Of Men Made Gods

2. A Welcome

A Welcome

WATER GURGLED ABUNDANTLY in fountains cleverly hidden around the lush garden. Insects paid court at each of the lanterns that hung swaying in the warm night breeze, trying to get closer to the enchanting brightness. The air was filled with the sharp, lulling sound of crickets' singing while leaves spoke in a thousand whispers as they moved in a flutter, almost shadows in the starlit darkness.

Avon stood in a brightly lit doorway, trying to take it all in. The murmur of people came as a low drone from behind him while he tried to lose his thoughts and relax. All day he had been thinking of what the Hall members were going to decide about his proposal, but the thing that occupied his thoughts even more than that was what his wife had told him yesterday on their way back from the gathering. Now, standing with his back lit and his face in shadows, her words came swooping down into his mind again.

"Do you remember that Elizo left on some adventure to the east a while back, before your own journey began?" Caenphis had said, sitting beside him as they went to their home. "Well, he got back about a year ago and has been claiming to have spoken with beings of unimaginably immense powers ever since. He calls them gods, though I don't know if he's being serious or not.

"He said that his travels had led him south, beyond the waters at the shores of our old homelands and beyond the mighty deserts after those waters, where he found an empire of black-skinned men. His descriptions of the animals from that place at the time were quite dramatic and almost unbelievable though he did bring some skins, feathers and bones that were exotic," she had paused here for a time, as if she was seeing those bizarre parts of those fantastic creatures before her again. "Everybody was excited to learn more at first, and there was great support for the gateway through which he had met the gods that he wished to create here. But months had passed and the rumors of wars and sightings of the Vardrakus were finally seeping into the city so he and his gateway had sort of faded into the background of that growing certainty. And when even more time passed, his project had become a kind of shared joke among everyone else. It was at this time that he even closed his doors on the few supporters he had left, politely saying that the works on the gateway had reached a critical stage which needed the utmost secrecy from then on. But, all of us knew that he did it because he had finally somehow heard of the snide remarks uttered behind his back by those he had taken into confidence.

"I don't even think he had come to the gatherings after that because people were whispering in surprise when he stepped into Hall this morning before your arrival," she had said, turning to him as she spoke, "You know, now that I think of it, he had disappeared after that incident of barring his home and work place to most people."

"But where does this gateway lead to?" he had asked, still slightly mad that the presentation of his plan had been interrupted by the man he had last seen years ago.

"Elizo was a bit exaggerating when he said 'the land of gods'," his wife had replied, a small smile playing at one corner of her lips before a slight frown appeared on her brow and she continued, "at least that's what I think. If what I've heard is true, then the gateway only leads to a meeting place between our world and the world of those other beings."

All the way to their home, she had gone on speaking about that place between two worlds, telling him of the various imaginative descriptions people had made up about it when the truth wasn't forthcoming from the one person who had ever been there. Yet, with most of his mind filled with an elusive unease, he had listened to her words with only half an ear.

"Why don't you give some rest to your thoughts?" the words came from right behind him, piercing through the night to reach his almost absent mind.

Sighing loudly, Avon turned towards the person who had spoken the question. His eyes still adjusting to the shift from darkness to light, he looked at his wife. For a moment shorter than a breath, he looked and actually saw the little changes time had wrought on the woman he loved. He saw the slight creases around the eyes, the little stretched skin that hung beneath her jaw, and, almost but not fully hidden under her clothes, the curves of her body which suddenly seemed more softer than they should. It was in a split second, when the lights and shadows were just right and his mind was still a bit hazy, that he noticed these things and more. And, with this new view came a sadness that numbed his heart for a time. Without saying a word, he simply watched her while his heart filled with a fiercely protective love, silently thinking how life was surprisingly long as well as being maddeningly short.