The Fallen God

by Gary Mark Lee

  And when they had finished the invocation they turn back to their journey knowing that they had pleased the Gods.

  Ahead the land was open and filled with grass and game to hunt, the Trofars ate well and the Whiptails grew fat on the flesh of Rimars. There was singing from the Karracks and all the people of the Outlands were content.

  Arn lead his people like a true King, he found them water and places to rest, he knew the ways of the land and when he walked through the camp at night the Elders bowed their heads and uttered praises to the night moons for having such a strong leader. The warriors also lifted their cups to the King and around the campfires they told stories of his deeds and his strength.

  Andra or Moonbud as the tribe knew her was also treated with great respect, and even though she was a half-soul and not chosen of the Gods they still smiled as she passed them, and many prayed to the moon that bore her name.

  The tiny satellite that the Outlanders had chosen to call Andra was one of seven that circled the world of Gorn, Eka, Eubano, Ashsana, Italus, Rowgal, and Lomic were the children of the stars and they looked down on their mother Gorn and her creations. There was another but Fromic the Elder moon left its orbit shortly after the day that the Gods arose. On that day the earth moved and the land was lifted into the sky too form the small globe that now shown like a blue river stone in the night sky. The Outlanders did not question how such a thing could be done for they knew the infinite power of Isarie and how she could create or destroy at will.

  Now the tiny blue moon traveled with her brothers and sisters through the eternal skies and it made them content to know that they look down upon them and watched as their lives were lived.

  The Almadra traveled ever westward, but they needed no compass or direction finder to know where they traveled, even the youngest of them had the power to know where they were at all times. It was a gift from the Goddess and the power that made them the rulers of the Outlands, and it was also something that Andra was coming to know, for her mind was touched by her mates and this allowed her to understad what others of her kind did not.

  As she rode her Whiptail beside Arn she felt the warm sun on her face and the soft wind smelled of grass and meadow cane.

  I have the best of worlds now, she thought, somehow I have been saved and my life has been reborn. She looked up at the open sky, there must have been a God watching over me she wanted to pray to that God but she was not sure just which one that might be? I don’t think there is a God for someone like me? She was no longer a Selcarie for that world and its entire people had been destroyed. And being an Off-Worlder she could never be a true Nomad of the Outlanders for they were created by a master race for warfare. So unable to say for certain what God would be appropriate she looked out over the green land before her, I don’t want to pray to the wrong God, so after trying unsuccessfully to decide on the right deity one more time she gave up. Now she simply looked up at the open sky and decided on a short but heartfelt prayer.

  “Thank you” she said softly, and then she smiled believing that her words would find their way to the ears of whatever God cared for her.

  In the Holy Wagon of the High Priestess Egmar was also praying. She kneeled before the golden stature of Isaire and spoke words that only her mind and the eternal Gods could hear.

  “etaro niashto emargorana Isarie tar agro may” the words were from the old language and meant, “Isarie forgive my sins and make me whole”, the old woman said these words because her soul was still troubled by the vision of the black spider. Ordinarily a spider was a sign of good luck and fortune to a Nomad for the Crystal spiders in the Hollow Hills were the bringers of rebirth and messengers of the Gods, the Outlanders prayed to them and heaped offerings on their statues. And the old woman knew from her past travels that there were many different spiders over the lands of Gorn. There were the small bluish sand crawlers of the Western Sea and the larger brown burrow hiders of the Sirolian Plains and in the forest of Caltarine lived the giant red and green vine crawlers.

  But nowhere had she ever seen a black spider, and never had one spoken to her.

  Before her lay the open book of Isarie, she looked upon its ancient pages and marveled at the gold leafed inscriptions and the delicate markings that were the very words of the Goddess. Her long thin fingers moved over the inscriptions as her mind spoke the words.

  All things can be found in the Holy Book, she thought, all questions answered, hearing her mind say those words made her heart feel warm.

  She lifted her head and looked up at the shining face of Isarie, a shaft of light was streaming into the wagon from an opening on the side. It shown into the small chamber were Egmar knelt and bathed the room in a warm soft light, light is the vision of Isarie watching us, she thought, Isarie would always see us.

  But as she looked into the kind face of the statue she began to hear a sound, a soft rattling sound that covered the warmth in her heart with a cold hand.

  Why do I hear that sound? What is calling me?

  Her mind seemed to remove itself from her body and drift back into the past, she was now moving into those days when she walked with the Shadowmen and felt their pain. She was now in a waking dream, a place of images and visions that floated like a leaf on a still pond.

  Where am I?

  But it was a question that she already knew; she was in the dark caverns of the Poison Lands and before her loomed a black abyss that she was helpless to avoid.

  It is the Burning Time, her mind said, before me is the caverns where the forgotten people sleep.

