For a Future Peace

I am here for the truth, to see the story we have been told, but with my own eyes.

It was not the white man who first changed our way of life, coming to our shores in his great ships with sails billowing upon the open waters, carrying alien tongues and sickness teeming within their mighty hulls. By the time he arrived from across the sea, we were already a far different people from our ancestors. We bore knowledge unknown to any of them, unfathomable even to the wisest of the wise.

The Grey Man's magic had changed us.

He came in ships of a far different design, great stone eagles that hung from the sky on unseen wings, appearing in the blink of an eye to blot out the sun and cast our land into shadow. The old among our people ran and hid their faces, crying out in fear. The brazen young hurled their spears and fired arrows that glanced from the rock-like exterior, as smooth as a lake without wind, gleaming like a wet stone but far greater in size, as the sun itself is in comparison to a kindled flame.

There were three vessels. They hovered over our village for many moons, the story is told, until my grandfather -- young, strong, possessing more courage than any other in our tribe -- went out into the fields to wait. He would not say for what, but it was as though he knew what would come next. While the rest of the village sharpened their spears and made arrows for what was sure to be an attack from the ominous sky-ships, Grandfather sat among the rows of corn, directly beneath the Grey Man's vessels where they converged to allow a single beam of sunlight to pierce the earth between them.

That was where Grandfather remained, cross-legged, spine erect. He said he was told in a vision to do so. No one questioned him.

What happened next stunned those of our people brave enough to watch. A brilliant shaft of light -- brighter than sunlight or any flame ever kindled -- shot down from each of the stone ships, striking Grandfather like white spears and lifting him upward to swim in air, his arms and legs sweeping in broad strokes. He uttered not a sound, but our village came alive with war cries and weapons at the ready. Yet Grandfather was not injured. Even as the arrows came close, they could not penetrate the light that held him.

Even though I know the stories well, it is something entirely different to see the events unfold before me now. I am only an observer, unseen by my ancestors. As much as I desire to marvel at how I have navigated the streams of time thanks to the Grey Man's magic, I must focus on my task at hand: discovering the truth. It is the only reason I am here. This moment is nearly two hundred years before the English in their red coats came marching through our woods, intent on destroying the white settlers who refuse to pay them taxes.

We the Mahicans were a different people. We thought we knew magic, but we were sorely mistaken.

As I watch, Grandfather floats up into the sky, devoured by the lights of the three strange ships sitting still in the sky above, higher than twice a mountain, higher than the clouds they seem to rest upon.

Grandfather's people give him up for dead. Watching him drift up and away, then vanish as the white beams do the same, I can see why they assumed they would never see him again. How could any man survive such a thing?

All we are left with is the single ray of sunlight streaming between the floating ships, glowing upon the corn below as a dim reminder of the sun's pale glory. I remain in the corn to wait and watch. I must know what happens next; I must see it for myself. Here, in the past, I will see him return with my own eyes.

The story has been told for generations: how Grandfather was taken up into the sky to meet the Grey Man, how he blessed Grandfather with three silver pieces of metal as gifts. Magic has been with our tribe ever since. The power over life, over death, and over time itself.

Thanks to the life-giving power of the silver metal, I have seen more seasons than any man besides my father, blessed in the same way as my grandfather. The only other man who comes close to our years upon the earth is the English sorcerer Cromwell. It is unknown how he or his Mohawk allies ever received the Grey Man's magic. It may be that Cromwell was also snatched up into the heavens from his home across the sea -- England, the land of a thousand rains.

But what of the Mohawk? A wicked, warlike people, intent only on their own gain and the destruction of all others. Were they too blessed by the Grey Man's magic? And did they trade their gifts with the redcoats for liquor and muskets? This I must know.

The power over life, over death, and over time. For each, a silver piece unlike any other on the earth. Grandfather told us that such were common in the Grey Man's land, a world far beyond the moon. As a boy, I found it difficult to imagine such a thing, but I knew I'd never seen anything like them: seamless, with characters inscribed from an unknown language.

I reach into my deerskin pouch and retrieve the time piece that has brought me to this quiet moment. Grandfather never told us how long he was in conference with the Grey Man, only that our people had given up their battle against the enormous vessels, collected their broken arrows and spears, and returned to their huts, ignoring as well as they could the silent predators in the sky above them -- soaring eagles frozen in place as twilight swelled across our land.

