Yet the councilors could feel something amiss. They all thought to themselves how Faris-Romil looked so different from the last time they had seen him: so broken, even as stricken by some horrible disease.
The pontiff mounted the podium’s steps, and from there opened the session:
“Hail, oh most hallowed chamber, ispariz tecum frens! My apologies for drawing you away from the comfort of your homes. For I bring you a matter of great urgency. Last night, as you know, a great darkness took over the celestial sphere, wherein of old sunlight, moonlight, and starlight ruled unopposed. From this celestial sphere the boons of the Higher Sylphs flow: So this darkness augurs naught good for us mortals. We must, as one, deliberate on the significance of these signs.
Talizima looked round and saw some of his fellow councilors—starting with the older ones—nodding and scratching their beards approvingly. But he himself had seen nothing during that fateful night, for sleep had brought him to dreamlands where stars do not shine. As Talizima was lost in these musings, another councilor rose up from his seat, saying:
“We hear you, oh venerable pontiff. Yet surely you have noticed that this darkness did not last long. Or perhaps not, since there are heavy, onyx clouds hanging over Melchy-Zedek. But I have seen it, while I was flying here: Between some shreds of clouds, Carmel-sun was shining once more.”
“You speak well,” answered the pontiff. “Nevertheless, the mere presence of this darkness is an omen. So let us not linger on the present, but be mindful of the future. Remember this: After Aigonz, the zenith of Dumah's power lies with the Higher Sylphs. They could not be eclipsed by anything lesser. Our astronomic charts predicted no eclipse that night. Nor do our books contain any explanation for this prodigy. Nay, none of us has ever witnessed nor known anything like it. Let the wise be wary!”
A shiver propagated throughout the assembly’s spine. Faris-Romil was most respected for his prophecies, and none had failed to come to pass. Only Bethel, the Oracle of Aigonz herself, was said to surpass Faris’ prophecy. If Faris said this darkness was a bad omen, then so it was.
“Bear also in mind,” the pontiff continued, “that not all stars returned to their previous state. None other than Salem, the Queen of the Stars, is missing still. In sooth, the darkness arose from Salem’s absence in the heavens, for she was the brightest amongst starkind.”
“It is true,” confirmed Bilidio, high priest at the Temple of Salem, and also Melchy-Zedek’s councilor. “The eternal fires burning at the Temple altars were extinguished, at the moment the shadow engulfed the heavens. Naught availed to set them ablaze again, neither torches nor prayers.”
A new shiver. Salem was the queen of the stars. Without her, the People of the Stars would assuredly be deep in anarchy. How could the Higher Sylphs govern the fate of mortals if they were unable to govern themselves?
“What must we do to be saved, oh pontiff?” clamoured the Council, the voices of the logizkal-loiffol in unison.
“Alas,” Faris said, “there is also a darkness in my vision as dense as the one which consumed the heavens. My entrails cry for you, and for your future; but how to respond to this threat falls upon you, and your children. I can see no further, for my time has come…”
The pontiff’s head slumped forward, as if suddenly weary. His eloquence fell silent, and only sighs remained. With a final struggle, he gasped out the most terrible message of all:
“This Council must now deliberate on all these things without me. My soul is spent; my heart cries for the sleep of Mathusal, and the City of the Ancestors summons me from afar. Another pontiff must guide you.”
Just as a wave crashes against the hardness of the cliffs, so hope was crushed against the hardness of these words. A great tumult arose amongst the assembly, the chaos in the heavens finding its echo in the lands down below. Not one was silent, and not one heard anyone else. There were protests, and laments, and grinding of teeth. And Talizima murmured to himself:
“So this is how it begins…”
Ranskil, the councilor of Kain-Phah, a town by the isthmus of Brobnin, thundered his voice above the cacophonic sea of intertwining words:
“For centuries we have lived in peace under your guidance, oh Faris-Romil, pontiff! Yet now that the greatest calamity falls upon us, you choose to desert us!”
