The Eden Axiom

The Eden Axiom
by David Evans

You can take the animal out of the wild, but can you engineer the wild out of the animal or the wild animal out of the engineer?

Eurasia, 50,000 BP (Before Present), the Pleistocene Glacial Epoch: Young Wodin’s mind was deep within the outer realm when the attackers struck. He was walking in a fragrant, green forest where it was always warm and springtime. Here the sun never set and he had not a care in the world. Then suddenly and unexpectedly the skies went dark with black storm clouds rolling in overhead. An ebony feathered raven, his spirit animal, swooped down and landed before him. It said in the tongue of the kin, “No time to waste. The wolf is at the door.”

His eyes shot open and without thinking, he grabbed his trusty axe that was always by his side and jumped to his feet. He looked and saw that all around him there was danger. About a dozen members of a gob war party -their bodies covered in red ocher, brandishing short thrusting spears and howling with fanatical ferocity- had broken into the kin clan’s sweat lodge. Probably, thought Wodin, they had cut slit openings in the sides of the animal skin walls and had poured in through those.

Ignoring the children and the old ones, the gob had immediately went about the brutal business of systematically exterminating the kin males by stabbing their chest cavities with their wickedly sharp spears and pulling them immediately out – leaving a gaping hole. Flesh tore and blood gushed out of open wounds.

It was nighttime, late in the season. The full Moon was high in the sky above the dense woodlands of the Forever Forest. A chill in the air signaled the end of the short, cool summer and the beginnings of fall. The kin had been nestled away in their autumn encampment for several days. Since sundown, the whole clan had been holed-up in the dome-shaped lodge.

Naked against the sweltering heat they sat upright and cross-legged around a central pit containing a stacked pile of heated stones brought in from the raging bonfire outside. In the pitch dark shelter, they chanted, drummed and prayed, working themselves up into an ecstatic state in an attempt to catch a fleeting vision of their spirit guide. Nearly catatonic in their communal dreamlike trance most of the kin clansmen and women were oblivious to their own impending doom. All appeared to be lost.

Wodin knew it was time to act. Swinging as hard as he could, using a tight, two-handed grip on the long handle of the axe, he brought the sharpened blade edge of the hard flint stone head down upon the oddly round-shaped skull of the of the nearest gob. Under the impact of the blow, the gob’s head at first collapsed inwardly and then exploded outwardly. Blood, bone and grey matter splattered in every direction. Much of the filthy, wet mass sprayed across Wodin’s face, darkening his protruding nose and bulging beetle brow.

After he had killed his first gob, Wodin looked over his shoulder and spied his big brother, Thoth. He and a few of the other males had also awakened. Thoth, a towering kinsman, stood with a blood-soaked stone axe in one hand and a tusk bone dagger in the other. Sprawled out at his feet were two dead gob.

Good, thought Wodin. Thoth was never slow to jump into a fight.
From his point of view it seemed as if he were surrounded. It flashed through his mind that, if he had had proper time to ponder upon this situation, he would probably be too overcome with fear and hopelessness to properly act. But Wodin was a kin disposed to action, not thought. He continued to swing his axe with purpose, trying to make every blow count.

With a sideways swing he knocked the lower jaw of another gob right off its hinges. Again, blood gushed. The gob’s eyes bulged as if he wanted to scream in shear pain, but was unable to due to the fact that half his mouth was gone. A second blow from Wodin’s axe finished the job. Using an upward swing, he brought the blunt side the axe head to right under where they gob’s big chin used to be and knocked his cranium entirely off his shoulders. It went spinning into the air.

The battle went on. Wodon was able to kill two more of the invaders. He didn’t know how many Thoth had slain, but he was sure it was more. In his mind, his big brother was nothing short of one of the legendary heroes, the kind the kin often sung about in their saga songs.

One of the gobs was lucky and was able to thrust his spear point into Wodon’s leg. It hurt badly, but for one of the kin, pain was something that could be ignored when need be. Wodin endured. He rammed his axe into the back of the offending gob’s neck snapping the bone with a sickening crack.

Then, just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The invaders retreated. They simply broke off their attack and exited through the same rifts they had cut into the lodge.

Wodin, Thoth and three other surviving males, short, stout, thick boned and massively muscled, the kinsmen, stood upright among the bloodied and mutilated dead, both kin and gob alike. Winded and partially exhausted from the exertion of fighting for their lives, they were breathing heavily. With the lodge walls in shreds and the outside icy air rushing in, their breath came out white and frosty.

For a long moment, they said nothing. A quiet stillness hung over the moment. The heady adrenalin rush of battle was wearing off and being replaced with a new feeling. The traumatic shock of the terrible incident that had visited them was starting to work its way into their consciousness. Wodin could feel this new feeling like a burning ember smoldering deep inside him. Steadily it grew in strength and temperature, but yet he could not completely identify what this emotion was.

Then, Thoth said it. “Revenge…the gob must pay.” Immediately, Wodin knew that Thoth was feeling the same thing too. “Right now,” said Thoth. “We must follow them and kill them – kill them all.” His voice was not angry, but excited. The idea of catching and killing the whole gob war party filled him with an emotion of exhilaration that was pleasurable - almost sexual.
Wodin and the others nodded in agreement. Their eyes, Wodin could see, betrayed that same keen craving for vengeance that he felt.

They were almost ready to make their way out of what was left of the ruined dome-shaped shelter when a shrill and aged voice rang out. “Fools!” cried the voice. They turned and saw, rising up out of the heap of dead and wounded bodies a scrawny, decrepit, crippled figure wearing only a necklace of tiger teeth. It was the aged dowager. She was the oldest woman in the clan and had been its medicine woman longer than anyone could remember. Her face was deeply lined. But her eyes blazed with an intensity of intelligence that Wodin always found a bit frightening.

“Look about you,” she said. Her tone was scornful. “Count among the dead. Tell me, what do you see? Ask yourself, what have you lost?”

