A Biography of a Human

Chapter Twenty-One:

“The Long Years"

I was too pampered in my life up to this point. My entire life so far I had been more or less moderately well-off. Even back as a child on Safehaven, I was in a good place thanks to my father's lumber business. We weren't as wealthy as those merchants who had a monopoly on trade between the human islands but we were not struggling.

So when my Master was deprived of everything and sent off to exile along with me in tow, I dared not leave him even though I did not really have to, it was my first time being without anything!

The thought that I bared a responsibility for this calamity too also weighed on my mind even now, many decades later. The book of tales I had given to Elyk, on his birthday, was used in the very charges that were brought against Gernan! It was minor by all accounts, but to my soul it was like the burden of Atlas coming down!

I am pretty sure my Master would have not even cared in the end what was what and why was why. I could not blame him, I was of the same mindset of gloomy sorrow.

But we had each other. I am pretty sure if I was not here for him, Gernan would have been found hanging from a rafter and same with myself. Us, being in it together, saved us for the most part and we silently promised that we would look out for each other.

I could write about the exile, the start of it, I should say. The trip southward and over the Caucasus and into the Levant until we reached the last outpost of the wolven power that was in the Cedar coast. Cast out and abandoned by our troop of guards assigned to take us there, their job finished, we were thrust out, lost, hopeless and alone.

How did we not die right there and then!? We had nothing! I can still recall that first day, haggard Gernan, sitting on the hard ground clutching a walking stick and pulling at what remained of his hunting attire from the imperial camp, all torn and with holes as I stood beside him, confused and worried as I picked at what was left of my fingernails atop swollen fingers, and as lost as ever.

But we endured, scraping by from day to day and moving around constantly, mostly keeping to ourselves as we moved from river to creeks in the dry mountainous areas and drifting around the multiracial cities that dotted this area, which was in effect an almost lawless area. The Levant, a strip of land that changed control too often by the vast empires surrounding it, from the exotic leopards east, the rather recent wolves from the north and the crafty foxes from the west.

Currently, the area was made up of city-states under the sway of the countless lion tribes of the distant south, beyond Pelusium that would frequently raid the land or demand tribute and ransom of traders that they managed to capture from wealthy families that dared to enter their hostile land.

The coastal cities were mostly fox, since a lot of them had histories as colonies of the Foxen Republic back in the day, while the ones inland, nested in the hills and mountains were leopard, from their origins as outposts for their Empire, though calling them an Empire would not be accurate in certain regards as their court is notorious for imploding from infighting and intrigue, especially from the macho young males coveting power and dominion of their own rather than swearing loyalty to an older leader most of the times. The grand position of Shah, in that chaotic state, being more active than a game of musical chairs.

I could go on and on with such interesting history but it has no relevance here since we only once entered one of the cities or even got to close to them for that matter, only drifting within eye-shot of them.

The furthest we ever got into one was just past the gates and that was practically it, plus it was a city that Gernan felt would be the safest to go too in terms of venturing in. We only went to the alms house that was there, to pick up whatever they could offer. Master did all of the talking as I concealed myself with a scarf in corner of the square the was filled with mongrels and others whose exact creed were unknown to me due to their dirty matted fur and thin frames, listening to the banter abound, picking up sentences of foxen speak here and there as I stood waiting.

We managed to get a fair bit, mostly scraps of raw meat not worth selling and a sack of stale bread that was already becoming hard as a rock. but we could soak them in hot water to make a kind of gruel when all of it went totally solid later during the coming weeks.

But that was it, the cities were much too dangerous to even think about entering again, what rights did we have in the land? None! All sorts of wrong could happen. Technically my Master no longer owned me and I was an up and coming human ripe for the picking with nothing to stop them from pushing my Master aside or worse, and taking me for god knows what!

Gernan rightly figured that the closer to the wolves borders we were the more dangerous it was, since an agent of Jao might come to finish the job once and for all. and both of us did not want to run the risk of even trying to test such rightfully held paranoia.

South was the safest place to be for us, the deeper we went into the arid land the better, completely out of this strip of coast and mountains, and voyaging past the Great Turquoise Desert and into the lion heartland, the Black and Red lands.

There was another good reason to be heading there, the land was bountiful a gift of the mighty river Naiel, abundant fish and plants which should solve all of our food issues for a long time.

