The Fathering Land Read online

  The Fathering Land

  The Second Book of Fell Tobias

  Being the Chronicle of the First Year of Icarus Township,

  Including the Mixed Blessing of Being the Literal Father of a Goodly Portion of a New Nation; and Some Thoughts on Going to War

  as documented by

  his scribe,

  Tripp Greyson

  Copyright © 2019 Tripp Greyson (a.k.a. Floyd Largent)

  This is a work of fiction. While alternate versions of some locales mentioned herein do exist, any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, existing businesses, or events is purely coincidental.

  Reproduction in whole or in part of this publication without express written consent from the above is strictly prohibited.

  Special note: per Commonwealth Edict 12X1a-Subsection c, the All-Father Fell Tobias and his scribe, Tripp Greyson, are immune to any and all libel and defamation suits, especially in regard to truthful historical narratives. So suck it, cobbers!

  For my Goddess Aurora, forever and always

  Table of Contents

  Prelude

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Afterword

  Prelude

  After 24 local years trapped on the conjoined Earths caused by Her own Divine negligence, the Goddess Aurora's work to mitigate the damage was beginning to pay off. What Her consort had dubbed "Dawn steel" was as impervious to the nanites accidentally released during the merging as the most common native aluminum/silicon alloy, which was part of the Dawn steel formula; and She had devised a way for native iron to be smelted without attracting the attention of the "bitty-swarms" before the Dawn steel could be manufactured.

  Luckily, there was lignite aplenty in this version of Tejas, which on Her own Earth had been called "Texas" before Her Ascension. She had been shocked to learn that this dismal Local Group, located deep in the Secondary Quantum Bands of the alt-Nether, was the very one from which She had Ascended! That, or the Group that this Group was based on in the mainstream Nether. She couldn't remember much from the first epoch or two after Ascending, but many parts of Her fondly recalled life in Texas and the United States of America, which, with its advanced technology and ethical evolution, had been one of the cultures that had led to Her worldline's Ascension.

  A version of the United States had existed in one of the two original worldlines at the time of the merger, but not the other. In Her consort's version of the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America had won easily, and the Old Union had dissolved into a bickering collection of small nation states. Ironically, this world's CSA, which had never practiced slavery or become a superpower, had ended up much more stable and rational than the former USA. The local analogs of the Amish and Mennonite subcultures, from which Her consort had emerged, had moved south because they craved that stability.

  Unfortunately, Her own global culture's tendency toward chasing shiny things had also made Her a bit flighty and erratic after Ascension. Hence Her current situation. Luckily, Her son Eos, who was currently about the size of a butterbean in utero but possessed of a mighty intellect and a complete disregard for temporal causality, had helped Her immensely since She had healed and unsealed his father. She had also instructed Toby about physical love, which had resulted in Eos' conception, an event She had worked toward since the merger.

  It had been Eos who had finally determined what had happened to at least some of both worldlines' populations, which had simply disappeared on what the natives now called "The Day of Ruin." She had worried about that mightily since, fearing that those thirteen billion human beings had been absorbed into the background Quintessence flux of the alt-Nether. Fortunately, the 10% or so that they found had been scattered through and retroactively inserted into a dozen or so worldlines in the Local Group She had been overseeing when the merger occurred. What a relief! She still grieved for and wondered about the other 11.7 billion. What had they become?

  Much of the missing flora and fauna had also ended up in the other local worldlines, which had been a boon for one polluted Earth undergoing an agricultural blight. Two others had been treated to the sudden appearance of housecats for the first time, and had fallen in love with the little tyrants. One had, in Her opinion, gone a little too far in its depiction of catgirls in its anime, but She had learned in Divinity School that this wasn't all that uncommon.

  On this twisted worldline, Her Toby's unsealing had freed him to release back into the wild the Y-chromosomes taken from the men of the U.S.A. worldline and stored in his genetic structure during their Step Through. That had set off a chain reaction of unsealings across North America that was now propagating throughout the entire world. She and Her son had felt the unsealings, but were having trouble pinpointing them.

  Aurora wondered if Toby realized that every sperm cell his body created contained not just his own genetic material, but also that of one of the 2,143,012 men who had Stepped Through from the other worldline? That his children were no more closely related than cousins, and that their progeny could safely interbreed? Probably not. Whatever or Whomever had emasculated the colonization force and sealed away their Ys had planned very carefully for their reintroduction. She would have to tell Toby this the next time they met, which would be soon.

  Of course, to a Goddess, soon could be tomorrow or a decade from now. There were, after all, a few other things She had to deal with. She was rather concerned about a few side-effects that might result in some danger to Toby's nascent empire, which She had great plans for. Other hominin repositories had been unsealed as well, including gorillas, orangs, and chimps. In time, the fathering males would begin to connect with the troll, kobold, and trog females with which they shared a genetic heritage, and those monster populations would stop shrinking and rebound rapidly, though that wouldn't happen for a while yet.

