The tribe had settled at the fork of the river at a time beyond the limits of even mythical history. Where the first founders of their settlement had come from and why they had decided to migrate to that widening strip of land between the two bodies of water were questions that no longer had answers. Nobody in the tribe was worried by their ignorance, though. It was a rich land that gave freely, and the tribe prospered and grew. That was enough.

Although they prided themselves on their successes in splendid isolation from the outside world, they were not entirely alone at the confluence. From upstream, from unknown sources, came white knights who attacked their settlement with a zealous single mindedness. They could not be reasoned with. They did not respond to the simplest attempts at communication, let alone treaty proposals. It seemed that they would be satisfied only with the annihilation of the tribe. But the knights were weak and the tribe was strong and, each time, laughing, they would drive them back into the river. The river flowed on, taking the knights with it.

Other visitors flowed in on the pulsing waters, less violent in their intentions. Visitors more like themselves, but carried away from their native lands and brought to these foreign shores. Many were unimpressed with what they saw. ‘You take too freely from the land,’ said one, ‘and the land shall not permit it forever. There are powers in it that none of us can understand.’ The tribe thought of the weak and beaten knights who attacked so often, and wondered if they were guardians of the land. If so, the land’s powers were too feeble to worry about. So they laughed once more, and sent the visitors on their way down the river.

Sometimes, a restless member of the tribe would leave on their own journey. They never came back with solutions to the mysteries of the rivers and the land. They never came back at all.

Most remained, though. Those who did led an easy life. That which the land did not give directly, the rivers brought in time; they had only to cast their nets out and take it. So bountiful were the waters and the land that several families did not need to work at all. Once the nets of their fellow tribespeople had been filled with the bounty of the river, they would wade out and seize them, and take the contents for themselves. The net-makers grumbled about the unfairness of this arrangement, pointing out that as the net-takers prospered and expanded, the net-makers themselves dwindled. There must come a breaking point. But it seemed to be nowhere near.

One day, the tribe grew sick. All at once, what had seemed prosperity became a curse. The healthiest and quickest growing among them died the earliest, while the old and infirm lingered. To the tribe, the change seemed an apocalyptic rejection of their way of life. There was a sudden effort to find meaning and causation for their peril. Some agreed with the earlier visitors that they had overburdened the land, which was now exacting its revenge through miasma. Others blamed the actions of some unknown higher power, displeased by their carefree existence and lack of reverence, who now punished them with slow death. But eventually it was found by careful investigation that the waters of the rivers themselves carried the toxin. For so many generations, they had brought life to the tribe.  Now those same waters took it back.

There was nothing to be done. They could not cast themselves into the river and hope to land on kinder shores. Even if they could have taken hope from any sign of success from earlier explorers, the rivers themselves were poison now. Nor could there be any movement through the deep and cloying mud of the river banks. And at their rear, dense organic matter blocked all passage further inland. They were marooned on a dying sandbank, alone and with no chance of rescue.

At this bleakest hour, when hope had all but disappeared, a child was born to one of the net-taker families. Unlike the other children who sickened and died before even approaching maturity, she grew swiftly and strong, immune to the poison of the rivers. The tribe named this child ‘New Hope’ and thought that, even if she could not rescue their individual bodies, she might still keep the tribe’s lineage and their memory alive. As she grew, the tribespeople poured into her all their aspirations for their continued existence, and she came to believe herself their saviour. She alone would lead them out from the horrors of oblivion.

But it was too late. At that moment when it seemed New Hope would finally be able to bring forth children of her own, the white knights attacked from the river once more. They were not perturbed by the poison. On the contrary, their ferocity seemed greater than ever before. Weakened by sickness and fear and chaos, the tribe disintegrated under the onslaught. The knights killed many outright. Those who survived, New Hope amongst them, were unmoored from their home and set adrift in the river.

Eventually, New Hope came to rest upon a stretch of bank she did not recognize. She was alone. If she could not get help she would perish here, immunity to the river’s waters or no. All she could do was wait, but New Hope had lost all hope. Even if there was hope of some form of help arriving, she doubted that life could ever be restored to the dreams of her tribe. Her hopes had been founded on her powers and the future they might bring for her people, and had only made sense when surrounded by those hopeful kin. They were gone now. She would not see them again.

After some time, a white knight drifted by on the waters. He too was alone, and had not yet noticed her. She was desperate, and he was the first form of life she had seen since coming to rest on the bank. Who knew when something else might come along? Perhaps her only chance of escaping a lonely, miserable death was to throw herself upon his mercy. So she cried out to him: ‘Knight upon the river! Upon your honour, lend me your aid! For whatever reason your kind have detested and destroyed my own, I ask that you show mercy and forget that reason now. If the actions of my people have been cause for conflict and their death has not washed away their sins, I will gladly atone for their misdeeds on their behalf. Perhaps we can begin again, in a new age of cooperation.’

The knight approached. ‘My lady,’ he said. ‘I know nothing of thine people. So tell me of thine history, and justice shall be done upon thine head. To those who obey the law, mercy shall be shown. To those who transgress, retribution shall be swift. Such is the way of this land.’

So New Hope told him of her life, and what she knew of the world around her. There were many gaps, for the tribe in their collapse had not had the capacity to teach everything they knew to even their last, best hope. What little they had known was lost forever. Her ignorance of the history and knowledge of the tribe only gave her story a greater poignancy though, giving as it did an impression of irredeemable loss. She told him of the poison in the water and the failure of her people. Of her immunity she said nothing – some powers were best left secret.

‘Thou art most unfortunate in thine life,’ said the knight once she had finished. ‘And yet for all that thou dost break the law. Be assured that thine crime wast not one of commission, but thou hast omitted that most crucial of the signals of this land. Within thine story I heard no word of my master, He who maketh the river flow, and so upon thine head I pronounce death. So it must be for all who fail to acknowledge the existence and superiority of my master. So he hath decreed.’

New Hope drew back. ‘Do not be so hasty,’ she said, darkly. ‘If your master makes the river flow, it must be him who made it flow with poison. But can you not see that I am unaffected? For all his strength, he cannot destroy me. Be cautious when you threaten me with death, for there are powers in me that you do not know.’

The knight drew forwards, heedless of her warnings. ‘Perhaps thou shouldst be able to destroy me with a single word, dear lady, and yet still I should not be able to disobey the law of my master. He is the air that I breathe, the water that I drink, and the land upon which I tread. I rejoice at the idea of perishing in his service, for then I shall return to that state from whence I came, united in substance with Him. And thou, when thine body hath become one with the land, shall have become one with Him also. So fear not, for in thine passing from this place thou shalt experience a joy more wondrous than any thou hath yet known. Thou shalt join something greater than thineself, and thou shalt give thanks.’


Harry sat forward and looked at the piece of paper being held in front of him blankly. ‘There’s a lot of good news for you here, Mr Dee,’ said his doctor. ‘But of most immediate concern for us are the results of your bloodwork. All the samples were completely sterile.’ He gave his patient a reassuring smile. ‘From the looks of this, I would say that the antibiotics have worked perfectly.’

‘Well thank Christ for that!’ said Harry, and sank back into his pillows with a sigh of relief.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.