Wodin, like the other men, looked down at his feet. He saw his friends and his family members. Many were dead. Many more were badly wounded. He saw his mother, Kala, dead laid alongside the disfigured corpse of his father, Atouk. Then, he looked for his litter sister, Sanna, but she wasn’t there. Frantically he searched with his eyes, but could not find her.
It was at that point it dawned upon him. Wodin saw what the dowager had seen, or rather not seen. The young women, they were gone! Every kinswoman of childbearing-age had disappeared.

Wodin looked up and saw the burning eyes of the old crone staring back at him. “Now you see too young Wodin. Don’t you?”

“They took them,” said Wodin. His voice held disbelief. This was terrible, unthinkable, unbearable.

Thoth spoke up. His deep voice carried a reassuring tone of authority. “We must go now and get them back.” Again, he turned to go.

“Idiot! Moron! Excrement head!” screamed the dowager. Thoth, knew Wodin, was the tallest man in the clan, almost as tall as a gob. He was also the most formidable hunter and fighter. Only she would have dared to speak to him in such a way. “You are not thinking.” She held a bony finger up to her temple. “The gob attacked when we were most vulnerable. They took what they wanted and left. What does that tell you?” She was looking at Thoth, her cunning eyes demanding an answer.

His eye’s looked thoughtful, then brightened. “It was planned,” he answered.
“Ah, the big lug starts to think,” she said. “But since when do stupid, stupid gob plan anything?”

“They don’t,” said Thoth. “Usually, they will yell and scream at us from a distance for a time until they can work themselves up into enough of a rage frenzy to overcome their fear. Then they just rush in and start fighting without any apparent strategy in mind. Halfway through they get so caught up in the heat of battle that they forget why they started the raid in the first place.”

“And, the spears?” she asked handing Thoth one of the blood-soaked weapons that had lain on the ground forgotten after its gob wielder had died.

“I haven’t seen the gob using these kinds of weapons before,” he said touching a finger to the chiseled stone tip.

“And?” she said, prodding him further.

“Maybe they’ve gotten smarter since the last time we clashed,” he said half to himself. “Or, maybe somebody is teaching them new tricks.”

“So, is it really a good idea that you and what’s left of our kinsmen go running off into the night chasing them down bent on revenge?” Her eyes were icy. She wanted Thoth to keep thinking – to keep turning the question over again and again in him mind.

“No. It might be a trap - an ambush. They could be laying in wait, hiding somewhere in the forest along the Southern Pathway behind the trees or in the underbrush, ready to spring out, take us by surprise again and finish us off.”

“Very good,” she said, but she did not smile. She never did. “You begin to think like a headman. And, with your father, Atouk, now dead, that’s what you are. But there’s more.”

“I know,” he said. “We can’t just let them go. They have the women. They are our future. Without them we can’t make more babies. Without them it would be the end of everything.”

“Go on,” she said.

“I’ll send a scout out after them. It will be his job to follow from a distance leaving a well marked trail behind him. In the meantime, I and the others will make sure what’s left of the kin make it to the Winter Cave. Once they’re safe and ready for the Long Sleep, we’ll follow the scout’s marked trail.”

“Yes,” said the dowager. “And, if I know the gob, once they feel safe on their own hunting grounds, they’ll celebrate. They’ll get falling down drunk off their foul smelling grog mead. While they lay passed out, unconscious, you and the others can easily kill them and bring our women back.”

Thoth nodded in agreement. Then, he turned around and faced Wodin. “Brother,” he said. “This is important. This is the most important thing I’ve ever asked of you. Stay well behind them. Don’t let them catch sight of you. When gobs have time, they delight in killing their prey very slowly. Don’t try to be a hero. You can’t save anyone on your own. Wait until we come to you. Understand?”

Wodin nodded that he did. On his way out of the devastate lodge he almost tripped over the corpse of old Ka, the firekeeper. His throat was cut. It had been his task to tend the fire and heat the stones for the lodge. The gob, thought Wodin, must have killed him first in silence, which was, he thought, very strange behavior for gob.

Without another word, ran down through the encampment to the teepee hut used by his family. He hesitated for a moment before crawling inside. The memory of seeing his parents dead before him was still very fresh in his mind. He was afraid of how going into their autumn home might make him feel.

But he knew that he just did not have proper time to mourn. He gritted his teeth and crawled in.

He stayed in just long enough to properly dress. He pulled on a pair of rawhide trousers, held up with a cured leather belt, and a sleeveless tunic, laced up his moccasins, strapped on his tool bag and medicine pouch. He stuck his axe in his belt and his dagger into its sheath and threw a long bearskin cloak over his shoulders.

Taking care not to look at any of the objects that belonged to his parent, he crawled out again. But he before he got all the way through there low door, his eyes caught sight of the Sana’s Star Stone. It was just a shinny piece of polished amber with a tiny hole drilled through it. Wodin had found it a year before and had given it to her as a gift. She had loved it and wore it on a leather thong around her neck almost wherever she went. She must have, thought Wodin, taken it off just before the start of the sweat lodge ceremony. Why?

Knowing there was no time to ponder the question, Wodin placed the necklace around his own head and crawled out. He promised himself that he’d give it back to her after she was rescued.

Down the Southern Pathway he ran as fast as his short, stout legs could carry him. But then, he remembered, the conversation about how the gob might be taking cover behind any one of the trees.

Visions of ugly gobs rushing out of concealment wielding their spears filled Wodin’s mind and made him come to an abrupt halt. He stood still…very still and quiet. He listened for all the familiar sounds of the forest. He strained his ears trying to identify any unfamiliar sounds…sounds that did not belong…sounds that might be the enemy.
He did. It was the guttural grunts of one gob talking to another. That gob was answered by one of his own kind with a “Shhhhh”t sound to hush him up.

Immediately Wodin’s body went taught. He was ready to pounce on and kill the first thing that sprang out at him. It was still dark and there was little chance they could have seen him, he thought, but maybe, they had heard him tromping down the trail.
He waited, but nothing came. He waited some more. He heard a few coughs out in the distance, but still no attack came.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid, he admonished himself. He’d been too rash. He’d gone plunging in without thinking. A few more steps perhaps and they would have been upon him – and he’d be dead on the ground. He vowed not to make that mistake again.

