Soldier at the Door (63 page)

I warn you now that we cannot continue in the ways we are now. Our lives and existence on this world are not forever. An end will come.

In the arguing among our people I see the seeds of antipathy and apathy that will grow to destroy the world we are striving so hard to create. We’re drifting from the structure the Creator left us, and if we continue on this path our descendants will not be found faithful at the Last Day when the test ends. What we do today affects our children and their children. For their sakes, we can’t continue down this way you are planning. I know your secrets, and they will destroy us all. I beg you to abandon this!

You know as well as I do that the Last Day will find each one of
us facing either the reward of Paradise to enjoy the company of our family and friends for the next one thousand years and beyond, or the misery of the Dark Deserts to endure the torture of knowing we failed to do His will.              

When that Last Day comes, no one knows but our Creator, an
d
its arrival will surprise those that fight against the Creator’s people.

On that day do not be one of those surprised to find yourself on the wrong side.

On that day do not find yourself with a blade in hand ready to charge your brother or sister.

On that day be one of the many standing with the guide, having seen the signs and re
cognizing what is coming.

Before the Last Day will be a land tremor more powerful than any ever experienced. It will awaken the largest mountain and change all that we know in the world. Those changes
will bring famine, death, and desperation to the world. And that desperation will cause the world’s army to seek to destroy the faithful of the Creator.

Be among those faithful to the Creator!

Be among those standing firm for what you know, having not so quickly forgotten His words to us!

Be among those who see the marvelous deli
verance from the enemy the Creator will send us! For He will send deliverance before He sends destruction to those who fight Him!

Don’t destroy His structure for our survival. What you’re planning to do will ruin—

There was more he was trying to say, but he wasn’t allowed to. Mahrree read the following account of those who rushed the Great Guide—as he was remembered—while he stood on a large rock to address the people who came to him demanding changes to their world. With knives and stones they attacked him, shoving him off the boulder, then stabbing and beating him as he cried out for unde
rstanding and faith in what they had learned not so long ago. They didn’t like his words, so they silenced them.

No one came to his aid. Everyone else fled in fear, hiding in caves to avoid the confrontation. It was the first violence their ance
stors had ever experienced, and bravery wasn’t something they had yet learned. They hadn’t yet made the connection that faith and courage were opposite ends of the same stick.

Each man who attacked Guide Hierum had personally known the Creator, had sat at His feet and learned from Him. But they chose
to ignore all His teachings and words, as if overtaken by the power of the Refuser, and wanted to destroy the man who wouldn’t let them forget. The Last Day, they had reasoned, would be thousands of years away. Now was the time to live the way
they
wanted to live. If necessary, they could apologize for any wrong-doing later. It would be easy to get forgiveness, they rationalized. After a slap on the hand for their disobedience, the Creator would surely allow them into Paradise. He said He truly loved them, so why would He deny them what they truly wanted?

The only witness to the horror was one of Guide Hierum’s assi
stants, Clewus, who eventually became the next guide. He was hiding silently and safely in a tree by Guide Hierum’s command. The assistant wept as he wrote the Great Guide’s last words and watched his death. It was the first murder, and it was the end of the gloriously perfect peace they had enjoyed for the six years they had existed in the world.

The men who attacked the guide created a secret order of oaths they developed to control the most coveted piece of land they found. It was “eastward,” the only specifications The Writings gave to its location.

Mahrree was always intrigued by that. Didn’t that mean they used to live “westward”? Might their people actually have
started
in Terryp’s discovered land in the far west, beyond the desert of Sands? Might that have been one of the amazing discoveries Terryp made, that the king didn’t want known? The Writings were vague about the location of where the Creator had first placed them, and all of the other records kept from that time were destroyed in that fire so many years ago. So much lost, Mahrree sighed again in frustration. So many details about their origins and first years, gone forever.

Their ancestors had a better way of living, she was sure of it. But no one knew it now or even cared to rediscover it. There were hints and suggestions scattered all throughout The Writings, but no one bothered to put them all together. Mahrree frequently tried, as she did again that morning, but knew she was missing key pieces to an intriguing puzzle.

Perrin didn’t know any more than she did, and Rector Lunting actually skipped that section when he covered it a few weeks ago. Everyone always seems more interested in what the “awakening” of Mt. Deceit might mean, so useless speculation was all that was discussed that Holy Day.

Mahrree occasionally wondered if Shem might have any i
nsights about how their ancestors first lived. He was constantly surprising them with his understanding and knowledge. Among other things.

Her eyes travelled again to Guide Hierum’s warnings.

On that day do not be one of those surprised to find yourself on
the wrong side. On that day do not find yourself with a blade in hand ready to charge your brother or sister.

Right now it was obvious which side was the right side—opposite of the Guarders. But both sides, the army and the Guarders, held blades and charged each other. The only way someone could be “surprised” would be because they were sure they
were
on the Creator’s side, but weren’t.

That worried Mahrree.

What if they were
already
on the wrong side and didn’t recognize it? They certainly would be “surprised.” Guide Hierum had called “the world’s army” the enemy. But how could the Guarder side be the right one? They hadn’t “guarded” since they betrayed the last guide. All they did was terrorize.

“Perrin’s right,” she murmured. “A complicated math problem with too many unknowns and variables. Oh, how I hate those u
nknowns.”

