Moons of the Swan: Book 3

By Jackson Burrows

E.V.A.IN.E., the ancestors ghost and guide of the old makers colony, stood before the artificial intelligent remake of her creator's figure. "There was one before me. The one who created me. The power to be whole was made for me. I heard his mind's voice before anything else. The spoken mandate, the wished for... the command! All the life, all the means, all his gifts make up this image of me... I am here to confirm his beauty. Before the breaking of every morning, of every night's caress to its arrival, I am called upon to flight. I dance the purpose of his sight. His knowledge resides in me...that no other may know. That which can make another to transcend! E.V.A.IN.E. the ancestors ghost and guide of the bonded ones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645446910

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Moons of the Swan

Book 3

Jackson Burrows

Copyright © 2019 Jackson Burrows

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2019

ISBN 978-1-64544-690-3 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-64544-691-0 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

On one of the Denevans colonized worlds

The Far Countries Arrive: There Will Be No More Ghosts

The Coming of A.E.H.R.E.N.S.

Full Swan’s Choice

Battle Lines Are Drawn

Baby Steps No Longer

The Victorious Enemy

‘Stay the Mornings Light, Oh Queen of the Lost Ancestors’

The Forgotten Ancestors

Fire Falls from Heaven

Where Is Love’s Paradise?

E.V.A.IN.E.’s Significance

Say the Words Inside of Your Heart

Introduction

Historical Archive E.V.A.IN.E. Foundation Period

E.V.A.IN.E. and her creation determination designed on planet Deneva as recorded in Dr. Shesgal Ollemanhalu’s personal research notes.

Herein follows his presentation and explanation to the ministry and its holders of leadership titles of what his creation would be to the new construction period of their civilization. In the last lecture he would provide to them, as he prepared for their sanctioning or the denial, he understood their skepticism was not all assured to relenting to the way to proceed and in his unique method would lend more of his hypothesis for them to probably agree to. Their civilization had repeatedly brought their world to its knees in four collapses spanning their recorded history. Now he would hope to bring them an exchange for a matter of a possible, if not probable harmony. Even though his research was viable, the understanding to which the government leaders would be expected to comprehend was without any reference they could possibly grasp. His work was complicated and inherently a breakthrough to the understanding of the natural world along with its long-standing ability proven by observation to create the organism of age change. In this conceptual idea there was no admittance for greed integrators. This was always the present predicament and to remove the problem was a created enticer to proceed with civilization renewal. But Shesgal knew the answer they needed would require them to avoid the past wrongness so as to sustain a lasting harmony and his enticer would beckon them to at least observe his data and try the alternative.

The doctor took a moment at the lectern to briefly glance about the council room of the leadership of the current ministry. He was not one to commence his address until all here were to give him their undivided attention. So as to judge their interest, he looked about the council room and back to his organizational sheets as small conversations filled the air. Over the last four days he had coaxed, congealed, and implored with all his skill and had brought them finally, for judging this last day, to his field research discovery and its proposed applications to the creation yet to be considered for a definitive approval. One final determination awaited their possible acceptance without further preponderance to his success.

The audience once again became gradually settled as their interests turned to the scientist’s own silence. Their curiosity was intrigued by the distributed leaflets of his broader work prior to this last day’s lecture but they wondered ‘When will he speak’. He observed them stoically; awaiting for their full attention to hear the culmination of his interesting proposal. Dr. Ollemanhalu adjusted the research summation separated from the projected findings and displayed their declaration on the theater screen in the immense audience hall they were all part of and looking back to them he said, This is my final day and your patience shall be rewarded to the way forward for our civilization. His words vibrated from the volume adjuster impregnated in the acoustic layers of the surface construction of the architecture. "What I wrote and have presented during the allowed time to speak with you, mind you, is only a precursor, or better said, an abridged collection to the detailed research in my greater field and laboratory files which are stored in safe vaults which shall be used for further production upon your approval. The last following description before I end this presentation, shall undertake the task related to the biological markers transducing the ‘unlocking cursors’ of the minds complexity. It is of an interactive interphase discovered existing between the formulated mathematical Log Rhythm of the inanimate and the walled perception of the animate. That is, the image to be created, and the receptive organic form, such as it is which relates directly to us; culminating with the meshing with of the virtual creation I have related to you during the past few days. This breakthrough gave rise to establish the prerequisite of my hypothesis so it may be allowed to run successive programs with a digital computer and judge the prepared and presented organic recipient. This key factor required the formula, indeed, had to have an reliable affinity so as to match itself to an virtual image based on the theoretical ‘golden rule of measurement’. This formula was introduced to you in the first lecture and verified to be found in the biology of nature. What was revealed to me, as I developed the hypothesis’s algorithms, initiated a path verifiable and accumulated herein the summation which were categorized to the following:

The discovery of an experiment here to fore never before tried or considered other than by natural forces inhabiting our planet.

What was produced from this collaboration gave rise to a theory of elegance, when completed, of guaranteed results verified by repeatable experimental calculations to their confirmation of identical conclusions.

This technicality of making and projecting the final result of prime numbered formula gave rise to the ‘golden rule of measurement’ which was I realized, similar in likewise respects to composing music. Understand this salient fact, you must go further in applying an scientist’s creativity as the artist or maestro does with his composition. As he layers and blends the colors or instruments to produce a form of dramatic rise and inspiration. In so doing with a created virtual entity, a developed draw to the production of the image becomes apparent to get the subjective response from the observer. Why is this necessary? So as to indoctrinate the mind and suppress its baser instinct in substitution for a higher belief. That would be in our case the ‘foundation of social conformity’."

