Shadows Lost, 2 of 3

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Shadows
(Twenty years ago)

Freezing wind blows in the temple: the birds that hadn’t left when the traveler entered do so now, flapping their wings hurriedly. Even the rain dares not entering the temple through the half-collapsed roof; the penumbra of the clouded day degrades.

The traveler rises from the broken Holy Table. He wears his crown and holds the golden rod. His face hardens as he turns around. He beholds shadows; shadows of men and women that do not crawl on the ground as peoples’ shadows do: these shadows hover just over the weeded, fractured marble floor, staring at him with beads of red light where their eyes should be. More enter the temple through the entrance and the broken windows.

You needed not bring your crown and scepter, king Saal, he hears inside his mind from a thousand voices. We know who you are. We do not forget.
I am not here as a king of shadows lost, Saal thinks back. I come here as a liberator of tormented souls, and as an avenger.
LIES! voiceless voices scream in his mind. YOU TRICKED US ALL!

“I know,” Saal murmurs, now surrounded by the shadows. “I am here to correct my mistakes.”
TOO LATE! the massive scream of the shadows’ mob fills his mind.
The shadows attack.

‡
The Eulogy of a Dark God
(Thirty two years ago)

The Great Forest is, perhaps, the biggest woodland in all Abatania; tall trees offer their eternal shade to the woods’ inhabitants: wild animals and people of ill ends.

At a small clearing, bowing deeply inside a circle of blood, a young waman waited. Her long, black hair, loose, covered a big portion of her naked back. Yet more naked than her nude body was her soul, which trembled as it heard the words of a dark God that echoed into that soul’s temple, her mortal body.

So young, she heard the godsent voice inside her and shriveled. So young, yet so ambitious!

“I-I only know what I desire, my Lord,” she dared whisper.

And full of audacity! I like you. What seek you from me by this ritual? Why did you invoke me?”

“Power. I desire power and authority.”

But power and authority come at a cost, young woman!

“I am prepared to pay that cost, Lord Ga-ogg!”
No. You will never be. But I’ll need a witch of  your talents. Thusly, I shall give you the powers to do my bidding. And, should you do it, you will rightfully gain the power you seek!

“My soul belongs to you. Whatever you ask of me --I shall do it for you.”

…and the Curse of Ancesl.
(Thirty two years ago)

It was night. An eerie silence reigned over one of the tall mountains around El’le’s Plateau.
Below was Ancesl, bright, living, the crowd still bustling in its trade alleys and squares.

A female form stood on the mountain top and looked at the city. For a moment, the full moon was mirrored on her almond eyes which were framed by an unholy smile.

She lifted her arms high, as if wanting to invoke that very moon.

She started singing sinister chants in a language that no living thing should ever set an ear upon. Two trees beside her shriveled and blackened; their leaves fell rotten on the ground, which blackened as well. Plants died around her. The moon dimmed.

‡‡
The Trap is Set…
(Thirty years ago)


Ancesl. Night dominates the sky over the Sun God’s Temple.

Apprentice priests of El-le stand guard by the entrance. Tired from their day’s duties, they observe the empty streets of the deserted square with ever-closing eyes. A woman approaches; she starts a conversation. As they talk, she presents a pouch and empties its content on her empty palm. Suddenly she blows it at their faces and backs up, holding her breath. The priests fall unconscious, moments later.

Without losing time, the woman enters the temple. With sure steps, despite the complete darkness, she approaches the Holy Table. She feels a specific spot with her hands, until she finds a button. She presses it and a piece of the Table slowly moves to reveal a crypt. Hurriedly, the woman takes something out of a bag she carries and places it inside. She presses the button again; the crypt closes.

The woman leaves the temple with soft steps and vanishes in the streets of Ancesl, as the guard-priests regain consciousness.

‡‡‡
…and is sprung.
(Thirty years ago)


“How dare you enter the Temple of your God in such a way, faithless?” the Archpriest of the Sun yelled but Soran kicked him hard, throwing him on the marble floor. Doubled up, Ateba held his groin, moaning, as the captain of the Palace Guard approached the Holy Table, bewildered: the heavy steps of his military boots echoed in the Temple, breaking its solemn quiescence. Four soldiers closed the entrance with bare swords while a few others rounded up the priests in a corner.

