“I implore you, apologize less and speak more!”
“So be it, beloved crizia. A year ago or so, an ethereal sylphid fell on the Forbidden Lands to the south, and she was received under enochin roofs.”
“I am fully aware of this. I had the pleasure of meeting that courteous sylphid… Nod, was it?”
“I know not whether her courtesy will be held in such high regard after I tell you what she told us. Nod brought a message from heaven, and delivered it at the Council. So she spake, that Aigonz, the creator, predestined your offspring, oh princess, to conquer Thebel and crush the logizkal!”
Inimois grew pale. The everlasting blush on her cheeks was gone, just as the redness of her lips. Even the blaze atop her lively hair faded away. She let her arms fall as if lifeless over her fertile lap, and this womb seemed to her now as a curse:
“How… how could this be? Verily: Aigonz traces in our fates paths no sage can even begin to fathom. But could my children ever proceed on such a perfidious way? If that would happen, let life drain away from my veins, so that life never overflows outside of my womb! My principality, as small as it is, is enough for me! What purpose would I have for Thebel, all in my possession, if my hands be soiled of blood, or if my blood soils its hands?”
“My lady, if there were any doubts of your good faith towards the logizkal, your words would have dispelled them right here and now, so sweet as to soothe the bitterest of hearts. Yet the bitterness in certain hearts already festers, and no sweetness will ever make it well again. Such is the plague overtaking southern hearts. Let it be known to you that your neighbours plot against you! Enoch, Tubal-Kain, Iubal, and Iabal have all sworn enmity towards you! Thence I come even now, as new cities sprout in your flanks, like tares over the wheat!”
With renewed vigor in her arms, Inimois lifted them up against the skies, and then seized her hairs so hard she almost tore them out of her skull:
“Aigonz help me! Where are you, my prince, at this darkest hour?”
“My princess, you know the prince will come when the time is right. But he will not come before, nor will he be forced to such, as you know from the annals of history, when Kolezin’s followers despaired of his absence. Do not make the same errors our forebears did! We do not know the time, but you must fight whilst the time is not yet fulfilled!”
For the first time, the princess’ voice was tinged with anger, flowing from her deep anguish.
“I must fight? Indeed, I must, and so I know it! Do not take me for a vain creature waiting to be saved!” she said, as she kept pulling her hair. “My fragility comes not from my being, but from my condition! For are not the giants thrice my size? And I must go, not against a single giant, but whole towns of them! My prince might be of my kind, but his magic was powerful, for only he could banish hosts of monsters! But I possess no magic at all! Must I fight? Indeed, I must, and doing so I shall die! What shall I do? I am surrounded! Who will come to my aid?”
Bilidio rushed towards her, and gently took her hands on his mighty right hand, so she could do no further violence against herself:
“We come to your aid, my lady! I shall bring this matter again to the Council. Fear not the voices of your foes, for Enoch has forfeited its seat at the assembly! Therefore, the south’s hostility is not just against you, but against us as well! I am now certain: The rest of giantkind will aid you in any way we can!”
The princess’ hands might have been halted by the pontiff, but not the scorching tears flowing down her face, which had regained her usual redness and even more:
“And yet… you are so far away, and they so near at hand! I already smell in my very nostrils the fumes of their attacks! The floral odour of your aid is so tenuous, so distant, it cannot dissipate these noxious vapours at my doorstep!”
“You have also the work of my predecessor, Faris-Romil of blessed memory. His magic lingers still in these walls, and will protect you. Now we understand the sense of his prophecies! Why it was so important to safeguard you, to build a stronghold for you! The danger lay not in the monsters, but in ourselves! So far from our thoughts was the idea of a war between giantkind and humankind! But Faris saw it! He commanded us to build Ophir, and so we did, even if we did not see or understand why! You have the seven sphinxes, who defend you better than any army I could muster! For these are not mere works from logizkal hands, but works from Aigonz himself, just as the depths of the lake and the heights of the Sym-Bolon Mountain, which protect you further! These works shall not fall, howsoever strong the assault!”
