And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Seth was one of the oldest people in all of Eden and by far the oldest person I knew, but still, he was hard to keep up with. He wasn’t as fast as I was but he was relentless. He never slowed down or stopped to rest. It was from him that I got my first taste of getting by with only three or four hours sleep. The passes, canyons, and valleys we rode through were breathtaking. The land was wild and free and beautiful beyond all measure or reason. Many times I saw Seth close his eyes, breath deep, listen to the wind, feel the earth beneath his feet and air caressing his skin, and simply be. There were times I was sure that the rocks and trees were speaking to him, telling him the secrets of seeds or of caves and falling water.

We traveled light and on horses which I much preferred to camels and enjoyed more than the cummoms my family had used. The horse that Seth rode was named Shadefall and he was an amazing animal. The mare I was lent was called Moonfreckle and was a good reliable steed but did not hold a candle to Shadefall. That horse was fast and could somehow muffle his hoofbeats to near silence, hence his name. Moonfreckle followed him like a devoted servant. I grew to love and almost understand those horses. Seth had no trouble with Shadefall at all. He and that horse were as one.

A good week into our journey we were deep in the mountains among the high lakes and flats where time ceases to flow like it does elsewhere. The air was thinner but more crisp and pure and on the light breeze I heard something strange. In my life I have been all through Eden and seen much of her plants and animals, features and formations, but what we encountered was none of those. What I heard was rhythmic and melodic but like no music I had heard before. It was like water, but unnatural; like the most beautiful harmony of grinding rocks; it was discordant and haunting yet seductive and irresistible. It took a few moments for the sound to capture Seth’s ears but he stopped and stood still in tense discernment while I was transfixed.

“Namir,” Seth called me out of my hypnosis. “Do you promise to do as I tell you?”

I nodded.

“Have you ever met the fair folk?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Would you like to?”

Mountains encased the small valley like a shallow bowl. The trees around the clearing obscured the slopes but we could hear the sound coming from above and to the east. We followed a small rivulet that ran through the center of the flat to where it trickled down from roots and stones. There we left our horses and crept through the thickets and up the slope. Seth’s woodcraft was far superior to my bumbling feet but I was a good mimic and slowly we managed to move along in near silence. At first I couldn’t see them. 

Seth stopped and gestured as if the air had a physical curtain and the light seemed to shift. The vail cleared and there they were. Three creatures were near the bank of the stream each one different from the others but all sharing the same primal presence and elemental feeling. The first bent to see her reflection in the water. She was in form like a human, slender and lovely like a tree that breaks the sunlight and shades you on a hot day. Her skin was like smooth bark and her clothes like moss and ivy. She moved subtly and gracefully like a willow in the wind. The second was small and stout, his skin carved from brown stone and his hair and beard the color and texture of sand. I couldn’t see it but felt that he had a molten center like the fires in the depths of the earth. The last was a creature of grace and mockery. He was partially human in form save that pieces of him were stolen from some unfortunate beast. His ears were long and tied behind his head in a bundle with his hair. His legs were furry and ended in hoofs like a deer. His black coat with white accents had a bright sheen and I knew that of the three of them he was the most dangerous. While the other two possibly had more raw power he had cunning and the utter disregard of morality to use it to the fullest. It was a lot to take in at first glance but so it is with the fae.

“The mortals multiply like locusts,” the dark beastly fae said as he idly wove flowers into a circlet.

“You forget that we are mortal as well,” the tree fae replied.

“But we do not choke Eden like weeds,” the beast countered. His voice had a lulling, musical, familiar quality about it.

“Then let us cut them down or burn them like weeds,” the stone fae said.

“Their dominion will fail,” the tree fae reassured, “and Eden is yet vast beyond their ken.”

“We shall see, one way or the other,” the beast fae said. For the barest moment he looked me in the eyes and saw me from start to finish then, like a mirage, all three of them vanished. It was surreal, wondrous, and a farce.

Seth let out a breath and I realized I had been holding mine as well. “They must have seen us,” he said.

“Why did they put on a show for us?” I asked.

“Show?” Seth questioned.

“You know, what they said about the spread of mankind,” I explained.

“You understood them?” Seth demanded.

I nodded.

“How?”

“Just like I’m speaking to you now,” I said.

“What did they say?” he asked. 

I told him all that I had heard. He looked pensive as we returned to our horses and never said more to me on the subject.

For the rest of the journey I told him about my family and my life on the shore of the western sea. He seemed mesmerized by my descriptions of the ocean and the way the sun would sink into the water like a ball of hot iron that turns red and cools before it disappeared beneath the horizon. He, in return, told me about his wife Azura who considered herself too old and frail to travel. He disagreed and it was a point of contention between the two of them. I let him vent about it and didn’t question him further. He told me about stars and constellations and how to navigate by them. He told me his descendant Enoch was more knowledgeable about them having learned all sorts of forbidden knowledge from the Watchers, but he taught me a few of them like the dragon, the sickle, and the hunter.