The major downside to the plan was obvious: the countless prides of lions there that stalk the deserts, mountains and marshes. But according to “Account of the Land of Leo", the lions are quite superstitious and strongly disliked living on the west bank of the river, for that is where the goddess Felidae dies on the western horizon, but this was a book that was written many centuries ago by a certain fox explorer who made the journey down the river and along with saying that only certain prides have this superstition. He also made the unbelievable claim that there were three huge mountains of hewn stone blocks erected on a plateau in the deserts and can be seen from miles away, and date back over almost ten-thousand years ago!

“Was he on the seven-pointed leaf when he wrote this?" was the annotation Gernan humorously left on the page that made these bold claims.

Regardless of the danger of such a vista, it was our last hope to eke out somewhat of a safe livelihood, perhaps a deal could be worked out with one of the lion chiefs that would give us some kind of protection for us?

And it was with this that we begin our move southwards, mostly following the coasts at times but also travailing inland among the mountains and hills for extra protection.

First we passed the settlement of Nazer'ath, a place were a past messiah was born many eons ago, according to human folklore. Free humans still make the hazardous pilgrimage to this place even now, despite the risk of slavers taking any human free from the law of more stable regions.

The father we trekked south the heat grew steadily as the landscape became more and more rocky.

When we finally saw the cursed ruins of the timeless city of Jur'rusm atop its rocky outcrop, its crumbling walls of stone encasing a city ruins, we knew we were halfway to were we were hoping to be. I would have loved to have stayed longer and looked around in more detail, at least, when I am recalling all of this now at my current age; at the time I had more pressing matters to concern myself with.

My only thoughts were of my Master's health, who was starting to shed his undercoat rapidly due to the rising heat, often having to stop and pant for a minute. His paw-pads dripped with sweat while I helped wash them with cool water when we happened to stop near a creek.

It was hard and I feared him suffering from a heat stroke. To me, it was not that bad, but I knew to him it must be unbearable for his body, which was unaccustomed to such arid climate. Often I would let him lean on me as we walked, not caring about how hard it was on my own back.

But soon we hoped we would be able to stop for good, once we passed our last big hurdle, which was the Turquoise Desert itself.

We did this by hugging the coasts and making sure we moved as fast as we could day-by-day to get the most distance. It was hard on both of us, Gernan enduring the most silently as to not worry me, but we did it and the fertile delta was in sight at last. We both felt as if we wanted to fall to our worn knees and weep of joy that fresh water was in sight.

We both thanked any higher power for this fortunate conclusion.

It was then we started to see lions, mostly at night. We would see the glow of the nomadic pride's camps at night in the dunes of the deserts beyond, reminding us always that we should never let our guard down, knowledge about the savagery of those fear-inspiring felines deep in the backs of our minds.

Near the river banks of the delta we came across the mud-brick houses of the lion prides that were, more or less, civilized in more permanent settlements with protective walls to guard against their more wild brothers.

Though we felt more at ease being near them over their desert and savanna dwelling kin, we still decided to be very cautious around them and when a scouting party from one of them happened on us, my Master, seeing the danger we might be in, immediately stiffened up in a regal posture of a powerful wolf from the Alphate as he protectively clutched my shoulder as I averted my gaze from the maned felines.

They backed off and went on their way, figuring that me and my wolf Master were important emissaries from the Kutlar Alphate, not worth the risk of a retaliation if any harm was to come to us. It was a risky bluff but it worked this time for us.

We stayed in the rich marshland among the reeds, feasting on the rare fish we could catch. It was not an easy task but it was more than what we managed to scrape by on in the Levant so it was tolerable, plus the cool waters were of comfort to my Master's body.

Though it was ridiculous now, we decided a little bit later after a week or two to move even further south just as a precaution. Even the delta was a little too close for comfort to that villain Jao and his possible reach.

The delta still had coastal trade cities, though very few, and it was not far from the canal that I was brought through as a slave so long ago, which was a major trade route. They were populated by a small number of foxes, leopards and the odd ambitious wolf along with some lions who had learned to take advantage of these naive traders. Anyone of them could be a danger if they got a message to do us in for Jao along with a bribe.

