The Cycles of Revelation Series

Artifact of the Dawn: Annals (A Queer Sci-Fi Adventure)

Episode 41: Mathias recounts what happened when his ancestors first encountered the Athla’naa.

Tomas explained as much as he knew about the history of the Vestos penal colony. “In school, they taught us that around eight hundred years ago, the Chancellor of the Grand Council of Ateria had been tired of the many uprisings and problems within the prisons. He had ordered the prisons emptied and put the prisoners on two ships to be sent to Vestos. The prisons in Donarvon held enough prisoners to only fill two ships, and when the prisons filled again, he sent another two.”

“Why were only six ships sent?” Jevan asked.

“Not long after the Chancellor sent the last two ships, the people deposed him. History isn’t clear on why he was deposed, but the new Chancellor deemed banishment too harsh,” Tomas replied. “Instead, he instituted both criminal and prison reforms and he made sure they only incarcerated the most hardened criminals.”

“Yet, after that regime change, your people were too afraid of ghosts to come check on us.” Mathias added sarcastically.

“Basically, yes,” Tomas replied with a shrug. “Over the centuries, Vestos and its inhabitants have been largely forgotten, beyond the brief mention in our student history books. Our historians may know more, but most of our people don’t really give Vestos a second thought, other than a few fables and ghost stories.”

“Now that we know your people have survived, we would love to know what happened when your ancestors first arrived,” Aron said. “Do you have any historical records we could look at?”

Burying his face in his hands, Mathias let out a deep sigh. “Truth be told, what we teach our people, and what actually happened, is not the same story,” he admitted. “Damn, I need a drink.”

“So, more lies?” Jevan asked, exasperated.

Mathias nodded.

“Then tell us what really happened, Mathias,” Jevan demanded. “We all deserve to know the truth.”

“Fine, but you owe me a drink later,” Mathias grumbled, getting up to pour himself a glass of water from a nearby table. “This is going to take some time to explain, so settle in.”

“Before we do that, why don’t we take a break?” Takyra suggested. “We can get some food and drink and meet back here in a couple of hours.”

Putting the glass of water back down, Mathias nodded, looking relieved at the reprieve.

As they all stood and headed for the door, Takyra pulled Tomas and Aron aside. The last thing Jevan heard as he and Ardyn left the room was Takyra telling the two men about the tour she’d promised to arrange for them.

Jevan and Ardyn went back to their quarters to freshen up and eat something. “I swear my people are just as bad as yours,” Jevan groaned as he flopped down onto their bed. “It’s not nearly as bad as finding out that we were hiding several thousand people and a fancy spaceship, but I’ve had it with all these secrets.”

“Agreed,” Ardyn said, sitting next to him. “At least it’s all coming to light now. Hopefully, we can prevent them from ever making it all secret again. Now that they’ve revived nearly everyone on the Rahn’naa, that’s one secret that isn’t going away.”

Jevan sat up and studied Ardyn for a long moment. “You know, I think that you’re the only one who has ever been completely honest with me. From the day we met, you trusted me with the truth, even when you had no reason to. Right now, I’m grateful to have at least one person in my life I can count on.”

Ardyn ducked his head as his ears dropped and flattened. “Thank you. I feel the same. I’m glad you saved me that day. That feels like years ago now, doesn’t it?”

“It does!” Jevan agreed as his stomach rumbled, making him laugh. “I guess we should eat something.”

Once they were all reconvened, there was food and more pitchers of water laid out on the low table. “Mathias said this could take a while, so I arranged for us to have some refreshments,” Takyra said, as they all took their seats.

“Mathias,” Takyra said, picking up a bottle of amber colored liquid. “I believe you stated earlier that you needed a drink, correct?”

“Yes! This is going to be a stressful discussion. Is that a bottle of your wah’roh?” he asked hopefully.

“This isn’t the replicated wah’roh we had last night,” Takyra replied. “I have a personal stash that was distilled on Aria’naa before we left. Are you up to tasting some twelve-hundred-year-old wah’roh?”

Takyra was already pouring a glass when Mathias nodded enthusiastically. A smile crossed his face as he savored the first sip. “Oh, that is smooth. Even better than the stuff you replicated. Yes, this will do nicely!”

They passed the bottle around the table so everyone could pour themselves a measure of the drink, and they all settled into the pillows scattered around the table.