Once he was sure that they had not heard him, he slowly, carefully, crept off the path and into the thickets of the forest. Even with his big feet, he knew how to walk gently through the undergrowth so as not to make any unnecessary noise.

His plan was to work his way around and come up behind them. He’d use his dagger and silently cut the throat of the first unlucky gob. Then, as he saw it in his mind, he’d use his axe on the rest. It would be glorious.

Footstep by cautious footstep he got closer. He could hear their breathing. The foul stench of their horrid breath and body odor filled his sensitive nostrils.

He crept slowly, stealthily. By the time he was close enough to have them in sight, dawn was breaking. The first shafts of morning sunlight came streaming through the forest. Everything stared to become illuminated. Long shadows were forming. The birds were starting to come awake and fill the trees with their chirping. Foggy mist covered the ground.
Wodin could see three of the gob, all with their backs towards him, hiding behind the trees right at the edge of the pathway.

The dowager had been right, thought Wodin. If Thoth had not listened to her, if he’d let his temper run away with him and gone running after them just to spite her, they’d probably all be dead by now.

The others, he thought, the gobs he could not see, must have the women and be further down the path. Probably, they were forcing them to walk in front of them. kinwomen were far too heavy for any gob to carry.

It would be so easy now, he thought. Kill the nearest one in silence and the remaining two in combat. But then he remembered Thoth’s orders: Don’t do anything, just follow. He stopped and thought. Maybe Thoth was right. He usually was.

This mission was too important, he thought. He could not afford to make the wrong decision. Then it occurred to him. If their comrades did not catch up latter on in the day, the main gob war party would know they were being followed. That would make them extra cautious and harder to track.

It was hard to know what was best to do. He wanted to kill them – badly. He needed to take revenge for the killing of his mother and father. But he didn’t want to alert the others to the fact that he was pursing them.

Wodin came to a decision. He crouched down in the tall grass and waited – waited all morning long- waited so long that his legs started to go numb. Finally, the gob must have decided that the kin were not going to follow. They abandoned their hiding places and started trekking down the pathway, to catch up with their fellows. Wodin waited until they were out of sight. Then, he followed as well.

He followed for three days. He trailed them southward out of the forest and unto the vast, flat, nearly treeless plain of the tundra. It was a rugged, barren landscape covered by just enough grass and lichen to keep the migrating herd beasts alive. Bleak gray skies loomed overhead.
Making sure to never get too close, he followed the footprint tracks of the gob. There were, he thought about ten of them – one for each finger on his hands. If there had been any more, he knew he would not have any way of counting them. Along the way, he made sure to leave markings with whatever was at hand – stones, tree branches, dead animal bones. When Thoth and his kinsmen came through this country, though Wodin, they would be able to read the signs he was leaving behind and know the way.

gob, he though, with their narrow bodies and long legs could move must faster than kin. But having to escort five captive, young kinswomen did slow them down a great deal. Yet they were not moving as slowly as Wodin would have though. It did not seem as though they needed to stop and hunt.

As he approached the smoking ashes of what was left of their nightly campfires, he would find very strange empty shells. They were in the form of perfect cylinders, gleamed like the scales of river fish and they stunk of food. Swarms of flies buzzed around them.
What kind of magic was this, he wondered. The gob held all kinds of surprises and none of them good.

Wodin, on the other hand did have to stop to hunt and eat. Several times on the journey he had to stop to kill small game. This, of course, slowed down his progress. But then, it was not his purpose to catch them, just to follow.

Eventually the tundra gave way to even rougher country that was sloping steadily upwards. Finally the trail led to a vast, broad mountain range that stretched all the way from the eastern horizon to the western. They were immense, towering and forbidding with their snow-capped peaks lost in misty clouds.

They looked unassailable. But, as it turned out, an old goat path led up the foothills to a narrow pass between two of the mountains. Up there, the air was thinner and hard for him to breath. Cold wind howled. Threatening heaps of ice and snow hung precariously on the cliff faces above.
The pass led to an immense chasm. It was, thought Wodin, like an open wound in Mother Earth herself. The distance across the yawning fissure looked uncrossable. As well, the drop down into it looked to be bottomless. But he found a raw outcropping of rock the bridged the gap.
Even though like most kin he had an innate fear of heights, he mustered up all his courage to dare himself to cross to the other side. As he emerged from the pass he saw, from his commanding view from above, an enormous hidden mountain valley. Along the north and south it was bordered my high mountain ranges. But on the east and west it ended in immense bodies of water, bigger then any lakes that Wodin had even seen before.

Yet it was what was in the valley that took Wodin’s breath away. Among the densely wooded forests on the valley floor below her saw…something he could not find words in his mind to describe. It was large, almost as large as the mountains. And, it was white, a pure white like the face of the Moon in a night sky and dome-shaped. It looked, he thought, as if the Moon had a twin sister that had somehow gotten herself half buried and stuck up to her waist in the ground. He decided he would call it, because he had to put some kind of name on it, the Half Moon.
The sun was going down and it was getting dark. At the far right side of the Half Moon, Wodin could see the smoke of a campfire. That, he though, would be where the gob, and the kinwomen, would be.

Would it be better, he wondered, to stay up here and wait for Thoth and the war party? Or, would it be better to get closer and get a good look at what the gob had planned for the women.
Probably, he thought, the gob would try to forcibly mate with the women, a though which offended Wodin deeply. Or, it was possible they might be made to take part in a ritual sacrifice. gobs were known to be strangely obsessed with religious rituals. As well, they were known to kill and consume their own kind as well as kin. Again, he shuddered inwardly.

Wodin made a decision. He found his way down the mountain side and into the deep, dark forest of the valley floor. Taking care to not be seen, he crept closer and closer to the gob encampment. From his hiding place behind a clump of trees, he did his best to make a full reconnaissance of the situation.