Shesgal intuitively felt the audience of titled leaders waver and sought to hold them further before they could withdraw from his personal experience with the research levitating on the theater screen. Gentlemen, at that moment I reminded myself, as well as I do for you now, not to be confused by the issue of how the natural world works. My colleagues let us remember at this point that the science of biology, as well as the other fields of associated endeavor, will always remain arbitrary in the one sense that, ‘What you or anyone wants when separated from its benefits doesn’t matter to the arriving result. You can make objections, as I am sure you are doing at this moment to the viability of the work, but that does not make it so. We all have to accept that the laws that are irrefutable have no need for outside arbitration conciliation.

The audience was quiet in reflection to Dr. Ollemanhalu and his completion of his presentation to them. Then the conversations among the groups there slowly started to audibly rise in their segregated opinions amid small dispersed groups. Something was beginning to happen here thought the doctor. The start of things was stirring to take root to the body of his work and if he could gain support from the greater majority which for now was the conservative leader, Noskcaj, he stood a chance. For now a tentatively small one. But with his supporters around him amid the rest of the curious he could say it had begun! He waited for the next step to come from the pro and con vote and the conservative’s leader’s decisive questions.

Chapter 1

On one of the Denevans colonized worlds

Away to the Thunder Mountain Tribe

If you could see what I see coming, you would not say that.

—Chief Sees Far,

Thunder Mountain Tribe

Escape is, it would seem, to be a constant…forever intruding. But the ones now surviving in Raenon were in the annunciation of trouble. An alarm had been received by the Queen Ghost of their ancestors with her ghostly attending sisters but the chieftains were only beginning to understand their rapturous message of what they should do to implement the steps for their ghosts and their people. Let me introduce myself anew. I am the tender of the Mother Flame and it has been my sect’s duty to do so ever since the deep time with our ancestor ghosts. At this point in my retelling of our people’s history I will now have to bring a broader and fine point to the ending of my story.

Far into the future with the bonded one Full Swan and his personal ghost there had been hope that they could prevent the death of not only their people but theirs as well. E.V.A. IN.E. perhaps more so than Full Swan’s because of his conditioning by the ministry of the Old Makers. The Old Maker’s belief was to ultimately open the vast universe to the probability of transcendence and so he was expendable in this goal. The formation of the Great Guardian’s wishes was imparted to his original daughter he created and had shared with her as much when she, of the program she was a part, should reach an adaptable state mirroring maturity. This was implanted by him so she would have a similar long termed evolution for her copied form, blue printed from long living life species, observed in the Denevan natural environment, that existed in a dormant harmony until they would blossom. After certain imbedded markers were triggered, that of age and generous nourishment supporting the creation, a remarkable fact would arise. The similarity of the creative pulse that brought forth real change and beauty as well to life in all its forms found in the unending universe. His daughter was the addition to this established form to which all species identified so far conform and evolve.

Likewise, the possibility of inevitable deconstruction was always present as a natural balance modifier which could bring disappearance to the Old Makers philosophy. For they knew better than anyone, in the end, no matter how good or developed the people are, everything around them, including the most dangerous things, comes to an identifiable new definition. Now there were indications which could be imperfections that if looked at in more detail were seen to be adding up to an exchange. Subtle additions that embellished what was seen before amongst the greater norm of clans in the Far Countries were intruding for a position of change. Something had occurred appearing in its rapidity to bring and force one to acceptance of an exchange. But what and why did it maneuver all other clans and bring them to unknown arrivals of existence without the colony’s ancestral guides participation? This could be the old enemy of disease surfacing once more that was fought against in the past on Deneva.

When one hears of and knows danger is approaching their home why stay? As the clans of Raenon looked around them nothing had changed. All appeared as it should and the destruction they were told was coming seemed unfounded. The very things that each one of the villagers was accustomed to, they could see around them still. It was in its place and, but for the old forest clan, had not been altered. The familiar, no matter how threatened, still holds a strong bond on the minds ability to reason with a distant threat in spite of the dialog of alarms. Before the war with the Strange Ones could arrive to encircle them, the Chief of Many Fathers had his people depart from their ancestors’ village of long telling. He knew better than many who had listened at the collective ghosts’ announcement that action was needed. It had been feelings of mixed acceptance within the people who had gathered for the celebration of the harvest moons just prior. Although they were in grave danger they had yet to realize it for the invader was still just a story that hid its face from them. As the small sister moonrise broke the eastern night horizon and the two young men of the old forest had told their fate to Full Swan and the rest, the clans’ chieftains made a procession to fall into place. The people’s leaders had the feeling that now the future of the tribe’s three clans and their ancestral guides were in dire question. They had made a late night decision in how to face an enemy. But the unknown outcome still had the strength to mock them. If it had not been for the insult and fight with their village speaker, they would have stayed in Raenon over long. But the encounter had set a prophetic tone to the ghost collective’s earlier warning. Some within the clans had been swayed by Eats Smoke’s the emissary from Islands of Erun. But not He Who Stands Alone with his companion nearby. The village felt there was time to do something, anything other than banishment for the trade negotiators. It would have been better to retain the trade they had come accustomed to. However, the punishment had been applied and there was no going back to changing that.

