Etherwalker Read Free Page B

when a new lamb was born to the flock, something he called The Prayer of the Beasts:
    “Men are made for the Law of God,
    but the beasts and birds obey Him.
    Men sing hymns upon the alter of God,
    but the beasts and birds are His song.”
    Enoch’s sling lay untouched ever since.
    Still rubbing at his brow, Enoch walked from the garden and set the hoe at one side of the utility shed. The windmill poking out from the roof of the shed stood motionless in the slight breeze. Enoch unlatched the rough pine door—tightly fitted to keep moisture and vermin from damaging the more delicate machinery inside—and reached for the sturdy pole, which stuck out perpendicular from the side of the tall center post. He pulled it, angling the blades up into the wind, and then grabbed the worn wooden handle of the crank at the base of the mill.
    Slowly at first and then steadily faster, he began to spin the crank, watching the blades through the thick glass window in the roof. He kept at it until the blades caught the wind and spun on their own, and then he released the handle to thumb the switch on his left. The light above it glowed green weakly at first, but shone stronger as a gust of wind rattled the shed.
    Head still aching, Enoch trotted back to the house, anxious to get his recitings done in what little time the late afternoon breeze would afford him.
    Closing his eyes so that they could adjust, Enoch strode into the darkness. He had known this place all of his life, and even without light, he could see it in his mind. A stout pine table dominated the center of the room, surrounded by two simple stools. To his right, a large hearth of smooth river stones cemented together covered the wall, and the mantle was adorned with a thick beeswax candle—left unlit now that it was summer. Above the mantle would be two crossed practice swords, the wooden blades stained black with the soot his master used to teach him target strikes and edge awareness. Various herbs and sage peppers hung from the roof beams, giving off a sharp, simple smell. Enoch could describe this room down to the last dust mote if asked. It was part of the discipline that he had been taught:
    “Absorb the image into your eyes, into your dream mind—the afilia nubla —and it will be branded there to be seen by your waking mind—the afilia lumin —when it is needed. A good warrior can dance through his fortress blindfolded.”
    Master Gershom was always talking about what a good warrior did. Enoch thought it was kind of silly. For all of his master’s nostalgia for his military past, it really didn’t serve any purpose here. Enoch would grow up to be a shepherd just like everyone else in the borderlands of Midian. Here, a sword was a rare sight, and a man who knew how to use one even more so. The only weapons ever seen were bows for hunting and the occasional sling or staff for protecting the flock. Enoch studied and listened and danced through the pensa spada exercises because Levi Gershom was his master. It was the order of things and always had been.
    What Enoch wanted had nothing to do with anything. Sure, he was curious about his parents. Master Gershom said that they were good people, and that they had loved their son dearly. But now they were dead, and Enoch was all right with that. This place was all he knew. This farm was a comfortable and finite place, circumscribed by trees, sheep, and the atonal breezes which wound down the valley from the white-capped Edrei.
    It was only lately that some of the questions had begun to take on a life of their own. Enoch had tried to quiet them, but the odd contradictions of his life were starting to stand out in relief against the uniformly predictable nature of the whole. Enoch felt . . . unease. It was somewhere in between curiosity and anxiety. And rather than answering his questions, Master Gershom had instructed him to take the mental turmoil and bridle it—turn the tension into a focus for his lessons and recitings.