“Open the Holy Table,” Soran ordered. “I want to see the Sacred Crypt!”

“The Crypt doesn’t open whenever one wants it!” the Archpriest shouted, rising to his feet. He moved towards the captain, but a blade of a soldier’s sword pointed at him changed his mind.
Without saying a word, Soran raised his sword in the air and lowered it on the Holy Table with force. Cuts filled its marble surface, as the officer repeated his move, and the clangs echoed like screams of a hysterical woman.

“Wait,” Ateba said in surrender. “Wait,” he said again. “Rather than leave you desecrate this place, I shall give you what you want! May El-le forgive you for your actions!”

El-le’s Archpriest approached the Holy Table and pushed a hidden button. Slowly, the marble surface moved to reveal the Sacred Crypt.

“What is this?” Soran barked.

Inside the secret compartment, a black, slimy creature like an octopus had coiled around the Temple’s hidden relics, ancient artifacts of the Faith of Light, with its tentacles; its touch had blackened them; their gold coating had been eaten away.

“It is I that desecrate the Temple?” roared the captain of the palace guard. “Then, what can one say about you, Archpriest Ateba, who brought a seed of Ga-ogg in this place?”

With a quick move he hacked at the strange creature, which gushed blood blacker than even its body; like liquid, it began corroding the blade. The creature attempted to grab Soran’s arm with its tentacles, but he easily dodged it. He hacked again; more black blood surged from the wounds. The creature writhed for a while, then stayed still.

Disgusted, Soran threw his sword away; it fell on the floor, corroded, and broke in two.
“This conspiracy, Ateba, was revealed to us yesterday, but neither me nor the king could believe the words of a stranger,” Soran growled at the priest’s face. “But see! The source of this sickness, this creature of the night nests inside the very Temple of the Sun!”

The Archpriest looked at the Holy Table. One of the creature’s tentacles was half outside the crypt.

“Trap!” he faltered. “It’s a trap! Someone put that- that thing there, to frame us!”

“No,” the officer said in scorn. “All this is clear to me, Archpriest. No one else save you and your superiors knows how to open the crypt. It’s one of your so-called ‘mysteries’, isn’t that what you have always been saying?”

“B-but who?” Ateba said, trembling. “I can swear about the faith of all those initiated—“

“I cannot,” Soran interrupted him. “I only rely on what my eyes see.” He approached the Archpriest and pulled a knife from his belt. “The orders I have are clear,” he added, raising his weapon.

Ateba closed his eyes.

An apprentice priest escaped the soldiers and fell, yelling, on the captain; they both fell on the ground, rolling once or twice. Then, with a jerk, Soran threw his attacker away. The young priest tried to stand to his feet, but couldn’t. He looked at his chest: his yellow robe had drenched with blood from a deep, open wound. He put a hand on it, looking confused. He fell dead. Soran looked his dagger; it was blooded.

The Archpriest? Soran thought, scanning the area with his eyes.

A secret doorway was slowly closing on a wall near him. A bit of the Archpriest’s cloth had been torn, hanging from a rough spot. A soldier dashed towards the doorway and tried to jam it open, using his sword, but his weapon broke in two and the doorway shut.

Furious, Soran rose, wiping his dagger with a corner of his cape. “Kill them all,” he said. “The king wills it, and your God wills it. Then burn this place.”

He walked outside the Temple. Sounds of a fight and screams of pain were heard from inside, but they didn’t last long. As the head of the Palace Guard walked away, his soldiers ran out of temple. Smoke emerged from the entrance.

‡‡‡‡
The Shadows Leave
(Twenty years ago)


Saal raises his scepter high over his head. “El-le, help me,” he shouts. “Drive away the darkness with your light!”

His scepter shines; faintly, at start, making the attacking shadows look even more terrifying in the derelict temple. But then its glow intensifies: white, pure light emanates from its discoid tip that bears the emblem of tree and mountain.  It shines like a small sun, and the shadows fall back; their screams of outworldly pain pierce Saal’s mind.

The king of Ancesl falters but doesn’t fall. “Tormented souls,” he whispers, as blood runs from his eyes and nostrils, “forgive me for my mistake. May you find rest at the Lands of Oblivion!”