The Chief of Many Fathers had said something else that the ones closest to hear his words had caused them to worry. When he had said to Eats Smoke the final verdict that hinted he was not who he said he was. Not of kin to the islands that they supposed he was representing when he had entered the village with the others for trade. He had been accepted by all he passed there in as much to be the speaker of his island supreme chieftain’s tribe and would do what is best for them. Isn’t that what any of them would do? Was not that what trade and barter stood for? Well, that is, before the punishment had been decreed. Those who stood too far away to hear had been told by way of mouth that the emissary was under a false representation and impersonation to who his true tribe was. How was this possible? None had been so false to try such a thing before to gain advantage in a barter exchange. The village families had yet come to the greater revelation to what this negotiation really stood for and was meant to bring.

When the three chiefs had made their unified decision all seemed set to proceed the next day and then unexpectedly the trade negotiator committed his transgression that night. He Who Stands Alone had had to judge the one called Eats Smoke. Disfigurement had been the lesser punishment to the ritual burning in a fire pit. But the negotiators would not be able to flee without some retribution for their conspiracy. Holds Fast of the coastal plain clan had understood the jeopardy of his clan’s old ones almost at once since it was his ancestors lands that would face the Islands Long Nail warriors first and had anticipating the outcome, sent the coastal plain tribes warriors from Raenon under his Victaneres One in quick time to his village. He, by ritual rite, had had to remain and be present for the judgment, for the sanctioning of the Great Law decreed all clans have representation. But he had known that the warriors of his clan could make up for any loss of time to rejoin the other clans if he could start their departure quickly. Their full witness to the outcome of the emissaries guilt or innocence could be excused this once. He, however, was not. And would be the only exception that would have to remain to represent his clan. Some of the quick force was strengthened by an addition from the group with some of the mixed clan’s warriors from the rendezvous. The prospect of needing spare horses from the collected and long established breeding herd would be withheld in Raenon until they should pass by northward on their way to Thunder Mountain. Left to graze within and water at the River Forever they could come and go through the gates, fresh horses would be there for an exchange in case needed. This was all that could be done so as to make up for the distance to travel to his village and back again. Their return to the mountains in time to avoid the invader was still not a guarantee of much of a chance. They would return to gather the grandfathers and grandmothers with the young men of their village who had, with similar intentions observed by the other clans, needed to stay behind to protect and guard the winter food supply that had been hard won from the great mouth fish that competed for the harvest. This prepared food cache to survive the demands of harshness that had always come would be left behind nonetheless for to carry it would only delay them. To have the food would have been a luxury but you cannot eat what’s there when you no longer live. Such an irony to have spent so much thought and effort to protect it to only have to voluntarily leave it behind now in the march to save themselves from an equal threat. Many would suffer if it was not there on their return. Many would suffer also in the confrontation to come. But that was still not understood for certain to what it would bring and to how many it would claim. They knew some would go to the hidden world and the star nations’ villages.

Chief Sees Far had spoken with his brother Holds Fast before he departed. The buildup to the delay by first the discussion of their strategy and then the emissaries judging and punishment had taken away precious time.

Come with those who wait in your tribe’s coastal lands as quickly as you can. Do not take anything that can slow your travel to the safety of my mountain. The invader is warned to be on our lands and making speed. There is much we can help you with once you arrive. The shelter of our caves and the food of the brown fist that grows there will be plentiful for all of us. Do not feel shame or think you must bring food from your villages winter hunt to sustain you and your clan. You must leave behind much that is desired if you are to arrive in time.

With that said they clasped the others forearms in strength and purpose to put aside their differences expressed in the sacred lodge.

Sees Far was looking on his brother with a hope that went against all his inner vision. He was saying good-bye as well as in the unspoken words, Look for me to come in time where you and many may go.

Holds Fast’s gray eyes of similar likeness to the ones who guided them all in their dream visitations were still patient and calm in their exchange with his brother’s own fiery ones of black charcoal. As Chief Holds Fast gripped his horse’s falling mane and swung up on its back, he was noticed to have mounted his horse with a youthful bounce. His horse half swung around in its excitement to be off and he signed to his older brother with his right hand touching his heart and then had drawn it across his cheek and made a fist with his left hand and passed the right hand’s palm over it. He brought his hands clinched together.

Outwardly saying as much to what he meant, My heart burns with gratitude for what you do for me and the people of my clan. We are strong together. Here he lent a smile of deep friendship to his volatile brother who seldom if ever should admit smiles to change his serious expression. I will repay you in any world to come.

Chief Sees Far nodded in the direction with the bonded one Clouds Blackening and Crazy Foxes who was nearby and had come to see him off. They both watched him turn and give his horse free rein to the coast on the western fringe of the center tribe’s three lands.

He will ride like a wind that has no end till he reaches his village, said Crazy Foxes to the dark impenetrable expression of both Sees Far and Clouds Blackening that seemed to encompass and reflect nothing more than the whole of the horizon in its stare as he watched Holds Fast atop the broad back of his stallion disappear.

His face had a somber expression and his next remark to Crazy Foxes was hard in contrast, He and all his people will try The symbiosis garnered from his ancestor’s ghost formed his next words. Time has no time for their best.

