Wisdom Divine

By Mark Sutton

"We have no choice. You know this as well as I."

"There is always Free Will..."

"Free Will is not a certainty. Light and Life, Death and Darkness, these are eternally certain."

"The two of you should have settled this argument long before entering this holy chamber," Uufeal uttered.

Three old men sat, fidgeting in their black robes, a wide ruby stripe down the left fold, deciding the fate of their world because they were without a Oonchi Talfete, a teacher of Wisdom Divine. Without a teacher; stagnation meant Death would certainly show its rotting face. Starvation perhaps, disease... But with a teacher, the world and those in it would evolve.

"She is too much a youngling," Tthal remarked. "We have failed to produce a Oonchi Talfete twice before, and yes, she suffers the marks, but so did the other two, and they were older males. Two solid chances that proved fruitless. Still, we must try."

Wwecor could not rouse his gaze to meet the others' around the Stone-That-Fell. "We have waited twenty plantings for the signs to present themselves again, and she is my daughter's daughter. I simply feel we shall fail a third time. We should wait a while longer. The sacrifice, for me, is too great."

Uufeal understood. He had lost two of his children's children to the river Qnaught the planting before last when a powerful mage could not persuade its overflowing rage elsewhere.

"I know, old friend," he said to Wwecor. "We must all remember to give this offering willingly, with proper intent."

Light supplied by three braziers behind the three men cast long shadows. Uufeal tried to read their faces, like many times before, but success was elusive.

"I find myself in agreement with Uufeal," Tthal acknowledged. "Intent is all."

Wwecor let tears slide down his cheeks. "I have nothing more to say."

One item was left to decide, and the decision was his alone. Uufeal wished he wasn't the eldest, but the simple farmer he was before his bones ached and his joints stiffened, making his first love an impossibility. His wife of eighty plantings was his second love, yet she had passed beyond life ten plantings past.

"So be it," he said, and slowly stood, pulling his staff to his side. Which Deity would he beseech? Twice the wrong choice was spoken, once by him, and one hundred and seventy plantings without a Oonchi Talfete was more than long enough. His people must climb the staircase of evolution and grow in wisdom.

Outside, the late morning sun was behind him, so did not stab at his fogged-with-age eyes. The bailey choked with tents and carts, men and women. Stands overflowed with sweetmeats, blood meats, salt meats and vegetables. Wondrous scents from fresh-cut flowers mingled with the sour stench of dung. His nose working as well as it did when he was but twenty plantings. At a hundred and ten plantings he was grateful to the Deities for small favors.

The dark robes of his duty kept the crowds at bay and silenced the hawkers, but the Gossip Monger's tongue wagged with yet another try doomed to failure. He would speak to her before the day was old.

Wwecor's daughter's daughter was but four-plantings-old when he had revealed she had the markings: the bright wine-colored splash across her bottom; the same shape and color of stain draped over her left shoulder. Proud he was, then. Now grieving for the youngling as if Death had already cast her last breath to the Twelve Winds. "Ring the Bell of Prayer, Tthal. Bring the youngling to the Macguffin, Wwecor, and smile. The Deities proclaim this a time of joy for those chosen, not a time to mourn what is only yet a possibility."

"I will try, my friend. I will try."

Uufeal trod the stairs to the Well of Souls, the Macguffin. Made, it was said, from the tears of the Pre-dead, long before his race rose into intelligence. A conundrum of a device or artifact, Uufeal was never quite sure which, it stood like a looking glass, yet one could not see one's reflection. Tall as a scarecrow it was, and as wide as a bull is long. A perfect oval. The Macguffin was framed by gold, gouged with a language never known except by the Deities. A single dragon's claw sculpted from silver acted as its pedestal. The gold and silver would not scratch, and both were known to be soft metals. One could enter or exit the Macguffin only if chosen for the life of a Oonchi Talfete by the marks fate was kind or cruel enough to bestow.

He remembered the last time he saw a youngling offered in tribute. He stood where he could see both sides of the Macguffin at the same time. The boy had entered the one side, but did not return out the backside. He'd vanished, never to be seen or heard of again.

Uufeal used much of his oldster's strength to pushthe great wooden door. The chamber was lit by the power it contained. The Bell of Prayer sang its song, meaning the youngling would arrive momentarily.

There was no incantation, not really, just the name of the chosen Deity shouted before the youngling entered the Macguffin. The Deity would take the youngling under wing like a mother gostle does her gostlings, and instruct him or her in the knowledge the Deity saw fit to pass on to the people. New machines, or perhaps spells for the mages. Knowledge meant the people would evolve, so wisdom was sacred and shared.

