Sundrinker

As I died, Du lifted my spirit from my body and I looked down upon our earth from the blackness, where the lights of the night sky sang with mighty voices of crackings and whistlings and odd growlings. And Du said, "Look on my works."

And there was, near at hand, a huge ball of molten fire that shot out from its cauldron streamers of light, and below me was a ball showing the colors of blue and green and I could see whiteness covering the land and the waters and gleams of reflected light from the snowy wastes of the northland.

And Du said, "There I created you."

For we and our earth are not the center of the universe. The ball that is our earth spins and travels far through blackness and is warmed only by that molten fire.

"Du!" I said.

And Du said, "None have seen my face, much less those who in the past ignored my teaching and flaunted my word, for that which you see is nothing more than one of my lesser creations, set there in the emptiness to give life to you."

"Teach me, Master," I said, "for I am in Du's paradise." And Du said, "When I saw a need to fill the emptiness I made the sun and the earth and those other suns and earths that you, in your ignorance, call the lights in the sky. I gave you the earth, and its goodness, I gave you the succulent green, growing things and the fresh waters and there was none to come against you. I taught you a reverence for life, and I put upon that earth the small, furred animals and the farls of the forests and others that you know not. And I made you the greatest of all living things, keepers and eaters of the green grass and the fruits and the myriad of other growing things, the vines and the small flowers, the towering trees and the growing shrubs, and of the animals I gave you custody, to see, and to admire, and enjoy." And I came to know that all is a oneness, that all life is kindred, whether it be mobile, fixed, or animal. And I said, "Master, how did we err?"

And Du said, "One tasted flesh and ignored the warnings of my spokesmen. Others tasted flesh and then I brought against you the Enemy, the Devourers, and for generations I have punished you." And I asked, "How, Master, can we atone for the sins of our ancestors?"

And Du said, "A few were faithful to my word, and I led them out of the land of death."

And I asked, "Do you speak of the Drinkers of the Valley?" And Du said, "But they, too, were weak, and began to see my face in the disc of the sun, forgetting the teachings of my spokesmen. Yet there was a certain devoutness that remained, and I relent." And I said, "Du is great. What have I to do, Master, now that I am dead?"

And Du said, "My son, you sleep only, for you are my instrument. I have regretted my own creation, and you will be my instrument of punishment for those who have for so long oppressed my people." And I asked, "When I awaken, Master, how will I know the proper course?"

And Du said, "I will be with you. I will form your words as you teach my people, and I will provide helpers for you. Those you will instruct as I instruct you."

And I said, "Teach me, Master."

And Du said, "You will not take the all of any living entity, except in doing my work against the Devourers. Even then you will be merciful, for there is room for all. You will respect the rights of all brothers, neither taking nor desiring that which is theirs. You will obey me in all things, for I live, and I am unique. You will honor your old ones, and see that they have choice earth where they will await my call to paradise. You will honor the family unit, and cleave to your chosen mate, and teach your offspring the word of the one Du. You will heal the scars made upon my earth by the devourers, for their building is not my wish. You will spread my word to the far corners of the earth, and release others who are in bondage."

And I felt myself falling and saw no more. "Master," I cried, "I am but one Drinker."

And Du said, although I heard not, but only sensed it, "One can change a world when he believes."

And I cried, "Master, there are questions. Have I sinned in loving my mate, in being with her for pleasure only?"

And Du said, "Have I not made you as you are?" Then I heard no more, save for the whispers of those who await Du's call to paradise, and I awoke. Now all living things combine in a oneness. Now I know that the sun, whom we have called Du, is but one small creation of the one Du and his gift to us. Now these words will be copied and recopied and those who copy and read will teach others to copy and read and if we learn, and obey, and keep the laws of Du this land shall be ours once more in oneness.

Thus it was told to me. Thus it will be.

— The testament of Duwan the Drinker, Chosen of Du.

Chapter Ten

Duwan watched from a hill as Kooh burned again. He had come to a half-dead city to find only a few Devourers. Below him, moving south, there was a large group of females and young, for he had been merciful, giving orders to spare those who did not fight against Drinkers. He had had to be firm with that order until a Drinker leader, from the ranks of those who had led the last uprising in Kooh, smiled and said, "I see your plan, Master. Dead, the females, the young, the weak and the ill are a burden to no one. Alive, they will strain the resources of the city of Tshou, where they will surely go."

Duwan was content to let them believe that he had motives other than mercy. But Tambol understood, for he had studied the writings that Duwan had dictated to a former temple slave. And there were others, too, for Duwan spent much time in teaching, and those he taught multiplied his efforts.

Even as he watched the Devourers move to the south he saw them passed by a smaller group of Drinkers, and to his sadness there was killing and maltreatment until a unit of his army arrived and stopped the violence. He did not know how they found him, the ex-slaves who flocked to his army with each passing day. The horde that he had led out of the western hills had almost doubled, with ex-slaves from almost all of the Devourer cities, and they reported hardship among the former masters, and resistance to the order by Elnice of Arutan for total mobilization. Nevertheless, there was a Devourer army before the coastal city of Tshou. The climactic battle was fought on the beaches, and the receding waves carried with them severed limbs and white foam turned green with blood.

