The Mother of the Tree of Life, Aleister Hanek [best way to read ebooks txt] 📗

have done to her had he been in her position.
She looks to where the bullet came from and she can see the hunter crawling out of the foliage. He is not charging now, he knows that he has his prey. This mercenary’s job will be done and he will receive his payment by tonight.
Instead of running out of the gate Mercadia runs to the bawling Andun. She holds him and rocks him back and forth and stares down the faceless mercenary who has thrown down his sack and reloaded his weapon for the third time.
The hunter points his weapon at Mercadia’s face, then fires.
But just as the bullet is five inches from her nose a stream of dark purple smoke splits it apart and the two halves of lead fall on either side of Mercadia.
Andun’s thoughts are taken from his pain, and he scurries away from the split bullet. Mercadia scurries with him so their bodies are still touching.
Though he has no face, the hunter has ridge shapes on the front of his head that would pass for alarmed eyebrows.
The skin around the hunter’s elbow bubbles up like roiling soup and his shooting arm blasts off of his body in a gush of dark purple smoke. The arm lands where Andun and Mercadia scurried from, quickly melts and becomes mulch.
Andun and Mercadia scurry closer yet to the gate but Andun can only scurry so much with one foot so they are slow going.
The mercenary bubbles up from his groin to his non-face and splits in two. Just as his arm did, both halves of his body become light brown mulch and sink into the ground, leaving the grass and soil damp and soggy like vomit. Everything smells like death and fruit.
Their danger gone, they stop, and Andun groans over his missing foot again. Mercadia is equally scared as though she had lost a bit of herself too. Though he is blazing with pain from his scorched amputation, there is an air of safety around Andun; she can tell that he thinks they are safe now, if frightened and hurt.
But Andun, just as he is not very strong, is usually not bright either. Having seen the hunter destroyed, Mercadia knows that they are not alone. She cannot tell what it is but she senses something wise and pungent around them. Andun cannot feel it because the spirit is only watching over her.
The air before them darkens as though night is manifesting in that one isolated spot. It looks just like the destroying mist the darker and thicker it becomes, but soon it is the texture of cloth and it falls around an invisible body. An abundance of long wavy hair falls out the top of the cloak and a head lifts out.
She cannot decide if his skin is blue or green. He is the color of the ocean behind the cloak and beneath the hair. He has no lips but his nose is prominent and noble and one eye is closed. The other eye is unusually large, it is the same color of the berries she has been picking and it is webbed with thick black lines that look like licorice which do not impair his vision. He sees things the same way the hunter did.
The manifested man leans forward. He stretches his body several feet away from Mercadia; his face is only a few inches away from hers. He said:
“Run along, little girl.” And it echoes around Mercadia a thousand times before she can stand up again.
At first Mercadia shudders inside and tries to talk. She wants to scream that she sees a monster, but she cannot speak more than blubbering gasps. Beside her Andun is rocking back and forth holding his leg and he does not notice the man in front of them at all.
And why should he? Redemption cares not for cowards.
“Run along little girl.” he says again, and it echoes a thousand times more, and that is what it takes to move the girl. She scampers to her feet and screams at Andun to run with her. He senses nothing but he trusts Mercadia just like her little dog and he tries to run with her. She takes his weight on one shoulder and he tries to hop on his one foot while she tries to run. He thinks that she saw another hunter.
The ocean colored man vanishes the same way he appeared: And when he is gone the mulch and the split bullet burst forth with gorgeous fruits and flowers the likes of which could only be found in exotic jungles… or in the history books, where the most devastating plague in history is recalled.
When it is discovered later by the workers of the vineyard it will be isolated in a fence and considered an evil omen too dangerous to touch.
The echoing voice follows her all the way to the hospital and as soon as she is with people again the voice goes out like a flame and lingers slightly like the stub of a dead candle. She will never forget it, and she will not hear it again for seven years.
In the realm of Milera, names do not have meanings; they are just a means of identification. But if you translate them into languages from other realms they are no longer proper names.
In other realms, ‘Andun’ would mean ‘The Coward.’
In other realms, ‘Mercadia’ would mean ‘The Mother.’

