“But you said there were five books.” He gave me a
deadpan stare until it dawned on me. “
The
book. Tiamat’s book was the
fifth?”
He nodded. “After they were given the knowledge,
though, the humans realized she never told them one thing; how the gods were
created. They asked her but she refused to tell them. She had made the humans
too curious, however, and they kept asking. Tiamat became frustrated, so she
took the Tablet of Destiny and left Earth. The humans started teaching the
knowledge to others and that angered the gods. Apsu, who was a demon, decided
to kill the humans. Apsu was no consort to Tiamat but a foe. She gave the four
humans incredible powers- even more power than a Guardian had. One of the
humans, the one you call Kingu, was the leader, and she gave him her own book.
With their knowledge and power, they destroyed Apsu.
“Apsu’s companion was horrified, so she sent her son,
Murduk, after Tiamat and the humans. Tiamat didn’t want to fight Murduk because
the humans would then learn to kill, so she made a deal with him that if he
would forever leave the humans alone, she would take the four and leave to the
Land of the Gods.”
“Angels!” I said.
“That’s right. The four humans had children of their
own, though not many. Sometimes they would visit Earth and the humans began to
call them angels.
“Murduk was afraid to fight Tiamat and her humans, so
he took her deal under the condition that he got the Tablet of Destiny. Tiamat
added that he must stay on Earth to protect the humans from the other gods. He
agreed and Tiamat left with the four humans.”
“So she left a demon in charge of protecting humans?”
“According to mythology, she had many unorthodox
allies. But Murduk was not a pleasant demon and he was jealous of Tiamat. He
told many tales of Tiamat being a terrible creature. Many years later, the
daughter of Kingu came to Earth and met Murduk, who quickly fell in love with
her. He gave her the Tablet of Destiny and she returned it to Tiamat.”
“Well, that’s… a much cooler story.” I let it soak in
for a few minutes. “How do you know all that if you never met her?”
“Not even the Guardians know everything about the
gods. This is no more than one of the bedtime stories told to Ronez and me, but
it is far more accurate than the stories told on Earth and Duran. Even sago
know there are only twelve gods. On Duran, twelve is a number of magic, and a
child’s twelfth birthday is special.”
“So Tiamat was willing to give power to the humans
and side with them over another god. Is it unusual for the gods to turn against
each other like that?”
“As far as I’ve gathered, very. Sometimes it seems
like she is an innocent, playful, naive child compared to the other gods, and
sometimes it seems like she is much more powerful, lethal, beautiful, and wise
than them.”
I considered this for a while. “What are the other
gods like?”
“The only god I’ve ever met was Erono, the god of
Duran.” He turned the pages in my book to the very front and pointed to a name.
It looked Hebrew. “That’s Tiamat’s signature. Each god signs their own book,
but no other god can sign his name in it. The gods don’t need the books to
travel between worlds.”
We sat in silence for a while. At first, it was a
comfortable silence, but then it slowly came over me just how different my life
would be. I didn’t know the culture, the language, the food… I couldn’t call
Vivian. “Vivian loved the rainforest. She would have loved to see this. She’s
going to be so mad at me when she finds out I’m not coming back.”
Edward frowned. “I thought she would be upset, not
mad. Did you love her?”
I leaned my head back against the tree. “I never said
it, but I think so.”
“You’ll fall in love again someday. The first time
you lose someone to old age, you’ll realize what immortality is.”
“Time is a great healer, but an even greater thief.
You gain the power and the history, your life becomes rich with the joys of the
world, and your soul becomes empty with the ripping away of everything that
made those joys enjoyable.”
I couldn’t discern Edward’s frown. “Have you ever
tried seeking a therapist?”
I laughed. “How do you deal with immortality?”
“What else would I do? There’s no way around it, so I
have to accept it.” He pointed to a spot deep in the woods, where a creature
resembling a deer-sized cow was grazing. It had the black-and-white pattern and
shape of a cow, but was much smaller and skinnier. “That’s a yorkie. It’s tough
and sweet, but very satisfying.”
“A yorkie? Mother had a yorkie that tried to eat me.”
