SiWren of the Patriarchs | Page 8

The handiwork of the clever craftsmen went mostly, as did the wares of Si'Wren and Nelatha, to the market place in the nearby city of Emperor Euphrates, ruler over all the land.
Across the yard, the giant stood talking in a voice so deep that it was like the continuous lowing of a great talking ox. His huge, ugly face was like a terrible stone mask, and all men of ordinary stature were utterly dwarfed by him, and so afraid of him that they stood frozen in stark fear if he so much as but glanced in their direction momentarily.
"The gods of the giants are exceeding mighty!" breathed Si'Wren, keeping her voice low so as not to be overheard. To this Nelatha made no reply, but watched only, and kept her silence.
Because of the six-fingered giants, one could speak of another race. But the way of ordinary men, throughout the known world, was; one kind, one race, one speech, easily recognized and understood by all. This was the way it had always been and it would scarce have occurred to any to so much as question it.
Only two kinds of men might speak and not be understood; drunkards, and the possessed, and though foul be the reproaches and slurred speech of a drunkard, so much the worse be the abuses one risked in knowingly dealing with some possessed madman!
Giants, Si'Wren was told, were all possessed.
The two frightened girls stayed hidden, watching motionlessly in the spice tent as the giant stood like a temple god himself and conversed at great length with the Foundryman. They could not hear clearly what was said, but the giant gesticulated with his huge hands so much that it was interesting to watch and try to figure out.
He wanted an idol made. This much was plain to see. Verily, for that, he had come to the right place.
Si'Wren knew no Polynesians, Asians, Eurasians, or Mongolians. She knew no Amerinds northern or southern, no Hispanics, Negroids, or Pygmies. She knew no Caucasians, rain forest people, or Eskimos. She knew no people other than her own kind, for there was but one race of Man the world over.
Yet these unknown future races -with their diverse tongues yet to be born out of history- were hidden in the bloodline of Si'Wren's one world-wide race, one day to emerge, and then would come proud evil speeches of 'the purity of the race' with exclusive regard to individual strains, and a need to 'ethnic cleansing' and racial 'purges' of the 'mixed breeds'.
The human race, of which Si'Wren was but a single leaf, one lone, timid female, had spread abroad by a plethora of land bridges. There were many shallow seas and easily crossed land bridges in this, the world of Si'Wren, land which was but slightly above the level of the seas, with broad exposed continental shelves, vast coastal plains, and virgin, fertile land. Much territory was given over to swamp, tropical jungle, and dense forest.
Thus there was but one people in the world, medium-color, and more or less medium-dark of hair. To suggest that from the loins of a single man and his wife would one day spring forth all future races in their manifold colors and countless differences would have been a source of great astonishment to Si'Wren, could she but have known. One might as well harken unto the daffy old woman, L'acoci, and her crazy talk of colors in the sky, as to speak of many differing colors among the skins of men.
There was no other kind of human, except for the giants, and even these spoke the same language as the rest of the human race, in spite of their great difference in size. Even those with six fingers were not so different as all that. Yet in spite of the fact that there was only one race among men -which included the giants- there was hatred in almost every heart, wickedness such as to compound every evil, and deliberate mimicry of the savage wild beasts which roamed this wild primitive world so overflowing with such indescribable natural beauty.
Si'Wren reached for the water skin, and fumbled as her fingers plucked for it, and accidentally dropped it in the dirt. She reached down and picked it up, ignoring the rough coating of caked-on mud which clung to the bag as she raised it to her lips. The water ran freely out of the bag's horn spout, it's mud coating wrinkling across the contracting, silken wet goat skin, giving rise to many miniature ridges.
When she had drunk her full, she heedlessly hung the depleted goat skin back on the stub of a knot-end on the tent pole upright, a small axe-hewn sapling. The half-dried mud clung to the goat skin in a curious pattern of broken and layered ridges