| Fiction |
Tomorrow's Light
Written by Drew Clements
Conceptualized by Drew Clements and Bryan Hester
(Part Seven - IV)
Tomorrow's thoughts were
all over the place; for one, the most promising of all, she
was getting used to the power and feel of the new body she
walked in; for two, the most confusing part, people were
after her. Why exactly did they want her? She was sure
Augustus knew, but had so far withheld all information. Now
was the time to make up for that.
“So, wanna officially tell me what’s going? Why are these
people after me and what is The Council?”
Augustus walked beside her, Khron a few paces behind, and
Ditko flapped about in the sky above.
“The Council is a governing group for the world of
“other-beings.” The “other-beings” are officially known as
“The People,” so as to offer a positive association. The
People are the things you’ve only heard of in myth: dragons,
various morphing creatures, practicing wizards, warlocks,
witches, ghosts, and other miscellany.
“Vampires?” Tomorrow chirped happily. She’d ready many a
book by a popular author on the subject. That was, of
course, before said author went all religious-crazy and
dropped the subject altogether. She had come to realize, at
least in that respect, that she and the Goths had something
in common. Oh the social stratification of high school!
“Vampires, as you know them, do not exist. As far as
a classification of a being that survives on drinking blood,
yes. Otherwise, Bram Stoker was a genius storyteller.”
Augustus chuckled.
“Oh,” Tomorrow sighed, “that sucks. I always thought they
were cool.”
“The Council was established by Mand H’wtn, an ancestor of
yours that was the offspring of a God and a mortal woman.”
“A God? Don’t you mean the God?” Tomorrow seemed a
bit uncertain.
“You’re religious?” Augustus was a bit surprised.
“Not really, but I do know that there’s not much talk of
polytheism anymore except for in mythology class.” Tomorrow
pushed past a thick bush, feeling its soft leaves on her
ultra-sensitive fur.
“This will be a bit hard to take in, but I will give you a
little information that might help. This world was
created by the Gods, a race of all-powerful beings from
another place in our universe. They created Earth, the other
planets, and the sun in which they all revolve. Earth was
destined to be a utopia and the rest of the planets would
have eventually been populated as well had the Gods been
able to continue on with their plans.”
“What about the rest of the Universe?” Tomorrow asked.
“No, the rest of the universe was created by others. The
Gods are a race of all-powerful beings, meaning there
are more than just a few. The rest are in other parts of the
Universe and dimensions with their own planets.” Augustus
explained. “Our solar system was their playground.”
“Okay,” Tomorrow sighed, feeling as though she were
listening to the narrative of a bad sci-fi comic book story,
“What happened to them?”
“An unexpected change in the beliefs of Earth’s inhabitants
occurred.”
“Monotheism?” Tomorrow asked. It was a simple and quick
thought on her part.
“Indeed. The Gods lost their dominance to a fictional being;
one created by the “unblessed” normal man to sway the power
from the “other-beings” and creation’s true parents, The
Gods. In the creation of this one, new God, the hold the
creators had on the Earth began to disappear. In its place
the power of man grew.”
“So, what, The Gods left town when people stopped believing
in them?”
“Yes. Once popular opinion reached a certain point to where
belief in them had all but been extinguished, they abandoned
their people and their children, the “other-beings,” to the
ways of man, the “unblessed.” They left us to fend for
ourselves in a world that was being dominated by man.”
“If the Gods were so powerful, couldn’t they have just
destroyed the dissenting opinions? Or at least the people
that had them?” Tomorrow asked.
“Yes, but the Gods, at least our Gods, were benevolent.
Instead of destroying the life they created, they just let
it be.” Augustus explained, “It was still life.”
“Well, that was nice of them.” Tomorrow smiled.
“Indeed.”
“So, The Council?”
“The Council was established to create a balance of power
between the humans and us, the “other-beings.”
“So The Council works like a government?”
“Yes, it governs over all the “other-beings” on the planet.”
“Hmm, apparently not. Isn’t Bella Shame’s people an
exception?” Tomorrow asked.
“Like any government, there are people that want nothing to
do with it. For the most part, we’re okay with it, so long
as they don’t intend to attack the human world. That’s where
our pacts and treaties come into play.”
“Okay, but how does The Council maintain the balance of
power with the human governments?” Tomorrow asked.
“Diplomacy, just as any other governing power does. It
didn’t start out like that, of course. The Council keeps its
citizens as well as its non-governed citizens, such as
Bella’s people, in check and the world powers go on about
their business as usual, not even acknowledging, publicly,
the existence of our kind. This allows the “other-beings” to
exist in unknown harmony with the humans. It’s a perfect
balance for both.”
“So what happens when one of our kind goes rogue?”
“To the public at large? Unexplained mysteries.” Augustus
smiled.
“Ah, so the thing you said back in my neighborhood when Mrs.
