In The Land of Colossia

I’ve lived in the Land of Colosia my entire life. By mortal standards I am many hundreds of years old, but by the standards of my own kind I’ve barely left adolescence. My kind are becoming rarer with time.

Colosia now belongs to the ogres and the cyclops. There are only a few of my kind left, only a few of the old, true giants. The nearest of my kind lives a weeks journey from my home. The ogres and cyclops are in constant war making travel treacherous. I’ve been alone since my parents died ten years ago. Every now and then an ogre will wander on to my property, but a swift kick from me usually rectifies that.

I’m lonely.

In the evenings I always take a walk down to the coastline and watch the sunset. The wind and the horizon have been my only companionship for a very long time. At least until one faithful evening. I had come down to the beach as usual and found a spot on the sand. I laid back and watched the sun go down.

For some reason that night I stayed longer than usual. Much longer in fact. The moon was high and full by the time I got up to return home. I was walking along through the gentle waves slushing onto the shore when I heard a noise. At first I wasn’t sure what it was.

I looked around and saw nothing. As I started to move again I heard the noise again. The noise was definitely a voice. I immediately froze and looked around but saw no one. I realized from the softness of the voice that it must be far away and I rushed back off the beach to the grassland and looked around as far as I could see. Nothing. I went back to the sand and continued my walk home.

“Must be hearing things,” I said to myself. I had been expecting to go insane from loneliness for quite sometime. As I walked through the waves I gently kicked the wet sand. But then I kicked something else.

“Ahhh!” a tiny voice screamed.

I looked down and was shocked by what I saw. There, in the sand and muck I had kicked up, a tiny mortal was struggling to run away. For a moment I just stood and watched. He was trying to get up but his leg was clearly injured.

I knelt down to get a closer look at the human. He froze like a cornered animal. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had never seen a human this close before.

Ogres and cyclops keep humans for slaves… and food. I had only ever seen one from a distance as they were being herded into ogre or cyclops territory. It was strange that such as tiny thing should bear so much more a resemblance to me than an ogre, despite the fact ogres were much closer to my size.

I slowly reached two fingers towards the human. As my fingers came within five inches (five of my inches) the poor little fellow fainted. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had know idea how this little person had gotten there or what I should do with him. I knew one thing for sure, if I left him alone he would die. If the waves didn’t kill him some griffin or garuda would fly by and snatch him up for dinner.

Gently and careful not to hurt his leg I lifted the little fellow and cradled him in my two cupped hands. I then walked back to my home, not sure what I was doing.

Once in my home (some would call it a castle) I laid the human down upon a table as gently as I could. I examined him closer. In addition to the leg injury he was covered in scrapes and bruises. He wore a long tunic made some cheap material. It was the garb of an ogre slave.

I went to a cabinet and took out a basin which I filled with warm water. I then went to another cabinet which I keep locked and took out a gold chalice. I sat the basin on the table and poured a tiny amount of the chalice’s contents in. The water was tinted gold and magically the chalice became full again.

I picked the human up and lowered him, tunic and all, into the gold tinted water. I held on to him with on hand to keep him from drowning and gently splashed the water over him with the other. When I was done I took him out and laid him on a dry cloth and sat it near a warm lamp.

As the warmth from the lamp dried him his wounds began to disappear and the cheap tunic he wore, probably made of burlap, was transformed into white silk. Through all this the mortal remained sleeping.

I realized he must have been in a coma or near death for the nectar to take this long to revive him. I could see his tiny chest moving with breath. As long as he was still alive the nectar would restore him. Assuming it worked the same on humans as it did on giants and gods.

I bent close to look at him, my face only a few inches from him. As I said, I had never seen a human up close. He appeared to be a perfect tiny replica of a real person. He was young, younger than me, relative to human aging. Maybe sixteen or seventeen. His body stretched the whole of six inches.