Only then did the rivers of tears in Inimois’ face give way to soft sobs, just like the thunderstorm is succeeded by soft rains:
“I thank you heartily, oh venerable pontiff, gentlest amongst the giants! I shall prepare my guard for conflict, and await your aid. Aigonz’s succour as well. Let Aigonz then judge my heart, whether it be pure or impure, whether it be guilty or innocent of these charges from the stars themselves! Go then, and do as you have said! Thus you shall be the solace of a poor, tiny, defenseless creature, as I am. For I lie imprisoned inside this gilded cage amidst a predator-infested darkness.”
Hearing these words, Bilidio bowed, and prepared to withdraw. It was most expedient to summon the Council again. Yet something halted his steps. An idea had been inspired inside his mind. He felt a presence issuing from the centre of the hall, and it slowed his feet.
“Would it not be prudent to bring that most valuable treasure with me to Melchy-Zedek?” He referred to Amozia, the sacred tuft of hair lying to the right of the princess’ throne. “Lest the most sacred of sacred relics be defiled by profane marauders?”
“Oh, I implore you, do not do so, good pontiff! I beseech you, leave Amozia with me! I have always found consolation with my prince’s gift… Would you take it now when I am in most dire need of consolation? Let it remain in Ophir, for you have so said: The magic of Faris-Romil will shield me and will not let my city fall into invader hands! None shall take Amozia, for none shall take my palace wherein it lies.”
“You speak well, as befits a princess. Amozia belongs to you, and you alone. Such was ordained by the Higher Sylphs, oracle of Aigonz! And you certainly need Amozia now more than ever! So forgive me if the thought ever crossed my mind. Yet heed a final piece of advice, so that you shall be worthy of the graces issuing from this most sacred relic: Never let your guard down from your walls! Remain ever steadfast, and ever vigilant! For it is true: Faris-Romil assured me that these walls will never fall from any assault coming from without. Nevertheless, be not careless or haughty, lest conceit doom you! Rest assured, threats from within can obtain what threats from without cannot, and both can form alliances against you! Beware, for your very life is at stake!”
“I hear you! Be at peace, my sweet pontiff. I shall remain vigilant and steadfast! Never will my eyes close, not even during my sleep.”
Chapter
10
The Plundering of the Hill
As news of the Great Schism spread throughout Thebel, so too grew the numbers of those who, fearful of Nod’s prophecies, deserted the north and joined the southern ranks. The renegade giants swarmed Enoch Bar-Kain, and overwhelmed it, setting camp at the outskirts of the village. Talizima ordained them to anoint judges amongst themselves, and to go forth and found their own cities in the south, even beyond the Forbidden Lands. In their fever, Aigonz’s interdicts mattered not to them any longer.
Thus were the Five Cities born, and these were Bera, and Birshah, and Shemeber, and Shinab, and the forgotten village built on tuff rock. And the Five Cities paid tribute to Enoch, for its war chest.
But one city rose above all, and it was Lamech, the Warrior City. There, every giant from the League of Nephil was to train and to serve. For this was not a city for dwelling or leisure, but for perpetual campaigning. The giants raised a colossal pyramid made out of mud brick on the inside and baked brick on the outside. It was made of successive layers of overlapping terraces, funneling towards the ski
es. This gave the ziggurat the appearance of an ascending staircase which ended on a massive gold crown topping the entire complex. It was thus made in imitation of the Hill of Enoch, a hill made out of the giants’ own hands. To the summit, near the golden crown, did Skillotz move his residence.
But other than its golden crown, Lamech prided itself on its austerity. Along the pyramid’s steps, there were quarters for the soldiers: cubicles dug up into the complex, like combs of a beehive, each with a straw bed, a clay jar of water, a pot, and almost nothing else. Thus, each room could house a soldier for a night, and another soldier another night: a Pilgrim City made for warriors.
At the periphery of the ziggurat, there were granaries, and storehouses, and smithies, and stables for the war animals, and messes for the soldiers. There were also stadiums where the logizkal trained in the arts of war, day in and day out. The streets separating all these structures opened wide enough to let whole legions pass inside them, or huge carts of supplies pulled by mammoths. At every crossroads the giants built a plaza, and in the center of those plazas there were obelisks with runes of power invoking Nod’s protection. The obelisks were each tipped with a small iron pike, so they would look like lances raised against the firmaments.