Spring was starting to fade to summer by the time we made it to Edom proper. If I had thought that Enoch was a large city then the Red City and those around it shattered all my understanding. This was no city of hundreds or even thousands but at least a hundred thousand. It boggled my young mind how there could possibly be that many people. I could not comprehend when Seth told me of the millions and possibly hundreds of millions of people that were expanding across the Edom valley and beyond its borders. He even mentioned that a colony was being sent to the eastern sea.

There was something enchanting about the metropolis in my young eyes. The hustle, the noise, and even the filth that came with such numbers were vast and interesting. To Seth, one of the first of all men, these pressing throngs of people were not strangers, but children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews stretching out eight or even twelve generations. All of them in some way were his. All of them known. He, or more properly his father, was the link that connected them all. As we passed street after street and he greeted each person by name it occurred to me that I was about to meet the first father, the one who had started all of this. Surely he would know how I fit in.

In the center of the city where the homes were large and ancient, but not ornate, and the wood that had begun to rot in time had been replaced by brick and the decaying bricks and mortar had been replaced by close fitting stone. At an old house that looked like it had been rebuilt five times and had ten times that many additions Seth entered and led me through the plain rooms that had lain empty for long years and were steeping in decay. He continued through a back door into a garden that must have been splendid a century ago but had slowly outgrown its bounds and its loveliness. In the center of it all was a bier where an old man, ancient beyond all reckoning but still very much alive, lay. Beside him sat an old woman. Wrinkles could not disguise her beauty nor shade the light that burned from her eyes and heart. At first sight of her Seth sprang forward and she leaped, with effort, to embrace him.

“Mother,” Seth said, “I have returned.”

“It’s good to see you, son,” she said back in a rich, strong voice.

The old man by comparison sounded hollow as he wheezed, “You took long enough, my boy. I fear you may be too late.”

Seth leaned down and embraced the wizened man who had the strength to return the sign of affection, but no more. “Father,” Seth said reverently, “I apologize. I didn’t know the shadow would come upon you so quickly.”

“Who would know?” the old man cackled. “None have faced death by time before. It is not for the faint of heart. My body turns to dust around me.”

It was then that I noticed four attendants secreted in the nearby trees, laughing and talking amongst themselves. They were too far away for me to hear their words, or them ours.

“Father,” Seth said, “I have brought the boy we heard news of. May I present Namir, son of Roulan, of the western shore.” He gestured me forward. “Namir, you stand before Adam and Eve, the father and mother of all.”

I stepped forward and not knowing what form of fealty was required I dropped to one knee. “It is an honor,” I stammered.

“Stand Namir,” Eve said gently. She put an arm around my shoulders and set me before the ancient of days that lay on the bier. As I looked up at my hostess I was struck by her beauty. It was not the luster of youth, though her hair did shine like gold and silver in the sun. It was not in haleness of body or strength of limb, though I did feel a firm life in her arm about me. It was the beauty of one revered and that has earned that reverence. She had a holiness about her that I had never felt before.

“Come closer,” the Red man’s aged voice said. I leaned in and the primordial eyes peered into mine. I felt as if he were viewing my thoughts from afar like the projection of Enoch. “I had always hoped,” he whispered so softly that I barely caught the words. Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. “Ah, forgive the infirmity of an old man ready to give up the ghost. I have walked Eden for uncounted years. Long even before my mortal years began. I see your youth and innocence and it pains me to leave this world behind. Eden changes and had I but more time I could at least prolong what is to come.” He erupted into a fit of coughs that curled his once great frame in pain. Eve grasped his hand and he calmed, taking comfort in her touch. “If only I had a little more time to… Seth, my boy, come,” he said with a new light in him.

Seth and Eve crowded close and hemmed me in.

“My wife and my son,” Adam continued, “I would trust no one else with this task.” He hesitated and looked at me. “Save perhaps the valor of youth. In the garden there was a fruit.”

“You never let me forget that,” Eve broke in.

Adam wheezed as he laughed. “Not that one, my love. The other fruit.”

“The tree of life?” Eve asked and Adam nodded.

“I need you to go to the garden and petition for it. Once I leave this world its end will follow. Its doom will come. If I can do anything to prolong that day…”

“Then it would be worth the risk,” Eve finished. She said it as if it was something they had discussed a long time before.

“No father,” Seth said. “It is forbidden.”

“I do not ask this lightly nor do I desire to escape my fate, but I love this world.” He looked at me. “And those who dwell in it. I love my children and I have seen what my death does to them.”

“You can not stop the calamity by virtue of your presence,” Seth insisted. “It is folly.”

“And yet I can not abandon my children while there is yet hope,” Adam countered.

Eve nodded knowingly. “We will go,” she said.