UPDATE I - The Harbinger of Destiny
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“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” ~ G.K Chesterton
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1 - 10 AG - Timekeeper Reckoning.
In the blackness of the night sky, where Vahashtai keeps watch, a star falls from heaven.
Its light illuminates the forests of the north with their creaking pines and cackling spirits.
It illuminates the vastness of the sea whose waves resonate with the music of creation and its light puts the storm gods to silence for a time.
It illuminates the Great Desert to the wonderment of the singers who make that place their home as the dust wights swirl through the empty night in mockery of men.
And in the crystal tower of the timekeepers a record is made.
Day One, First Month, First Year of the Age of Gods. A god has fallen from heaven.
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The South
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Many amongst the tribes of men took the falling star that streaked across the sky as a sign. Some said it foretold a great calamity, others simply that it was the herald of a new age with no greater or lesser meaning than that. Some particularly imaginative folk whispered that it was a portent of destiny and that someone, somewhere touched by the spark of greatness was destined to fulfil mighty deeds beyond the ken of mortals. It was this latter interpretation that inspired the long-embittered Uwal people as they beheld the stars descent.
The Uwal are a tribe of singers and warrior-mystics (mysticism being a trait common in desert folk) who take solace in the stars to distract them from the fact that in worldly life they are subject to the cruel yoke of the desert and its capricious god. Indeed since time immemorial this hardy folk have endured the travails of desert subsistence where water is more precious than gold and where one idle thought can lead to death, whether it be at the end of a rival warriors arrow or at the hands of one of the lurking sand-beasts that prowl beneath the dune-sea. Thus tormented and knowing no better (and no worse) the Uwal had come to despise the gods who looked upon their suffering and did nothing. This portent struck them in a particularly harsh year, when the Lord of the Dustrains had taken his delight in the deaths of many of the old and the young amongst the people. Therefore like an epiphany from on high the star pierced to the very heart of their culture, for like all mystic peoples they were prone to the vice of superstition and they turned to their seers for answers. Said seers, wizened old women of many a year took counsel together and attempted to divine what the omen foretold. Some tossed onto arcane mandalas divining stones etched with signs while others intently watched the flames of their secret fires for omens of times to come, others even ruminated over the liver of a sacrificed lamb for any token of dire portents. At long last after due prognostication and with utmost formality they proclaimed with self-assurance that spoke of absolute certainty that the falling star was a sign of destiny and that great things were afoot in the world. For fate, to which even the gods must submit, was with the Uwal and a great hero destined to lead them from their misery would arise amidst their people.
It was in this scene that the singer, sorcerer and warrior Sargal rose to prominence. A keen swordsman and poet with knowledge of the mystic and forbidden art of spell-craft (obtained some say through a forbidden liaison with a fair sorceress of the Timekeeper order) in which utterance of speech can be transmuted into power, Sargal had long seized prominence amongst his people as the right hand of the Chieftess Mosu through his exploits against the savage Gashwin people. These desert folk abide in the interior of the Dustrains and oft fought the Uwal for supplies and women and contested with them over water rights. It was after returning from a retributory raid against these ancient enemies that Sargal came before his people in their nightly assembly a year or so after the star fell bearing a great sword bestowed by unknown sorcery with great power in his hand. Proclaiming that the star heralded not the continued tyranny of the gods, or the turning of some cosmic cycle, he whispered with barely concealed delight that it was an omen that the gods demise was at hand and that the time of mortals was soon to come. As the cruel and wise Chieftess Mosu looked on, Sargal raised his hands aloft dramatically and lifted his vocal pitch (an old orators trick) and intoned that mankind ought to govern themselves, free from the capricious whims and unseemly dictates of the divine children who ran rampant over the worldreaches and revelled in mans suffering . The Uwal should make their own path he cried, his voice resonating through the camp as children gazed from embroidered tents all vermillion red and cobalt blue in idle curiosity, and raising his magic sword aloft with a flourish he called upon all the people to join him in travelling north, beyond the cruel Dustrains unto the promised land said to lie beyond the mountains, all the while cunningly invoking the decree of the seers and insinuating (while not declaring) that it was he who would be the hero of which they spoke. Sargal concluded by demurring to the chieftess in humility and sat down at his accustomed place and kept thereafter silence.