“El-le!” he screams. “El-le!” he screams louder, as if wanting to be heard to the sky. “Give peace to your faithful, for they were not to blame!”

The light is now blinding; Saal closes his eyes and tries to protect them with his palm, but he feels the glow invading his spirit. He falls to his knees, holding his head with one hand. Thousands of screams strangle his every thought; they are sinister but desperate, screams of anger, yet filled with sorrow and pain. Then the light soothes a bit, and the screams are now sighs of relief. Then nothing: only peace, and the familiar, sad half light, half darkness of the empty building.

Saal throws his scepter on the dirty marble and takes his crown off his head. With an angry move he throws it away as well; he holds his head with both hands; he cries. “El-le, what have I done!” he says between his sobs.

Two eyes look at the king of Ancesl. They belong to a beast, but sparkle of intelligence.

The wounded leader of the wolfpack stands at the Temple’s entrance. He looks at the king of a deserted city, crying over the past that sank and the future that will not come.

The red wolf’s eyes lower. He turns around and wanders away in the weeded streets of the lost city; his sad howl breaks the mournful silence of the city-that-once-was.

‡‡‡‡‡
The Candle of Shadows…
(Thirty years ago)


Ancesl was burning.

Fire and black smoke came out of the windows, doors and roofs of the collapsing houses. Men and women, carrying their belongings, ran towards the exits of the city to save themselves: men would push carts filled with things, women with their babies in their lap lost their stepping as they followed, crying; children walked beside them, full of fear. Horsemen of the guard with torches galloped through the city streets, bringers of doom and destruction for Ancesl.

A veiled woman, dressed in flowing clothes, lurked behind a pillar at the square where the Temple was. When she was sure that nobody watched, she ran across to the fiery building.

The fires coming from the entrance and the broken windows of the Temple of the Sun surrounded her as she approached like snakes twisting around their prey; but with a motion of her hand, they receded as if they had been afraid of her.

The seeress entered the Temple. Flames were everywhere, eating away at charred furniture and the dead bodies of the slain priests. She couldn’t breathe; she whispered something: for a moment, her body shone in a blue light and the flames around her retreated once again. Her breathing normal again, she advanced toward the Holy Table. With a smile of satisfaction, she coaxed the scarred marble. She looked the Holy Crypt; it contained a weird dead creature with black tentacles and some corroded artifacts. She took a black candle dilled with some curious symbols from a small bag she carried on her shoulder and put it into the Crypt. She blew at it; blue flame appeared on its tip. The woman’s smile widened as the dead creature melted, becoming a black, thick liquid that flowed to the candle, becoming one with it. As the candle sucked the dead creature’s essence, the seeress began to laugh as if she was really amused at what was happening around her. Then, with a sure motion of her hand, she pressed the secret button at the Table’s side and the crypt with the black candle that burnt with a blue flame closed.
Part of the roof of the Temple of El-le collapsed as she left. The woman looked behind her and ran away: she followed a group of refugees, joining them without being noticed, in the panic of the evacuation of the moribund city.

‡‡‡‡‡‡
…is put out
(Twenty years ago)


Saal rises on his feet; his eyes are watery, his cheeks scarred with his tears. He picks up his scepter and crown; he walks to the Holy Table. He pushes a broken part of the marble table; it falls beside him with a slam, lifting dust and ashes as it breaks in more pieces.

Where the marble table was, is a small compartment that looks like a crypt. Inside it, beside some charred artifacts, a black candle burns with blue flame. The king grabs the candle and brings it near his face. He watches its body, its wick and the flame; the body is full of symbols he cannot recognize, the wick looks unburning, and the flame is pale and freezing.

Saal prepares to blow the candle, but stops. He observes the flame and lowers his head. He stays in that position for a while. His eyes are sad.

Suddenly, as if he had thought something that gave him courage, his eyes narrow and sparkle with determination. He blows hard. The flame dies. He collapses and stays on the ground, unmoving. The blown candle lies beside him.

The heavy clouds over the ruins of Ancesl seem to tail away. The sun’s bright rays break through them and enter the temple through the gaping holes on the roof. The candle turns to ashes as they fall on it. Light wind blows in the temple and those ashes scatter. The king’s hair wave; his shadow rises and walks towards the Holy Table. A gate of white light opens, and the shadow passes through it. The gate fades.

