Worldbuilding Wednesday – The Dragon Tears of Marglóthborg

Before the Great Sundering, many battles were fought in the lands of Airthai. At the beginning of the world, after the Shadow – the first of the Lewjan Lords – turned against the Light, the first great battle was fought between the Lewjan and the Airus. The Airus won and banished the Lewjan Lords into darkness. But in their dark dwellings they planned and schemed and released many beasts into the world.

Airthai before the Great Sundering

These slithering wyrm-like creatures crept from the deepest, darkest caverns across the Great Continent[1] to slay those following the Light or turn them to their masters. They crept along the ground on many legs, pulling their scaly bodies along the ground. Their tails ended in a sharp sting dripping poison which could kill animal and human alike and burnt the vegetation it came into contact with.

But the Light saw everything and was ready for the Lewjan’s onslaught. The dragons of Airthai were smaller than the Lewjan’s beasts, but were more in number and were nimble enough to attack the beasts. The poison also did not hurt them as much as they were protected by their scales. But many still died as they fought, though they did not fight alone. The men of Airthai stood by the dragons and healed those they could. They formed a great bond with the dragons and they were gifted the means to communicate with them and could even control them with the right words. But some of the dragons became wilder and their actions turned to malice as they – and some of the men – fell under the spell of the Lewjan. These men, instead of using their gift to keep the dragons and themselves safe, commanded their dragons to kill, maim and plunder. But those who stayed true to the Light refused to use the dragons like this and even made an oath along with the dragons to the Creator to this end. Because they did this of their own, they kept the gift of the dragon tongue while the others lost this gift and the language turned to meaningless sounds in their mouths.

One by one the beasts of the Lewjan fell. At last only two were left – one in the northern part of the Western Lands and one to the south – close to where Marglóthborg would one day be situated. Here there was a great battle between the shadow dragons, the Lewjan’s beast, the fallen men and those men and dragons following the light.

For four days the fighting continued and blood drenched the ground while fires from dragon tears left the ground under a layer of ash and smoke choked the air. Then, at last, one of the men - Ardeo - came close enough to the beast to deal it its death blow. But the death of the beast came at a great price, for Ardeo died along with two more dragons; struck down in its death throes.

Those following the Shadow fled if they were able to. The dead were buried on the plain and even the dragons were given a hero’s farewell. Those who survived this day were to become the Dragon Guardians.

The dragons whose bodies remained on the plain, however, turned to stone and many tears were shed which were buried with them; for at this time there were yet no way to use a dragon’s heart for dark arts and it was not necessary to destroy a dragon’s body.

During the centuries which followed, the battle was remembered in stories, but the battleground forgotten. Then, during the Sundering, the buried dragon tears were found once more. Not knowing the power these stones held (as the Dragon Guardians kept the secret well), they were mined simply as precious stones and sold and traded. These stones had to be very carefully removed from the surrounding rock and it was extremely time-consuming. The tears glowed in the little light available in the tunnels, forever bathing the miners in strange blue light. Some were said to go mad in the strange darkness and soon the mines – which were held by only a few families – became a last resort to people who had no other way of earning a living.

Other precious stones and metals were also discovered in the vicinity and Marglóthborg became a very rich city over the next few centuries, at last laying claim to the lands from the Dragon Cliffs to the ridge beyond Black Harbour. It was a dry land, but with their riches, trade goods were bought and sold from across the length and breadth of the Continent and the Western Isles.

The city of Marglóthborg was first written of in the story “The City of Promise”, written for NaShoStoMo 2011. It can be read here.

Map of Southern Lands showing Marglóthborg

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[1] Before the Sundering most of the landmasses on Airthai was compacted into one continent. Only after the Sundering were there two major landmasses – the Sundered Lands and the Continent. 

Worldbuilding Wednesday: Good vs. Evil Part 2 - The Airus

This week I’m taking a look at the Airus and will leave the Aíhla and the Ahma for next week to keep the posts from getting too long.  

The Airus

The opposite of the Lewjan, the Airus are messengers and servants of the Light and are also sometimes sent to help the people of Airthai against the Lewjan and their followers. The Airus are those who did not betray the Creator and are the mortal enemies of the Lewjan Lords.

“And the Creator made the race of the Airus that may pass between his world and ours; the only race able to do so while still alive. And the Creator made the peoples that inhabit the lands of the world. And the race of the Airus received much Talent from their Creator, the most of the Talent that the Creator gave to all the races created.” (Taken from “The Creation of Airthai”.)

