It is forbidden to gaze upon him. That is our greatest taboo. But that which is forbidden is also most tempting.
From the time we are first able to understand, the Wise Ones tell us over and again about the terrible death that will befall us and the calamities that will be visited upon the world if we glimpse him. We are a brave people, but very thought of him makes us quake like blabbering old women in the night.
I could not tell the Wise Ones that they were wrong, that death and disaster did not follow for any who glimpsed him. For if they knew that I had done so and lived, they would have cast me out...or worse. We are herders, humble people who have little. But we are good people. Tending our herds and seeing to his needs are all that we have ever known.
We have tended him now for more generations than there are drops of water in the great Western sea, bringing the best of our herds and leaving them in the sacred place on the north side of the Near Mountain.
I first journeyed there when I was in my thirteenth year and had just become a man. The journey was hard and took the better part of a day, but I was young and vigorous then and bounded up the rough, rocky trails. When we had tied the animals in the appointed place, Kashgil, one of the oldest and wisest of the Wise Ones, spoke some holy words. They might well have been gibberish for all they meant to me.
The clouds had closed in thick over the high plateau formed by the four mountains. We could see little but we knew he was there. We quaked with fear and shivered in the knees. But my fear must not have been as great as the others, for it did not keep me from leaving the village seven suns later and returning.
Alone and unburdened by the beasts I was able to travel much faster. I reached the place where we left the beasts by noonday. They were gone, of course. The Wise Ones often told how he sent out great birds to snatch them up whole and devour them. When they flew back to the roost in the cliffs above him they were so heavy that he was able to pluck them out of the air without breaking his rhythm and devour them in turn. His hunger must have been very great.
Feeling excited and very afraid I climbed higher into the mountains to where the air became hard to breath. As I struggled upward I began to hear it. The low, steady bump bump bump of the drum as he toiled without ceasing. As I climbed the air grew even thinner, my head lighter and the drum louder until, by the time I had reached the cliffs that rimmed the plateau, it was as though I was drunk.
The sound pulsed through my body as though a giant wind buffeted me. I was very afraid. I wanted to turn back and run down the trail to safety but something drew me to the edge... and there he was. I was surprised to see that, in many ways, he was not so different from an ordinary man. But he would have towered over most men and the muscles of his enormous body were like great cords.
All of this I saw in an instant. I fell back in terror as his eyes glimpsed mine. I was chilled to the bone at the awful madness and torment in those dark eyes. I ran so fast back down the trail that I don't know how I kept from killing myself. My heart pounded and my lungs felt as though they would burst. As I ran I noticed that the great drum beat louder and harder. But the rhythm was not so steady.
I knew that I had angered him. The Wise Ones told us he was once a man like you and I, back in the days when the world was first made and men were few and the gods still walked among them. One day he went to the place where the gods keep the mysteries and stole the secrets of fire and eternal life. Even the gods could not call back the fire once he had loosed it. But for his sins they let him keep the secret of immortality, chained him to a great drum fashioned especially for him and decreed that he should play, without ceasing, for all of his endless days.
Walter Rowan hustled around the tent, distractedly tossing items into a large travel bag. It was sunny and hot outside, but the interior of the tent was dark and dank and smelled like a wet dog. Walter no longer noticed the pungent smell of the skins that had been stitched crudely together to make the tent or of the thick furs that carpeted the floor. He picked up a tiny headset and strapped it on, adjusting the microphone with one hand and continuing to load the travel bag with the other. He flipped a switch.
"Hi, love. It's me. My last cell battery just died. I hope this makes it to you. I'm sure it's all over the news now about things heating up over here. We're pretty far from the Chechens but the word is a lot of them hide out in the hills around here. Anyway, things are really starting to escalate so the embassy is pulling out and of course if they go I gotta go to."
Walter frowned as he repeatedly tried to fold a rumpled shirt, failed and tossed it in the bag.
"Unless I just pull a Kurtz and spend the rest of my life here, set myself up as some demented chieftain in his rustic Shangri-La. But the locals would never go for that and besides I would absolutely kill for a triple dip of chocolate chip mint ice cream right now. Actually I'd settle for anything without so much yak in it. Really loved yak the first few hundred times I ate, but it's starting to get old."
"So I'm on my way. I shouldn't bring this up so this is just between me, you and the lamppost. One of my contacts in the embassy says it might be worse than any of us know. Thinks the Chechens might have nukes. Wonderful, hey? So anyway, I'm gonna start walking outta here in a few and I'll meet one ofthe marines from the embassy about five miles away. I told you how funny these people are about the spirits of machines in the air. Probably skin me alive and drag me behind a yak if they ever got a good look at all my gear."
Walter stuffed a few more items of clothing into the bulging bag and zipped it with great difficulty. He pulled a smaller bag from beneath a pile of furs, brushed a few mites off and began to fill it.
