Gods of Green Mountain (36 page)

"Tomorrow," said Sharita. "It's too late now. Let us go to bed, and do this all over again tomorrow."

Up early, the ate hurriedly, bathed, combed, brushed, cleaned teeth, and made themselves as presentable as yesterday, wearing again their very best.

"Are you beginning to feel like a fool?" whispered Raykin to Arth-Rin.

"No, just tired and bored."

"Tired and bored, I am disappointed," said Sharita crossly. "I hate wearing a crown, it tires my neck. And this gown fits so tight, I feel uncomfortable." She looked reproachfully at Dray-Gon. "Do something!"

"What?" he asked, as tired and bored and disappointed as any of them.

Sharita pouted her lips, growing impatient. She wasn't accustomed to being ignored! She had thought the Gods would welcome them, at least in some small way, and recognize their unprecedented daring and courage for braving this long dangerous journey--to say nothing of their untiring quest for the truth. She threw an angry look at the high green home on silver legs, and jumped to her feet. "I've had enough of sitting around and waiting! Let's eat our dinner and go to bed! At
our
palace, we
never
kept our guests waiting outdoors!"

Retiring to their tents, they ate, grumbling at each other. To go through so much, and to have no reward. Yet, when it was dark and Sharita lay on her bed, she had a secret hope the Gods would not choose this time to invite them inside their high green home and hold an inquisition.

Five days and six nights passed while they waited for an audience, and the Gods in their four-legged green mountain home did not deign to see, or to hear them. They made fires, and dampened them with wet cloths, so that smoke rose dark and curling. They made other fires and smothered them alternately, so the smoke rose fat, white, and billowing. They kept fires burning all night, huge fires that kept them slaving to feed them, and still the Gods didn't see! They prayed long hours, on their knees, even the princess, reverent, respectful prayers, and received absolutely no response. Their prayers became louder, and more demanding, and less respectful, and even impatient and a bit irritated, and nothing happened! Nothing!

Now they were annoyed, angry, filled with frustration and a sense of hopelessness and defeat. Had they traveled so far, and suffered so much, for nothing? Were they to sit here until they grew old and withered, and browned into eternity? No! Damned if they would! They had come to question the Gods--and question they would! But still the problem was there, despite their tenacious resolve.
How?
They had prayed from afar, and the Gods didn't hear, their ancestors had sacrificed without results, and here they were, so near, and as ineffective as ever.

"But we will find a way! There has to be a way!" said Dray-Gon. Somehow, there had to be a way to force the Gods to hear them.

Again they broke camp, packed the supply horshets, and descended from the high level where they had been on eye level with the Gods--if they even had a window. They hadn't seen any--but it was so huge, their mountain home. They reached the flat plain where the Gods' home rose on its towering sliver legs, and set up a new camp at the foot of one of these giant spindles. "Aha!" cried Raykin in satisfaction, vindicated as he peered closely at the leg. "It is as I supposed--not so perfect after all! Look--up close it has brown rusty splotches, and charred places!"

He made Sharita laugh, for he was a notorious complainer, and could find fault with any- and everything. She stepped up very close to the stocky young man in a uniform no longer so splendid, but beginning to show signs of wear and tear. "Look me over closely, Raykin, and tell me what faults you find."

He blushed and stammered and shuffled his feet, and hung his head in humility. "I really can't say that you have any," he muttered in embarrassment.

"Yes, I do. Of course I do. Everyone has faults. I've heard those very words from your own lips. Now tell me truthfully, as if I were just any ordinary girl, and not a princess."

"Yeah, Raykin," encouraged Dray-Gon, "tell the princess how she could improve herself." He flashed Sharita a mocking grin, suggesting she was asking for it.

Challenged, Raykin looked up. "All right, Princess, you have one damn, great big flaw that makes me so mad, sometimes I toss and turn on my bed all night because of it!"

"Oh," murmured Sharita, taken aback and wishing now she hadn't asked, but bravely she said nevertheless: "Go on, tell me what it is, and I will try to rid myself of that fault."

Raykin flushed as he spoke, his eyes turned to study the ground at her feet. "It's your eyes. They never look at me. All they seem to see is Dray-Gon. And he is not one bit better-looking than I am--nor is his position one bit higher than mine. I am as qualified to be your husband as he is, and my marriage proposal has been in your father's office longer than anyone's."

Ashamed, and ill at ease, with all the young men watching and listening to hear her reply, she put her hands on Raykin's shoulders. "Raykin, you and I grew up knowing each other. We attended many of the same school classes, and you were at every one of my birthday balls, and though I like you very much, you seem more like a brother, and I love you in that way." Then she kissed him on the lips in a sisterly way that made Raykin break free and turn and run into a tent.

Now everyone was embarrassed, and they set to with grim determination to find the way to attract the attention of the Gods. It was decided to construct a huge hammer. When they had, it took three men to lift and swing it, and then they appointed teams to swing it, and strike hard against the silver leg. To them the blows of their giant hammer resounded with a thundering noise that hurt their ears. But some voiced the opinion that to the Gods in their high home, it might be only a small tapping, hardly discernible. Not once did they consider that it might not be heard at all.

All day they beat upon the leg with timed and repeated rhythm. When one team tired, an alternate team took over. Their meals, their exercises, the order of their lives were scheduled so that one single beat wouldn't be missed. Only at night did they cease, to begin again at the first sun's dawning.

If the Gods couldn't be attracted with respectful prayers and smoke signals, they would attract them with annoyance, at the risk of ire, anger, or their destructful wrath. Anything would be better than the ignominy of being ignored!