Did Grandfather receive more than the three metal pieces he passed on to my father, and from him to me? And did he share them with the Mohawk?

I cannot fathom why he would do such a thing. But there are rumors among my people that he may have done so for peace, to stop the bloodshed between our tribes. Of all the peoples in this land, ours is the only one the Mohawk have been unable to attack, because both of our tribes possess the Grey Man's magic. Grandfather always said the Grey Man represented a peaceful race, and that was why we could no longer be harmed -- or bring harm to others.

But I have no proof of these rumors.

Night falls with darkness as black as pitch beneath the soaring ships, but I do not feel the chill. I am not truly here in this time and place. Father told me such is the gift of the time piece: to see the past but not be able to interfere. To learn from it, but not to change it. I am here merely as an observer, unable to interact with my ancestors.

When Grandfather returns, he will not see me. But I will see him, and I will count how many pieces of silver he has been given by the Grey Man. Then I will know the truth.

White light startles me awake -- brighter than day, humming as if it is alive. How could I have fallen asleep?

The beams from the sky-ships meet high above me in the black, creating a shape like a forked branch. Suspended between them is a motionless figure that grows as it approaches the tall stalks of corn all around me.

Grandfather hovers above, lying on his back in the light, his thick-muscled arms drifting out to the sides, his strands of long, raven hair floating out around his head. He looks as though he could be lying in a pool of water, floating on his back to gaze up at the stars and the moon -- only they are blotted out by the Grey Man's vessels.

He sinks toward the earth from whence he came. He returns alone. His people will not understand at first his talk of the Grey Man or the vessels in the sky, but they will believe in the Grey Man's magic when Grandfather uses the silver amulet to lay waste to an entire field of corn only to bring it back to full health in an instant with the life metal. Or so the story has been told by my father ever since I was a boy.

It is strange to think he has not been born yet, nor will he be for another hundred years from this night. It is said that Grandfather took his time in finding a suitable woman to be his wife. My father as well did not rush matters. I, however, am not afflicted by such needless patience. Already, there are two women in the tribe who have caught my eye, and they both now bear my young with bellies ripe and full. Each of them pleases me in her own way. The one who bears my first son will become my wife.

I leap to my feet, stepping aside as the light-spears set Grandfather upon the ground with as much care as a mother laying her child down to sleep on a pile of skins. The white beam crosses my scalp and right arm as I step back into the shadows, and for just a moment my skin tingles with heat; but the sensation cools and departs from me once I stand in darkness.

Grandfather lies upon the earth with his eyes shut as though fast asleep. It is uncanny to see him as young as I am. To hold the time piece is to bring one's aging to a creeping crawl. Grandfather, Father, and I have all been blessed with long life as guardians of the magic silver. But I have never seen my grandfather so young.

My hand darts to the deerskin pouch. I reach inside and touch the cold, smooth surface of the metal, contemplating a return to my own world. I do not belong here. This is not my time. It is wrong. This moment -- seeing Grandfather returned to the earth -- is more than I was ever meant to see. I stare into the pouch, unable to decide.

A strong hand grasps my wrist before I can close my fingers over the metal. Grandfather stands before me in the white light, his black eyes piercing into my spirit as though he has read my thoughts.

"Why have you come, Ahote?"

This cannot be happening. He sees me, and what is more, he touches me. How can this be? He does not release his hold. With my free hand, I reach out and place my palm on the swell of his broad chest, warm and throbbing with the beat of his strong heart.

"Grandfather?" My voice is dry, but my eyes are not.

"Why are you here, my son?"

I search his eyes. There is no anger, no curiosity. He seems already to know what my answer will be -- yet he wants me to be the one to say it.

"You have returned with the Grey Man's gifts," I manage.

"Yes." The night wind catches his dark hair, playing with it across his broad, bare shoulders.

"You were given three pieces of silver."

In reply, he opens the hand at his side, and in its palm they sit: one for life, one for death, one for time. They are unlike anything the earth has ever given birth to.

The Grey Man did not give him more than three, and Grandfather did not pass them on to the Mohawk in return for peace between our tribes. I have found my answer. Yet I cannot bring myself to leave him.

