The Causality of Time Read online

It was the coldest part of the night, just before dawn, when he awoke to the whinnying of his horse and the snapping of twigs. Someone was trying to steal his horse, and at that he jumped up, fully awake with his father’s skinning knife in hand, to ward off any interlopers. To his surprise, five men stood before him with ropes and a sack.

  "What do you men want?" Talmido asked.

  "You and your horse. You can come with us quietly or die resisting. It is up to you," a man standing directly in front of him replied.

  "Why should I? The horse is mine, and I am a free man of Tyre."

  "Really! A free man of Tyre, are you? That means nothing here, stranger. All that matters is for you to surrender," another man to Talmido's right spat out.

  "Come on, then. Just try and take me if you can." Talmido said with a smirk on his face while brandishing his knife.

  They rushed him, throwing a weighted net in his direction as they slammed into him, almost knocking the breath from his lungs. He swung his arms with all his might, trying to gain leverage for his knife hand to no avail as they overpowered him, tied him up, and put the sack over his head to the relentless whinnying of his horse and their cursing of Talmido's blows.

  Having worked in the tanning shop his father had founded for the past ten years, Talmido had built up an impressive muscle tone and strength; however, fighting was not his training, and he was led off by these men to a future of torment and denial. Talmido's abduction was the beginning of his training in the world of men and warfare. His lessons were to come fast and furious without letup, developing a warrior out of him—one without pity, mercy, or remorse.

  They traveled for twenty-three days and twenty-four nights before they came to the Assyrian city of Nineveh. Upon arrival, they immediately took him to the slave stockyard to put him up for sale the next day.

  That evening, the slave auctioneer examined him with the careful eye of a curator, looking for any blemishes, of which he found none. Talmido was a perfect specimen—what all men should aspire to be in the flesh. His teeth were healthy, his back straight, his legs like tree trunks, and his arms thick with the muscles of endurance and strength.

  “He’ll fetch a pretty coin,” the auctioneer indicated to his men, thus sealing Talmido’s fate and his immediate future.

  The auction commenced the next day with the Assyrian military actively purchasing as many able-bodied men as they could to build up their armed forces for an eventual campaign into Babylon. The bidding was fierce, especially when it came to Talmido. The Assyrian army commander saw the potential for a good soldier in Talmido and wanted him; hence, he set the price to twelve gold talents—an amount unheard of for slaves—and with that, the auction sold Talmido to a life of torment and struggle. A life to define the character and definition of a man bound by unseen laws of certitude.

  Chapter 4

  The Reality

  (1194 BC Earth Time)

  The sand hit the nostrils with a tempest of acrid nausea like the impact of a strike to the stomach. The sun shone down, thrusting sweat from the pores of men and beasts alike. The bellows of elephants and horses hit the senses with a cacophony of sound that confused minds and dulled perceptions. Men yelled out their tension and fear to the blue sky, invoking their gods for courage and strength. They beat their swords against their shields, creating a sound of rolling thunder meant to intimidate their opponents.

  Talmido was standing five rows from the front of the column as one of the expendables, sweating with anticipation and pent-up fear, knowing this was the moment he had slaved for over the past four months. He had pushed himself almost to the point of breaking and learned what it meant to survive and live or give out and die. Many of the students in his training class had been killed under the Master Trainer’s bone tipped whip.

  For Talmido, today was to be a day for glory—a day for the gods to be honored. It was a day for victory and conquest—a day for history to remember. He felt he was part of something momentous and desperately wanted the glory as the burning smell of fear blended into the possibility of death with everlasting life in the annals of remembrance.

  Talmido stamped his foot and hit his shield in response to the thrumming drumbeats of false bravado. Yelling into the sky, releasing the pent-up tension and roaring for the inevitable rush into battle. Talmido lifted his sword towards the heavens, indicating to all his courage and bravado.

