FistWedge

"Are you suggesting that stars speak?" cracked Old Tamak's voice with his face like a wrinkled net woven by many winters. He fixed his eyes on the sky, clutching the woods in his hands more tightly. Above him was a black dome of infinite size stretched out through the valley.

"Yes," said the young man beside him, speaking softly but confidently. Unlike Tamak, Hara still had a rosy tint to his cheeks typical of youth. His eyes were bright and curious unlike those of other hunters.

Tamak grunted as he adjusted a wolf skin over his shoulders. The night was cold and their small fire felt inadequate against the enormity of space above them. “Tell me then; what are they saying tonight?”

Hara hesitated, looking up at the stars. “They say the ground is moving,” he began deliberatively ,“That something under our feet is waking up. And when it does we shall make a choice.”

“What do you mean?”

Hara’s eyes moved from the stars to their campfire’s circle of stones at its heart. Each one had been put in place by men who came before to signify the shift of seasons, and they were much taller than a living being. Even though it was more than a mere calendar for Hara, it was a gateway connecting her existence with the incomprehensible world.

“How we live,” he murmured almost inaudibly. “And how we die.”

Tamak squinted his eyes; he’d heard enough cryptic premonitions from Hara over time. They always come true, but not as expected and when finally unraveled, they gnaw the soul. He turned his back on them and looked at the fire instead.

"In ancient times," started Tamak, "before mountains rose up high and rivers ran wide, earth was flat and desolate. Our people wandered aimlessly they say; there were no stones to guide them nor stars to speak. It was just an endless stretch of land permeated by fear."

"It wasn’t until the first fire was stolen from the gods," Tamak continued, "that we learned to shape the stone, to carve it and give it purpose. The Fistwedge was born then, they say. A weapon, yes, but also a tool. It gave us the power to break the earth, to split it open and find what lay beneath."

"And with that power," Hara interjected, "came the choice."

Tamak gazed at him with the fire reflecting in his eyes. "Aye, the decision. Either we use that force conscientiously or it destroys us; but who determines wisdom? You see things in shadows, boy, but I’ve witnessed enough to understand that on rare occasions a shade is just a shade."

Hara was silent for some time. His gaze was fixed on a constellation of stars forming into a shape of a human figure with both hands reaching up into the sky. “However,” he said softly, “shadows shift when light moves. They are not actual.”

Tamak shook his head and brushed off his hand as if to say no more about it. “Enough! These are things you shouldn’t worry yourself about yet because you’re still young. The earth is solid under our feet while the stars are too far away to bother even thinking about them. We have all we need right here, this fire’s warmth and strength in our hands.”

But Hara stopped listening and began brooding as he always did whenever he listened to the stars. They were more than mere dots of light; they were arrangements, stories waiting to be told now he could hear them clearer than ever.

"What if Fistwedge isn’t merely an implement or weapon though?" He asked suddenly offering, "What if it’s a key?"

Tamak sneered back at him in derision, "Key?? To the gods’ treasure?"

A faint smile crossed Hara’s face—a very rare thing for him indeed." To something we’re not supposed to see Or maybe something we should discover.”

The air paused for a while, as it does when two men stand before an abyss of incomprehension. Tamak laughed, "You think too much my child. The gods gave us the Fistwedge to survive but not to unravel the riddles of this world."

"But," Hara insisted, "what if survival is not enough?"

Tamak’s smile disappeared. "Survival has always been our only lot."

"Maybe", Hara answered. “But I believe there is more to it than that. I think the stars are trying to tell us something.”

"You might be right", he admitted grudgingly. “However, if you are then I’m too old for this.”

Hara looked at him sadly with respect in his eyes; sadness beyond his years. "Well then I’ll walk there alone."

Tamak nodded, the fire crackling between them. "And may the gods help you if you do."

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