The congregation started to murmur and some brazen few at last some clamoured for war against the gods saying the sword was a sign that Sargal was chosen by fate for this great errand, and rattling their scimitars in the cool night air they sang war-chants into the night as they danced around the flickering campfire. The Chieftess calmed the mood in her usual severe way by insulting such thoughts as folly, reminding her gathered charges of the might of the gods and the peril awaiting any who would raise arms against them rashly. She called for a raising up of hands to determine who thought alike to Sargal and who concurred that the tribe out to travel north, beyond the Dustrains, past the mountains and out of the desert. A great many excited by the nights events agreed with the motions, but some yet resisted her more moderate course. The dispute went on long beyond that meeting and dragged out into days and weeks, and vicious rumours spread throughout the tribe that Sargal was in thrall to the timekeepers and had seduced the chieftess not only through his aptitude in bed but through foul witcheries and was leading them to servitude and destruction (that these naysayers originally were the most fervent of his supporters was lost on them). The inevitable occurred, it came to pass that the Uwal, once one people, became two. The greater part who kept their name including many prudent sceptics who held their doubts for now (in submission to the majority) followed Sargal and their chief north, with the tribe, at least in public, holding a more cautious ideology of pursuing independence from the gods, the better to avoid offending any tribe they meet in their travels. Meanwhile those few who raged against the heavens and refused to bend, or to subject themselves under the leadership of a man of rumoured improprieties, travelled south, there to seek the arts of death and deicide, while they sung bitter poems in the custom of the desert amidst the sand-dunes that they might one day assail the very heavens.
Thus does Sargals tale begin.
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Elsewhere in the south through the siren traps and rapids descending from the Sea of Eternity and the farmers who dwelt upon the rivers upper reaches a far different tale begins to unfold. Here the Ba'gali people, a tribe of rice farmers and fisherman known for their skill in the art of pottery and living in the northern portion of the great delta heard the whispers of an old deity, the many-handed god Cho'manos.
Long they had resisted his approaches, for this god was known to the warp the flesh of beast and man and the hunters of old had long sung dark stories of abominations appearing on the edge of the village, crying out for their families as they suffered under their twisted forms of many eyes and many arms. It was said that the only way to put these unfortunates to rest was to pierce them with the trusty spear right through the heart and put their mangled corpses to the flame. Some added that it was for the best to cast the ashes that remained to the river to end their torment and guide their souls back to samsara and to rebirth. But Cho'manos in his many failures and through many rejections had come to learn a simple truth. Humans are easily swayed by rewards, and once a man has tasted sweetness and is ensnared into his net, he is easily restrained by obligation.
So it was that one dark and moonless night when Vahashtai's eye was shut, the god descended upon the Ba'gali's villages in veiled aspect, his many handed form hidden under a dirty cloak, a haze of what seemed like black smoke [truly many-limbed midges - extensions of the deity that could reshape flesh in seconds] trailing behind him like a cape and enshrouding him in darkness. There he reached out and touched a chosen few, reshaping in the process their very souls in his pallid all too perfect hands and steeping into their being a portion of his own divine power of shaping such that these favoured mortals could, if they wished, the very next morn shape the sodden ground of the delta and transmute it into imperishable stone with but a thought. To these newfound magi the making of pottery was nought but an idle cantrip and the labour of building houses, which to an ordinary man might take a month, became a small errand that took less than a single day. Soon, all too soon, these magi now priests came to worship their benefactor and through their ministrations the Ba'gali were swayed to the gods side. Thus by the power of the priests and the utility of Cho'manos' gifts did the Ba'gali fall into the gods snare, their erstwhile resistance long forgotten. How foolish.
