Ashken was on the ground next to his father. His father breathed fast and shallow. Ashken could not stand looking at his father like this. The broken blade had penetrated his shoulder and part of his neck. Blood seeped from around the edges of the sword. Ashken reached over to remove it. Anything was better than seeing the sword stuck through his father.

Tenos groaned quietly and stared at Ashken, his breathing labored and difficult.

Moses reached over and grabbed Ashken’s hand. “Leave it there, Ashken. Tenos needs to tell you things before he dies, and if you remove the blade, he will die.” Moses’s hand was shaking. Ashken looked up at Moses and looked into his eyes. Ashken expected to see sadness but instead Moses’s face was devoid of emotions. If anything, he looked tired. Ashken had never known Moses to look tired. He had never seen him need rest. And Moses’s voice, Moses’s voice had always had a military crispness to it. He was not articulate like Tenos, but he had a simple strength to his speech. But when he spoke now, he sounded imprecise and his words slurred.

It was then that Ashken remembered the giant’s blade piercing Moses. The imagery of the giant’s blade piercing Moses flashed before his eyes. After his father had been stabbed, he had not been able to register anything he saw. But the memories were there, and with the look in Moses’s eyes, he realized that he may lose not only his father but Moses as well—he might be completely cut off from his family, bereft in a world where the name Liebowitz was not known. Fearful but resolute, Ashken reached his arm behind Moses to his back where he had seen the blade enter. Moses did nothing to stop him. Ashken felt the thick fabric of Moses’s robes and it did not take him long to find the hole in the fabric where the blade had sliced through. Unlike Tenos’s robe, Moses’s clothing had not stopped the strike.

“Joseph’s blade is not like that of his master,” Moses said by way of explanation. His voice sounded distant and studied, and noticeably weak. “Joseph wields a fine blade, a Moderns’ blade, like my sword.” Ashken spared the giant a quick look and found him standing nearby, leaning against his pole arm. The giant was watching Ashken and Moses, but he was not making an aggressive move toward them. Ashken felt a great hatred for Joseph wash over him. It was only when he felt the wetness of Moses’s wound underneath his robes that he looked back to Moses, his hatred of the giant momentarily gone but not forgotten. Ashken’s fingers felt a wet rip in Moses’s skin.

“I will be fine,” Moses said. Moses carefully pulled Ashken’s hand away from his back. He stood up with some effort, almost falling as he rose. “Your father needs you now. When the time comes,” Moses leaned over and said gently to Tenos. “I will remove the blade.”

Moses stepped away from Ashken and his father, leaving them alone with the dead man’s corpse nearby. Ashken had focused on Moses’s wounds as a way of denying what was happening with his father. When he looked down, he saw his father staring back up at him. He looked calm. His breathing had slowed and he took long shallow breaths.

“There was much I should have taught you,” Tenos said. “My father spent years explaining everything I will have to say over the next few minutes.”

“Don’t talk like that, father. Moses is wrong. You will be fine.”

“Moses is a great warrior and a good friend. He knows about battle injuries. He has seen much in his time, fought in many wars. You should always trust him. He is one of your birthrights.”

“What are you talking about? Moses is your guardian, and he will be your guardian for a long time now.”

Tenos coughed weakly. Ashken was afraid he would start in on a coughing spasm and risk ripping the sword deeper into his shoulder. His worries were misplaced. Tenos did not have the energy to cough. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he seemed calm and in control again.

“I do not have time to argue with you, my son.”

Ashken again tried to interrupt his father, but he felt his father’s hand lightly on his own. His father nodded his head slightly and Ashken respected his father’s wish. Ashken still did not believe his father was going to die, but he decided that he could not disobey his father in his request now.

“Moses will be your guardian. Trust in him completely. He has never wronged our family, and he will not wrong you. But we are different, Ashken, more different than I’ve ever let on. The people in the enclave could never know this. I should have begun earlier with you like my father did with me. You are not like the people, you should have known the truth. But I felt the truth was too much of a burden for me when I was young, and I did not want it to be a burden for you. I was foolish.

“We are the Moderns’ hope, Ashken. The Moderns left our family and others like us as a beacon of light for this world. The Moderns with all their machines and knowledge knew what would happen to the world. They saw the future and they saw that no matter how powerful they were, how capable they were at building machines and hording knowledge, they with all their power would not be able to stop the inevitability of the wars and the destruction that would follow those wars. They were a very smart people, much smarter than the people today. They had millenniums of knowledge and know-how at their disposal.

“What they could not stop they could plan for. The Moderns knew that this darker age we’re in would come. They saw the chaos and destruction that would occur. It was to a group of families that the Moderns chose careful that they entrusted the world. They entrusted these families with the power to ensure that this darker age, when it came, would not last forever. That the people of our age, who are every bit the ancestors of the Moderns, would survive this age and be born anew, a renaissance of machines and knowledge and peace. ‘The world would be washed in fire and cleansed in death. And the beacons will alight at the appointed time and the cycle of death shall end.’ This they have passed down through my father and his father and down through our generations that have lived in Washen’s Enclave waiting for that time, my son.

“When I am gone, take my coat. It will protect you hopefully better than it protected me.” Tenos smiled at his words. “It is a good coat worn by a weak man. I taught you to believe in words and knowledge, Ashken. I know I am not a good example of their power. But there is power there. Knowledge is the beacon the Moderns left for us. I have to believe that.

