Silverstalk - White grain that flowers
Inanacus - A tribevillage From The Song and far In From The Ocean
Cycle - A full cycle of all for season
Time’s End - nearing the end of a cycle
Tribevillage - Non-nomadic tribe, primarily agricultural and traders.
Far From The Songe, Farther Out The Ocean, the rolling, white fields of Inanacus whispered the sounds of the wind, swayed under its touch, and released the astringent, sweet smell of its silver leaves. In the Grey Sun nearing the Time’s End, the ripe Silverstalk releases that puckering scent. First, it hits your nose, you could do nothing but recoil as the smell of acidic earth and butchered livestock filled your nostril. Then, it lingers, a spicy, dull throbbing that defies all time as the moment is stretched past its duration. And finally, it ends, a simple lick of sweet nectar that dances on your tongue.
It seemed so often that no one ever had to tend the fields, and that eating the Silverstalk all through the Grey and White was just what was meant to happen.
No more than 150 El had made up the tribevillage, but the white fields, kept since the first settlers of this quiet land of the Inanacus people, would go on to feed tribes In And Out The Village From The Song.
In the middle of the village stood a roaming hall. a hundred generations had worked to maintain and expand it to house 16 families, the feast hall, the forum, the temple, and a simple washroom.
This evening, when the Grey Light hung lonely on the cusp of night, that smell never passed its first stage. Agemestes had seen her 12th cycle by last Yellow’s Light. And on this midday she, and all the people of the little white fieldland of Inanacus had heard the herald of the Time’s End. The sequential steps of two thousand pairs of feet. The rumbling hoof stomping of those damnable wood beasts could be felt rhythmically getting nearer and louder, but never breaking stride.
The numbers, clad in blue cloth and silver armor, and standards of the same colors, arrived at the hill overlooking the little town. The bluesilver forces rolled over the village of Inanacus, never stopping, simply rounding up the people, looting, and finally, burning the huts and hovels alike. The greatest cry came from the razing of the grand village hall. In an evening, the toil of so many generations was reduced to ash.
The people were rounded up, all that had survived the initial sweep of the bluesilver clad legion. They were taken to the roaming Willowlily fields. In a cacophony of motion and brutality, all of them – the men, the women, the children – were hacked to pieces by the soldiers. Their blood drowned out the fields. The flames jumped and danced on the red pool. The stench of blood and smoke and burning bodies blocked out that Grey Light Harvest of the Willolilies in the Time’s End. Only one taste lingered in the nostrils and on the tongue, and it was genocide.
Under a pile of her people, the silver haired girl, Agemestes, 12 cycles old, survived. The 4 thousand foot falls and the booming hooves, by the moon break, had marched on from the oncevillage of Inanacus. Still terrorsounds still lingered. Crackling of the wooden huts, the grand people’s hall, the slight moan of the somehow-survived who now only wanted escape from misery. Agemestes, against all the terrorsound and deathsmell, crawled from beneath the suffocation of her people, through the blood lake, and out of the red willolily fields of her tribe,
Agemestes, the child, watched the moment and cried, the sound just another in the void. As the village fire burned low, and the moon crested its arch, what was once red became black. She stared out, hungry, beaten, bloodied, and alone. She stared into the nothingness.
It was all black, the smell was burnt, the sound was burning. And then, in the darkness, starlight. It swirled and glinted. But it met her eye level. It could not be the night sky, it was blocked out by the pillar of smoke. Often her people would recite the creation of being, of the god Spridah, the forest born out from tears. She marked a constellation of stars that came in the Grey Light.
But this was different. It was as though all of the night sky had been packed into a single spot, spinning and twirling as it might through all the Light in a Cycle. Behind the stars was not the black space of the night sky, but a vibrant blue that seemed to get brighter and bigger the longer she stared.
It was coming closer. The blue night sky was not a single point, it was a creature, a beast of the night with fur of celestial blue. Or rather, as it neared, it was draped around such a thing. It lurched and crept, as though it had many legs all moving forward but at different times. It had a mounded round back that twisted and spiraled as it peered around. It got lower and lower, a lanky silhouette would slowly protrude from it and then return to its body. It was picking at something. Was it eating the corpses?
It turned now, the blue cosmos disappeared for a second and a silver ring glinted in the emberlight. It saw Agemestes.
She began to scream a tired scream, “Get away from me!” She ran as fast as she could, stumbling over footholes and what must have been bodies, her feet stuck in the bloodmud of the red fields. Soon the beast lurched over her, taller than any being she had seen before.
“Oh! It’s just a child. You gave me a fright.” A limbering arm extended from the body and plucked the girl out of the mud. It put her down on a dry patch of grass. The hand patted her head.
“Be still now child. That nasty affair is over now.”
The many-legged-hunched-over-night-creature was a tall, slender El. He had grey skin, and deep wrinkles that made his eyes look as though they stretched the length of his face and a frown that sagged below his neck. There was no fat on him, rather his arms almost seemed to pass through the brilliance of the blue night sky that adorned his back. It was a feather cloak, and all the stars had been captured inside it. Upon his head wrested a silver circlet. It was asymmetrical, with the highest peak on the right side of his head, a shorter peak on the left side of his head, and the shortest peak in the center, adorned with a bright blue gem.
His eyes seemed to look through the girl.
“You must be starving. What is your name?”
His hand fumbled around in one of the many pockets that hung off his cloak.
He pulled out a bright red fruit. It looked like an enormous berry.