Yes foolish, for as even the simplest children know the gods gifts come at a price. Soon the priests whose arts wrought houses and shaped pots, came to shape altars and fashion knives with which Cho'manos was to be given his due. After all, is not appreciation due for gifts given to give a gift in return? It is only common courtesy . The knives flashed and blood flowed in dark rivulets upon the altars and dripped into golden bowls marked with the sign of the white hand. At first only that which one gave freely of ones own volition with no ill effect was expected, a cut in the hand here, a thorn in the tongue there for small favours, perhaps a scourging of the back in atonement for some transgression against the deity or a spine through the offending part for some... personal, impropriety. In return for these supplications Cho'manos graciously and ever so benevolently sent forth his servants, the eldritch wheels of flesh and tendon referred to by the Ba'gali as the Drekori. These tutelaries compensated the faithful for the life-essence sacrificed in the name of their god in due proportion to that which was given by healing the wounded, curing the sick and in some cases even reshaping the flawed forms of those who came begging at Cho'manos' holy altar. So did the neighbouring tribes gasp with wonder when the congenitally crippled walked and the mad became sane and came to Cho'manos' holy temple like moths to a flame, flocking to beg this god for blessings and for pardon. Yet it was not long before an enterprising priest, an intellectual before his time, learned that all it took to obtain said mercy and the many-handed god's miraculous gifts was for the life essence to be freely given, the operative word being freely. Give freely, and the god through his servants will supply the blessing no matter if the devotee died in the attempt. Thus it was that ecstatic pilgrims and devotees praising the name of the many-handed one came from far and wide all to ready to offer up their very lives upon the altars, that their souls might return to him who was the great benefactor of mankind and be made perfect in his illuminated heaven as could never be the place in the fallen material world. It became a truism amongst neighbouring peoples that men willing to die for their god are an all too common a thing in the lands of the Ba'gali.
The timekeepers records thus abounded with new entries stating that the Ba'gali, blessed with good health and the protection of the ruling priestly class in return for devotion to Cho'manos, prospered and expanded in what was a very short span of years. They bore testimony to what was an inconsequential and mundane people rising to become a nation and founding the first city state of the delta as a result of their piety. Never mind what was not written in the record, the occasional "unanswered sacrifice' of those who said words against the priesthood , never mind the grotesque mutations that afflicted those who begged at the gods feet and refused to pay the blood-price in proportion to what was asked. Thus the timekeepers watch and wonder what Cho'manos has in store for his newfound devotees. All the while the blood continues to flow down the altar steps without pause.
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The West
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Travelling north of the lands of the Ba'gali(As the tower raven flies) one finds people living much as they have for millennia. Hunting deer and stalking great sturgeon with nets in the rivers of the west, for here land and water is plentiful and the trinkets of southern civilisation (and the benedictions of its strange god) are of little consequence or importance.
The Wabinu people are one of the many nations who hold fast to these ancestral customs. This nation is a deeply spiritual collection of tribes who venerate the spirits of nature, hallowed ancestors, those small gods who dwell in the forests of their homeland, and most of all the ruling god of the holy island of Gauchita that forms the heart of their territory. Regardless of tribe, the heart and soul of this nation rests in its shamans, the famed Uiziqi mediums whose warbling chants and feathered cowls are present in any Wabinu camp. Indeed these wise men travel all throughout the west even unto the nascent polities of the Taethlin (of whom we shall speak) bearing their ritual drums and medicine sticks, speaking with the Lords of the Land and the other lesser gods and spirits they encounter on their walkabouts and working always to maintain harmony between humanity and the fickle forces of the spirit world. It is they who speak for the spirits before the elders and tribesmen and advise on what must be done to restore balance to the land they call home when the portents are dire and when the leaves wither out of season. It is they who know of when to pour libations to the streams, and which spirits should be placated with offerings for a successful hunt, and which spirits are best avoided altogether.
Yet when all these efforts fail and a wrathful spirit must be placated no matter the cost, these god-men resort to their greatest secret. For an Uiziqi, initiated in the secret rites and having opened the third eye of the seer can beckon the spirits into his very flesh to become a vessel for the godhood he has invoked, that with his tongue and his voice the god might speak to the people. Through him, an immaterial god might taste the sweetness of life and know a human death at the appointed time and pass into the otherworld in peace. A mighty power, and rightly the Uiziqi are revered, yet it is these mystics hubris that they think this renders man the equal of gods, for they know little of those mighty beings who stand above the small spirits they placate as a king stands far above the likes of common men. So it is that the Uiziqi teach a doctrine common throughout much of the west that all living things are possessed of spirit and that great or small all are equally to be revered as being united within the world-soul. Mans obligations then to the gods are merely a give and take, a relationship of mutual respect. This service they assert (truthfully) maintains peace, so long as the balance of nature holds fast.