I nearly laughed at his startled expression. “A yorkie is a small dog on my
world.” I raised the gun at the animal and imagined it barking at me. I tried
to pull the trigger, but it wouldn’t budge. Edward’s gun went off and the
animal burst off at a run.
I lowered the gun to examine it, but I couldn’t
understand why it hadn’t gone off. Edward very slowly reached for a little
button behind the trigger and pressed it. “That’s a safety button. You can’t
shoot with it on.”
“Why do guns even have safety buttons?” I growled,
completely humiliated.
“It’s safer. Let’s get the yorkie and get home.”
“Are you certain you got him? I was sure he took
off.”
He started forward, so agile and light that I felt
even clumsier than I was. “I never miss,” he finally said.
Sure enough, the animal was only a few feet from
where it’d been shot. It looked more like a deer than it had from a distance.
Its fur was long and white with large black splotches. Luckily, it was actually
dead, because to see the animal suffering on the brink of death would have been
too much.
“What? Death doesn’t make you sick, does it?” Edward
asked regarding my mien, which must have expressed my pity.
Of course not; I welcome it with open arms.
“No, it’s just that Vivian was a tree hugger. She was anti-hunting.” And so was
I, even if I wouldn’t admit it. I thought hunting for food was different than
hunting for sport, but a dead animal was a dead animal, and I didn’t want to be
the cause of its death. I just didn’t want to starve, either. Besides, I was no
vegetarian.
Edward nodded his understanding. “This is different
than your world’s love of sport hunting. Meat is a necessary part of the diet,
but maybe you would prefer fishing,” he suggested.
“I hate fish.”
“That’s fine. There are no fish around Shomodii;
they’re afraid of the bigger sea creatures here.” He picked up the yorkie
easily.
Once back at my new home, Edward started breaking
down the yorkie while I started trying to build a fire. Edward told me Duran
did have matches and lighters, but he didn’t have any since most wizards just
used magic. So I tried the stick method. Soon, I came to the conclusion there
was no such thing. Friction from sticks couldn’t really make fire; the
ancestors were lying.
Edward came to see my dry, cold logs. “Why haven’t
you started the fire?”
“The logs are faulty. They’re not flammable.”
Edward set the clumps of meat on the large rocks
surrounding the burn logs. He picked up the grill gate and set it down on top,
then arranged the meat on it. When he took his hands away, the wood suddenly
came alive with flames. He had set the fire without any work.
“Show off.”
He grinned and sat down on the ring of logs placed
around the fire. “Fire is easy for most people, especially emotional people
like you.” I glared at him, but he ignored me. “There is magic energy, much
like the physical energy you know of, that is in everything. Your mind is able
to control this energy, which enables you to impact your surroundings. However,
you put your soul into what you do, so the magic you do shapes you. If you use
it to kill a person, you will be hurting or even destroying your soul.”
“What about that creature I killed?”
“It was not a person; it was a mindless killer with
no soul. You have a lot of raw power that you need to learn to control. The
energy reacts to your emotions when your mind is not in control.”
The yorkie was done by then and I got a decently
large chunk, but I waited to see if there was any weird Duran way of eating. He
raised it to his mouth and mumbled something before he bit into it, but
otherwise ignored me. He didn’t seem to like to talk while he ate.
The food was tough, lean, and very red, though cooked
thoroughly. Edward had glass plates and knives, but no forks, and he didn’t
seem to notice that it was very hot. It was sweet, as Edward said it would be,
but he should have warned me that it was pretty salty. My eyes were watering
before my hunger had subsided enough to stop eating.
“Is there anything to drink?”
“There’s water, milwyd juice, and Kamitsue juice. I
don’t suggest the milwyd juice; I think you’re allergic to it. Stay here.” He
got up and started for the porch.
“Do you think I’ll run off and get lost?”
“Possibly. If you do, an animal will take the food,
so don’t run off,” he said. I gave him a sour look as he went inside. He came
out a few minutes later with a large, black clay jar and two small matching
cups. When he handed me one of the cups, I was surprised to find it as heavy as
stone, and I imagined what the large carafe weighed.