1

Just as on most other planets inhabited by humans, the history books of Milera are filled with violence and prejudice and rape and pillage. But its most notable chapters are the plagues.
Milera is a small realm and everybody in it belongs to the same religion. This has occurred only in the past few hundred years. But Milerism is a vast religion, and any one person can interpret it in a dozen ways that the next person could never dream of. But each and every person who has ever been born in Milera agrees about the plagues. Every interpretation is centered on them, any interpretation could be right.
Three major interpretations are widely and equally believed all over the world. It is thirty percent of the population to each of these three interpretations –the other ten percent makes up those who are undecided and simply love to toy with multiple interpretations at once—and none of them congregate. These different interpretations do not have names; if they did they would not be able to hide amongst each other. All of the different believers are scattered equally all over the planet. The people of Milera prefer to be closer to their enemies.
And it is almost impossible to tell an enemy from a friend in this world since everybody is so very similar.
The first is the most passive: They believe that the plagues are normal to the planet’s cycle and the so-called womb abominations are no exception to that. It is fair to run to safety when in danger of a plague –or any other natural occurrence of the planet- but there have been those who are particularly devoted who don’t run when in danger. They accept death no matter how gruesome, because they think that their deaths are no different than when the apple falls from the branch.
The second is the meekest: They believe that the plagues are negative karma brought on by mass acts of wickedness –there have been plenty, remember now that Milera is inhabited by humans—they run from all sorts of danger, then pray and meditate to be spared. They are the hardest workers and are responsible for the erection of most cities and monuments, for they believe that this will accumulate enough good karma so that they can survive. Their life spans so far are not any longer than the different believers and their numbers have never escalated higher.
The third is the most savage: They believe that the plagues are divine justice and that imitating the effects of the plagues is to imitate divine justice. Whenever there are mass acts of wickedness it is usually this group that is suspect. It could be any of the three really, depending on how devout the individuals are in their particular beliefs, but it is usually the savage.
Mercadia is among the ten percent. She is far too selfish to give thought to the workings of the planet.
The plagues that have occurred in this world are so numerous that not every one can be recounted. The history books could not tell you how many have occurred. The oldest clans could only guess and none of them will guess accurately. Jenta is forgotten these days.
One might think that a world that has been plagued thusly would have no population but in this world ‘Plague’ is a loose term. Plague simply amounts to a magnificent natural transformation. However, when somebody uses that word they usually mean one of the abominations that have spawned forth from a skinny girl.
Of that type of plague there have been ninety-nine, and since ninety-nine being such a psychologically unsatisfying number, it is no wonder why Mercadia is in danger.
The history books have been careful to note that these abominations have only been born from slender women, and slender women have always been extremely uncommon in Milera. They would be murdered ritually around the time they’re supposed earn their hips if not for the fact that slender women have turned out perfectly normal before. They are indeed uncommon but in this planet’s history only ninety-nine women have given birth to an abomination and, to be fair, there have been a great deal more than ninety-nine slender women in this planet’s entire history.
The most famous, the most decimating plague this world has seen happened just twenty-five years before Mercadia’s sixteenth year. Her parents were only five years old. They can only remember the adults were frightened and the numbers in their country were drastically reduced. It took a new leader and many pilgrimages from every corner of the globe to repopulate the area. By the time Mercadia was born everything was operating well again, but nobody has forgotten about this plague and nobody ever will.
The girl must have given birth in the middle of nowhere because nobody expected it. Usually when one of these girls is pregnant she does look pregnant… but not always. Usually there are witnesses and horns and sirens who can alert everybody inhabiting the immediate area in case a plague does occur. But sometimes these girls do not look pregnant at all. Some of them do not even feel pregnant when it is wicked what they are brewing. This girl might have been strolling in a field when Melkam spewed forth from her, because it did not occur in a village or a city and there was nobody around to scream the warning. Number ninety-nine was a discreet one even though she did not mean to be.
On the realm of earth, ‘Melkam’ would mean ‘Redemption.’
It was a black and purple fog that moved just outside of the city like a dam exploding from pressure. It split off in ten long tendrils that slipped through the city and into the hills and through the fields and into the rivers. Every sentient life form touched by it went necrotic instantly. Then from the rot the most colorful, gorgeous exotic fruits and flowers burst out, it blossomed as fast as water splashing from a heavy stone. Most people and animals were consumed completely; it seeped into the body the way cancer seeps from organ to organ, but some people only lost limbs.
Plants, unliving things and most animals were untouched by it and it was not because they hid. Those who went untouched –they were few—noticed that the plague was sentient too, that it was selecting what