In the beginning, the mountains were poured forth from the center of the earth. From their flaming eruptions, the vast plains were formed where there had only been oceans before. Clouds formed at their ragged peaks and rain fell as the rock cooled. The rain gathered itself into a flow and the flow became a flood and soon the head waters of the Naus River were formed. Gradually, with the rare elements of air, water, earth and sky, life was formed. At first it was simple as a single cell but then more complex organisms grew. It was a perfect world, oorly, oorly, oo.
Into this place of green and good came men, tall golden men in the north and short dark men in the south. The golden ones settled on one side of the world and the dark ones on the other. They lived happily together in the green world and its deep seas. They hunted and fished. They built homes and villages. Life was good. Life was simple.
Then the wizards came. In a spray of light from the heavens, they came to earth. They came to the valley and built up the crystal flame. They came to the valley and built themselves a capitol, Noia. It was a strange name that fitted uneasily on the tongues of man. A name from the place from which the wizards had come. The wizards gathered themselves in their blue crystal castle. They did not go among the people. Soon men went back about their business of hunting and living again.
Babes were born, grew into old men and died and still the wizards were in their blue crystal. Seasons changed, crops were planted, crops grew and were harvested and still the wizards lived in their blue flame of crystal. Their memory became dim and even the old ones could only recall the stories that they had heard at their mothers' knees. No living eye had seen the wise ones from the sky.
Then came a rumbling from deep inside the earth. She moved and she heaved as though she would give birth. The plains opened up and swallowed themselves. The course of the great Naus River changed, it flowed almost directly south now, no longer to the west and from there, out to the sea. Even the capitol city was rocked. The blue crystal was in danger of being destroyed.
One day as the earth turned itself inside out, the blue crystal was cracked. The wizards rode forth on magical beasts that flew and headed north to the mountains. There it is said, oorly, oorly, oo, that they found a place where the power was very strong. They called the place, Mount Oaik.
Mount Oaik was part earth, part sky. It was part flame and part ice. It was a place for no man. The wizards chose it to be their hold and from it, fire and ice rained down upon the plains. Many men died. The earth, though, became quiet again. The wizards had saved what life was left on the planet.
Some of the wizards had stayed on in Noia to repair the blue crystal. Gradually, they left their cold flame and moved among the people. (Although their few females never left the flame. No man has ever seen them. Oorly, oorly, oo...) They began to teach men there. Men learned how to make scratches on slender cuts of wood. Men learned how to build bigger and better villages. The old ones walked sometimes in the streets of the capitol. They taught better ways to hunt. The winter rains fell gently on crops then. The harvest grew. Men became more tall in their thoughts and less like animals.
Some of the wizards stayed on Mount Oaik. They did not come among men. They locked themselves in this place of power and drew into themselves. They sought after learning that was forbidden. They became so powerful that they cut themselves off even from their fellow wizards. They thought that they were like gods. In their silly play of power, they rained down frogs on the plains. Then they caused fish to fall from the skies. They used their power like children. The earth became angry.
The most powerful of the wizards was Otuu. He was a giant among giants. He was said to be eight foot tall, oorly, oorly, oo. When he walked, sparks of power would fly from his heels. His great beard was so long that it took three hours to pass after the wizard had gone. His robes weren't white, instead they were made of pure light. In the night, Otuu was like the sun. Still his power grew. His fingers became like crystal and his eyes like diamonds. Thunder followed where he walked.
The earth grew restless with these wizards. She sent forth fire and ash where they lived. The wizards remembered that they had tamed the earth before and were not afraid. The earth shook with her wrath. Still the wizards played like children and Otuu became even more powerful.
One day the wizards released from the Mountain Oaik a great force to tie the earth to stillness. Like a wild runner, she bucked against the restraint they had forced upon her. Fire rained down in the mountains and liquid rock flowed down their sides. Still the wizards were confident that they could tame the world. They used magic words like "urthqwake" and "magmuh". The earth fought them like a wild thing. Then she laid still.
