Awake a Sleeping God Read online



 

  Wrought of Light and Darkness;

  Awake a Sleeping God

  By

  Alexander Brown

 

 

  Prologue

  They met on holy ground.

  The Ui had gathered here upon the Duncathair, to worship their gods since the dawn of time. They met upon this plateau because it was where the Ui had always chosen to hold their greatest councils, eternally, an unbroken line of custom and heritage, stretching back millennia from the time when the first of the Ui emerged innocent from the jungle. They met as Suthien, their sun and their god, began to fall below the western horizon, bathing their world in blessed twilight. This was the only time they truly felt comfortable now, those brief moments that gave respite from Suthien’s fiery countenance but before the inky darkness of nightfall consumed everything. They met without bow and spear in hand, bringing only their enaidi and minds to council. To bring weapons of death upon the holy soils of the Duncathair stood in anathema to everything they believed and yet only a year ago a great battle, the greatest of all battles, had been fought here.

  The ancient plateau was immense, towering above the canopy of the jungle, dominating and eternal. It had been wrought over countless generations so that the Ui might gaze upon the stars in the eternal twilight of their world. Thick grasses had once covered it making it twin to another plateau that lay half a world away. It stood high enough to offer a clear view of all of the lar riocht the ancestral jungle homeland of the Ui. Now, for as far as one could see much of the jungle had been stripped down to nothing. After the battle a great deal of wood had been needed to burn the dead. Those fires had burned for many days afterwards, each gigantic balefire consuming thousands of the fallen. No one would ever know how many had perished upon the Duncathair just as no one would ever know how many had died in the waves of sickness in the months that followed. Better to ask how many types of blossoms and trees flourished within the jungle, better to count the stars in the heavens above. Entire peoples had perished here.

  Now the plateau was a mound of blackened ash, its grasses trodden and burnt away. A year had passed and yet still nothing lived, as if the taint of what had happened lived on. Here and there among the swirling ash, blackened bones and skulls lay, the living beings they had once been long given to the fires of tine. Would those that had fallen here ever know the last embrace of the earth as the Ui buried their dead? Perhaps in time all the bones would be collected and buried, a work to occupy the Ui for generations to come. That was a matter for another time however. On this day they met upon the Duncathair with far greater concerns.

  Luithuil of the Ui Ulaid regarded the Elves that stood with him.

  There were only five of them now including himself, the last chieftains of the surviving Ui. The Ui of the other races were not represented here. While only one in five of the Elves yet lived the toll on the other peoples had been even greater. How was it that they would never again hear the soft soothing sounds of one of the Murdmui playing their harp, the thunder of the hooves of the Imjalla? How could the world that once boasted fifty different peoples, of which the Elves were but one, be now reduced to so few? Those Ui of the other races that survived the holocaust had abandoned the heartland of lar riocht and had refused to meet in this council. Only the Elven Ui refused to abandon their sacred earth.

  Most of the rulers that stood here were newly risen and ruled but a fraction of the people that had once lived. How could so much have happened in such a small time? Before they had lived in an eternal paradise, innocent of the evil that lurked outside their world. Then that doom had revealed itself upon the Duncathair and their paradise had Fallen. Not for the first time a tide of helplessness flooded across Luithuil, threatening to drown his enaid and consume his mind. As a youngling he could not have comprehended such a genocide if someone had explained such to him and yet now, before him stood the reality of what the Fall had wrought.

  Aluinil still smelt slightly of sea and salt.

  His people, the Ui Aithin had departed these lands millennia before in search of the three gods somewhere to the west. They had built great vessels and sailed the oceans, their search eternal for the gods had never appeared to them. Like Luthuil’s Ui the Ui Aithin were beloved of Suthien but He had yet to reveal Himself to them on their travels. With the Fall they had begun to return to the lar riocht, their quest forgotten. Many of them had returned to the jungle only a few months and were still uncomfortable to have feet on land instead aboard ship.

  Cuihuil of the Ui Si, the people of the endless plains, looked similarly uncomfortable. He was not used to standing upon the earth either, but unlike the Ui Aithin his people rode upon their jenja, the great steeds of the eastern grasslands. From birth to death the Ui Si rode the jenja, hunting and exploring, proud and free to roam the earth at their will. Today Cuihuil was painted for war, his entire body coloured blood red by the Dye of the Last Blossom. He had left his weapons aside before ascending the Duncathair as custom dictated, yet his right hand opened and closely reflexively as if pining for the presence of spear or bow.

  Thuill of the Ui Nin was shorter than the other Elves with pale white skin anointed with intricate patterns of blue tattoos. He was counted wise among his people, the wisest perhaps of all who stood here. Before the Fall he had led his people and was the only ruler to continue to do so. All the other chieftains had perished. Beside him stood Cunuillin of the Ui Yi. She was known as one of the most beautiful maidens in her Ui and had been chosen to lead her people accordingly. The Ui Yi revered beauty above all other attributes and elevated those they counted as blessed with Yimir and Mir’s benevolence. Today however her grey eyes were dull and heavy, lost in thought and memory. Her face, as beautiful as any Luithiul had seen, was marred by worry and exhaustion. Her brief rule had worn her body and enaid to exhaustion.