The camp was a cluster of huts made of wood, rock, bone, dried mud and animal skins all centered around a blazing bonfire. The flickering firelight threw wicked shadows this way and that. It was all located uncomfortably close to the wide, sloping wall of the Half Moon. Close up, thought Wodin, it looked even bigger and scarier. Like the real Moon, up in the sky, this one glowed iridescently white.

The gob had pained their bodies with colored mud and wore jewelry of animal bones as they danced at a fever pitch in a ring around the fire. The whole of their clan, which Wodin thought of as quite large, were engaged in the ceremony.

His eyes search among the crowd. Finally he spotted the captives. They were tied up, their wrists bound behind them, with some kind of twisted plant fibers.

They looked frightened. A gob wearing a demon mask and holding a tall staff, probably, thought Wodin, a witchdoctor, was directing a pair of gob women as they force fed the kinswomen white liquid out of a sewn up animal bladder. Most likely it was noxious grog mead. Probably, they wanted them docile for whatever unspeakable act they were going to perform on them.

This was intolerable, though Wodin. He could not just stand here watching from hiding, like a coward, as his fellow kin were subjected to this indignity. But what could he do? There were too many of them and he was all alone.

Later, he thought, as the night dragged on, they would tire, from their dancing and intoxicating grog. They would all fall into a deep sleep. Maybe then he could do something.

But until then, he could do nothing – and he was very tired. From his hiding place, he gathered up huge clumps of the red, gold and brown leaves that had fallen with the coming of the season and made a small hill of them. It would serve as both a soft bed and a means of concealment while he slept.

Lying there in those moments before sleep could overtake him he wondered. What were the gob really like? He had never seen them up close before. He did not even know what they called themselves. gob was just a kin word meaning rouge or outsider.

Among the kin there was a tale that his great grandmother had been a woman of the gob but she had run away from them when they tried to make a blood sacrifice of her to one of their gods. She wandered the wilderness for days and was close to dying from cold and starvation when she met Wodin’s great grandfather, then a young hunter. It was said, that from first sight, she had bewitched him. After that, he could not think of having anyone else as his life mate.

She told all manner of tales about her former people, the gob. Unlike kin who only hunted and ate big game, gob could eat anything. While the women were adept in gathering roots, nuts and berries and grinding them with stone into a meal, the men were voracious predators with a fondness for bloody, raw meat. They hunted in packs with the spoils of the hunt ritually shared as bargaining chips for political and sexual barter.

gob males were always battling each other, striving to ascend a rigid dominance hierarchy. On reaching higher rank they would wield their political power in brutal ways of sexual coercion often times beating females who did not submit to male desires.

They were an almost feral people who participated in all kinds of lethal warfare on their own kind. The males would patrol the perimeter of their territory attacking and usually murdering their unwary neighbors. If a clan got too big to be supported by its hunting grounds, it would split into two separate groups. Then the larger community would invariably and systematically exterminate the smaller community. It was then common for the victor to turn cannibal and consume the flesh of the vanquished in an attempt to “absorb” his spiritual power. As we was drifting off to sleep, Wodin wondered, what his great grandfather could have possibly have seen in woman descended from such a savage race.

Hours passed. Wodin slept. He dreamt of happier time when he was just a cub playing with his family. He could see his mother and father smiling. His brother, Thoth, even then, looking dower and serious and his little sister, then just a little one, giggling at ever funny face Wodin would make for her.

Without warning, there was a hellish sound. It pulled him out of a sound sleep and he sat bolt upright. He had moved so fast that he was instantly afraid that some gob might have caught his sudden motion out of the corner of his eye.

The sound was loud and hollow akin to the howling of the wind just before the coming of a bad storm – but worse, far, far worse. Wodin’s mind raced trying to envision what its real source might have been. But he knew that in this terrible place, anything was possible.
He jumped to his feet, his axe in hand ready to defend himself from whatever man, beast, storm, ghost spirit or demon had made the sound. His first instinct was to run to the campsite and check on the kinwomen. He started running to the gob encampment as fast and his short, stubby legs could carry him. Maybe, he thought this horrible noise was a sign they were in trouble. Or perhaps, this would serve as a distraction and give him the chance to free the women on his own.

But no such luck. As Wodin got closer –and the wailing noise still ringing in his ears- he saw that the whole of the gob settlement was awake, strangely kneeling in a position of submission, their heads bowed with their bodies pointed at the white wall of the Half Moon. And, upon that wall he could see a large dark patch of utter blackness erupting out of the side. It was as if the monster was opening a mouth. If it was a mouth was it hungry? Was it read to fead? And, if so, on what or who?

Wodin noticed that none of the gob were looking in his direction. They were all to taken with the growing orafice. They watched the phenomena in wide-eyed wonderment. Was this, conjectured Wodin, their god? Could it really be a god? This was the closest think Wodin had ever seen to a real god – and he didn’t much like it.

With a grace that Wodin had never seen before, the five figured walked out of the Half Moon and stood at the very precipice of the open mouth. He could not tell if they were gob, or maybe of some other race people. But they were very different. They were tall (taller than gob), slim and long limbed. Their naked bodies where smooth and bone white except for there faces – those were flat and black as a starless night sky.

There were about five figures in all. In their hands they were pushing something that Wodin could not describe or name. He was getting tired of not being able to assign a name in his mind for all these strange things. They were slabs, rectangular in shape and silvery in color like the discarded cylinders on the trail.

The gob witchdoctor stood up and directed a team of male gob acolytes to pick up the unconscious kinwomen and carry them into the mouth of the Half Moon and lay them down on the slabs. The lustrous white creatures pulled the slabs –with the women laid down atop them- away and retreated back into the beast, disappearing into the darkness.

Yet one stayed behind. From a square shaped container that it had kept hidden behind, it threw out more silvery cylinders in to the midst of the kneeling gob. Breaking their reverent poses they pounced on them like ravished wolves, fighting over them – occasionally biting and snarling at each other. Then the last one took a final look outward, turned away and started walking back inside.