“There is one other gift you must retrieve from the house. There is small crawlspace under the washroom that only you, the blood of a Liebowitz, can access. Moses knows the space—he will help you in this as he helps you in everything. In that space there is a box which contains the artifact the Moderns left for us. I do not know its purpose or how it works. What it is and what it does was lost to our family, or perhaps was never known to our family. But keep it safe. You or your son, or your son’s son, will know what to do with it when the time is right. It is the Moderns’ beacon of hope. It is what they entrusted to us.

“We must lead the people back toward our light, Ashken. I know this is why the Moderns’ chose us. We are a strong family with a strong history and we understand that the world is not as it should be. I wish I had time to tell you all the stories of our family.”

Ashken smiled down at his father and placed his hand on his cheek. “You have told me many so stories of the heroics of our family, father. And you will have much time to tell me more after today; and to tell my children those same stories. The enclave cannot go on without you.”

Tenos leaned his cheek into Ashken’s hand and laughed weakly. His cheek felt cold to Ashken’s touch. “The enclave will go on without me and would go on even without the Liebowitz family. I wish I knew more about the Moderns’ plans for us. I wish I could tell you more. So much was lost during the wars. There must have been a time when we shared in the Moderns’ plans—but if there was such a time, it has long passed.” Tenos’s voice grew weaker and Ashken leaned forward to hear him speak.

“Moses,” Tenos said. “Come here.”

Moses kneeled down at Tenos’s head. “I am here, Tenos.”

“You have been a loyal friend and companion to me, Moses. Please be the same to my son. He will need you. I left so much work undone.” Tenos’s eyes had a faraway look to them. Moses leaned forward and Tenos closed his eyes. When he reopened them they focused on Moses.

“It has been a pleasure serving you,” Moses said. “I just wish you had been the beacon. The Moderns could not have chosen better.”

“I am almost ready, Moses.” Tenos closed his eyes again and took long shallow breaths for many minutes, forcing air into his lungs. He opened his eyes and seemed almost surprised to see Ashken and Moses looking down at him. “Ashken, there is one last thing. There are a people I want you to find. They are not of the enclave. I have told you stories of them, stories about them, stories about before the war. They are our people, our ancestors. I know it is a silly wish of a dying man, but tell them about my death and that I sent you to them. They will not know me. My father asked the same of me, but I did not listen. I thought him daft on his deathbed. Do not think of me similarly.”

Ashken did not know who his father was talking about. He had told Ashken many stories, but none of them were about a people, about their ancestors from before the war. Ashken tried to think back to all of his father’s stories; he could see them in his head, lined up one before the other like the rooms of his house. A trick his father had taught him to remember speeches and thoughts. And none of those speeches in those rooms were about ancestors before the war. His father had never spoken about anything before the war or even during the war. It was such a long time ago, Ashken could not believe he knew of such things.

“Father, what people are you talking about?”

“They keep to the old ways, the silly ways. But they are who we come from. Seek them out. I love you, Ashken. Be strong for me.” Tenos closed his eyes and coughed. He was wheezing as he did not have the strength to clear his lungs of his sickness. His eyes were squeezed shut tightly. He lifted his head toward Moses and nodded. “I am ready, Moses. Protect my family.”

Moses reached down and lifted the sword out of Tenos’s shoulder. The blade came up easily. Ashken reached down and placed both hands over the wound to try to stem the bleeding. Tenos shivered and the blood sprouted over Ashken’s hands. “You will not die,” Ashken screamed. Tenos stopped shivering and coughing and his face relaxed. The blood spouting from the wound slowed until it no longer pumped.

Ashken looked down at his hands, which were covered in blood. He looked up at Moses. “My hands hold all of our blood.” Ashken looked down at his father with a quizzical look on his face. He did not recognize the man beneath him. Tenos’s face was unlined and relaxed. His small form did not have that tightly wound look Ashken always associated with his father. Even in his sickness, he always seemed ready to race off to the next place.

Moses stood slowly. He walked around the dead man’s body and Tenos’s body. Moses favored his left leg and walked slightly bent. He passed in front of Joseph and turned his back on him. Moses put his arm around Ashken and led him away and back to the carriage. Ashken allowed Moses to lead him. He followed him dumbly, his mind completely blank. Darkness had come some time ago. A full moon shone overhead and lit the ground leading to the carriage. Ashken stopped in front of the carriage and picked up his father’s cane. Moses opened the carriage door and waited until Ashken stepped in. He followed him into the carriage. Moses partially unsheathed his sword and cut off a long strip from the base of his robe. He wrapped the strip around Ashken’s arm, which still bled slowly.

“That will need stitches later,” Moses said. “I’ll take care of things now, Ashken. But know that there is only so much I can do.” Ashken nodded dumbly. He heard the words and he knew somehow that Moses was not talking only about caring for his father’s body.

Word count: 2,296

Words remaining: 34,634 (15,366 words so far)

Thoughts: This is the first words. I stared at the blank page for what seemed an eternity today. I figured if I can’t write the first words up there, I’d write the first words down here and see if that gets me typing. It did. So many death soliloquies. I knew I had to get parts of this exposition out, but I didn’t realize how painful it would be to write. Yes, I know, “just die already, Tenos!” I was thinking the same thing the entire time I was typing away. Luckily, this writing is about words, and the easiest way to write words is to stick them in a dying man’s mouth, or so I learned today.