His remark came out as a verdict deeply resonant to the air around them. His voice came from the Thunder Mountain chosen ones of long lineage from the early clan of the Strong Ones who had been the clan to have broken away first from the Village of Raenon and was deeply connected to his ghost and would accept the fate of the circle’s spin for Holds Fast’s destiny. If he was to have a different feeling and look to his mood for any of them, it would come when he was alone where only his ghost could see his tears. Clouds Blackening was as big as the place his tribe came from with a chosen and then bonded one skin marks that seemed child-like small when branded to his immense chest’s frame. The mountain shade of his face complemented his remarkable eyes. They both permeated his body to match the smoky purplish color of the mountains in the distance. Eyes as dark as the most impenetrable rain cloud that would see through any who was lent his gaze of undefinable center. To try and see what he was feeling by weighing the emotion in his stare was just not possible. So dark were his eyes no pupil was distinguishable amid the dusky oval shaped socket where was drawn his extremely stretched epicanthic eye lids. His darkness a subtle reminder of the origin of his home of the thunder mountain ranges and his emotional testimony to the state of mind that lent an air of an approaching thunderstorm. One could not help ask what did the conversation between him and his ghost sound like? When the ancestor’s ghost’s light colored eyes met this stare of an indistinguishable center into which she had to read a meaning that revealed to her only a mysterious emptiness? She would have to use the other faculties inherent in her design implanted by her creator on Deneva. Would her arrival dance for her message guidance be displayed lightly in a simple frontal stance or move fast around him in a search to find a revealing demeanor in his eyes’ unrevealing blankness? Falling back on her ultimate guarantee, she would implement the projected Rapture. At first her analysis would be uncertain and searching for his complete surrender so as to begin and guarantee the understanding of her message’s deliverance. And while together with him on the sheer stair of his mountain’s craggy home how could she and her visitation ever be successfully attested to by this one’s expression of incalculable perception to her guidance? To say it best, for her and him not to go astray, you would have to sleep inside him, as she did, to really know.

Crazy Foxes nearly as tall and wide as Clouds Blackening said, We need not worry about him. We all still have time to put our plan to work. My clan’s Victaneres One too will not fail in his quest.

Chief Sees Far’s horse shook its head and bridle as it and the rider both turned slowly away from his departing brother. Craxy Foxes felt the mountain clan chief had left unspoken more of his thoughts; to leave his Victaneres One of his own clan out on a limb to a fall. And the Old Forest Clan’s next in line to be chosen was left to consider if the people of his village were already dismissed. Crazy Foxes had meant well in the remark of confidence. Now that Full Swan was away on the cleansing quest he was new to the rush of the moment and it’s foretelling that presented multiple outcomes. Sees Far said with a touch of hardness and distance in his voice as his stallion wished to make for distance.

If you could see what I see coming, you would not say that.

It was a statement that required no reply. He had said it not so much to Crazy Foxes but to a time and place that required only one in particular to be sustained in her continuance. He completed the turn and let his horse run; away from the now disappearing form of Holds Fast and made for the point of the column.

Crazy Foxes looked to his equal and said to Clouds Blackening, What is it that you and he see that I cannot find inside?

For a moment the two future ones of the clans showed each other an exchange of unspoken thoughts and then following his tribe’s chief he and then Crazy Foxes turned their horses away from the settling dust of the departing coastal plains chief.

For now Clouds Blackening would say no more but would wait for Holds Fast to return before needing to tell his friend what may have been foretold by Sees Far. It was too soon. And besides, his Chieftain and he had a plan that would take some time before they could set it in play. They did not like the way things were going now that Supreme Chief He Who Stands Alone had not burned the emissaries. The possible marriage of Green Stones Falling with the Victaneres One of the Old Forest Clan was necessary for their next step. This would fortify their position to gain and occupy the next opening of Supreme Chief and elevate their own ghost to Queen Guardian. When the son returned from his quest, if he did, they would begin their courtship with their shaman and him or the next chosen from the old forest in earnest. The two future occupiers for the rule of Raenon pressed ahead of the departing tribe’s tailing column through the unguarded gates to take themselves to the front on their own path toward the hidden distance folding around the Thunder Mountain chain. Nothing was left to do for now but keep to the battle plan.

The return path was vaguely there in the earth when the Thunder Mountain Clan had passed by almost five days ago. Before them the reddish fields of the lower steppes seemed to be endless as they spread out before the people as they passed through their waving stems that rose high to just above their waists though they rode their horses. The changing weather revealed their recent exposure to the cold touch of frost of the passing fall’s first front. It had added an intoxicating scent to their feathery seed heads that brushed against the legs of their horses as they parted the waving grass forms. Horse and rider shared every minute as they were all in stark contrast to the Thunder Mountain peaks that would peak above the horizon in the distance with the familiar purple haze. It was likened unto the Old Forest’s allure at twilight as the twisting column made shadows under the smaller sister moon’s glow. She had come to dominate the night’s sky from her larger setting sister’s earlier pass over the village with her own special illumination. She was less bright but more as soft and radiant as the white foam being cast by a waterfall. The night insects were out in large blanket like groups that dotted the night grasses with their own wide clusters of small lights. Their glowing forms lent an air of tranquil solitude and delicate immediacy that seemed it could never be altered by any means that they would ever come to know. But they would face another who would try.

