THE TILLING OF THE EARTH

Julian Gilford Scott

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CHAPTER ONE

I remember clearly my first Awakening.

Tawny and dim was the sky this day, the day the land boiled and bubbled like the outward signs of disease, and the meaty roots crept out across the hills like giant's fingers fumbling for a handhold somewhere in the churning soil. Then it was as though the earth had swallowed the grass and trees, and all that was natural tumbled into the great widening chasms. From the broken earth rose one long branching limb- then from a further pit, another- again and again until through the billowing clouds of dirt, a dark and horrible figure towered, blocking from us the fading sun with a great mass of limbs, each reaching out in a new direction, until the dusty sky was all but disappeared by its shadow. Eclipsed by the blackened sun, this monolithic creature, anathema of all I knew to be good, seemed to grow; taller, wider, and spreading across the firmament like a malnourished sapling's twisting roots looking for water. And it was, indeed, looking, searching. And when it found its mark, it made a sound that rang like screaming voices whipping about in the wind of a storm that scraped my bones and etched evil words into my flesh, and my head felt immeasurably heavy. In that moment I felt an unexplainable pull, and I likened it to falling sideways in all directions; being drawn and quartered yet whole, dismembered but alive.

The chatter of my fellow villagers slowly formed into intelligible language. They had gathered into small huddles around me and near the cracked clay walls of our buildings, bumbling about like the blind, and I realized much more time had passed than mere moments. My usually untroubled people were caked in dirt, their colorful patterned clothing now muted colors and filthy, filthy everywhere on each person except for clean lines from their eyes to their chins. Some were unmoving with blank eyes, others rocking in place and grasping at their sleeves. My head was still ringing with language that had meaning but no sound in a way I couldn't explain. The murmuring of those around me combined with my own scrabbled thoughts only made me more exhausted. Some were speaking and gesturing but I couldn’t bring my mind to focus on anything. A distant rumbling caught my attention. Head turning of its own will, I found myself gazing slack-jawed at a mountain of squirming vines in the distance.

Dark, pulsing, and writhing upon itself, it seemed to grow forever upward. The crown, obscured by the dusty air, pierced the sky with thousands of individual branches which rose above the clouds out of my sight.

I wanted to look more, to understand, but for the time being I just lay there on a pile of dirty blankets, confused and immensely tired. However, the ache of my tormented body brought me closer to full awareness. Anna, a daughter my age of the family house next to mine, offered a half-gourd with water. I instinctively reached out and my gaze turned from the water to my bandaged hands. With a worried look in her eyes, she pushed the gourd at me and I had to take it or risk spillage. The texture in my mouth reminded me of tilling dry fields on a windy morning. I sipped the dust-tinged water, then drank, then gulped mouthfuls. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was. Having drank too quickly, I coughed, and water droplets fell onto a cloth bandage and immediately redness bloomed and spread. I felt a stinging pain on my wrist and dropped the gourd with a clatter. What is this? I reached to lift the bandage and Anna gently- but firmly- took my hands, careful to only touch my fingers, and her expression overflowed into crying. “Please don’t look, Efrit, it’s awful, don’t look…” Her mother placed a white-knuckled hand on her shoulder and with a façade of emotional fortitude attempted to comfort her. Determined and terrified, I found the end of a strip of cloth, and it tugged at my skin and released in segments, each pull gradually leading up to an aching sting and then slack, until I revealed what will always haunt me.

The blood isn’t why I screamed. Gouges deep into my flesh pulsed in rhythm with my panicked heartbeat and swirled like the chaos of an overburdened stream after a flood, fluidly forming into shapes and patterns my eyes refused to recognize. I stared, unable to look away, though it burned my eyes and tears flowed freely.

Directly watching the patterns change seemed to shut off all other thought, and though I couldn’t register the shapes, some part of me knew they were there. It was similar to trying to recall details of a dream far after waking, present but lost bridging memory and reality. In trying to view the patterns, it reminded me of looking directly at a dot of light in the night sky only able to be revealed by focusing next to it. Despite its elusiveness, I stared until my attention was pulled away by a tap of the Elder’s cane on my knee.