"So I gotta run. Oh, this is a kicker. Nine months I'm here and barely get anything out of them and then two days before I go they pull a gem out of their asses. Old guy looks me up yesterday and starts telling me this story about one of the local deities. This is a winner. Once I get out on the road I'll record it and send it. Apparently this god lives high up in the mountains to the north of here. Plays a huge drum and they sacrifice to him four times a year. Kicker is that the rhythms from his drum supposedly regulate the health of the earth and everyone on it. If their sacrifice is not sufficient he'll weaken and his rhythms go haywire and chaos breaks out. They also think that bad vibrations from machines and whatnot mess with his rhythms and cause havoc. That's the spirits of the air bit."
Walter zipped up the small bag and looked around the tent.
"There's more but I'll get it all to you soon. It's gotta go in the book. I tried to find the old timer today but I couldn't. Claims to have actually seen this god when he was a young man. Thinks that bunged up the harmony of the world. He's going on ninety so that would have made it late Thirties."
Walter thought for a moment and laughed sharply.
"There you go. He annoyed this drummer, got him pissed and World War II broke out. Anyway, I really gotta run. Guess I'm not gonna miss Kelly's graduation after all. See ya. Love ya. Out."
Walter punched a few keys on his palm pad, setting the file to the highest compression and preparing to transmit. He opened a tiny satellite dish and pointed it toward the east. The file took a few seconds and then Walter broke down the gear and packed it. Living in such primitive circumstances for these months if often occurred to him how much he took technology for granted. He tried to imagine the miracle of e-mail through a satellite uplink as seen through the eyes of his hosts. Was it any more farfetched for them than it was for him to imagine a drummer at the top of the world, pounding a drum and controlling the course of humankind? He laughed and snapped the case shut.
"Magic."
If he does not kill me this cursed journey surely will. But I have lived long and well and death holds no fears for me now. How clearly I can remember it now, how I scrambled up this very same trail as though my body was made of air. That journey, which took me a half day then has taken me two and I have only just passed the sacred place. My body is heavy but my head is light from the thin air.
Deep in my heart I have always know that I must return, though I spent many years trying to deny it. I knew that I must look upon him one last time before I died but I do not know why. What draws me to him? Did he cast a spell on my in that split second when he seared me to the bone with those tormented eyes? Or is it that I feel sorry for him?
Walter felt like he might bounce out of his skin. A young square-jawed marine hunched over the wheel of the jeep, intent on the rough path ahead of them. As the right front tire hit a deep rut Walter lurched to the side and grunted.
"Sorry, sir. The last helicopter leaves the embassy in two hours. We're gonna be cutting it right down to the wire."
"That's ok," Walter grunted again. "I hear the Chechens may have nukes."
The marine stiffened ever so slightly.
"I wouldn't know anything about that, sir."
"I guess you wouldn't."
Walter pulled out his palm pad and slipped the headset on. The marine gave him a noncommittal glance.
"Letter to my wife."
"Yes, sir."
"Hi love," Walter began. "Me again. I hope you got the last one. Anyway I'm in a jeep about two hours from the embassy and I've got some time to kill."
Walter laughed. The marine stifled a grin.
"This is the story I mentioned. The one the old man told me about."
Walter began the tale. The marine tried to pretend he was not listening.
Perhaps the Wise Ones were right. Perhaps I should not have been so bold.
These past years have been lean ones. The rains have not come and the herds have thinned. Our offerings to him are not as bountiful as they once were. As I approach I sense that something is wrong with his rhythms, they are not as even and the tones not so strong as they were before. The lack of food must have weakened him. The spirits of the air from the many machines of the men from beyond have filled the air, making a jumble of what was once harmonious.
I am close now. My heart pounds almost as loudly as his drum and it is not just the pounding of an old man's overworked heart. He is just over the ridge and the great tones of his drum pulse through my body. I pause. I tell myself that it is not too late to turn back but of course I won't. I have dreamed of this day for a very long time.
I pull in a deep, shaky breath, square my bent shoulders and take the last few steps to the cliff edge. There he is. My breath stops and the flesh on my arms prickles. He stares at me with that awful gaze and I am rooted to the spot.
I have sinned. He flails madly now at the drum, like a wild demon. His long jet-black hair hangs in his face as he pounds like a madman. His rhythms are all out of sorts. I wish that I could turn back time just a few moments. I take a step back and, as I do, my foot slips on a stone. It is surprising to me how many things I am able to think about in those endless moments before I am shattered on the rocks below. Foremost of all of these thoughts is how truly sad I must have made a man who has suffered through so many countless millennia to have brought a tear to his eye.
The jeep was laboring up the side of a steep hill as Walter finished the letter. He compressed it and was ready to send when something made him stop.
He and the marine exchanged a glance and Walter realized how young he really was - probably only a few years older than Kelly.
Walter started to speak. He stopped in mid-sentence and threw up a forearm to shield his eyes. The young man's cool faŤade melted away and he uttered a half-hearted curse as the sky in front of them lit up more brightly than anything either of them had ever seen.
William I. Lengeman III has published non-fiction in numerous publications, including Saveur, Historic Traveler, Terra Nova, and the anthology, "An Ear to the Ground." His fiction and poetry have appeared or been accepted for publication in such print venues as Andromeda Spaceways, City Slab and Dark Animus, as well as in numerous independent and small press online publications. For more info and links to stories and his blog, visit 499-Word Tales For The Modern Age.
© William I. Lengeman III
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