, looking at me
expectantly.

“Do I look like an
eagle?” I asked as he knelt, head bowed.

“No Sire” He
replied, not looking up at me.

“Yet can I not
communicate with them that I may know their will and express mine?”
I asked. This time he did slowly bring his head up to look at my
face, his was a look full of questions.

“Must I therefore
be black, before I can speak with your people” I asked “So that I
may know your will and express my own?” I watched some
understanding grow in his huge brown eyes.

“So you are not
here to protect the white invaders?” He asked, deep voice still
deferential.

“I am here to stop
all killing, no matter what the perceived justification may be” I
told him sincerely “They will never again trouble your people and
yours will not be allowed to trouble them. What is past is past;
revenge will only keep the cycle of killing alive into the future,
for your children and their children” That might not have been what
he wanted to hear, but there was no way he wanted to argue with
me.

“I cannot pretend
to understand Sire” He stated frankly, his head back down “But I am
not so foolish as to question your word. What is it you will have
from me Sire?” He asked, his voice both strong yet supplicant.

“Only knowledge
about your ways and directions to your leadership’s location” I
told him.

“What would you
know Sire?’ He asked me curiously “How can I know what someone such
as you does not Sire?” He wondered.

For the next hour
or so, I quizzed him on his people and what he knew of their
history. Though he was just a small child at the time, he
remembered that they used to farm on small plots, breed cattle and
pigs and only hunted a small part of their food requirements.

The few adults
left, after the white man’s massacre nearly forty years ago,
created small villages in the foothills of the mountains, just
ahead of us. Though they still had small vegetable plots, they had
to hunt for their meat now, because all their stock had been killed
as well. Starvation was still the single most serious threat to his
people. There were two tribes, as far as he knew, the Lowlanders of
which he was one and the Highlanders, who lived in the mountainous
country that surrounded this whole area. Martin, the hereditary
King and Commander of all the Lowlander clans, had allied with all
the tribal chiefs of the nearby Highland clans. They were now ready
to start hit and run attacks on the processing and port facility
and sabotaging the pipeline itself.

This would draw
the whites from their refuge where, with newly developed weaponry,
they could shoot down the iron birds and drive the whites off their
land. Looking at their state of technology, it seemed unlikely they
could down a T.T.V. yet even trying and being defeated, is better
than not trying, when you’re desperate enough. The thousands of
square kilometres of flat, fertile land which they had been driven
from, had to be retaken, if their clans in this area were to
survive. Better to die honourably in battle than to starve to
death. He was a Field Commander and was doing a patrol to check the
condition of all of their forward positions, they had just finished
preparing this one, hence the clear ground and spruced up
condition.

They had ten such
camps right across their defence line which stretched at least five
kilometres. Six to eight hundred primitively armed men would be no
match for two or three T.T.V’s like the one I’d flown here with. It
would have been yet another, even bigger massacre, one which I was
definitely going to prevent. Martin’s headquarters were two days
fast march into the hills, but the two giant eagles, which sat high
above us on opposite sides of the clearing, advised me that it was
just an hour’s flight. On my instruction, at the male eagle’s
suggestion, the two metre tall black leader had his men make a
swing-type chair, with thick vines. He sat on it gingerly, as the
enormous bird flew round the clearing very slowly. With a sudden,
deft movement, the eagle snatched up the supporting rope and flew
back into the sky.

I watched them
rise and be joined, at several hundred metres, by the equally large
female. Then, to a gasp of wonderment by the earth bound warriors,
I took off and joined the now totally smitten Lowlander Field
Commander. This was his first aerial view of the world which he
lived in. Though obviously frightened, he still managed to be
thrilled at the view of his verdant homelands.

“I have often
dreamed of what our jungle looked like to the birds” He called out
from his lofty and precarious looking perch.

“I hope your
appreciation of the beauty of their world will move you to end the
wanton killing of all flying creatures” I replied.

“We kill only for
food Sire” He protested with quiet passion.

“Then these people
must be hungry all the time” The doubtful female eagle snickered
telepathically.

“Then why waste so
much of their kills?” The male challenged.