TALL-MAN-ON-A-HILL
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The valley below them glittered,
the houses were alight with strange lanterns, what looked like a thousand
candles glittering against the night sky. Not a single home was unlit, its
windows afire in the glow.
Tall Man had thought often, long and deeply
concerning their problem, and the solution seemed to be to find the valley of
their cousins and seek their counsel and beg their help.
But Tall Man was wary of asking
for too much. It was easy to ask, and easy to receive if the need was great,
but debts often lasted longer than the people who make promises, and this
journey was far and perilous. None were lost this time round, though, and the
children were well behaved and quiet most of the trip.
Tall Man thought upon his friends buried in
the deep of the ground below their village, huddled in the caverns deep below
the ground, in the ruins of the old city, buried many generations before.
Whatever calamity befell those who once lived there, what they left behind were
structures of steel and stone far below the earth, toppled by time, or some
great quake, or perhaps they merely succumbed to the ages. No one could tell.
And the snaking river covered the great glassy steel giants with sediment, for
who knows how many centuries. Time had passed far too long ago to know.
But here they were, near their destination,
and they would have to wait until morning to traverse the descent into the
valley below. It would be no use risking life and limb. They circled the wagons
and built a fire, cooking what food remained, and reading stories and singing
songs late into the night. The drums echoed down into the valley, letting their
cousins know by the thudding and the voices raised high that they were friends,
and that they came in peace and friendship. The songs and the drums would carry
the messages down to the valley, announcing their arrival, so that preparations
could be made by their counsel.
Come morning they descended, slowly down an
ancient highway, its asphault long disintegrated, but still tended by the people of the
village, kept smooth by rake and hoe, and free of foliage and washouts. Fruit
trees lined the sides of the ancient highway, and berry bushes, well kept. Tall
Man could see deeper into the valley from here, though autumn threatened frost,
it was still warm here, and the mountain lakes could be seen miles off, the
sails of boats out on the water a testament to the efforts of the fishermen.
The buildings were taller, some stretching three and four stories. Some were
ancient, from the time before, and the stone they were built from kept their form all these
centuries. The townsfolk took pride in their place, the walls were clean,
polished, and pristine, cracks filled and the roads were smooth cobbles,
patterns mapped out in colorful stone. The cousins were wealthy, they were
surrounded by natures bounty, and they protected it, cared for it, and it paid
them handsomely for their attendance.
A small crowd greeted them at the town’s
centre. Men, women and children gathered, each carrying a symbol of their
welcome and hospitality. An older man introduced himself as “Fire-On-The-Sky”,
his heavy cloth robes nearly touching the ground, completely white except for
the bright colored sash around his waist, and his beaded boots. His hair was
kept long, braided and his face cleanly shaven. In stark contrast, Tall Man’s
beard was grey and his hair cut to shoulder length, his buckskin clothing had
little to no decoration.
Fire-On-The-Sky spoke, “Welcome, my cousin.
Your songs announced your coming, and we open our arms and our homes to you.”
His words were delivered with a smile, and he held open his arms and the two
men pulled each other into a hug, not unlike two brothers who had not seen each
other in a great long time. “Please, join me in my chambers, we will exchange
news and stories, and your people may rest in our homes, we have already made
accomodations. Tonight, we will feast aplenty, and our people will entertain
you with their dances and the pleasure of our harvest. Please, this way.” He
bowed, and swung his arm as an invitation towards a great white marble clad
building, its four columns reaching nearly fifty feet high, behind them six
vast windows, colorful, each stained frame depicting some ancient scene.
Indeed, wealthy cousins. Tall Man, though dizzied by these wealthy things, did
not suffer envy – great treasures required great tending, and much wealth
required much work. “We are wealthy in our own way. We have soil to till,
cattle to herd, and plenty of songs and dances of our own. We do not starve –
and have become too successful, perhaps, as others crave our valley for
themselves.”
The big brass clad doors were opened wide, the
antique ornaments cast hundreds of years past were polished a bright gold –
ancient, and beautiful. Beyond the doors, the ceiling of the room stretched
high into the air, four stories upward, three broad balconies on either side
with their green unpolished brass railings, the high black marble walls broken
only by entry ways. The images on the windows both at the front of the
building, and the back, showed scenes in colored glass of ploughsmen
harvesting, workers picking fruit from trees, full baskets at their feet, and
warriors spinning with colored ribbons and blades, each one with six arms and
three faces, the central image of a family holding each other close, the pride
on their faces, the tools of their trade in their hands, and books stacked
elegantly at their feet. And finally, one image at the back of the building, of
a man building a great tower, chisel and hammer in his rugged hand, his face
and chin painted with intense concentration, the stone he carved was a simple,
single marble brick, shaped unusually. Tall Man recognised it as a
“key-stone”.