So it is that the Wabinu prosper, and the Uiziqi in their many generations have come to find the seat of their art in the deepest reaches of Gauchita, at that power-spot amidst the darkest glades where spirits flit unseen hither and yon in abundance and the Lord of the Land who governs the forest of this fair realm is most immanent and powerful. Here the Uiziqi, usually solitary figures all cowled in grey, gather to listen to the voices of the rocks, to inquire with the spirits of the trees and read the book of heavens to the music of the waters of Taraukaqi, the well of spirits, in light of recent celestial portents. Here the voice of Gauchita is strongest, but to their consternation they have yet to find an answer to their questions, for the rocks whisper of dead gods who are mysteriously still alive, and the trees echo with the music of fallen stars and flashing knives and pour into the minds of the mediums the bitter taste of blood and biting sand and exultation tinged with bitter regret. It will take time to sift the wheat from the chaff, the real from the unreal, time which the Uiziqi are confident they possess. For in the world of the Wabinu time passes ever swift and ever slow, as life's struggles remain always the same.
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Meanwhile, passing westward as the crow flies unto the farthest reaches of the land, to a realm where tempests sometimes hearken from the sea crackling and thundering over the face of the forests in raucous play and where few of the greater gods see fit to roam, one group of humans have on the back of seaborne trade built the second series of city-states to be found north of the great delta. These are the aforementioned Taethlin (a name bestowed upon them by their primary trading partner, of themselves they are simply "the people"). Though rustic, the denizens of these crude cities of wattle and daub ringed by sharpened wooden palisades have developed the arts of working metal and tilling the land. Worshipping gods of land and water, their abodes are ringed by tamed lands of orchards and fields of grain blessed by domestic spirits of the kind that like to abide in such places so long as the farmers offer appropriate libations and gifts for their favour. In like manner, further into the interior villages of these peaceable folk are dotted throughout the forests, the plumes of smoke melding into the rain clouds that travel eastward from the sea on the great west wind.
It is in one of these quaint little villages that one of the "strange tidings" of this present age unfolds. For with a clink and a echoing splash a little girl wishing for a sweet apple pie that evening after a day at play with her friends tosses a copper coin into the village well atop the hill, a quaint superstition tossing coins into wells for fortune is it not, before she skips her way along to her mother's hut. Her little sacrifice merits her small request and the sweetness of apples fills her mouth that evening. Later a woman drawing water tosses a silver coin for love. Joyous tidings that she was married two weeks hence. The villagers see a pattern, and in swift order the trees around the well are bedecked with coloured cloths and prayer flags, and the local shaman each day at sunrise offers libation to the unknown god of the well, for blessings upon field and water that the village might merit a good harvest.
Soon the village becomes prosperous and the well obtains a reputation as travellers wishes are granted and word spreads far and wide. Neighbours from villages near at hand, and pilgrims from distant towns and cities toss coins into the well for small favours, and others begging greater favours offer greater tokens (having heard of Cho'manos' principle of blood price perhaps) in hope of healing or other such miracles. The orchards bloom and grow ripe with apples and nature's bounty of all kinds in the years that pass, and the village flourishes as the wishing well and its unknown god becomes a holy place for Taethlin high and low, bringing new prosperity to the villagers as these guests bring money and business to their little hamlet. Indeed princes and beggars stand side by side in procession, and each in their time stare into the wells depths before offering sacrifices be it for a sweet treat come nightfall for small change, or for a good harvest for the kingdom that year for a chest of gold ingots. Be the sacrifice small or great all come begging for the gods favour, and some, in the darkest nights when the eye of Vahashtai is shut, offer darker and greater sacrifices for something more than the mundane such that bones mingle with gold in the watery depths where the light of the moon cannot reach. How fortunate that fate favours the Taethlin and they have been blessed not to know the wrath of dark deities or great misfortune by happenchance or cruel fate, how fortunate it is that they have not been asked to sacrifice more than they are prepared to pay.
