Transfiguration

By Paul Weber

The biological history of species change seems to indicate that evolution occurs, not in gradual change over eons, but in sudden, violent change in a short period of time. What exactly causes these changes is not known, but they seem to appear at times of great environmental stress.

In the near future, after a great pandemic wipes out much of the earth's human population, a further cataclysm occurs: an ice age begins.

Under the stress of this vast environmental change, new species of animals and plants begin to appear, almost overnight. Among these new species is a new type of human, small of stature, but possessing uncanny intelligence and mental abilities far beyond those of ordinary people.

Are these new creatures our bright future, or our bitterest enemies?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Weber
• Release date: Feb 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466174733

Paul Weber

Paul Weber lives in Arizona with his wife, son, and three daughters.

Book preview

Transfiguration

A Novel

by Paul Weber

Copyright © 2012 by Paul Weber

Online Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment, at no charge. Permission is hereby granted to distribute this ebook electronically at no charge, so long as it is attributed to the original author, Paul Weber. However, the book may not be distributed in any other form, including but not limited to printed books, audio books, or film, without the express written consent of the author.

On the cover: Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion. Oil on canvas by John Martin, 1812.

Prologue

Tor stood in the center of a limestone cave, his right hand stained red and green with paints made from crushed rocks and plants. He held a brush of wild horsehair as he stood, deep in thought, staring at the wall. He had begun a mural depicting a hunt, with herds of bison and woolly mammoth moving like streams across the wall. In the foreground stood the images of several muscular warriors, long braided hair hanging loosely, waiting patiently behind an outcropping of rocks, viewing the gigantic beasts, spears and arrows at the ready, at the sublime and religious moment of the hunt in which the hunter pauses to consider the beauty, grace, and power of the prey; the moment when the hunter whispers a prayer to his god, for forgiveness and for fortune, before commencing the attack.

Tor was not his actual name; it is only the name modern man can give him, since he spoke a proto-European tongue that would be unrecognizable to any but the most advanced linguist. But he was named after Thunder, one of the gods he worshipped, along with river gods and animal gods. Thunder, though, was the most distant, the least understood, and therefore the most worthy of worship out of all the gods. Thunder rumbled, brought rain to nourish the earth, brought bolts of lightning to demolish trees and huts and put a proper fear of the gods into the hearts of men.

Tor was considered tall at a height of five-foot-six. His muscular, long-limbed body bore scars from the hunt: a long stripe across the thigh, the result of a boar’s angry charge, and a series of pallid stripes across the neck, the result of an encounter with the claws of a prehistoric lion. Tor knew that he survived the attacks because his god protected him. His head was covered with thick blond hair that he wove into long braids and secured with thin strips of leather. His eyes were pale blue, the color intensified by his thick blond eyebrows.

Tor was what modern scientists now call a Cro-Magnon man, a creature identical in most ways to modern man, with the exception, oddly enough, of a slightly larger cranial capacity. He and his tribe wandered the fields of what is now France, just south of the immense ice sheets that covered all of northern Europe at the height of the last ice age. Cro-Magnon man, like modern man, was adept with language, speaking dialects rich with color and metaphor, with complex grammar and subtle linguistic nuance that could match the eloquence of Shakespeare or Homer, though their languages and poems were never written. Tor was an artist, a poet, and a priest, his talent with language and metaphor giving him a position of honor and authority among his tribe. As a child, he had memorized hundreds of stories and poems, the rhythmic quality of the language being useful as a memory aid as well as adding aesthetic beauty to the verses. The poems of the hunt, of love, of the gods, of the beginnings of Man, had been passed down for hundreds of generations, each succeeding generation adding slight changes as needed to make the gathered lore fit their particular view of existence. Because he was particularly adept at the singing of his tribal lore, Tor had become a Shaman, possessing great power in both the politics and religion of the tribe.

Cro-Magnon man possessed all the attributes of modern man: he could be subtle, multifaceted, elegant--or brutal. It is true that our modern, witless writers and poets portray early man as a one-dimensional, brutal savage, speaking in grunts and clumsy half-sentences, but in reality, our ancestors possessed all our current mental faculties, and all of our eloquence and subtlety of language and thought. The only difference between us and them is mere technology, the products of the human brain. But that brain, its capacity, its abilities, has remained unchanged for thousands of years.

Tor stood back, admiring his painting, and began to wonder why he felt such a thrill at viewing the images, much more of a thrill than he actually felt on the hunt itself. The artist’s view of the hunt, he thought, was much more beautiful, more balanced, more essential than the actual hunt itself. In contemplating the glory of the hunt, his huge brain reviewed the tactics of the hunt, as well as the feelings, the smells, the sights, the sounds; in doing so, he became a more practiced and adept hunter, possessing ever-keener abilities, both in the subtlety of stalking and the ruthlessness of the final thrust.