Though the Airus are seldom seen, it is said that they were at the great battle fought between the Lewjan and the Erewhar, where they kept the Erewhar safe from harm:

“On the last day of the hundredth year since the coming of the Lewjan to the Erewhar the soldiers of the Erewhar stood against the Lewjan. A fierce fight was fought on that day. The Lewjan attacked the Erewhar with fire, but not one hair on the heads of the Erewhar was singed. Some of the witnesses later said that they saw the Airus that fought on the field alongside the Erewhar and kept the fire from them. The Erewhar stood strong because they knew that this battle was not just for their freedom, but for their very souls.
Some of the Erewhar, however, were so drunk and blind with the power the Lewjan gave and promised them, that they still chose to go with the Lewjan even after the Erewhar had won and were taken away in a plume of smoke when the new day dawned. They were not seen again in their own human form, but were rumoured to dwell in the Death Plain seeking souls to twist as their own were twisted. They could take on any form that they wished, like the strongest of the Lewjan, and it is said that they often took the form of seductive women to seduce men with their looks and voices.
The Erewhar who stayed behind found the ground turned to ash where they stood and not one tree still stood on the burnt plain. Around them the earth was churned to  ash and mud. This land would become the Death Plain, greatly feared by all people of the Southern Lands. And so they trekked south to seek help from the neighbouring countries. Aleidys led the group that would later become the Whargahn clan.” (Taken from “The Fall of the Erewhar”.)

The Fiery Battlefield...."Veldfire" by JEA Volxchenk

The Ealda were also, after the Sundering, led to the Valley of the Ealda by seven of these Airus, who left after the mists and mountains hid the Ealda from their enemies. 

Some, especially the Aíhla and the Ahma, believed that Airus were the ones who spoke to them in dreams and, in this way, conveyed important information or messages to them.

The two Aíhla, Migael and Gabriel, said that they and Leshem were spoken to in a dream to go to the old well at the cross roads. It was when they got there that they found Aran close to death. This was told of in “A Drink of Water” and “Mercy Unlooked For”. 

And so it was that a war - sometimes unseen, sometimes painting the fields of Airthai red - started that would last through all the ages of the world. A war that would only end on the day the sun burned its last and all the life on Airthai pass to the other world where only the immortal soul can go. 

Fiction Monday - The Great Sundering, Part 1

Welcome to the first Fiction Monday on Hersenskim. This week starts with part one of The Great Sundering, the tale of how the lands and continents of Airthai became as they are today. An earlier post talked broadly about the Creation, the Sundering and the Diminishing, but in the following weeks I hope to post the new and much improved version.

The Great Sundering – Part 1

The Great Sundering of the Lands took place many centuries after the world of Airthai was first created. At this time the lands of Airthai was still united on one great continent that stretched from the far north to far in the south. During that time, the Betrayers; those called the Lewjan, had built a vast kingdom for themselves on the most Southern Coast of the Continent, and the Lord of the Lewjan was sending his armies and minions north to get more land and power - and in order to overthrow the Khallahna.

The Khallahna called all the Ahma together and they decided that they should ask the Creator to step in for them and save them from the Dark Forces amassing in the south. They not only wanted to save the integrity of the lands of the Khallahna and the Ahma, but also wanted to save the people north of the Khallahna's tower (for then there were only one tower in existence, not three as there is now).

All the Khallahna, the Ahma, and most of the peoples begged the Creator to save them from the terror coming from the south. Some people fled north in the hopes of getting far enough from the Lewjan and build new fortresses. The Creator hearkened to their prayers and with his mighty hand, broke the Continent into two where the great river of Eyreidja flowed.

Great mountains grew between the two continents and the sea boiled about them. The boats that were used on the Eyreidja River were of no use and soon purple-pink monsters awakened from the bottom of the ocean were also spotted in the new sea that was formed between the continents. Passage between the two continents seemed impossible.

 The northern continent was nearly void of all Lewjan, Werlea and other Servants of the Dark. The southern continent was filled with those serving the Lewjan Lord. But, just as some evil people remained on the northern continent, so some good people remained on the southern continent. The southern continent became known as the Sundered Lands or the Damned Lands.

 Those people faithful to the Light on the southern continent, asked for a land where they could be safe from the Lewjan, as they did not know how to build ships and could not get away. The Creator sent some of the Airus and led them to a secluded, fruitful valley called Ealdasah-elir and hid them from the Wíkla's sight by high rocky outcrops and mist that would blind any that did manage to find the tunnels to the Hidden People. These people are known as the Ealda.

Next Monday: The Great Sundering, Part 2: The Flight of the Seafolk.