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Let us then attend to the first series of city states to grace the west, the great and crumbling cities of Irec and Briumbar last haven of that enigmatic race known to men as Aols. The Aols are an old, old race born of fire and metal by the hand of a cruel god, to serve as slaves in his forges beneath the earth some amongst the young and foolish race of man dare to say. How unfortunate for this deity that he poured much of himself into his creation and even more so that he had made many enemies amongst the divine orders in his time, such that it was very soon after his creations advent when the Aols were still as liquid silver and smokeless fire in the burning deeps of the world that these enemies came together and slew him with the aid of his resentful creations. In the eternal moment that followed, as their reward and right, the Aols took as their spoil and portion their makers holy and terrible head and drunk deep of their creators very essence in a mystical supper, basking in the unknowable delight, the indescribable delicacy, that is the taste of godhood. Alas for the dinner guests that they, the god-forged Teibhin (as the eldest of Aols are known), became infused with knowledge, power and life everlasting as they supped upon divinity, and became transfixed upon the fabric of existence as with a lance by the cruel spear of unalterable truth. As the divine fire filled them they groaned in existential agony and scurried like rats from the depths of the earth unto the shores of the sea, for they had come to know that it was only by the power of the ocean that their creators cruel and ever-burning fire could be quenched and their writhing turmoil somewhat tempered. Thus holding back the holy pain, for a time, the Aols came together to revel in their victory and build great wonders with what they had come to know from the holy feast, even as they secretly suffered from what they had obtained. It was in that time before time before the advent of the keeper of records when past, present and future were all as one that the Aols rose into their golden age.
For it is known that in the Age of Creation the Teibhin bore the Teshann, the mortal Aols ( whom the Taethlin have come to know through trade) and together the generations of Aoldom multiplied and wrought many havens of unfathomable beauty, with each wonder being more beautiful than the last and bedecked all about with spun glass, tapestries of coral and sea-silk banners hung upon opalescent lances grown in great clams beneath the waves. Men and gods marvelled at the crystalline pinnacles all clear and radiant with light that shone across the waters with the reflection of the heavens in the starry night and were struck with awe at the obsidian halls carved into sea-cliffs which echoed all about with the music of the ocean as processions of Aolish adepts of the Tallic Sur (then in its glory days) gracefully made their way all enrobed in spun bronze and cloth of gold beneath the graven vaults. The seat of their power in that age rested upon the shore of that tepid and bounteous inland sea which nowadays has become the thoroughly unwelcoming sea of sand known as The Dustrains , with such wondrous sights as Caranath of the crystal towers and Beladir of the thousand halls gracing its warm and idyllic shores with their stately presence. Yet when the Maker of All Things was slain and the Great Enemy of the World rose up from the primordial chaos to ravaged earth and sea and sky, these amongst many other wonders of that age were cast down their denizens passing into memory and fable and tasting as an digestif to the mystical supper of their makers flesh, the bitter taste of death. The towers of glass that adorned fair Caranath became nothing but grains of sand in the desert, to the laughter of the god of that cruel land who came like a jackal to feast upon bones as the sea burned away in the chaos of ten thousand years and the war in heaven that raged like lightning in the sky. Upon the fixing of time at the awakening of Vahashtai those few Aols who survived the onslaught in the remotest of their outposts came to gather and came to make their repose in the halls of aforementioned Irec and Briumbar, which in this present age are crumbling and half-empty, their denizens gliding across the stony galleries like ghosts amidst the fading echoes of their peoples glory.
Yet the age of gods has not left them to pass the new age as mere echoes of the past, forgotten to the grand drama of fate and chance. No, the witcheries of the Tallic sur, that order of aolish practitioners of the arcane herald dire tidings, and the falling star that at the dawn of this new age illuminated the whole world has caused a tremor of fear to flicker in their midst. Fearing the worst the surs gathered in a great conclave of silver robed adepts each bearing a coralline staff adorned with gold. Murmuring together in subdued voices in the shadows of their black hall, the sur concluded after some dispute that the star portended the rise of chaos once more to disturb their peoples tranquillity and peace in this new age. From hence this chaos will come they know not, nor the appointed time when it shall appear before them, yet they conclude if anything that they do well to worry. For even the infantile race of mankind has come to realise that the heart of the mountain of fire which overshadows the twin cities and all the west like a monolith on its dusky isle stirss fitfully in its rest. For the mountains basalt pinnacles piercing the clouds and looming over mortals like an array of spears ready for battle resonate with the roar of fire in the night and shudder as the earth trembles in time to the mountains snoring depths. Whether an expedition should be sent, or whether it is best to leave the quaking mountain to its own devices if much debated, although for now the consensus appears to be that it is best to wait and see. It is wise to let sleeping dogs lie after all.
