THE END OF BEGINNINGS

TWENTY-ONE

They had walked until the sky was made bright by the hot sun hanging directly overhead.  Moros swam in the cool waters of the river while Geras reclined against a tree a few paces back from the waters' edge.  The terrain was flatter here, the heat and humidity sitting more heavily over the lower ground.  Geras closed his eyes, ignoring the beads of sweat on his brow that had begun to run down his face.  He sought out the vision of Moros' mother.  For the first time in years, Geras was desperate to see her again, to hear her gentle and encouraging words.  He felt the minutes pass with no sign of her in his thoughts.  He had disobeyed her, though it was hardly the first time.
As Geras opened his eyes and readied to get their journey started once more, he finally felt something tease his senses.  It was the faint sensation of a familiar presence.  It wasn't Moros' mother.  This was someone else, someone Geras knew but wasn't close with.  They were in the forest, moving steadily toward the sunbathed spot.  Geras turned his head slowly, peering down the length of the riverbank.  There was nothing unusual to see.  There were no signs that anyone was actually there.  But he knew someone was.  They were slowly tracking their route along the river.
"Everything alright," asked Moros.
"Yes," Geras answered.  "Ready to keep going?"
Moros shook the water out of his hair then grabbed his heavy satchel.  "Yes," he answered.
He led the way for the next several hours, following his father's instructions to occasionally meander their trek away from the river.  Moros suspected that Geras was still worried they were being followed.  In the long periods of empty silence filling their journey, Moros was focused on the energy inside of himself.  He pushed it outward, using it to sense the subtle details of the landscape around them.  He realized that if he could move stones and twigs around with his mind, he could just as easily manipulate the soil.  It took even less mental effort to leave the rough impression of a foot or sandal-print in the damp terrain than it did to move a stick.  While the two of them walked along the forest's edge, Moros used his powers to stamp trails of tracks leading randomly away through the woods.
Eventually, their own true path moved away from the long waterway.  The dense forest began to thin as their course put their backs toward the sun.  Snow-capped tips of jagged mountains peeked above the horizon far beyond the countless acres of trees and flat, green grassland.  Moros had almost started to forget what that place had looked like.  He remembered how beautiful the tremendous view had been when the family had first arrived on the planet.  It was one thing to see it from the sky and inside the ship.  It had been something else to walk outside the metal hull and experience it for the first time.
The two made camp just before the last light of day surrendered to the oncoming night.  Beneath the long boughs of a wide tree, Geras set to work building a fire while Moros explored a small stream a short distance away.  He managed to catch a few fish before returning to camp.  They weren't much bigger than Moros' hand, but it would be enough for the night.
There wasn't much conversation exchanged as the pair sat near the small fire Geras had built.  He would have preferred not to have one, but he had promised Moros.  Besides, they were less than half a day's hike to the glade where their ship was parked.  There wasn't much anyone could do to stop them at this point.  And, Geras didn't feel threatened by the person tracking them.
With their meal winding down and the flames of their campfire beginning to die away, Geras looked up at the stars blinking between the thin clouds stretched across the sky.  "Tomorrow will be a long and busy day.  Are you ready?"
"Yes," said Moros without much thought to the question.  "How long will we be gone?"
"I don't know.  Not long, I hope."
"So, we are coming back?"
"Yes.  Unless you wanted to stay on Atlantis.  You're old enough now to be able to make that choice."
Moros nodded his head.
"I also have no doubt you would be more than welcome as a valuable apprentice anywhere in the city."
Moros stared at the fire and the last bits of fish meat smoldering over the glowing coals.  "That sounds...interesting.  But I'm not sure I want to stay on Atlantis.  I know there would be many opportunities in the city.  But, I'm not sure any of them are for me."
"Oh?"
"I've started to feel differently about it.  I was finally feeling like a part of the Aganni people.  There has been something about this place that has made me feel...better.  Since mother's death I've always felt apart from everything and everyone where we came from...Atlantis and then Camrial.  But, not here.  Not anymore. Besides," Moros continued, looking up at Geras, "I don't believe I am the only one who feels that way."
"You are probably more right than you realize."
"Maybe, in time, I could go back again and take up an apprenticeship.  I'm not ready to say goodbye to this place forever, especially since I didn't even get to really say goodbye to Hasha."
Geras reclined against the rough bark of the old tree.  "I'm not sure that opportunity has escaped you."
"What do you mean?"
Geras glanced toward his son.  "You haven't sensed our tracker?"
Moros blinked.  "No.  I mean...maybe, but not really.  I only knew you were worried we were being followed."
"We have been."  Geras glanced down at the last of the flames flickering off the hot embers.  He breathed in and out slowly before speaking again.  "He's hiding in the brush behind us...probably no more than a hundred paces away."
"What?"
Geras tilted his head to one side, then called out into the darkness beyond their camp, "Hasha!"  His next words were all in Aganni.  "Hasha, come here!  You don't have to hide!  Stop your sneaking and come over here!"
