Chapter 7

Coloring the Canvas

∞

“The Gods were never satisfied with just one world,” Panpar began. Right from the beginning there was no doubt that whatever story this simple looking older man was going to tell, was going to be a long one. Their Aunt Veranda had called him old, and indeed, he had an older appearance to him, but that appearance of old was more of a perception, than a reality. It was a perception created through wisdom, and early greying hair, but in reality, the man couldn’t be older than forty human years. Veranda herself was older than that.

In truth, he not only wasn’t old, but his body was also fit. (A fact hidden to them all by the loose, baggy sack that he wore as clothing). He didn’t return the wooden table; didn’t sit at the hard chair at all, but instead turned Veranda’s rocking chair toward the table, and sat in that instead. It was another indicator that the story they were in for was a long one.

Once he was sat, and comfortable, he reached through a slit in the side of clothing, pulled out a small pouch, rolled some of the tobacco into a moist brown leaf, and lit the end of that tobacco with a magical wooden stick that had a red tip on the end of it. When he did this, none of them knew what tobacco was, nor did they understand what he was doing or why. All they knew was that the smell of what he was doing was offensive to their noses, and the idea of drawing fire into a person’s body, filtered through leaves or not, was utterly ridiculous to them all.

Nobody informed him of his or her opinion at the time.

“The Gods,” he continued, “weren’t even satisfied with ten worlds, or twenty, or even a hundred. They have thousands of worlds spread amongst those twinkling lights in the night sky that we haven’t even begun to understand. The Gods,” he said emphasizing the word Gods as if he were saying it with distaste. “Create worlds much in the same way that a baker creates bread. Crafting one loaf to be white, and another to be brown, and yet another to be yellow, all of them having a different taste, and all of them tasting better with one meal, than they do with another.” He rocked back and forth in the chair as he began his story and his eyes were intently focused on both Veranda and Freebus as he spoke.

Jo-Laina could remember every word that Panpar had spoken that night clearly. She could picture every word that he spoke as if he were speaking them at that very moment to her instead of years before. And she could also remember her thoughts as well. He had talked about the Gods and the ‘worlds’ they created as if he knew for sure that what he was saying was true. He talked of the twinkling lights in the night skies as if they were those worlds, instead of the Gods shining lights down onto theirs, which is what everyone else believed.

“And when the Gods decided to create our world, they did it out of boredom,” Panpar continued. “They didn’t create our world to survive and last throughout the ages as they did others. They created our world just so they could sit back and watch all of the inhabitants kill each other off. Each of the Gods created their own race of either warrior beings, or predatory animals, and they did it with the idea of watching us all kill each other.”

“You speak these things as if you know them for sure, old man,” Veranda butted in. “And not as if you are speculating. You can’t know these things. You can guess them, but you can’t know them.”

“Ah, but I can,” Panpar answered her claim. “You see, my lady. I may look human, but I am not. I am a Puntarian.”

They all knew the word punta, to see in the dark, and they all knew of the Muntarians, also known as listeners. They knew that the word Muntarian stemmed from the word munta, which meant to hear from silence, so the word Puntarian, automatically meant at least something to them when they heard it. It registered to their minds and clung there like a bat hanging from a tree during the day. It fluttered invisibly in their minds as they waited for more of the story.

“You see in the dark?” Veranda asked.

“I see some of what has happened over time. And I also see some of what will happen,” Panpar answered as he took another drag from his leaf rolled cigarette. He drew the smoke in deep and blew a grey cloud toward the ceiling. “In the very beginning, back when the ancients referred to their ancestors as the ancients, every race was separated completely. The Prim controlled this land, humans another, the Moog lived completely underground, The Bentarian tree walkers were spread throughout the forests, clinging to their trees for cover, then there were the Muctar, the Lumarians, Prectock also known as the Tso Tsa Minh, the Muntarians, and Puntarians, and this is only mentioning the higher thinking beings.”

“Your story makes no sense, old man! The Prim ... The Prim cannot reproduce alone. They would have died out long ago if what you are saying is true,” Veranda said as she sat forward in her chair. It was as if she were looking for a way to discount him right from the beginning.

“I don’t think it was meant for any of the races to survive. Not the humans, not the Prim, or any of the rest of them for that matter. I think it was meant for all of the original races to wipe each other out, but that’s not what happened. The Gods didn’t expect any of the races to form alliances, which is exactly what they did.

“The first alliance came early. It was between the Muntarians and the Puntarians. If it weren’t for that alliance both of our races would have died out early. Separated, we are not much better than the humans, but together we had a powerful alliance. The second alliance just happened to be between the Prim and the humans. It was a friendship formed from necessity for both races. By the time the alliance was formed, the Prim were winning the war, but because they couldn’t reproduce, they couldn’t replace those that were killed in the early wars. The humans were decimated in the beginning and had been spread throughout the lands, hiding where they could, and avoiding the fight entirely unless cornered. In my dreams the only thing the humans had going for them was that they made good slaves. As warriors they were inferior in almost every way and, even with those that were born as wizards who, as we all know, was the reason that the Prim chose them for their alliance.”

“Because the wizards can give the Prim children,” Veranda confirmed with a nod of her head. “But how did they figure that out?”

“His name was Jondim. At the time just before the alliance was created, he was a young talented wizard with great abilities. He that suggested the alliance, and he did it because he had just so happened to fall immediately in love with a Prim as she tried to kill him. It was through her that he convinced the Prim to accept the alliance.”

“Well, this guy must have really had a death wish!” Veranda commented. “She tried to kill him and he fell in love with her? How does that even happen?”

“Very carefully. I remember the first time I saw him in my dreams, and I can see why he fell in love with her, by the way. She was a lovely creature to say the least,” Panpar said as he dragged again on his cigarette. “She almost had him too. It had been her mission to kill Jondim because he was the first human in ages to put up a fight against the other races. Before that day, he had killed quite a few Prim, but when it came to Jo-Rena, he just couldn’t do it. She was able to sneak up on him, to raise her sword as she charged him, but that was as far as she got. He used his spell to put her to sleep, just like he had done with the others, but by the time her body crumbled to the ground, in peaceful slumber, his mind had been made up. He not only didn’t kill her, he brought her back with him to where his clan was hiding. There he watched her sleep until she awoke, and by then he had come up with the idea that he could help the Prim with their problem,” Panpar chuckled, half inwardly, half outwardly as he stubbed out the burning end of his cigarette on the wood of the rocker. Veranda gave him an annoyed look, which didn’t seem to register with him. “I doubt he realized that mating with the Prim would end up being the death of him after all.”