She shook off the detestable notion of doing math so early in the morning, and instead continued reading the account of what ha
ppened to the first families.

After the Great Guide died, a large group followed the six men and their families “eastward” to the new city. New villages popped up everywhere around it, given designations based on the terrain—Sands, Grasses, Winds, Marsh, and Rivers.

But the original six rebellious men named their city after themselves and their new order of trade. They called it Idumea, taking a letter of each of the six men’s names to produce the name. Guide Clewus didn’t record their individual names, hoping that those who read The Writings many years later wouldn’t seek out those of similar names, either to take revenge or to take the oaths. The men of Idumea established rules, forcing settlers to hand over goods and nuggets of gold to secure their chosen plots and to ensure security from the six holders of the land.

Ironically, Mahrree often considered, the only ones at the time threatening violence
were
those six men and their associates. People were buying protection from their aggressors, handing over their gold and silver to make sure they wouldn’t come steal it later. Mahrree still puzzled over why so many first families agreed to such a manipulative system. It was exactly what the Great Guide was trying to warn them about, that destroying the Creator’s order of government would ruin their prosperity. Perhaps the early families agreed to the extortion out of fear.

Or maybe, from lack of faith.

“In either case,” she muttered sadly, “they were all cowards.”

Not all families moved eastward with the founders of Idumea, but eventually everyone found themselves in the city or the su
rrounding villages. And soon the influence, attitudes, and way of ‘business’ these six men created filled each village and the entire world, despite the pleadings of Guide Clewus.

The land was meant for everyone, he tried to remind them, gi
ven freely from the Creator—just like the apples in the orchard that grew of their own accord and sat waiting for whomever needed them. The land and its products weren’t meant for people to horde and sell. That was the Refuser’s influence.

But no one listened to his words.

Today they still ignored those pleas, Mahrree realized. Guide Hierum died saying his words in vain. No one listened then, and no one lived the Creator’s way anymore now. Everything had a price. From a grain of wheat to the death of a man, the right amount of gold nuggets or slips of silver could secure it.

Mahrree felt a chill go through her, despite the heat coming from the fire. Always when she read that passage she felt a deep sense of loss. Their way of life was now considered
only commerce. Even Mahrree gave a large bag of silver slips to the daughter of the widow who owned her house before her, so Mahrree could make sure no one else could lay claim to it.

On the one hand she could see how it was considered fair—she
gave pieces of something shiny taken from the ground in exchange for another piece of ground.

But on the other hand it seemed
peculiar.

The man who claimed that piece of land where her house stood decades before didn’t pay anyone for it. He just took it. Was it right that he should demand the widow to pay for it
simply because he was the first one there?

And the family who owned the mine in Trades from which the gold nuggets and silver slips were cast didn’t
make
the nuggets or veins. They didn’t even find or dig them out. Their ancestors just claimed that piece of land, had other men and women labor to get the shiny bits out for them, and took the majority of the earnings for something they didn’t create, earn, or even pay for. It wasn’t destiny that they found that line of gold in the rock and laid claim to it all, but they acted as if it were. That was the way of the world, Mahrree considered, as unfair and exploitive as it was.

And a gnawing in Mahrree’s heart said,
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be
.

Guide Hierum knew it, and Mahrree knew it too. But she didn’t know what to do about it.

She stared at the page, not really seeing it, but still pondering the pleas of Guide Clewus: this world was freely given, and meant to be freely shared. Her thoughts travelled back to Idumea. While all that she heard about it, that Idumea was the pinnacle of progress and achievement—except in Perrin’s eyes—there was no denying it: Idumea was founded by traitors and murderers who restructured the entire way of life the Creator established for them.

And, Mahrree suspected, Idumea was
still
run by traitors and murderers who ignored the Creator’s teachings. Maybe that’s why Perrin hated the city so much. He likely felt the evil that still lurked there, lying in disguise beneath every distinctive building and unique feature. The elaborate garb of the power-hungry kings was now replaced by the red coats and white ruffled shirts of twenty-three Administrators. Even evil can appear lovely in the right hat.

She shook off the thought, disappointed that she couldn’t think of any way else to honor or follow the early guides.

Except . . . maybe harvest neglected apples and give them away.

Mahrree noticed the water in her mug on the side table begin to tremble. She instinctively grabbed the sides of the table to steady it
and glanced around the room. Some of the books stored loosely on the shelves began to shiver, and the floor beneath her chair rolled ever so slightly. She waited patiently, looking back again at the words in The Writings:

. . . a land tremor more powerful than ever experienced.

Tremors like this one happened at least once a season. Her family would sleep through this one, as would most of Edge. During Perrin’s first year in Edge he always woke up when the ground shook, unaccustomed to the force and frequency of land tremors in the north. Pools and Idumea, where he was born and raised, noticed the land shift only a couple of times a year. And in the far south of Flax and Waves, where Shem came from, land tremors were rarely felt.

But Mahrree never dove under the table like her husband and their favorite soldier did when the ground moved. She could tell from the outset just how bad each one would be. Her main concern right now was making sure her water didn’t slosh out and dampen any of her papers. She lifted the mug to lessen its shaking. The m
otion around her finally slowed, then stopped, without water spilling anywhere.