“How long is the daylight?”
“Duran’s system of time is different than yours. Your
world is divided into hours and minutes, ours is don and doned. They can sort
of be translated to hours and minutes. You need to learn how long they are
because it is difficult to compare them. Earth uses a base twelve for time and
ten for counting. We use base ten for both. There are twenty don in a day and
fifty doned in a don. Duran also spins slower than Earth, and it’s bigger, so
our days are longer than Earth’s. Earth’s year and Duran’s year is about the
same; Duran’s is slightly longer from an Earth-time standpoint. This time a
year, we have about ten don of light and ten of night.”
“I feel like I’m back in kindergarten.”
“You’ll get used to it. When you are feeling up to
it, we can leave for Anoshii.”
“How long will that take?”
“Not too long. I live…
we
live not far from
the Shijo Ocean between Anoshii and Shomodii. It’ll take several days to get there
and get what we need.”
“I don’t have any money. At least not Duran money.”
“I do,” he said.
I stared at the fire, trying to conceal my
discomfort. I didn’t like getting money for nothing. Growing up with no money
of my own, I learned what I needed in order to live and what I could do
without. Money was for food and shelter, and while it would have been nice to
have a computer, the school had perfectly good ones in the library. My one and
only computer had taken me a year to save up for, only to be confiscated and
sold by my mother for gambling money. I learned not to accumulate trinkets.
Still, it wasn’t like I could turn it down.
Edward laughed at my expression. “In the many years
I’ve lived, I have collected more money than I would ever need. Furthermore,
you’ll be my apprentice so you’ll be earning it.”
“What kind of work will I be doing?” I asked,
slightly edgy.
He shrugged and his smile faded. “Mostly just house
and yard work. Keep the house clean, wash clothes, help with the wood chopping,
and general stuff like that. Primarily I want you to focus on your studies.”
“It sounds easy enough.”
“This isn’t a regular apprenticeship, where I teach
you magic in exchange for your hard labor. My top priority is protecting you
and your book and preparing you to protect your world on your own. Your top
priority must be to learn the skills you need to survive and protect Earth.”
“Can I practice magic on my chores? Like chopping
wood with magic?” I asked.
He cringed. “Drink.”
I hadn’t noticed him fill my cup, but when I looked
in it there was a thick, gold liquid. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
I suspected he was joking, so I took a tiny sip. It
was sweet like juice, but not any recognizable fruit, and was colder than the
liquid actually was. Edward finished his and poured himself another glass.
“This isn’t alcoholic, is it?”
“There are alcoholic drinks on Duran, but they’re
acidic and don’t taste very good. This is Kamitsue juice. You remember those
looping weeds with the big leaves that kept wrapping around your shoes?”
“Yeah. They could have cut me up real bad if I had
been running.”
“Those were Kamdka, or rattle weeds. They’re too
sweet to eat, but their roots make a good drink.”
I drank more of the thick drink and then continued to
eat. Once I knew I wasn’t going to fall over dead, I found the drink to be
fairly good. The meat was much more filling than I had expected it to be.
“I think I’m already getting used to the heaviness. I
want to hurry to Anoshii; I’m anxious to see what it’s like.”
“You’re much more curious than Kiro’s last
apprentice.” I jumped out of my skin and my skin hopped off the log onto the
cold, hard ground. “Clumsier, too.”
The silky, cheerful voice belonged to a woman who was
entirely too beautiful to be real. Her long, shiny black hair contrasted her
porcelain complexion and light blue eyes that were like crystals. Her perfectly
symmetrical facial features were soft and young, but had the graceful beauty of
a woman. She was not as tall as Vivian, only about five-foot-six, and wasn’t as
thin, but had a slender, athletic figure.
Her tight, dark blue tank top looked to be made of
thick, stretchy cotton and barely met her short black shorts. Her boots came up
to her knees.
I could still feel her body heat on my right side
where she had appeared next to me. She was entirely too beautiful to be human.
And apparently too beautiful to be talked to by idiots. I tried not to stare. I
really tried. Okay, I didn’t try very hard; it would have been a waste of
energy and I hated wasting energy.