There is also a yet more insidious menace, for unknown to the Tallic Sur, the timekeepers, or even to the most ancient of the immortal Teibhin, a god is not so easily forgotten and put to rest as these wily old immortals had assumed in the heady days of their youth, when time was not yet time and they had drunk heady draughts of godly essence. For hearken and understand ye who are wise these two truths. Firstly, that the memory of a thing and the utterance of it hold power, and the Aols remember too deeply and too much. Secondly, that actions have consequences. Indeed the ancient Teibhin and their mortal offspring fester in the recollection of their cruel maker and of the cruel burden he unwittingly imposed, and these memories like oil drip one drop at a time into the infinite well of the spirit world to congeal like a glistening slick all black and sickly iridescent upon the surface of the clear and untainted waters of space and time. How unfortunate that the blackness only continues to spread as with each passing year the drops of memory congeal together one drop here and one drop there. Indeed the curse of knowledge that afflicts this race, the curse of implacable and unvarnished truth unwittingly chosen by the Aols at the ancient banquet of their liberation, pierces at their souls like a sword in perishable mortal flesh, and from the gaping wound of unfettered memory leaks out the very essence of the godhead they had so readily and incautiously imbibed . Tis only a wisp for now to the good fortune of Aoldom, but this is a wound which will not heal, nay, which cannot heal. So it is that the ineffable quintessence of the deity continues to sublimate into the aether with each soul-wracking recollection and each utterance of its forbidden name to some unknown end beyond the knowledge of the world.
Thus it is in ignorance dear reader that the greater part of the Aols are content to emerge in fine and noble estate from the bellies of whales to trade their opalescent handiwork and shimmering sea-silk with the Taethlin in return for cold-iron, gold and other human trinkets and delicacies, much as they have for these last few centuries. Meanwhile the Tallic Sur continues to ponder the portents revealed to them and watch closely for further signs while the Teibhin, the old old teibhin who had dared to strike down their maker lurk and fester as solitary shadows amidst the crumbling halls of their ruined citadels in the company of ancient regrets and ages upon ages of memory, with the agony of existence unending and unenviable baring down like a cruel weight upon their souls in the lonely dark.
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The North
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At long last the north, a dangerous place where mortals men are few, and gods are many and generally unfriendly in the silent pines. So find ourselves listening to the melody of a piercing screech, which breaks the serenity of the falling snow with all the grace of an ill-played violin, while shortly after the splashes of desperate footsteps crashing through the thin ice echo through the reeds of the marshy ground. Through the rustling leaves a blonde-haired lad soon emerges hounded swiftly by the loping form of one of those fearsome spirits the locals of the dire north call a Lesh. Leshnoi are emissaries of the deity who rules the seasons, she who is in summer fair and bright and in winter cruel and vicious. They are creatures of wood and bone, bedecked with the flensed skins of the slain and tormenting the dreams of little boys and grown men alike with their great reaping claws and rictus grins. It is they who are charged by their mistress to reap a tithe of mortal flesh to feed the forest for the rising of the spring, and as payment for the blessings she provides. Alas, it seems this poor lad is to be the next victim.
The young man stumbles on a fallen rock and the manifest spirit takes its opportunity and leaping high in a heavy pirouette carves a great gash in the boys back. He screams, a piercing scream, that causes birds to take flight as he stumbles forward, running with what energy adrenaline provides onto a hillock rising from the icy waters of the marshy copse and bedecked all about with standing stones. The beast follows and finally blood loss becomes too much for the young man to withstand, as he stumbles to his knees once more and begins to crawl forward, desperately seeking that thing men seek most desperately of all, life. The Lesh knows its daily tally is due to be met and cackles in glee, and with spry footsteps infused with a craftsmans pride in his work it reaches forward to drag its prone prey back to the deeper woods, no doubt so he can toss tasty gobbets of manflesh for the godly murder of crows that eye this festival in choir with hungry eyes. The unfortunate man falls flat as a root like a wriggling rot-worm emerges from the ground to snare his ankle in its vice-like grasp, and before he is taken away he reaches forward with a final effort and touches the threshold of a dolmen, that stands stately and proud amid the stony ring. Then there is darkness.
A voice speaks from the darkest dark which oozes in his minds eye like liquid.
"Do you want to live...?"
and the boy, thinking only of the pain, cries in the very depths of his soul one word.
"Yes!"
...