Now, behind him, lay Tshou, walls dismantled stone by stone, buildings laid waste. Already the creeping green things were climbing, growing, covering the mound that had been a city.

"Where will we live, Master, when we destroy all the buildings, all the huts, all the homes?" it was asked.

He set the few remaining valley Drinkers to searching out the think vines that grew wild all over the Land of Many Brothers, then to teaching their cultivation and their control. Some learned quickly, and began to teach others. All along the route from Tshou to the south Duwan left growing villages, peopled largely by females, young, and the old. Before Arutan, Duwan said farewell to Dagner, whose hardening was so severe that he had to be carried. He was returned to earth with ceremony, with noble words spoken by Tambol, and there was gladness, for now it was known that Dagner joined those who lived on, waiting for Du's call to paradise.

Arutan fell only after long siege, and it was discovered that the High Mistress, Elnice of Arutan, had fled to the south upon the approach of Duwan's army.

To the credit of the Devourers, few males survived, choosing to fight to the death. And from the growing horde of Devourer females Drinkers took mates. This disturbed Duwan, at first, until he reread his own testament to find the words, "All life is a oneness." Could that not be applied to Devourer females, so long as they choose to abide by the teachings? To his relief, all offspring of Drinker-Devourer matings had the pores of the Drinkers on their feet.

Now, one by one, the remaining Devourer cities fell, and were returned to the earth. Survivors marched to the south and were escorted into the heated, jungly lands from whence they had come, although many chose to stay, to adopt Drinker ways, once they were given the choice at Duwan's orders. Nor was there any slavery, although many clamored for it as a revenge for their generations of oppression.

Five years from the time that Duwan lived after being dead, he marched toward the north, accompanied only by one, a sleekly beautiful Jai. From the great mountains of the west to the sea, and south to the sodden, fever-ridden jungles the Land of Many Brothers was Drinker, and he was tired.

Although it had been a long time, he found the canyon without problem. Once they had made bough beds and built a fire in the cave he fell asleep immediately and slept through the night and into the next day until the sun had already sunk below the rim of the canyon. He roused himself, washed in the stream that had long since purified itself of the carnage of battle, and with Jai at his side sat in the center of the grove of his grandmother. The trees had grown impressively in the years since the plantings. As darkness fell he mused and listened to the whisperers. No word was distinguishable.

"I have returned, Grandmother," he said, aloud. The whisperings did not change.

"Does she hear?" Jai asked.

"I believe she does, but she is nearer to Du than we, and not concerned with the things of our lives now."

"Do you think she knows how things are?"

"Yes. When I was in the earth, and she and the others sent tendrils to nourish me with their own substance there where times when I was almost wakeful and could sense, or feel, events at a great distance."

"Tell her, Duwan," Jai said.

"Yes." He nodded, and it seemed, as his head dropped, that he was sleeping. He did not speak, but Jai heard, and was frightened, at first, for she had not experienced that form of closeness to such an extent, having heard only a few distinct whispers from ancestors, never the thoughts of the living, but then she was not surprised, for he was Duwan, and she was his.

"In the end, Grandmother, all living things were one, and they combined to overcome the enemy. Tall brothers dropped limbs upon them in the forests. Vines writhed and tripped their warriors at crucial times. The grass bled of its substance and made itself slick under their feet, and even the tiny spores of the green, living things flew into their eyes to impede their vision."

For one moment it seemed that all the whisperings combined into one long, hissed sound. "Soooooooooo."

In the cave, Jai nestled against him, he talked to her gently, telling her of his love, begging her to forgive the years when he could not devote himself to her, and she, weeping happily, turned her face to him.

"A Duwan fighting to free our land, a Duwan to occupied with his duties that he has time only to speak to me once a year is better than any other," she said. "But now we are here, alone, and the first snow will come soon. I will be selfish and keep you to myself for a long, long winter."

"That is a threat that I will face gladly," he said.

"And you will not think, and this is an order, my master, about crossing the western mountains to free the slaves there. Nor will you think of going to the north to bring your valley Drinkers to join us. Is that agreed?"

"Well, perhaps I will not think of those things too often."

"There is," she whispered, "another matter that I want you to consider." She pulled up her tunic and placed his hand on her budpoint. He felt the sweet heat and smiled. Then he jerked his head down and looked at her in the flickering firelight to see that she was blooming.

"It's early yet," he said.

"That's so our son will be well formed by spring and you will not be tempted to drag me on a long trek to the north."

"Humm," he said, drawing close so that his nostrils were filled with the flowery smell of her.

Author's Note: All writers of imaginative fiction are familiar with the difficulty of creating environments or lifeforms that bear as little as possible resemblance to the endlessly astounding variety of life on our own planet. When I first conceived the idea of having the Drinkers convert sunlight directly into energy, I felt that I had come up with, at least, a new slant on life. Then, in recent months, I read of the work of the Chemist Pill-Soon Song and others at Texas Tech, who, it was reported at the annual meeting of the American Society of Photobiology, had discovered a blue-green protozoan, Stentor coeruleus, that uses photosynthesis to create adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the chemical used as energy for all cells. Thus, without chlorophyll, using the photosynthetic pigment protein stentorin, S. coeruleus uses light to make energy, and the one Creator makes fiction, once again, merely a reflection of life.