  No great apes had evolved in this world's Americas, but the CSA, Kansaw, Iroquois, and the Bruin Republic had supported some mighty fine zoological gardens, as well as a goodly number of primate research centers. Several great ape populations had escaped their confines and had established successful colonies in the decades since the Ruin.

  But otherwise, so far so good. Her Toby had already fathered 127 children, most of whom had yet to be born, and was impregnating more women every day. But there was the matter of Toby's father, Isaiah Fell, with which She was still struggling at a moral level. Fortunately, the dilution of Toby's DNA by the other Y-donors would insure that his sons with Jenna would be healthy.

  Meanwhile, She and Eos had been busily scanning for other suddenly mature Y-chromosome repositories. They had found two so far. Tragically, Chadworth Ellingham IV, of the Bangor Ellinghams, had been killed by the barbarians of the Southern Mayne shortly after he had matured almost overnight, and his "woman-stealin' magic" had suddenly gone into effect. He would have made a fine father for Eos' first sibling. The other, though, was less than a month's journey due west of Icarus Township, in the city-state of Tejico! Now it was just a matter of convincing Father Toméz to abandon his ridiculous vow of celibacy and travel east to become Papa Toméz.

  Perhaps a Divine visitation would help. Due to his patriarchal religion, though, She would have to appear to him as Jaweh, the ancient Deity who had abandoned this Local Group ages ago. That was no problem; She was female because She preferred it, not because godhood was binary. Also, Eos had informed Her in no uncertain terms that She wasn't to romp with this male,
as he wasn't interested in what he called a "wombmate." As if She couldn't control her own fertility without even trying! But one demigod at a time, She supposed. Eos was going to be a big enough boy; if She carried his sister at the same time, She'd end up as big as Fat Yerta!

  She was pleased that She had sent the Vixens Toby's way, because according to most of the potentialities she and Eos could foresee, Icarus Township was due to deal with first the Scholastic Empire of Wayko in the very near future and, not long after, the Tejarkán Empire and, further down the line, the Bejar City coven. The Waykan barbarians they would exterminate, but in most of the potentialities, the Bejar City "visit" did not end well. There was a 70% chance the Bejar would capture ten or more of the Dixies (she still loved that name!) and one or more of the Elves and Papa Toméz, if they had arrived by then.

  Worse, there was a one-in-four chance that Fell Tobias would be killed in battle while protecting his sons. That could not be allowed to happen. The futures that propagated from that potentiality were grim, especially with the Tejarkanye horde lurking to the east.

  She started putting plans in motion for a couple of surprises for Toby in the near future, not yet knowing that he had a few surprises of his own.

  Chapter One

  "It's cracking, Daddio, Ike's egg is cracking!"

  I was planting roses when the clear, high voice of Hermes, our self-proclaimed herald, rang out through Icarus Township. As I jerked my head up and looked toward Yorkshire Tower, his shout was quickly followed by a babble of excited Dixie voices. "He's coming, Old Man!" "Papa, hurry!" "Pops! He'll be here any minute!" "Father, can we keep him?" "Heck yes! We need a new I-brother!"

  Fil's shout shook me. A new I-brother. I have nine sons again, I thought as I surveyed the small grave I was tending, that I had lovingly tended for each of the past 57 days. The surface was mounded, making it obvious to the eye, and it was surrounded on all sides by a hand-polished wooden fence made of hickory rails I had split and prepared myself. A much larger area than necessary had been outlined with pure white, hand-polished stones retrieved from the bed of the Rio Serendip, and the tiny patch of disturbed soil covered with turves of sod from the prairie, now neatly trimmed and planted with late-season wildflowers of every kind. Their blooms nodded in the gentle breeze of late summer.

  I considered the headstone, kindly provided by the Dawn Goddess, Aurora, whom I loved and worshipped, and set in place magically after our tragedy. She had even grieved with me. The stone was made of marble, and rivalled anything our predecessors had been able to create with their fancy pre-Ruin machinery. It told the story simply:

  HERE LIES

  ICARUS P. FELL

  MAY 6-MAY 12, AR 24

  HERO OF SCARBOROUGH FAIRE

  THE SMALLEST BUT GREATEST OF US ALL

  There was even a photo-realistic image of a grinning Icarus underneath the inscription, toasting all comers with a thimbleful of his Mama Coulter's wine. I remembered that day. I had to distract him from bouncing on his new Mama Montana's enormous breasts like a trampoline, and it was all I could think of on short notice. His brother, the demigod Eos, had contributed the picture. I had no idea Little Magic had been watching the event, but it turned out he was very curious about his Dixie brothers.

  My Dixie sons had no actual middle names, but after the Battle, we sat down together and established the tradition that their second name would be "Pixie," shortened to "P." in their written names, to indicate their race—just as Isaiah's initial would be "H." for "Harpy." It was a simple way to distinguish among my sons and grandchildren, who would be born to many human races, now that we'd proven I was interfertile with all of them so far.

  How could I come to care so deeply for a child, even my own, in less than a week? I wondered sadly, as I tamped down the last of the soil surrounding the spindly Don Juan rosebushes I'd started from cuttings taken in Pecan Grove. But the truth was, I'd felt a connection to all the Dixies from the moment they were born, as if I'd known and loved them for years.