For days and days and days they hammered on the silver leg, until arms ached, and heads ached, and ears hurt. Not ceasing from the first sun's upping to the second sun's downing. Week after week they hammered, banging with impatient temper, angry now at Gods who were so damned indifferent!

Then one day it happened! An ear-rending squealing and grinding emitted from the Gods' high home. Something huge, long, and dark, and quite indefinable reached out of the green home above and sucked them upward! They were as ants swept into a paper bag!

Sharita, on the ground, saw the opening in the Green Mountain close, and Dray-Gon along with five others was gone--plus the huge hammer! She screamed and screamed until she had no voice left to cry out again.

The young men who remained tried to comfort her.

She turned on them angrily. "Oh, I am not afraid for them! I am just so angry! Here I am, left standing on the outside, when I wanted to be there! Oh, it is just not fair!"

Book Four

To Speak
with the
Gods

Prologue

I
nside the Green Mountain home of the Gods, six of the young men from El Dorraine, Uppers and Lowers, were carried, heaped in an undignified, ungraceful, unprepossessing pile, and without ceremony they were dumped on a broad and flat shining surface! Immediately all six scrambled to their feet, discomfited and trembling. They straightened their clothes and quickly assumed what dignity and authority they could muster under the circumstances. Dray-Gon, Arth-Rin, Raykin, Ral-Bar, and two others were there. They looked at each other, then turned to see where they were. All they could see was a tremendous space with giant, shadowy objects with large lights of many colors racing up and down and crossways, as if chasing each other. Never ceasing, constantly changing colors, dazzling their eyes with rainbows that fatigued their brains with colors too bright and too intense...

The Lord God Laughs

S
omething mammoth, something beyond their comprehension, moved behind the transparent film that enclosed them. They were as insects under a bowl! Each was filled with fear, and fully acknowledged it! "Well, at least we have been noticed!" spoke Dray-Gon in a voice that quaked just a bit.

"Yes, more is the pity, now that it has happened!" expressed Arth-Rin, trembling all over on hearing the crashing noises coming from everywhere. Secretly he wished he were home again, safe in his warm bed with the covers pulled up high.

"You know something," said Raykin, "half the time, I doubted there were Gods at all. I thought this mountain was just another of our freaky nature's tricks."

Then booming noises nearly deafened them, causing them to cover their ears with their hands. The thundering rolled over them, assaulting their senses until they felt as stretched thin as a wire and ready to pop!

"Oh, what voices these Gods have!" cried out Ral-Bar, when the noise was over and they could hear their own voices again, and reason and sanity could return.

In the comforting silence, they grew bold enough to search for a way out of the bowl that contained them--but there was no way out. So they waited. They grew tired of standing fearfully, so they sat and waited, less fearfully. They talked among themselves, growing impatient, wondering about the princess, and if she was safe, and if she was frightened. Dray-Gon wondered if she missed him and needed him, and he became aware now that he was important in her life. Time passed, boringly, uncomfortably. They grew tired and hungry, and lay down to sleep on the hard, unyielding, miserable surface. They awoke after a while and waited again, with hunger pains intensified, and thirst unquenched. They talked, and grew tired of conversation that consisted mainly of speculations, so they slept again. They waked again only to complain. Oh, how inhospitably slow were these Gods of the Green Mountain!

Deeply asleep for a third time, they were awakened suddenly by the sound of a mighty, roaring voice. Instantly they sprang to their feet and stood at attention.

"What tiny creatures you are!" bellowed out the thundering voice of a God.

Oh, the princess should be here and hear the welcome of Gods! Dray-Gon thought. And she considered Lowers uncouth and unmannerly!

"We are not 'creatures,' Lord God," answered Dray-Gon stiffly, with some anger showing in his voice. "We are
men
of El Dorraine."

The voice beyond the inverted bowl rang out again, louder than ever, and like thunderbolts clashing, it couldn't be understood. The loud voice softened, and said in a more gentle, quieter tone, "Forgive me, 'men' of El Dorraine, I did not recognize you as such at first. I looked and saw some little things squiggling around, and thought you were only bugs. But I am very intrigued. Repeat what you called me. Just what do you think I am?"

Imagine that--he didn't know!

"You are, of course, a God of the Mountain--one of our Gods!" replied Dray-Gon.

"Yes, so I have gathered from listening to your conversations."

"If you knew, then why did you ask?"

"What audacity for a man so small! Surely you are afraid--just a little?"

"We are more than just a little afraid. Truthfully, it is very terrifying to be in the presence of a God. But we came for this purpose, so we will not cower and act timid. Nor will we be awed because you are so mammoth."

A terrible, ear-battering noise began--and was quickly hushed as if the God knew it hurt their ears.

"Thank you, Lord God. You have a terrible ear-rending voice, so please don't laugh again, or we will all be deafened and unable to hear your reply to our question."

"I will endeavor to keep my humor under control," promised the voice of the God.

"Thank you, Lord God. We do not wish to appear audacious, but since we have never been in the presence of a God before, we are not well versed in the protocol of such lordly proportions," Dray-Gon continued, "and in all honesty, we are tired and hungry, and in need of water, and your floor makes for very uncomfortable sleeping. Yet we will endure all of this, since we are accustomed to discomforts, if you will but answer our question."

"It must be a very important question."

"Indeed! For us, it is the most important question of our time, and we have traveled far to hear your answer. Of course, now that we are here, and we look around, and hear that you see us as only bugs, you will no doubt think our question a triviality. But, Lord God, trivial or not to you, try to see us as men, and our most ancient ancestors have reported from the very beginning that we are built in your image."