Part 1: The Mountaintop
as told by Grandmother Hazel
Long ago, before that which the Emerald Empire calls “history,” two companions lived beneath the golden sun, in a lazy vale nestled between the peaks of two mountains that are now gone to this world.
The boy’s true name has been lost to time, but we will come to that later. For the sake of this story, we will call him Tanir. Tanir was a boisterous and curious young man who lived to run and laugh and shout. Every hill he saw was a challenge to see what view it shrouded. His greatest dream was to scale the mountains and go beyond his home.
And that is exactly where the story of the true nature of our world begins: with a mountain, with a friendship, and with a promise not kept.
There are many pages written—some lost, some remembered—about Tanir’s adventures, but I will spare you the details and jump to the story.
Tanir ran away from home, seeking to make a name for himself by climbing the frosted peaks that touched what is beyond the skies. He brought with him only a companion and a coil of rope.
The companion’s name was Andoda, or Doda as Tanir knew them. They were Tanir’s greatest friend and the brass weight to balance the boy’s rashness.
Doda was small, round faced, and slow to anger. Perhaps that is why they were friends. All the other children knew Tanir as a boy with a temper that could not be trusted. And for Doda’s part, well, no one had told Tanir their true nature, as I sincerely hope you’ve figured out is a powerful Spirit that takes the form of a gigantic turtle. They enjoyed the way Tanir treated them as a friend, rather than something to be revered.
As the companions reached the first steep incline, spring dew still glistening on the grasses, Doda asked Tanir what purpose such a climb would serve.
Tanir answered Doda’s question: “Why would anyone not want to climb to the top of the world and see everything from way up there?”
Doda shrugged and followed.
The climb was treacherous, but you know, it is very helpful in such circumstances to be accompanied by a being that can shift stone with only a wish. Everything seemed to just be as was needed for Tanir’s ascent. Boulders that had rested in a path for a hundred years chose that moment to roll aside. Ridges without a handhold bore rough stairs just around the other side. When they became lost, a hare showed them the way.
To Doda, it was an expression of thanks and devotion.
To Tanir, it was his own luck, manifested into the world. He never guessed the truth while he climbed that path. Not once.
Near the top, Tanir turned and pointed down below, “Look we are so high, I can’t even see our home.” Snow covered his feet, but he didn’t feel the cold. Doda smiled at the boy’s innocence. But then Tanir’s eyes went wide. He pointed further beyond. “And look at that! What is that place?”
Far on the horizon, stood a golden city of towers and walls that glittered in the sunlight. Tanir licked his lips, and Doda saw him glance back where their home nestled into the shadows of the valley. His face held disdain. Mouth slightly open, Doda heard him whisper:
“If people can make that, think of what else they could do. That’s nothing. Now that I know, I’ll show them everything they ever dreamed of. That’s going to be my home, and I will make it touch the moon!”
Andoda was so focused on the desire in Tanir’s eyes, they did not see the snow shift until it was too late.
The avalanche would have tossed Tanir from the mountain’s face like he was nothing. His body would have spun out of control, wind rushing past his ears, clouds obscuring his view for several minutes until they parted and gave him a clear view seconds before his body smashed on the rocks below. Perhaps Doda should have let the boy’s fate be as it was and all of history would have been left untouched.
But, no. It is a fool’s errand to second guess that which has already come to pass. It never was that way and all has changed ever since.
Doda lit the mountain with furious flames that shook the faces of the cliffs to their very bedrock. Snow hissed and melted. Stones split and flowed like rivers. Smoke filled the sky from horizon to horizon. Every tree smoldered like charred toothpicks. The mountaintop cracked and sundered and crumbled into depths below, swallowing all that had leapt to harm Doda’s friend. Deep, deep into the depths unknown the top of the mountain tumbled. Doda and Tanir stood at the brim of an infant volcano.
A hundred miles away in that golden city Tanir had fallen in love with, roofs shattered, walls collapsed, families wept in the streets for those who were crushed in the rubble.
Doda saved their friend, the one person who saw them for who they really were. Or so they thought until that moment when Tanir’s desire turned from the far away city to Doda themself. With a gulp, Tanir asked Doda:
“Can you teach me how to do that?”
Doda felt fear then. But even the Spirits have a way of reasoning with their fears. Their eyes were still clouded by love and friendship.
“Tanir,” said Doda, “you must never speak of this. You must promise me that you will never say a word.”
“I will promise,” said Tanir, “if you teach me how to do it.”
Doda shuttered. “No. That must never be done again. I only did that to save you.” Tears welled in their eyes.
But Tanir did not see the tears. “Then teach me another thing. If you can do something as great as that, you can do smaller things. Teach me one of those.”
Out of fear more than anything, Doda agreed and Tanir made the promise. Doda taught Tanir how to accelerate the growth of plants, thinking only betterment of the vale could come from it. Tanir made the grass grow chest high in the blink of an eye. This was the first time a person wielded magic, the first spell cast, the first step down a dark road.
When Doda taught, Tanir took in everything and he sensed something Doda did not. He sensed the magic spilled from Doda to enter him. He sensed the origin of the magic. He sensed that Doda held it and Tanir must draw it from them. This he kept to himself.
Tanir learned fast as they made their way back down, forests grew in pair’s wake, and that gave Doda a heart of hope that perhaps something good would come of that fateful day.