My chest and body felt heavy, like when I was a child giving in to my fate after swimming against the current too long. I unsteadily propped myself more upright on my own- nobody reached out to touch me- each movement painful but not as bad as I had been anticipating. The Elder got to his knees before me to match my height, and carefully observed my face. I was still, either from respect or threat of pain- I couldn’t tell which. In the warped reflection of his cataract-filled eyes, I saw myself- or what I would eventually, reluctantly, call myself- a paler than usual face, my own, but adorned with the swirling red patterns on my body. My chin, cheeks, and temples appeared to glow and shift into those same unrecognizable shapes confined to the frame of my face, less bloody but still moving fluidly. Time seemed to cease and my blood ran cold when in horror my gaze unwillingly drifted to my forehead, upon which draped a strip of cheesecloth. Between the gaps of the loose thread shone a dim flickering like firelight, and all became dark.

In that instant all I knew of myself and my world from before had vanished, replaced with visceral sensations and visions of terror and uncertainty. My blood was ice, and my bleeding wounds were ice as well, though my heart burned and trembled. I felt immediately submerged in frozen water, clawing for anything, my breath escaping in my frantic attempt to be rescued. I was instinctively gasping for air where there was none, filling my rapidly numbing lungs with water cold as death. I screamed, or tried to, because my chest shrank and body tightened, and whatever remaining precious air leaked and quivered upward in eddies of bubbles. I felt possessed, eyes pried open by some external force, and as I was compelled to stare into the depths. Crystals began to form under my eyelids but I was far beyond pain. My limbs were frozen, and no death throes signaled my end. I sank. I became heavier, the light from above the ceiling of ice decorated with swirling red flows of blood, my blood, and the water-distorted rays of light became crimson and dark, dimming with every second. Then it was black.

A spasmed gasp pulled warm air into my lungs, bringing with it the scent of dirt and blood. Awareness swept over me once more and it became clear I remained on solid ground. Like finally breaching the waves above, I struggled to lift myself back upright, the scene of the black depths superimposed across my waking vision. I tried to focus on reality, grasping thick dirt damp with my own sweat and blood and rubbing it through my hands. Fighting the sting as my skin stretched I turned to look at everyone who was gathered, though most had gone back to their homes. I saw my friends huddled, holding one another and mumbling fearfully, and from somewhere I heard a woman wailing among the general chorus. I heard my people, normally eager, now turned mournful. I ignored the stones in my throat and turned to the Elder, asking only one of the hundreds of questions running rampant in my thoughts, “Why does it feel like the world has ended? I feel buried and lifeless.” His grey eyes became somehow colder and more serious than usual. My heart sank and I knew something monumental had happened. His tone was intense, and I was intimidated by the tone of his words, “What do you remember before you awoke?”

I was still for a moment. I remembered nothing at first. It felt like time had forgotten me but when I tried to focus, hazy half-formed images emerged from some dark recession in my mind. A deep rumble broke out and shook the land apart. There was a dark cloud rising to the east, somehow bigger than the sky itself. It overtook the silver clouds and it was dark. The very earth disappeared from beneath me, like an earthen maw opened, and I tumbled down into the dark, enveloped in roots and rocks, and the world around me grew taller, and where the ground should have been turned to blackness, and I fell deeper into the earth.

Then nothing.

After that I was on solid ground, bandaged and exhausted. The Elder sighed a long sigh and revealed to me the hopeless gravity of the situation. He raised his voice so others could hear his announcement: “It appears the time for the Harvest has come.” Most people turned to see him, but looked through him. Some cried. “Gaze eastward, and let it be known that the earth has been Tilled in preparation!” He motioned toward the gargantuan being of roots and branches still covering the eastern sky. “Though I did not expect it so soon.” He stared at the billowing cloud and the figure within as though boring a tunnel through the sky, avoiding meeting my widened eyes.

Of the hundreds of questions, another stood out: “What made me so special to be chosen as the Marked? Why not Helini? He’s handsome, and on top of that, a skilled baker. Or Marc, who can lift three bags of grain at once? Even Gerdi is better at planting seeds than me. All I do is sit around and daydream, and I’m hardly good at that! So why me?” I asked with increasing panic. It fell on deaf ears. “It can’t be me!” My heart froze in place as a new fear erupted in my mind, “…am I going to die?” The Elder’s brow gave the slightest twitch and then relaxed. If he was nervous, he hid it well.