Tor’s reverie was broken suddenly by the sound of wailing and shouting from outside. He turned and stepped outside the cave. The wind from the glaciers slapped at his skin as he looked across the grassy meadow at the approaching group of hunters clad in wooly skins, carrying stone-tipped spears. They carried in their midst the bloodied remains of one of the tribe’s young females.

A young hunter approached Tor, hot tears streaming down his cheeks. Shaman, he said through choking sobs, they have done it again. My wife was taken as she picked fruit in the morning. They took her and murdered her. What can we do?

Tor looked on as the hunting party stopped in front of him, heads bowed to honor his great authority. The body of the woman was a sickening mess of dismembered limbs and charred flesh. He had to turn away momentarily in disgust.

Then he spoke. We must put an end to this, once and for all. We must hunt them down systematically. It will be a hunt unlike any we have ever conducted. It will go on and on until the enemy is obliterated. This hunt will be sung about and honored down through all the ages. It will be given a special name.

Tor paused for a moment, his eyes closed, his face raised towards the clouded sky, the chill wind whipping through his braided hair, making it dance like autumn leaves. The power of Naming had always been the exclusive province of the Shaman, who was the ultimate authority on language as well as religion. Tor seemed deep in contemplation as he considered the nature of this great new hunt. Then, at last, he spoke.

The name of our new endeavor, he said, shall be War.

Tor listened as the young man told the story of his wife’s death. Gunnar had married his young wife just two weeks before the tragedy. He was a valued and stealthy hunter who could move through the tall grasses undetected, even by the large elk that wandered the plains of ancient Europe. His hair was black and curly, his beard trimmed short, his eyes dark and angry.

We found her bag by the blackberry bushes. There were footprints all around. It was easy to track the stupid creatures back to their lair. There were fifteen of them gathered around her body when we caught up with them.

Gunnar spoke of what we today call Neanderthals, after a valley in Germany in which several of their fossilized skeletons have been found. They were a humanoid species with low, sloping foreheads and powerful, muscular bodies. Like Cro-Magnon man, they were hunters and gatherers, though they lacked the Cro-Magnon’s abilities to strategize, plan, and communicate verbally. They had coexisted with Cro-Magnon in an uneasy state of mutual hatred and suspicion. As the population of both species gradually increased, competition for the best food sources became keener.

They raped her, Gunnar said, his voice choking with anger. Tor looked down at the confused mass of flesh and saw the evidence. He nodded for Gunnar to continue.

They raped her and murdered her. Then they began to cook her flesh and eat it. That’s when we came upon them. They threw rocks and spears, but they were no match for our arrows. We killed them all in a matter of minutes.

Tor nodded slowly and raised his hand, signaling Gunnar to be silent. The bow and arrow was a new technology that Cro-Magnon had recently stumbled upon, making his hunts more efficient and less dangerous. Where once they had to stalk to within a few feet of their prey in order to get a good spear thrust, Cro-Magnons could now kill effectively from fifty yards or more. The result was more food, more survival, and more population.

The bow, Tor said, is a gift from one of the gods, sent to us specifically to win the war against the Neanderthals. The gods favor us and call on us to avenge this atrocity. We shall make thousands of arrows. We shall scour the countryside for our enemy, and we will kill them without mercy. They are monsters. They are sons--

Tor paused, his eyes closed, deep in contemplation. The tribe stood about him, heads bowed, aware that their shaman was receiving a message from the spirit world.

--of demons.

Demons? one of the young hunters spoke suddenly. I haven’t heard that word before. Can you explain?

Some of the tribe members scowled at the young man who had been brazen enough to interrupt the Shaman’s call to action. They had never heard the word either, but they believed in following protocol just as much as modern man.

Demons, Tor began, are like gods. As a god gives us fruit to pick and animals to hunt, so demons give us enemies, and disease, and death. The gods are distant and mysterious, whereas demons walk side by side with us every day. When we dream or consume the potions of magic, we understand these things more deeply. We need both gods and demons; one cannot exist without the other. They work together in all things. The gods and demons have given us the Neanderthal as a test of our will. We will do what we must; we will exterminate them.

The tribe shouted in one voice, raising their weapons, thinking about the great battle that lay ahead. Tor stood before them, arms raised high like a supplicant prophet or a bard praying to his muse, ready to lead his people.