"You look like your father," he says.

I stand tall before him, honored to be in his presence. "The Grey Man showed you the future."

Grandfather only nods in response.

"Where does he come from? Who is he?"

The white lights vanish in an instant, and we are swallowed by the night -- but now with the moon and stars above us once again, shining in their muted glory. The Grey Man's vessels have disappeared as quickly and silently as they arrived.

"There is more to this world than we know, Ahote. And there are other worlds than our own." Grandfather squeezes my arm. "We have found favor in the eyes of the Grey Man, and we have been given powers the earth has never seen before. We must wield them wisely."

If he has seen the future, then he already knows what I am about to ask: "The Mohawk -- how have they come to possess the same power you were given?"

For a moment, Grandfather is silent. His grasp on my arm -- a young man's grip -- tightens as he says, "In your time, they have allied themselves with the English to destroy the white settlers and our tribe as well. They have shared the power of the silver with the English, bringing their dead soldiers back to life. They know only war, these cousins of ours. They do not want peace. Their spirits would not know how to live at rest."

"Should we destroy them here and now? Before they can obtain the Grey Man's magic?"

Grandfather shakes his head. "I will not lead us against the Mohawk to fight the future. If it is the Grey Man's wish to bless our cousins with the same magic, then who are we to question his will? They are unable to destroy us themselves. The Grey Man's magic does not work against its own. We belong to it now, and it belongs to us. But the English are another matter. In order to defeat them, you must ally yourselves with the rebels."

I blink back at him, uncertain. "The white settlers?"

"You are friends with them, yes?"

"Some." Most would rather see us die at the hands of our Mohawk cousins. To them, there is no difference between tribes. "The Mohawk attack a settlement, and the white man retaliates against us with his muskets and gunpowder."

"It has always been this way, my son, from the dawn of life. Governor Winthrop tells the tale of two brothers, Cain and Abel, who brought murder into this world. The English and white settlers in your time, they are bound by blood. And in blood, they will fight over this valley. In the same way, the Mohawk are our brothers, but they will not rest until they have taken from us all that we call our own."

"We have the power to stop them, Grandfather."

"They are short-sighted. The Grey Man did not grant them power over time, only over life. I do not know why, but we have been given a certain advantage, and we can ensure that our people survive."

"By joining the white settlers in their cause?" I cannot believe this.

"Is their aim so different from our own? Freedom from strife. It will not be a simple matter, even with the Grey Man's magic, but we can help them in their fight, and in so doing, keep the Mohawk from ultimate victory."

"You would have us bring the white rebels' dead back to life?"

"No, my son. Such is an abomination. When we die, our spirits enter the next life. There is no way to call them back. The English undead have no spirits -- no souls. But nothing is beneath the devilry of that sorcerer, Cromwell. Winthrop likens him to a fork-tongued devil, speaking out both sides of his mouth. He swears allegiance to the crown with every generation that passes, but he alone wishes to rule their colonies. He is a man of evil, of bloodshed, so it is no surprise he has befriended our warlike cousins. You must not follow their example, twisting the Grey Man's magic for wicked aims."

He releases my arm, half-turning to look at the corn around us. He touches the leaves as if seeing them for the first time in many a moon.

"I must remember where I am. And when." He faces me. "In your time, Ahote, there are fighting men among the settlers. Militia, yes?"

"The minutemen." Many of them fought alongside my people -- as well as the Mohawk -- in the French and Indian wars. "They are ready to enter battle with little notice, as we are."

Grandfather smiles for the first time as if recalling a distant memory. The moonlight shines on his white teeth. "Yes, the minutemen. Soon they will also be known for the speed and ferocity with which they fight. Once we give them the power of the silver metal." He approaches me with his palm outstretched. In it, the three pieces seem to vibrate with life. "Can you point it out, Ahote?"

In the moonlight, it is a simple matter to tell them apart. There are characters engraved on the polished surface that can be seen only by the light of the moon. Grandfather nods as I single out the life metal, and he touches the symbols in a sequence I have never seen before. In an instant, the silver has broken apart of its own accord without a sound, and now two pieces of identical shape and size sit in its place.

"How -- ?"

