Raising The Navor

By David Masselink

Good and evil are such relative terms. For example, "prey" is good; "thief" is evil. Touch my lifebook, and I'll tear your throat out. Understand?

Good. But don't worry. I'll write every detail of how you die at my claws in my lifebook. Yes, in your blood. No, after I eat. Now that we have an understanding, I'll resume my rest until sundeath. If you have any sense at all, you'll be long gone by then.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Masselink
• Release date: May 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463913055

David Masselink

David Masselink is a writer. He figured he couldn't make a living writing in Prince Edward Island, so he moved west. For many years, he earned a living in Los Angeles, and had no time to write. So he invented an hour at the beginning of the day, writes short stories, and dreams of moving east where the days are a little longer.

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RAISING THE NAVOR

by David Masselink

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2003 David Masselink

The first memory I have is of awakening early. The last ray of evening sunlight faintly illuminated the walls and ceiling and still-slumbering forms of my kin, and I was annoyed.

Someone left the door open again! I grumbled, wondering who. I tried to sleep, but could not. I sat up and glanced around. The others still lay in cold hollows in the ground. Shuddering, I examined myself for worms. Worms were our deadliest foe, burrowing maggots that devoured us. Every night, upon waking, we searched for, and killed, maggots, before we hunted. A few who would not, or could not, or did not, examine closely enough – their bones are with us still. And every navor dreaded the worm that would not die, feared the death of the unliving by the living who did not die.

Fortunately, no worms feasted on me this day. I reached for my lifebook, which I had placed under my head last daybirth and dreamed bloodthirsty dreams on. But it was gone. My lifebook was gone!

Of all the treasures in the lair, its lifebook was a navor's most prized possession. On the first page, each and every one read the same, Given the choice of life and death, I chose death, gladly, for all the living die. But who has seen the dead live? So it was that, one and all, we chose death – unlife – not only by what we were, but freely, willfully, gleefully!

On the pages after, as many as one could fill, was recorded the destructive slandering, jaw-clenched stealing, wide-eyed coveting, and frenzied bloodletting of the individual navor. Bragging rights, all of it. All my hatred of living creatures, burning fury of the hunt, and vicious handling of both man and animal – we did not kill all immediately – was written inside. Better yet, mine noted three navor who attacked me. (By unspoken rule, no navor should attack another.) Only one survived, and only barely.

So much triumph and glory were mine. But no more! It was gone, carried away with my lifebook. I sucked wind angrily, threw back my head to howl, and –

Gazed at the slumbering forms of one hundred of my fellows, bloody, merciless killers all. The word, Thief!, hissed from my fear-shut jaws.

If my lifebook was destroyed or lost, I was nobody. With it gone, I was weak. At least ten others in the lair would attack while I was vulnerable. I had to catch the thief myself, before my frailty was revealed. As I thought about the vast unfairness of the predicament I was in, the bloodlust rose in me.

Navor have no blood, nor their hearts any function except to ache emptiness. Perhaps that ache triggers the bloodlust. When they sense quarry nearby, the muscles throughout their bodies tense with sudden urgency, eyes bulge from ruined sockets, and they pant more and more rapidly, not needing the breath, but expecting, building, screaming for –

I bit down hard, slicing my own tongue and nearly gagging as I fought the urge, the overwhelming need to howl.

No, I thought, calming myself. "No,