“Chide me not, venerable brother. Five hundred and sixteen years has my pontificate endured—a century more than any of my predecessors. And my age was already respectable when I was elected. If this calamity be unprecedented, all the more should you have a pontiff lasting for many years. Better to elect a new pontiff now, while calamity looms, than to choose him in haste when the calamity has already arrived, and the old pontiff cannot serve anymore. Remember, I, too, am but mortal.”
“Indeed, be not rash!” cried Bilidio, the high priest. “Our pontiff has fulfilled his mission well! Why speak of abandonment? Place your trust in Aigonz instead! He dwells above all mortals, above pontiffs, verily even above the stars themselves! Yea, verily, Aigonz will never suffer from the sleep of Mathusal, nor will centuries accrue upon him as old age! Remember the lessons we learned from Prince Livionz and the war against the monsters!”
The Council accused and lamented no further, but held its tongue. Yet Bilidio’s speech soured the bile in many, and it gnawed at their innards for a very long time. In the meantime, the councilors began to deliberate on Faris-Romil’s successor. For this matter alone were they congregated for seven days.
There was much discussion, fewer agreements, and even fewer conclusions. But after seven days, they reached a decision, albeit a compromise: The Council elected and anointed Bilidio as the new pontiff. This decision, though, displeased many councilors, namely Talizima and other southerners: Bilidio hailed from Melchy-Zedek, just like the previous fourteen pontiffs. He was a northerner, and the southerners wished to have one of them sitting at the pontiff’s chair.
The decision, however, was made. Bilidio sat at the chair and asked the Council what they should do about the impending threat. But the councilors complained of exhaustion, and requested an adjournment. Bilidio advised them thus: Calamities would not wait for them. Yet he prevailed not: There would be no more proceedings, for their spirits were very low. Bilidio adjourned the Council and sent them away to their homes, warning them however that the Council would convene again very soon, and that they should take time to reflect on the future.
When the councilors departed, Faris-Romil took off his white robe and handed it over to Bilidio. Divested of the sacred linen, Faris put on a tunic of sackcloth. His pontifical staff he changed for a wayfarer’s walking stick. Then, he set out on pilgrimage to Mathusal, the City of the Ancestors, where eternal slumber awaited him.
Chapter
4
Whispers of Ebal
As all these things were unfolding in the furthermost north—the Iperborean lands, as they were called—in the south Skillotz and his companions arrived at Enoch, their village. And what a vision awaited Nod! Though not as beautiful as her vision of Ophir, the day before, still it was a vision worthy of being seen.
There was a vast, green plain, leveled except for a solitary hill in the midst of the fields. Many a giant of Thebel could recognize this hill because of its unique, rounded shape. For that reason, it was called “The Hill,” and nothing more. Enoch rested there. Above it soared what seemed to be a flock of birds. Yet considerable indeed must have been their size, to be seen from such a distance!
Soon, though, the daylight would be gone. All the details of this vision were cloaked in nightfall. Lights appeared in the windows of the town, and from their arrangement Nod could see that there was not just one town, but two—one at the bottom of the hill, and another on the top. The village at the base was called Enoch Bar-Kain, the one at the summit Enoch Bar-Iared. Each house was like an ant in a colony: tiny, lowly, simple—yet all of them together constituting something much greater. So the whole Hill seemed now as if it were a single two store
y building, a colossal palace, dotted with many windows.
Dusk had passed when they finally set foot at Enoch Bar-Kain. As they did, their steps were heard against the backdrop of the town’s silence; the sound, subtle as it was, sufficed to entice the townsfolk from their homes. Long had they awaited and hoped for this sound, for Kolinzio had told them of the piece of heaven falling from the skies, and of Skillotz’s decision to brave the danger of the unknown. And all worried for Skillotz, since Talizima, his father, was held in highest esteem. So these steps, echoing on the dirt road, were received with open doors and windows, and with lit torches and lamps.
Now Nod could discern the houses: simple—one could say crude—made of sod brick walls and thatched roofs. Enoch, for its part, could see something new as well, and the townspeople did not even need the light of their torches to make it out. For they beheld a damsel of light, warding off the night’s gloom, a damsel as beautiful as the crizia in her golden throne. A sylphid, she was. Nod, the sylphid. Thus it was that Nod and Enoch beheld each other for the first time.