Gunnar shivered slightly in the cool of the morning, gathering the shaggy skins a little more tightly about his shoulders. As he arranged the dry sticks and leaves in the fire pit, his eye caught something unusual: a strange, reddish object shaped like a droplet of water, clinging to one of the stones that lined the pit. He reached over and pushed against the strange object with his fingernail, dislodging it.

He held the cold droplet in the palm of his hand. It felt strangely heavy for its small size. Its surface was smooth between his thumb and forefinger, almost as if it were soft. He put the metal between his teeth and bit down, feeling the strange substance yield slightly under his teeth. He pulled the object out and saw a slight print of his incisors on the smooth surface.

He set the object down and moved his hand gently through the scorched soil lining the bottom of the pit, coming up with several more pieces of the heavy material. He had lined the pit, he remembered, with greenish rocks several weeks before, and last night, he had built a particularly big fire in honor of his murdered wife. He sneered in hatred at the thought of the Neanderthals. Grunting ape-men, grotesque in the way they superficially resembled his own race, mocking that race by being similar, yet grossly inferior. He remembered Tor’s words about demons, and uttered a prayer to his favorite god. He gathered up the many pieces of shiny, heavy material and hefted them in his palm, thinking.

The greenish rocks yielded the strange substance when subjected to the heat of a large fire. What if he got many of the rocks, broke them in pieces, and built the fire to be even hotter? What might he then get from the rocks? And this material was unusual. Perhaps he could gather it all together, and form it into something. An implement. A weapon, perhaps? He thought of the hours it took to fashion a single spear point out of the local shale deposits, chipping patiently on the rocks to whittle them down to a fine point. But even then, the spear tips would often break.

He built the morning fire, enjoying the warmth against his chest even as he felt biting cold on the back of his neck. He knelt down towards the fire and blew against the coals, watching them glow with red heat as his breath struck them. He stared long and hard into the flames, his mind working over and over, thinking, wondering what might happen if the flame were more enclosed, and his breath entered the fire pit from the side. It was the intense heat, he thought, that gave him the precious gift of the new, reddish substance. Could he make the fire even hotter?

He gathered more stones, piling them up higher around the flames, but leaving a small notch on one side through which he could blow his breath. What was the magic of human breath that gave heat to the fire? He stood back, looking at the satisfying blaze that was now so hot he could barely get near it. There was a bed of glowing embers piled near the notch he had left in the wall. He knelt by the notch and blew his breath in, feeling the heat increase against his face. Would more of the strange substance appear as a result of the fire?

He stood, pushing back his black, curly hair, smiling in satisfaction. Then his eyes fell on a small, earthenware bowl his deceased wife had made. He carefully scooped up the many pieces of the strange new substance, dropping them in the bowl, noting the strange, bright sound they made as he shook the bowl. He set them down again on the stones lining the pit. He picked up another log and began to place it absentmindedly on the fire, but the flame was hotter than he anticipated, and he felt a scorching sensation. He yanked his hand back, knocking the earthenware bowl into the coals.

He muttered a uniquely Cro-Magnon curse and looked around for an implement with which to fish out the bowl before the new substance was destroyed. But to his amazement, the material was melting like ice before his eyes, forming a pool on the bottom of the brown bowl. Unlike water, though, this liquid did not evaporate. He grabbed a stick and nudged the bowl to a corner of the pit where the flame was less hot. A few minutes later, he grasped the bowl, his hands protected by two pieces of animal skin, and lifted it out of the flame. Even so, he felt the heat go through the skin, and he had to set the bowl down quickly on the ground. He looked at the pool of reddish liquid in the bottom of the bowl. He reached down with the skins and rocked the bowl back and forth a few times, watching the liquid roll around inside. Then, a few moments later, it stopped moving again.

He stood by the bowl, staring at the strange substance, thinking about how it could be used. When he lifted the bowl ten minutes later and inverted it, the chunk of reddish substance fell out into his hand, heavy and smooth, in the perfect shape of the bowl. It was a solid lump, about the size of a raven’s egg, and still retained some of the warmth from the fire.

He held the lump against his chest and raised his head to the sky, closing his eyes and giving a prayer of thanks to the gods, for he knew this new gift could be used to make his tribe prosper. Perhaps, he thought, there was a god he had not yet acknowledged--a god, perhaps, of the earth? His tribe worshipped the sky god, the forest gods, the gods of the rivers and the lakes, but this gift clearly did not come from any of them. This was something the Shaman would need to hear about.

The young woman entered Tor’s cave and bowed her head.

You may now address me, said Tor.

My name is Freya, the young lady said, raising her head. She paused for a moment to stare at the paintings on the walls of the cave, lit by the flickering light of torches. Tor stood before her, dressed in wooly skins, a helmet adorned with antlers denoting his position of power.

