It
happened late one afternoon, as the sun was drifting down behind the mountains
and the cool of evening was just beginning to settle in the shaded places of my
temple. Barnabas had been out in the
jungle all day, indeed he had left earlier than usual, bubbling with some
strange excitement and I was surprised not to have heard word of him arriving
back sooner. I was impatient for his company,
finding the obsequious priests of the Nahua to be tiresome at best. Though once I loved nothing more than to
listen to their endless sermons filled with platitudes, Barnabas had been
teaching me to enjoy a higher quality of interaction, one they were not ready
to accept from their god. I suppose I
was becoming - in this regard more than all others - quite spoiled.
When Barnabas
finally arrived through the great doors of my temple, doors which had once been
propped open to wheel in carts of coal and which now saw holy processions, I
was in a poor temper.
"You took
your time," I said haughtily, rising up on my coils so that I towered over
him, "is my divine company no longer worth your punctuality.
Barnabas
looked disappointed for just a moment as he tried to explain, "I didn't
realised that we had set a time, Kwetza-" I rankled at his lack of any
kind of honorific, though I had been happily letting it slip for weeks,
"-but if I've caused any offence, then I am terribly sorry."
I let out a
huff of hot air, venting my displeasure, then lowered myself closer to his
level, peering at him closely as I asked, "And what great thing delayed
you from one such as myself?"
Whether he
took my tone seriously or not, I do not know, but he cracked into an enormous
smile at that point and almost seemed to glow with his sudden enthusiasm.
"You will
not believe what I have found," he said, "but once you see it I am
sure that your heart will sing as mine has, for it is the most beautiful thing
I've ever discovered."
"More
beautiful than me?"
"When you
see what it is you will know that you cannot take offence when I say that, yes,
it truly is more beautiful."
I bristled,
rising back up to glare down at him.
"What you
say is tantamount to blasphemy, Barnabas."
"I assure
you, my dear Kwetza, it is not! Please,
will you consent to come with me tomorrow to the place where I have found it
and see for yourself. Then you will
understand."
I considered
his words. His lack of reverence for me
that day rankled and my boredom only made my attitude worse, but I had to admit
to a certain curiosity as to whatever this object was that could get Barnabas
so excited as to forget the common courtesy which had been the hallmark of his
relationship with me up unto this point.
Very slowly I
nodded.
"I will
come with you, but if what you have found displeases me..." I couldn't
finish the sentence. Angry or not I
didn't actually want to harm my friend, so I left the threat hanging.
"Of
course, Kwetza, of course, but you will not be disappointed." He bowed then, as if suddenly it was time to
return to formalities. "I'll come
here an hour before dawn then and if you are ready and it pleases you, we can
leave before first light."
I consented
and Barnabas left in the same high spirits in which he arrived. I, however, was more sullen. I was roughly aware that I had treated him
poorly, but in the full assurance of my divinity I wasn't sure what that
meant. Surely I could not have made a
mistake. Had Barnabas deserved my
anger? In that moment I felt a stab of
an emotion I had experienced only a handful of times before and I was unsure
what to do with it, or even what to call it.
I learnt later that it was guilt, and by then I was to be an expert.
The next day
Barnabas called on me as he had promised and with nothing to prepare for myself
and the Nahua ready to act on my command we did not have to wait very long
before we set off into the jungle to find Barnabas' discovery. It was a long journey and I made it mostly
in silence, although Barnabas often interrupted my thoughts with a comment on a
tree here or a bird there. I was
somehow both annoyed and amused by his enthusiasm, but I was mostly still
pondering my mood of the previous evening.
As is so often the way with these things, dwelling on past feelings
often makes them resurface and I grew impatient as the day wore on.
"What is
the point of this, Barnabas? Are we
ever going to reach this gewgaw you want to show me?" I snapped
eventually, after he had just alerted me to the presence of a small, colourful
bird he had called a Dawnlark or a Flutewarbler or some other, similar name.
"Yes,"
he replied seriously, "it isn't that much farther." He fell silent and I could tell that he was
upset in some way, but I wasn't sure what I could do about it, or even if I
should. I stared at him as we moved on,
trying to understand him, to understand this whole misadventure, but to no
avail.
A few minutes
later, just as Barnabas had said, we arrived in a small clearing and came to a
halt before the entrance of a cave. It
was little more than a lightning-shaped crack in the rock, but it was large
enough for two men to walk through side-by-side without stooping and it was
easily wide enough for someone of my flexibility.