The leader of the wolves’ pack enters the Temple, approaches the dead king of Ancesl, and licks his face.

‡‡‡‡‡‡‡
An Unexpected Meeting
(Thirty years ago)


The Desertlands of Haas’na was an inhospitable expanse devoid of vegetation, red-soiled, filled with steep mountains, narrow passages and endless rock formations. All living things avoided it, and men were no exception: the merchant caravan bypassed it, as did all travelers. One should have a good reason to walk it.

Ateba was delirious.

Ragged, blooded, hungry and thirsty, the self-exiled priest misstepped and fell; red dust rose as his body hit the ground.

Is this your will about me, El-le? To die like a dog in the Desertlands of Haas’na? he thought as he lifted his head to see his God, who had been striking him with his rays for some days, eating away the little stamina he had left.

He put his elbow on the ground, trying to stand on his feet, but couldn’t do even that. Around him, by the desolate red mountains and the dry hills, he saw mirages of people, cities, water wells, dishes of food near him; but when he reached for them, he would only catch air. He tried to cry of despair, but even his tears dried before watering his eyes.

“Mercy,” he whispered. He coughed, choked by his own saliva. “Have mercy, Sun God!”

He lost consciousness.

Through the clouded veil clouding his senses, he thought he saw a huge red wolf with bright eyes approaching. The beast licked his face, and Ateba felt he stepped steadier on the land of the Living.

Moments later, he was on the back of the wolf; the beast began to walk.

“Where are we going?” he thought he said.

“To the place where you will wait until the time is right,” he heard the wolf say in a human voice.
It is a dream. In that dream, the wolf aids and protects him.

On its back, he is carried away from danger and death. As they travel, the wolf speaks:

"Bad things have happened. Evil crawls all around. The balance in Atabania has been disturbed without reason. My brother has become aggressive again. By sly actions he wants to extend his reach where he shouldn’t. I was undermined. I should have expected this.

Yet nothing remains the same forever. The world will be changing for eternity. Ateba, Ancesl shall be reborn. Through the ashes, the city shall rise again for a thousand years of glory. Search for my sign when the shadows shrink. The time for you has come to take important duties and follow the steps of those that were averted."

Ateba’s mind passed from many clouded lands. Then, after a while, the sun peeked through the heavy clouds, and he opened his eyes.

What happened? Why am I here? His dream was already slipping away, a sleek eel in a sea of memories that spilled in inexistence.

Ateba sat up and looked around. He was in a small cavern that looked almost too artificial. Its entrance gaped at a mountainside, facing the east, whence came natural light.

Blood had fallen on the ground: not his; old blood that had long ago dried away. Remains of tattered clothes were everywhere, mixed with human bones. There also was a fireplace that hadn’t been used for years, as well as other marks indicating that someone had lived here, and had also died here.

El-le’s priest stood up and walked outside. He decided, after scanning the horizon, that he still was at the Desertlands of Haas’na. The cave was only an insignificant hole in yet another red mountain.

It was dawning: the sun had just begun to rise over the mountains that protruded in the desert like warped teeth in an unhealthy mouth.

As the sun made the shadows of the mountaintops walk on the ground, he saw two of them make a weird line and converge to a place where a tall rock like a pillar was standing alone in the middle of a small plateau.
Search for my mark during the time that all shadows shrink, he thought, and walked toward the pillar rock.

‡ ‡‡‡ ‡ ‡‡‡
Admonition…
(Fifty years ago)


“I thank you for your gifts, young Ateba,” Old Hetena said. “You needed not bring them. The Desertlands supply me with what the Sun God wants me to have. Thus, I shall not accept them.”

“A few fruits eaten won’t make El-le angry, my lady,” the man sitting across the hermitess said, looking around her small cave at the Desertlands of Haas’na. “Nor will they bend your abstinence.”

The woman smiled, and the many wrinkles on her face flinched. With her weary eyes she looked at the young priest. “You are a good person, Ateba,” she said in a slow, serious tone. “The Sun needs good people to be his priests, as do the people of the city you will go to, for hard times shall come.”