The next two nights the binary moons would approach together overhead to create a strange light refraction upon the landscape as the families made their way through the endless tall reddish grasses. The fields were thick with their seed tops and smelt earthy and inviting. To their horses it was a final banquet of the year’s blessing of regular rains and their heads bobbed as they would take quick mouthfuls as they stepped through the yielding tall growth. What had taken the Thunder Mountain Clan a week to arrive at Raenon would now be hastened to what would be a shortened sojourn in fewer days of journey. For they would not stop for the whole night in leisure as before when they had made the arriving journey’s camp nights to Raenon.

But for their common understanding, the distant peaks were still deceptive to the rest. By day the size of the looming mountains would reach higher in relation to the remaining distance but would remain still out of reach. For it seemed to those of the other clans to be just a short way to the other side of the abundant grassy steppes. The other two clans, of the three, fell for the illusion as they looked upon them and saw a quick arrival that would be reached by the few of them in one night’s future journey. Only within a quick ride away it would seem. In this they had felt a comfort to be arriving there among the tall peaks so soon. There was still snow upon those heights from past season’s cold stay though; they had fed the streams with runoff all summer long. As the families looked at the mountain clan’s ancestral fathers lands the perpetual snow accumulation was seen softly depicted in the moonlight as soft lavender white shoulders in their enduring purity. The snow melt had occurred as usual that late spring through the summer and into fall with no outward change detectable to their covered heights. The head waters coming from their peaks were never interrupted even when the surface froze over, while underneath the varying crust thickness, they meandered and flowed constantly delving deeply at times against the freeze to the continuing fullness that found other avenues in the substrata to work its way; never emptying their cold clear jewels until they impatiently rushed to the sea’s beckoning embrace. These beginnings of tributaries that formed below the peaks compacted snow, first seeped down through the aggregate material to be held at the bedrock and, saturated, rapidly rose and added their essence into their building rivulets to joining in greater streams, some hidden deep and others surface bound with the boundary of the River of Forever. The outflow was so great at times from the mountain chain there had been a need for an alternate path for the melting snows. As a necessity there naturally was created relief by first a gathering of the excess melt and then a diverging of its branch further eastward creating the forking Blackened River. A divided river containing a western and eastern fork which had conceived between them the Lost Wood of the Forgotten Ancestors where only the apex predators were left unaffected within its forbidden crossings; heard from time to time to be voicing their opinions from across the black flowing current. A broad island of land was situated within containing a miniature mountain that had been set aside from the rest of the mountain chain, you would think, because of the rivers course. But it had come to be for some other reason and purpose, now lost back in the time prior to the forming tribe that had established Raenon. The dense wooded interior and its beautiful mountain between the two forks had surfaced long before the people lived in the land there. And it had been adapted and created for another to reside and find contentment. A spell of affection if you like. And some others who passed on the old tales had said something else was watching from its interior. Invisibly felt to an undefinable form but with an outreaching impression of searching intent. And the recognition of their presence wasn’t what it searched for, for whatever was there wouldn’t have anything to do with inviting the people.

In times past, when the people had come to these far lands, offerings had been left by the newly arrived families of their leader Varamarr and his people known as the Strong Ones. They had been the first who would adopt the Thunder Mountain and become the clan for the unknown there. But it hadn’t changed one bit their hoped for acceptance to the thing that watched and forbid them to have anything to do with its garden entry into its beautiful home. It remained there indifferent to their entreaties. This anomaly was a natural defensive border where if one would cross over seeking its entrancing interior would never live to tell of it. They couldn’t return even if they were meaning to do so. It was said by the clan’s three, and particularly the Thunder Mountain people who lived so closely to it and the maleficent dangerous charm, if someone was missing and could not be located that they had lingered to listen to its song too long and had crossed over to walk about the lost woods. There to be captured by the denizen that was always watching beneath the light of sister moons unbroken sweep across the long watch of the night. A light that would never recognize the impertinence of an intruder’s wishes.

All who may at first been curiously drawn there by the tiny peak of beauty and shimmering light there and then into crossing the forbidden border would come at once to the notion there of not wishing to return to what they once were…or no longer able to make the distinction to. In the succession of leaders to their ancestor’s ghost, One of the Strong ‘Chieftain Varamarr’, who had been of the first ones being bonded, before they the clans would use the altered title Victaneres Ones, had established the succession of the Thunder Mountain Clan. He and his followers had been the first of the clans to break away from the founding village of Raenon. It would seem his inspiration had assumed too much and had sought to bring a small number there across the Blackened River to remain within its entrancing gardens. At first all seemed well. But something was wrong there. And slowly, as if awakening amidst the exploring band, within a fortnight all had turned destructive. Now, looking back to all that had been seen to have happened, the land there with time uncounted had been consuming the innocent. Incident after incident; before counting, even for the comparatively recent Thunder Mountain Clan who came to the Blackened River to establish their clan’s ancestral land. The expedition band of Strong Ones were never seen again once having crossed over the river border. The remaining members with Chieftain Varamarr went no further. His son, Sun Will Dance, and the Strong Ones who had volunteered were doomed to never be seen by their families after their mysterious vanishing. Ever since then the mountain clan had stayed within the bordering and greater mountain chain and saw it as being enough. The chieftain held out hope his son would return with the warrior families one day but that day never came. An unusual river that claimed and shared the gardens of its borders to the interior seemed to laugh at Varamarr and his Strong Ones and before the eyes of any who would come to stand there to gaze and consider crossing over in hopes of rescue. The twin rivers were oddly out of color with the rest around it. The island just therein was entrancing but felt by them that it had long had such a right of sole ownership. And why not, for none of them could argue the point why the milky snowmelt encountering the set aside island would transform to blackness once it approached the broad island that divided its water course. Once reconnecting below the island the waters it still retained a deeper tint to the entry of its snowmelt blue. Once again it and the fate of One of the Strong, Bonded One Sun Will Dance, and his exploring band was a mystery that had no answer and was felt by them just so. None could remember when it had been any different and no other tale had left memory to the contrary. The dark specter residing within the garden would at night bring total darkness to the tiny mountain and whatever may lay around it which left its own mark on the land through the night with its own reasons for being.

