Chapter 33: Reunion?
The road stretched ahead under a sky that stayed clear for most of the day. Claude drove while Amon sat in the passenger seat with his legs stretched out and his eyes half closed.
Rocks and dry grass passed by on both sides. Claude kept one hand on the wheel and glanced over more than once.
"Amon, can I get some clarity here?"
"Clarity?... You wanna ask something, shoot."
"Hmmm... how many disciples did you make?" Claude asked.
Amon did not open his eyes right away. "...I don’t know."
Claude turned his head. "What do you mean, you don’t know? I don’t sense any clarity there."
Amon let out a long breath and sat up straighter. He looked at Claude for a few seconds before speaking.
"I am human. I look human. I talk like a human. But I am not the kind of human that walks the First World now.
Okay, where do I start... ummmmm. In the many eons since the Creator made the first ones, people have changed, numbstick.
If you actually compared humans of back then to the humans now, they would start treating their earliest ancestors like literal gods..."
"I still can’t find clarity in your words..."
"Just listen for a sec. You might think birth needs reproduction, sex, pregnancy, and all of that.
It does not.
All birth needs is want. As the second human ever, I still carry that trait. I do not mind sex, though. Or alcohol. Do not judge me on that..."
Claude kept his eyes on the road, but his grip on the wheel tightened.
Amon went on. "That inheritance sits in me. The want to leave kin behind. Causality listens to it. So, with tears, blood, sweat, whatever... it spreads my seed whether I plan it or not."
Claude made a face like he had bitten something sour. "You said... seed."
"I did."
"I did not want to ask. Now I cannot stop picturing myself as one of your... seeds."
Amon shrugged. "That is your problem, not mine, numbstick."
They drove in silence for a while after that. The land grew rougher. Hills rose in the distance, gray and sharp.
Claude checked the map Amon had given him earlier. Rocky Mount was marked with a simple circle and nothing else.
No roads led all the way to the top. When the paved path ended, they switched to a dirt track that bounced the car hard enough to make Claude’s teeth click together.
Amon pointed left at a fork. "That way."
Claude turned. He kept waiting for an attack — bandits, beasts, something — but nothing came. The place stayed quiet, and only wind moved through the dry brush.
And finally, they reached a low hill, and Amon told him to stop. Claude parked and cut the engine, and both of them got out and stretched.
"Now... we walk from this point," Amon said.
Claude nodded and locked the car. They started up the slope.
The light turned orange, then gray. Claude was about to ask how much farther when Amon stopped and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. The keys vibrated in his hand. A soft light ran along their edges.
Claude frowned. "What is that?"
Amon sighed. "I forgot. I left someone to guard my notebook. That someone never actually liked the job."
"One of your... seeds?"
"No. Someone I once respected."
Clouds rolled in fast. The sky that had been clear an hour ago turned dark. Claude looked up. "More drama and storytelling again?"
"That is why shortcuts are lame as hell," Amon answered.
Thunder!!!!
Rain fell in heavy sheets. It was not monsoon season.
No one expected rain here, but the drops hit hard and cold.
"Man, you should have told me if it was going to rain..."
Claude cursed under his breath as his clothes soaked through in seconds. Amon did not wait. He grabbed Claude around the waist and under the knees and lifted him like a princess.
"Hey! Put me down!" Claude shouted over the rain.
"Hang tight, Cinderella."
Amon ran. The ground blurred under his feet. Trees and rocks passed in streaks, and Claude held on because falling at that speed would break bones.
In a few minutes they covered the distance that should have taken an hour on foot. A small hut came into view on a flat patch of ground. Amon set Claude down in front of it. Both of them dripped water onto the dirt.
Claude wiped rain from his eyes. "That was not worth it, and by the way... why didn’t you use that speed earlier?"
Amon looked at him. "You want to be carried like a princess the whole way?"
Claude shut his mouth.
THUNDER!!!
Thunder rolled again. An old man stepped out from the side of the hut. He leaned on a cane. His back bent forward.
White hair hung past his shoulders, and his eyebrows were so long they almost covered his eyes. He stopped a few paces away and planted the cane hard in the mud.
"Who dares walk into my territory?" the old man said.
Claude looked from the old man to Amon. "This is the one you respected?"
"Once... not anymore," Amon said with a sigh, and walked closer. He bent a little at the waist. "Hey, junior. Still alive?"
The old man’s face went red. He raised the cane and swung. The stick hit Amon’s shoulder, then his arm, then the side of his head.
None of the blows carried real force. They landed like someone swatting at a fly that would not leave.
"Who are you to call an old man... junior?" the old man shouted between swings.
Amon stood there and took it. "I am a guest, and it is raining. Does your law not treat guests like gods?"
The old man glared. His eyes were cloudy behind the white brows. He lowered the cane after a few more half-hearted hits. "Hmmm... come in."
He turned and walked toward the door, slow and careful with each step. Claude’s patience ran thin.
He stepped past Amon, opened the door, and held it. The old man muttered something but went inside, and Amon followed. Claude closed the door behind them while water dripped from their clothes onto the wooden floor.
Inside, the hut was one main room. A fire burned in a pit in the center. Smoke rose through a hole in the roof. A small kitchen area sat to the left with a few pots and a wooden counter.
A worn mattress lay against the far wall, musty, and the air smelled of wood smoke and old wool.
"Make yourselves at home," the old man said. "I have some sheep gravy left. You want some?"
Amon sat on a low stool near the fire. "Tea is fine."
The old man either did not hear or ignored him. He moved to the kitchen and ladled thick brown gravy into two bowls. Claude started to stand and help.
"Stay still," the old man growled, forcing Claude to step back.
Claude sat back down. Ten minutes passed while the old man worked. He brought the bowls over and set them on a flat stone near the fire.
Then he sat opposite them and looked straight at Amon.
"Now, back to you... who are you? Why are you here? If you came to steal, I have nothing worth taking."
Claude picked up a spoon and dipped it into the gravy. Amon’s hand shot out and caught his wrist; he froze with the spoon halfway to his mouth.
Amon simply shook his head, telling him not to touch the soup, then his voice went flat and serious. He spoke a short poem instead of answering, each line clear and even:
"God walked the world with one small child,
Through dust and storm they both were wild.
They climbed the peaks and crossed the seas,
They laughed at death and bent the breeze."
The old man went still. The spoon in his own hand stopped moving. His cloudy eyes widened. A slow smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. The lines on his face deepened, but the anger drained out of them...
"After thousands of years," the old man cut him off, "he came back. For thousands of years I waited. And now... he is back."
Silence settled over the hut. Only the fire crackled. Rain still hit the roof in a steady rhythm, and Claude set his spoon down carefully. He looked between the two men and kept his mouth shut.
"You finally came ba—"
Knock! Knock!
The old man turned his head. "Who is it? Go away."
The door opened anyway. A bald man in shorts stood in the doorway.
Rain ran down his bare scalp and dripped from his chin. He stayed just outside the threshold, one foot on the wet ground and one on the wooden step.
"Let me come inside," Baal said.