Eden (7 page)

So that was the reason for the glint of laughter. The Hollow Man had known all along what lurked in the dark, ready to devour any creature that crossed its path.

A serpent—far worse than mere insects …

The oil lamp sputtered and went out. Eden saw her master pull his cloak about him, for the air had grown cold. But then thinking better, he took it off, folding his cloak to make a pad for her. The stars overhead wheeled silently across the sky and the three silent figures sat before the cave mouth under a moving dome of endless night.

How much time passed Eden did not know.

When she gazed across the ledge again their adversary held the serpent in his lap. The snake was dead and the Hollow Man had skinned it, laying bare its flesh.

“One of the scorpions must have struck on the way down,” he said softly. “Or maybe both did. He ate too fast. Anyway, this gives us meat.”

A strip of snake dangled in his fingers and he tossed the dainty before Eden's nose. The aroma filled her nostrils, not evil but delicious, the finest meat she'd ever smelled. And a hunger rose in her, a hunger unlike any she had ever known.

“Go on, take it,” the Hollow Man said. “We can't go on like this forever.”

Eden's will began to weaken, her mouth watering for the first time in god knows when. But she knew if she took this slip of meat she would no longer be her master's friend and protector, but this
creature's
creature sitting across in the dark. He would own her, possess her, she'd become
his
alone. Just when she thought she would succumb, when she began to crawl on her belly for a taste … her master's soft voice held her close.

“Why not?” he asked. “Why can't we go on forever?”

The Hollow Man seemed taken aback; he had not foreseen this turn.

But then he slyly turned her master's mind back on itself, pointing toward the ledge and the currents of air rising into their faces.

“Prove it. Take that step … and I'll follow
you
.”

Her master looked over the ledge into the stony abyss, an endless fall. Eden joined him, poking her nose over, but his arm blocked her from going farther. They retreated from the edge.

“Follow whomever you wish,” she heard her master say, “but by your choice we shall know you.” And with that Eden's hunger suddenly vanished. She no longer wanted that bit of meat that had seemed so delicious only a moment before. She sat by her master's feet and felt his hand upon her shoulder. “You have free will,” her master told the Hollow Man. “
He
gave you that. But you cannot have mine.”

The creature sitting in the dark did not seem vexed. He shrugged and gazed out across the open abyss.

Suddenly a vision seemed to grow from the depths of the emptiness. The very world itself lay like an endless carpet. Eden had no idea the world could be this big, this grand: open deserts, snow-clad mountains, lakes and forests, a thousand castles, a thousand palaces, a thousand streets and markets, ports and harbors overflowing with the goods of every land, nation upon nation, stretching beyond sight and out of mind.

A sea of faces lifted upward all begging to worship those sitting on the ledge: the faces of the living, the faces of the dead, even the faces of all those yet to be born like eager spirits clamoring in adoration of those three figures perched above. The nameless throngs would slave for them, die for them, kill for them, make monuments to their magnificence, burn offerings and sacrifice the lambs of the world.

The horizons of all Eden had ever known shrank to a paw print in the sand. The little village, the dried-fish seller, the clamoring children on the rooftops, the men in the fields and the sheep in the orchards, became the merest speck on this lush carpet of humanity and beasts and all their works.

The very world.

Offered to her master, offered to her …

And she heard the silky voice of their adversary bargaining all for all, “Will this not make you follow me? For what is mine shall be yours and more besides …”

Eden looked into the black void below, then into the black void above, and the stars stopped wheeling in their endless orbits. “Get away!” she tried to growl, but she found her jaws locked together, the cliff fading from her eyes. The stars blinked out one by one. The abyss opened at her feet.

And she fell, falling, falling and knew no more.

Eden awoke at the base of the cliff in the pit of the barren valley as if she had never been up high. The stones no longer mocked her, but lay mute on every side. She lay on her side in the dark, tongue swollen with thirst, eyes crusted with salt. The adversary of the high place was nowhere to be seen, his scorpions and serpent only a memory.

The man lay beside her, exhausted, beaten. His chest slowly rose and fell, he barely breathed. And then to make things worse, Eden realized they were not alone.

Three hyenas had padded to the lip of the dell and stared down. Their lips peeled back from their teeth and when they laughed at her, Eden's bones grew cold.

Nor did they wait to attack. Two came on as one, forcing her against the cliff, and the third went for the man on the ground. That one tore at her master's cloak, and in the darkness Eden saw a flash of naked skin. Eden didn't think—she ripped through the two hyenas, snapping one in the face and the other on the snout. The third tearing her master's cloak yelped when her teeth clamped on his neck.