“Amazing,” I said to myself. To think, that beyond the realm of Colosia there was a whole world of these little things, and they actually ruled that world. Amazing.

I sat there staring at the tiny thing for over an hour and still it didn’t stir. Then it occurred to me that the nectar had some affects that the human wouldn’t be used to. He likely wouldn’t awake until morning. I had no intention of staying up all night and watching him, so what to do with him?

I looked around for a place to put the tiny thing. Then I remembered an old hanging birdcage my mother had kept her pet phoenix in and I retrieved if from a trunk of her things. I hung the bird cage from a hook from the ceiling which left it about eye level with me. I placed the human and the cloth he was lying on in the cage and put a tiny lock on the cage door. I didn’t want him trying to escape and hurting himself.

Then I went to bed, wondering what, if anything, the tiny thing would have to say when he woke up in the morning.

I don’t usually remember my dreams. If everyone you had to dream about was dead you’d probably relate to why. But that night I did. I dreamt about my family. My mother and father. I dreamt about the time I’d gone to boarder of our land and ogre territory to trade. It had been hundreds of years before, when I was but a child. I had stood on a hill and watched as a group of ogres marched a group of tiny human slaves off to work. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was. An ogre wasn’t as big as my kind. An adult ogre would only come up to my waist. I couldn’t understand why they were marching the humans instead of just carrying them which would have been faster. I had wanted to get a closer look at the tiny humans, but my father wouldn’t let me get any closer.

“We have no use for them,” he said. “The ogres and the cyclops do, but we’re better than all of them.”

“It doesn’t seem fair what they do to the humans,” I said to him.

“They’re not real people, son,” he’d told me. “Do you really think you could have anything in common with something that tiny and stupid?”

“I guess not,” I said. “They might be fun to play with though.”

“Humans are the ogres and the cyclops’ business, not ours.”

The next morning I woke-up with my head spinning with regret. What had I done? I had saved a human’s life and now what was I suppose to do with it? Human are vermin; something for ogres and cyclops to possess as beasts of burden or cattle. Not something for a respectable giant to be dealing with. I should have crushed the human to death when I found it. Then it would have had a quick death at least; anything would be better than the cruelty it had endured as a slave to the ogres.

But I hadn’t done that. I had brought it home with me and gave it the sacred nectar. What was I thinking? Was I so lonely that I had latched on to the first person-like thing I had seen in all these years, no matter how lowly a creature it was? What was I going to do, keep the human as a pet?

Wait… maybe that was it. A human might be a lowly creature, but there was nothing that said a higher being like myself couldn’t keep one as a pet. I mean, I had heard of gods such as the Olympians and the Asgard doing such things. True, it might be too stupid to fill my void the way an actual person could, but at least it could talk. Offer some companionship. At least as much as a pet phoenix or garuda could.

But was it right? The only life the human had ever known was likely ogre slavery. But what about the wild, free humans in the outerworld? Perhaps that was where it truly belonged. But I knew that I could never reach the boarders of Colosia to get it there. And any ogre or cyclops I encountered would demand he be returned to subjugation. Life as my pet was clearly the best option for the poor, dumb creature.

“Alright,” I said to myself. “I guess I’ve got a new pet.”

I got out of bed and went to the room where the cage was. The human was still there and had managed to wrap up in the cloth like a blanket. It was still asleep… or was it?

I open the door to the cage and stuck my hand inside. As my pointer finger touched the arm of the human a barely audible gasp escaped it’s lips. It was faking. I laughed a little to myself. This was almost cute. Then, in authoritative tone I spoke.

“I’m not a fool, I know you’re awake. Now stand, tiny one.”

With the surprising speed the human jumped out of the blanket, but instead of standing as I had commanded he knelt and bowed his head completely to the floor of the cage.

“Please forgive the human-slave, oh great one,” he spoke.

I suppressed the urge to laugh.

“What is your name?”

He didn’t respond.

“What is your name?” I repeated.