The silly wizards thought that they had won. They celebrated their great knowledge and offered each other titles such as "dock torov geeology" and "dock torov seyesmology". They considered their brothers in the plains to be fools. They called them curse names like "liberals" and "soshallists". They grew in their power and in their egos. There was nothing about their new, planet home that they thought they did not know.
The earth was still but she wasn't dead. From deep inside herself she grew a new child. Where before she had given life, she now gave birth to death. It was a thing of darkness and a thing of hate. It grew silently and quickly. It watched the wizards and their foolish games from its womb and waited.
The wizards went on with their forbidden studies. They were soon thinking themselves as all knowing. They grew in their knowledge but their knowledge was incomplete. They knew nothing of the great darkness that watched them. It grew strong and bade its time. It knew that in the end, it would be victorious.
Now Otuu began to have strange dreams. His sleep became restless. He would walk through the night like thunder and lightening. He could not rest. His crystal hands became cold and his diamond eyes glittered like jewels. He could not escape the dreams, however, and soon they followed him even when he was awake. One day he came to his wizards' council and asked to speak.
"We must make a tree." he told them. The wizards became excited. They had stilled the earth, but they had never made life before. They worked in their magic potions called "lab ratoryes" and made spells like "expair imentashun" and "graffs". They worked their magic and they grew in power. Still they could not make life.
From the world they brought in the people. They changed the people then sent them back into the world. The wizards could not create life but they could reform what life they had found. Soon tiny, winged men were settled near the Meldon Ocean at Teka, the result of the magic word "deeinay". Then the cat-like Gunts appeared and settled between the Sein and the mountain range from where they had sprung. Tall, furred men now walked in temperate Telia and fought their continual feuds there. All manner of new creatures flew in the skies and walked on the earth. Life was not good on the green plains anymore. Many hunters were killed by some new death that the wizards had wrought. The earth cried for her children.
A great wizard by the name of Khorra saw all these things and knew that they were wrong. He went to the great wizard Otuu and told him that the wizards should leave Mount Oaik. That they should give up their evil magic and return to the city. He told Otuu that the power of the wizards was becoming distorted and evil. He used curse words like "unseye intific" and told Otuu that many of their magic potions of "noats" and "rechords" were incomplete and even no longer true magic.
Otuu, for his part, had always hated Khorra. Khorra was near to as powerful as the head wizard himself. Khorra had also done something no wizard could tolerate. Khorra had taken himself one of the people as wife. Now Otuu began planning a way to be rid of his enemy and increase his own power. While he pretended to think over all that Khorra had said, he worked a very great spell indeed.
Khorra dreamed dreams then. He knew that his end was near so he took his bride out to his place of magic and froze her in a block of ice. When Otuu came with his magic, Khorra fought bravely but Otuu was stronger. Khorra could not be killed, of course, wizards are immortal. Instead he was changed into a star and placed in the heavens. He was made a brilliant star with six distinctive points. Otuu was now powerful indeed but even with his most powerful magic, he found that he could not free Khorra's bride from her ice. He could not destroy her. So he sealed her up in the lower mines and left her frozen for all time.
The darkness gathered itself and silently seeped into the valleys between the mountains. It pulled to itself giant worms from the great dark. These black snails ate all life. The darkness made itself into a shape. It looked like a black cougar with wings, but there is no life in it. It called itself "Mevix". It stayed in the lower caverns in the mountains and grew gently while the wizards played on with their magic. It grew mighty and then one day, the darkest hour, it attacked.
There was a great and fearsome battle. Lightening flashed and thunder rolled. Magic potions like "lab ratory" exploded and rained down fire. The sky was hidden behind a dark cloud that looked like soot. The battle raged on for days and when the sky finally cleared, the Mevix was once again imprisoned in the earth with his dark worms. The wizards, however, were gone. They had simply vanished in a blaze of power.
Somewhere on Mount Oaik there is a cavern. It is all golden and good. Its floor glitters like diamonds and even in the darkest night, there is light. In the center of this oasis is a tree. It stands eight foot tall and is of solid gold. from its roots, lightening flashes and thunder rolls. It is said that this tree guards the surface of the world from the darkness below.
"Oorly, oorly, oo...oorly, oorly, lay. So the story is told and now the story is done."
On to Chapter 10
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