But one dog against three couldn't last for long. The hyenas cornered Eden again, and as each lunged, she'd snap, then snap at the next and the next. Panting, she finally missed one and he clamped on her ear. A flash of pain filled her head and blood ran over her eyes.

Even so she struck out blindly, but the hyenas were just playing with her now. There was nothing to stop them from tearing at the prostrate man. He groaned but could not rise.

This was the end then …

Eden felt it in her heart. The man's hand held Eden close to him.

All she could do was lie on her master, just lie on him and let the devils get her too—

The three hyenas grinned at her one last time.

Blood speckled her white fur.

For a moment they hesitated before the final go. Why stop now?

A faint sound came to Eden's torn ear.

The sound of little bells jangled sweetly in the air. Their brassy chimes filled the narrow ravine. Three large rams with bells about their necks bounded across the stones, followed by three fat ewes. The ewes circled Eden and her master, while the rams with their great horns went straight at the grinning hyenas. With a thud of horn on hide and three terrified yelps, the devils fled, limping as they ran.

And the sound of tiny brass bells echoed off the cliff face.

They were saved.

Eden felt someone licking the blood from her face and the cut on her ear. At once she recognized the young goat from the river, the kid's little gray muzzle nuzzled her face.
You saved me, you saved me
, the little animal whispered. Goodness gracious—a goat among the sheep, and Eden almost laughed, but her throat was too dry. A great udder appeared in front of her nose and she suckled like a pup again. And when the sun rose in the narrow ravine her master was sitting up, breathing easier now, drinking milk from that empty gourd. No rams. No hyenas. No little kid.

And when Eden touched her mangled ear with her paw, yes, a scrap of white fur was gone, but the flesh had knit closed, fresh as new.

A Wedding

The followers did not come all at once, but as drops of rain at the head of a storm, first one, then another, and then another …

Eden stood by the riverbank once more. Her master had returned to speak and a few people, recently touched by the water, stayed to listen and to dry themselves by the campfires. The dog felt her master's mind, his hopes and fears like an aura all on its own. He needed to do many things. But he could not do it all alone. Much would he say, and many would listen—
but he needed men to help him
. Nearby, the wild man's donkey roused himself from his mound of fodder and stood quietly by, listening as her master's voice rose and fell.

At last the donkey spoke, “No one thought you'd ever come back.”

Eden thought of the hunger and thirst, the mocking stones. “Me either.”

“What did you see?”

She thought of the strange, empty man and his evil creatures.
What to say? We met the man at the end of the world, he tried to tempt us
. No … instead she told the donkey:

“Hyenas and goats.”

The donkey nodded gravely. “That sounds a lot like here.” He shook his head and shifted his ears. “What did you learn?”

“I learned the world is broad and wide, bigger than this riverbank, bigger than our village, bigger than even the wasteland.”

The donkey grew silent, considering Eden's words. At last he said, “I would like to see this world you speak of.”

“Won't your master miss you?” Eden asked the donkey.

Again, the old donkey pondered her words.

“No,” he finally told her. “The man of the river carries his own burdens.”

Eden looked at the man of the river standing by the campfire, listening with the others. He leaned on his staff for support, weary in body and mind, but his face and eyes in the firelight seemed lit within just by standing in her master's circle.

“You'll have to leave your mound of hay behind,” Eden told the gray-faced donkey.

“At least I can forage by the side of the road. But what of you?”

Eden looked at the knot of people gathered by their campfires. Her master's words rose and fell on their upturned faces. “So far I have never starved,” she told the donkey. “There is food by the roadside for me as well. Through thick and thin, somehow the world provides.”

That settled matters. So in the end the donkey joined them.

They journeyed north towards the great lake. And yes, the world was broad and wide, and as each league passed they found food where it appeared and neither dog nor donkey went hungry. They kept to the river where grass grew and in the swampy places they rooted about in hoopoes' nests and stole pelican eggs. In other places, her master swept fish out of eddies with his hands to flap on the rocks, cooking them on hot coals. At night he spoke by the campfires of those who journeyed, and food was shared even when there was little to go around.

But somehow, miraculously, neither man nor animal starved. And as the sun rose each day, Eden and the donkey looked ahead with fresh eyes.

After a few nights, the two animals and their master were no longer alone, as newcomers had joined them. These were also travelers who stopped to listen by the campfire, only to awake the next dawn wishing to follow the sound of the master's words and see the wider world. Without even an invitation the newcomers abandoned their personal journeys, as if joining paths with a dog, a donkey and a total stranger were the most natural thing in the world. But where this stranger, his dog and the donkey would lead them—where the travelers were bound or what they would find—no one knew.