“Human-slave?” he said, not sure if that’s what I meant.

“That’s not a name,” I said. “What are you called?”

“Human-slave, oh great one,” he said, clearly frightened that he was unable to produce an adequate response for my question.

“Were you born a slave to the ogres?”

“This human-slave has served the ogres always.”

Huh. Was it possible the ogres didn’t even allow them to have names? Apparently that was the case.

“Would the great one like the human-slave to work now?” he asked.

I laughed. “What work could you possibly do for me?”

“This human-slave works in the fields. It is a very hard worker.”

Upon hearing the human refer to itself as “it” my heart was slightly melted.

“The human-slave would like to work for its new master and prove it is a hard worker,” he spoke. When he spoke he didn’t sound altogether unintelligent, despite his use of the third person. The manner in which he referred to himself as “it” was almost casual. I wondered if humans were really as stupid as I heard or if the ogres simply made them that way?

“Your days of working in the fields are over,” I said. Apparently this was the wrong thing to say. He threw himself on the floor of the cage and begged wildly.

“NO! Please, great one! NO! It is a hard worker! It will work hard for you!”

“Hey, now. Calm down,” I said, disturbed. “What are you afraid of?”

“Please don’t eat the human-slave. It will work hard for its master.”

“Oh,” I said, again suppressing the urge to laugh. “I’m not going to eat you. Cyclops are the ones who eat humans. The nectar of the gods sustains me just fine.”

The relief of the human was palpable.

“Thank you, great one. It will work hard for you whatever you command it to do.”

“You’re not going to work. And you’re not going to be eaten,” I said. “Although, I may have to find some way to punish you if you don’t stop confusing me with the ogres and cyclops.”

“If it is not going to work what is the human-slave going to do?” he asked, clearly bewildered. Work was clearly all the creature knew.

“Work is for slaves. You’re not a slave anymore. You’re a pet from now on.” As soon as it left my lips I knew he wouldn’t understand.

“What does pet mean, oh great one? It does not know this word.”

“It’s… like a slave… who doesn’t work,” I said, trying to explain it in terms I thought he’d understand.

“All slaves must work.”

“Well, you do work. You belong to me and it’s your work to be my friend.”

“Friend?”

Like I said, he didn’t appear altogether stupid, but I was introducing him to concepts he had no frame of reference for.

“What is a friend?” he asked, quizzical. His curiosity was beginning to overcome his timidity. He had probably never had a conversation this in depth in his life.

“I’m your friend and you are mine,” said. As I spoke these words its occurred to me how long it had been since I myself had actually had a friend. “I’m going to take care of you and it’s your job to bring me happiness.”

“You are its master?”

“I am its… your friend.”

“It still does not know what its master is saying to it.”

“Enough with the “it“,” I said and sighed. This wasn’t working. Work was the only concept the ogres had ever allowed him to know. Trying to explain things with words was clearly not the key. I tried to think of something I could do to show him what a pet or a friend was.

I extended my hand into the door of the cage.

“Come here,” I told him.

He didn’t move.

“Come to my hand,” I said.

“It is happy to walk,” said the human. “It’s master does not need to touch the filthy human-slave.”

“Stop referring to yourself as that. Come to my hand,” I said. “I’ve already touched the filthy human. How do you think I got you here?”

“It can walk,” he said.

“This castle is huge, even to me,” I said. “I’m not gonna always be waiting for you to try and walk everywhere on your own. Now come to my hand.”

Slowly, hesitantly, he came toward my hand. Once he was close enough I reach out and wrapped my fingers and thumb around his body. Holding him now that he was awake was surreal. He squirmed and wriggled in my fingers; it was quite a weird feeling. I lifted him out of the cage and up to my face to get a better look at him. I uncurled my fingers slightly to do this and lifted my other hand up to ensure him I wasn’t going to drop him.

