Horizon- Chapter 7 - Horizon In Paradise- Part 2: The Baby of Destruction

After leaving Paradise and flying through the air for some distance,guided by his arrow of destiny which flew out in front, Horizon came to a village in flames where people; if they were not putting out the fires which were ravaging their houses, were running out of the village in droves with their families and possessions.

Horizon wanted to know why they were fleeing the village so he asked one of the distressed refugees.

“It is that damned baby of destruction. Every time it cries something is destroyed. The very sound of its cries makes fire and storms and quakes”.

The refugee explained that apparently one of the young girls in the village,called Yenna had been violently seduced by a demon and that she had bore a child from that demon but that the child's cries were devestating to everyone in the village, burning houses,cracking open streets
and killing cattle. Nothing seemed to be able to withstand its screams and so everyone was fleeing the village. Only the mother of the child stayed because only she loved the child.

Horizon,being only a child inside himself,was interested to see the baby whose unhappiness brought so much catastrophe for sometimes Horizon had felt sadness inside himself and had dreamed of smashing the world to end it but this ‘baby of destruction’ could do just that.

It was not difficult to find the child even amongst all the confusion and chaos because
all he had to do was follow the noise of its cries and go in the opposite direction
to which everyone else was running.

Horizon found it in a cave at the edge of the village. Apparently both mother and child had been forced to live in the cave, having been driven out of the village by the other villagers and even by her own family;hated because she was
viewed as the consort of a demon wether willing or not.

When Horizon entered the cave he saw the baby lying inside a very poorly made,ramshackle wooden cot with tattered and patchwork covers. The mother
had no money at all to feed or provide for the baby and was unable to get work now
except through begging.

The mother,however, did not seem unhappy now that Horizon saw her because she seemed to revel in the destructive power of her childs screams as some kind of revenge upon the village that had treated her and her child so unfairly and her
love for her child,that had been her only real comfort,had become her entire world.
Her eyes glowed through her tears as she gazed down upon her tiny monster son.

‘Why do you think it is so unhappy’, said Horizon to the Mother, “If we could find out what is upsetting it then perhaps it would stop its destructive wailing”.

“How can it not be unhappy”,said the mother bitterly, “Look at its life and my life.
It is lonely and hated by all.Wouldn’t you cry in such a situation?”.

Horizon needed guidance. He studied the child through the glasses that Levil had given him and saw a war was raging inside the infant between the darkness of its demonic side and the brightness of its human side. The demon in it longed to cause misery and feed while the human side of it wanted love; the demon in it looked at its mother and longed to drink her tears but the human in it only wanted to suckle on her breast. Half of Horizon saw the darkness in it and thought that it should be destroyed for the good of all but half of Horizon saw the brightness
in it and thought that it should be saved and given a chance to shine.

But Horizon needed more guidance and so he turned to the sacred soul of nature, the Mother and Father of every living thing. He walked outside into the chaos and devestation caused by the Child’s screaming and embraced an old tree that was half destroyed by unnatural lightning.

The Soul Of Nature told Horizon that, in a nearby woodland called the forest of Morning, there was a fairy kirkyard and that he should go and find it out and dig up one of the tiny, silken fairy coffins and bring it back to the child because “when fairies die their bodies turn into a beautiful and delicate music which sends all who hear it into a deep, enchanted slumber. Go and dig up the coffin, open it before the hearing of the child and the child shall rest and the destruction brought by its wailing shall cease”.

And so, telling the mother of the half-demon child that he would soon return, Horizon mounted Volvan once more and flew to the forest of Morning and his guiding arrow of destiny led him to the fairy kirkyard where he used a silver spoon from his knapsack to dig up one of the tiny, silken fairy coffins but, when he flew back with the coffin to the village of the child, he discovered that an angry mob had gathered near the mouth of its cave, with sharpened sickles, scythes and pitchforks, their eyes full of burning anger and they were all shouting, “Let’s kill the demon spawn and its whore mother”.

And they were about to storm the cave and kill the poor mother and child when Horizon, having stopped up his ears with cloth and candle wax, tore open the silken lid of the fairy coffin and let its pretty lullaby fly out and the music flew from ear to ear as a honeybee buzzes from flower to flower and, hearing the music, the enraged mob lost their anger and their thirst for killing and their sickles, scythes and pitchforks became too heavy to hold and they lay them all down and fell asleep on the ground and, inside the cave, the mother and the child were also sound asleep and Horizon picked them both up in his arms and, mounting Volvan once more, flew back to the town of Paradise where he told the Angels there that it was the will of Nature that they care for mother and child and show them happiness, “which they have never seen before”.

Then, wishing both the best of luck and mounting his magic steed, Horizon took off once more upon his travels.