A creation myth.
There were, by most accounts, two Priest-Kings at the Theocratic seat of Aqiir. These accounts claim variously that they were brothers or cousins. The Efendi claim that they were father and son; that the one known as Efend (named posthumously—the Priest-Kings had little use for names) made up the one known as Bel, fashioning him solely for the purpose of shattering the Demiurge’s hold over death. There is even a rather fashionable heresy among the Efendi that Bel was a Steward, remade by Efend into a Priest-King as a test of the limits of Demiurgic power. The San of the Sanût archipelago claim that the Priest-King known as Bel did not hold the seat of Aqiir jointly with Efend, but was instead the Priest-King of San. His seat, they claim, was the mountain known as Mfirifir, and that when he was killed his realm died also, and within the space of a few years had become the Erg, driving his people, the San, into the sea. This is a believable story of itself, but the San consort with djiin, and follow Besor, the Mother of Lies; they also claim that San and Aqiir were lovers, and that the example of their love served to bring Love into the world—but slowly, like a drop of dew growing on a blade of grass suspended over the throat of a thirsty man; that the sudden shock of San’s death let in cold Reason like a glaring beam of light through the crack his passing left in the world; and that the giant eli, the island-squid, are intelligent, in their fashion, and that if you listen to the songs the San say they sing, you will learn one of the four truths left to us all.
These are variations, though, on the theme that runs throughout the Aqiirian lands—from the Sanût isalnds along the 700 miles of coast to the deep northern desert, throughout the Erg and the mountain ranges of the Efendiit and the Lekiimût. This story is the bedrock of Aqiir, and it sets the stage for all that follows.
In the beginning was the Demiurge, and the Demiurge was the world, and it was not good. The Demiurge created the world according to a great pattern, and is the world, and the pattern, all at the same time: that there should be a finite number ever to the people in the world, and that when they died they would be brought back into the world to live their life over again. Over this endless chain were set the Priest-Kings and their Stewards, given land and power to do as they saw fit, to no further purpose, or pattern. Bel and Efend (or San and Aqiir) were two of these Priest-Kings. Bel was, by all accounts, tall and strong and beautiful to look upon, and also quite fond of hunting. Efend was quite ugly in appearance, and stunted in his growth, and his back was hunched, and he did not have all his teeth, but he was fiendishly clever, and his creations were second only to those of the Demiurge, and even the God-Emperor was, they say, envious of Efend’s intellect.
Bel came to Efend one day, bored of his sport, desiring a new beast to hunt. And Efend, who could deny nothing to Bel, went away into his rooms in the great citadel at Aqiir to think on this problem. As he did so, Bel amused himself in another quarter of the citadel, which, from what little evidence survives, must have been one of the largest examples of Theocratic construction—eight miles to a side, with, in its center, a dome a mile in diameter and a quarter-mile high, floating above sixty-four great pillars like planed and polished mountain-roots. Efend’s rooms were at the top of the sixty-fifth pillar, which rose through the center of the dome and climbed another quarter-mile yet into the sky.
After some time Efend came to Bel with an egg—an egg made of clear glass, filled with swirls of color and light. Bel took the egg and smashed it, and out flowed so swift a creature that Bel could not catch its shape. Crying joyfully, he called to his hounds and set off after it.
And a year and a day later, he returned with its broken body. It was beautiful, all sinew and wings, and its feathers were all the colors of a sunrise, and its scales were the colors of all the moods of the ocean. Its blood, the color of rich wine, still dripped from Bel’s hands and lips, and from the muzzles of his hounds. “It was magnificent,” he said, with a touch of sorrow in his voice, “and I have never seen an animal that could run so fast, or swim so, or fly so high and far. But an animal that flees so becomes tired, and an animal that tires will make a mistake, and when it did… Please, Efend. Make me a new beast.”
And Efend smiled a small and curious smile, and swept the remains of the egg into one hand, and took up the glittering body of the beast in the other, and went away to climb the eight thousand steps to his rooms. And while he was gone, Bel called some people together and formed them into armies, and gave them weapons, and he built a citadel by the sea for himself and his hounds and five of his favorite Stewards, and he ordered the armies to lay siege to him, but he made short work of them with his marvelous sword. He raised up a second army, and gave them the citadel, and he had his hounds and his Stewards lay siege to it, and for a time he was distracted, but not for long. And when he came back to the seat at Aqiir he found Efend, who gave him an egg made of lapped leaves of copper riveted together, and Bel cried with joy and took the egg and lifted it up and smashed it down on the ground. And out sprang an enormous creature armored all in metalled scales so strong that Bel’s marvelous sword could not pierce them, and it leaped straight for Bel’s throat like a river, and Bel was bowled over. Their wrestling was clamorous, and raised great clouds of dust that blotted out the sun, and in their tumbling they brought down eight of the great pillars like planed and polished mountain-roots, sending the ceiling of a quarter of the dome crashing to the earth. But after a year and a day Bel came up out of the rubble bearing the sullen weight of the beast over his shoulder, and his eyes were downcast. “It was magnificent,” he said, “and I have never felt so weary, or had my strength tested so—no matter which way I turned and thrust, I could not find a weakness! But then, I noticed that before shifting its weight, it would squint one eye at me, taking my measure, and the very next time it did so I braced myself and twisted its neck until it cracked. Even an animal with so much tireless strength will make a mistake, and when it does… Please, Efend. Make me a new beast.”