He cleared his throat with a phlegmy grumble, then spoke: “Son, this is the cost of the gift we have been given. The Harvest always follows the Tilling of the Earth. We are bound to it, not only by the sacred text, but also in the call of the early morning’s feathered beast, and in the first raindrops that grant life to the plants, and for the replenishing of our fertile soil. The Harvest provides the land, provides the crop, the tools we require to live. It keeps the waters clean. It supplies good game. All creatures will die if we fail to complete the bargain. It’s a natural, yet unforgiving process. I am sorry that you are the one who must bear the burden of the renewal.” He gave a small bow. “We will try to keep it as painless as possible.”

I panicked. My heart had never pounded harder. I just knew I was going to die. I would be martyred so my people could continue living. The text never mentions exactly how the Marked completes his sacred duty, but I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to believe it. Nobody knew exactly what awful demise was laid out for the unfortunate Marked taken every cycle, not even the escorts who take him to the mountain site. What bits and pieces I knew were stories I’d heard as a child. My father’s father once told him, who in turn told me, what was to come. He mentioned it only on one occasion, after having excessively indulged in flavored mead, the details given to him of the Harvest following the Tilling.

His words echoed grimly:

“The Marked was bathed in fresh water brought to the village and blessed, and the bloodied bandages removed burned on the pyre to pay tribute to those above. He was adorned waist down in white linen. Four escorts, the strongest men of the village, were chosen to accompany the Marked in past the fields and further up the hills to the east. They were to deliver the Marked to the heart of the mountain. In preparation for the four escorts’ return and completion of the Harvest, a feast was prepared. Flowers were arranged to celebrate the renewal. But the night grew late and the fires dimmed, and the people grew anxious for their return. The escorts finally staggered into view days late, famished, haunted, and dead-eyed, and two never spoke again until their deaths the next and second year after. The third held a burning log to his eyes and was blinded before anyone could intervene. The fourth was unresponsive to the celebration and flowers, and even the seasoned meat, as though a husk of himself. He walked through the village without acknowledging anyone, eyes fixed forward as though being summoned, and they found his broken body strewn on the boulders beneath the westward cliff.”

A few times before my father rejoined the earth, I had with childish stubbornness prodded my father to hear more, but I was given a threatening glare, and the day’s work became long and laborious.

I returned to the present with a jolt, and a rush of clarity overtook my fear, and I could only think of escape.

I’ll gather my things, I can take some bread when Helini isn’t looking, I’ll steal an ax from the toolshed…

The men of the village were talking some distance away with the occasional guilty glance in my direction. Whatever I did, it would have to be soon. I bolstered my resolve and asked the Elder if I could rest at home until preparations were done. He nodded, but didn’t help me get to my feet. I was dizzy. I felt empty like how starvation saps a person’s energy. With trembling hands and wavering knees, I hobbled toward my cottage in the company of the Elder, taking care not to touch any of the bandages. Soothed by the repeated crunch of gravel, hazy half-formed questions began to slip into my mind and my motions became automatic.

I knew the legends, as everybody did, but they seemed unreal, just stories and explanations you’d tell a child who asked too many questions. Sometimes I even doubted the god’s existence, though I never told anyone out of fear. The ancient book that was given to my people ages ago demanded complete faith in the god, but it was just crumbling paper. I never imagined the day the words became truth and the Tilling of the Earth began. The god’s cyclical rebirth which allegedly brings renewal of the world, fueled by a single Marked sacrifice.

I steadied myself against the wood-framed entrance of my home. “Rest for now. We will come for you when it is time.” the Elder said, turning from me. I hurried inside as best I could and lit the candle beside the old wooden door and closed it behind me. Dust had blown in through my open window on the other side of my dwelling but did not get far. The thick wooden windowsill opened to a small, sparsely wooded ravine at the base of the hill. I knew the forest well, and I hoped that would be well enough. My bed was untouched, and though not made, was clean enough for me to take a seat without getting dirty. My home was cluttered with faded trinkets and worn wood-handled tools. Whether or not I had tidied up seemed irrelevant now.

