Free 04c Dreams of Fire and Gods: Gods by James Erich

brought up from the kitchen.”
     
     
    K OREH lived with his family for several years. How many, he couldn’t say exactly. But he’d witnessed so many snowfalls and spring thaws and harvests that he’d begun to lose count of them. It was a peaceful life and one full of joy, playing with his sisters—Rügind and the twins, Rös and Rösnem—going fishing with Emik, and doing repairs around the farm with his father. Some days, he helped his mother in the kitchen or around the cottage. She didn’t actually need the help, but he enjoyed spending time with her.
    Work on the farm wasn’t at all strenuous. Koreh’s mother and father labored in the kitchen or in the fields because they liked to keep busy. But there was never too much work for one person to handle. His father never returned from the pasture exhausted, and his mother never seemed stressed by her baking. Koreh and Emik helped when they were asked but had few chores and plenty of time for fishing or skinny-dipping or building tree houses. Koreh made dolls for Rügind and played hide-and-seek with Rös and Rösnem.
    The snow came, and they built snowmen. The spring and summer came, and they picked flowers. In fall, they picked apples and roasted kanun seeds. The years flew by, but the children remained the same. Rügind was always four years old. For her and all of Koreh’s siblings, the time spent here had already grown longer than the time they’d lived in the world of mortal men. Their memory of that life was beginning to dim. Even for Koreh, it was growing increasingly difficult to recall his previous life in Dasak.
    Except for Sael. Sael’s face came to him at night in his dreams, and Koreh often woke screaming from reliving that moment when Sael slipped from his grasp and slid into the chasm. One night, his mother heard him and came into his room. She set the candle she’d been carrying on the table beside him and sat on his bed, brushing his damp hair off his sweating brow.
    “I missed you so much when we were separated,” she said softly. “The girls—especially Rügind—were so young, they hardly remember living in Dasak at all. But your father and I and Emik…. We remembered. And we missed you more than I can ever say. But I knew you’d come eventually.” She smiled at him, her eyes shining with undisguised affection. “One day, your nimen will join you here, and we’ll welcome him into our family. You know this. You just need to be patient.”
    Koreh could only nod unhappily and try to calm his panicked gasping. Eventually, his mother kissed him goodnight and went back to her room, leaving the burning candle by his bedside to comfort him. Koreh lay there in the warm glow of the candlelight, feeling desperately lonely and longing for the feel of Sael in his arms once more. Not someday, but now.
    More years passed by and the pain of Sael’s absence only grew sharper over time. Koreh remembered Chya—who had never returned for him—saying that time passed differently here than it did in Dasak. A month in Bashyeh might be no more than a day in Dasak. Koreh had now been here years, if not decades. He was beginning to lose track. But a decade in Bashyeh might be less than a year in Dasak.
    One day, as he and his younger brother sat by the stream fishing, Koreh was gazing into the water, not really looking at anything in particular, as he thought about this. How old was Sael now? Just a year or two older than the last time they’d been together? If so, Koreh might have to endure centuries of loneliness before Sael reached old age!
    The thought was unbearable.
    He watched as a large trout swam lazily against the current, moving closer to the pool where he’d dropped his baited fishing hook. The pool itself was out of the main current, and the water there was nearly still, reflecting the dark canopy of leaves over the river. There was a bright patch of blue sky in the reflection and to Koreh’s surprise, something moved across it, blocking