A faint smile twitched across the thin lips. “I know many things, young Kalam. But there are others, which are, unfortunately, beyond even my knowledge. Perhaps if you have some water and—”
“But of course,” Mara broke in. “You must be hungry and thirsty. I’ll get you some food and drink.”
She went into the small kitchen at the rear, returning a few minutes later with meat, fruit, and a flask. Setting them down on the table, she moved away into the corner as Kalam seated himself opposite their guest.
The Wise Man ate ravenously, remaining silent until he had finished eating. Then he pushed his plate away and sat back in his chair. Kalam eyed him with some trepidation. It seemed abundantly clear that the old man had traveled all the way across the Great Wilderness in the blistering heat of Zanos. How one so old and frail had succeeded in traveling all that way on foot was beyond Kalam’s comprehension.
“You say there are matters we have to talk about,” Kalam began hesitantly. The feeling of disquietude that had plagued him for some time now abruptly increased, knotting the muscles of his stomach. “But why me? Why not one of the Elders?”
“Because you are one of the few with a thirst for knowledge. You question things. You do not merely accept them as others do. You wish to know why things as they are. You seek a meaning beyond all of this.”
The old man waved an arm to encompass the house and the desert that lay beyond the open door. “Unlike most of the others, you’re not content with knowing just the simple, everyday things. You wish to know what lies behind them.”
“But—”
“Listen well to all I have to say. You may not understand all of it but I will try to answer any questions you may have.”
Kalam rested his elbows on the table and waited for the other to go on. He was acutely aware that Mara was watching him closely from the corner of the room.
Drawing in a deep breath that seemed to pain him, the Wise Man began, “You know of us, the keepers of the ancient lore. For thousands of years this knowledge has been passed down through the centuries. Unfortunately, over such a long period of time, some of it has become so garbled that it is difficult to sift the truth from myth. Furthermore, much has been irretrievably lost which should have been remembered.
“What I have to tell you concerns a prophecy which comes from the very beginning of time. It is said that there will come a day when the Night and the Blackness will fall upon Ronan and it is then that the Great God will speak to everyone from the Temple.”
Kalam shook his head numbly. “Night, The Blackness? What are they?”
The Wise Man pursed his lips into a thin, straight line. He glanced about him, then pointed towards the doorway where the shadow fell across it.
“I know nothing of Night,” he said. “But there, in the doorway. Blackness is like that but far more intense than you can possibly imagine. In it, you will see nothing. Yet it is also said that great wonders will appear in the sky once the Blackness falls, to herald the coming of the Great God. You must prepare yourselves for this, you and all of your neighbors.”
Kalam tried to swallow in a throat gone suddenly dry. “And when will this happen? Do you know?”
“Soon. That is all I can say. Much of the prophecy has been lost over the thousands of years since it was first given to us. Perhaps the Xordi know more. I have asked, several times, when they’ve condescended to speak to me. But they either know nothing, or they refuse to tell me. Maybe they will speak to you.”
“The Xordi?”
Kalam felt a shiver of dread pass through him. No one knew anything about the Xordi. His father and grandfather had spoken of them so they must have come to this world a long time before.
Certainly they had never acted as attackers. Most of the time, it seemed that as far as the Xordi were concerned, his race didn’t exist.
He ran his tongue around his lips. “And the Great God who dwells in the Temple yonder — why does he not show himself? Does anyone know that he really exists? Or is that just some old legend?”
“He must,” the old man insisted. “Otherwise, why does the Temple exist?”
Kalam could think of no answer to that. He knew that whenever some great calamity threatened the people, some of them muttered prayers to the Great God but whether they were answered or not, he didn’t know. As far as he was concerned, the Temple was nothing more than a monument built by his remote ancestors to serve some unknown, and unknowable, purpose.
The old man gripped his staff and rose shakily to his feet. “Have the Xordi ever communicated with you, Kalam?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” Kalam admitted. “But they never tell me anything important and they never answers any questions I put to them.”
“That isn’t surprising. In the past there has been no urgency. But now things are different. My advice to you is to seek them out. It may be they know far more than I do. If they know how short a time there is left before the fulfilling of the prophecy, they may be more inclined to talk.”
He turned and moved with shuffling steps towards the door.
Mara stepped forward. “Won’t you rest here for a time? You’ve clearly traveled far and—”
“Thank you, but no. I must visit all of the communities in this region before my task is gone and there is now so little time.”
Kalam stood in the doorway and watched him walk away.
Even before Zanos had dipped below the horizon, Toral had lifted much of its large red bulk above the opposite skyline, flooding the desert with a deep carmine glow. The air became appreciably cooler. Although Toral was far larger than Zanos, it emitted appreciably less heat and Kalam preferred the red days to the blue ones.
The majority of people on Ronan slept during much of the blue days for it was almost impossible to work in the fierce heat of Zanos’ blue-white glare.
“What are you going to do?” Mara asked. “I heard the words the Wise Man spoke but they made no sense to me. What is this Blackness, which is coming to Ronan? There is no such thing.”
“Perhaps not,” Kalam admitted. “Perhaps it’s just another myth like the Great God.”
He was still terribly contused but now there was a strange urge in his mind, an intense desire to find out more of what the old man had told him.
Whether it was some compulsion put upon him by the Wise Man’s hypnotic words, or something which had been growing inside him for some time, he didn’t know. But it was there and there was no way he could fight it. He had to find one of the Xordi and try to get some answers.
“There’s only one thing I can do. Somehow, I must question one of the Xordi.”
“And how do you do that? I know very little about them but from what I’ve heard they only speak with us when they wish it. And why is it up to you to do this?”
“Didn’t you hear anything the Wise Man said?”
Mara’s face hardened. “I heard enough to know he spoke of some prophecy thousands of years old. And I know enough to realize that these old stories are nothing more than superstition.”
She turned and went back into the house. Kalam could hear her rattling the dishes in the kitchen in her exasperation.
He waited for a while to give her time to calm down. By now almost the whole of Toral’s immense disc was clear of the horizon with only a small segment still hidden behind the rim of the world. He eyed it speculatively. It looked far too large to hang up there in the sky without crashing down upon Ronan. Large, irregular dark spots marred part of its surface and occasionally, long streamers of red flame spouted from its surface.
Its carmine light made the sand of the desert appear darker than during the blue days and it threw few shadows apart from the massive one cast by the looming bulk of the Temple.