Was this a sacrifice? Wodin wondered. Were the women and his sister being carried away to their deaths? He could not allow this. Without even stopping to think, he sprinted through the gob camp. They were too busy fighting over the cylinders to notice him. The mouth of the Half Moon was once again closing shut, getting smaller and smaller. Wodin flung himself intro the jaws of the creature – into the blackness.

What he found inside was unfamiliar and unexpected. He had though he’d be greeted by the sharp tearing teeth of the monster or the slimy bile insides of its mouth. But he encountered neither. He had landed on hard ground. But it was very strange. It was smooth to the touch, like a rock after it had been polished.

He picked himself up and stood. His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. He looked behind him, yet not trace of the giant mouth remained. In its place all he could see was the inside of the massive white wall of the Half Moon.

Beneath him was cold, smooth ground. In the air around him, which was fresh, not foul like would have expected, he could smell the sharp scent of Evergreen trees and other growing things. If his nose did not deceive him, he could tell he was in a forest. Above was the sky –or at least, thought Wodin, a sky- filled with stars. Far ahead, from the dim like of the alien stars, he could see the pallid creatures pushing the tall silvery slabs forward on what seemed like a smooth pathway. To the left and right of the path, he could make out densely packed trees.

What manner of strange place was this? He wondered.

They did not see or hear him enter. They were talking among themselves in their own strange language. They spoke very fast. One was giving orders to all the others. As they hastily pushed the slabs with the women down the pathway, stealthily Wodin followed.

He made sure not to get to close, but also not to loose sight of them. They walked for what seemed like miles. It occurred to Wodin that he could probably kill the five creatures with little trouble. They were few in number and did not seem to carry any weapons. Plus, they had no idea that he was following close behind them.

However, he thought, he did not know where he was. Was he inside the Half Moon? Were they still in the hidden valley? Even if he did kill the creatures, revived the still drugged women and –my some miracle- did figure out how to get the beast to open up it’s mighty jaws again, there was still the problem of the gob village. How could he get past them with the women?
He knew that he didn’t know enough. He had to find out more. Maybe there was another way out of this accused place.

As he followed from a discrete distance behind, the dense forest started to thin out and give way to gentle meadowlands. The sun or at least what passed for the sun in this strange world started to rise above the horizon.. With the false dawn it began to get light. The stars faded way and the black sky began to be replace with the twilight colors of the dawn.

What Wodin saw amazed him. There was a whole, strange world within the Half Moon. Beyond the forest and the rolling fields of grassland there was a large lake of crystal blue water. By the lake, stood a cluster of large, multicolored outcroppings from the ground. They were square and rectangular in shape and covered in regular geometric patterns with roofs that sloped away at two different sides. Where these some kind of permanent shelters, he wondered.

Like a stealthy hunter, he ducked into the spaces between the tightly packed shelters and peeked around the corners, to keep his prey in sight. They were apparently, he thought, unaware that they were being so closely followed.

On the far side of the lake he could see another structure. But this one was far larger. Its shear size dwarfed the others. Also the complexity of its design was more elaborate.
The creatures pushed the slabs with the women atop them into an open doorway of one of the larger structures. Wodin decided it would be best to wait.

As the morning dragged on and the false sun climbed into a blue sky above, the chill air started to get warmer, Wodin saw his chance. Four of the all white creatures emerged back out of the structure.

What they did next confounded him. Starting with their head, they used their hands to start to peal off their own iridescently white flesh. Wodin expected to see blood come pouring out, but did not. What he did see was the naked skin of the creatures inside the bone white flesh – or rather the false flesh as it turned out.

They were tall and powerfully built. Their skin was very darkly colored, black like a starless night sky. The features of their faces were not blunt like his own or a gob’s, but fine and curved. Their long hair was black and straight.

As they proceeded to strip away the artificial coverings and discard them into a slot shaped hole in the side of the shelter, their naked bodes were revealed. Wodin could see that two were male and the other two female. They were finely muscled and powerfully built. They were, he thought, breathtakingly beautiful to behold.

They talked giddily in their strange tongue as if they were done with a days work and were now off to rest or play or eat. At that thought, Wodin’s stomach growled. He too was hungry. But he could not think of himself right now.

By his count there had to be one more white clad creature inside the structure. He would have rather there had been none. He knew that he had no idea what kinds of strange weapons or maybe even powers these otherworldly beings might possess. But, he thought, this was the best chance he was going to get. He hurried across the distance between the giant huts and slipped into the rectangular opening of the big hut. It led into to a tunnel that ran straight, leading off into several side chambers. Set in the roof above Wodin saw tiny little sunstars that lit the way.
In the side chambers he saw many strange things. They were filled with manner of unnatural objects of many strange shapes and colors. They were all very interesting, thought Wodin. They piqued his curiosity. He would have loved to have had the time to stop and examine them and try to figure out their purpose.

But he knew he had no time for just indulgences. He was on a mission. He had to find the women. He had to find his little sister and rescue her from this strange place.

He walked down the tunnel, taking care not to make noise, until he came to something he could only think to call, the Water Wall. It was tall, smooth and solid. We could see right through it, but he could also touch it. When he did it shimmered in ringlets like when a stone was dropped in a pond of water.

Beyond it he could see the kinwomen. They were in what looked like a cavern, much like the raw rock walls of their own Winter Cave.

Strangely, he could see them, but apparently they could not see him. He pushed against the Water Wall but it would not budge. He hammered his fist on it and still it did not give way. And, the women still did not see to hear him.

Finally, out of frustration, he pulled his axe out of his belt and started swinging away at the wall with all his might. The wall made a strange noise when he struck against it. It was a hollow sound. We swung many times with all the animal ferocity he could muster. But it was to no avail. The Water Wall stood unaffected.

Wodin stopped out of sheer exhaustion. He put down his axe and, breathing hard, stood there with his hands on his hips. He knew he had to think. He had to use his head to figure this out.
Because the white clad creatures had placed the women in there, there must be, he surmised, a way in and, by necessity, a way out a well. He knew that he needed to find a way and fast. He feared that he would not have a better opportunity to help the women and his sister escape.
Was this magic? Was magic real? He had often wondered if the spirits really existed or not, or if there was some kind of explanation to everything that his mind could comprehend. It was all so puzzling. He wished he was far more clever, like the dowager.