And Efend smiled a small and curious smile, and swept the shards of the second egg into one hand, and took up the tremendous body of the beast in the other, and went away to climb the eight thousand steps to his rooms. And while he was gone, Bel called some people together and assembled them into work-gangs, and set them to rebuilding the great pillars that had been destroyed by his wrestling, and to raise the roof that he had brought down to the earth. But this was dull business, and he left it in the charge of one of his Stewards, and took some of the people down to the sea and made ships for them, and taught them to sail, and then swam out to fight them by himself. And for a time he was distracted, but not for long. And so he came back to the seat at Aqiir, where he found Efend, who did not give him an egg, but instead held something behind his back.
“What do you have for me, Efend?” asked Bel. Efend said nothing. Behind his back he did hold a third egg, it is true—a cool and blemishless egg of obsidian. But as he had come down the eight thousand steps from his rooms, he had felt it jump, once, in his hands, and this filled him with dread. He said to Bel that it was nothing, really.
“Oh, but it is,” said Bel. “It is something which you are holding back from me, and you are playing with me, and you are trying my patience. Give it to me. Please.” And Efend gave the egg to Bel, whom he could deny nothing, and Bel took the egg and smashed it. Out of it crept a cautious creature, sinuous and black, neither cat nor lizard, though it perhaps took equal parts of both. Bel stared at it, fascinated. He drew his marvelous sword and struck, and the beast reared up and struck back, and they sparred there until a careless blow by Bel—who, truth be told, was becoming bored with this sport as well—that left his arm open to the beast’s claws. They marked him with three perfectly scored lines of blood.
Bel left off the attack he had been half-heartedly planning and resolved to do away with this, the most disappointing of Efend’s gifts. And then the beast did a most curious thing: it raised its spade-like snout and sniffed the blood that oozed down Bel’s arm and, so quickly that he almost did not have time to interpose his marvelous sword, it leaped, so that even as his sword pierced its belly to the hilt, and even as its blood like cold black water spilled over him, it took his wounded arm in its mouth and worried at it with its teeth. Bel felt his own blood flowing into the beast. They stood there, Bel stooped backwards from the weight of the dying beast, the beast motionless save for the pulsing of its throat, and Bel stared, fascinated, into the beast’s dumb eye. He saw light growing within it, an eye that was for a moment so glossy and black that he could see himself, clearly, before it clouded over. And then it shuddered, swiping his side with its claws, and that was when he threw it from him with a shrug of his marvelous sword.
“It was,” he said, and he paused, and turned to look at Efend directly. “Magnificent…” He wiped the blade of his sword, thinking. It had not been a swift beast. Nor terribly strong. And he had been wounded before, many times. But something, something about this time, this beast, had started his heart so that it still battered itself against his ribs.
Efend smiled then, a broad smile, and not at all curious. He had knocked out two of his teeth. He explained that he had given them to the beast, and that with those teeth, the beast had had the power to kill.
Bel shook his head at that, and interrupted. “I cannot die,” he said to Efend. “I am a Priest-King.”
Efend shook his head, and his smile was now so small as not to be noticed. “With those teeth,” he said, firmly, “the beast could have killed you.”
Bel frowned, and looked away, at the dome of the great citadel and the dust still hanging in the air where his people labored to raise one of the great columns. He looked out at the mountains beyond, and up at the sun in the hazy white sky. He took a deep breath of hot dry wind blown over hundreds of miles of empty desert and he looked down at the beast like a puddle of tar at his feet. And he smiled suddenly, and leaped into the air, laughing. “Make me another!” he cried. And Efend swept the shards of the egg into one hand, and the limp body of the beast in the other, and went away to climb the eight thousand steps to his rooms. “And another!” cried Bel after him as he went. “And another! And another!”
And that is how the lekiim were born.
Commenting is closed for this article.
can the myth be shorter?
Oh, indeed. I'm notorious for overwriting.
I've been rereading some of Dunsany's
"Pegana" stories lately, so this had
an interesting resonance.
This was a good deal . . . darker,
methinks, but had some of that
originality and deep strangeness.