"Give life to our people, my son, and remember: even as we give life, we must take it. There can be no freedom without sacrifice." He points to the symbols on the metal in order. "Remember this, and remember a white man's name: Benjamin Franklin. He was once a friend of your father -- or will be, when the time comes." Grandfather frowns. "Your time grows dim in my mind. It becomes difficult to see through the fog. But Franklin knows our people, and he is a man of great ingenuity. He will know how to use the life metal to aid his rebels -- and the Mahican as well."

With reverence, I take the second piece from my grandfather's hand and slip it into my pouch. In my mind, I see the sequence of symbols; I will not forget it. I will also remember the name Franklin, although I cannot see a face in my mind to go with it.

Grandfather winces now, in great pain. He steps back from me and clenches his fists, bending forward to scowl at the ground between us. "You must return to your time, Ahote. Guard the time piece -- never allow it to leave your side. Give life to the white settlers. And in so doing, you will bring peace to our land."

I reach into my pouch. I hold the cold metal in the palm of my hand and pause before closing it in my grasp, shutting my eyes as Father taught me, bringing clearly into my mind an image of the time and place from which I journeyed and to which I must now return.

"Grandfather, you have seen our future." Suddenly the chill of the night snakes down my back. "Will there ever be peace for us?"

He looks at me, and again he smiles -- only for a moment, struggling against the pain behind his eyes. "The power is with you now, my son. Fight for a future our people deserve."

I close my hand over the silver, and in an instant, I return to my time. But the cornfields do not look as I left them. They have been burned to the ground, and nothing remains but black ash under the moonlight. In the distance, our village burns with flames that dance malevolently under thick clouds of smoke. Old women wail in anguish over charred bodies lying motionless in the dust.

The Mohawk have paid us a visit in my absence. Did they lie in wait, watching as I disappeared into the past? The cowards.

I run like the wind, screaming names. My father. My brothers. The mothers of my unborn sons.

Two survivors stop me in my tracks -- young men of our tribe who hold me in place with their strong hands, not wanting me to see what lies ahead.

"How many?" my voice growls.

"They came with the night and set fire to the corn -- "

"Winds took the flames into our village -- "

"Should we go after them?"

I make no answer. There is only one thing to be done. I have made up my mind, despite Grandfather's talk of peace.

There will never be peace between our peoples.

I shake myself free, but I do not press into the village. I turn on my heel and take off through the woods, running through branches with the life metal gripped in one hand, endowing me with wings for feet, magically making me faster than the swiftest deer. I race through the darkness without sight, yet I know these hunting paths as well as the creases on my own palms. I clutch the deerskin pouch close, grasping the silver pieces tightly to keep them from making a sound against one another.

Vengeance is the fire burning within me.

The moon is high by the time I reach the edge of the clearing and see the Mohawk village below. They celebrate their victory over the Mahican with dances and cries of delight -- a successful attack only because I took the Grey Man's magic into the past and left my people without protection.

I must do so only once more. Then never again.

Gripping the time piece in my hand, I close my eyes to this world and see Grandfather's face in my mind's eye -- as I saw him in the past, as young and strong as I am. Only now I do not stand in a field of corn. I stand overlooking the Mohawk village in the dead of night. Still. Silent. Asleep.

I return the time metal to the pouch and remove the silver amulet -- the only piece from the Grey Man with the look of jewelry. For just a moment, my gaze rests on the two life metal pieces sitting identically in the bottom of the pouch, the two made from one.

"Forgive me, Grandfather."

The amulet vibrates in my clenched fist as I hold it high and bare my teeth, staring through tears at the thought of women and unborn children burning to death with their father nowhere to be found. Murderous curs, these Mohawk. Better they never live to be gifted by the Grey Man.

Better they never live past this night.

I open my hand, expecting a white beam to burst forth and devour the entire village, a spear of light as blinding as that which came from the Grey Man's vessels. But there is nothing. The amulet sits in the palm of my hand as would any rock taken from a dry riverbed. I stare at it, grinding my teeth, willing it to act with all that is within me. But it lies there as dead as the people in my village.

A dark figure approaches, halting in the middle of the clearing. My free hand drops to the dagger sheathed at my side.

"Speak," I command the stranger. If he is Mohawk, I will spill his blood warm and fresh this night.

"Why have you returned, Ahote?"

