Few will understand and fewer still accept what I am about to set forth, but as my grandson and son-in-law so pointedly insisted, if I dont tell the story, somebody else will; and, since I alone know the beginning and middle and end of it, it falls to me to commit to perishable parchment, with ink that begins to fade before it even dries, some ephemeral account of what really happened and why.
Thus, let me begin this story as all stories are begun, at the beginning.
I was born in the village of Gara, which no longer exists. It lay, if I remember it correctly, on a pleasant green bank beside a small river that sparkled in the summer sun as if its surface were covered with jewels and Id trade all the jewels Ive ever owned or seen to sit again beside that unnamed river.
Our village was not rich, but in those days none were. The world was at peace, and our Gods walked among us and smiled upon us. We had enough to eat and huts to shelter us from the weather. I dont recall who our God was, nor his attributes, nor his totem. I was very young at the time, and it was, after all, long ago.
I played with the other children in the warm, dusty streets, ran through the long grass and the wildflowers in the meadows, and paddled in that sparkling river which was drowned by the Sea of the East so many years ago that they are beyond counting.
My mother died when I was quite young. I remember that I cried about it for a long time, though I must honestly admit that I can no longer even remember her face. I remember the gentleness of her hands and the warm smell of fresh-baked bread that came from her garments, but I cant remember her face. Isnt that odd?
The people of Gara took over my upbringing at that point. I never knew my father, and I have no recollection of having any living relatives in that place. The villagers saw to it that I was fed, gave me cast-off clothing, and let me sleep in their cow-sheds. They called me Garath, which meant of the town of Gara in our particular dialect. It may or may not have been my real name. I can no longer remember what name my mother had given me, not that it really matters, I suppose. Garath was a serviceable enough name for an orphan, and I didnt loom very large in the social structure of the village.
Our village lay somewhere near where the ancestral homelands of the Tolnedrans, the Nyissans and the Marags joined. I think we were all of the same race, but I cant really be sure. I can only remember one temple if you can call it that which would seem to indicate that we all worshiped the same God and were thus of the same race. I was indifferent to religion at that time, so I cant recall if the temple had been raised to Nedra or Mara or Issa. The lands of the Arends lay somewhat to the north, so its even possible that our rickety little church had been built to honor Chaldan. Im certain that we didnt worship Torak or Belar. I think Id have remembered had it been either of those two.
Even as a child I was expected to earn my keep; the villagers werent very keen about maintaining me in idle luxury. They put me to work as a cow-herd, but I wasnt very good at it, if you must know the truth. Our cows were scrubby and quite docile, so not too many of them strayed off while they were in my care, and those that did usually returned for milking in the evening. All in all, though, being a cow-herd was a good vocation for a boy who wasnt all that enthusiastic about honest work.
My only possessions in those days were the clothes on my back, but I soon learned how to fill in the gaps. Locks had not yet been invented, so it wasnt too difficult for me to explore the huts of my neighbors when they were out working in the fields. Mostly I stole food, although a few small objects did find their way into my pockets from time to time. Unfortunately, I was the natural suspect when things turned up missing. Orphans were not held in very high regard at that particular time. At any rate, my reputation deteriorated as the years went by, and the other children were instructed to avoid me. My neighbors viewed me as lazy and generally unreliable, and they also called me a liar and a thief often right to my face! I wont bother to deny the charges, but its not really very nice to come right out and say it like that, is it? They watched me closely, and they pointedly told me to stay out of town except at night. I largely ignored those petty restrictions and actually began to enjoy the business of creeping about in search of food or whatever else might fall to hand. I began to think of myself as a very clever fellow.
I guess I was about thirteen or so when I began to notice girls. That really made my neighbors nervous. I had a certain rakish celebrity in the village, and young people of an impressionable age find that sort of thing irresistibly attractive. As I said, I began to notice girls, and the girls noticed me right back. One thing led to another, and on a cloudy spring morning one of the village elders caught me in his hay-barn with his youngest daughter. Let me hasten to assure you that nothing was really going on. Oh, a few harmless kisses, perhaps, but nothing any more serious. The girls father, however, immediately thought the worst of me and gave me the thrashing of my life.
I finally managed to escape from him and ran out of the village. I waded across the river and climbed the hill on the far side to sulk. The air was cool and dry, and the clouds raced overhead in the fresh young wind. I sat there for a very long time considering my situation. I concluded that I had just about exhausted the possibilities of Gara. My neighbors, with some justification, Ill admit, looked at me with hard-eyed suspicion most of the time, and the incident in the hay-barn was likely to be blown all out of proportion. A certain cold logic advised me that it wouldnt be too long before Id be pointedly asked to leave.
Well, I certainly wasnt going to give them that satisfaction. I looked down at the tiny cluster of dun-colored huts beside a small river that didnt sparkle beneath the scudding clouds of spring. And then I turned and looked to the west at a vast grassland and white-topped mountains beyond and clouds roiling titanic in the grey sky, and I felt a sudden overwhelming compulsion to go. There was more to the world than the village of Gara, and I suddenly wanted very much to go look at it. There was nothing really keeping me, and the father of my little playmate would probably be lying in wait for me with cudgel every time I turned around. I made up my mind at that point.
I visited the village one last time shortly after midnight. I certainly didnt intend to leave empty-handed. A storage shed provided me with as much food as I could conveniently carry, and, since its not prudent to travel unarmed, I also took a fairly large knife. Id fashioned a sling a year or so previously, and the tedious hours spent watching over other peoples cows had given me plenty of time for practice. I wonder whatever happened to that sling.
I looked around the shed and decided that I had everything I really needed, and so I crept quietly down that dusty street, waded across the river again, and went from that place forever.
When I think back on it, I realize that I owe that heavy-handed villager an enormous debt of gratitude. Had he not come into that barn when he did, I might never have climbed that hill on such a day to gaze to the west, and I might very well have lived out my life in Gara and died there. Isnt it odd how the little things can change a mans entire life?