Finally, at the outer limits of Lamech, Skillotz ordered the giants to erect a massive wall of the sturdiest stone, in imitation of Ophir’s outer wall. Beyond that, there would be farmlands extending where the eye could see, to feed the Warrior City’s incessant hunger.
But even as other cities supplied arms, and grain, and meat, only one place could provide iron. That was Enoch, at the foot of the iron-rich Hill. So the plundering of the Hill had begun, even if the enochin judges had not reached an agreement on it, as Kolinzio was absent.
Twelve moons had passed, though, and Kolinzio’s ecstasy was over. He had already migrated to the seashore, and there mulled over his divinely inspired idea. He had already sculpted the body of a small giant out of clay. He had already cried a tear from his fore-eye and given life to the statuette. And he had raised his child till he was able to walk and speak.
As he did, he told his son of many stories, of the superb landscapes of Thebel. Kolinzio told him about the view from the Hill’s summit, with successive layers of green, increasingly fading into the blue horizon. He told him about the swallow’s song on the trees near and far, and about the gryphons’ caws, as both swallows and gryphons roosted atop the mount. He told him of the fresh breeze of the dawn, tinged with the incense of dew and the exotic perfumes of the meadow flowers. He told him about the majesty of the Hill, adorned with its emerald tonsure, with a gilded diadem of solar light, and the Temple of Horeb as the pearl emblazoning the front of this crown.
The child heard all of these things, and marveled at them. Just as his body had grown day by day, so grew his desire to see all of these wonders. As for Kolinzio, he basked at the warmth of his son’s glowing eyes. And he would promise his son that he would see all of that, if he had patience, and closed his eyes, so that sleep would shorten his wait.
And the child’s name was Korzinthio, in honour of his father’s lineage.
***
Korzinthio was indeed amazed at the sight of Enoch, when he saw it. He was not the only one. Kolinzio too was amazed. And ashamed. All his promises had been broken, all his stories turned to dust. Crushed they were under the weight of the iron spewed out of the mines.
No longer were there green landscapes, only successive layers of brown extending towards a grayish sky. No more were there swallows’ tweets, for the drums of hammers and pickaxes scared them away to the north. Instead of soft scents, there were fogs of dust and smoke; drying eyes, scratching nostrils, scorching throats. What of the Hill? Where was its majesty? It was now like a king stripped of clothes and crown alike.
The village had expanded beyond the boundaries known to Kolinzio. His house was no longer near the periphery. Beyond it, there stretched barracks as far as the eye could see. He did not know many of the tent dwellers, for they hailed from all parts of Thebel. Some, however, he did know.
Soon Kolinzio understood why his enochin acquaintances were living in those tents. As they neared the Hill, Kolinzio saw how the houses once standing at the mount’s shade had been demolished. The enochin had to make room for the mining and the forging. In their stead, there stood now rows and rows of cylindrical kilns. The streets were muddy, and the kilns’ bricks had been made out of that very same mud. Some of the houses, however, had been left standing, but gutted of their contents, and turned into smithies, wherein the iron was hammer-tamed.
Father and son kept walking, following along the village’s veins. Giants came to and fro, here carrying wheelbarrows full of ore, there carrying wheelbarrows full of coal. Both they emptied atop the incandescent furnaces, and these in turn would vomit thick curtains of smoke out of their filthy chimneys.
And along the paths they walked, there was a web of streams of water, aping the ones running through Melchy-Zedek’s streets. But these were not as beautiful to the eyes, nor as pure: Cloddish troughs they were, carrying water to supply the forges’ insatiable thirst, or else fiery flow made from melted slag and pouring out of the foundries like honey from the comb. And the water and the melted slag, as tributaries of a large river, converged on steaming tanks, whence the labourers would remove the cooled waste to throw it to the fire once more, in an endless cycle of flame and filth.