Wodin didn’t know what made him turn around, but something made him look over his shoulder. That’s when he first saw here. She was one of the white clads – the fifth one who had stayed behind.

She was just standing their in the doorway to one of the side chambers. The head covering of the white skin had been pulled of revealing her beautiful face and long, black hair. There was a look of utter horror across her face. She was too frightened to speak or to move. She must have been, thought Wodin, still in the side room when he walked in and did not hear him until he started pounding on the Water Wall with his axe.

Wodin was frightened too. He did not know what kind of strange magic the woman might be able to wield over him. But she just stood there doing nothing, which was, he thought, the best thing she could do right now. She would not be able to outrun him and she was far too small to fight him and she did not seem to be carrying any weapons.

He was not sure what to do with her. But then an idea struck him. Making sure to be as non-threatening as possible, he walked over towards her. She did not move. Out of fright, her breathing was short and heavy.

Gently he took her by the arm and led her over to the Water Wall. Wodin pointed at the wall and then pointed to her. He hoped she was getting the idea. He wanted her to open the wall.
It was then that he looked into her eyes. They were big and bright blue like a clear sky. For a moment he as lost in those eyes. He felt a shiver like magic race up and down his spine. It was in that instant that Wodin realized why his great grandfather, all those long seasons ago, had fallen under the spell of the savage woman from another race of people.

But then, the moment passed. Time was probably running out and he knew it. Others from her clan might walk in unannounced that that would make everything much more complicated.
A look of recognition finally broke across her face. That’s when Wodin first realized that she had fastened around her wrists silvery bracelets. Along the sides of the bracelets there were many multifaceted indentations. She pressed a finger tip to one of the indentations and – with a swooshing sound- the Water Wall diapered. Suddenly the women inside could see him.

“Wodin?” cried little Sanna. “It’s you. It’s really you. I knew you’d come for me.” She came running up and jumped into his arms. The other four women rose up from where they had been sitting and crowded around Wodin.

“It’s alright. I’m here now. I’ve come to take you back home.” He tried to sound confident and reassuring. But in truth, he knew he had many obstacles to overcome before this was over.

He turned to the white clad woman with the blue eye and said, “I know you probably don’t understand my words, but we’re walking out of here – and you’re going to help us.” He could see in here eyes that she did not understand. But she was no longer afraid. Wodin wondered why. How could she possible know that he bore her no malice? What was he feeling towards her? He’d never felt this kind of feeling before. What was it?

No. Stop that, he though. He knew that he had to keep his mind on the business at hand. He just wanted to get out of this terrible but beautiful place. Didn’t he? Wodin turned, holding the blue eyed women by the arm.

That’s when he first saw the giants. There were two of them. They loomed large in the doorway, blocking the only exit out. Like the woman, their skin was very dark, their hair long and black and their eyes were volcanic blue. But it was their shear size that Wodin was focused on. In height they stood head and shoulder above any gob Wodin had ever seen before. And in breath they were as massive any kin.

One was a bit shorter. He wore the same white body covering as the woman, except for the head covering. His facial features seemed contorted in a permanent scowl as if he was always cross with somebody.

The other was taller. He was draped in flowering black material. His features were regal but locked into a perpetual smirking smile that made it look like he was privy to a private joke that no one else could know.

The one with a stern expression held a short silvery rod in one hand. He raised it and pointed one end towards Wodin. What was that? He wondered. What is that blue flicker of light emanating from the tip? Suddenly, he could feel his whole body tingle. His knees went weak and wobbly. The last thing he could remember was seeing the ground beneath him come rushing up to smack him in the face.

For a time, his head swam in the dark waters of sleep and dreams. He felt himself slipping in and out of consciousness. He had a dim recollection of five white clad males having a very difficult time picking him up and carrying him.

When he finally regained full wakefulness, he found himself in an unimaginable predicament. He was naked and shivering with cold. His warm clothing, weapons and tools had all been removed. His body was upright, suspended in the air, and he could not move. His back, he could feel, was firmly set against the strong trunk of some strange kind of pulpy tree, while his arms (outstretch above him), torso and legs were all immobilized. They were bound by strangling vines. He tried moving his head from side to side but it was similarly locked into place. But he could still move his eyes and look around.

He was in a large cavern. Yet the walls were not of rough hewn rock but of shimmering water as if he was trapped inside a massive raindrop. His eyes could make out the blurry outline of the of a landscape just beyond.

The air inside was hot, wet and humid. The smell of green growing plant life was thick almost oppressive to his nose and made it difficult to breath. The far walls shimmered like a rain droplet on a leaf in the sun.

He looked up and could see that the branches of the great tree extended into the roof and beyond where they disappeared from view. He looked down and could see that its thick roots were submerged in a flooded pool of murky, greenish water. At least he thought it might be water. In the water he could see the dim outline of squirming aquatic creatures just below the surface.

Down below, at the edge of the pool on dry ground, there stood the woman and the two giants. All three were dressed in the skintight white bodysuits. The taller one, who looked as if he was always perpetually amused, was standing in the center. The stump of a pulpy tree came up out of the muck and rose to the level of his waist. Out of it emanated a glowing globe of brightly colored lights. The many lights within the globe were of many different shapes - all of which Wodin had never even imagined before. As the smiling giant touched each shape, they made a sound like a chirping insect.

The threesome was arguing. He did not know their language and could not make out exactly what they were saying. But, he could tell from the way they were talking that they were arguing- and he was pretty sure he knew what they were saying. The serious giant was saying “Kill him. Kill him now and be done with it.” Of course, thought Wodin, he might also be saying, “Torture, kill and eat him.” And, maybe not even in that order.

The smiling one, who talked as though he was in charge, was hardly taking him seriously. He gazed intently into his glowing globe, that he was manipulating, as if hypnotized by it.
The woman said nothing. As she looked up at Wodin, he could see a look of concern, maybe even pity across her face.

