The Rise of Bherek White

Prologue

The lion cub walked back from the tall pedestal to take a better look at the statue. The marble eyes of the great lion met his gaze. Some illusion of the falling snow on the cold marble caused the statue’s eyes to crinkle in kind amusement and the mouth to smile in benevolence. Just by gazing at this stone representation of their great leader could the citizens of Arthika fill their hearts with peace and contentment, and the cub felt no less joyful. He tried to copy the statue’s expression, crinkling his own eyes and stretching his mouth in an exaggerated smile. His fur stood on end from the strain.

He turned to look at his playmates, who were sporting on the snow, making a snowfort and pelting each other with hastily rolled snowballs from behind its low walls.

Still smiling, the cub’s attention returned to the old fox on the granite steps of the pedestal. That wrinkled citizen was knitting a woolen cloak for himself, humming a century old song. Behind and above him were praises carved in honour of the greatest lion of all time.

“Sir?”

“I have forgiven you, my son, if there’s anything to forgive.” It was the old fox’s turn to smile, and he did it, a toothless copy of the cub’s.

“I have thrown snowballs at the old when I was a cub like you, and not by mistake, unlike you,” the fox cackled merrily.

“How old are you, Sir?”

“Old? I am ancient, hee, hee, hee! I was a young fox when the great Bherek was a cub like you.”

“Bherek?” The cub glanced at the statue, “Tell me what you know of him, Sir, please.”

By this time, the cub’s companions had arrived at the foot of the statue, and the promise of a story kept them there.

“It was in the second millennium AM, according to the calendar we had in those days,” began the fox, laying his knitting aside.

“AM? What AM?” whispered a bearcub to his friend.

“Something like our RBW, I guess.”

“AM is After Man,” said one big bear, who had just come up, “There was a race called humans thousands of years ago. At least, that’s what they say. Nobody knows what they looked like.”
Many adults had joined the gathering by now, and the storyteller, delighted with his large audience, stood up, the better to tell his dramatic story.

“Nobody knew Bherek White then. He was just an orphan boy come to stay with his uncle at the city. The city was not as it is now, it was a time of hatred and unrest. A time of jealousy and greed, a time of all bad things. But the gods decided to send one of their own to us, for it is always said that, “When beasts descend to the level of men, the gods descends to the level of beasts.”

The old fox continued, completely capturing the minds of his audience.

Another figure slipped away from the gathering, an old lion wrapped up in a dark red cloak, and walked out of the gardens into the woods beyond. Being with his happy people always made the old lion happy, but today the old fox had brought back memories. Memories of those years before he had known his destiny, or done anything to change the destinies of the world. When he had been just a simple village boy.