“But why at Ancesl?” the young priest asked. “There were others in line before me—“

“The Council of the Guardians had its reasons, for sure,” the old woman interrupted him, “to appoint you as a replacement for dead Eferet, Ateba. And I shall not doubt its judgement; you should not, as well.”

“Yet—“

“Have faith in yourself,” Old Hetena insisted. “You shall need it during the next years. You will have many responsibilities, more important than you think. You know why you came to me?”

“No, to be honest,” Ateba admitted. “The Council ordered me to pass through the Desertlands on my way to Ancesl. I imagined that it is some kind of a test before I take my office.”

“The passing through the Desertlands is always a test of will and strength, that’s true,” the hermitess answered. “But it is not the main reason we met.”

“Then why?” Ateba asked again with a frown.

“I am your Link,” Old Hetena declared with emphasis, motioning with her head in significance.

“My Link? But I hardly know you—“

“When the time comes, you will understand,” the woman answered. “You shall know that time because it will be your hardest hour. When all doubt and accuse you, and unjustly hunt you, then you shall come to me, and I shall help you!”

“What? What does that mean?” Ateba said, startled. “Tell me what you mean!”

“The secret story of Eretha and the Brother Gods is no tale for everyone’s eyes, even yours, for the time being. Leave and come again when you absolutely need me. Never forget this meeting!”

“But—“ the young priest insisted.

“Leave.”

…and treason
(Thirty five years ago)


The Desertlands of Haas’na.

“W-why?” Old Hetena asks, spurting blood.

A sinuous dagger has been jabbed in the her back. A young woman, cold as a winter’s night, holds the hilt; her pale skin is illumined from the fullmoon outside the cavern.

“Because I must, Hetena,” the old woman’s murderess responds. “Times change, and you must not live to prevent that change.”

“I destined you for greatness,” the moribund enchantress says. “If only I knew…” She spits her own blood, choking.

The young woman turns the knife in its wound and the frail body of her victim writhes.

“I admit I’m ambitious. Where is the Darkswirl?” she asks in an angry tone.

“F-finish what you began!” the old woman whistles with the little strength that hasn’t yet abandoned her frail body. “Even if I told you…”

“…I wouldn’t be able to lay my hands on it,” the girl concludes. “I know that. Yet I had to try. At least I learnt some of your ‘secrets’, which will help me do what I must.”

With a quick move, the young woman pulls her dagger from the old woman’s back and slits her throat. The corpse falls softly on the cavern’s ground. A while later, a black horse with the young woman as its rider, gallops under the moonlight, far from the place that had been the hideout of Old Hetena and now would be her tomb.
    
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The Secret History…
(Thirty years ago)


Ateba brushes dirt off the metal box he unburied at the spot where the unnatural shadows converged.

The box is carved with symbols of the Old Ages. It is made of a material that looks like silver and seems solid, without a lid. It’s hard and cold to the touch; he had to wrap it in thick cloth to carry it to his shelter. Having bandaged his hands with some more clothes, he examines it; he finds a tiny lever on an engraving under it. He pulls it and the box opens: it had a lid, after all –a lid so perfect that he couldn’t pick out with his eyes at first.

The small cavern is illumined by intense light that makes everything look white and Ateba freezes in supernatural terror. As he stands unmoving, the castle of his mind is attacked by images and sounds.

He sees far-away places. He sees the blackness of space, he sees suns and planets; he sees a celestial ship traveling in the Starsea. Its shape is odd, reminiscent of a tear, with the oval side being the its stern. Enormous, long masts protrude from its hull, at its sides; strange, almost transparent sails are tied on them; blown by outworldly winds, they push the ship ahead with great force. The silver ship travels, until it reaches Erethea.

Like a shooting star, it dives from the sky and hits the surface of the West Sea with force; a giant wave rises, which travels to the shores of the three continents of the planet, hitting the small coastal fishing villages.

Then he sees the same ship stranded on the coast of a land that reminds him none of the places he has been to himself. Groups of men and women dressed in strange armors have come out of the hull and, holding spheres that illumine their environment, prepare to explore the thick, jungled forest in front of them.

The images change, as do the places and lands. Kingdoms dawn along with the beginning of civilizations; kingdoms the ship’s passengers are part of; kingdoms that have matured under their guidance. All those kingdoms worship the starship’s two captains like gods.