It was at this time that Wodin decided that he was tired of being lashed to a tree. With all his might he started struggling against the vines. But the plant seemed to have a mind of its own. The harder he tried to thrash about and get loose, the tighter the vines enwrapped him. Their embrace constricted tighter and tighter. It became painful and Wodin soon tired. As he stopped struggling, the vines loosed again.

At that moment, the smiling giant held up his hand as if to silence the other. The serious one’s arguing came to an abrupt halt. The smiling giant looked up at Wodin. His brilliant blue eyes held a sinister gleam. Wodin could sense that something bad –very bad- was about to happen.
The vines sprouted sharp thorns that pierced Wodin’s flesh driving themselves into his arms and legs. It was painful. It was frightening. Without really meaning to, Wodin cried out.
He tried to get control of himself. If he was going to be tortured to death, he wasn’t going to allow his executioners to have the satisfaction of seeing him afraid.

Then the visions came. At first it was like a slight trickle of water. He saw images of familiar things – sun, sky, clouds, trees, grass, birds, bison, food, drink – and so on.

With every image he heard in his head a sound like words, but he did not understand their meaning. Then the images and sounds came faster and faster. The trickle became a stream. Tool. Weapon. House. Master. Servant. Life. Death. Friend. Enemy.

Then, with the images and sounds he saw squiggly markings – and he somehow knew that every marking had a meaning. Each one was connected to an idea, and he somehow instantly knew what the idea was.

The stream became a torrential downpour. Particle. Proton. Electron. Molecule. Protein. Amino acid. Deoxyribonucleic acid. Gene. Chromosome. Bioorganic. Retrovirus. Pathogenic. Body. Brain. Mortality. Immortality. Tree of Life. Tree of Knowledge.

At first he was frightened. Then he became interested. Finally he was completely enthralled to what was happening to him. His mind could not get enough. He wanted more and more – and he got it.

Before he knew it the speed became too much for him. It was overwhelming. He was drowning in information. He felt as if he was a caught in the current of a rushing river that was overflowing its banks. His eyes hurt. His temples throbbed. His lungs ached and he was gasping for breath.

He heard a woman’s voice yell, “Stop! You’re killing him.” And, then it was over. The sound, the images and ideas all ceased. Wodin was grateful for the profound quiet that came to his mind.

The thorns withdrew from his flesh, leaving tiny blood droplets where they had pierced his skin. The vines let loose their grip. His body slid downward. He fell with a splash into the warm, dark waters below.

Tired, he thought. The muck was so pleasant and inviting. He could easily fall back into a deep slumber. His eyelids closed. His body sank down into the goo. He was drifting off – perhaps never to return.

The splash took place right beside him. There was somebody shouting at him and enwrapping their arms around him. Wodin opened his eyes and it was the woman.

“You’ve got to wake up,” she said. “If you don’t, you’ll drown. You’re too heavy. I can’t lift you.”

Wodin struggled to get to his feet. He found that the pool was only waist deap. He felt dizzy. His head was spinning. She was surprisingly strong. With her help he was able to crawl up on to the edge of the pool and onto dry, solid ground. Still woozy, he fell to his side, but remained conscious.

“How…are…you?” she said, speaking slowly. She was on her knees looking over Wodin’s body, apparently, he thought, checking for wounds. “Can you…understand me?”

The words! The words, thought Wodin, he could understand them. But how? It was not possible. Yet it was still true. He was astonished. What kind of magic was this? But then, suddenly, he knew it was not magic. The how of it all came bubbling up from the dark depths of his memories.

Neural package. Protein chain injection. Retoviral vectors. Submicroscopic amphibians delivery system. All these strange words and the meanings behind them all came flooding into his mind all once.

He was lost in a spinning world of thoughts not his own when she spoke again. “I know it’s hard for you to concentrate right now. Too much is happening all at once. But, please answer me. Can you understand?”

Wodin snapped back to reality. He sat up and then, with her help, struggled to stand up on his feet again. Though his knees felt wobbily and his head pounded, Wodin did his best to stand. He did not want to look weak in the face of his captors.

First, in his head, came the sounds that he had to string together to make the words. Then he labored to contort his lips and tongue to form them. He mouthed them silently, then he spoke. “Yyyy….yes,” he answered. “I under…I understand.” He found the sensation of the words coming out of his mouth to be very strange.

“And how do you feel?” she asked again.

“I…d…don’t know. My h…h…h…head, it h….h…h…hurts.” He said struggling with the “H” sound.

“My name is Mara,” she said. “What are you called?”

“W…Wodin, Son of the Atouk and Kala,” he answered. “Where is my sister and the other women of the kin?”

The blue eyed woman, whose name was Mara, looked over at the smiling giant. “Go ahead,” he said. His voice was deep and resonant. “What could it hurt? Answer the poor primitive creature’s question,” his voice, thought Wodin, held a sense of someone who was used to his every order being obeyed.

“We should not be indulging in this ridiculous game,” said the serious giant. “He’s a dangerous, wild animal. We should euthanize him on the spot and be done with it.”

‘Euthanize’? That means kill, thought Wodin. He was getting more and more used to the new words and their unfolding meanings emerging into his mind. But, he wondered, what kind of “game” were these strange creatures up to? Did they want to merely question him before killing him? Or did they want to make him their slave?

“Now, now my dear Typhon. Let’s not be hasty,” said the smiling giant. “Young Wodin here is an experiment. And, so far, he’s taken very well to the treatment.”

“It is an animal,” said the giant named Typhon, taking care, noticed Wodin, to put special emphasis on the word “it”. “It’s a clever one, I’ll grant you that, but that’s all the more reason that we dispense with it now.”

“For shame,” said the smiling giant. “This fine fellow is our guest and as civilized people we must treat him accordingly.” He paused for a moment, then said, “I believe that introductions all around are in order.” He looked at Wodin. “My name is Abraxas Archon. I am the Lord Father of this domain. This gloomy chap beside me is Typhon, my brother and most trusted adjutant. And Mara,” he pointed to the woman, “she’s already had the proper manners to introduce herself to you.” Then he added, “Now tell me little rodent. How did you manage to crawl into our sanctuary?”