The boy awakes. The mire and the fearsome Lesh are nowhere to be seen. Rather he is in a wooden hut surrounded by the smell of hanging herbs, fresh beaver-rat stew and the characteristic musk of newly flayed furs. A buxom young lass with hair of spun gold sits by him ladling stew into a wooden bowl, hunks of well-cooked meat tumbling into the warm broth with a hearty plop as she eyes him coyly.
"Well what have we here, he's awake. Drink some stew before you die of hunger why don't you mister."
She passes the bowl to his hungry hands along with a copper spoon, and he ravenously devours his first meal in what seems like days.
"Found you on the old hill midst' the stones, not a scratch on you but surrounded by blood. What a strange sight no? Ah but first what is your name"
The lass smiles, her face bewitching to behold in the flickering shadows of the huts rush-lights. The man hurriedly reached back to where the Lesh had raked his back, to find the girls words true. Not a scratch remained. He stuttered his reply.
"Cerunnaihn, but you can call me Cerun. Who are you?"
"Oh, just a dabbler in the spirit-arts. You can call me Sarai. What happened for you to be all bloody like that?"
Haltingly at first, but then assuredly he went through how he was hunting stags in the forest when he stumbled upon a Lesh. He gesticulated has he remembered how he had tried to run to no avail when, when.
"Darkness took me... "
And it was as if he was struck by lightning, Ceruns eyes rolled back and he twitched as he lost control of himself. He saw with the eyes of the spirit a fair green isle far to the south and the warm river rushing to the sea, he saw the sands turn green and his tribe multiplying a thousand fold and himself ruling an empire that would have no end from a palace wrought of porphyry, marble and gold. Cerun jumped up and raised his arms heavenward giving thanks to the unknown god. He animatedly explained to Sarai what had happened. He had been saved by a god. A god! He had been chosen he said to lead the north unto the south and heal the broken deserts. Mankind would have a new golden age and balance would be restored in this new era that had been foretold.
Sarai giggled and rapped his head with her ladle.
"But first we eat."
And as they ate Sarai told him all about a falling star.
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Meanwhile to the south, the Wat tribe has a far more idyllic existence free from the ardour of prophecy or the wild hunts of vindictive forest deities. No, their valley and the waters flowing from the dark caverns of Angar Lok are truly a paradise on earth. It is a land flowing rich with fruits all year round and flowing with the honey of great fat bees as big as thumbs that buzz amidst its flowers. But best of all is the water, for the blessed water of Angar Lok heals all wounds, and soothes the withered flesh as nothing else. For those who imbibe from the holy well know neither infirmity or disease, and death has no hold of them. Yes dear reader, the people of the Wat tribe are immortal. So long as they continue to drink of the holy waters, and so long as they are not so unfortunate as to be on the receiving end of a boars gory tusk that is. A lesson old man Wachimak one summer fifty years gone by learnt too well (may he rest in peace). So it is that the tribe prospers in measured isolation (for they know the power of rumour and do not fancy an eternal war with strange tribes lusting for eternal life) and lazily idle the days away hunting game and playing in the life-bestowing waters of their pure and untarnished land as the people multiply with each generation, as the old ones watch their many-fold great grandchildren toddle their first steps on the grassy banks.
It was soon after these little ones gazed heavenward with child-like wonder at a falling star, their pudgy arms pointing skyward with rapt attention that the hunters of the tribe found a strange stag. It was swift and strong and no spear or arrow could catch its feet nor pierce its side. Then one day as the tribe gathered by the well to drink and tell stories beneath the stars it appeared before them and spake these words.
" Tribe of Wat. I am the water which you drink, that which you call Angar Lok. I have come to you to speak."
The immortals fell prostrate with revelation. For they had in that moment of theophany come to understand that they owed their immortality and the bliss of their paradise realm to the god before them, they realised that their lives were its blessing to their people and its to give and take away. So they listened to the oracular deer speak and tell of the mysteries of its dark waters, just as it listened to them and their stories and with serene countenance heard the tale of their lives. While the theological distinction between deer and god, and wellspring and deer remained beyond the simple Watmen, men and god grew closer together in simple faith and interaction even as the godhood within the people dreamed dreams of men within them and they rejoiced in drinking of the chalice of life everlasting as they rejoiced in the heady taste of life and peace. Too bad these children had not heard of Aols and ancient deities, nor of the price of imbibing godhood. Too bad.
