#fantasy lore

I must begin by stating that I was not assailed by this individual, but instead listened to him out of my own free will, after a recent, deadly encounter of mine saw my life spared by his hand. I first happened upon the stranger whenever I was initially clambering around and traversing over the broken stone fragments of ancient temples in the area immediately surrounding Sarmushu, and was instantly struck with a sense of subtle reverence by him. His affect was surreptitious, but his manner gentle.

Regardless of my feelings toward him prior, the man had saved me, as I had previously mentioned, and so I felt compelled to sit with him and assist in his chores for a while immediately afterward. It was a trifle really… a moment of miscalculation, in which I found myself judging the wrong foundation stone to withstand my body’s full weight while I was inside of an ancient and far off ziggurat that I had been exploring at the time. I very nearly fell down the sheer of Mount Nuahaša, surely losing both my mobility and finer skills, if not my life first.

However, just as I was about to hurdle to my doom, this stranger, who was very apparently blind and infirm, grabbed my wrist with one hand and held onto it so tightly that it seemed as though I could almost make out the leftover finger prints etched into the surface of my flesh afterward. His grasp was firm, and he swiftly pulled me back onto safe ground, before promptly falling to the stone floor himself, obviously strained from the force it took to save my life.

It could be a mistake in my recollection, or perhaps a retroactive exaggeration on part of my adrenaline-addled mind, but it seemed as though, for just a moment, that the stranger had held onto me so effectively that I dangled easily above the sharply avoided drop, in his competent grasp, after he had already wrested me upward to pull me back…

Bewildered, I lay there upon the cold stone, staring at my savior in disbelief. How could such a feeble gentleman pull my full weight with but only the one, good hand? As his other had clearly withered of some unfortunate illness. I don’t typically describe myself generously when it comes to physicality, though I’m also not something of a lightweight either. The realization hit me, of just how strong the man before me truly was, and of how nimble, for I neither heard nor saw him approach before my fall.

Though, truly, I feel as though I’m painting too alarming a picture of my friend again, as this was no skill that was unfamiliar to me or my academic pursuits. Just surprising to witness firsthand. You see, within the Targathi nation the priestly class is made up mostly of sages and shamans who were once warriors, and who commune with their national God of combat and strength, Nadwaioc, after having made spiritual contact with him on the battlefield.

After the two of us settled for a moment I slid closer, checking to see if the man was alright, or whether he needed medical attention. He waved away my having sued to assist him at first, but gave in when he realized he was indeed getting weaker with age. But he did not accept any topical remedies or physical guide for his journey back, citing respectively that “Kuanka,” or ‘The Fight,’ sustains him, and that he knew his way home, blind or not.

In fact, he insisted that he lead the way, as my actions, he said, had been compromised. Well, the word he used was “Nesšit,” which most likely instead meant willfully changed or repurposed by another. But this application was a bit confusing for the context we were in, though, so I figured I’d ask about his use of it later on. Almost strictly in ancient Targathian literature, and especially in the Öonian River Tablets, Nesšit is a word used when a God, or group of Gods, changes the behavior of a subject, or bumps them in a certain direction through indirect events or hidden messages, so I supposed then that he only meant it in a sense that was very inconspicuous or otherwise superstitious.

When we had eventually finished our journey back to the man’s camp he took the opportunity to sit down at the side of a small, stone brazier which he had kept a fire going inside of. Folded blankets and large cushions circled the flaming basin, and finely etched prayers or spells were aligned to its edges. Other small scrolls and talismans were tied to the thing with hempen rope as well.

After a moment of well needed rest, I confess I asked blatantly who he was and how he found me well enough to save my life. I tried as well as I could to minimize any terse tone I may have taken unintentionally, but at the time I was quite a bit shaken up and could have used a well-rounded explanation. The man told me his name was Ráf-Dura and that he was, indeed, a shaman of Nadwaioc, living in an abandoned temple which had always been dedicated to his God. I admit I was a bit taken aback at this, as I had again taken note of his poor physical condition.

There must’ve been some hint of my true curiosity in the way that I asked the shaman next if anyone else knew that he was out here in the jungle all by himself that tipped him off to the fact I was asking after his disability. Don’t misread my hand, I only inquired out of concern for his safety, not for any judgement that I made of him to be weak or unable to live sufficiently alone. It was very clear that he had made quite a good living, with a crop of taro growing adjacent to the main temple chamber and fruit trees hanging heavily with spoils overhead, and not weak in the slightest. Regardless, he repeated only that ‘The Fight’ sustains him.

My newly acquired friend then leant forward solemnly, going on to address the second question I had initially asked. He told me that, although his eyes were clouded, his mind was clear, and Nadwaioc guided him. The subtle world was not hidden to him, and the machinations of its snares were laid bare before him. The shaman told me that while I was passing by his camp he felt the brief yet strong vibration of a thread pulled taught and followed to sound, coming thence to see, in his darkened sight, the very silk which had bound me tight.

