Chapter Four: The age of creation
Here alone in this god forsaken country a bit of grandeur
showed, gilt glittering around the edges of the stone, rare gems fitted into
the statuary here as in no other part of the castle, the eyes of gods glittering
in the chamber lighted largely by torch and hearth fire.
The high ceilings outside the king’s chamber’s doors shrank
to more human proportions, god figures carved into the pillars to either side,
looking on Ely’s passage less like omniscient figures in the clouds, but rather
like closer companions, the wisemen (and at times women) who guided rather than
controlled, their gazes upon all who entered less threatening than those near entrance
to the castle itself, bearing the assumption that those who came this deep were
friend, not foe.
As Ely and his entourage made its way onward, the passage
narrowed into what seemed like a long cave whose end glowed with the brighter,
flickering light of the throne room. He adjusted his tunic, straightened his sword,
and pushed his shoulders back to look less a beggar and more a prince.
The walls of this hall bore an older history, paintings
mostly telling stories that almost all Amlorian children learned from birth, myths
of a chosen people who could trace their roots to the foundations of the world,
tales that never left Ely’s head, some told in songs that had rocked his cradle,
others coming later in stories the old one told around war fires or on the
docks, even some supported by the wizards hints during long instruction.
In the beginning, there was Kotine or Chaos, a world naked
of fair or ugly, age or youth, spouting lava and flame, lightning and thunder,
and eventually, wind and rain. It was a war of the three great gods over the body
of the fourth.
Suna: woman of fire; Toush, spirit of Air, and Amlor, man of
water.
Touch was the peace maker, standing between Suna’s furies
and Amlor’s thirsts.
From the beginning, Suna and Amlor differed about what form
of world Clyan should be.
Amlor loved living things, life in motion and growth. He
wanted the world to spout green from pole to pole.
Suna loved age and durability, the things that never changed
except in great eruptions and spectacular shows of force. Suna wanted a world
full of fire and stone, and creatures that played with such things.
Toush offered compromise, suggesting that world be both with
fire and stone at the world’s core and life around its perimeter.
This was unacceptable to Suna, who wanted her works evident
on the surface, not hidden.
This conflict might have continued for eons when the three
gods agreed to divide the world into three parts: land, sea and air.
The please Suna, there would b e great mountains both in the
sea and out of it, mountains that spouted fire and stone.
To please Amlor, the land would contain growing things and
living animals.
But the agreement did not set aside mistrust among the three
gods. Suna feared Amlor and believed the water god would build armies under the
sea with which to conquer the land.
Again, the three gods conferred and set down laws ruling the
seas and what lifeforms it might breed. One such law decreed that no creature
of true intellect should ever breathe water – thus dolphins, whales, mermaids,
men and other such creatures must emerge from the depths to breathe air, where
Suna might keep her wary eye upon them.
The elves called this compromise “Cauurton Zane,” others
refer to it as the Law of Air.
This did not satisfy Amlor who did not see what could stop
Suna from devouring the surface of the earth with her fire.
Toush suggested that both Suna and Amlor give up some of
their power. Each god would also be allowed to select earthly beings who serve as
guardians of that gods interests on this newly formed world.
It was from this agreement that true magic came unto the
world,
Amlor selected the elves as his representatives, to make the
land masses green.
Suna selected the dwarves for their ability to work with
stone and fire, making things permanent.
Toush over time took to rule human kind, giving him not
magic, but cleverness, intellect, and the ability to breed quickly – a trait Toush
believed over time would prove more powerful than the magics given by the other
gods to their hosts.
Part of this agreement also prohibited any of the gods from
visiting the world in their truest forms. In order to visit the world, each
would have to take up the form of the being their chose and could only remain in
the world for as long as that life span allowed.
This the elves later called “Suna’s Zane,” because it was
Suna who later violated it.
Amlor and Toush over time allowed their vast powers to
spread into their host populations. Suna feigned to do so, secretly keeping her
power to herself – something that would lead to much sorrow.
These thoughts brought Ely back to the other reason for his
return to the land of Amlor, the perilous Sword of Suna, which resided here.
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