Crawford saw us? About a Bigfoot sighting?”
“Yes. Crop circles, hauntings, UFO, and alien sightings.
They’re all explained away. Even our original exploits
during the reign of the Gods have been swept under the
umbrella of various mythologies. Nothing ever gets through.”
“Amazing. So, all those stories I heard in my mythology
class are true?”
“To a degree, yes. They’ve been romanticized as morality
tales and their modern translations are a bit off, but for
the most part, they get it right.” Augustus explained.
“Okay, so getting back to me. You mentioned a Man Hat? An
ancestor of mine?” Tomorrow was so completely into Augustus’
explanations that she barely noticed how far they’d actually
traveled!
The airport lay straight ahead; the Northport International
Airport, which was kind of a big name for an airport so
small, wasn’t much. Its main use was non-commercial flights
and the transporting of the occasional University recruit to
the state as well as the sports teams to other states.
A high fence surrounded the outer perimeter and bright
lights blazed in the darkness. Fortunately, all they had to
do was follow along in a stretch of trees that ran parallel
to a road next to the airport and they would be at their
destination. There wasn’t much worry of being spotted unless
someone in the control tower with a pair of binoculars got
bored and started watching the line of trees next to the
road.
Tomorrow led them across the street to the line of trees
that followed the road, “We’re almost there.”
“Good. The “Man Hat” you spoke of is Mand H’wtn, the last
known being with partial human and God blood. The true
identity of the God that mated with the mortal woman is
unknown, but it is known that Mand H’wtn established The
Council with a group of twelve “other-beings.”
Mand and The Twelve establish The Council in Ireland in
340AD somewhere, as Council scrolls suggest, near Mount
Gabriel in what is now known as County Cork. This was just
shortly after the Roman Emperor Constantine died.”
“Okay… what does Constantine have to do with this?” Tomorrow
was a bit confused.
“He accepted Christianity into Rome, a primarily pagan
culture. It was the turning point for The Gods who were
worshipped en masse by the Romans. Monotheism had made its
way, at first via the Pharaoh Akhenaten in Egypt and then
later Zoroastrianism and eventually to Christianity. But
Rome was the proverbial nail in the coffin for them.”
“Oh.” Tomorrow was having a hard time digesting all the
history. It was the complete opposite of everything she’d
ever been taught. If her grandmother knew what she was
hearing, the woman would have locked her in her room with a
bible.
“There’s a lot of history to it all. Regardless, Mand and
The Council worked closely with the Druids in Ireland, a
polytheistic group yet to be converted. That all changed, of
course, once Saint Patrick entered the picture.”
“All I know about Saint Patrick is green and beer. Sometimes
in combination,” Tomorrow joked.
“He brought Christianity to Ireland.” Augustus explained.
“I see. So what happened to The Council then?”
“They went underground completely. It was decided that it
was best for “other-beings” to avoid the “unblessed”
altogether. The “other-beings” had, for a while already,
been avoiding contact with man. Even those of us that were
able to blend in weren’t interested in being a part of that
world. The Council, who had thin, barely existing ties to
the established world powers at the time, cut them
altogether.”
“Wow. That sounds horrible.” Tomorrow shook her head.
“We’d lost all power and were forced to leave our lands. The
world at that point in time still had quite a few areas that
were not inhabited or, if they were inhabited, contained the
“uncivilized,” so the “other-beings” went to those places.”
Augustus stopped in his tracks and Tomorrow, who was still
trying to take it all in, turned her attention to their
surroundings. They had come to where the road intersected
another, cutting off their path of trees and cover.
Tomorrow, looked both ways and bolted across; the others
followed.
“How much further?” Augustus asked as he reached the other
side.
“Just down this way.” Tomorrow pointed to another road near
a house just about fifty yards away, “Tell me more.”
“As the years went on and the “unblessed” matured, going
through multiple generations with minimal contact with our
kind, we were forgotten. The “unblessed” population had
grown so much that it became increasingly harder and harder
to avoid them; there came a point in time where it was in
our best interest to reintegrate or, at the very least, keep
ourselves hidden to avoid the horrors of a full-scale war
between us and the humans. This was especially important
because not all of us had the ability to integrate and to
protect those beings, we needed to do something. The best
way to do this was to create treaties with the most powerful
of the human governments. So, it was left up to the
descendants of Mand H’wtn to establish and organize a full,
new Council, uniting all “other-beings,” and make contact
with the outer world.”
“Wow, and that worked, just like that?”
“It was a process. I’m giving you the highlights here.”
Augustus smiled.
“Okay, but we got a bit off topic with all of the history
you just provided; why are these people after me?”
“The Council has always been led by someone from the Mand
H’wtn bloodline. Just recently, the latest President was
kidnapped and, presumably eliminated. The President had two
daughters; the one that was “publicly” known by The People
was kidnapped alongside him and, also presumably, killed.
The other daughter is you.”