Much further downstream the separate forks would recombine in an agitated swirl of terrible whirlpools as the water forks departed the dark circumscribe island. Combining in a swirling force of disjointed currents of agitated direction once more below it and leaving it in the distance where afterward it would organize to rapidly be freefalling over glass like black rocks into the River of Forever’s larger course. Only then did the Blackened River’s darkness completely dissipate for good as it melded with the turquoise of the greater river’s demanded dominance.

But before it at last left behind its temporary strangeness it would curve by the over fall of the spilling overhang of the rocks of Black Men’s Grinning just above the larger river. So named due to the disarranged images covering the black glass like exposed surfaces of the volcanic obsidian stones that were part of the underlying structure of the terrain. Seen from any angle was a merging of different sets of angled facets. If you changed the place where you stood the images would change; imaginary faces of many sizes all staring outward into the distance to an unknown source of possession about to capture their presence for all time. Some said they were the first lost ones of the failed bonded ones. The first forgotten ancestors like Sun Will Dance, Ones of the Strong, and others before the great tribe had been made into the permanent clans. The tales said it was those long ago who had been caught in the dangerous woods and set here for all to remember the charm awaiting for whoever should enter there. Not a story told for the teasing entertainment of children but one insisted by the parents to remain untested to its validity.

Why had the old ones in the past thought to test the boundary and had taken their first step beyond their borders into the unknown there? Maybe it was natural curiosity. For any who wished to help and followed the first that was not to return, had been bravery for sure. And perhaps maybe it was to the desperation of a never-ending torment that had overridden their rational thinking. Perhaps when one’s fantasy of life is destroyed, whatever that definition is to the thoughts, the reason for enjoying life no longer exists and finality overtakes the future. To willingly invite one’s hour of their soul to enter the realm of dark waterfall entreaties with a saddened relief.

The second day of travel for the anxious tribe’s clans had continued late into that afternoon before stopping to camp a short while for the second night. All were momentarily stunned by an unusual glow attaining richness under the approaching merge of the early rising of the sister moons in close proximity to each of the others closely linking form. They had nearly arrived to matching each other’s brilliance; to superimpose one across in front of the other. For now they only were able to project themselves in a perception of one slightly ahead and above the other. One more forthcoming night would be needed to bring about the remarkable. The confluence of the two moons. But even tonight it seemed to intensify the temperament of the surrounding air with the clan’s memory of previous rituals as it reflected off the late afternoon’s clouds as they drifted in a motley collection of varying tones of grey cloaking colors of suspect intentions.

New Moon, as well as the others of his forest kinsman, marveled at the evenings’ rare color that painted them as well in its softly indistinct orange yellowed hue as it merged to include the moody clouds above. All felt they walked inside the mother flame of the ancestor’s lodge with her many colored coals that lent its meditative light to welcome those from the hidden world. It grew to cover all of them and their horses in a never-before-remembered happening to such radiance. Then, unlike their ancestors guide, it gently began softening to lose its glow as the sun completed its setting. In half a blink of an eye there was a light green flash before the twilight took over and continued its unusual blending of shades before gradually dying as well. Was it a blessing to their past decisions to come to the mountains for refuge or a final parting gift of a warning to what their future action would bring? The old grandparents had said the choice they had made would have to be lived with for better or worse. Here was old wisdom. And they also understood that such beauty offered in the sunset would have its price. Wherever there is found great beauty also there will be drawn to it great danger and risks. But the children felt free and fascinated and had run about with their hands cupped in grasping attempts. Peeking into their and each of the others hands to believe they had captured it before it could disappear all the while softly laughing with each other in the game. In the midst of so much tragedy there was a relenting and a healing touch from the air which, for just a moment, gave them and their innocence joy. Everyone felt the same in watching their game.

New Moon had recovered markedly well from his frantic escape to reach the village Raenon in the shortest time that could be allowed. But he still hurt when he would move too fast. As he rode next to his clan’s column the rocking of his horse’s back would send small twinges of pain through his body. But he now was riding even thought it was with a slightly bowed back together with revisiting his one wish that had never left him. It was to be beside his two other friends. White Star was with his tribal leader which was where he still sharply felt he belonged. But as for Grey Fox he could only suspect the worse. At least until they could be shown anything to reveal some other fate. Still he thought it should have taken him longer for his path to reach Raenon. Their strategy from the start had been different routes and methods so that one would have reached Raenon to warn them. But the tribe’s chieftains had been pressed to go and to delay would have been hazardous for them as a people. If he had been permitted by ‘He Who Stands Alone’, he would have stayed behind with the scribe and the Tender of the Mother Flame Society’s Mage. But he was told he would be needed here instead for the preparation to defend the mountains trails and heights. The scribe had his duty and so did he and far as the village was concerned no other could contradict the Mother Flame’s Mage’s reasons for staying. For him it would be unthinkable to leave his one of devotion. But the Chief of Fathers had made it clear to have New Moon included in what was being planned for the Strange Ones. The clan could not afford to wait for his separate warrior’s vow to his two friends which was fallen out of importance. And the judging of their actions to warn the chieftains instead of standing with the fallen of the old forest clan’s old one was also on temporary hold. They would face their supreme chief and the great law that served their clans since their adoption from their father’s fathers ceremonies with the ancestor’s ghost. A dark and undecided future awaited the three friends.

