Into Eden: Pangaea - Book 1 (30 page)

It was then that Jesse realized that he had been staring at Adah—but not for any reason that Kenan might have supposed. The brief glimpse of her in his visions, first in this very hall and later as a possible future wife, unnerved him. “To be a prophet is not to know what may become of us. To be a prophet is to know which of those possibilities will come to pass. Anyone can speculate on what the future may hold” was what the Prophet said. This girl sitting across from him was one possibility of a wife for him. But if his vision was correct, she was only one possibility of several. How could this be? They had only stumbled into Bastrap accidentally, and Jesse had no plans to return. Over the course of the evening, however, Jesse was continually drawn back to her. She wasn’t bad-looking, really. No, not as attractive as Meroni, but she did have a nice smile. She was, perhaps, a little on the plump side, but who cares? Seth’s wife was plump and they seemed happy enough. Meroni was thin and attractive but he hated her. Well, maybe not hate—he would not throw her off a bridge or anything like that; but he doubted that he’d jump in after her if she fell. For Adah he thought that he could.

“I’m sorry,” Jesse told Kenan, “it’s just that I thought that I saw someone I knew.”

Kenan gave him a strange look but said no more.

The food was brought and sat before Kenan, his family and his guests. No one else was offered any.

Jesse leaned over to Kenan and asked, “Why aren’t the rest of the people eating? You said that this was to be a feast.”

“Oh it is! It is!” Kenan explained. “But these people have already eaten hours ago. It’s quite late, you know.”

“Then why are they here?”

“To hear your stories, of course! It has been many years since we have had a human outsider to visit us. An-nef come by every now and then to trade, and the Prophet sometimes visits this side of the mountain, but most humans are too smart to go down the Mountain Road to Eden. So we feast together! I would not be impolite to our guests! ”

Jesse smiled and thanked Kenan for the explanation.

When they had finished the meal Kenan called for all to be quiet, then turned to Jesse and said, “Tell us traveler of your journeys! Do not leave out a detail! Tales of the road, the towns, the cities! We must hear!”

By now the Great Room was packed with dark people who had come in to hear his story. Jesse was not accustomed to this sort of celebrity—and the last time that he gained celebrity status he had not handled it well—and for a moment did not know where to start. He started to stand, and when he did Enoch—who had been eating at his feet—started to nudge him. Jesse ignored him and then cleared his throat. Enoch bit him on the ankle. Looking down, Jesse saw Enoch motion with his paw to bend over.

“I’m sorry,” Jesse said, “but I’m afraid my dog’s getting a little feisty.”

A small round of laughter went through the crowd as Jesse bent over to see what Enoch wanted.

Enoch whispered in his ear, “Whatever you do, DON’T tell them what house you are from! Understand me?”

Jesse nodded, then stood back up to speak.

“I’m Jesse of the house of…Seth, and this is my brother Perez.” Jesse pointed to Perez, who gave him a level look.

“We have come a long ways, from Atlantis…” Jesse continued on with his tale, omitting the parts about the an-nef killing his father, and he and Perez escaping the jail in Mountain Shadows. But the crowd that evening seemed enthralled by his tales of fighting lions, braving dust storms and riding in a rowboat for hundreds of miles down the river. These were people who had never seen a mammoth, had never seen a dragon, and had never seen a cotton-field. And up until a few weeks ago, neither had he. They listened with rapt attention, and when he was done speaking a small crowd gathered around him and Perez with many peppering him with questions.

“Have you ever been to the City (distinguishing the empire of Atlantis from its capital)?”

“No.”

“Tell us more about Mountain Shadows…tell us more about Whitehurst...tell us more about Albion.”

“Did it hurt when the lion scratched you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you cry?”

“No.”

