Here, today, I have worked on something that could possibly be the emergence of the world in which the story takes place.
The legend had been passed on for
generations. Fathers had told it to their children at bed time.
Bards had entertained taverns full of drunks with songs based on the
tale. Scribes had copied endless books whose pages were filled with
the words of the legend. Everyone knew the story of the legend, even
if they didn't always agree on the details. The legend continued to
live on far longer than anyone that had taken place in the event that
inspired it. Still, the story continued to be told and passed from
generation to generation.
Like many great stories, big and small,
this legend began in a tavern after a few drinks. A group of
companions from a distant land had stopped for a hot meal and good
night's rest. How many in the group and where they came from varied
from telling to telling. They were just finishing their dinner and
contemplating climbing the stairs to their rooms when a local farmer
burst through the door. His hair was singed and his clothing had
oddly shaped burn marks on it. He was coated in sweat despite the
cool night air. He uttered one single word before collapsing on the
floor. This word remained the same, regardless of who was speaking
the legend.
“Hellfire!”
The waitress, who was also the farmer's
wife, dropped her tray of tankards and hurried to his limp form on
the floor. With patience and a calm that was exceptional at the
time, she checked him for injuries and began belting out demands.
She ordered a handful of regular customers to their home to check on
her children. Two others she sent to the village apothecary for
specific herbs to treat her husband's burns.
This wasn't the season for travelers so
there were a number of empty rooms in the inn above the tavern. With
a look at the building's owner standing behind the bar, the waitress
nods upward. Her eyes pleading as her lips contain the fearful
screams and mournful groans she wants to release. He gives a nod of
acknowledgment. She grabs the hand of the largest man in the tavern
and asks him to help her move the unconscious form of her beloved
husband. The two of them carefully transport the farmer upstairs to
an empty room and lay him down on the bed. There, the wife continues
her treatments as the medicines she requested arrive.
The men sent to the farm return to the
tavern s the wife finishes her ministrations and collapses in a
nearby chair. She waits patiently and watches for any changes in his
condition as the rest of the story unfolds in the large room beneath
her. The different versions of the legend vary in regards to the
exact words used to describe what the group found at the farm.
However, they all agree on the general conditions at the farm.
The farmer's plow lay on its side,
charred and broken. All that remained of the plow horse was the back
half of a smoking skeleton and the foul smell of burned flesh in the
air. The front half of the animal had vanished down a deep chasm
that dropped far below the turned soil. The pit had opened in front
of the farmer as he prepared his land for the planting of his crops.
The walls of the pit glowed with
shifting and moving reds and oranges. As though they were made of
living flames. The bottom of the pit couldn't be seen. Just more
menacing light the further down one looked. One of the villagers
tossed a rock into the pit in order to listen for it to hit bottom
and gauge its depth. There was no answering crack of stone on stone.
Instead, a bestial roar echoed up and caused the villagers to all
leap back from the edge of the pit. All of this was relayed by the
breathless folks that had been tasked with investigating the farm.
Their words mingling as the tale moved from mouth to mouth.
Days passed. The farmer remained in a
deep slumber despite his wife's nursing. He neither improved nor
weakened. His burns were slow to heal, but showed no signs of
infection. The hole in the field was being watched over constantly.
There were only two changes in the field. A cloud of smoke began to
emerge from the depths of the pit. Over time the smoke thickened and
darkened. What, at first, was faint white wisps evolved into a thick
column of black so dark it seemed to suck in all the light around.
The smoke could be seen at night. Its darkness being so much deeper
than a moonless sky.
The other change was a matter of sound.
The initial roar that sounded after the rock was tossed in started a
reaction. Numerous guttural growls and grumbling roars followed. As
the days wore on, the number of voices and volume of each increased.
Mixed in with the beastly sounds were occasional words and phrases.
Nobody, not even the village scholar, was able to interpret the
language being spoken.
At midnight of the 6th day,
something finally happened. A hand the size of a cart wheel with
sharp ebony claws and rippling skin slammed down on the rim of the
pit. A second clawed hand quickly appeared next to it. A roar
louder than any heard before accompanied the emergence from the smoke
of a head that could only be described as demonic. As the rest of
the beast's body rose from the cavernous pit, numerous impish figures
quickly scampered to the surface around the large figure. The imps
chittered to each other as the demon rose to a height more than the
largest house in the village. The beast stretched and took in its
surroundings.
According to the legends, the injured
farmer's eyes opened the same instant the hand slammed against the
ground. His wife had been checking his bandages when she saw his
eyelids flutter open. She would always insist that the eyes of the
man she had fallen in love with were different in that moment. They
seemed to glow with a light that defied the darkness outside. A pure
light, of the clearest white. A clarity that she never knew could
exist.
He sat up, the light from his eyes
giving his face a faint glow. Once more, all the tellings of the
legend agree on what words he spoke. “The war has begun.”
Where things go from here and how I introduce the rest of the inhabitants of this world will wait until another time.
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