Leaning toward my small wooden table as much as possible without pain, I shuffled through its drawer for my father’s graverock. “Father, I miss you today…” I said, clutching the small carved stone to my chest. My eyes watered and tears began to roll down my cheeks. “I n- need your help. I- I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared…” I stammered between sniffles. Spiraling in sadness, I slumped onto my side as tears rolled across my face. My Marks burned from the wet mess soaking into my pillow. Sobbing softly, I held the graverock to my chest, hoping to somehow incorporate my father’s strength into my own heart.

My mother traded her life for my own when I was brought to this realm. My father carried me until I could walk and caught me when I fell. He was a strong-willed man. He taught me how to swing the scythe and knead the soil, and what color clay was best for building. When I was caught in the current of the nearby river, just when I thought myself dead, his hands lifted me out.

Drifting somewhere between memories, the final image of him when I was a child came into view. I was young and struggling to lift the soil from the pile beside his burial pit. I wished so strongly I could see him without dirt framing his face one last time. Using the shovel he built I tossed the soil that would reunite him with the earth, in the field we all return to, before we planted the seed for his sapling to grow.

Drifting, I lay there between the normal flow of time, lost in thought. The hidden sun had disappeared behind the giant figure and night descended. No moonlight shone. My face had dried but the darkened spots on my pillow remained. My face still stung, but I was afraid to touch it. As I lay there, my mind shifted between the far past to recently.

I was always told to keep to my work, and for the most part, I did. My body was well-conditioned to plant and gather, so I was pigeonholed into that role. However, that did nothing to stop my nightly stargazing and early morning wanderings.

I shifted slightly and felt a split in my skin, causing searing pain in my back, and was brought back to full attention. The urge to uncover the dirty bandages concealing my Marks to feel for the tear was frustrating but not overbearing. I was able to put it out of my mind. Alone in the stillness of my cottage, and cognizant enough to think, The Elder’s words never quite left me, and echoed over and over with ever-greater intensity:

“It's a natural, yet unforgiving process.”

A sinking part of me wanted to succumb and accept my predestiny. It would be easier for everyone, especially the escorts, but the thought of giving up twisted my stomach. As I contemplated, a small but growing inkling seemed to scream and wriggle ever louder. What began as a whisper grew and brought with it sensations of a grand injustice. I couldn’t help but feel energized.

Natural? Sending me to my death was natural? The flight of the birds was natural, and the treecat’s stealthy hunting was natural, but not this.

I felt an unfamiliar warmth flow through me.

And what will they do once I die? They’ll eat the meals from meats I gave them; they’ll drink water from streams I renewed, their crops will grow large and plentiful because of me, and I will be sent to perish in some terrible way far from my home?

My breath came faster and my thoughts raced. The more I focused on their betrayal, the less pain I felt in my Marks, and the more capable I felt. My hands became fists, and I grasped the graverock with white knuckles.

Who are they to decide my fate for me?

Flickering shadows under my door revealed three figures approaching outside with a torch. It was time. I rose from the bed abruptly, visions of rage clouding my sight.

Am I to die for their benefit?

A fire burned in my chest, reinvigorating my will. I was no longer exhausted, but uplifted, energy plentiful despite what my destiny was to be. A solid knock on the door made me think it was Marc on the other side, and he spoke words muddled by the throbbing in my ears. All of my focus was on this new feeling. The blood was pounding through my head louder and louder while my heart and fingertips grew hot and for the first time in my life I knew what they meant by power.

I won’t let them take me to my death. I will not die for their sake!

“I refuse to die for you!” The words seemed to burst from my mouth with a massive bang as sparks flew in from the now blown-open door. A gigantic ball of white fire brighter than the uncovered sun appeared from the air. In an instant, its heat permeated every grain on the door and frame and the rapid expansion blew the wood to splinters, and the men outside could do nothing in time. Helini’s once-handsome face bubbled, burst, and sloughed from his skull, his eyes already gone and his breath from his lungs ignited before he could scream. The black-marked flesh of the terrified man behind him sagged and fell to the ground, and he died grabbing his own head as the muscles steamed and disintegrated. The third man was nowhere to be seen, though there was a shadow on the ground.