"Are we here, Papa?" came the youngling's gentle voice. Like honey dripping from a sweet-stick.

"Yes," Wwecor replied. "This is the most holy place on our world, and if you are accepted by the forces that live here, all this and the people of our world are yours. Even I will have to bow to your commands, within reason. No telling me to hop on one leg."

Which promoted a giggle from the youngling.

Wwecor's voice held courage, but Uufeal was sure his heart was breaking. Tthal entered just behind Wwecor, and his features betrayed no emotion.

The youngling's hair was the color of the harvest. Her eyes, when she studied his leathered face, were the color of ice. The smile she offered and he returned, was chubby-cheeked.

"We must remove your frock," Tthal said with kindness.

"Why?" she asked in respectful innocence.

Uufeal took it upon himself to answer her question. "You came into this world with only your beauty as cloth, and when you enter the world of the Deities, your beauty will be the only clothing you need."

"I'll do it," Wwecor announced, and disrobed the youngling. Within the light of the Macguffin the marks on her shoulder and bottom washed the chamber with a brilliance of their own, adding to the unrealness of what must be done. She was truly one of the chosen.

Tthal stood in awe almost in the same place he did all those plantings past. Curiosity getting the better of the man. This would be his first, but not the last time an event of this magnitude presented itself. Wwecor held the youngling at ready, sweat rolling down his brow. Uufeal wasn't sure if Tthal shouldn't be the one to lift the youngling into the Macguffin.

Uufeal couldn't help but to notice she was indeed a lovely little girl. He hoped the fire inside her soul burned as brightly as her bottom. He had chosen Baal to instruct the youngling. The Deity of Fertility and Nature. A wise choice, he thought, and Baal's wisdom would serve the people well.

"Baphomet!" shouted Wwecor, and tossed his daughter's daughter into the Macguffin, then fell to his knees.

Uufeal could feel the horror of Wwecor's careless act spear deep into his old heart, and a chill crept into his soul. "What have you done!"

"I--"

"Foolish old man, you may have doomed us all!"

Aaisha heard the word, and felt herself hurled into a darkness that seared her flesh with a cold so excruciating, there was nothing she could do or think. And she was falling.

"Peace and warmth be on you, child!" boomed a voice.

She heard the words, but the heat she felt held her only concern, for it soothed her fear and pain.

"Come, take my hand," a kind voice near her said. "No one will hurt you."

Shed her eyes but there was nothing to see. She quickly pinched them shut, plunging onward.

"Give me your hand, child!" the voice commanded. She thrust her hand up, and another hand clasped hers. It was warm and soft. Much larger than her own. An adult hand.

"The darkness surrounding you makes you feel as if you're falling.your eyes (she did) and see me, see how I'm standing, then stand by my side."

"But you're standing on nowhere," Aaisha said.

"I'm standing in and on Eternity. This is what it looks like before Time and Space. Stand."

Aaisha stood, she didn't feel anything underfoot, and wiggled her toes. She smiled at the tall man with the handsome face. He had long, long hair. Why it was almost as long as her own, and a very bright orange color she rather liked. He was dressed in a simple white robe, and when she looked down, he was wiggling his toes, too.

"You need a tunic like mine, yes?"

And she was wearing a tunic just like his. "Magic," she said.

"Of course. Your name is...let me guess...Aaisha. So tell me, Aaisha, why are you here?"

"I'm going to be a teacher, so I'm here to learn."

"Then let the teaching begin. You see nothing around you, and this is the way it was before any beginning. No stars in the sky, or worlds like yours to live on. Just a great big nothing. Turn your head, girl. See over there?" He pointed to a tiny speck of light out in the nothing.

And that's what she saw, a small dot. First it was yellow, then it became brighter, before long it was too white and hurt her eyes. But before she could look away, the light exploded, piercing deep into her head.

"No pain," he declared, and it didn't hurt anymore. He held her head in his hands, and spoke more words she didn't understand, then she could see again.

"I gave you brand new eyes; very special, magical eyes. They'll come in handy, so don't lose them."

Aaisha giggled at the silly thought of losing her eyes. Her new, special, magical eyes. Like they might plop right out of her head and roll away. Her laugh together with his made music.

"What do you see around you now, Aaisha?"

Waves of light spread from the center to form a ball. Before long other points of light could be seen and she knew them as stars. Dense balls of gas condensing by the weight of their own mass. She knew about things called planets, birthed out of the residual material surrounding the newly formed stars. Few would be gifted with life. Yet all would hold their secrets to themselves, and be as varied as faces in the market on a bright sunny day.