Tell me what troubles you, said the Shaman.

She paused momentarily, trying to think of the best way to express her thoughts. You need not be clever in your speech with me, said Tor. The best way to speak is to speak plainly.

She cleared her throat. I am troubled by our war on the Neanderthals. I want you to understand that I hate them as much as anyone. But perhaps they do not need to be exterminated. Perhaps we can just drive them away, frighten them. It is obvious now that we are superior to them. They will not be a threat to us for long.

The Shaman tilted his head as he considered the young lady. It took great courage to voice this idea to me. I understand what you say, but you do not understand the situation completely. This is not like a hunt for bison or mammoth. They, after all, are our friends; we need them. They are forces of Good. But the Neanderthals are different. Do you understand why?

She bowed her head. I do not.

They must be destroyed, not because they are different, but because they are like us. Nothing is so hateful as the almost-realized. We reserve our deepest hatred for those who were once our friends, for those who shared something with us. The fact they look like us makes their existence even more of a mockery. I understand your feeling of sympathy, but there can be no sympathy in a battle of this kind. Have you considered the wolf and the dog?

I . . .I don’t understand.

The Shaman nodded thoughtfully. Few understand this paradox in the way of things. The dog and the wolf are really the same, are they not? Yet the sight of a dog is hateful to the wolf, and vice versa. They will kill each other if left to their own devices. The wolf sees the dog’s loyalty to us as a terrible betrayal. The dog sees the wildness of the wolf as a betrayal to him. The similarity between the two makes the hate deeper. The deeper the similarity, the deeper the hatred. So it is with the Neanderthals. The fact that they are similar to us makes them all the more revolting, all the more evil. I grow sick in my stomach at the thought of their stunted bodies, their low foreheads, their grunting speech.

But surely we look the same to them, the young woman whispered humbly, wary of a Shaman’s wrath. But the Shaman only looked surprised for a moment. Then he grinned broadly.

You are a most perceptive young woman. Yes, we mock them fully as much as they mock us. No enemies are as committed to each other’s destruction as those cut from the same cloth. You have noticed that we kill and eat the elk and the mammoth, but we are not capable of hating them. Far from it; it is with sadness that we eat their flesh. We can only hate our own kind, or a kind similar to our own. Similarity can breed love, or it can breed hatred. There can be no love for creatures as loathsome as the Neanderthal. All that we can feel for them is hatred. For that reason, we must go to war and exterminate them. There is no other choice.

The young woman remained silent, head bowed, uncertain whether to speak.

You still have thoughts to express? the Shaman asked.

Perhaps you are right, she said. But let me ask but one question. Did the gods create all that we see?

Of course.

Did they create the meadows, and the forests, and the animals, and the rivers that give us life?

Yes.

Did they not also create the Neanderthals?

Tor smiled again. You are remarkable indeed. I must take you into training to be a Shaman yourself. Yes, the gods created all, including the demons, including the Neanderthals, including the wolves and the lions who kill us. Good and evil are two sides of the same face, as are love and hate, as are light and darkness. On the edge between light and darkness, there is constant battle. That is where we fit in. We must make war on our enemies, as light must conquer darkness, as night must surrender to day.

I . . . I think I understand.

You will understand, in time. He touched her chin to raise her face, gazing directly into her eyes. I feel the same regret from time to time. But in the end, there is no other way. It is this way now, and will remain so as long as mankind exists.

Gunnar had bathed in the river and anointed his body with oil from the crushed leaves of the rosemary bush in preparation for his meeting with Tor. He put on his best skins and adorned his head with a helmet made of the skull of an elk. Appearances had been and always would be important.

He entered the Shaman’s cave and knelt on one knee, waiting to be acknowledged. The Shaman knew he was there, but continued with his painting, drawing an image of the demon his tribe had once encountered years before, but never dared to encounter again. He called it a cave bear. The Shaman stared at the painting thoughtfully before daubing a bit more reddish paint on the cave bear’s shoulders, making it appear just a little bigger, a little more muscular and menacing. The men in the foreground of the painting looked tiny and insignificant next to the malevolent demon. Gunnar allowed himself to become lost in the huge mural adorning the wall. It told the stories of hunts, of legendary feats of bravery against bears and wolves and mammoths. His eyes tracked across the mural as he held his breath, consuming the images that told the stories of timeless struggles.

What is it you wish to speak to me about? the Shaman finally said, not looking away from his painting, carefully placing daubs of paint here and there on the walls.

I have good news of yet another gift from the gods, and I ask the Shaman’s advice on how to honor them.