“She pulls you with strings hidden and unbidden, pulls on sinew like threads and hollows you out and devours from you the mounting dread that maybe your actions aren’t… your own…” Ráf-Dura recounted. A short rhyme he had heard in the common tongue, of something he had known much about, becoming a scholar of Targathian spiritual belief and folktales after having served as a warrior and protector.

The shaman spoke of none other, he said, than the Spider Queen. Being very careful not to conjugate his words too heavily, he told me her title, but did not dare to speak her true name, for she was once a powerful queen of Targath and still obviously held sway in this area. Her reign was aggressive. A bit too aggressive.

Within the popular Targathi religion, and especially for those who follow Nadwaioc singularly, combat is a means of defending oneself from attack and is a natural reflex to being accosted, as well as the most effective way to save another from certain death. The river goes with the flow but does not suffer obstacles in its path; the water always persists. This is the principle of defensive combat.

However, this ‘Spider Queen,’ as the shaman named her, apparently went against and corrupted this principle. Not only did she hold offensive campaigns against neighboring polities to seize their land and power without any leniency for victims, but she also held prisoners of war from these places and had them combat each other as a means of punishment. Often these matches were, in some way, tampered with or operated under unfair rules. Bloodshed and violence for its own sake was her way, and she was thus found disgraceful before the Gods.

The Targathi Goddess of Magic, Núshar-Em, an accepted cognate of the Dinite and later Settian Goddess Nemestré, put a powerful curse on the corrupt queen, and sent a demonic spirit to claim her body and show the world, so vividly, what lurked underneath. A monster.

At the time, the city which she had ruled from was named ‘Hesh,’ here on the western side of Mt. Nuahaša, but it became a sight which she rarely saw. As the demon twisted her features, fangs and pincers began to grow in clumps around her mouth, her head began to feel light and hollow, and her vision became impaired as many eyes grew from her temples. And many arms then plagued her body, growing from her torso in long, curled points. She walked not from her palace during the day, as citizens had become frightened and disgusted by their own queen.

Food soon began to spoil on the queen’s tongue, and milk curdled on her lips. A taste for human flesh and blood she then acquired, going on to create avenues for trafficking people through the tunnels beneath her palace. For, at one moment in time, Targath did have a cannibal queen who gorged herself on the souls of her own country.

Though, this could not go on for long, as justice, and the number of those who had sought it out, did not dwindle, and a man named Hâvatapp demanded such. His own young children in the nearby city of Dešeb had been targeted by the Queen, stolen out of their beds by night, abused, and fed to the voracious ruling appetite of the land. Absolute, abject horror filled the realm of Targath and a strangulating hand gripped her residents.

Hâvatapp could not defeat this evil alone, he knew. Not officially. He had to do what must be done, unofficially. So, as he planned and made his connections, slowly, twenty five whole years also passed. If he had tried too quickly he would be destroyed. If he had tried in too distant a future then that horror would have become standard.

But the hold the Spider Queen had over all her subjects was not absolute, and so in time Hâvatapp did eventually gain enough support to make a calculated attack. At this point the countrymen had become entirely disenchanted by the grotesque corpse calling itself Ruler. But they were also afraid in turn... Afraid of what might become of them if they spoke against her.

Finally, when the hour was at hand, Hâvatapp was trafficked through the same tunnels, in disguise, as his own children years earlier. He was not sedated nor bewitched. His resolve was absolute, as was the blade stowed at his side. The scene before him was horrific when he had made it to the ritual chamber. A spider’s nest, gargantuan in size, and devouring the half-eaten and decaying corpses of generations of human cattle.

A gaping port lay at the the bottom of this tapering, silken lair, and from thence came the figure of the Spider Queen. At the head of a bloated abdomen, filled to bursting with damned souls, was positioned her upper body. Her face had already mutated into that of a pincered maw with fangs and many eyes, and supporting the entire unholy structure were eight gangly legs coated in thick, black hair.

Struck with sudden terror, yet still determined, Hâvatapp allowed himself to be strung into a morsel for the queen, keeping his sword well hidden under a piece of burlap hanging from his waist. Seeing to it that his blade was not constricted in any way, he then waited for her to open her mouth and begin. Which she did, too quickly and too greedily, for she never noticed the tearing sound in the silk that she was holding, only realizing her mistake too late, as her head then tumbled quickly to the cobwebs below.