  I picked up the stone knife I'd used to dig the holes before straightening up. Someday, these bushes would bloom a deep blood-red, edged with black, to remind us of the cost of my ambitions, and of my son's sacrifice. "I have nine sons again," I whispered, sadly. Then, because the fact deserved better, I shouted cheerfully, "I have nine sons again!" and took off running toward the keep, surrounded by an excited swarm of buzzing Dixies.

  ❖

  When I entered the great room of Yorkshire Castle, it wasn't nearly as dim as I expected it to be. The shutters were flung wide, letting in the sun, and pooka engineers had added numerous small skylights to the ceiling; small because North Tejas is notorious for its occasional fierce hailstorms, and because plate glass was still rare, even a month after we'd found a lignite deposit to fire the furnaces in the former glass-blowing demo hall. Thank goodness we had also located a series of waterproof laminated glassblowing manuals in the quartermaster supplies the Alfas had hoarded for the last quarter-century.

  But what really lit up the place were the golden flecks speckling Isaiah's egg, shining now like tiny pieces of the sun. By squinting my eyes to cut down on the glare, I was barely able to see the crack zigzagging across the pale-blue shell. It was widening and lengthening by the second, and I could hear the high, ringing sound it made as it cracked, as if the shell were made of fine glass.

  Ava stood before it, hands clasped before her, eyes focused on the scene, enraptured by the wonder of her first child's birth. She looked so beautiful; and I knew that my Fourth Paramour's first child would not be our last. I was, in fact, looking forward to ensuring that.

  Yes, I'm a pig. I'm male.

  I noted with approval that Isaiah's nanny Sabranna, who had helped my wife care for Isaiah as his egg matured, was starting to show. I wondered which of my sons was the father. They'd all gone a little crazy after Icky's death, and had impregnated a good quarter of the nearest pixie hive in their zeal to prove their manhood and bury their grief. Like all the new races until recently, the entire hive was female; they consisted of, or were descended from, members of the military forces of another Earth that had tried to Step Through the Caul between our worlds 24 new-years before. For some bizarre reason, each and every one had been rendered female and beautiful if they weren't already, and had been transformed into a wide variety of mythological races. With no males, none could reproduce on their own, so they stole men originally native to my world. Oddly enough, even then, they could produce only daughters.

  I and a few young men like me worldwide were an attempt by the Dawn Goddess, and perhaps some other, unknown Power, to rectify that. We could father only boy children. Don't ask me to explain it. It makes no sense to me. All I know is that in time, all the new races would have men of their own, though it might take a few decades for the bigger races, like the giants and centaurs.

  We'd stopped the boys from impregnating more than a few dozen pixie women each, and had them make sure that everyone knew who they were boinking, since sloppiness would complicate the pixies' record-keeping. So far, the boys and I were the only sources of male genetic material on the continent, and they were all my sons. I suppose first-cousin marriages would be acceptable, as they had been in many old human cultures—in fact, they'd be inevitable—but sibling pairings couldn't be allowed. Assuming my sons could even produce girl children.

  At the moment, my sons were focusing their romantic attention on the fairies, a similar-sized but distinct race, though they were harder to find since they didn't congregate in large hives, and only a few had visited Icarus Township so far. One of those had been the first I ever met, shortly after my Exile: the exquisite Dewberry. I wouldn't say she led my boys astray, but... well, fairies, who have butterfly wings instead of the pixies' more practical dragonfly-like wings, prefer body-paint over clothing. This caused further troubles between the two races when the visiting fairies drew the boys' wide-eyed attention. Fairies were also apparently immune to sexual jealousy, and were
much more amenable to boinking multiple males, preferably at the same time, than the prickly pixies. Once they stopped doing it in public, thank the Goddess, the controversy settled down a bit.

  I had learned the day they were born that the Dixies were sexually shameless. I understood their interest, as they were essentially flying bundles of hormones, but I figured the pixie way was safer in terms of avoiding the horrors of inbreeding. Even if pixie women were mostly nasty little shits. Their own mother had abandoned them the day after she raped me.

  We had no idea when the first generation of purely pixie children would be born, though I suspected they would all be male. Previously, pixies had reproduced in an unlikely and savage manner: like wasps, they laid eggs in living hosts, eggs that quickly hatched into larvae that then devoured the host from the inside out. It was a brutal and shockingly painful process. The children appeared, nearly mature, in less than a week. Previously, all such children had been female, as savage as rabid dogs before they settled into sentience several months later. My boys, however, had emerged entirely civilized, if a bit unruly. They were basically teenage boys, complete with testosterone poisoning.

  Now that the pixie women could be impregnated in the old-fashioned way, it appeared that their length of pregnancy was almost as long as the human norm. True babies would result, babies who had to be raised to adulthood. That would take some serious adjustment, the pixies having adapted to what one of my wives, Montana, had referred to as a "fire and forget" approach to reproduction.