“El-le, give light from the sky. Give life and knowledge.”

“Ga-ogg, give sustenance off the earth. Give material things.”


The images change once more, and the Ages carry on.

The world’s kingdoms are at war, split in two sides, following the faith of two Gods: fleets of ships fight in the seas of Erethea and huge armies are decimated at its mountains and plains: the sun and the moon, the day and the night, the wind and the earth battle for domination over Erethea.
The Sun wins. The armies of the night retreat defeated; they scatter and hide. The winners burn the cities of their foes and make those of them left alive their slaves. The banners of Light wave on all the castles and cities. Unity and peace comes after many years.

But at a remote, small island in the middle of the Great Ocean, beside the shell of his flying ship, one of the captains, humiliated, plots his return; he schemes to infect the Three Continents with his presence. His agents, hidden in the darkness of underground caves or in the blackness of souls of people that desire power, wait or pursue his call, eager to believe his promises for their services, prepared to conspire.

In the Great Hall of an invisible palace, at the top of the highest mountain of all Erethea --the inactive Volcano of Gods-- the other captain of the star-faring ship appoints his own Guardians against the malevolence of his brother.

He gives them crystals.
Hear their echoing light, and learn of the enemy, of the past, the present and the future.

He gives them black gems.

The Darkwhirls will deceive darkness, giving you the opportunity to approach it and the strength to reveal its nature to all.

He hands them weapons made of the skyship’s material: swords, daggers and arrows as cold as furious wraiths.
With these weapons you will confront those who believe that Darkness gave them irresistible strength to do its bidding.

The light fades out: it came from a small crystal, colorless, almost transparent. In the box also lies an arrowtip made of the same silverlike material of the box and a black gem.

…and the caravan’s destruction

The very same night, human screams broke the serenity of the Desertlands.

Jackals and other beasts of the night watched from afar as a lonely light flickered at one of the mountains; it was the fire in the heath of Ateba’s cave. He was seated beside it, wearing his tattered robe, gazing at the orange-red glow with the look of a desperate madman. In his hands he held dirt and the gem he had found.

He hollered chants and moved his hands spasmodically back and forth; as if following his chants and waves, the flames took strange forms and changed colors, from intense orange to deep red, blue and green.

“El-le!” Ateba shouted. “El-le! Show me the distant present!”

With a sudden move he emptied the handful of dirt in the fire: it flared up for a moment and then died; he felt like drowning in the sudden dark.

He saw.

With invisible, immaterial eyes, he saw far away.

The Great Forest: a caravan of carts, riders, men, women, children and soldiers.

The caravan advances in the tall, ancient forest trees; it is a line of weak lights under the moonless night.

Somewhere else, a candle burns with blue flame, hidden, protected, surrounded by marblestones.
Constellations in the sky: rows of light dots that can, if connected, form any shape. And they connect. They make the body of a wingless dragon coiled around a tree; images that move, almost lifelike.

“Ga-ogg,” Ateba whispered. “Underground God, Sapper of light!”

The blue flame of the candle intensifies. The dragon coils tighter around the tree and crushes it.
The caravan stops.

Men, women, children, fall on the ground in terrible agony. They scream, calling for help, suffering without apparent reason. Their shadows shrink.

“Their souls--” Ateba whispers. “You will steal their souls?”

The shadows now grow. The fallen torches that lit the caravan’s way suddenly blow out. In the black night, the shadows look as if trying to escape from the bodies of the fallen refugees.

The light in the heath reignited, crimson-red, angry.

Panicked, Ateba clenched the black gem and held it over the fire. His eyes turned in their slots.

“El-le!” he screamed. “Save them, El-le!”

The gem dripped: blood from the priest’s palm fell in the fire, which sizzled with every drop it swallowed.

One drop.

A second one.

Third, fourth, fifth…thirteen drops fell in the fire.

“Damned be you, Ga-ogg, Dark God!” he yelled in desperation as he looked into the fire. “Show me, El-le!”

The fire dimmed again.

The caravan. All the travelers lie on the ground, unmoving, lifeless. Under the Great Forest’s eternal trees, shadows –human shadows—stand up and walk away.

Worn out, Ateba fainted by the fire’s smoking remains.

continued...