Those who had feared the cannibal Spider Queen cheered with elation all throughout the nation when she was slain and Hâvatapp was made king. But those who had enjoyed and had taken part in the horrific ritual atrocities were tried before the Gods to be evil makers. Thus, they were sentenced to death before the temple of Nadwaioc. However, as such horror had occurred on the ground there, the capital of Targath was then moved from Hesh to Dešeb. Ráf-Dura told me that the border of Hesh had been growing very close when he had found me…

Regardless, one night I had found myself alone. I looked around for my friends, but saw a strange figure in the sand instead. It seemed to be some sort of peculiar combination of hare and scorpion—but with wings and antlers… it was so queer that I had to see it closer, so I started toward the creature.

The chimera gave chase and I ran after it for a while… but I had the oddest feeling; the farther I got into the desert the more my head began to feel light… almost like I was dreaming. But I know I wasn’t dreaming, because I heard my friend Usanti call my name, and the feeling went away then. But, alas, I had lost sight of the thing in the sand.

The next day I skipped temple to have more daylight for my explorations, and I had intended on finding that curious animal once again. Yet, indeed, it was not the same chimera in the desert, as I had seen before, which I found now.

This time, I saw before myself a creature with the serpentine form of a snake and the head of an ibis… on either end of its body. The thing shuffled along with both beaks trained forward, leaving behind piles of sand which had been collected by the length of its body and eventually slithered over when it became too much to drag… I was a bit disturbed by this animal, but I was still determined to follow it and shew everyone I wasn’t making this up, nor that it is a contrivance of my thoughts, for the piles of sand remained…

I followed the creature slowly, eventually going past and sliding down a large stone outcropping that the other kids and I usually stayed away from. But when I got to the bottom, I could see something high in the wind-blown sand that flooded the sky, jutting up into the air from the basin I had found myself in. Something none of us had noticed before, to my bewilderment.

Getting closer, it seemed to me that the structure was once a tower, perhaps, or a pillar, partially crumbling and listing northward. From what I know of historical studies I’d place it firmly in the Hetharian age, before the desert even existed… such ancient Dinite work. I was so dazed by the majesty of its height that I lost sight of the animal I was chasing.

I only realized then that I had the same light-headed feeling I had felt the day prior, yet it was so much more intense, now that I was closer to what I presumed to be the source. For, atop that dizzying pillar, there sat what appeared to be a house or hut, precariously positioned so that the only door I could make out was facing into the open air. And from the only window I could see emitted an eerie glow which shewed many colors at once—I thought I might’ve seen another surreptitious creature fly therein, but I couldn’t be sure.

Trying to see through the gusts of sand that blew by and in front of the structure made it hard to determine design, but the house looked as though it had a pointed top and smoothed sides, so that the thing in whole looked almost like a droplet of water.

The only way I could be sure of what I was seeing was, to my nascent and ambitious mind, scaling the tower itself and seeing the house with my very own eyes. So up I went, carefully testing each stone on the erstwhile architecture so as not to fall to my doom on the way to the top.

Most assuredly, once I started to climb past the lip of the basin below, the sand from the desert blew into my face on the gusts of wind. But I was determined to climb ever higher and, indeed, I reached the top, above the current. But it was odd there, the air seemed thin on that height, and below me I could see only shifting sand, as if the entire desert had disappeared and been replaced by a churning storm.

Then, spontaneously, the storm itself began to rise, desperately reaching for the peak of that air-born prison I had found myself atop. I clambered to the house, holding on for dear life as I tried to get into the open window, which was a plain and crudely carved circular port. Stone reliefs of strange and loathsome faces leered at me from the ruined pillar behind and below me, in pockmarked corners where ages past had not worn them away. I felt as if I had ventured into a place entirely alien, where I was unwelcome… Yet bidden, nonetheless.

I did manage to get through and past the window, tumbling inside and onto my rear as I did so, but I accomplished it. And now that I was at a state of relative peace, though still a bit unnerved by the unsettling carvings outside, I could investigate to my liking. It almost seemed as a triumph to have gotten to such a high place, had it not been for the fact that the house was entirely vacant, lacking for a bedroll, clothes, or even any basic offerings for veneration.

The slate-like stone of the foundation was different than that of the ruin outside, and clearly laid quite some time after the original structure had been built, but for what purpose? And how was the whole hut made of it? I was pondering those questions in quiet stoicism when a loud rapping came at the outside of the only door. The very door which gave way only to open air.

I stood for a moment in fear, unsure of whether I should answer the mysterious caller or not. But it seemed I was trapped either way, so I did just that. Though, sandy gusts of wind were not what I was greeted with on the other side of the door, but instead I saw a vast, sprawling body of water, still and calm in the sun. Far off and in the center of the water was a small island, covered completely in foliage and more of the color green than I had ever seen in my life.