The young Korzinthio tried to hide his disillusionment—maybe this was not what his father’s tales sang about, but something else along the way. Yet the sadness in the little giant’s face was noticeable, and it wounded Kolinzio’s heart. So the child never ceased to turn his face to one side and the other, partly so his father would not see his countenance, partly to try to glimpse at any flicker of beauty he could find. In vain. All the youngling could see was a legion of giants dancing. A tribal dance, it seemed. They would stomp their feet, and soften the mud, so that it would become brick. They would stomp their feet to blow the colossal bellows fanning the flames inside the furnaces. And the bellows would blow embers that would fly and pinch the infant’s eyes, and he would no longer be able to look in that direction. But as soon as he would turn his face, he would receive on his tender cheeks the ash snowing from the soot clouds expelled by the chimneys, till the soot tainted Korzinthio’s face, and at least his disgust was no longer so discernible.
The heat was unbearable. Asphyxiating. Poisonous.
They walked, till they arrived at the base of the Hill. The scenery was not more encouraging there. The Hill was now rutted, decayed, profaned. At the roots of the mount, there were now many caves, dug by mortal hands. Nothing could be seen within, for these hollows were pregnant with darkness. But one could hear the echoes of exhausted tools, and endless groans. And one could smell, even from afar, the breath of the mines: a hot breath made of dried dust and fermented sweat, rotting for days on end.
They went up the Hill, and the wailing of pulleys went along with them, as they brought down buckets full of dirt, and brought up barrels full of supplies. And as father and son kept going up, the Bar-Kain looked at them from the scaffoldings, with contempt on their faces, muttering amongst themselves: “Where are these going, instead of helping us?”
But as they kept going up, giants became rarer. Above a certain height, the acid desolation gave rise to a shy carpet of grass and bushes. Not as green as before, of course… Nothing was as before. And where would that be more visible than overhill? Yea, thence they could see the horizon. This was not the world of Kolinzio’s bedtime stories.
There was no more green until the eyes could see. The virgin forests had been cut down. Instead of tree trunks growing towards the heavens, there were pillars of smoke. These smoldering columns emerged from thousands of small earthy mounds, inside which the giants roasted the wood of the decimated trees, producing the charcoal for the furnaces. As for the firmament, it was no longer blue, but tinged with the gray colour of ash and smoke.
<
br /> The river Ergon, which flowed out of the southwestern portion of Ophir’s lake, had been diverted from the south; its waters corralled through furrows and aqueducts to the city of Enoch, where its inexhaustible waters supplied the forges and the tanks. There the river grew rusty, and flowed on westward, where it exhausted itself until its waters completely disappeared, absorbed by the earth. A swampy delta had thus been created, much more inaccessible than the forests that had previously grown there.
This was the state in which Kolinzio and Korzinthio found Enoch, when they saw it from below and above the Hill.
***
Suddenly, they heard a screech behind them: a protesting screech, though weak. They turned and saw a lonely gryphon. The animal was so emaciated, one could see the ribs behind its fur, and its wings were molting. Its eyes were so saddened, they could break a heart of stone. Korzinthio recognized the gryphon from his father’s stories—yet where was the beauty and majesty of the gryphon, such as he had heard? Moved with pity, the child approached, and lifted his arm to touch and caress the gryphon’s beak. The animal squawked in terror, but was too feeble to fly or run away; so it merely stumbled upon its own paws and fell back.
“Do not dare touch that sacred creature, lad!” a voice was heard. “Have you not inflicted enough wickedness upon it, oh offspring of the Bar-Kain?”
They raised their eyes, and saw the Bar-Iared, the hilltop folk. The Bar-Iared had heard unknown steps in their domains, and gathered outside of their homes to see who was there:
“What business have you here, oh Bar-Kain? What have you to do with us?” the Bar-Iared asked; they feared that the underhill giants had exhausted the mines, and were now at the summit to claim new riches.
“Hail, oh valiant Bar-Iared!” Kolinzio saluted, as he called his son back to him, for he had heard hostility in the voice of his brethren. “I hear you, but do not understand you. I wish no ill upon you or this creature! Do you not recognize me?”
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