Say My Name

I exist in a tumble down ruin that was built from fossils by proud accomplished men who are long since dead and forgotten. Well at least, they were forgotten, until I arrived. Who they were and what they achieved and how they did it is plain as day for a man with eyes to see. I am that man.

Their great great great great great great really not so great grandchildren might be able to remember; if they could read, that is. If they could be bothered to look. But they won’t look, which is why they cannot see. “They turned their face, from the castles in the distance” goes the old song. “Eyes cast down on the path of least resistance” it continues.

A lesser man might believe this is impossible. How could people so great have descendants so impossibly stupid and illiterate? But let’s recall the tale from Earth That Was, of those who ruled over a mighty empire and built the most amazing cities of that time. Built towering statues and colossal pyramids and a language built from birds and stars and swift, graceful dogs. Everyone not made from shit could read those words. Ten and twenty and even thirty centuries of wise and well read people! And yet, there came a day when there was only one man left who could read them. Just one; and then he died, and for ten centuries, those glyphs were mute.

The selfish and ridiculous people who live here have no need for graceful dogs. Their hunting companions are swift, but not graceful, and of course, this is not Earth, so they are not dogs. But they are living creatures nevertheless, quadrupeds with sharp teeth and strong limbs and masters without love. So when their “companions” grow stiff of limb or weary of sight, they make them play a game of “scratch, scratch”. They hang their beasts with wire just long enough that they won’t strangle, just as long as they frantically scurry their hind paws in the sharp sand below their feet.

That is how I found my first true friends, here on this desolate place where I was marooned so many years ago. For weeks, I had hidden by day and prowled by night. Were I a lesser man, my heart would have been so full of bitterness at being marooned here, I would not have had eyes to see. But I am not lesser, but greater; greater than those whose treachery has dumped me on this primitive backwater.

One fine evening, I crept up on a small group of natives, as they drunkenly played their game of “scratch scratch”. A dozen of them, tormenting five of their cast aside companions. Three were already dead, with two more frantically scratching.

Some men would fear such odds. Not I! A dozen? With my eyes shut, with half my brain tied behind my back? Some men bellow war cries… not I! “Speak, hands, for me!”; that is my creed. Four drunken throats were silenced in an instant; an iron rod for tormenting was snatched from the fourth, and dispatched the stupid empty skulls of another four.

GOD, how I have missed this!

The remaining four slouched up, primitive firearms in hands ruined with drink and cruelty. A gun? At this range? Against an actual man with a war club? Gone without firing a shot!

The last foe to fall had a sharp knife at his waist. I drew it, and released those poor, suffering creatures from their “scratch scratch” torment. They scampered off, howling.

A sharp narrow ravine nearby proved an excellent tomb for the fallen. A mere six trips later, and they were gone from view. On Earth That Was, honored dead were interred with tools and weapons, for thr glorious next life to come. This trash was not honorable, and where they were headed was not at all glorious. Also, I needed their tools and their weapons. I was alive, and I would stay that way.

I made my stealthy way to the long abandoned fortress made from the bones of the ancient dead. Along the way, the two quadrupeds I had saved circled back, with game still bleeding, held by teeth that were not so useless after all. They followed at a distance, ready to scamper away if I meant them harm. I offered none.

We all made camp inside the fortress ruin. I gathered wood, and made the fire which I had been lacking for so long. The two quads seemed overjoyed. Food! And cooked by flames. There was no worry about the smell of meat or smoke, or the visible crackle of fire to trouble me. Beasts with four legs would fear my two quads; beasts with two legs wouldn’t live long enough to fear me.

The next day, I climbed a longish spiral of stairs, to the pinnacle of the tallest tower still standing. A quick survey in all directions confirmed that this was an island, with thick dark woods and countless splashing streams. There were two smaller islands that I might swim to later on, no more than twenty or thirty miles across a treacherous, shimmering sea.

All around this brokedown palace were odd, massive slabs of what might be rock or fossil. These were instantly recognized as doors, meant to keep what’s outside away from the inside. It was the work of an afternoon carrying back all eight. All but two lacked hinges, and had to be roughly slammed into place.

Inside were hundreds of smaller stone slabs, lightly imprinted with a language of some sort, scattered over floors in every room. Gathering them took a morning; learning to read them took a day and a night. They sang ballads of knowledge and power, sagas of how much they had built, and how much more they had dreamed of doing. Someday.

How greatly I admired them! Even long dead, I felt a kinship. Nothing they wrote explained how it all came crashing down. There was also no reason given for why they had come so very close to exploring all the worlds beyond their own, but had inexplicably stopped trying. However, they did have some practical advice, which showed an astounding, almost magical connection between my quads and the fossil walls of my castle in exile.