We needed to be in the wild remote areas of the south to feel certain of safety, though that would mean danger in the form of less-accepting lion prides that would look at us through xenophobic feline eyes.

They would see my wolf Master as a smelly canine and myself as a ripe human, soft, weak and ready for the taking. Human slaves were not common there and I would be seen as a luxury item by all accounts and that thought was truly horrifying, but if we kept to ourselves, stayed hidden in the marshes and reeds we should prevail, I had hoped.

In one of these trade cities on the coast, linked into the one of the veins of the open lotus-like delta, we found a swarthy leopard ferryman standing on the wobbly, wooden docks on the banks, leaning against a barrel, his slender tail flicking side-to-side. We would have paid him no heed if it was not him who made a remark about us.

“A human!? That's a sight down here, I must say!" was his exact words in broken wolven. “You must be an exile if I am to guess?" he furthered. seeming to know everything we were about and for a moment we were scared he might be what we feared.

“Let me guess? You are wanting to go south to get away from a rival from that poisonous court you wolves have?" he then offered, to our great surprise, to do that for us free of charge, as he had business in the south anyways, but with one little condition.

“If you ever manage to get back in favor, I expect to be rewarded handsomely," he slyly retorted, his narrow eyes set among spots in a coy manner.

We should have ignored him all together but we were desperate and at a loss at how we were going to manage getting deeper south as we were.

It sounded too good to be true but we took his offer in good faith.

“By Canis! That fox was right!" I heard exclaimed from above deck of the small cargo boat. Waking me from a sleep against a sack of grain that served as my pillow during the night.

Pulling myself onto deck through a covered hole, using the small mast as a support as I faced the tiny end castle that was the leopard captain's living quarters. Turning around, I saw Gernan with his paw atop his head in sheer amazement as he gazed out across the water to three monumental mounds emerging from the sands afar.

It was true! There on the horizon were three crumbling monuments of beige stone, their sand swept bases were sloughed with age. but despite all of the wear on their forms they still inspired sheer awe at their existence as they seemed to scrape the very sky itself! Even I thought it was a myth but here they were, a wonder of the old world smugly defying our past disbelief in grand form.

The lanky leopard pounced down from the stern deck where he tended to the steering oar, taking amusement in our shock at such a common sight to the likes of him.

“That's nothing, my friends! I see that every time I come down here to bring goods!"

I stood next to Gernan and for the first time in a very long time we both felt an emotion other than fear and sadness: wonder and awe. Awe at such an exotic sight before us, a relic of a time long before anything, an anomaly changing our thinking about the past.

Where did this monuments come from? How old were they? Some say they were as old the universe itself! What were they? Some say they were fossilized rays of sunlight, others, they are the resting places of the divine triad and finally, that they were construed by human hands of long, long long, before! Before even the height of our race's existence!

I had taken the life of another…

A life was sent on its way to the netherworld of my own action.

No accident or unintended event, was it.

It was my own doing, my own thinking, my own desire. It happened here and now.

This was no nightmare or disillusion in my head, living out in a whimsical day dream.

The proof was before me in the thrashing death-throes of a twitching and gurgling leopard. A crimson waterfall pouring from his throat as my right hand held the blood-covered dagger that it sprouted forth from.

The moonlight cast its holy light, bursting forth from a cabin window, dowsing the gruesome sight in its white ethereal light as my frozen form rocked forwards and backwards from the lulling river tide underfoot.

Why was I here again? Was it because I was overtaken by wonder of that sight of those man-made mountains that I emerged from below deck into the evening air to ask more of this leopard, only to knock on his door, which creaked open showing he was asleep.

I felt mad, crazed! My eyes demented and focused on my grizzly deed. Fearful shock was supplanted by instinct of survival as the words of the letter just seen a moment ago replayed in my mind.

The letter which had been knocked off a desk when I turned around to leave his cabin and which I had picked up to put back but instead, accidentally catching a glimpse of a word, a name and title which I knew all too well!

“Noble Consort, Chief Human of the Imperial Alpha, Jao"

“-here enclosed is half of the payment for the job I wish for you to carry out, upon proof of its completion you shall receive the other half, and for that human with him he can be you other reward, you can do with him as you please…"

Looking back now, I am somewhat embarrassed by how much in shock I was over committing such an act which, compared to others out there in the world was nothing, but then and there I was but a delicate ivory orchid, subject to all sorts of whims of youth and innocence, thinking I was in good morals in not doing any harm.