But when they returned home, they saw the vale was gone, everything they had known was destroyed by crushing stone. Doda felt as if the stones had crushed them too. Tanir only asked for more magics. When Doda refused, the pair parted from one another. They would not see one another until the world raged with war.
Part 2: The Beast-gods War Begins
told as the story of The Mountain Mother
Long ago, before the empire, before the grand cities along the Sunfall Coast, before the Evernight lurked to the north, my people were no different from any others. We weren’t just the neighbors of your ancestors or your cousins, we were your people. They say we were happy and that we had no desire to be different. They say our history was your history—until the Prophet came.
They say he had many names or maybe none at all. It depends on who told the story, but the Prophet came nonetheless with many ideas unheard of.
Back then, there was a woman named Drana who wrote all this down, they say, though anything she wrote was lost long ago. Who knows how or when. But we still passed on the stories, so we know that back then the magics we know today were secrets not shared lightly, the lands were not as they look now, and the society’s we lived in were not as they seem now. Back then, all we peoples we’re The Young Ones and beside us lived The Old Ones who watched over us, provided for us, kept us safe, and loved us as their own children.
Drana was walking with the Mountain Mother the day the Prophet came. The Mountain Mother had a different name back then, mind you, but that’s lost just like everything else. Anyway, they were walking and talking as The Young and Old used to do, sharing stories and perspectives, when over the next hill came the Prophet.
They say he was young, no more than thirty years under the sun, but his tongue spoke like its years were in the hundreds. Behind the Prophet were hundreds of people all dewy eyed and eager. They hung on his every word. When they saw Drana and The Mountain Mother together, they all froze and stared. Everyone just watched each other, not sure what to do because Drana and The Mountain Mother hadn’t seen anything like that before. Everything was all quiet for twenty chirps of the cricket, they say, then the Prophet stepped forward.
“Step back, human,” he said to Drana, “you do not know with what you walk.”
Drana was just confused, so she cocked his head at the Prophet and asked, “What do you mean?”
“Beside you,” said the Prophet, “is a beast so immense and powerful, you do not know its capabilities. It walks with the thunder of the sky and the ferocity of the ocean. Beside you walks a beast-god in disguise.”
Drana frowned at The Mountain Mother and shrugged. “She doesn’t seem dangerous to me.”
The Prophet raised his hands to the sun and cried, “Alas! This child of humanity has already been deceived. When one such as she walks only in the night, how is she to see the light? How is she to know, my followers, that she is enslaved? Weren’t we all once as she? It is our duty as a united people to remove her blindfold and show her the light.”
“Now hold on one second.” Drana put her hands on her hips. “You aren’t doing nothing to me without my permission, you aren’t. I don’t like the way you’re talking to me and I don’t like the way you are talking to The Mountain Mother. You apologize or turn around and go just now, you hear?”
“Beside you, good lady, is a beast-god, true as day. These monstrosities have enslaved us all and hide from us our true inheritance: the magic they wield that will free us!” The Prophet’s chest heaved with passion.
Drana just scratched the back of her neck. “If I’m going to be honest with you, I like her more than I like you. No offense or anything, it’s just she’s a bit more down to earth, do you know what I mean?”
“It is worse than I thought!” The Prophet, angry at being dismissed so easily, turned to his followers. “Drastic lengths must be taken in situations like this.” And he called on his arcane powers.
Searing green flames shot from his hand straight for Drana.
But this is the moment that altered history.
The Mountain Mother puffed her cheeks and blew own magics, knocking the green flames back to the Prophet, whose robes caught fire and he howled in pain. “You see? You see how monstrous they are?”
Drana and The Mountain Mother turned their backs to head home, but they heard him call out through the sounds of the Prophet’s followers putting out the flames: “I will be back and you will rue the day, beast-god.”
When he returned, it was with thousands. Some new magic, some were armed with blades and spikes and spears. The war started. The war that ended a world and started another. Many of her siblings fought the Prophet and his host, but The Mountain Mother refused, saying they had only lost their way and none deserved death.
Instead, she gathered those Young Ones who cared to hear her and fled to the mountains. They would hide until the war ended and the world became more level headed. But the war did not end and the world never leveled out. The Mountain Mother dug deep into the mountain and hid the Young Ones. Year by year she sheltered them, hiding them, keeping them safe.
But the day came that the war and the Prophet discovered her location and came for her. When she learned of this, she gathered those the Young Ones best listened to and told them to stay put and that one day she would come back for them. She gave them mushrooms that grew in the dark for food and glowing jewels and crystals for light and the mountain for a roof.
Then she left, digging deeper and deeper into the mountain, all the time pursued by a host seeking her blood. They followed her deep into the roots of the mountain, maybe of the world, and there she turned on the host and sang her song. The Song of the Mountain Mother.
The world shook.
The sky went dark up above.
The Moon went out.
The mountain above her gave way and collapsed in a heap on top her, crushing the host and saving the Young Ones.
Though they never saw The Mountain Mother again, they stayed in the mountain searching for her, changing who they were and what it meant to be them until they are the dwarves of the mountains you know today. They dig to this day, seeking her, hoping to find her beneath the next stone.
And, when the rope of death starts to tug us toward the inevitable darkness, we hear her then. We hear her song, it’s faint they say, little more than a whisper, but we hear it in our bones, calling to us, calling us to go back to The Mountain Mother.