The Gods Among Us

Chapter 1: My Mother Named Me

"And he found a new jawbone of an ass,

and put forth his hand, and took it,

and slew a thousand men therewith."

Judges 15

 My mother named me

My mother named me Jason. She told me that I am the son of Gods. If I stand on the rock where she died I can see the Sun rise and set, and I can tell the time of year by using the Sun. I can tell if the rains are coming, or if it will be warm and dry. I know before all others when to hunt for the great Oryx. I know when Protus the shepherd brings his seals in to harvest from the salty Watersea.

I pray to the Gods who brought my mother here. Her name is Julie, and Julie is the mother of all my people. She is of the Ori, and I am her son, Jason Blue Eyes, and I am old by any standard. I have learned many things over the years, and have never forgotten what Julie told me. She was the keeper of the secret, the teller of futures and she could talk with Taso, the voice of the Ori. And it is by my will and my will alone that these stories live, and Julie remembered.

Our home is large and formidable and protects us from the weather. It is where we first arrived. and where Julie talked to the Ori, a place called Egup. It is a sacred place, feared by the Old Ones - most of whom have perished.

I have thirty-three sons and ten daughters many of them have moved far away. I have other siblings, children of Julie who are also prodigious breeders. I know that there are thousands of her descendants living in and around the great Watersea, and they migrate all the time - so my dreams tell me. I stay here because I am Jason Blue Eyes, I am old, and I carry the great Jawbone with which Julie saved our world, and with that comes the burden of stewardship.

The days are shorter now, not only because the Sun rises out of the dark and salty Watersea, but because I am old, and they are fleeting. I approach 65 years and by today's standards, I am venerable. The Old Ones died young not having the capacity to see the truth.

Julie talks to me in my dreams and tells me to listen and watch because one day, Taso will come to me and show me. I ask her, What will he show me? But she says only to watch. She says that should keep the past alive and so secure the future. And I understand her.

In my dreams, it is all so vivid and clear; she is a young woman and childless, and it's as if I can travel with her, to the Ori, to their home, which is called the Borealis. And I answer, "Okay mother." Sometimes I feel as though a cloud is over my mind, and my dreams seem cryptic and begin to molder.

After I am gone, I fear that the Ori will thin, and mix with old superstitions becoming something completely different. And it has started even now. She is the only constant, and that is because we tell her story on every Sabatta.

I began my story ten years ago after Julie had passed. A little one approached me; she was fearless and would not shy away from me like many others who fear me as if I was some sort of Jabberwocky. I loved her more than the others. She was so much like Julie that I often forgot and called her Julie. Her name was Cush, and she was five years old, and got her name from the sound of the waves striking the beach. I know it's a silly name, but I can't force my children to give them proper names like Jason, or Clevis, or even Yellow Tree.

She said, Look Pappy at what I can do, and she did a summersault all around me. She was so tiny and lithe. And when she bathed, she was as pale as alabaster. The other children she played with waited nearby and made a collective cooing sound.

That's fine little one, just fine. I can do that too. Want to see?

Oh Pappy, she giggled and jumped into my lap. Her eyes were blue like mine. I stopped counting how many of my descendants have blue eyes. Cush is the fifth generation of my firstborn child that I named Clevis after one of the original Ori.

Why aren't you helping the others with the fish? I asked Cush, it's harvest time and you must help to salt them.

It's Sabatta Pappy, she said correcting me. Her eyes were bright and shone bluer because they reflected the clear sky. We had to say hello. She turned to wave enthusiastically to her friends, many of whom were family. Will you tell more stories tonight at the Sabatta?

Every Sabatta the entire clan would gather around and listen to stories. Why? Because that is how Julie did it.

Oh, I said ardently, tonight we will hear about when Julie first arrived from the Borealis. I was an old story, told many times, and that I would begin at the beginning.

I kissed her and patted her on her bare behind and she joined the other children who waited timidly for her. She was their leader even though there were older children in the group. Cush was their life force, and when she joined them, the group absorbed her will, and they too became indomitable. And they ran off down the sandy path through the rush and fen, and squealed when their feet hit the deep warm sands of the beach, and even more when they dove into the waves that Ocean throws upon the shore from her home we call the Watersea.

The Eternal Fire blazed. Behind me were stacked seven piles of logs, and on the seventh day, the logs were stacked higher because that was the day called Sabatta. It was a day Julie determined would be a day to rest. We gathered in the arena around the Eternal Fire, and a sacrifice would be made of some beast like Ibex, or buffalo, or even a seal, and we would all feast on that during the stories. Children would gather in little groups and chant Sabatta, Sabatta, all the way there.

My voice was strong, and I sometimes had to talk above the winds, which blew the sound of churning waves toward our camp. I can still defend myself against any who dare to challenge me. And there have been many over the years who felt they should, and I have killed them all. I am Jason Blue Eyes and I have killed one hundred and fifteen men in battle, including the ten who have challenged me for the Clan's leadership. Two of those were my sons.

It had been a year since Julie passed when I first sat down to begin the tale of our beginning, and I was then fifty-one. My body was decorated with many scars I got in battle. Some scars I gave to myself, but many, my wives did for me. They are the beautiful ones, the ones plaited with boars' hair so they stand out proudly. Around my arms, I wear the boar's tusk ring taken from my first kill. It had grown so long that it curled around and through its own jaw. I had to wait five years for my arms to grow large enough that it would stay on without slipping off. Kamrasi, the man who raised me, would laugh when it did.

But he loved me as his own son, and he gave me a necklace made of the boar's teeth and precious stones Julie called lapis, and pearls. He taught me to hunt, and survive, and to kill, and scream the war-cry in battle. He taught me to make knives and spears out of stone, sharp and deadly. He taught me how to win.

And he gave me the jawbone.