Prologue - Qávasu

Prologue to Book 2: In the Day of the Lion. Content warning: injury detail

As the final rock ground into place, the young man and the lion stood in the cave and regarded each other. Excited voices outside faded away on the evening air as the crowd filed back down the narrow track to the village. The young man had been sentenced to the ordeal, and they had carried out the sentence. The evildoer to the lion.

For a long moment, nothing happened. The air within was thick with lion-musk and the smell of death. In one corner, light filtered down onto a shallow pool, filled from a stream that passed through the rocks. After filling the pool, the flow dropped into a crevice and vanished. The beast slowly turned away from its prey and padded over to the water. Lowering its great, tawny head to the surface, it lapped at the clean freshness. Bones and shreds were scattered on both sides of the pool.

The condemned man stood motionless, heart pounding in his chest. Every breath that remained to him before the cave-king finally pounced for its kill was one he had no right to expect.

He was surprised by his own feelings, standing here finally at the threshold of destruction. He had imagined only a solitary fear, the horror of great jaws tearing at his flesh. In that terrified vision he had been alone. Here in the cave, however, there was another. An unexpected sense of companionship. Here there were two, not one: the lion and the man.

The cave-lion was larger than its cousins on the plains. When it raised its head after drinking, its eyes were level with those of the two-legged creature that stood swaying behind it. Slowly turning, it padded back across the uneven floor and stopped in front of him. A low growl rumbled in its broad chest, modulating slightly with its breathing. The creature was neither threatened nor threatening. It stood at peace, but not in silence.

As the lion’s first breath wafted onto his face, a tendril of invitation snaked into his mind like a wisp of smoke from a morning-fire. A chink opened in his consciousness, a crack through which a strange and unknown beauty began to reveal itself. A gentle breeze rippling across yellow fields under hot sunshine, laden trees offering shade on a primal plain. It drew his heart inward, this shining world of plenty where lions, antelope and men all had their part in the ancient dance of life. Very slowly, as the lion breathed in front of him, the stench of the cave retreated and the vision became clearer, singing within his soul.

Carried into his mind by the unseen beauty was a word. No voice, nor anything that eye had ever seen nor ear heard. It was pure knowledge, a call, gentle but incisive. Silent words seeped into his heart, deep and replete with ancient authority.

‘Come with me.’

The man resisted. It was all too strange to bear. His capacity was filled by the large animal before him, all claws and teeth and hot breath. The fear left no space in his soul. He could not accept this unknown thing that was appearing in his mind. He shook his head slightly. No.

The pounce was precise and restrained. From such a short distance it was barely necessary; a mere shifting forward of the lion’s weight. In a moment the man found himself on the hard floor of the cave, head on the ground, body pinned down beneath two great paws, hot breath full in his face.

Now he gave himself over utterly to fear. He screamed with all the force and volume he could muster, thrashing and wriggling under the power that held him supine, legs kicking, pinned arms trying to move to put out the creature’s eyes, hands grasping at the air, yelling, spitting, shaking his head. He refused this invitation and this death; he wanted to return to life. To the village and smoke and labour.

Somewhere deep within him, far behind the world, even as the lion bared its teeth and lowered its head, the ancient plains still shone. The invitation remained, even as he fought to reject the death that was coming upon him.

The noise of screaming thinned to a whine, then stopped completely as the lion’s jaws closed deliberately around the man’s neck. His windpipe was closed, breath now impossible, but the bite still gentle. Eyes wide, mouth open, his chest expanded and contracted, caught in the futile agony of his final breath. The face of the great beast above him, the clenching and breaking of his neck and chest, the horror of dying, all began to fade.

As the cave slowly vanished into darkness behind the veil of life, the sunlit plain he had been resisting grew clearer. Here stood the lion still, a thing of majesty and beauty, its invitation now perfect and irresistible. Here also stood the man, erect and strong, vital with a life that cannot die. Behind the beast stretched the glowing immensity of time, the glory of the world, the meaning of all things. Powerful legs came to life beneath him as the man took his first, uncertain steps along the path of eternity.

Return to Book 1: In the Day of the Flood

Chapter 00. Prologue - Sukána

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