Though I had stabbed the leopard, I had also made the first self-inflicted wound into my own innocence, it was the first step...

“Wake up, Master! Wake up!" yelling and shaking my wolf Master, who was leaning against some chests and bundles.

“Wha-what is wrong!" he gruffly grumbled before he saw something as I shook him alert.

“Why is there blood on your hand!?" his amber eyes focused on my blood spattered arm in disbelief.

“I KILLED HIM!" I screamed out in a crazed panic at having to admit such a thing where I was hoping foolishly I could get the mature wolf to just jump overboard without reason.

“WHAT!? WHY!?" he shouted, standing up dazed at this news hitting him like this all at once as I just ran both my hands through my hair in a hysterical tick.

“Jao! He had a letter from Jao! He was going to kill you and, and, then make me his own!" he snapped back at me in a look of fear realizing the gravity of what I had just said as he lurched up deck followed by me, though with less speed and agility as him.

I paced on deck, still running my fingers through my hair as I muttered out words of no meaning or reason, second-guessing myself wondering if it was just a sleepwalk and I was all mistaken.

The wolfish silhouette of Gernan soon emerged from the cabin, crouching down as to not hit his head on the small door frame of it and holding that same piece of paper I had seen that launched me into my murderous mindset.

I collapsed on the hard wood paneling and he embraced me into his furry arms.

“GERNAN! We are at the whims of fate! What will we do!?"

“We will prevail! Don't cry, you did good! You did good! The moment you regret your actions you will be doomed…"

How such advice kept me sane for countless things in my long life...

Never regret the things you must do to survive, no matter how awful they may be…

Good came of this turn of events for us, in the end! We had free pickings of the now dead leopard's goods and supplies, I wanted to leave as soon as possible but Gernan, being pragmatic and seeing the opportunity, convinced me to calm down enough to help him gather the needed things as the uncaptained boat drifted slowly in the humid night.

Gernan covered the body with a sheet so I would not see it and possibly lapse back into a panic as I helped rifle through the items in the dark interior of the cabin-house with only hand-held clay oil lamps giving us light in the foreboding room. Each creak or dropped object caused me to jump or yelp out, fearing that the deceased feline was back to take revenge on me.

In the end, the two of us managed to gather two large sacks of well-needed things for however long we could be here, which could be forever.

Bundles of cloth, small boxes of charcoal, and a box of tools were pretty much what we took and practically all we needed to make a makeshift dwelling for us. We could have taken the boat for ourselves or dismantled it for wood, but a ship docked by the river in these parts stood out like a sore thumb and would attract the attention of prides looking to plunder the abandoned ship far too quickly for us to succeed at our task.

So after all was done we took the small raft onboard. Gernan did most of the heavy lifting with myself giving whatever help I could manage to give him and urging him to pause and take a breather once in awhile, but often he just ignored me, pushing on lifting the raft overboard with a large splash. With that, he tethered the rope attached to the flotsam-like boat, to the railings and dropped our stuff in before entering. Gernan went first and I jumped down after he instructed me to untie the rope.

I fell into his waiting arms, his paws firmly wrapping around my form the moment I made contact with him as he stumbled ever so slightly, but managed to maintain his balance. Of course, he had to gruffly prod at the fact that he was too old of a wolf and I, too old of a human to be doing this, though it was in good humor and I was happy to see that my Master was starting to return to his old self again, at least somewhat in such a situation,

As we drifted away from the ghost ship in the warm moonlight night, backed by the dark silhouette of marshes and trees around us, Gernan, using a small oar to move the craft, I was reminded of the last time I was in such a place, almost a decade ago. I could not help but think that though it was with, different circumstance and location, I was back to square one again.

A new life in a new land and instead of Maria, it was Gernan, and the wolves were now the lions.

Canis, I felt like I was cursed...

How many years had passed? How old was I? All I can say for certain is that I grew into a man by then, there was no question about it. The seasons felt all the same, only the regular flooding of the river gave some indication of the passing time. These were all questions that were in the far back of my head, I did not really care at that time of the answers of them, being so trivial and minor than the daily struggle to live that met the two of us every time we woke up, greeted by the sight of the stained cloth ceiling held up by crudely formed poles above us.