A few feet away he could hear Perez telling some of the young ladies about how he had injured himself fighting werewolves. Adah was among those who crowded around Jesse to hear more. She listened intently to everything that he said, but asked no questions. Finally, it was Jesse who asked her if she had any questions, but instead of a question she blurted out, “Fighting that lion must have been VERY brave!” Jesse’s face reddened, and some of the girls with Adah started to giggle. Another girl, who appeared to be a few years older than Adah, worked her way to the front of the crowd. She was very attractive, and despite the obvious differences in both dress and appearance, she reminded Jesse of Meroni. She had an air of superiority that said, “You should be lucky to be in my presence.” Jesse turned away from her and started to answer questions from others in the crowd. Something about her made him nervous. He wished that Perez would join them. He knew how to handle situations like this. When he turned back around, however, there she was—standing right next to him.

“Jesse,” she said, “I’m Merana, and I was wondering if you could tell us what it was like to kill two lions.”

“Merana” was just too close to “Meroni” for Jesse’s comfort.

“Terrifying.”

“No, really, how did you feel?”

“Like I said, I was terrified. Those lions had probably killed dozens of people all along the Southern Highway. I killed the first one by sheer luck. I hunted the second only because I knew that if I didn’t it would keep on killing, but I was scared to death every second. That’s a fact.”

“Oh…” Merana said, clearly expecting a different answer.

“Facing a lion even when you were terrified
is
true bravery,” Adah said. “What bravery is there in a man who is not afraid to face a lion and does it? But for a man who is afraid and does it anyway—that’s real bravery.”

With those words, Jesse felt himself falling for this girl. She was not only cute, but smart as well. And Jesse liked smart.

“Jesse,” Kenan said, working his way through the crowd, “I would have a word with you.”

Jesse and Kenan left the crowd and stepped out of the Great Room.

“Come, walk with me,” Kenan said. “We can talk.”

The air outside was now quite cool, and Jesse pulled his cloak around him. They walked around the stockade in the night air and Jesse could smell the smells of a city: food over fires, smoke, hay, and manure. He found himself again feeling homesick for the Foothills and Albion. They walked down alleys past log houses that looked nothing like the houses back home, but they were homes none-the-less, homes that had seen generations born and die in this hidden wooden city on the south-face of Fog Mountain. Over the doors of many of the homes were good-luck charms of carved pinecones, fitting for a village in the forest.

“Jesse, I feel that you have been dishonest with me again,” Kenan started.

“You mean about my house?”

“Yes.”

“I’m from the house of Nashon,” Jesse said. “And I was advised that it might be wise not to announce that fact.”

“I see. And wise it was. The house of Nashon is not favored in Bastrap. It was he who drove my fathers south from the Foothills to this mountain that we now call home. Many died on the way. Are you related to that Nashon? You and your brother do favor him, if I may say so.”

“He was my father.”

“No longer among those that live?”

“No. He was…he’s been dead for some months now.”

Kenan nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank-you. Did you know my father?”

“Gods, no! I may be old, but I’m not THAT old!”

“But you said that you could see the resemblance…”

“The statue that the citizens of Mountain Shadows erected in his honor has his image chiseled into it! Surely you saw in on the road to the mountain?”

“It’s kind of hard to miss.”

“Now Jesse. Don’t worry about a thing. I don’t hold the son to account for the sins of the father, but I would not spread the word of your ancestry. It would not be wise.”

“Thank-you, Kenan.”

“Now about the issue of your visit…you’re on you way to Eden to hunt down a certain an-nef. Why?”

“Because…” Jesse hesitated on how much to tell Kenan, but having been caught in two lies by the man he figured that he’d better just tell it straight.

“Because my father and brother were killed by an-nef. A jackal-head by the name of Anubis who ran a sword through my father as he lay in his bed.”

Kenan ran both hands over his head and sighed.

“Jesse, hear me and hear me clearly: I will not stop you from going to Eden, but if you would return the favor of me saving your life I would ask that when you are there you speak nothing of having been in Bastrap. We dark people have always had good relations with the an-nef. We trade with them and when they are crossing the mountain they sometimes spend the night to keep from being on the road after dark. I’m sure that you understand our concern.”