Soon the retinue swelled in number. To Nod and her companions were joined all the onlookers, attracted to the sylphid as moths to flame. The narrow streets of the village were filled with a confusing procession: logizkal inquiring one another what was going on, neighbour asking neighbour, without an answer being settled on. So they ended up following Nod, and Nod followed Skillotz, as Skillotz went up the Hill to meet Malvizio, the priest serving at Horeb’s Chapel.
Malvizio was a giant of great knowledge. He had studied under great sages and scholars. Even Faris-Romil was counted as his tutour, some years before he became pontiff. Malvizio became widely known in Melchy-Zedek’s academies, and in no other field was he more talented than in sylphology.
Yet even if many thought, from his fame alone, that Malvizio hailed from Melchy-Zedek, nonetheless he had not been born there. For Malvizio hailed from a southern town named Tubal-Kain.
No one else knew why, but Malvizio abandoned Melchy-Zedek as soon as he completed his studies there. No dwelling of giants was more distant from Melchy-Zedek than Enoch, but this is where the scholar settled. There he built a house in no way different from all the dwellings around. Once he finished it, he rarely left. He preferred to keep to himself, shrouded in the shadows of his library in the basement. There the sunlight did not touch, and only the light of his lamps did their best to push back the gloom. Here there were books and parchments that Malvizio would not show to any other. So rare and obscure they were, even some melchin did not know of their contents. Some, it was said, were even written by Malvizio himself during the course of his studies.
Alas for Malvizio, he needed to work for his sustenance. Since he was an ordained priest, the enochin gave him the task of officiating at the Temple of their patron-star, Horeb. And Malvizio performed his duty so well, they then anointed him judge of the town.
So had Malvizio lived, and so he had aged. So old was he now that some thought he belonged to Faris-Romil’s generation. But those were mere tales, since Faris had lived two years for each year of Malvizio’s life.
***
While the whole village had opened its windows and doors to witness Skillotz’s return, at Malvizio’s house no door was unlocked, and no one peered through any window. And while all of Enoch cried and shouted with Nod’s appearance, here only silence reigned. Just then, he was too preoccupied with urgent readings to notice the commotion outside. Or perhaps he had noticed it, but chose to ignore it. Only when the noise reached his doorstep, and knocked, did ignoring it become impossible. Then did Malvizio grab his crooked walking stick and stand up from his chair, muttering incomprehensible words amongst clenched teeth and sour humours. His knees creaked when he got up, as the door creaked when he opened it.
As he emerged from the doorsill, the enochin were amazed with his shape, for he was of low stature, lowered even further by his hunchback. They had known him for centuries already; yet they could not cease to be amazed, whenever he appeared unexpectedly before them—the more so now, when he seemed dwarfed by the torch-shadows outside. Malvizio was, in spite of his size, still a logizkal—a giant compared with men of today; yet he was just the height of two men, whereas the other giants could easily reach the height of three.
“Hail, what do you want?” asked the old giant, hardly concealing his weariness.
“Hail, gracious Malvizio,” Skillotz merrily greeted. “We come to beg your counsel, since we have come across a prodigy exceeding our understanding. Only a scholar such as you can grant us clarity on this matter.”
A hint of interest lifted some of the weariness in Malvizio’s face, though not much. He thought they brought him some vain curiosity—a small matter beside the problems which preoccupied him.
“Let me know what this ‘prodigy’ is. Bring it to me, or bring me to it, so I can study it diligently, as you request.”
Then Malvizio’s eyes felt a burning pain. At first he thought the crowd’s torches had blinded him, since his eyes were accustomed to the penumbra of his home inside, and the bleakness of the night without. But his eyes became more dazzled, instead of gradually getting accustomed to the light. Next he perceived a shape in the middle of the light. This baffled him: Instead of a shadow cropped against a glow—as is usual—the shadow itself seemed the source of the glow. Then the truth dawned:
“A sylphid! An ethereal sylphid!” he exclaimed.
So it was. The falling star stood before him in all her splendour and grandeur.
“Hail, Malvizio, wisest amongst the enochin. As thou hast requested, here I stand before thee: I am Nod. I bring thee a message from the Higher Sylphs, for only one such as thou mayest interpret it.”