The nectar had certainly done its work. Before he was a scraggly, emaciated, overworked slave-boy. You’d never have known that to look at him now. He was healthy, even athletic-looking now. More like a child of Zeus and Hera than a field slave.

“Don’t be frightened,” I assured him. “I would never harm you.”

I took him to the table and sat him down. I then went to a bookshelf and browsed the titles. I had read them all at least twice.

“Ah, “Creatures of the Inner and Outerworld,” perfect,” I said. I took the large children’s book from the shelf and back to the table. The human scooted out of the way as I opened the book and laid it flat on the table.

“Griffin,” he said.

“Yes, you’re right.” The picture on the first page was indeed a griffin.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what?”

“Why does the master show it such a horrible thing?”

Oh right… griffins eat humans….

“Here look on this page,” I said, turning it to the more tame creatures. “Have you ever seen one of these?”

“No, master, it hasn’t.”

“It’s called a unicorn. I’ve never seen a real one either. They’re very pretty, aren’t they?”

No response. I turned the page.

“This is called a nymph,” a said. “There kind of like humans, only not quite.”

“Pretty,” he said.

I laughed. “Yes, very pretty.”

One by one I went through and taught what each of the creatures in the book was. This went on for about an hour before I got bored.

“I’ll show you more tomorrow,” I said.

“Why does the master show it these things?” he asked. “Will it be seeing any of these things for real?”

“No, probably not,” I said. “But that’s one of the things friends do. They teach each other things.”

“Thank you, master,” he said.

I smiled, taking this as a sign some progress might have been made.

I put the book away and returned to the table.

“How are you feeling?” I asked him.

“It is feeling very strong, master,” he replied.

Again with the “it.” How to break him of calling himself that? He had no doubt done it always.

“What did your mother call you?” I asked.

“It’s mother never called it anything,” he replied.

“Your father?”

“It’s father never called it anything,” he said.

“There must have been something you were called besides “human-slave.” How did the ogres tell you apart from the others?”

“All human-slaves are the same to the ogre-masters,” he said. “The is no reason to tell them apart.”

“How did the human-slaves tell each other apart?” I asked.

“With their eyes,” he said simply.

Oh, boy. This was going to be trickier than I thought.

“Look, you need a name,” I said.

“It is the only human-slave here,” he said. “Why is a name important for it?”

“It just is,” I said. “You’re my pet now, so I’ll give you a name.”

I thought for a moment. There was one name that popped into my head.

“Your name is Zadius,” I said.

“What does this word mean, oh master?”

“It was my father’s name,” I said. “And now it’s yours. I’ll call you Little Zad for a nickname.”

“It is Little Zad?”

“You are Little Zad,” I said. “Say it with me. Little Zad.”

“Little Zad. It is Little Zad.”

“No more it. You are Zad.”

“It is Zad.”

“Repeat after me,” I said, my frustration growing. “I am Zad.”

“You are Zad… But, master, it thought it’s name was Zad?”

“It is!” I said, more frustrated than intended. The poor little guy was so startled he fell backwards on his rear-end.

“Forgive it… Forgive Little Zad, master,” he pleaded.

“Well, at least you seem to get it now,” I said. “I’m sorry, Zad. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” I reached over with two fingers and helped him stand.

“Master is very kind. Much kinder than he should be to such a filthy, stupid human-slave,” Zad said.

“You’re not filthy or stupid,” I said. “Don’t talk that way. And while we’re on the subject I don’t want to hear that term anymore. No more saying “human-slave,”. Say “human” only.”

“Zad does not understand the difference.”

“Little Zad… what is a human?” I asked.

“A human-slave is a lower form of life that exists only to serve the larger, higher beings,” Zad said. This statement had clearly been drilled into him.

“And do all humans serve the larger beings?”

“Yes.”

“And there are none in the entire world who don’t?”

“None, master.”

Say what you will about the ugly, green brutes, but the ogres had done a very good job mentally conditioning the humans to be the perfect slaves for Zad to not even know such a thing as free humans existed.