"We're
here," Barnabas announced, "this is the place I found yesterday,
after following some very interesting trails through the jungle. What I want to show you is inside,
but," he looked to the side, as if he was uncertain how to broach the next
point, "I would prefer it if you came with me alone." He glanced suspiciously as the Nahua and I
wondered what was going through his mind.
“Very well,” I
said and gestured to our Nahua companions to step aside and remain
outside. They looked concerned, but
were unwilling to disobey a command from their god.
Barnabas lit a
torch and led the way into the crack, chatting enthusiastically as he did so,
his sentences filled with snippets like, “I think you’re really gong to like
this,” and, “You won’t believe it!” For
myself, I was signally unimpressed to begin with. It seemed to be just any other cave with damp-mottled walls and a
floor of old bones, even older stones and skittery insects.
The tunnel
which began at the crack widened very slightly as we made our way along it,
twisting and turning until I was unsure just how deep into the cliffface we had
traversed. Then, quite suddenly,
Barnabas announced, “It’s just around this corner,” and I found myself
impatient to learn what all the fuss was about. I picked up speed, urging Barnabas on as we wound through the
final twist into a large cavern filled with light. Suddenly Barnabas’ torch seemed a pathetic thing indeed, for the
ceiling of this cavern was riddled with holes through which poured a diffuse
daylight, enough to see quite clearly by.
And what a
wonder there was to be seen.
“What do you
think?” Barnabas asked as we both stared at the object at the centre of the
cavern, gleaming brilliantly in that filtered light.
“It is most
astonishing,” I said, trying to figure out what such a marvellous stone could
be. It was perfectly ovular, although
it seemed to be faceted in such a way that it threw reflected light in all
directions, hued in a billion different shades of red, blue, purple and green.
“Isn’t it
just?” Barnabas agreed, “It took my breath away when I finally found it
yesterday.”
I glanced at
him out of the corner of my eye, then asked, “Finally found it? You suspected something like this might be
here?”
“Well, I am a
naturalist. All I had to do was follow
the trails in the jungle which all led back to this place to know that I would
find something. I confess that I never
expected to discover something quite so beautiful, nor quite so rare.”
“So it is some
kind of animal?” I asked, then, feeling foolish as I realised what it must be,
added, “An egg?”
“Yes, Kwetza,
it is an egg and it is also an answer to a question.”
I turned to
look at him full on this time.
“What
question?”
“The question
of what species you belong to, my friend.”
I bristled.
“I do not
belong to any species, human, nor am I merely your friend. I am a god.
You know this. Have I not
explained it to you many times?”
I will never
forget the look of earnest care that came over his face in the moment as he
replied to me. I suspect it will haunt
me the rest of my long life.
“Kwetza. You are not a god. I have known this since first I met you and only my respect for
you and for your Nahua has kept my tongue.
But this egg, Kwetza, this is one of your own kind, lying in wait for
the day when it will hatch. That’s more
important than formalities and propriety.
It’s more important than the lie the Nahua have saddled you with.”
“How dare
you,” I replied, rising up on my coils to glare down at him. I wanted him to feel the full frailty of his
humanity, to cower before a deity, but he did not flinch. His expression remained the same, so calm,
so caring.
“I’m telling
you this for your own good. You have a good life with the Nahua, there’s not
doubt of it, but you could have better.
Don’t you realise that they murdered your mother? That because of them you’ll never know
another of your kind? You’re an
hexopterid, Kwetza, a six-winged serpent, and one day you’ll be able to
fly! Don’t you want to fly and be free
of the false responsibilities these people have laid upon you?”
“They are not
false. I am their god. I am your god also and what you say is
blasphemy. I should have you killed for
such insolence. I should-” I faltered.
It was that look in his eyes.
How could I kill a man who looked at me like that?
“You are not a
god, Kwetza. I have seen much in my
life and learned much more and if there is one thing I am certain of it is that
you are an animal, just the same as I am.
If there is a god, he is not like you or I, he is greater than that,
much greater and what then would he think of one who made claims such as you
do?”
The answer
came to me then, in my rage.
“You are
banished,” I said, trying to sound much calmer than I felt and instead
succeeding in producing a hoarse, seething whisper. “When we step out of this cave you will go your own way into the
jungle and you will never return to me or to the Nahua ever again.”
Barnabas
opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He looked crestfallen, but he nodded and said, at last, “Very well. I am sorry.”
He left the
cave ahead of me then, quicker than I had expected and by the time I slid out
into the dappled midday light of the jungle he was nowhere to be seen.
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