Tor turned slowly, his eyebrows raised in curiosity, his hands stained with blotches of vivid color.

What is the nature of this gift from the gods?

Gunnar, still on his knees, pulled a shiny, reddish object from the folds of his bearskin coat. His head bowed in reverence, he held the object up before the Shaman.

Tor came closer, peering through the darkness of the cave at the shining object. It was the shape of a spearhead, but unlike any spearhead he had ever seen. Tor took the spearhead in his own hands, feeling the weight and coldness of the object in his palms. He ran his finger along the edge of the spearhead; it was obviously much sharper than any implement his tribe had ever used.

This is indeed a thing of beauty, the Shaman said at last. Where did it come from?

From the earth. The green rocks from the mountains contain this substance. When I heated the rocks in my campfire, I found the substance at the bottom of the pit. I gathered it up and melted it together in a cup, then poured it into a mold made of sand, in the shape of an spearhead. It cooled and hardened into this shape. Then I pounded the edges of the metal to give it a sharp edge.

What god instructed you on how to do this?

I don’t know. I think it was a god of earth. Perhaps we should honor this god for his gift, lest he become angry with us.

Indeed, the Shaman said, looking at the reddish object and seeing a twisted reflection of himself within it. The Neanderthals are powerful in many ways. They are actually much stronger than we are. They wield clubs and throw stones. But if we have spearheads such as this, they will have no chance against us. One of the gods works his will through you, Gunnar.

The weight of the spearhead is perfect, the dark-haired warrior said. I have tested it over and over again. I can sink the entire head into a pine tree from a distance of thirty paces. When I pull it out of the tree, it is never broken, and it remains sharp.

Tor signaled his young subject to rise. Gunnar stood up, shoulders back proudly.

We shall go into the mountains and gather these stones, and make hundreds of spearheads. We shall show our enemies no mercy, just as they showed your wife no mercy. But first, we must seek guidance in the form of a vision.

Gunnar bowed his head. Sharing a vision with the Shaman was the tribe’s highest honor.

It is clear to me, the blond-haired Shaman said, placing his hand on his warrior’s shoulder, that you and Freya have the gift of perceiving things that others do not see. Both of you will be crucial to winning our war. Therefore, the three of us must share a vision before we undertake the first battle.

Freya sat cross-legged on a cushion of bison skins, enjoying the warmth of the fire. Shaggy skins hung in the door of the cave, adding to the warmth. Smoke gathered on the blackened ceiling of the cave before weaving lazily out into the icy air like long, gray fingers. Tor sat next to her, eyes closed, arms folded in his lap, moving his lips in prayer but making no sound. Gunnar completed the circle, his long black hair combed out and gathered into a long braid on his back, watching the Shaman prepare for the ceremony.

It is time, Tor said, taking up a bowl filled with a brownish liquid, stirring it with a stick that bore the stains of many potions.

What is the potion made from? Gunnar asked.

Freya was irritated at the question. Knowing the ingredients of the potion, for her, removed some of the mystery from it, making the religious impact less profound. But she buried her feelings, showing no outward sign of her irritation, instead concentrating on putting herself in the proper frame of mind.

It is a potion, Tor said, wiping the stick on the side of the bowl, handed down to our tribe for generations. It is made from leaves of henbane, plus a tiny bit of mandrake root, dried and crushed, and a few grains of moldy rye seed. There are other ingredients I add, but I shall keep them secret for now.

Freya smiled to herself. The Shaman understood.

The contents are mixed in a base of fermented honey, Tor continued. I will merely touch a drop of the mixture onto your lips, and in a few minutes, you will be deep in your vision.

How long does the vision last? Gunnar asked.

I have had tribesmen observe my trance. The vision only lasts ten minutes or so. Then you return to the natural world. In those few minutes, however, you will take journeys that last for days. Time has no meaning during the trance.

Only ten minutes? Gunnar said, an edge of disappointment in his voice. Can’t we take a few more drops of the potion, and have a longer vision?

The Shaman smiled, shaking his head. A drop is all a man can take. If one takes too much of the potion, the limbs stiffen and breathing stops. Too much insight into the nature of the gods, it seems, is more than men can endure. Several have tried, but they rarely make it back from their vision alive. A few have managed to come back, but they are no longer sane when they do. We had to kill them as an act of mercy.

Freya sat still, feeling the warmth and smelling the slight smokiness of the air, watching her comrades’ moving shadows dance on the walls of the cave. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and felt calm come over her. She knew she was ready.

I will touch the tip of the stick to your lips. Rub your lips together, and lie down on the skins. It will not take long for you to be in your vision. Tor carefully tapped the stick on the rim of the bowl,