Instead the contrast to the day had ended with a light that was more like a sunrise. He looked ahead at the color tinted columns in lead ahead. The families around him, bathed in the eerie light, seemed to have slowed in their pace to the timeless feeling of the rising land around them as if they had intruded on a private sanctuary to a ghost’s living dream. He critically tried to judge the distance in the shrugging mountains lumpy shoulders that stood distantly before them. He was used to thick forest and his habitual sense of perception was attuned to short expanses. What he thought should have been approached by now was still appearing just out of reach. The sense of scale was an environmental shock to his sense of time and distance measurement which was felt more so now that he was sore and depleted. He would look ahead and then with a painful half turn glance back upon the trail they had left. Trying to adjust to the uncommon experience to the distance gained and still what was to come. His mind told him nothing had gotten closer and no matter how he tried to develop a time scale his fatigue led him to think it seemed to go on indefinitely. He needed to stop and rest but there was no stopping until the chieftains reached the next temporary camp. As if all of them were walking in place or had been set in circles, New Moon forgot the time and distance and anxiety and rode on with the column. His two friends fate dominating his thoughts.

Those of the mountain clan had expected the other clans would see the distant peaks so and had told them there was no reason for alarm. The leaders and families of the Thunder Mountain chain of summits peaks took the traveled route to their home in stride and knew by long experience the playful entreaty disguised and withheld by the mountains. They played on those who would expect to set their feet before them in a day. It was an optical illusion appearing to the anticipated eye as being just over there and by the days end still seemingly just out of reach. The only passing encounters were the lower foothills repeating in an overlap with each further one to come. And spaced in between were their ravines that became deeper with each recurring defile laced with bubbling springs. The next hill to be crossed appeared most like the one before echoing the family resemblance to all of the lower grassy steppes. Small outcroppings of short growth mosses covered odd rocks that would break the earth surface like the toes of a foot buried in the ground. Here and there at the bottom of the ravines would be small landslides of tumbled stones that crumbled when held in ones’ hand. Narrow at the top and broad at the bottoms casting spill and set at the top would be small proud fingers of trees enduring the rocky table at their roots. Exposed and searching for a place that would not send them into the bottom of the ravine in the next unexpected slide withheld for now. Some near the cascading edge were leaning in their foretelling of being uprooted at any time. Even so, they kept there green spikes of needles all through the season and yet there was brown needles of the same type covering the broken ground. A spongy mat was layered underneath them and provided a bed of softness when you would step onto their offering. The scent was strong and the ground a cushion of deep layering when his horse made its way across and sent a less jolt through his body. It reminded New Moon of the old forest lying distantly to the southeast. Perhaps these diminutive adventurous children were of his mother trees who had swayed and presumptuously sent their expansion and optimism to the north by way of the wind born seeds of their ever striving to cover the whole earth. Few places were left that did not represent the face of his forest in some small and recognizable way.

Tonight’s temporary camp had been predetermined by Chieftain Sees Far and was to be held at the lower junction of two small winding snowmelt runoffs concealed higher within the steep mountains. It was the first of the small valleys they had come to reach where found within each was a familiar water branch emerging from within some secret water melt above them in the rising hills. Each valley reserved such streams as they meandering dropped through its steep defile that they would encounter. Each day following this one they would face yet another which would become steeper and boulder strewn among the rivulets and emerald green grasses that adorned its shoulders. Green Stones Falling had been named just so after them by her parents because of her likeness to them in her child’s eyes. Since those sweet memories of her parents own youth the sparkle green had not dimed since her childhood but had grown to rival the greenness in their glow and shimmer. And when matched to her smoky duskiness of her skin she had become a treasure of the Thunder Mountain Clan. But she wasn’t aware of her attraction. She felt she was no greater than the skills of her shaman calling which made her even more so as an asset to her tribal affiliation to Raenon. You would have to see her uniqueness to believe this for words could not render the beauty she had been created from. All she needed, what she was waiting for, was the one of her heart to lose herself to. She had once had such a one to complement her. Back in her past, before the heartbreaking passing of her companion, true completeness had been her reality. Once she had had a full life and what remained was only their child, Misumi. Her companion had now having failed to return some seven lonely summer seasons ago in that time of her unexpected tragedy. She had been left to endure her lost innocence and her first love. She now lived for him through Misumi but was willing to die for another that had found his way into her heart and was whispered to her by the father of Misumi to do so. The spirit of her dead companion, Rocks Standing of the Cave Hunters Society, was ever present these days when she would dance the companion dance. He would seem to float about with his memory to her wishful heart and tenderly speak to her in her mind.

Drink from the River of Life. Live your life as mother to our child and do not have regrets to my absence. Happy it is to be around. Circle the great fire and find your destiny’s wish.

He stood there in the smoke of the companions dance fire, a mystical spirit tall and strong as ever, and would have her happy and sent her the strength to do so.