There was movement in the thick bushes and grass nearby.  Moros stood up when the familiar shape of his best friend began to approach out of the night.  He smiled excitedly as Hasha's tired and bashful features became illuminated by the dim light of the fire.  He rushed over and embraced the other boy tightly.  "Hasha, I'm so happy to see you," Moros exclaimed in Aganni.
"Yes, my brother," said Hasha with a smile as he hugged Moros.  "I am happy to see you, also."
"What are you doing all the way out here," Moros asked, taking a step back.  "Why are you not back with your family in Agan?
"Yes, Hasha," said Geras.  "Moros and I are going far away.  We will not be back to Agan for some time.  Many days and nights, perhaps."
Hasha nodded his head.  He wiped the sweat off his pink-freckled brow, then spoke.  "I know.  But, I had to come.  I could not stay behind in Agan."
Moros reached out to grab his best friend by the shoulders when Hasha began to sway in place.  His eyes drooped slightly.  His breathing became shallow.  "Hasha, are you alright?  Here, sit down and rest.  Drink water," said Moros, handing his friend a half-full water skin.
Hasha drank several gulps before lowering the mouth of the smooth bag from his lips.  "I am sorry.  My own broke yesterday.  I managed a few sips from the stream after you left there earlier," he said, looking at Moros, "but the night has stayed very hot and I have grown very thirsty."
"Why have you come all this way," Geras asked, handing the boy the leftover fish meat.
"To protect you," Hasha answered simply.  "Because I am just as guilty for bringing the dea'esh into the village.  If you are to be punished, then I must be as well."
Geras let himself smile a little.  "We are not being punished, Hasha.  We are simply returning to the place we are from to take care of something.  Then, we will return to Agan."
"And there's nothing out here that can hurt us," added Moros, looking confidently toward Geras.
Hasha chewed a piece of half-scorched meat then shook his head.  "Tagara.  He set out from Agan to look for you.  He and others from his kin.  They followed you the first night.  I managed to lead them away the second night.  But it was not easy and I don't know how long they will stay fooled.  Tagara is a skillful tracker.  It is only a matter of time before he and the others find you."
Geras looked away, sighing.  "That man's grief truly is turning him into a monster."  He didn't speak in Aganni.
"He means to kill you, both of you," Hasha said, quickly swallowing another bite of the burned fish meat.  "But you were two.  Now, we are three."
"How many are with him," asked Moros.
"Ten."
Geras and Moros blanched.  "The elders were right," Geras said.  "Tagara was persuasive."
"He is very dangerous," said Hasha.  "After the first night, I let him find me.  I made him believe I had followed you but that you had made me stay behind.  I told him you were heading toward the bed of the sun.  He made me promise I would return to the village or he would kill me."
"You've put yourself in too much danger," said Moros.
"It is worth protecting my brother," Hasha replied.  "And I will keep protecting you."
Geras shook his head.  "You have to go back to Agan, Hasha.  You can rest here with us for now.  We'll stay a few more hours and then Moros and I must continue on."
"No!  I must stay with you.  I must protect you.  I can protect you!"
"You won't be able to follow us after tomorrow," said Moros.
Hasha smiled proudly at his best friend.  "I can follow you wherever you go.  You cannot stay hidden from me."
Geras was amused by the boy's brash words.  "How do you know that, Hasha," he asked.
Hasha reached into the small, animal skin bag he had been carrying.  "Because, my brother once gave me the gift to find him wherever he wandered."
Geras watched as Hasha opened his hand, revealing a small, medallion-shaped object.  Its back was smooth and rested flatly on Hasha's palm while the top was slightly convex.  The metallic material was spongy and glowing with a bright, silver-blue color.  A thin, straight line was pointing toward Moros' satchel.  Geras rightly assumed there was an identical device within the confines of the bulging bag.  He looked from the satchel, to Hasha, and then to the guilty expression on his son's face.
"What were you saying about all of our technology," Geras asked, half amused and half frustrated.
Moros shrugged his shoulders, a farce of innocence plastered on his face.  "What?  I mean...Okay.  So I kind of forgot about those."
Hasha didn't know what the other two near him were saying.  But, he didn't care.  "I'm not going back to Agan!  I love and protect my family.  And you are my family.  You are like my brother and you," he said looking defiantly at Geras, "are like my father.  And, if I go back now, I will surely die anyway.  Tagara also said that he would kill me if I was dishonest about where you went."
"Father," Moros said after a long moment.  "Father, I don't think we have much choice.  Not now."
"He will see things," Geras said in their native Lantean.  "He will see and experience things that will change him forever.  Life in his village will be completely different for him.  By taking him with us, we're denying him the chance to evolve naturally."
"By not allowing him to come along, we're denying him the chance to evolve at a rate of his own choosing.  If circumstance is the nature of change, how is this situation a deviation?  He didn't choose to be threatened by a maniac.  But, he did choose to help us.  We owe him for that."
Geras stared into the smoldering coals for a long time.  The last flames were nearly out, leaving the small camp sheathed in a dim, red glow.  "Very well," said Geras at last.  "He can come with us."
Moros smiled excitedly at his best friend.
Geras looked at Hasha.  "You need to get what rest you can, Hasha.  Everything is about to change for you.  Where we're going will be like no place you have ever seen before."