“Zad, if you could live alone, away from the larger beings, would you?” I asked. He looked at me as if I was insane.

“It… Zad… would not know how to live alone,” he said.

“But… you escaped from the ogres, didn’t you? You ran away?”

“No, it would never have betrayed the great ogre-masters that way!” he said.

“Then how did you get where I found you?”

“Zad was on a ship sailing to a new ogre-master with many other human-slav… humans. Some of the ogre-masters wanted to fish. But there were no good fish to be caught. One of the ogre-masters said “We should chum the waters,”.”

“Oh, my… Go on,” I said.

“The ogre-masters made Zad bleed. Then the ogre-masters tossed Zad off the ship so Zad’s blood would attract fish. But there were no fish. Zad floated to the sand where the new master found Zad.”

“Disgusting creatures,” I said.

“Zad is sorry.”

“Not you, Zad. The ogres,” I said. “Filthy, disgusting, barbarians.”

“Master speaks ill of the ogre-masters?”

“That’s another word you can remove from your vocabulary: ogre-master. They’re not your masters anymore. You’re mine, they won’t be hurting you again.”

“Zad is glad that Zad’s new master found Zad,” he said.

“I’m glad your glad. But I’m definitely gonna have to work with you on a little something called pronouns.”

“Zad will learn for the master.”

“Good. How’s about we take a walk?”

“Whatever the master wants,” Zad said.

“Stop calling me master. My name is Gregor.”

I took Zad for a walk around the my estate. Later I had some work to do around the grounds and I took him with me. I made him stay in his cage, both for his own safety and in case he got any ideas about running away. It was interesting listening to him as he watched me work; my simple gardening was work that the ogres would have forced hundreds of humans to do. He kept wanting to help.

That night I placed him his cage to sleep and went off to bed. As I lay there a thought occurred to me; Zad hadn’t asked for food or water all day. He was still feeling the affects of the nectar. It might be days before hunger hit him.

How was I suppose to keep him fed? I had never had to gather food or hunt before. I wouldn’t even have know what vegetation in my land was edible. And as far as animals for hunting, the only ones on my land large enough for me to find regularly were mystical creatures. I couldn’t exactly be killing phoenixes and dragons to keep Zad fed.

If I kept feeding him the nectar it would eventually begin to slow his aging the same way it did mine. Should I be doing that? The chalice was a gift from the gods to my people, not the humans. But the gods had never visited Colosia…

The nectar might also help to increase Zad’s intelligence, or at least aid me in educating him.

I sighed, not for the first time that day, and went to sleep.

When I awoke the next morning Zad already awake.

“Good morning, master,” he said.

“What did I tell you?”

“Good morning… Gregor.”

“That’s better.”

I took Zad out and to the table.

“Zad, are you hungry?” I asked.

“No, Gregor.”

“Or thirsty?”

“No. Why is it not hungry?” he asked me in reply.

I went to the locked cabinet and brought the chalice back to the table.

“Pretty cup,” said Zad.

“Do you know what this is?”

“No, master,” he said.

“It’s a chalice of the gods. A very large one, mind you.”

“Gregor drinks from it?”

“Yes,” I said. “But not everyday. Everyone of my people has one of these chalices. I want to tell you a story, Zad.”

“Zad will listen.”

“Long ago there was a time when the gods, the Olympians, the Asgard, Ra and Isis, Tenochtotitlan, all of them, were still young. They were the children of an older race called the Titans. The Titans were like my people; gigantic in size. They created us and gave this world to us to inhabit. But then there was a great war. The Titans were overthrown. The ogres and cyclops were born from the blood of the Titans that spilled upon the earth. The gods came into power and created humans. Then it became clear that there wasn’t enough room on this world for both humans and my kind. The gods presented each of my kind with a chalice that produced the same nectar that sustained them. But at a price. There could be no more generations of giants. The nectar slows our lifespan. Keeps us young and alive for millennia. But eventually it stops working and we grow old and die in the period of a normal lifetime.”

