South Africa… six months ago…
Rays of the setting sun filtered through the thick line of trees surrounding the property leaving the building leopard-specked with random flecks of orange markings. The white house stood strong and silent within the enclosure; corridors of grass running along either side of the building.
One swath of lawn was freshly cut; the other sported calf high blades of grass; this side not yet sentenced to a haircut. The visual was strange; for the one dwelling within the house did not have a reputation of leaving a task incomplete. Mayhap it was the lack of youthful dexterity coupled with the relentless pounding of a sun that seemed fixated on overdosing those below with vitamin D.
Brown shoes crushed the fresh grass as they made their way along the side of the welcoming house to the verandah overlooking the rise and fall of acres of land.
“Ah, so you have come,” the greeting slightly muffled as the old man’s head remained buried in his book, intent on finishing a particular paragraph.
Waving his hand when the old man made as if to rise to his feet, Henrí took a seat across from his friend; the worn warmth of the rocking chair creaking as it accepted his weight. “What does this day find you reading?”
“The trials of this teenage wizard who from what I have gathered thus far, has no apparent talent save for that of being extremely lucky.”
“I see.”
“You did not however, visit me to speak of my latest literary interests. Speak unto me,” the old man replied before closing the tome and placing it across his lap.
Henrí took his time answering; his eyes flicking over the vast acres the verandah overlooked. They came to settle over the symbiotic pairing of the herd of cattle and the small white birds perched upon the backs of several of the munching beasts. Ever so often, one of the birds would bend its head, plucking at something in the herbivore’s hide. “War is coming…”
“I have been on this earth for seventy great cycles and if there is one thing I have learned old friend; war has always dogged the heels of man.”
“A fact not lost upon me,” the immortal replied dryly.
“Yet something about the impending storm chills your blood…” the old man stated with conviction before taking off his reading glasses to pinch his nose bridge.
“This battle threatens to rip across your lands,” Henrí replied, the cold bluntness of the truth stilling the air.
“Things die and are destroyed. We shall rebuild.”
“How can a mortal rebuild if he has no life?”
The old man’s answer died on the way up his vocal chords, finding himself lost in the aged sadness of his friend’s eyes. “You have seen this before?” he inquired softly.
A blink and the look disappeared as if it never was; gaze once more settled out upon the rise and fall of the land. “Yes,” Henrí replied, “I had witnessed extinction in a time long past.”
➖➖➖
Gregory Ballain rocked slowly between the arms of his favorite chair. His mind refused to settle itself; stretching its muscles in an effort to process what exactly Mr. Donoma was. The aftermath of their meetings always left him in his current state – humbled, awed and afraid all at the same time. The simple fact that Mr. Donoma was not of the earth was enough to unsettle him, a fact he now carried for the past fifty years and counting.
“Why have you left me alive?” the young soldier asked, covered from head to toe in the blood of enemy and brethren alike.
“Whatever do you mean?” the curly-haired stranger asked; his sophisticated manner of dress standing out in contrast against the blood-slicked earth.
“I saw what you did,” the young man said, looking away from the strangest pair of eyes he had ever seen and over the remnants of the ambush.
“Who would believe you? A young, traumatized soldier…” the man challenged, using the handkerchief from his breast pocket to pat at the splatter of blood across the face of his gold watch.
“Who are you?” the soldier asked, overcome by a strange sense of courage.
“You may call me Mr. Donoma.”
He would later swear to his superiors that he had seen the man disappear; those strange eyes the last thing seared into his mind before unconsciousness placed him in a headlock.
Gregory rubbed his eyes in an effort to wipe away the last vestiges of his memory; those weighted words still pulsing through his mind; “How can a mortal rebuild if he has no life?”
How indeed…
END OF EPISODE
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Army of Sin - Season 3 - Africa and Her Secrets
FantasyHenrí Donoma is an immortal with renewed purpose. With his reunion with his brother; the King of Hell, his exile has been annulled and he has been given new information that may well help turn the tide of the coming war that he can sense. However, h...