  As she moved into the darkness the rattling sound grew louder until it resounded in her ears like the roaring of the Earth Shakers. The darkness began to engulf her, pulling her into a black abyss without end. And as all became darkness her mind spoke to her again, I have walked this path before, it said, and then she felt a cold embrace, much colder than the winds from the North. A cold that reached into her very soul, am I now forgotten by Isarie, am I beyond her site? In the darkness she saw red eyes looking at her, at first they were dim glowing pinpoints, then they came nearer and grew into flaming orbs, but they gave no warmth. These cannot be the eyes of the Goddess, Egmars mind told her. The crimson eyes became a face, and that face was not one of any God or mercy that was known to the Holy Mother, it was the face of a great black spider. This is not a God, he heard herself say, this is a demon from the pit! The old woman tried to turn away but her body was not hers so she was compelled to stand and watched as the aberration whispered to her like the night wind over the plains of Darmock.

  “Rahash lives” it said.

  This time she did not turn away, she looked into the face of the creature and slowly watched it change; the red eyes moved like flaming stars in a dark heaven and became eyes that she had looked into before.

  “Rahash” she heard herself say, “you are not dead?”

  The face seemed to laugh at her and the rattling sound became a mocking cry of vengeance that drained all strength from her body and her soul.

  Slowly the vision began to fade and her mind drifted back to the present, the laughter melted away and she once more saw the golden face of Isarie.

  For a time she did not move but sat kneeling before the Holy Book, slowly the strength returned to her tired limbs and the cold that had touched her heart lifted. Her mind was filled with thoughts and images that she did not understand, and her soul did not feel like her own. She gazed on the pages before her but she did not see the words for laying on its surface was the spider that had come to her before. And once again she did not turn away, this time she put out her hand and touched the hairy back of the lurker in the darkness.

  “You have come to comfort me,” she said softly, and then she stroked the spider gently.

  And in turn the creature looked up at her and spoke in words that she could understand.

  “Yes”, it said, “I will be with you...always”.

  It was late in the afternoon when the Almadra first saw the Great
Wall.

  It stretched from the North as far as the eye could see and to the South until it vanished into the Mountains of Gorash. It was made of great stones that must have been cut and moved there from the mountains on either side, but what force could accomplish such a task was beyond the knowledge of the Outlanders.

  When Andra saw the barrier emerging from a mist that drifted up from the ground she could hardly believe her eyes, she had seen the great structures of the Youngonrie and their massive fortresses were beyond words. But she had never seen a site such as the one she now looked upon, and before she could speak Arn answered her question.

  “We call it the belt of the Goddess,” he said.

  It looked nothing like a belt to the Off-World girl, and then slowly she began to see the wisdom in its name. If you think of the land as a being, then it just might resemble a belt around its waist. Figuring this out made Andra smile for she began to think that she was becoming more and more like an Outlander rather than just an orphan of the stars.

  To Osh the Great Wall was just another very interesting feature of Gorn.

  With Endo handling the reins of their Trofar it left plenty of time for the old man to record his observations, now as the Karrack moved towards the huge wall he began to search about for a fresh scroll of Rimar hide to mark upon.

  “Now where did I put that scroll?” he asked not only himself but to his son, “I know I had three clean scrolls and I put them right next to me but I don’t....” he stopped speaking when his thin nail-less fingers touched what he had been looking for. “ahh here they are” he said proudly, then he began to look for his bottle of ink.

  Endo watched his father fumble through a pile of artifacts until he came up with the small silver container. He watched him open it and dip his marking implement into the black fluid and begin to write.

  He continued to write as they moved closer to the huge fortification, then the young Sandjar spoke.

  “Father?”

  “Yes my son” the old man replied not looking up from his work.

  “Are we going beyond the wall?” he asked.

  “Yes, I think we are” the Callaxion said as he continued to write.

  There was silence for a time then Endo spoke again, “no Sandjar has gone beyond the wall...I am afraid.”

  Hearing this made the old man put down his scroll and look over at his adopted son, “I am afraid also” he replied, “but we cannot let fear keep us from finding out what is there, fear is something we must overcome if we want to learn”.

  “But you are never afraid” the green boy said.

  This made Osh laugh, “You are incorrect, I sometimes become very afraid, but there is an old Outer Rim saying that goes...fear is waiting in the darkness, so you must always look to the light”.

  Again there was silence as the young Sandjar thought over the words from his father, the at last he spoke again.

  “You sometimes loose things but you always find the words”.

  Hearing this from his son made the old man very proud. He is learning. He thought, someday he would teach me.

  In the wagon of Anais he also knew that the Great Wall was near. How this knowledge was known was unclear to him, but all the same he knew that the Belt of Isarie was coming near and that they would be there just as Sunfall arrived.

  Now as he sat in the darkness of his world he thought of the days ahead.

  We travel to the forests of Caltarine, and there we will feast with our brothers and sisters and singsongs to the Gods.

  Hearing his mind say such things were become more and more frequent to the young Prince. In the past he would have laugh at the thought of Gods and paying homage to them but not now for he had very little left to him, and he did not want to find himself in the burning fires of the Pit of Marloon. Now as he swaged back and forth on his soft mattress he looked into his heart.

  We are leaving the Outlands... perhaps I can leave my old life behind? This was an idea that made the blind man think even harder, I know the wall is near...I am beginning to know many things.

  What those things were Anais did not understand, but he would wait and find out after all he had no other place to go.

  It was almost Sunfall when the tribe of the Almadra reached the Great Wall.

