This is a story from long ago. Back before any of us were born. Before our fathers were born, too. It was a long time ago. Maybe—maybe four hundred years. No, more than that. Probably a thousand years. But maybe not quite as much as that.
It was a bad time in the world. People were hungry and sick. There were famines and great plagues. There were many wars and other bad things in this time, because there was no one to stop them.
But the worst thing in this time was that there were demons walking the land. Some of them were small and troublesome, creatures who lamed horses and spoiled milk. But there were many worse than those.
There were demons who hid in men’s bodies and made them sick or mad, but those were not the worst. There were demons like great beasts that would catch and eat men while they were still alive and screaming, but they were not the worst. Some demons stole the skins of men and wore them like clothes, but even they were not the worst.
There was one demon that stood above the others. Encanis, the swallowing darkness. No matter where he walked, shadows hid his face, and scorpions that stung him died of the corruption they had touched.
Now Tehlu, who made the world and who is lord over all, watched the world of men. He saw that demons made sport of us and killed us and ate our bodies. Some men he saved, but only a few. For Tehlu is just and saves only the worthy, and in these times few men acted even for their own good, let alone the good of others.
Because of this, Tehlu was unhappy. For he had made the world to be a good place for men to live. But his church was corrupt. They stole from the poor and did not live by the laws he had given....
No, wait. There was no church yet, and no priests either. Just men and women, and some of them knew who Tehlu was. But even those were wicked, so when they called on Lord Tehlu for help he felt no desire to aid them.
But after years of watching and waiting, Tehlu saw a woman pure of heart and spirit. Her name was Perial. Her mother had raised her to know Tehlu, and she worshiped him as well as her poor circumstances allowed. Although her own life was hard, Perial prayed only for others, and never for herself.
Tehlu watched her for long years. He saw her life was hard, full of misfortune and torment at the hands of demons and bad men. But she never cursed his name or ceased her praying, and she never treated any person other than with kindness and respect.
So late one night, Tehlu went to her in a dream. He stood before her, and seemed to be made entirely of fire or sunlight. He came to her in splendor and asked her if she knew who he was.
“Sure enough,” she said. You see, she was very calm about it because she thought she was just having an odd dream. “You’re Lord Tehlu.”
He nodded and asked her if she knew why he had come to her.
“Are you going to do something for my neighbor Deborah?” she asked. Because that’s who she had prayed for before she went to sleep. “Are you going to lay your hand on her husband Losel and make him a better man? The way he treats her isn’t right. Man should never lay a hand on woman, save in love.”
Tehlu knew her neighbors. He knew they were wicked people who had done wicked things. Everyone in the village was wicked but her. Everyone in the world was. He told her so.
“Deborah has been very kind and good to me,” Perial said. “And even Losel, who I don’t care for, is one of my neighbors all the same.”
Tehlu told her that Deborah spent time in many different men’s beds, and Losel drank every day of the week, even on Mourning. No, wait—there wasn’t any Mourning yet. But he drank a lot at any rate. Sometimes he grew so angry that he beat his wife until she could not stand or even cry aloud.
Perial was quiet for a long moment in her dream. She knew Tehlu spoke the truth, but while Perial was pure of heart, she was not a fool. She had suspected her neighbors of doing the things Tehlu said. Even now that she knew for certain, she cared for her neighbors all the same. “You won’t help her?”
Tehlu said that the man and wife were each other’s fitting punishment. They were wicked and the wicked should be punished.
Perial spoke out honestly, perhaps because she thought she was dreaming, but perhaps she would have said the same thing had she been awake, for Perial said what was in her heart. “It’s not their fault that the world is full of hard choices and hunger and loneliness,” she said. “What can you expect of people when demons are their neighbors?”
But though Tehlu listened to her wise words with his ears, he told her that mankind was wicked, and the wicked should be punished.
“I think you know very little about what it is to be a man,” she said. “And I would still help them if I could,” she told him resolutely.
SO YOU SHALL, Tehlu told her, and reached out to lay his hand on her heart. When he touched her she felt like she were a great golden bell that had just rung out its first note. She opened her eyes and knew then that it had been no normal dream.
Thus it was that she was not surprised to discover she was pregnant. In three months she gave birth to a perfect dark-eyed baby boy. She named him Menda. The day after he was born, Menda could crawl. In two days he could walk. Perial was surprised, but not worried, for she knew the child was a gift from God.
Nevertheless, Perial was wise. She knew that people might not understand. So she kept Menda close by her, and when her friends and neighbors came to visit, she sent them away.
But this could only last a little while, for in a small town there are no secrets. Folk knew that Perial was not married. And while children born out of wedlock were common during this time, children who grew to manhood in less than two months were not. They were afraid that she might have lain down with a demon, and that her child was a demon’s child. Such things were not unheard of in those dark times, and the people were afraid.
So everyone gathered together on the first day of the seventh span, and made their way to the tiny house where Perial lived by herself with her son. The town smith, whose name was Rengen, led them. “Show us the boy,” he yelled. But there was no response from the house. “Bring out the boy, and show us he is nothing but a human child.”
The house remained quiet, and though there were many men among them, no one wanted to enter a house that might have a demon’s child inside. So the smith cried out again, “Perial, bring out young Menda, or we will burn your house around you.”
The door opened, and a man stepped out. None of them recognized who it was, because even though he was only seven span from the womb, Menda looked to be a young man of seventeen. He stood proud and tall, with coal-black hair and eyes. “I am the one you think is Menda,” he said in a voice both powerful and deep. “What do you want of me?”
The sound of his voice made Perial gasp inside the cottage. Not only was this the first time Menda had ever spoken, but she recognized his voice as the same one that had spoken to her in a dream, months ago.
“What do you mean, we think you are Menda?” asked the smith, gripping his hammer tightly. He knew that there were demons that looked like men, or wore their skins like costumes, the way a man might hide beneath a sheepskin.
The child who was not a child spoke again. “I am Perial’s son, but I am not Menda. And I am not a demon.”
“Touch the iron of my hammer then,” said Rengen, for he knew all demons feared two things, cold iron and clean fire. He held out his heavy forge hammer. It shook in his hands, but no one thought the less of him for it.
He who was not Menda stepped forward and lay both hands on the iron head of the hammer. Nothing happened. From the doorway of her house where she watched, Perial burst into tears, for though she trusted Tehlu, some part of her had held a mother’s worry for her son.
“I am not Menda, though that is what my mother called me. I am Tehlu, lord above all. I have come to free you from demons and the wickedness of your own hearts. I am Tehlu, son of myself. Let the wicked hear my voice and tremble.”
And they did tremble. But some of them refused to believe. They called him a demon and threatened him. They spoke hard, frightened words. Some threw stones and cursed him, and spat toward him and his mother.
