“OOOOOH OOHRRRREE EEEEEEHHAA!” Tanee bellowed, strange half-gasps punctuating his cry. The noise agitated several of the others who moved restlessly in their cots. The older boy sitting in the corner raised his hands to the sides of his head and began to moan. He started rocking back and forth, gently at first, but then more and more violently so that when he came forward his head knocked against the bare stone of the wall.
Trapis was at his side before the boy could do himself any real harm. He put his arms around the rocking boy. “Hush hush, Loni. Hush hush.” The boy’s rocking slowed but did not entirely subside. “Tanee, you know better than to make all that noise.” His voice was serious, but not stern. “Why are you making trouble? Loni could hurt himself.”
“Oorrahee,” Tanee said softly. I thought I could detect a note of remorse in his voice.
“I think he wants a story,” I said, surprising myself by speaking.
“Aaaa,” Tanee said.
“Is that what you want, Tanee?”
“Aaaa.”
There was a quiet moment. “I don’t know any stories,” he said.
Tanee remained stubbornly silent.
Everyone knows one story, I thought. Everyone knows at least one.
“Ooooooree!”
Trapis looked around at the quiet room, as if looking for an excuse. “Well,” he said reluctantly. “It has been a while since we had a story, hasn’t it?” He looked down at the boy in his arms. “Would you like a story, Loni?”
Loni nodded a violent affirmation, nearly battering Trapis’ cheek with the back of his head.
“Will you be good and sit by yourself, so I can tell a story?”
Loni stopped rocking almost immediately. Trapis slowly unwrapped his arms and stepped away. After a long look to make sure the boy wouldn’t hurt himself, he stepped carefully back to his chair.
“Well,” he muttered softly to himself as he stooped to pick up the baby he had set aside. “Do I have a story?” He spoke very quietly to the child’s wide eyes. “No. No, I don’t. Can I remember one? I suppose I had better.”
He sat for a long moment, humming to the child in his arms, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Yes, of course.” He sat up taller in his chair. “Are you ready?”
This is a story from long ago. Back before any of us were born. Before our fathers were born, too. It was a long time ago. Maybe—maybe four hundred years. No, more than that. Probably a thousand years. But maybe not quite as much as that.
It was a bad time in the world. People were hungry and sick. There were famines and great plagues. There were many wars and other bad things in this time, because there was no one to stop them.
But the worst thing in this time was that there were demons walking the land. Some of them were small and troublesome, creatures who lamed horses and spoiled milk. But there were many worse than those.
There were demons who hid in men’s bodies and made them sick or mad, but those were not the worst. There were demons like great beasts that would catch and eat men while they were still alive and screaming, but they were not the worst. Some demons stole the skins of men and wore them like clothes, but even they were not the worst.
There was one demon that stood above the others. Encanis, the swallowing darkness. No matter where he walked, shadows hid his face, and scorpions that stung him died of the corruption they had touched.
Now Tehlu, who made the world and who is lord over all, watched the world of men. He saw that demons made sport of us and killed us and ate our bodies. Some men he saved, but only a few. For Tehlu is just and saves only the worthy, and in these times few men acted even for their own good, let alone the good of others.
Because of this, Tehlu was unhappy. For he had made the world to be a good place for men to live. But his church was corrupt. They stole from the poor and did not live by the laws he had given….
No, wait. There was no church yet, and no priests either. Just men and women, and some of them knew who Tehlu was. But even those were wicked, so when they called on Lord Tehlu for help he felt no desire to aid them.
But after years of watching and waiting, Tehlu saw a woman pure of heart and spirit. Her name was Perial. Her mother had raised her to know Tehlu, and she worshiped him as well as her poor circumstances allowed. Although her own life was hard, Perial prayed only for others, and never for herself.
Tehlu watched her for long years. He saw her life was hard, full of misfortune and torment at the hands of demons and bad men. But she never cursed his name or ceased her praying, and she never treated any person other than with kindness and respect.
So late one night, Tehlu went to her in a dream. He stood before her, and seemed to be made entirely of fire or sunlight. He came to her in splendor and asked her if she knew who he was.
“Sure enough,” she said. You see, she was very calm about it because she thought she was just having an odd dream. “You’re Lord Tehlu.”
He nodded and asked her if she knew why he had come to her.
“Are you going to do something for my neighbor Deborah?” she asked. Because that’s who she had prayed for before she went to sleep. “Are you going to lay your hand on her husband Losel and make him a better man? The way he treats her isn’t right. Man should never lay a hand on woman, save in love.”
Tehlu knew her neighbors. He knew they were wicked people who had done wicked things. Everyone in the village was wicked but her. Everyone in the world was. He told her so.
“Deborah has been very kind and good to me,” Perial said. “And even Losel, who I don’t care for, is one of my neighbors all the same.”
Tehlu told her that Deborah spent time in many different men’s beds, and Losel drank every day of the week, even on Mourning. No, wait—there wasn’t any Mourning yet. But he drank a lot at any rate. Sometimes he grew so angry that he beat his wife until she could not stand or even cry aloud.
Perial was quiet for a long moment in her dream. She knew Tehlu spoke the truth, but while Perial was pure of heart, she was not a fool. She had suspected her neighbors of doing the things Tehlu said. Even now that she knew for certain, she cared for her neighbors all the same. “You won’t help her?”
Tehlu said that the man and wife were each other’s fitting punishment. They were wicked and the wicked should be punished.
Perial spoke out honestly, perhaps because she thought she was dreaming, but perhaps she would have said the same thing had she been awake, for Perial said what was in her heart. “It’s not their fault that the world is full of hard choices and hunger and loneliness,” she said. “What can you expect of people when demons are their neighbors?”
But though Tehlu listened to her wise words with his ears, he told her that mankind was wicked, and the wicked should be punished.
“I think you know very little about what it is to be a man,” she said. “And I would still help them if I could,” she told him resolutely.