"Grandfather?" I step forward from the cover of trees. It was his voice, I have no doubt. But what is he doing here?

"Why do you hold the amulet, my son?"

The muscles in my forearm twitch as I grip the Grey Man's gift. "You have seen the future. Yet you did not warn me what I would find upon my return."

His dark silhouette nods once, slowly. "I hoped it was merely a possible future -- not yours. It caused me great pain."

I remember; he seemed nearly overcome by it at the time. "What do you expect from me?"

"To destroy an entire tribe -- such an atrocity would overcome your spirit. You would never be the same again, Ahote. You would be undead inside."

"They deserve to die!" I shake my fist at him. "Why else were we given this gift by the Grey Man if not to use it against our enemies?"

Grandfather's shadowy figure approaches me. "And who is your enemy, my son? These are not the same Mohawk who attacked your people. This is a different time."

Is it a trick of the moonlight, or does my grandfather's skin look as grey as death?

I fall back a step. "Who are you?"

He steps fully into the moonlight, and I see him for what he is. His eyes are bottomless pits that gleam like the silver pieces in my pouch; his shape that of my grandfather, but he is not a man -- not one from this world.

"It was not our desire to see you make the same mistakes we have made. We are the last of our kind. We allowed vengeance to overcome us. We annihilated our enemies until we alone were left. And now we roam the galaxy searching for a race of beings able to see beyond their present circumstances and choose wisely: life over death."

I grip the dagger in one hand, the silver amulet in the other. "Was that my grandfather before? Or were you playing tricks with my mind even then?"

The Grey Man inclines his head to one side as if appraising me. "It is complicated. Suffice it to say, you are at a stage in your evolution where many concepts lie beyond your grasp. But here and now, at this time in your past, you have the same choice to make as we did millennia ago. Will you choose life? Or death?"

I have already made my choice. "You will not allow me to do what I must." Somehow his presence has canceled the power of the silver in my hand.

"Then I will leave you, and the decision will be yours alone. Know that we are watching you. We will not intervene, but we may choose another upon whom to bestow our gifts. One who is more worthy in our sight. One who will not repeat the same mistakes we have made."

With that, the shadow of my grandfather -- yet not him at all -- vanishes into the night, disappearing from my sight as if he never stood before me. I am left to wonder if by my actions here, I will be the cause of the Mohawk obtaining the Grey Man's magic. And if I destroy their village, and even one man among them remains to carry their blood and rebuild their tribe, then they will have reason enough to exact vengeance upon the Mahican in the time to follow.

But if I were to return to my time and never leave it, never journey into the past to see Grandfather taken up by the Grey Man's sky-ships, then the magic silver would never be absent from my village, leaving it defenseless, and the Mohawk would be unable to burn our fields to the ground.

It lies within my power to keep my unborn children alive. All I must do is return to my time, but a day earlier, and there remain.

If I do this, I will not possess the second life metal Grandfather gave me, but I will remember the sequence of characters, and I will be able to make another for the white man Franklin in his war against the English.

But how will I remember? If I return to my time and never journey into the past to see Grandfather -- or the Grey Man, or whatever complicated being it was who spoke to me among the corn -- then I will know nothing of his instructions. I will not know how to create a second life metal. And I will not know about a man named Franklin.

I draw my dagger. The moon's light glints along the blade. I clench my jaw.

There is only one way to ensure I remember what I must.

My flesh becomes my parchment. On both arms and across my bare midsection, I cut myself with Grandfather's instructions in symbols that will become scars in the future. Warm blood flows fresh across my skin -- not the blood I intended to spill tonight.

Can I forsake the vengeance burning inside me? As much as it pains me to do so, I must. And I have to believe the women who bear our young will be there to greet me with smiles on their soft faces as they welcome me back to our village. The corn will stand tall, and the old women will not weep.

I must believe Grandfather's words, that with freedom comes sacrifice -- but there can also be peace.

Only time will tell if I live to see such a thing.

THE END

Bio: Milo James Fowler is a teacher by day and a speculative fictioneer by night. When he's not grading papers, he's imagining what the world might be like in a dozen alternate realities. Mr. Fowler's last Aphelion appearance was Captain Quasar and the Carpathian Bully in our February 2016 issue. www.milojamesfowler.com

E-mail: Milo James Fowler

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