Andrei and Eva Plot a Revolution
A Vanishing People story
The Vanishing People is a series of independent short stories related in a longer timeline.
Andrei and Eva Plot a Revolution
“You can’t help them all, Andrei. If they want to go, let them go.” Eva clenched her jaw and grated her pointy teeth as she pushed and twisted thick needle through hide.
Andrei, her husband, squatted a short distance away and tugged on the hide to keep it taunt. Stakes and leather straps held the other end, while Eva sat in the middle mending a hole with red, swollen fingers.
“The Prophet Drabarav will eat them up,” Andrei said. “We hid in these canyons and caves for years to be free of that maniac. Yet now, they want to go back. I can’t allow it. The Prophet Pig will take Maria for his wife, whether she wants him or not. In a few years, he’ll take her child, too. He knows no bounds. Then he’ll throw Titus out with the garbage.”
“But they want to go, husband.”
“Only because they have forgotten what it is like to live with the Prophet. He stole from us to keep himself fat. He stole our best workers, our thinkers and our planners and enslaved them to do his work. He and his Blood took everything of value and denigrated us.”
Eva gripped the hide with her teeth, pulled tight and pushed through the needle again. Pain fired through her fingers, but she persevered, pulled the animal sinew thread tight, knotted it and set her tools aside.
“They don’t remember like we do. You led us away from the Prophet’s village when they were young. Every person in this Blood clan owes you their life.”
Andrei grimaced. “What of it? What’s it all been for if we’re now back to where we started. Those angry young fools speak fondly of the old bastard, as though everybody in the Prophet’s Blood sleeps in warm tents and eats from the lush gardens. They have forgotten the Prophet’s fist, his whip and his fat fucking face.”
Eva chuckled. “You make me laugh. Nobody else talks about the Prophet that way.”
“It’s true. He has a fat fucking face.”
Eva chuckled again. “So a very smart man once told me.”
They laid the tanned hide on the ground between them. Mended, it would tarp a wagon, or make part of a roof, or a piece of tent.
“You can’t control what people think,” Eva said. “Especially those witless complainers. The past two seasons have been difficult. Our gardens have burned up, the fish have disappeared, but we have managed despite the Prophet’s attempts to turn nature against us. Now, the winds are changing,” she said. “Things are getting better and soon everyone will see how lucky we are to have you as Reader.”
Andrei sneered. “Maybe you’re right, Eva. We should let them go. We should send them off to exile if that’s what they want. I won’t have people in this Blood that don’t want to belong. They can piss off through the mountains and I won’t lift a finger to stop them. Lazy agitators. Good riddance.”
Eva laughed outright this time. “You’re dreaming, husband. You’re the Blood’s Reader and your wishes come second to responsibility. If you let them leave, they will die, as sure as if you killed them with your own hands. They can’t return to the Prophet on their own. They need you to show them the way.”
“As Reader, I have taken the oath to guide everyone in our Blood who requires it,” said Andrei, “but it might be time for an exception.”
“Hmm,” Eva said. “Just because you possess the gift of bending field and mountain, stream and lake to your will, it is not for you alone. You can’t refuse or ignore those in need of the sight. The book of the Dardanian Underworld is incontrovertible on this.”
Andrei nodded. “You realize if I guide the agitators back to the Prophet and I’m found out, he will pull me down into his works. Remember when we abandoned him? He was left without a Reader and that is the only reason he hasn’t found us yet. If I venture into his land and he learns of it, he’ll throw every scout, spell and trap to catch me.
He stroked his beard. “No, it’s better if I don’t go. I’ll ignore the agitators and, in time, the sky will open, the light will fall across these slopes and warm our gardens, the salmon will leap into our nets and the complainers will change their minds and forget all about seeking the pervert Prophet.”
Eva tossed a pebble at his head.
“What?” Andrei said.
She tossed another rock that bounced off Andrei’s chest. “It sounds blasphemous when you call him that. Many people still consider him the Prophet,” she said. “We should be careful how we speak of him, at least until we rid the world of the old leech.”
“What are you saying?” Andrei asked. “I won’t go to war.”
Eva smiled. “You are Reader of this clan but it escapes me how you can be so stupid. I’m not talking about something as direct as war. We need a plan of deceit, one to stir unrest and destabilize the Prophet’s Blood. Fold the land and guide those who seek to return to the Prophet. It won’t be long before they learn first-hand about the flayings, the beatings, the Prophet’s child harem.”
Andrei threw fistfuls of dirt at the ground, an absent-minded impulse . “And when they want to come back to us? I can’t rescue them again. The Prophet will be watching.”
“You don’t rescue them again. That’s the point.”
Andrei smiled, Eva’s thoughts dawned on him. He walked to her, raised her to her feet and embraced her. “So we seed a revolution?”
“Ahhh, he’s lit on the nub of it,” Eva said.
Andrei bent over, nuzzled her neck and murmured next to her ear. “We send a swarm of biting insects to annoy, disturb and stir up dissent.”
Eva nodded. “Start with Maria. The whirlwind in that girl’s head is enough to unsettle a mountain. That unborn child of hers, born in the vents, is too pretty a prize for the Prophet to pass up. He’ll take them in. And if Titus is still smitten, let him go too. No brains, but he’ll be loyal and do a lot of leg work for her.”
Andrei nodded. “Maria’s husband, Stefan, has asked permission to take a new wife anyway. He is tired of Maria’s high nature.”
Eva tapped Andrei’s chest. “Leave it to me. Maria and I get on well. She wants to leave and I’m sure I can convince her that Titus can be useful.”
“You will tell her the plan?”
“Sure, yes, sure. Maria’s head is a quilt of duplicity. It could be useful.”
“But I think she is maybe not so trustworthy,” Andrei said.
Eva nodded. “That doesn’t matter. We send her and 10 others into the Prophet’s camp to nurture discord and when it’s ready to blow, that’s when you turn up.”
“We play the long game,” Andrei said.
“The worst that can happen, husband, is we lose a few of our worst people, while delivering a den of snakes to the Prophet.”
“No, the worst that happens is the Prophet roots them out and kills them,” Andrei said.
“This is true,” said Eva. “But leaving is their choice.”
Andrei thought on this for some time. He sat on a stump a short distance away, chin in hands. He knew there was only one sensible decision but he delayed, maintaining a meagre resistance at becoming the very same Prophet-like man they had escaped.
He thought about leaving fate to nature. He could keep quiet and let the complainers slink away on their own. But as Eva pointed out, they’d die and he’d be responsible for it just as surely as if he’d swung the axe himself.
Finally, he said, “If this works, I don’t want to take control of the Prophet’s Blood once he’s gone. And I sure don’t want to go back to living on that dusty hillside where he’s got his village.”
“Ugh, me neither,” said Eva. “The tiny plateau and the swamps at the bottom of the hill. No thanks. My thought was to leave it all to Maria. We’ll return to our quiet little hot springs and never worry about the Prophet again.”
They parted ways, Eva off to find Maria, Andrei to assert his right to speak before a secret gathering of the disaffected. He had his informants and knew where they were.
Today, he would fulfil their dreams.