“Have you ever seen one of these?” The man asked.
Agemestes gave the smallest shake of her head, all she could muster cowering under the towering figure.
“Try it.”
He held out the fruit to her.
“Come now, take it.”
Agemestes didn’t move. He gently grabbed the girl’s hand and put the fruit in the palm.
“Eat it. It will give you strength.”
Agemestes slowly brought it to her lips, taking the smallest bite. It was sweet and sour, and immediately she did feel a bit of warmth return.
“Eat it all now. You need to eat it all.” He raised his hand, and with a finger pushed the rest of the fruit into her mouth. She finished the red berry.
“Good.”
Something was not right. Her throat began to tighten, her skin began to burn as though she had been lit on fire. She wanted to scream but nothing came out. She breathed out but could not seem to breathe back in. It felt as though her eyes were trying to escape their sockets and she needed to tear them out. She tried to claw at her face. She tried to move, but she couldn’t. Her vision turned red, she lost her place, the shock of the day disappeared by a throbbing pain that pervaded all her other senses.
Then she felt it. Her hand was grabbed by the old figure clad in blue. And she felt a piercing pain shoot through the palm of her hand. It won out against the throbbing red senses. It went further through her hand, through her wrist, The pain got worse as the stab dug deeper. It dug into her forearm, she tried to scream, or move, or run, but she could do nothing. Finally, she felt the pain exit out the other side, through her elbow. It stopped there. She could not place what was the throbbing red or her piercing arm. All she felt was pain.
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“In the twilight of creation still lingers an astringent, sweet flavor. So few taste its bitter leaves, so fewer reach the nectar.”
Lexicon
El - Singular
Elv - Plural
Great Wood - Lands of the Elvik and Inavik
River Song - Interior river of the Great Wood in half, Splits from the Sang
River Sang - River separating the Great Wood and the Bortuung Mountain Range
To The Song - The Land between the Song and the Sang
From The Song - Land on the other side of the Song
From The Sang - Land on the other side of the Sang
Empor Idoltus, the Sovereign - Self proclaimed Empor of the Land To The Song
Empor Cectus, the Conqueror - Heir to Idoltus, conqueror of the Land From The Song
Lors To The Song - Feudal rulers To The Song
Empor To the Song - Empor of the land between the Song and the Sang
War of Sangalore
Sangalore - The mouth of the river Sang
Terous - capital of the Impish Empire of the Wood
Nor - pseudo capital of the lands From The Song
The unaligned tribes, as they were called at the beginning of the reign of Empor Cectus, were the playing fields of
the oligarchs of the Elv To The River Song. It was Empor Cectus who took the throne from his father,
Empor Idoltus the Sovereign, supposed unifier of all the lands To The River Song, Empor Cectus the Conqueror,
would construct The Root Crossing, bridging the Song, into the lands From The River Song. The Elv, in all their
numerous cultures, would always be at their core, tribal, not in industry or class, but in cultural diversity. Even
the brutally conquered tribes From The River Song would never relinquish their superstitions, their peoplehood,
their tales of the origin of being, or their ways of life. From the first migrants in the Great Wood From The River
Sang, to the abused people, those conscripted and enslaved in the War of Sangalore, they were diverse in thought,
though unified in suffering.
This spiritual and cultural fortitude had been nothing but an obstacle to the Empors, the Modators, Auditors,
Scions, Ordinatorum, and every other appointed administrator that dared brave the crossing From The Song,
or In and Out of the ruling capitol Terous in the days of Empire To The Song. Where the path From The River
Sang was drenched in the blood of the Migration From The Silent Sea, all the lands In, Out, And From Terous,
were drowned in the blood of the unaligned tribes of the Elv. This crossing of the Song would mark the
transformation of the feudal Lors into the early imperial stage of the Imps, where the Mind of the Impish Empire
of the Wood resided in Terous, its heart would always beat in Nor. Before the death of Empor Idoltus the
Sovereign, many of the Lors of the Lands From The Sang had pledged fealty to the family name, to be vassals of
the self proclaimed Empor and ruler of all people From The Sang.
The first march of Empor Cectus was the conquest and vassalization of the remaining four Lors From The Sang.
The aim was not slaughter, but like his father, vassalization of the recognized powers of the land. The remaining
independent feudal Lors would never work together against the force of Empor Cectus, and would soon kneel,
one after the other, at the foot of the Empor From The Sang. When all Seven Lors From The Sang had pledged
fealty to Empor Cectus, the Empire From The Sang was reformed into “The Empire To The Song.”
It was a quick reformation of power, and the vassal Lors only gained might under their new Empor. Military
reorganization was the first charge. Each lord was to command their own army, with standardized training and
equipment. It was believed that the independent rule of the Lors was to be maintained by their independent
control of equal military might. No Lor would have greater might than another. If there was a disagreement
between two Lors and one, it was equal to having two votes cast against one. There would be no diminishing of
power, no unequal footing in the grand political sphere. Their fealty was to an Empor, and Empor Cectus held
fealty to his own image of grandeur, conquering the unaligned tribes From The Song. This would set the Elv
military practice through to the end of the War of Sangalore, the legions led by their prospective Lors, or later,
the Ordinatorous who held command. It would also cement the rigorous discipline in the ranks of the legions
so that, during the Canopy Wars, the veteran legionaries who now fought against them would exploit the
inflexibility of the Monarch militaries on the battlefield.
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