  In height it was almost as tall as an Earth Shakers with massive stone blocks inset with steel and bone, it had columns running from the ground to its highest most point and on top of those columns were covered turrets made of iron. Clearly this was a fortification meant to cut off an invader. At the place where the Nomads had come was a large iron door, it was wider than the Holy Wagon and reached almost to the top of the wall. Its huge hinges were set with bolts the size of Karrack wheels and through it could pass any ground cannon of the Outer Rim. It had no lock just a massive steel chain that was fixed to one side of the huge door and the rest laid on the ground; the lengths of that chain were as thick as a warrior’s leg and could pull a massive weight without breaking. There were also two cast figures on its face, one was male the other female, they were dressed in ancient armor and in their hands they held weapons. But looking at them you could see that they were not Nomads, they wore strange looking attire and their bodies were slim and tall.

  The surface of the stone barrier was cracked and pocked marked with age, and here and there a great stone had come loose and fallen to the ground, and there was one more thing that set it apart from any other wall known in the Outer Rim.

  It was stained with blood.

  Andra and Arn were the first to see the mass of bleaching bones at the foot of the wall for they were leading the tribe and it was their duty to be the first to find danger. But as Moonbud looked at the field of dried human and animal skeletons she could see that there was no danger here, only the remains of some forgotten battle.

  A battle that had no victory she thought, and as she did she remembered her own time of war and the loss of her Homeworld. Does my mother and brothers bones lay unburied?

  The image of her family now filled her mind, her mother Niana and her brother Simon seemed to call out to her from a place that was beyond the knowledge of her mind, but before she could answer Arn spoke to her.

  “The dead never die,” he said.

  This brought the girl out of her dream and back to the world that was now hers. She turned to look at her King.

  “Who were they?” she asked.

  Arn looked out over the field before the wall, “they were the ancient ones” he said solemnly, “they were our past”. I must not speak their name.

  Andra wanted to ask more questions but before she could Arn began shouting orders to the warriors at his side.

  “Draw the wagons together, place sentries at all points and gather the Elders in the middle, make sure the Holy Wagon is well guarded and have the warriors gather for a feast”.

  Upon hearing his words several of the warriors rode off to relay his commands to the tribe, then the King turned his attention back to his mate.

  “Do you know the ritual of the silver moon?” he asked.

  Andra shook her head (no).

  “Then I will teach you,” the King said and he dug his spurs into the hind legs of his Whiptail and together they rode off to see that all was in place for the night.

  Osh and Endo also saw the wall and the graveyard at its base. And though the Callaxion had seen many wonders in his travels through the Outer Rim he had never seen quite such a site. He took a few moments to take to calculate how many man-hours such a thing would have taken to build and he added that to the amount of materials that it must have contained. Then using the standard reference points set down by Virtranius Olandra of Urotota three he finally came to a conclusion.

  “One million two hundred and forty seven years” he said to his son, “and that is calculated in the standard cycles of the Outer Rim and not related to this world”.

  This of course met nothing to the young Sandjar, but he had come to expect such utterings from his father from
time to time, for he knew that he was not of this world and had once spoken with the Gods. But growing up with the Callaxion had taught him to ask questions so he did as he was taught.

  “What do you mean father?” he asked.

  Being asked questions was what the old man liked best, so drawing himself up he spoke in a clear voice, “well I was simply saying that in standard man-hours it would have taken a very long time to construct such a massive creation”. He looked closer at the skeletons that lay strewn upon the ground, “and its can be said with a great deal of certainty that a battle of some shorts have taken place here and that the warriors....” his voice trailed off as he looked closer at the bleached bones. That is strange? The skeletons seem to be of a much greater size than any other Nomad remains that I have seen, he quickly calculated the height of the legs bones and the upper torso then added the skull and came to a remarkable conclusion. These warriors were much larger than even the tallest of the Almadra. Knowing that such humanoids once existed and now their bones lay bleaching in the sun made him wonder.

  Who or what had defeated them?

  Now the night was clear and all the people of the tribe sat around their Washa fires and sang songs to the stars, some danced wildly filled with the energy of youth and letting their spirits free. The Elders did not stop them for they too remembered the time when they were young and listened to the song of life in their hearts.

  Directly overhead shone Rowgal, the silver moon, the Outlanders had given it that name because it surface was smooth and reflected the light of their twin suns. And at certain times of their cycle with the sky clear the moon shown with brightness that seemed to say that Rowgal was made of the precious metal. That orb along with its brothers and sisters marked certain places that the Nomads must be on ritual days, now the silver moon was overhead and they were before the Great Wall. It was the time to feast and carry out the task that the Goddess asked of them.

  The Almadra followed the orders of their King and the Holy Wagon and the Elders were placed at the center of the camp, with them were the Grana and around that rested the members of the tribe. The warriors gathered in a circle encompassing everyone and made sure that all was safe, lookouts were posted and several Outriders moved back and forth near the wall to make sure that no enemy was hiding in the shadows. There was little chance of that here for Sandjars did not come this far from the Greenlands and they were still too far from the jungles of Yug for any Galu to attack, but still they watched and listened for Gorn itself was sometimes a thing to be feared.