Each of these morning days was a moment to say to oneself, 'I'm still alive!' followed by the fear of, 'will we eat today?' which had a grounding effect on one's mind. I could survive on the figs or pomegranates trees that grew nearby, but Gernan though, he could live on such things but he still needed meat and that was hard to find here.

I would usually be the first one to rise, my first goal of the day, as I lifted myself up from the scratchy floor made from dried reeds, was to turn to the sleeping wolf form of my Gernan beside me. I was terrified of the thought I would one morning, turn around and see him not breathing! What would I make of myself if that nightmare occurred? Though each day proved me wrong in the end to my great joy!

How gaunt he was! It was a slow progression over the years, but it was obvious to anyone who would laid their eyes upon his form. Once full-bodied and healthy, he now looked thin and famished, his once rich, shiny coat of ashen fur was now dull and stringy, his normally full-bodied fur now shed all year round by then due to the constant arid climate, confronted me with proof of his dwindling frame, but even if such symptoms were ignored one could see his status just in his face alone.

His once-noble countenance but a shallow shell of its former self, drawn out and forlorn cheeks and neck, once full and rounded out with masses of fur was now long gone, leaving behind a thin coat leading up his fore-face and muzzle, while his snout was left dry and cracked by the nonstop heat.

But it was most clear was in this eyes, now dark from stress and worry, becoming a dark ocher; which seemed so much bigger now he was deprived of his normal weight.

It killed me! It killed me so much to see him like this all gone and lost, he was becoming slow and lethargic, sleeping more than he used to and plagued by nightmares that were a constant since everything collapsed around us.

If this kept up…I did not want to even think about such a thought at that moment, but I knew deep within my soul that if this went on he would die, he needed protein, but how could I have gotten that!? I was a poor fisher and only managed to spear a small fish like once a month or even less if they were scarce! Every morning I would wake up and spend the entire day trying to catch something with my makeshift spear, hoping maybe I might get a heavy tilapia like I did a year ago.

I was at my wit's end, I was worrying so much I was finding myself pulling out my own hair subconsciously! Coming around to my senses to find I had a good-sized bald spot on my head from a few minutes of unknowingly pulling it.

Though I did not know it then, things were reaching a boiling point. These past years were nothing but a slow boil and it was doomed to soon boil over in a show of savagery if triggered ever so slightly.

I think I was somewhat aware of this even back then at the time, gazing across the deep blue of the river among the hidden marshes, I must have know something would happen and change everything.

And it did, it did.

Returning from a morning of nothing caught but my own stress and fear by the river side, in my tattered silt-soaked rags I found Gernan, looking odd.

He was ever so slightly shaking, just standing there near the opening of our makeshift hovel among the palms and shin-high grass, vibrating almost. A sense of foreboding floated over my body, a sense that something was very wrong.

“Gernan? Is something the matter?" I started up cautiously as I slowly inched closer to the wolf.

He said nothing but a slight growl-like whine and those eyes! They looked wild, dilated and almost frenzied, darting up and down my form in way that made me feel very vulnerable.

I did not listen to these fears. To me, he was my Master and I trusted him fully and so just walked right up to him without a single thought as I stepped over to the high grasses.

“Gernan, you don't look so go-" in a flash everything happened! Baring of sharp canines, a ferocious thunderous snarling and a grey blur snapping on me with lightning bolt speed.

Numbness was all I felt for a split second, first in that moment of absolute confusion and not knowing what occurred, then a sheering, stabbing sensation washed over me the next second, rushing all over my body!

My upper arm was in the vice of my own Master's muzzle! I saw his ivory fangs penetrate my flesh and to my horror start to make a gnawing motion on my bleeding muscles. Each bite down filled me with sheering pain as bones were assaulted by those four sharp fangs!

He was going to kill me! I was no longer this wolf's beloved human son but his prey, his food! Now longer was he my kind Master Gernan, but a feral beast, driven only by the instinct in this now starved form. I was weak prey! Now, he may not be able to hunt one of the fast running herbivores of this harsh land, but I would do, that was what was probably going through his now primal mind as he dug into me.