Jesse nodded, and Kenan went on, “In the days of my father, when the an-nef invaded Atlantis, Mizriam’s hordes bypassed Bastrap. They did us no harm. They knew that we had been treated unfairly by the Atlantan light people as had they. They understood that we knew what it was like to be dragged from one’s home and forced to march through a desert to a foreign land. We’ve built a new home, here, Jesse, and it’s a good one. I do not want the an-nef to have any call to see us as their enemy. Do you understand?”

“I understand perfectly,” Jesse told him. “It will be our secret.”

“Kenan,” Jesse asked, changing the subject, “about the werewolves. Are they three-quarters wolf?”

“Yes. Only quarter Nephilim.”

“But they seemed so intelligent. The one that you called, ‘Man-stalker’ seemed quite urbane for a furry killer.”

“Don’t let their appearance deceive you. They are very intelligent, and as much predator as any animal that you have ever met. They bury their spark of humanity as deeply as they can. Even the an-nef kill them on site—just like they will you.”

Jesse frowned at the reminder.

“Werewolves are the product of one intelligent animal mating with another. Even that dog of yours is intelligent enough. You might be surprised what he would say if the gods loosened his tongue.”

“Who knows, Kenan, Enoch just might surprise you some day and do just that.”

After the evening’s festivities Perez had been taken to a room off the side of the Great Room, where he had been examined by the town’s medicine man.

“Nothing broken,” the old dark man declared. “Just a sprain. Hard to tell how long you’ll be off your feet. Couple of days, maybe. Couple of weeks, possibly. You young people heal faster than us old-timers. I can make a poultice for it so it’ll heal faster.”

Perez was clearly eating up the added attention. Merana had volunteered to act as his nurse until he was well enough to travel. Enoch just rolled his eyes and shook his head. He desperately wanted to say something, but he knew that he’d better not blow his cover.

When Kenan returned, he extended an offer to both Jesse and Perez, “Young travelers, I would be honored if you would stay at my house until you are both well enough to travel.”

Perez, who had already accepted Merana’s offer to look after him, declined. Jesse, on the other hand, happily accepted the invitation. They were to spend a week in Bastrap while Perez regained the use of both ankles. A week that Jesse began to hope would be much longer. The home in which Kenan had invited him was small, very small in comparison to his father’s estate, and barely bigger than the cabin that the Prophet lived in. Yet even on the coldest nights it was warm, as Zillah kept the fire constantly burning, and usually with something cooking over it. During the day Jesse would wander through the streets of Bastrap, frequently accompanied by Adah, who constantly plied him with questions. She seemed to think that a world traveler such as he was an expert in world affairs, and wanted to know about politics in Atlantis, relations between Eden and Atlantis, and what it was like in the outside world. Especially what it was like in the outside world.

“Someday,” she told him, “I’m going to Mountain Shadows. I hear that everyone gets along with everyone there. No fighting. Nobody thinking that they are better than someone else just because they don’t have horns or have lighter skin. I hear that there’s no crime in Mountain Shadows so they don’t even have a jail.”

Jesse started to straighten her out on that one, but decided not to. Adah’s brother, she told Jesse, lived in Mountain Shadows.

“What’s wrong with Bastrap?” asked Jesse. “Don’t you like it here?”

“Oh, I love it here! It’s my home. I would miss my parents and my friends, but it’s such a big world and I want to see all of it! I envy you, Jesse. You have traveled so far and seen so much! It must be wonderful! I wish that I could go with you.” Adah took his hand, and for the first time he realized for sure what he had known in his heart since the first time that he laid eyes on her: he was in love. Jesse didn’t believe in love at first sight—at least, not intellectually—but he knew that from the first time that he had seen her across from him at the table at the Great Room that all he did day and night was think of her. Sometimes he put off going out on his daily walks around the town knowing that Zillah still had chores for Adah. Then he’d head out just as she was wrapping up. Timing is so important. At night he’d find it hard to sleep because there were so many hours until morning until he could see her again. Now she was holding his hand and his heart was racing so fast that he thought that it would beat out of his chest. He did not think that his heart raced that fast when he faced Castor-Pollex in the stable or when he was running from the werewolves.