As he was guided to the centre of the hall,
servants brought them to sit in the centre of the room, huge pillows of colored
linen to sit upon, and the ceremonial pipe was brought to them, its tobacco
sweet and strong. They sat silent for several minutes, thinking upon the
meaning of the pipe, its history more ancient than even the remnants of their
books could tell them. The pipe carrier held the pipe aloft, and sang a prayer
to the sky, the earth, the winds of the north, south, east and west, the
ancestors of their people, and those who are still to come. The song echoed
throughout the room, the balconies catching the sound and echoing it again
across the vast ceiling, and back down to the centre of the room where they
sat. Then the pipe was lit from a branch whose dull red ember caught the smoke,
its tobacco mixed with sage and other herbs, the sweet scent filling the space
between the men.
When the pipe ceremony was finished, Tall Man
reached into his tunic and brought forth a medicine bag, which was tied around
his neck for just such an occasion, and gifted it to the Chief of his cousin’s
tribe. It was filled with the tobacco and herbs of his own tribe, the mixture
thicker, more harmonious to the people of his valley. The pipe laid to rest,
and the ceremony over, the two men sat together and talked. Tall Man began with
the legend of his people:
“Hundreds of years ago, in the time of our
ancient ancestors, there was a great city stretched out over the foothills of
the Bow River Valley. It is said that this city passed many hundreds of
generations, back to the very earliest times, when man rested in view of the
great mountains. Fish and bison were plentiful, and the great seas of grass
were our home. Then came a new age, and with it, the machines, and a time of
great confusion and bitterness, where man lived beside man, and none hunted any
further except those rare few for sport. The land was divided, and none sought
the refuge of the forest or the mountain. The machines killed the instinct in
the people, and their goals became limited to comfort and luxury. They
marvelled at the feats of the restless few, but would not themselves rise to
greatness. Information became cacophony, and none would learn except for the
bare minimum required to fulfil their place. They instead sated their minds
with lurid entertainment. It is said that even thousands of years before them,
that great civilizations had endured the same, and for their lack of education
and hindsight, brought the same kind of destruction upon themselves. Disease
followed, but not at first in the form of boils and gangrene. No, the disease
was deeper, more subtle, feasting on the very ideology of the people, suffering
them to a state of helplessness in the face of greater disease. It was a
disease of the mind, of the soul. Their ability to manifest change was cut
short, and their instinct was ruined by their culture of laxity and indolence –
for even with the hives of the bee or the great tunneling cities of the ants
every individual knows his place and seeks only to offer their share. Every one
gives their utmost to the society, and each learns not only his trade, but the
trade of the brother beside them, so that, should one fall, the whole will
carry on. When plague came, war came as well, and in the end, all civilizations
will topple under their own weight, and their inability to provide for their
poorest will be their very downfall. The rich and mighty will no longer fight
their own wars, and the danger of death no longer touches the kings and
politicians, so they do not consider the lives they pawn on battlefields across
the world. Like a mighty beast, the tide is impossible to turn, and the land
heaved up plague and pestulance unlike any the world had ever seen. In their
fear, the idiot masses began to feed upon themselves, and what remained could
only survive by leaving the great cities and relearning the lessons that their
ancestors already knew, but their society had forgotten – if you tend not to
the world you live in, it will poison you. Diseases that were treatable in the
past became untreatable, and the great numbers began to die off, the great
cities shattered, the survivors living on in isolation and fear. Enduring
nature takes back what is hers, and within a hundred years, the land returned
to her savage roots. Those who lived on the land continued to thrive. Huntsmen
in the forests were acclimatized to Nature’s whims, and thrived. In time,
generations would take back the land, harvesting the fields and raising
livestock, coming together in smaller groups, keeping their borders distant,
but trading with their neighbors and their neighbor’s neighbors. Then, like in
the ancient of ancient times, the communities were able to trade again with
those distant lands. Where a village would grow too large to manage, discipline
and healthfully maintain, it would split in twain, sending a portion onward to
more distant fields, to create a society of their own, their cousins welcome at
their fires, and welcome to trade. It is today, my cousin, that we return home.
After many generations, we return.”