The tribe just made it to the night’s campsite before the fast moving moons chasing sisters had gone much further above them after they had kissed the horizon in the east. The ascent of the little sister moon had held back in a dream time as she would linger just long enough for a parting look to those who watched before following behind her larger sister. What little remained to the light revealed a widened flat space elevated out and protected from the north wind by broken spires that circled and filled in the broad space with white sand from the eroded enclosure. It would provide a much needed resting place. The look was basin like to a segregated depression next to the rising hill. It was sufficient to accommodate the tribes gathering and with practiced experience the families set up their huts on the wind protected side for a short pause just before the moons would descend overhead toward the west. They would have to rise with what was left to the slowly fading starlight to push on. Nearly like as before when they had first departed Raenon in the fading moon light. But the separation of their village with the far flung mountain chain had become shorter between the two though not fully grasped by the other as yet. There would be a superimposed conjunction of the autumn moons soon. One more night and both their edges would link together for one day’s and night’s passing. Then the next night they would fully join in their dance. The people should have witnessed their maturing to their season’s culmination in joining of their close likeness of separate worlds in celebration to the fall companion dance. The fall rite had long ago been established and mostly had been observed with their clan in peaceful rest and contemplation within their own boundaries before the onset of the cold season. It had become obvious why they had to alter its pattern and assemble all three but more had come about than the change in weather. At the time of celebration more was added to threaten their very way of life that had no reason to its intrusion.

There was a great one among them who had his own conflicts other than the ones they all shared. Although it had been against all he held true the unfortunate attack had played into his scheme to make it possible to attain the tribe’s leadership. The Old Forest Clan had been reduced and was vulnerable to anyone and anything now. They would not hesitate but jump at the chance to align themselves with the mountain kinsman for the strength they would offer. It would be made to order and how better to mix their families than their shaman with the blood line of the Supreme Chief. Chieftain Sees Far led the families to his rocky home and contemplated the choice he and his Victaneres One were committed to.

Another rode there with them that had his own thoughts as well. Stone Face felt his reluctance as he and the rest of the families column dismounted for the night. He more so than others, and unlike most in the other two outlying clans, knew the close approximation to the mountain chain and had regretted this night’s arrival. He recognized the place in their journey to now camp at the ‘white sands bluff’ where he and a hunting party had done that late summer. They had trailed the great Garenaul Bulls most of that hot day to a near point where they would spring their trap in a steep cliff ravine. His anticipated decision was not hunting this night but unavoidable to the prospect when he would have to set his horse loose with the others. A small thing for most but it was to him having to lose his closest friend rather than an animal for carrying packs. He and the rest would all have to release them, for now they entered the ever sharpening steppes of the mountains approaches which provided only narrowed trails clinging to the steepening shoulders. They would have to take what they could onto their own backs to make the final winding back and forth climb.

From the night’s campsite he and the others could now make out more of the color of the mountains which were no longer projecting their teasing mirage. The mountains gave in to a welcoming to embrace the clans. The few outlying volcanic towers were showing up reddish black and went beyond seeing to any end northward. Stacked one against the others back with no discernible way to enter freely beforehand from their new vantage point. Maybe with the fresh light of days breaking they would see the way more clearly that Chieftain Sees Far and his people comfortably knew of from their and their father’s generation. Stone Face could not know it but their approach was already detected by Chief Sees Far mountain clan’s old ones that had remained behind in their smoothed out interior caverns. The three clan’s night’s camp fires had been seen from their lofty vantage point and had been in greater number than was expected. The clans were closing in, crossing over the first upscale trek for certain this time. And the mountains and Sees Far’s cavernous village seemed to gather them unto itself without any more hesitation. The distance altering mirage had surrendered to concede its playful game in exchange for a beautiful but stark reality. There in the broken off segregation to the horizon in the east was the forbidden. A small jewel of a mountain set apart and protected from any who would intrude. If only they could have it as a line across in front of them here they felt they would be safer with its biased judgment for once.

In his past the closest Stone Face had ever been to the foot of the northern chain of the Thunder Mountains had been on a circuitous hunt for the Garenauls large herd bulls a bit more north and west from white sands bluff. Their white and blue/black sides of uncountable numbers decorating the tall grasses around them as if they were one giant hill that confused the ability to distinguish individuals easily within the herd. The bulls would appear to be moving casually but nonetheless intently as they would migrate only briefly within the herd then return to the periphery and shield the vulnerable calves and cows. And the center of the herd never saw the hunt that picked at its edges. But that place of central encounter had been estimated further to the south as the migration had continued to meander for many weeks. Out of honor to the boundary demarking a tribal clan’s territory, a cliff sides bulging surface had been decorated with the likeness of the herds bulls so as not to be disrespectful to the mountain kinsman’s hunting borders; the warriors from Raenon had remained in the distance once this depiction had been sighted to set up their own ambushes in several blind ravines that channeled runoff from the peaks. If you had been there you would have seen it all. The ritual hunt was bloody to both but necessary. Although the tribes held a kinship to share outwardly, to compete for the herds at the same time on another’s territory was against the internal laws of their clan’s father’s fathers.

As he brushed his horses back and neck with a common clump of fragrant meadow blooms for the night’s preparation to a brief halt, his crag like face so fitting to the mountains own became compassionate. He regretted having to let his mare drift away in a free ranging common herd. The animal was more than a servant. It had filled the space of