  The other maiden of their council was the Druidess. Once she had been of the Ui Ulaid but like all those who held driachta she had renounced any such kinship. The Druids served only the gods. She was young for her calling, much too young in the eyes of those present, yet it was she who led this council above all of them. Too few of the Druids lived now for it was they who had led the Ui in the first assaults of the battle and paid for such valour with their lives. Now the younger ones, the apprentices and those newly risen to wield driachta, took up the burden of guiding the Ui.

  “Welcome brothers and sister, Suthien, Yimir and Mir guide our enaidi and hands on this day”

  Her intonation was ancient, uttered ten thousand times at this very place by a countless number of her kind. They bowed their heads in prayer willing their gods to give them wisdom and guidance. All of them knew the weight of such responsibility was placed upon their shoulders alone. Such a burden could never be borne comfortably.

  “Tell us of the beginning Druidess. Tell us of the Mother and the Son and the ordering of the world” Luithuil ordered her curtly.

  “Aye Druidess, and tell us the new lore, of our Fall, it is appropriate that we hear it also” Thuill added.

  The Druidess paled a little, embarrassment at forgetting the ancient forms, but when she spoke, she spoke well.

  “When Eul the Mother, the universe was young, her son Ba’al the Creator and his enemies, the Tainted of the Other, cleft the heavens in battle and war. The Other forever hated Ba’al and the light he had wrought for he had consigned it to one half of the universe, ending its ancient dominion of darkness. The Tainted were wrath and a thousand stars were extinguished as Eul wept with such a loss. Ba’al gave life to his Children and they aided him in his war upon the Tainted.

  In the end Ba’al was victorious over the Tainted and Eul was divided into our world and th
e Other forever. The Tainted were cast back into the Other and Ba’al and his Children reigned high and unchallenged. In time Ba’al departed, his great Labours done, and left the world in the keeping of his Children. Three of their number came to our world and they were named Suthien, Yimir and Mir. They spoke and the first of the Ui emerged from the trees, minds innocent and enaidi free. They gathered the Ui together and we worshiped them and basked in their eternal twilight, free of death and pain”

  The Elves nodded at her words for they were well known. Since the dawn of the Ui the tale had been told so and all Elves from birth to death knew it to be. The second part of her tale, however recently appended to the first, was also well known, such was its import.

  “Yet wherever light flourishes, darkness endures. One night long ago a band of Ui Ulaid hunters came across a wounded beast, it’s like never seen before. They slayed it and ate of its flesh and were joyous for such bounty. Little did they know that this animal was a tainted being of the Other, wounded in the heavenly battles with the Creator, yet survived to fall upon this land, weakened and dying. Despite being a lesser creature compared to its masters, the Tainted, it’s very flesh was tainted with the corruption of the Other. At that moment hunters’ enaidi were corrupted from eating its flesh and forever afterwards that taint would live on in the hearts of Elves. They were known as the draimain sidh, the unclean ones. They found no comfort in the sun and moons, no sustenance in the beauty of the rainforest. All their thoughts are driven towards power and subservience to the Other

  “Yet wherever light flourishes, darkness endures. One of the Tainted, being the cruellest and most fell of their number that he was named the Accursed, had not been cast into the Other along with his brethren. He remained abroad the world to bring death and terror to Eul our Mother. World after world he came to and left nothing behind but death and desolation. The draimain sidh upon our world sensed his presence and they gathered their strength at the Duncathair so that they might greet he who they saw as their god. They lit great beacons of fire upon the Duncathair beckoning him to them, bringing a great doom upon the Ui. The Druids sensed the taint of the draimain sidh and gathered the Ui together to meet the Accursed at the Duncathair….”

  Luithuil closed his eyes briefly, fighting the urge to shiver, to vomit, to cry out. In his mind he saw the monolithic figure rise from the ashes of the burning Duncathair that day one year ago. A body so immense it cast a shadow across the jungle and a face, cold and black, with eyes that burned hotter than Suthien. Its mouth opened and cried out, heralding its dominion of their world, and the Ui screamed as they bled from their ears…..

  “…..Death came to us, death in numbers uncountable. The Accursed smited the tribes and nations with fire and power and not even the mightiest of the Druids could stand against his wrath. The spears and arrows of the Elven Ui broke against this living mountain and the bravest of us were consumed. The Ui began to perish and we cried out to our gods for salvation…”

  Luithuil remembered the sounds most of all. The earth was shaking from the onslaught of driachta, fires raging everywhere, and then the screaming, the screaming, as thousands of his people burned. Thousands, and then tens of thousands and then who could know how many? The end of everything. He had led his small band of warriors into the fires of the battle only to see all fall save him. He fell to the ground, alone, as the Ui burned all around him…..