"The universe," Aaisha gasped. She had watched the beginning of the universe.

"Yes, child. Like an itch that must be scratched, the universe had to create itself, because there was nothing left for it to do." Through Space the two walked, and through Time.

Aaisha could feel the effects of the latter because she was taller, or her teacher was shorter? Adults get shorter as the aged, but he was still young. She must have gotten taller.

"Look," he said, pointing to the right of her. "This was my solar system, and that over there was my planet. Ours was the first world to develop sentient life. We grew out from the water, as all life must."

She found herself on a beach, walking in the warm wet sand. Things like fish-with-feet swarmed about their legs.

"As time passed, these creatures developed," a jungle grew large before them, "into what you call tree leapers. These here began to think thoughts, not large thoughts mind you, but little thoughts. The years marched on, and their brains grew."

"'Brain.' That's what you call the organ inside my head," she declared.

"A wonderful gift."

"What happened to their tails?"

"Nature disposes of what isn't needed. That's what is called evolution. Predator verses prey, environmental changes, or--"

"Curiosity?"

"Even curiosity. But with curiosity walk other emotions. Jealousy, lust, greed, hatred and love, all fueling evolution. Don't you worry your pretty little head over emotions.

"War is another animal making evolution possible. Ruthless, demeaning, cunning. We must never forget nor forgive war. Needs start most wars. Needs for food or land, even the need for revenge. War is insanity, it grows stronger with each battle, doesn't allow real gains, and spawns another war to follow the last. My people fought many wars, yet history only records how wasteful war is and was. One generation did not learn from the last, despite the evidence."

"I'll understand later."

"That's right. Come."

Across the planet and history the tree climbers changed, grew, multiplied and scavenged. They discovered art, language. Domesticated plants and animals to suit their needs. They feared the dark, worshiped the sun, creating religion, and so too magic.

"Magic. They invoked their Gods, and inadvertently brought into their realm the Pre-dead. Creatures of hate and destruction, gaining strength with war, feeding on defeat and death.

"Great wizards, men and Elflords fought the Pre-dead out of our world once, and they hoped, for all time. To keep the Pre-dead from ever returning, the magic would have to be forgotten, and religion replaced by science."

"Another way of binding reality."

"Correct. It did not stop the stain of the Pre-dead from tainting our bloodlines, calling them back into our existence when we thought them nothing more than myth. Greed in the name of power."

Aaisha was older, breasts budding under her tunic, hips flowering. The longer she was with her mentor, the more knowledge seeped into her mind. It was if he was pouring it into one ear, with a cork stopped into the other. She would surely be the greatest teacher of them all.

Animal-drawn wagons became automobiles. Airplanes became jets, and simple rockets gave way to something her mind labeled Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Then technology shrank in size, gaining in potency.

"War," he declared, "mutated. No longer would battle be a test of courage between combatants. Death became distant, impersonal. One person could wage war through disease. The ultimate in insanity. We created a demon where instant travel, instant communication and instant knowledge meant the insane could dominate the meek and the strong. We could only hope for salvation, which never came. We should have looked out for ourselves as technocrats, worshiping in the church of self-reliance."

She watched as they died, and grieved.

"Nature made good the promise of life," she said. "Some of your people survived."

"Barely. Let's go further in time. Peace, you see, comes from death, but it's a temporary truce at best. They solved much of what they found wrong, magic was reborn, merged with science, yet complacency wasn't far behind. Starships spread our seed throughout the universe."

"What ultimately happened to your people?"

"Everywhere our ships landed, greatness grew. Civilizations rose, only to be torn down, my people thrown into savagery time and again. We finally diverged, other species swallowed us, and the less aggressive survived. Of these the Pre-dead hunted and destroyed.

"We made our last stand in ships of both magic and machine, using genocidal weapons wrapped in powerful spells. Only a few people survived long enough to learn the true paths. Myself, two others; a forth I know of serves the Pre-dead. Three fled into other dimensions where thought and reality are one. I wish them well."

Aaisha's head swam, filled with facts and the varied histories of a once proud race which originated on a small planet called Earth. The third planet of a yellow star named Sol. Her stomach churned, billions of years walked one step at a time. The countless dead of which she could almost see every upturned, bloated face.

Her heaving stopped when her body realized it had nothing more to give. She turned her mind inward, healing herself, because she knew she could.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "So much death...."

"I know...."

"Why did you show me so much?"

"Uufeal, the thin one with the long white beard, with your papa, do you remember him?"

She gazed into the busy cosmos. "Tthal, another of our elders was with them both. It seems like so long ago."

"See yourself." And waved his hand. A comely woman of pleasing shape and grand stature stood opposite, mimicking her gestures.