Malvizio tried quickly to compose himself, so as not to appear as an uncouth peasant. It was too late for that—his mouth gaped for a few long moments before he could recover.
“Well, I… Hail to you as well, Your Radiance. I see you.” He turned to the rest of Enoch. “You were prudent to bring her to me. I will hear this celestial message and give you the correct interpretation.”
Without a second thought, Malvizio took Nod by her arm and brought her to the neighbouring Chapel of Horeb, at the hilltop. Then, much to the dismay of the enochin—and Skillotz in particular—he instructed them:
“I will need absolute quiet. Let not one disturb us, no matter the reason!” And he locked the temple doors behind him.
***
There were many temples dedicated to Horeb those days: The Gilded Star held prominence in the astronomical charts. One could almost consider Horeb the most important amongst the stars, apart from Salem, the Queen, and Carmel, the Sun. Horeb was also the brightest, apart from them. So it was not strange to find a shrine consecrated to Horeb, even this far south near the Forbidden Lands.
However, Enoch’s temple was not, by far, the greatest amongst the horebian sanctuaries. Nor was it particularly opulent. It was quite humble—so much so that it was not even considered a temple, but a chapel. Still, this chapel was the greatest building in Enoch. It stood at the Hill’s apex, as though the whole village lay prostrated at its feet.
Unlike the houses around and beneath it, the chapel had been built with adobe brick. It would be perfectly cubic in shape, were it not for the rugged roof, halfway between a dome and a cone. One could not say if the giants shaped the roof thus because they knew not how to build a perfect dome, or if they wanted the roof to mimic the arch of the Hill. At any rate, the chapel was not cloddish. The builders had carved the surface of the bricks with rounded patterns, in imitation of the hill’s curve. These patterns were bedecked with gilt paint, meant to honour Horeb, the Gilded Star. How the enochin had fashioned such an expensive varnish was not known—though legend said there were vast deposits of gold hiding beneath the Hill’s surface. Yet, as beautiful as the chapel was, no pilgrim came to visit it: So close to Ophir it was, that Enoch’s golden monument seemed more like bronze in comparison.
As soon as Mal
vizio was alone with the sylphid, his countenance transformed. His laboured breathing and steps echoed through the chapel. As befit a southerner, his tunic was made out of animal skins, patched and sewn together with a thread of sinew, giving him a fearsome appearance. Since he was a priest and a judge, the tunic extended from his shoulders to his ankles, granting him a regal air of sorts. Even his crooked, wooden staff was menacing! He would be intimidating to anyone—but not an immortal sylph. Or so it seemed, before the doors were locked. Without so many eyes set on him, Malvizio could now show himself vulnerable as he really was. With a sigh, his harsh exterior crumbled into relief:
“Oh sylphid, the heavens be praised for your coming! I know an important message brings you here to the lower lands. But humour me for a moment: Just like Enoch needs me to interpret your message to them, so I also need a higher being to interpret an ominous sign to me.”
“I will aid thee in whatever ‘tis in my power. For that reason alone was I sent hither.”
“Thank you, Your Radiance. But please, do not let my troubles come before your mission. By all means, relay your message to me.”
And Nod proceeded to tell Malvizio the same ill-omened prophecies she had given Skillotz. The priest heard her with much attention, scratching his meticulously-trimmed beard; and when she was done, he exclaimed:
“As I feared, your prophecy seems to bear some relation to the ominous sign I mentioned. Accompany me, star, if you would be so kind. Let me show it to you.”
At the heart of the chapel there was an altar, and next to it an effigy of Horeb. It had been sculpted from a block of solid gold. This Horeb statue now sat on a throne, and the altar was its footstool. From the statue’s right hand hung a weighing scale, the attribute of the Judge of the Stars. From the ceiling likewise hung two censers, one at the right of the altar and one at its left. From each of these censers dangled strings adorned with chimes, which tinkled when the air inside the chapel was moved by the fires inside the thuribles. The censer on the right had an inscription: “Garizim.” The censer on the left was inscribed “Ebal.”
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