The Fall of the Erewhar

A thousand years or more before the dark day of the Battle of the Black Field a stranger came to the south west of the Southern Lands. No one knew where he came from. No one knew where he was going. He was dressed in brown, threadbare clothes and a formless felt hat hung over his half blind eyes. In his right hand he carried a black staff and in the left a leather bag with books which he sometimes swung onto his bowed back.

The people of the town of Hêrgereh, which in that time was a city with its own House of Learning, welcomed the man when they saw that he had books with him which they didn’t know of.

He also showed them wonderful works, which he seemed to do with his Talent, like curing the city ruler’s son from a sudden illness that affected his brain and mind. What the people didn’t know was that he was one of the Lewjan that came to them in human form to seduce them and lead them away from the Allwaldan. He let them copy the books and helped them to translate the books into the Erewhar’s language from a strange language which they didn’t know. Through this, they learned of a new power. They gave this knowledge to those among them who was not learned until every Erewhar in Hêrgereh used the new power and not their given Talent.

Then they went to the other towns of the Erewhar and those from Hêrgereh gave them the knowledge of the Lewjan as well. Within two decades, all the Erewhar had turned away from their Talent and Allwaldan and now followed the Lewjan, even though many at the time did not realise this yet.

The Lewjan that went to the Erewhar took on his true, twisted form on the day that the last Erewhar turned away from the Creator and he laughed at them and their Houses of Learning. “Just look how quickly the pious Erewhar turns from their Creator! You will serve my master for the rest of Airthai’s existence!”

Then the Erewhar knew that it was a Lewjan in front of them and that they had lost the Talent that had been given to them. They had turned so far from Allwaldan, that they had even forgotten their own laws and blood ran in the streets of the Erewhar towns as each fought for more power.

One after the other the wonderful towns, city and Houses of Learning of the Erewhar fell in flames and ruins.

But the Creator will never leave his creations for the Lewjan and sent three Airus to one of the towns where some of the Erewhar had come to see that they had turned from their Creator and sought a way back somehow. At first they turned a cold shoulder to the Airus, thinking that they also wanted to lead them from the light, and did not want to listen to them. But in time they learned again their old ways and found that, when they broke through the Lewjan’s chains and chose the side of the Light that they received a new Talent – one with which to better fight the Lewjan.

Because they had been under the Lewjan for more than a generation by this time, they found that the Lewjan still had some kind of hold on them when they used their Talent. The Erewhar had the Talent to fight the Lewjan, just like the Ahma, but a deathly sin had been awakened in them and when they fought they did not want to only fight for their and other’s freedom, but also to gain power or exact revenge. That is why they took to saying that the shadow of the Lewjan always followed them. For many generations the Erewhar would still fight against the power of the Lewjan.

Then one of the women who lived on the outskirts of the Erewhar’s lands gave birth to a daughter. She was not only taught by her family, but also by the Ahma from Reiaghy that heard about the family’s goodness and that they wanted to shun the Lewjan completely. She was called Aleidys. When she was twenty years old Aleidys, along with others of her town that shunned the Lewjan, and the Ahma, went to the other towns and through their use of their Talent and their words convince the people to turn against the Lewjan.

The Erewhar freed themselves from the Lewjan’s chains slowly and came in revolt against the Lewjan and their minions. They drove away the old man and any other Lewjan they found in the towns.

On the last day of the hundredth year since the coming of the Lewjan to the Erewhar the soldiers of the Erewhar stood against the Lewjan. A fierce fight was fought on that day. The Lewjan attacked the Erewhar with fire, but not one hair on the heads of the Erewhar was singed. Some of the witnesses later said that they saw the Airus that fought on the field alongside the Erewhar and kept the fire from them. The Erewhar stood strong because they knew that this battle was not just for their freedom, but for their very souls.

Some of the Erewhar, however, were so drunk and blind with the power the Lewjan gave and promised them, that they still chose to go with the Lewjan even after the Erewhar had won and were taken away in a plume of smoke when the new day dawned. They were not seen again in their own human form, but were rumoured to dwell in the Death Plain seeking souls to twist as their own were twisted. They could take on any form that they wished, like the strongest of the Lewjan, and it is said that they often took the form of seductive women to seduce men with their looks and voices.

The Erewhar who stayed behind found the ground turned to ash where they stood and not one tree still stood on the burnt plain. Around them was nothing but ash and mud. And so they trekked south to seek help from the neighbouring countries. Aleidys led the group that would later become the Whargahn clan.

They made their new home in and around the woods of Reiaghor and that is where Eldarion Whargahn of the Whargahn clan stood against the Khalvér.