“That is a very good story, mast… Gregor.”

“The reason you don’t feel hungry or thirsty is because I bathed you in the nectar when I first found you. But affects are only temporary. If I continue giving the nectar you will stop aging. You’ll have to live here with me for centuries.”

“Really?”

“What I want to know, Zad, is do you want that?”

“Zad would stay here with the kind master Gregor and not return to the ogre-masters?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want Zad to do this?”

For a moment I searched myself. Thought back on all the lonely years I’d spent since my parents died and thought of all the lonely years I had ahead of me until the chalice dried up.

“It would make me very happy, Zad,” I answered.

“Then Zad will stay.”

That night I gave Zad another dose of the nectar and drank my own.

Several weeks went by. Zad grew stronger and more articulate with time. I had been right about what the nectar would do to his learning potential. We spent much of each day with me reading to him. He even began to grasp the concept of the word “I”. Soon he might even be able to learn to read.

Everything seemed to be going well, but that was soon to change.

It was the day to drink from the chalice. I got it out of the cabinet like always and brought it to the table. Zad was sleeping in his cage. I had been attempting to teach him to swim. It turns out he had reached the shore of my property by clinging to a piece of drifting seaweed. His lesson had tired him out.

I placed the chalice on the table and was about to awaken him, when I stopped. The amber liquid of the chalice began bubbling over the edge of the cup.

“What in the world?” I said to no one. This had never happened before. The nectar began seeping out of the chalice at an accelerated rate. Soon the whole table was covered.

I turned to find something to wipe it up with when I heard a voice.

“That won’t be necessary, Gregor.”

I turned back to the table to see the nectar, twisting, metamorphosizing, taking the shape of a man. A man my size. It was still the same translucent, amber colored liquid, but in the shape of a man.

“Who are you? WHAT are you?”

“My name is Hermes,” said the blob. “Sorry I have to appear before you like this, but my kind agreed long ago to never truly set foot in Colosia.”

“Hermes?” I said. “The messenger god of the Olympians?”

“Good, you’ve heard of me.”

“What do you want?”

“It has come to the attention of God-Lords that you have a human in your possession.”

“And what is it to them? The ogres and cyclops keep humans as cattle. That’s never seemed to bother the God-Lords.”

“Your little pet is not what bothers the Lords,” said Hermes. “But you’ve been feeding it the nectar we gave you.”

“The chalice is mine to do with what I please.”

“That chalice was a gift to the giants not the humans. We cannot allow you to continue giving to the human.”

“What harm does it do?”

“It is simply not how things are done. Be reasonable.”

“Get out of my castle, god,” I said. “You have no authority here. The bones of Father Cronos are buried beneath my land, nullifying yours or any other god’s power. The God-Lords know this or they wouldn’t be trying to reason with me. They’d have already broken their pledge and forced their will upon Zad and I.”

“In this you are correct. The bones of the Titan king do shield you from the will of the gods. But beware. Not all beings in Colosia are as defiant of the God-Lords will as you.”

“I have no fear of the ogres or the cyclops.”

“That courage may soon be put to the test.”

The nectar became liquid again and oozed back into the chalice, and the god was gone.

I drank from the chalice, poured a tiny bit for Zad, and then returned it to the cabinet.

“Gods” I sneered. “Think they can run everyone. Well they don’t run me. If an ogre or cyclops so much as shows their face on my land I’ll kick them back to their own territory.”

If they came I would fight them… but there were so many and just one of me. How long could I hold out? If the ogre and cyclops united they would eventually overtake my castle and Zad would be taken back to their territory… or worse.

“What am I gonna do?”

I walked to the window and stared out at the sun as it began to set beyond the Mountains of Age, the western boundary of Colosia. Beyond those mountains the realm of humans began.

I knew what I had to do.

TO BE CONTINUED...