Long ago, these magnificent people had spoke with their quads; spoken out loud in just the way you are reading these words set black over white. It was a more complete language than any that had ever been on Earth That Was, a speech made from sound and body posture and facial expression. The old ones from long ago had not been mere masters of their quads; they were brothers, brothers with a fierce and wild devotion to each other.

When I first spoke with my quads, they went wild with joy! For many long and lonely centuries, they spoken among themselves of a wonderful time, long ago, when the people and the quads had lived as one. And how somehow, the people had turned cruel and stupid. And now, there appeared a man who was not people, but was more like the old ones than the selfish hateful people who were their “heirs”

“Bright One,” this is how they referred to me, “Bright One, shall we speak with the long gone?”

“Yes,” came my reply. It felt right to agree, even though I had no idea what they meant.

The quads crouched together, front paws on opposite shoulders. They raised their blocky muzzles and sang. They sang an epic made from word and sound and notes. At that very instant, the fortress quivered, and the long dead walls released a tumbled chorus of whispers and shouts. They glowed, and the rooms brightened and gently warmed. They glowed, and the very air became sweet and fresh.

The earth moved.

The angels wept.

On Earth That Was, two centuries ago, I was Dominus. An overlord, with power over billions. Yet I was never more pleased than now. Every room of this mighty fortress delivered new and fantastic possibilities. There was a shop floor, with machines that thought and built; an armory, with weapons previously unimagined; a vast kitchen, with food that grew itself and ovens warmed by a fire of unknown origin. There was an even an observatory, with enormous eyes of metal and glass that saw far beyond the skies of this world.

This last saddened me. It was a reminder of how I was still in exile, in prison. However glorious my incarceration had become, I was still in jail. However much it might irk the smug, self righteous bigots who had marooned me here, to see how well I had done for myself, it was still a jail after all. My sentence was forever, without hope of parole.

My people had been defeated and dispersed before I was captured, so there was no hope of rescue. Even if that had been a possibility, it was rejected out of hand. I was their ruler, their ubermensch, their Khan. I should be stepping forth to rescue them! I should come bearing the gifts of this new and fantastic world which I had discovered, to lead them into a new and better age. No, if I am going to live and rule anywhere, it will be this wild ball of rock where I’ve been deposited.

So thinking, I went outside.

There were many, many of the inhabitants gathered close around. I was armed, of course; I haven’t been disarmed since I was a boy of eight. Still, one of me, and not less than several hundred of them: not the best odds. I was built from the DNA up to be superior in every way, but I was still unable to achieve flight. As it turned out, There was no cause for alarm.

Or for a translator. Not only could I talk to my quads, and they could talk to the walls, but it seemed that some new force made it possible for me to converse with the inhabitants of this place. I made this discovery when the large somewhat round fellow out front began making his demands.

It was not to be a long conversation.

“Those punters do not belong to you. I demand to know how you came to own them!” (Why they call them “punters” I still do not know.)

“You are in a position unsuited for making demands,” came my all too even reply. “These creatures followed me here of their own free will. We live here now.” And at this, I gestured to the fortress behind me.

“You also have no right to this castle. It is forbidden!”

“I have every right to be here. I own this place. I forbid you to bother me here. Prove me wrong.”

My words had the desired effect, as I knew they would. The large one was perplexed, then enraged. He then rushed at me with a club held high. He thought me easy prey of some sort. His last thought was quite wrong of course, and he perished from his own club shattering his windpipe, using a move I had been trained in since before I had hair on my arms.

Two of his companions attacked, one with a blade, one with a firearm. I shot them both before they could bellow. “Shoot the one out front,” my trainers had told me, “the rest will scatter.”

Only they didn’t scatter. Well, most of them did, but more than a few remained. Two of them – a brother and sister? Husband and wife? Lovers? – a young man and even younger woman approached.

“We never agreed with them. They never listened to us,” said the young man, referring to the dead bullies.

“We told them of strange people like you, who came from the sky, in a strange boat that gleams like a newly sharpened knife,” said the younger one, the woman. “ They were all afraid because there were a hand and a hand and another hand of them.”

“But only one of you,” continued the man. “We could not understand them as we can you, but we kept hearing the same word over and over. Like it was a name or a title.”

I was instantly tense and alert at hearing this. “What was it they called me? What name was it?” They looked at each other, alarmed at my sudden change in tone.

“Say My Name,” I commanded them.

“Khan,” they both replied.

I smiled at them both. They beamed back, instantly much relieved. I grinned a broad and happy grin, full of teeth that had not decayed in even the smallest way in more than two centuries. My “rescuers” had arrived, no doubt to bind me and bring me to an even lonelier and harsher prison. Doubtless they thought me weak and sick after my confinement here; “easy prey”. So be it! They were about to be taught a sharp lesson that they would not have over much time to learn from. And I was about to be rescued from this zoo, this dungeon. Yes, I and my companions would be leaving soon, on a ship provided to us by my enemies.

I am smiling. That alone should make them very , very afraid.