  As one, the trumpets blew out their orders, and the soldiers moved forward as one mass of cruel death, one step upon another, toward the enemy with the growing courage and determination of youth and the persistent prodding of the captains. Drums and trumpets continued blaring out to the day, issuing orders, and masses of men, hundreds of thousands strong, began pushing forward toward the amassing enemies of Assyria. Babylonian soldiers and the Parthian lines, initiating an involuntary reaction, pushed their columns toward the Assyrian wall of men while bellowing their defiance and roaring petitions to their gods.

  The day of battle had arrived, and who was to be victorious was up to the gods. Had the entrails or the stars been appropriately read? Did the masters of the unknown divine the unknown adequately? Those questions were to be answered in the hours to follow with the results of battles gone and battles to come.

  The Assyrian front column stopped, the front line closing rank with a snap of its shields and a lowering of its spears. In the rear, the archers began firing their arrows with the rhythmic whumps of strings snapping back and missiles being shot into the sky to blacken out the sun with a passing shadow of expectation. Squinting, Talmido watched the arrows as they arched their way over the column of men bent on the destruction of the enemy. Awed by the spectacle, Talmido shivered at the thought of where those arrows were heading. They hit their marks with bone-crushing finality nearly simultaneously, slicing through masses of soldiers like blades of wheat to a reaper’s scythe.

  The Assyrian columns began to move forward again with increasing intent and a quickening pace. The Captains barked their orders and began to push the men forward into a trot. The whole front started to run with decisiveness toward the enemy whom at the same time was running toward them, bent on killing as many of the Assyrians as possible. With one mighty climax, a shudder moved through the front columns of both armies, reverberating back and forth across the front as men staggered under the onslaught of two armies smashing into each other, pushing with all their might to try and break the collective will of the other.

  Talmido shouted encouragement to his companions in the front, willing them to fight for each other and for their will to live. The men in front stabbed, jabbed, and fought against the enemy as one monster of murder, pushing forward while the men behind them struck the downed enemies that had fallen under the ferocious attack to have their spirits released to a netherworld of damnation.

  The rotation of men moved with precision as the front line, now exhausted, backed away with a quick turn and walked toward the rear of the column, allowing the next in line to fight on with renewed vigor. Soon Talmido found himself second in line to the front, looking into the eyes of veteran soldiers bent on his death with the same bravery and will as he. He commenced pressing forward, pushing into a comrade in front of him while jabbing his sword into the belly of the enemy, a young man with bright-green eyes full of shock and despair. Blood began gushing out of his mouth, vomiting onto the ground with a finality that only death would covet.

  The rotation started again as the horns blew. Talmido growled into the face of a Parthian man with shoulders like mountains and arms like trees. Feinting to the left and jabbing to the right, Talmido found only air and a shield slamming into his chest with the force of a pile driver, pushing the breath out of him in one gasp. Staggering, he took a reflexive step back to position himself, then thrusted upward toward his opponent’s face with his sword, cleanly slicing through the nasal cavity and up into the brain, exiting through the top of the skull in one fluid motion. He pulled the thrust back with pivoting balance.

  T
he ballet of death went on while dust, blood, and bodily fluids turned the ground into a dark-brown mud that almost made it impossible for Talmido to find his footing. The trumpets began blaring, and the men at his side rotated to the back of their column, but Talmido continued with his dance of death, neither tiring nor giving out. Speed and strength seemed to emanate from him as the minutes turned into hours. He fed off the action, encouraging the enemy to match him step for step, cutting into the masses of flesh and bone, slicing through the memories of men, decapitating hope, and ending desire like the ferocity of a lion ripping its prey apart in a death spiral of feeding.

  Talmido’s perception of time slowed to the point whereby he could anticipate the very thoughts of his adversaries, helping him weave around or dodge the thrusts of his opponents without effort. He could see the movements of the enemies’ commands as if written on the very air; hence, he reacted with a timeliness that allowed counter strike upon counter strike while parrying blows with ease. Covered in blood and dirt with sweat pouring down his face, Talmido hacked his way through the enemy column, soon finding himself alone and surrounded.