The water past the dusty, stone step in front of me was crystalline and solid to the touch, but not necessarily frozen. Just.. solid. So I walked out, reassured by the fact of the surface having been able to hold my full weight when I stopped. Then I tried to stride across the water, toward the island, however it seemed only to become physically closer upon the bending of my mind to its purpose, rather than the efficacy of my gate to find me there.

Upon my eventual first contact, though, I noticed that there were no familiar animals which walked on the land here, nor flew in the air or swam in the ocean. Upon this alien firmament there were creatures which seemed to me as a jumbling mix of other, regular animals. Just like the ones I had seen in the desert before. Only this time they filled the trees and skies and water. Lions with the trunks of elephants and large, colorful birds with the heads of jackals.

The only form I knew with any certainty was that of a man; and indeed, tucked into a corner of the island where a red clay deposit had emerged through the earth, sat a very seemingly human man, sculpting with the wet substance before him. He was clearly aged quite a bit, and his hands moved with the grace of a master artist, but his affect was young and jovial. In fact, he seemed positively delighted to see me. It was only after the man took notice of and started toward me that his flesh and body began to de-age in a sense, or otherwise became young looking.

Now, only a boy of about my age or a bit older stood in front of me. His eyes were phosphorescent, glowing that same esoteric emanation of rainbowed colors that had emitted from the window of the hut, as if they were motes of twinkling stars upon his face. He apologized for his lack of initial salutation, as he said he knew that I was there but was too hard at work to ‘answer the door,’ whatever that meant to him. I then proceeded to ask him what exactly the work he had left behind entailed, to which he responded that he preferred to shew me.

The boy bounded back to the clay deposit, immediately beginning to excitedly mold the stuff to magnificent shapes in a blur of craftsmanship. Each new shape he formed seemed to tear itself away from the clay and come to life immediately, as if a menagerie of chimeric creatures lay just underneath the surface…

Needless to say, I was astonished by the event unfolding before me. But I knew, then, who this lad must be. Creating, acting as only a God could before my very eyes, was the figure of Osyf-Agnin, wielding the primordial clay of existence.

Awestruck, I was, yes, but still determined yet to find what I sought. So, selfishly, I asked a God directly for a trouble. Something, anything that might prove what I’ve seen on this day. Osyf-Agnin did not seem indisposed nor displeased with my request, but instead curious. He seemed puzzled, frankly. Ruminating on machinations far above the understanding of my own.

This God rolled my thought around in his hands briefly, so that I could almost see the line of inquiry itself to his unknowable mind, like unto some spiritual string connecting us to one another. Then he came to a conclusion in his own head, privy to myself only when I pressed, again, the issue. Though, my insistence came well after he had already started trudging into the forest at full speed with me in tow. His hand on my wrist felt like a wreath of flame, as if it had been somehow tempered as to not burn my flesh.

We came to another hut, much like the one built out on the water from whence I had come. The interior of this abode, however, was not empty, instead being filled with a plentitude of clay pots, stacked about and lining the walls in droves. Tall, short, and medium sized pots overwhelmed the room, and stood together as, what I had believed to be, categories or denominations. And from one of the groups of pots the God of Nature plucked a vessel large enough for me indeed, but not so large that I could not carry it, being lighter than I had initially imagined.

Etched onto the sides of the pot were animals of various different compositions, along with an incantation in what I knew to be ancient Dinite above them, but unfortunately couldn’t read.

Inside the pot was filled to the brim with red clay, which gave off a sweet aroma that I couldn’t quite place. Regardless, it was then that the air grew very still, and Osyf-Agnin watched over me with what I could only describe as anticipation once I took the pot, as if not even he knew what would become of it, or myself.

Then, after I had settled for a moment, but before I could ask what to do with my gift, the God ushered me out quickly and led me to the edge of the island. He told me to run swiftly and not to look back, but said so with such a look of genuine serenity and gentleness that the urgency in his statement only registered after I was already turning away.

Then I broke out into a run, fully pelting myself through the door of the house, and landing inside its dark and sand swept interior. Sitting upright straight away, I checked the vase to see if it had been cracked or broken in the process. But it had not, and I was so relieved that I fully leaned back, entirely forgetting that the door behind me actually opened out into nothing, and the subsequent terrible fall made me lose my long-term memory of the events prior…

When I finally awoke after the descent I found my friends, Usanti and Tema, dragging me back to my home as I instinctively clutched the pot of clay in my arms like some kind of protective talisman, still unbroken. They asked me where I had gotten it, but the mumbled and half remembered answer confused them. They teased me and told me there were no strange towers or huts, nor any chimeric animals or Gods to be found, just that I may have tumbled down the rocks too hard and hit my head.

I might’ve been tempted, at that point, to call what I had experienced a dream, if not for the pot of clay which still sits hidden in a place that I had chosen when I was young, that only I could find again, and which has caused me, in my adult life, to remember the events of that day so vividly.