Each moment I stayed there doing nothing the closer my arm felt like it was going to snap like a twig under his powerful jaw! In my panicked vision after I had let out my initial pained shriek, I saw a hammer from yesterday's repair work on the tent and without any hesitation reached for it with my free hand.

It was just out of my reach, my fingers were just ever so slightly grazing the wooden base of the coal-colored head, every tic of time counted as the rhythmic bites sent waves of pain throughout my nerves, threatening to make me lose whatever strength I had left to even try to think, and each time his furry clawed arms, sensing my movements, squeezed me more and more to stop my struggling.

All I could think of was that hammer and the thought of this was the end for me as the tool inched past my fingertips. This was the moment that I was going to die! Soon my arm would snap off and hang lifeless in the blood soaked jaw of the wolf I loved as my second father, then from blood loss I would lose consciousness, falling upon the ground. Soon afterwards the rest of me would be within his stomach I was sure.

These were all horrible thoughts but the worst was not of my death or the fact my flesh would devoured by this ravenous canine but the aftermath, the moment when Gernan, after having gorged himself of my meat as parts of my bones and uneaten body parts lay around him, his body having finally gotten the much needed protein in his system finally came to his senses!

He would die! I knew he would! It would destroy him on all stories of his person, when he comes to and sees my blooded head before him, the sheer terror etched, frozen on my lifeless face affixed to a limbless torso with one of the cleaned leg bones in this paws and the rest by his side!

That was the real horror for me! The moment he sees what he has done in his primal regression! The end result would be that of a tragic play back at Lupercal, the dramatic suicide before the actors stand up to rapacious applause.

Then something happened, an explosion of movement and a blur of action which followed my hand grasping around a textured handle, the sound of what could only be described as dashing a rock against a melon, hard-sounding but with a wetness to it.

The pain stopped and the wolf form atop of me slid lifelessly down my chest, collapsing into a pile before me.

There was the motionless form of Gernan, blood-drenched muzzle starting upwards as a large wound gushed out blood from his head!

Looking to my side, not even feeling the pain that should have been in the other arm, I saw the hammer with its blood on it and felt splatters of blood on my face.

“I KILLED HIM!" I screamed at the top of my lunges, dropping the weapon as I raised my clenched hands to my temples, letting out inhuman groaning followed by what could only be called a mumbled language of nonsense while struggling to even breathe let alone comprehend everything around me.

He was dead and I had killed him! But he would have killed me and once he saw what he had done he would have died himself from sorrow! But what was I going to do without him! He was my compass who saved me from my own past after being enslaved!

I bolted! Just ran! I was screaming myself hoarse as I ran through marshes and wild barley fields, dodging palms and flax bushes until I reached the desert! The three tall mountains of stone stood before me afar on their windswept limestone plateau.

My world was phasing in and out of existence, my vision like still images changing every moment, dunes of gold grains moving like waves all around me.

Massive clouds of sand encompassed me as I stumbled through the dark, gritty fog, feeling the burning in my eyes as the particles battered my face.

“Let me die here now! Bury me in your might!" I cried up to the storm still wading through it all like a madman.

The roaring of wind was all could hear as I swore I saw bolts of lightning strike in the hazy storm with claps of thunder sounding like a wagon overturning.

Pressing on, my world was shaking as the earth beneath my unstable feet shook up and down, as more thunder and bolts of lightning struck in the distance.

Then before me coming into my field of view, emerged a dark object, a monumental structure! The dark silhouette of a massive head atop an equally sized neck grew forth from the ground itself in the chaos all around me.

Powerful gusts seemed to blow me towards this unmoving being! Each step I took closer to the featureless monolith, the roars of the wind and rumbles of shaking earth beneath grew and grew until they deafened everything as bolts flashed out from a raging sky!

I fell below it's chin, making an attempt of wrapping my arms around is encompassing hard neck. Burrowing my face into its gritty surface, I sought solace in its unknown existence.

“SAVE ME! SAVE ME! WHOEVER YOU MIGHT BE, RESCUE ME" I uttered out to the titanic form in desperation as the world became a heap of chaos around.

Then everything went silent as if I went abruptly deaf or the world just stopped. An unearthly silence that was all around me, everywhere. It felt louder than the storm itself before.