  “Yet where darkness flourishes, light endures. In our time of despair the gods heard our dying screams and they aided us, opening the portals and bringing about the Accursed’s destruction! The suffering he had wrought upon other worlds was his undoing. Our gods opened the rifts to those worlds and their gods and peoples came through, a flood of living vengeance. Upon the Duncathair our world was joined by three others and together they fell upon the Accursed with their combined might!”

  Great fissures ripped the sky around the Duncathair, reaching from the ground to high into the heavens. These rifts widened and suddenly figures began to spill through. At first it was just a few but soon they came in their thousands, the peoples from the other worlds, all intent to have their vengeance upon the Accursed.

  “The Accursed was cast down, his might and wrath nothing compared to the vengeance of four worlds and their peoples. His great body was broken under the blows of millions and ripped asunder so that not even a morsel of him survived the battle. Thus was the Accursed defeated!”

  Those were the words that would be passed down to each generation after the next. Those were the words that would always be known to the Ui. Words just words. Only Luithuil and those who stood with him today would truly know what had happened upon the Duncathair that day. A monster that had burned half their world and in turn had been destroyed by an host of millions. The first day of their Fall.

  “Is the Accursed truly dead?”

  Aluinil asked the question, the first of three such that all of them were now considering, had been considering for a year now.

  The Druidess looked troubled.

  “My brothers and sisters have laboured long since the defeat of the Accursed upon this holy mound. His physical body was destroyed but the question must be asked if his evil lives on? The minds of the gods have been closed to us however. We believe that the battle with the Accursed and the opening of the Rifts to the alien worlds have exhausted their enaid – we believe that they slumber now and no longer offer the protection to us as they once did”

  “In plain language, the Druids do not know” Aluinil said “the Accursed may yet live to trouble us again!”

  Luithiul willed himself to let his mind return to the present. His enaid would be consumed if he remembered too much. He pushed the thoughts away, replacing them with lesser terrors. They were assembled here for a purpose. If the Druids did not know the fate of the Accursed perhaps they would know an answer to the second question

  “Will the world we knew return?”

  He asked the question, knowing the foolishness and desperate hope of such. The Druidess’ face told them the answer. The deaths that the Accursed had wrought was not the only disaster of the Fall. All of them could feel it.

  The world was growing colder.

  Here in the heartland lar riocht, deep in the jungle tir, one could barely feel it, but further out, in the northern plains and the eastern grasslands, the increasing coolness could be felt. The battle of gods and mortals fought upon this very place, had altered something utterly, damaged the natural order of things, and placed the Ui on a new treacherous path. They had been victorious yes, they had survived, but the cost of that victory was only now being counted.

  “We have communed with our brothers and sisters, those that yet live, and they bring ill tidings indeed. We have heard that in the east, the grasslands are dying. Where there was an endless cloak of green now everything is turning black and dead, high winds destroying anything that stands and bringing sands that consume everything.

  Cuihuil nodded coldly.

  “It is so, our tir is failing, if it continues there will be no fodder for our mounts and our Ui will be destroyed!”

  The Druidess continued.

  “In the north lies the greatest calamity, the coldness has been felt there the most. The entire roof of the world is freezing”

  Shocked gasps erupted among the Elves. Few had seen such a thing as snow or ice. Only the greatest of warriors, who dared climb the Mountains of the Clouds, could hope to see such a thing upon their high peaks.

  “What of Yuithiuln and his people?”

  “He is wrath and marshals his people to war – he has declared that the ice and snow have been born from the Accursed’s taint upon the world and must be defeated. He marches north into the ice!”

  Luithuil shuddered.

  Yuithiuln and his people, the Ui Nuill were the greatest of the Elven Ui. What madness consumed them to make war on ice and snow?

  “Yuithiuln is no fool yet this act is reckless beyond imagining. My brothers and sisters wh
o dwell with the Ui Nuill have tried to council the king but he shall see no reason! He and his people march into this new white horror, their backs have been turned to this council!”

  “Would it be that I and my people marched with the Ui Nuill. Better to paint oneself in red and make war and death than a slow failing of the race that we now face!”

  Cuihuil’s words were a bold statement though wrapped in pity and despair and not a small amount of helpless anger.

  “Yuithiuln has made his choice” Luithiul stated firmly “Our concern, the concern of this council, goes beyond such things!”

  “The Ui Ulaid speaks truly. We must concern ourselves solely with the survival of the Ui as a whole. Our world is changing beyond all imagining and we must adapt to this new world or be destroyed!”

  Aluinil’s words countered the despair and anger emanating from his brother.

  “But the choice we have been given…..” the Ui Si proclaimed.