“How is it,” started Wodin, “that I can now understand your words when before I could not. And, how is that I can also speak yours words back to you?”

“How dare you,” cried Typhon. He voice was full of disdain and all of it direct toward Wodin. “When the Lord Father asks you a question, you are obliged to answer it, not to bother him by posing one of your own.”

“Tut, tut,” admonished Abraxas. “The intelligence of this creature impresses me. I will overlook his transgression and indulge his curiosity.” He turned back to Wodin. “Yggdrasil is the heart, the core of all our technology,” he said pointing to the massive tree that dominated the center of the chamber. “I used it inject microscopic amphibians into your bloodstream. They were genetically encoded to swim into the hypothalamus - a portion of your brain responsible for storing long term memories. Once there, they deposited manufactured strings of proteins into your brain that interpreted the strings as memories. Then, as soon as their function was fulfilled, the serpents harmlessly dissolved.”

As he heard the words, Wodin was able to see it all happen in images in his head. He marveled at the realization that he could actually understand about half of it.

“Now, fair is fair,” said Abraxas. “Where did you come from?”

Wodin considered for a moment. It occurred to him that if such a being had the ability to place new memories into his head, then he might also have the power to rip preexisting memories out at will.

“I followed your gob thieves from our forest, over the tundra, through the mountains and down into the valley. When the great Half Moon opened up, I followed your people in. They did not know they were being tracked.” Wodin looked up into Abraxas’ stunning blue eyes. “Our women,” he said. “You took them. We need them back.”

“How charming,” he said to no one in particular. His voice held a hint of –What was that word?- smugness. He turned back to Wodin, “Tell me Wodin. Why are they so important to you? Why did you follow them such a long way and risk so much danger?”

Wodin thought for a moment before answering. “We love them,” he said simply. Then he added,
“ They are our people, our family. They belong with us.” At that moment, Woden caught a flicker of emotion in the woman’s eyes that he could not easily identify.

“How delightful,” said Abraxas with a chortle, “these primitives their soppy sentimentality.” There was that smugness again, thought Wodin. He didn’t like it.

“What will you trade for them?” asked Wodin. “How much are they worth to you? I can get you furs, make you jewelry, tools, weapons, even kill a giant tiger and give you its tusks. Name your price and I will pay it.”

“Do you hear this Typhon,” said Abraxas to his sneering brother. “He tries to barter with me, as if he were my equal. The giant leaned down and put his face, which had lost its look of amusement, into an uncomfortably close proximity with Wodin’s. “Please listen. Try to get this through your reinforced skull and into that overly large brain of yours. I am the Master here. All others are but my servants who do my bidding. They live or die at my command –and that includes you. What I am working on here is far beyond the limits of your puny mind. Do not think for even one tick of one second that you can trifle with me.”

A flush of anger was starting to swell up inside Wodin. This was going nowhere, he thought. If these –What was that word?- Archons weren’t going to be reasonable, if they weren’t going to take anything in trade for the women, there was –as he saw it- only one course of action left to take.

Wodin bent his knees and hunkered down into a crouching postion – like a panther getting ready to strike. Then flexing his powerful legs, he leapt forward with his arms outstretched before him, the fingers of his hands open and ready to grasp. In midair he grabbed Abraxas around his big throat and he let the momentum of his jump fling the two of them down on to the ground. They landed with a mighty thump - giant onto his backside with Wodin ending up on top of him.

His plan was simple. First, he’d chock the life out of Abraxas. Then, he’d kill his brother, but leave the woman alive. He would need her to free his sister and the other kinswomen – besides, he thought, she did not seem as evil as the other two.

Squeezing his strong fingers around the giant’s throat, he noticed that where was no look of fear in the giant’s fierce, blue eyes. How strange, thought Wodin.

Then, came the blast. It was a pure burst of pain, blinding white light and deafening noise. It ripped across his brain like fire through dry brush. It was as if his very head had been set ablaze. Even his eye sockets burned. The word “hell” came to Wodin’s mind.

Wodin screamed. His grip around the giant’s throat gave way. He could fell his body convulsing in utter agony. Vaguly he was aware that he had falling to the ground thrashing this way and that.

But then, just as quickly as it had struck, the pain subsided. Wodin felt whole again. With his hand, he checked every quarter of his body. Yet strangely, he could find no wound. No blood.
More evil magic? He wondered.

He jumped to his feet ready to strike at the giants again. This time, he’d kill them and be quick about it.

“Stop!” cried the woman. She stepped between Wodin and Abraxas, who –no longer looking amused- was picking himself off the ground. “Don’t you understand? You can’t win. He’ll kill you if you force him to.”

Wodin stopped. She was in the way and seemed adamant about not budging. As much as he wanted to tear the giant apart limb from limb, he didn’t want to hurt the woman.

“Kill it now!” shouted Typhon. “What more proof do you need of its malevolence?” Wodin looked up into Abraxas’ face. His smirking smile was gone and had been replace by a look of burning rage. His eyes held the glare of someone considering lethal violence.

“Lord Father,” said Mara in a voice she was apparently trying to keep calm and reasonable sounding. “It occurs to me that your original premise was correct. We have much to learn from this creature. He could be the control in our experiment, the variable that does not change. I ask you, what would you learn if you killed him now?”

His visage softened as he appeared to consider this. “Very well,” he said. His voice was once again calm. He’d evidently retaken control of himself. “You’re right. He might still be of use to us. You may observe him for a while. But I’ll expect regular reports.” With that the giant turned and walked away. His lapdog brother trailed after him.

“If I can offer one word of advice, however,” he shouted back over his shoulder as he was leaving. “Never let yourself get too attached to your test subjects.” With that, he walked out of the chamber –seemingly just pushing his way through the semi-transparent membrane wall. Typhon, a loyal lapdog followed close behind him.