Whispers, first one, then two, then three, until a whole chorus of of them erupted forth! They were moving, those uncomprehending voices, as if they were spinning all around me, growing faster and faster with each interval as well as growing in volume until it was claustrophobic! It was like I was in a box, and that box started shrinking until I could no longer even stand, threatening to squeeze me into nothingness!

Then a voice! Bellowing as if of one in a cave.

“AWAKEN!" deep, archaic and all encompassing, echoing forth from another time and place long, long ago.

“Awaken, Alexander, namesake of Macedon! Awaken!" the order flung my eyelids open into the blinding light of the high-born sun.

The world around was clear as a glass dome all around! Though it felt like day with the sunlight it also was dark like night! All at the same time! The sky was bright blue, not a cloud in sight, yet the stars and planets shone forth as if it were the clearest night atop the highest peak!

Before me was a monumental titan of a head, hewn of stone but who's features were eroded by the sandy wind. Behind its equally battered angular headdress rose the mountain joined by its two siblings on each side.

“You are not the first to seek shelter beneath my visage, young Alexander, named of Macedon!" the voice bellowed upon me which brought me forth from my daze of bewilderment.

I just stood there looking up at this unmoving behemoth that was this head of yellow rock, silent until I managed to gain my wits so as to venture forth some words from my awed mind.

“W-w-wh-who are you?" a pause followed, making me wonder if I was dreaming until it answered back in its same ethereal tone.

“I am the Strong Bull, Lord of the Two Lands, Son of the Sun, He of the Two Ladies, Khafra Hor-User-ib User-im-nebti, Netjer-nub-sekhem, the Good God!" it bellowed forth a string of alien words. I just stared back blankly, not quite having gotten the answer I had hoped and this being seemed to be aware of that.

“The Hellenes of the archipelago in the Great Green waters called me Chephren, King of Aigyptos," it paused before speaking on.

“For many millennial this face of mine has gazed out across my land, watching the decline of the dynasties that built these houses of eternity, the age of chaos, became of order then chaos again with invasion of the Hyksos, an age of gold and empire! The apex of my homeland and followed by decay once forth again."

“A succession of foreign peoples then come forth, the first of which you are named of, and who's kingdom here, first given to his old friend, it's centuries of intrigues ended by an asp bite."

“The second was the first among equals. The boy of weak body, born into a man by twenty-three daggers and who kissed the face of the Great One which you are named of to became the holder of the all the lands around the Great Green."

“Soon the world under them came to believe in the one God from Galilee. Their world split in two: west and east. With their sun setting, the men from the great deserts, also believing in one God came pouring forth into my land, making it theirs until the men in red coats came."

“I witnessed three great wars of the world, the first fought over nothing, the second fought over something, and the third which almost ended everything."

“A whole almost becomes a quarter of itself, only then a new order arose forth from it. Centuries of peace and progress evolved into listless apathy and indolence which birthed the rise of men of fur and claw to deposed the men of skin and nail."

“Young Alexander, named of Macedon, you are not the first to gaze at this ancient face of mine: from the sleeping Prince who I made king, to the self-made Emperor Gaul, many great men and women have done so, and so have countless unimportant and nameless people as well."

“I just ponder which of the two groups will you fall into? Greatness or nothing…" With that, a great flash surrounded me and I was awake.

I was on a bed of warm sand before the same great stone head underneath a clear blue sky dotted by white clouds, not a hint of anything that happened, no storm, no thunder, no nothing.

Was it all a dream? Even now I can't say for sure! But I felt the need to include it here for its something that puzzles me, was it real or was it imagination fueled by stress and the stories of my Grandfather and what was known of the past? I like to think it was something much more.

As I roused myself from this 'event' if one could call it that, my first thought was of panic for Gernan. He might not have been dead, I told myself, I had to do something!

It was then I noticed movement in the corner of my eye, an earth-colored bobbing motion.

Turning to face it as it went out of view, downwards, the only thing there was a rolling dune but I felt watched.

After staring at this idle dune a dome of long hair emerged slowly followed by a feline's thick face and its strong eyes, wreathed by a mane.

A lion! I should have flung into a panic but I felt oddly calm, maybe it was the guardianship of this stone head, or maybe it was just fate.

I felt as though I had my answer.

The lion prides!