Meanwhile: the Shepherds

Though the moon was high, turning the world silver and pale below it, there were some blots of shadow in the woods where the light shivered and danced aside. They moved slowly, strolling through a forest grown dead and silent except for the occasional wail or groan from other shadows, creeping along in the wake of the blots. Once, a keening broke free of one such shadow, shattering itself from tree to tree and filling the brisk night air for just a moment. Then the silence rushed in, sealing the wound that the sound had made. Over the tree-shrouded hills to the south, a small tidy township stirred from sleep because of unsettling dreams. But none would wake, and even if they had, they would have felt compelled to stay in their homes.

The blots slowly convened near a broken stone, mostly covered by moss and vines, and one of the blots drifted to the stone while the others started to form a loose circle around it. The silence began to brim with whispers, soft conversation mimicking the ink splash of shadows and the pale stillness of moonlight. As more blots emerged, the whispering grew until the blot near the stone shrugged off the darkness, letting it boil free like thick smoke from his shoulders and his shrouded head. In one hand he held a crooked staff of something impossibly dark, which he raised slowly, making the air ache, and then brought down on the stone with a sound like ice cracking. In the quiet that followed, he spoke softly in a tongue known only to those present. His voice mimicked the night around him, if the night were breathing.

“Many of us are not here.”

Often the case, in these later centuries, he thought before continuing.

“Some are gone to deceive our enemies, some are waiting and watching over a Flock which cannot be ignored even to meet with brethren, and some few are still standing vigil over our homeland. Since our last meeting, only one of us has perished, and yet we have three now who will be joining us. For the first time in five hundred years, our numbers grow; welcome them as Shepherds, share your wisdom with them, and keep them safe as they begin their own Pilgrimages.”

The speaker paused, indicating three of the once-blots, now also veiled and wrapped figures carrying crooks of darkness. There was a murmur of greeting, and some of the others moved around the circle to offer a gesture of welcome in passing one hand close to the hands of the three. When the circle had reformed again, the speaker waited a moment before continuing.

“Before we begin, I bring you news that another argot coventry has formed, seven strong. I also mention that the crater where our City once stood remains clear of trespassers, and that the structure there grows, though slowly and slowly. By all accounts I have received, we have the initiative against the Ignorant again, but we must continue to be patient; it is not yet time. Follow your Pilgrimages, collect your Flocks, guide them and watch over them. The City will be rebuilt one day.”

Again, he paused, cradling his crook, and the others all did the same as he intoned the Beginning.

“The Name-givers showed us the world beneath the world, showed us dreams and taught us art. They showed us meaning and concept from being and nature, and our ancestors Became that which they did not understand so they might Understand. Our Teacher, like the other Teachers, sought the Meaning beneath the power of a Name-giver's vision, and so the City was built. Sequestered, we learned more about the Name-givers than they knew of themselves, and yet the Work was unfinished when the other Teachers fell upon the City. The City was destroyed, and all those within were destroyed. Much of the Work was lost, and our Teacher was also lost. We are the sons and daughters who remained, and I, the son of our Teacher, am the Teacher now.”

“The Work must continue,” murmured the others. “We are its Shepherds.”

“The Conclave may begin.”

He rapped his staff against the stone again, and the circle closed as the Shepherds drew together to share all that they had learned since the last Conclave. As they began to converse, he stayed where he was, listening and remembering the time, ages and ages past, when he'd stood in a vast hall of black stone and pondered the questions that the Shepherds had been trying to understand before they'd been Shepherds. He had been young then, standing with his mother and learning the convoluted loops of logic, assumption and philosophy inherent to Name-giving races. It had been alien and wonderful, and in those days, the questions were still so new and strange.

What is evil? What is horror? What is corruption? What is hatred? What is temptation? Why do the Name-givers fear all these things and yet always return to them? Why do they themselves fail to consistently explain these things or the reasons why they are? Before the Alfar met the Name-giving races, they did not know good or evil. Things merely were or were not. Why should something need a name when its nature was so apparent by the fact of it being? The power of names had been the first thing the Alfar learned, and the Dana Aelf were born from that attempt to understand. The Dana Aelf were still trying to refine and become that knowledge, just as the Work of the Shepherds had continued for thousands of years.

We did not name evil, he thought. We did not name corruption, and these things did not exist to us until the Name-givers woke our forefathers and showed us that a thing can have Meaning without Being. If a thing is, then it is, and it must be known. That so many hate and fear us means that we must have discovered some truth in these things.

“Teacher?”

He turned to look at three of the Shepherds; he knew two of them. Like him, they were some of the few left from the Beginning. He looked down at the third, smaller one and smiled beneath his veil. “Welcome,” he said.

“He hasn't begun his Pilgrimage yet,” said one of the parents. “But he would like to discuss his formulation with you; we've found it very novel, and I think it only needs some refinement from a new perspective.”

“I'd be honored,” replied the Teacher, and looked down at the young Shepherd. “Did you wish for my advice?”

“Yes,” came the reply. “All that we do must be measured against what has come before. I am still young, and this is my first Conclave.”

The Teacher kept his hidden smile, and then looked at the two parents. “I know you two have much to share with the others, and many old friends to see again. I'll listen to your son, and he will start his Pilgrimage when this Conclave is over.”

They took a half step back in respect, and one drifted a hand over the shoulder of their son in quiet pride before they moved to join the others. The Teacher looked back at the new Shepherd, leaned on his crook, and considered his own sense of pride. The Shepherds, like their elven cousins, did bear children, but children born between two Shepherds were very rare in this age. When he was a child in the days of the City, he had been taught in one of many Conclaves of thirty children, arguing and discussing and examining. But now, here, after so long, a young Shepherd had come to him to present his Pilgrimage.

I do not have to say that I am proud, he thought. I am certain this young one knows it, and I know his parents well; I am certain his Pilgrimage will be a brilliant addition to the Work, and to build a Pilgrimage now means to struggle against being hunted, being isolated and the strain of a world that detests you. But fear us as they will, once the Work progresses, they will come to us again, as so many of them did during the time they call the War. For us, it was Enlightenment, and we know that whatever it is that they call evil is something they cannot leave behind. One day, they will come back to us.

“Walk with me,” he said. “And tell me how you wish others to walk with you.”