That same instant, the thatch roof exploded into flame, billowing out in rounded waves, and I remember hearing frantic screaming over the crackling roar. It smelled like the smoky bonfire air following a good hunt, delicious and overpowering, and the two scorched corpses outside my burning home left my mind as I leapt through the open window and sprinted down into the brushy ravine.

My head was empty and my body buzzed. I was some primal animal guided by instinct. With each bountiful stride, thorns grabbed at my leggings and rocks threatened to shatter my legs at any misstep. It was a black night with no moon, but even through the darkness I could navigate. I ran until my legs strained with each step and I knew I could go no further without rest. I slowed my pace. The shadows of the young trees danced as if backlit from a fire, and I wondered how that were possible while clothed in night’s cloak. It was only then I fully realized I could see because the light from the towering wall of flames illuminated far out into the darkness.

I stared into the distant glow and half-believed I heard shouting, but the deep roar and crackle of the fire masked all sound save the quickened beating of my heart and gasping breath. Each pulse made my head and hands throb, and it quickly became distracting enough that I fell against a large oak and held my body up with my hands on my knees. Everything ached, especially my Marked skin. Feeling only the rise and fall of my chest, I again turned to watch my village burn. The only place I’ve lived, the only people I really knew were consumed in flame.

My flame.

I had cheated fate.

I gave a tired half-laugh to no one, enjoying my victory, but something wasn’t right. I felt my breath become heavy and my heart ached. A growing agony formed in my stomach and worked its way into my chest and shoulders, the thick agony of regret, and I dropped to my hands and knees and vomited onto the leaf-covered dirt. Now as my body quivered, empty and tired, my open palms smashed handprints and sank into the soil and my work-blistered fingers clawed grooves in the into the forest floor. I had just won the fight to breathe normally when reality caught up to me.

I burned down my village. I burned them before they could do it to me. Oh fields above, I’ve killed them!

Then something dripped from my nose unlike the aftermath of sickness and the immediate air smelt of metal. It dripped again, and a third time, faster until several small streams formed. I grew dizzier with each group of droplets.

What is this? Rain? No, it’s far too hot for rain…

I walked my fingers over my shoulder and found a loosened bandage. Despite the effort of holding my hand up, I tugged until I felt the cloth give way. It slipped off, smearing blood as it slid down my shoulder, and more drooled out. The bandages, now sticky and soaked through, were oozing steaming blood that fell, sizzling where it landed. My Marks, now exposed, through their shifting glinted with the color of early sunset, and I touched my wounded skin for the first time since the Marking and gasped in stifled horror. I could feel the miniature crevices moving on their own through my skin, snaking in a pattern that made me nauseous to think about. I felt them along my back, roiling like disturbed worms under a lifted rock, and with quivering fingers, shakily traced them down to my forearm. I was entranced and terrified. I saw a faint reflection in the wound, and at first thought it moonlight, but there was no moon tonight. Anxiety fluttered when a hint of light emerged from somewhere deep in my skin, and while I was briefly startled, familiarity crept in. As I began to study their movements closer, the glow simmered brighter ever so slightly, and then recognition clicked.

I could read it! The Markings spoke with movement! The swirling slowed and the lines gradually enmeshed themselves closer. Much like the gold-lined clouds making way for the midday sun- with increasing clarity I could decipher a single word casting a faint light:

GOOD

It was legible but for a second, lasting seemingly until I understood, then retreated, blending back into the mesh of swirling gashes. The light appeared to snuff itself out and I smelt faint smoke. The bleeding slowed, and with the sickness and hunger, I felt far too weak to stay upright. I collapsed onto my side, and I saw embers rising above me as the world faded to black.

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I was floating, cradled in steady flame, smothering blackness around me as far as I could see. And then there was another figure, some distance away, also in flame, and then another, and another, and our collective light revealed above us a dark and swirling maelstrom. Thunder rang out, and water began to fall, and we cried out in fear, and one by one the lights were dampened, and I was once more alone in the darkness, just as before.

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