"I'm grown."

"We have walked from the beginning of time, to the now."

Her eyes, her new eyes, were compelling black orbs. As dark as she now felt. They looked dead, and felt a twinge of pity for an innocent girl who once thought they might fall out and roll away.

"Uufeal," he started, "believes the Macguffin was made from the tears of the Pre-dead."

"What am I now? A mouth that spews death as prophecy? Is that what I'm to teach?"

"The lives of your people have yet to be written, no prophecy will spill from your tongue, yet, anything you say or do will have impact, and repercussions." He bought his hand up and held it out.

Aaisha took his hand and gently squeezed his fingers. "Is our race doomed?"

She gestured her mirror image gone, replacing it with the image of her younger self, but only for a moment, realizing regret had no place in her heart, and time heals all wounds whether gross or inconsequential.

"The tears you spilled for my dead were tears of compassion."

"I'm afraid," she said, watching a tear slide down his cheek.

"Emotion is a tool for the wise. Now you understand."

He stepped to one side, and behind him was the portal. His people had fashioned it from their tears of hope.

"How will I know if--"

"You won't. You can only do what you think is right."

"I love you."

"I love you, Aaisha. We'll meet again." And turned, stepping his way down the path of synchronicity. Time and Space quickly devoured him.

"Foolish old man, you may have doomed us all!"

May the Deities have mercy on this world, Uufeal thought, and on three old men. But what was done, was done. Twenty younglings within their history had entered the Macguffin, most had exited the backside moments later. A few never returned. He would wait the day, then leave, defeated, secretly shamed by the Gossip Monger's words of foreknowledge.

Wwecor, he noticed, sat down in one corner of the chamber, tears washing away his guilt. Family concerns were nothing when a world waits for evolution. Wwecor would face his daughter, telling her all was for the best, and in the end, only convince himself.

Tthal had been simply stunned into silence. It would be up to him to lead their world, find the next candidate, invoke the Deity. Uufeal watched as Tthal circled the Macguffin. He had learned nothing in all these years, and was sure Tthal would learn even less upon his examination.

Uufeal uncomfortably felt the day was nothing more than a worthless exercise in futility at its fullest. Only in his dotage did he understand what that truly meant.

Did the chamber seem brighter? or were his old eyes finally adjusting themselves.

No. It was brighter. Tthal subconsciously took two steps away from the Macguffin.

Wwecor had finished with his tears and rose to his feet.

Uufeal felt it wise to ready himself; the youngling would need as much help as he could provide. More than one returned temporarily addled.

Aaisha magicked her tunic away and stepped back through the Macguffin. Uufeal took one look at her and squealed like an old fish wife. She let her ebony eyes hold him where he stood, and gazed deep into his being, to his very core. Before her was the golden radiance of his untainted soul. He may have thought, heard and spoke of the Pre-dead, but he had yet to be touched by their malevolence.

"Your soul is clean."

Tthal's soul, when examined, was also pure.

"Papa," she said, and unwrapped the public mask her papa wore, flaying away at her papa's most private thoughts. A small dark knob rest in the heart of his soul.

"You can't be...my little Aaisha...she was but...and your eyes...."

The darkness inside of him was screaming, ordering him to plant doubt in the other's minds. Shouting that he pull the shiv he kept within the folds of his robe and cut her throat. Yet before he could react, she began stripping his soul in her thoughts, unwrapping it layer by layer like an onion, seizing the evil seed it contained.

The shade fought her touch, wanting to expand and fill the chamber with its malignant energies. She countered with love and understanding, compressing it until it could fight no more.

The Macguffin, with her manipulations,d a door onto oblivion. Its brilliance let Uufeal and Tthal see the creature inside of her beloved papa. She hurled both man and monster into a blue-white star halfway across the universe, even though it tore at her heart.

"You are Aaisha," Uufeal said. He knelt, palms upraised, Tthal too, both offering their lives. "You are Oonchi Talfete."

"Rise," she said. "When the evil was exposed it called a thing named 'war' into being. No one on our world will remain untouched. Papa told me I was to help the people evolve, that I was to become a teacher of Wisdom Divine. There is nothing divine in the wisdom I have gained. These creatures have vanquished countless worlds. I can only hope that some of our people survive to witness the final defeat of the Pre-dead."

Tthal unsnapped his robe and draped it over her shoulders. She pulled it tight, for the first time feeling the chill bleeding from the stones.

Only conflict and adversity, she thought, that need to survive against all possibilities promotes true evolution.

Originally appeared in The Ultimate Unknown.

About the Author.

Back to the top of this page.