“Alright, I might as well get this over with,” Mathias said before taking another drink, sounding somewhat less grouchy than he had earlier. “Everything I’m about to tell you is what I remember from the histories kept in Tafaran. Only the Council of Ards has ever been granted this knowledge and they swore us to secrecy.”

Jevan leaned forward and frowned at Mathias. “Why were the actual accounts kept secret?”

“Those who wrote the histories believed that if their descendants knew the truth, it would cause an uprising,” Mathias explained. “All the colonists agreed they would never teach their children what really happened, because if our people knew the whole truth, it might incite war with the elves — ”

Takyra cleared her throat at the mention of elves, giving Mathias a look.

“Oh, I’m sorry. The Athla’naa,” Mathias corrected himself.

Jevan shifted uncomfortably. “All these lies, on both sides, have hurt all our people. We need to know the whole truth.”

“Yes, I know you’re right,” Mathias replied before taking another long sip. “According to the histories kept in the Tafaran archives, when the first two ships landed, they didn’t immediately encounter the Athla’naa. Many aboard came from larger cities and had never lived in the wild. Instead of exploring farther inland, they stayed near the coast. They broke down the ships and used the timber to build the first structures in Tafaran. While they had shelter, they were not prepared for the coming winter and nearly a quarter of them had died by the next spring.”

“Why were they sent to establish a penal colony without adequate provisions?” Takyra asked, sounding baffled.

“They weren’t willing colonists, just criminals being shipped off as a way to be rid of a problem,” Tomas explained. “They wouldn’t have been given much beyond the bare necessities to survive.”

“The following summer is when our ancestors first came across the Athla’naa,” Mathias continued. “Out of desperation, they began learning how to hunt and fish. It was a small hunting party that came across an Athla’naa settlement. According to the journal of the first Ard of Tafaran, that encounter did not go well.”

When Mathias hesitated and took another drink, Jevan leaned forward again. “What happened?” he asked impatiently.

“The journal wasn’t clear about who attacked first,” Mathias replied. “Later, historians speculated it could have been a misunderstanding because of the language barrier, but there were deaths on both sides. The only detail the journal was clear on was the number of dead. Only three Medellans died, while there were eleven Athla’naa deaths.”

Takyra gasped. “If they were only a small hunting party, how were they able to kill so many?”

“They had different weapons back then,” Mathias explained. “They were called pistols and rifles. These weapons weren’t very accurate, but were deadlier than the bows and arrows we use now.”

Jevan’s mouth dropped open. “Are you telling us that our ancestors once had weapons more advanced that we have now?”

“Yes, and at first, the Athla’naa didn’t stand a chance against them,” Mathias said. “After being banished from Ateria, they were intent on claiming this land as their own, and weren’t willing to let some strange, pointy-eared freaks run them off the only other land their people knew existed.”

Takyra gave Mathias another pointed look.

“My apologies,” Mathias replied. “That was how our ancestors described your people.”

“Regardless of how the first conflict began, it sounds to me that perhaps your people were the more aggressive ones,” Aerys pointed out.

“You’re not wrong. The journals of that first ard were quite unkind to the Athla’naa people,” Mathias admitted. “Initially, they reached a tenuous truce because the colonists realized the Athla’naa outnumbered them and didn’t have the manpower to sustain a long conflict.”

“I thought the war lasted for nearly a century?” Jevan asked.

“Oh, it did,” Mathias confirmed. “When the other ships came, that brought reinforcements and more weapons. By the time the last ships arrived, Tafaran was a bustling town, and a few more villages had been established. The colonists also began farming and could sustain themselves through the colder winters, and they’d begun mining for metals to create even more weapons. That’s when the occasional skirmishes between them and the Athla’naa became a full-blown war.”

“This war lasted nearly a century?” Takyra asked, “How did it end?”

“Once our ancestors had reinforcements and more weapons, they decimated the Athla’naa population, but they kept fighting back,” Mathias said. “Especially whenever our forces got too close to their forbidden zone. The Elder Triumvirate at the time were desperate to keep Medellans from finding what was hidden here. As for the truce — ”

“The Triumvirate was always vague about how the truce came about,” Ardyn interrupted.

Jevan added. “You and the schoolmaster in Yanen were also vague about that truce, which is why I didn’t know the Aria’una even existed.”

Mathias let out a long sigh and looked at them both. “There was a reason for that.”

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