For rumour HAD passed to the north, despite the isolationist efforts of the tribe, and arrived at the ears of Cerun the chosen. Cerun, after his supper of beaver-rat stew in Sarai's humble shack had been returned to his tribe, growing closer to Sarai in the journey and learning of the hubbub of prophecy that followed the great stars fall from heaven. He also learned that he had indeed been bestowed with strength and power beyond an ordinary man and the horrors of the northern night no longer posed the dread they did a few scarce nights before. At his homecoming he once again spoke of his theophany and salvation from the fierce Lesh, and showing his strength attracted a group of fierce warriors to his side eager for glory in battle and the hunt. Travelling then from village to village, from encampment to encampment he gathered up his merry band and listened to the Morrighain witches who Sarai introduced to Cerun one night. They told him how the god of whom he spoke had commanded them to aid him, and whispered tales of a green valley with waters pure as crystal from which all who drank them obtained eternal life and everlasting youth. Surely this was the land promised by the god.
So leaving Sarai behind the Cerunites, that band of warriors and adventurers and a select few witch women wise in the ways of the world gathered at Cerun's home village and embarked in a small fleet of canoes to head south via the great lake. Cerun spoke to the gathered tribesmen on the shoreline and promised he would lead them to the south once it was made green again, and that his god would deliver them from the torments of the seasons and the fickle fiends who rules the woods. So grabbing his mother in a hug and punting his flimsy boat from muddy shore, he went off to a new land and a new sunrise and to whatever fate lay for him in the future far ahead.
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Ah, what became of that falling star you ask. A good question. Well funnily enough a naked man speaking a strange tongue stumbled his way into an encampment of primitive hunters some ways north-east of Cerun's stomping grounds. While this prodigy is not unknown to the Morrighain they hold it to no account, for the man who goes by the name Rultan has shown no outward signs of divinity and is presently learning the ways of mortals is blissful amnesia as to his true nature. How amusing that this instrument of prophecy and god of heaven now unknowingly and in ignorance partakes of the lot of humanity.
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Ah one more thing.
Yes, one more thing.
At that hillock in the mire, at a time when Vahashtai's eye is shut and shortly after the departure of Cerun and his merry band, a group of women cowled in black and leading a young girl by a golden chain gather.
Tis a coven of the Morrighain
Their headwoman, a young lass with golden hair raises her cowl and gestures for one of the sisters who have travelled hither from afar to bring forth a bronze sickle. She and her sisterhood had known since before a witless man had stumbled upon this doorway what lay behind the veil here, sealed away in the dark.
With wicked intent the others grab the imprisoned girl and spread-eagle her over the threshold of the dolmen and tie her to stones with grey ropes as the bystanders cackle in glee.
"Silence!"
Sarai hushes the sisters with a jab of her hand.
"This is a holy place".
Slowly, grinning ear to ear, she draws the sickle from its sheathe and stepping gracefully forwards she permits a small laugh to escape her lips as she tests her blade with a few practice swings left and right. She crouches over the girl and as the slip of thing tearfully groans against the rags in her mouth swiftly slits the lasses throat such that the young girls life blood splatters over the dolmens threshold. The sacrificial girls lips tremble silently and her eyes glaze over with the shadow of that most inevitable of fates. Death.
Gone too soon. But another small loss in the savage north.
Sarai kneels and prostrates herself thrice before she dares to speak.
"Lord. Father. Can you hear us? Can you whisper through the door?"
She says tentatively. As the others kneel in rapt silence for any sound that might echo in reply.
For a moment that silence stretches into an eternity and there is nothing.
Then the little sacrifice shudders.
She rises to her feet and turns to the gathered sisters who raise their heads in joy, tears in their eyes.
And she begins to speak.
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MAPS
politics
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STATS
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Notes
@Gelion - as you did not specify a prophecy, I rendered it as a generic event.
@Angst - as you did not spend a civ point to establish a tribe, but I liked the premise I had the Uwal split in twain.
@Daftpanzer - you set up your application near to one of the axles around which the narrative may or may not turn I mentioned earlier. Hence the god who delivered Cerun is perhaps somewhat different from the one you my have envisioned as a consequence.
@in general - More stories would be very much appreciated as they are the lifeblood of an NES. The section on the north is a little scanty due to this imo. Nonetheless applications and intentions worked fairly well this turn in terms of establishing a coherent narrative. I look forward to what you can conjure up next.