  Violence was his only friend; he was moving with the savagery of a tiger, slamming his sword, slick with the bile of the dead, into the chests and stomachs of men in an ever-increasing mass of death. Pile upon pile of bodies amassed together while time continued its slow crawl. Suddenly, Talmido found himself facing nothing but the dead in a story of the nightmarish finality of battle.

  Dusk had fallen, and the enemy retreated for the day to renew the battle the next morning. Talmido was now standing amid hundreds of corpses covered in the throes of death’s release. Panting, he looked around, wondering what had happened, and to his surprise, he found the men of his company standing and facing him with a look of awe and wonder in their eyes. Their mouths hung open with trembling fear as they whispered among themselves and asked what he had just accomplished.

  Had he done this? Looking around at the dead and dying, he could not understand what happened. So, shrugging, he did not try to explain. Slowly moving toward him with respect and wonder as Talmido stood there grinning, the men of his company began slapping him on the back while walking toward their encampment, looking for food, beer, and a chance to clean up.

  That day was the first of many days of battle that would create a man out of Talmido and propel him on a path questioning the very fabric of belief and conviction. It was there the distinction between man and animal began. From that time forward, Talmido began to ask the gods for purpose and direction, but no answer ever emerged—only more questions lurking in the dark recesses of his mind.

  Chapter 5

  Wars of the Mind

  Men from various tribes and nations were screaming at him with their eyes wide open, imploring him for mercy, he continued striking them down with blows of damnation and hell. He forged ahead, cleaving them in two while spitting out a rage of contention, demanding an answer. Not wanting to give in to its timeless finality, eyes of blue, green, brown, and gray looked up, weeping with tears of sharp pain, each of them writhing in the agony of death’s strangling embrace, begging for mercy, but Talmido gave none.

  A fog of silence slowly crept into his mind, closing the gap of crying vibrations, allowing him to catch his breath and slow the pounding of his heart. While looking at his hands, wondering at their calloused bluntness and gnarled strength, Talmido’s muscles began tightening up, developing a knot of pain in his back while his legs began to tremble. Jamming his sword into the ground and leaning upon it, he watched the dying reach for life to no avail. The fog started to close in tighter as he panted for each breath, sounding like the long bellows of an iron smith’s blast furnace.

  Sitting up in bed shaking his shoulders, Talmido began shivering from the cold sweat caused as if by death’s fingers of decision running down his spine. After thanking the gods for sparing his life, he stepped out of his tent into a bright day. His rotation on the front line was not for another five days, so he took the time to rest, clean up, and do his chores around the camp.

  Four army groups were rotating off the front line with two always in reserve, and the fourth was sent to the supply camp to act as guard detail or for recuperation. The campaign had been going on for six months with the Babylonians giving stiff resistance to the Assyrian onslaught. Maneuvering attacks from various sides and probing for enemy weaknesses were the daily routines of the Babylonians and Parthians. The Assyrians were trying to pin them down for a full fight; however, after the first round of battles, the Babylonians decided to opt for more strategic tactics. It seemed the enemy was continually fighting a rear-guard action, causing the Assyrians to dangerously stretch their supply lines beyond meaningful assistance. So, Talmido’s job was to watch for flanking attacks from the enemy while reclaiming battle debris.

  The din of blacksmiths repairing armor and weapons, cooks preparing meals, and slaves hauling water and wood for fires beat upon his ears with a now-familiar ring of satisfaction; at least it wasn’t the high-pitched screaming of the wounded or the grunting of pitched battles.

  Reporting to his company commander, Talmido was soon tasked with cleanup detail. This meant going up to the front line and bringing his dead comrades back to camp for proper burial, as was the Assyrian custom, as well as bringing back any and all booty for disbursement to the various camp sections for assimilation into the army-material-appropriations system. All the acquired goods were to be recycled back into armor, weapons, and other materials germane to the needs of an army of 600,000 men, 55,000 horses, 20,000 chariots, 13,000 camels, and 400,000 supply and support men, women, and children. A military campaign was a big undertaking and very, very expensive, so all items of friend and foe were recycled.

  Talmido joined his detail, jumping up onto his horse and moving out with the supply wagons. The front was approximately five leagues to the northeast on a broad, flat plain. The group of ten thousand men wound its way toward the plain of Manassar with the sun dripping its ultraviolet rays of heat down onto them, causing the flies to continually buzz around their heads, trying to drink their sweat and simultaneously take chunks of flesh out of them.

  The horses and camels were shaking their heads and flinging their tails back and forth, trying to keep the flies off to no avail. Dust was thrown up into the air, compounding the discomfort and driving the flies to become an even-more-persistent annoyance. Settling back on his horse smiling and relaxing his muscles, knowing the futility of trying to keep the dust down or the flies away, Talmido let his mind wander to reflect on the previous battle.

  He had not known he possessed such astonishing abilities until that first day of battle. He was as surprised as his companions. Over the next six months, his body seemingly grew in strength, speed, and endurance beyond the normal growth phase of his fellow soldiers. His hearing became acuter, his olfactory ability was more intense, his sight keener, and his mind much more holistic. By perceiving the very intent of another man’s thoughts through the observation of his external stimuli, processing it with such quantity and speed, he was able to determine the direction of either an action or a conversation before the conveyor was able to fully enact upon his thoughts.

  Also, it seemed his thought processing and physical timing sped up. His perception of time would slow to the point whereby he would move around people, animals, and objects with a fluid rapidity, giving him a distinct advantage. The resulting situation initiated a shocked reaction from others. Quickly, he found it was more prudent to mask his abilities and blend in with his surroundings.

  Sitting in his tent for hours, pondering this sudden change of events and carefully thinking through the meaning and potential outcome, Talmido would bring to mind his father’s words, cautioning him against being impulsive and making sure to look after the details. His father would always point out Kunara was waiting for him behind every rock or tree—waiting to tear out his liver if he was not careful to attend to all the details of his life. Riding upon his horse
, he continued to wonder about the changes triggered within his body, surprised at all the new results he experienced each day.

  Soon the column broke out onto the plain, and the carnage came into full view—bodies scattered about for leagues with piles of men, horses, and military gear thrown up in pitched battles of desperation. The squad leaders began barking their orders, and the men broke up into their groups, moving out with the wagons in preparation for the work ahead. It was a grisly task, one of stripping all the bodies of their weapons and clothing, along with separating the bodies of men from animals and friend from foe. They left the resulting piles for the next group to throw into the wagons as details of men began digging large ditches for the burial of the enemy combatants in an effort to stave off sickness and death.

  Talmido looked around, sighing with an overwhelming sense of confusion. All this death and destruction for an idea? What drove this desire for power? It puzzled him as he continued stripping bodies of their worldly possessions and piling them up for their eventuality. In the distance, the billowing dust of the maneuvering armies could be seen shimmering in the sunlight. Occasionally, a clashing of sound would reach their ears, and the men would look up, hoping the outcome to be favorable.

  Chapter 6

  Friendship

  (1181 BC Earth Time)

  As the years and campaigns wore on, Talmido was developing a depth of understanding and compassion for his fellow soldiers as they fought the indefatigable Parthians, Babylonians, Medes, Hittites, and Elamites, incurring many victories and losses. This process invoked a sense of brotherhood within the rank and file, thus creating bonds of brotherly love that could only be experienced by warriors. Talmido had saved his companions so many times, to their amazement and gratitude, that they now provided a protective barrier around him, not allowing anything to threaten their savior. Eventually, Talmido was noticed by his superiors as possessing valuable leadership qualities. Subsequently, they promoted him to company commander (CC), giving him responsibility for one thousand men and their families, slaves, and possessions.