- The God King***
In the beginning, the world was full of sound and fury. Chaos reigned and the family of man lived in fear for their lives. They were beset by the fury of the sky, and lashings of the oceans, and the tumult of the ground. Wild beasts hunted them, and the souls of the trees held dark secrets that they did not understand.
But from amongst them, rose a chieftain and his wife named Gorgomog and Morianoth, and they understood the chaos, and taught the people the secrets of the fury of the wilderness. He showed the people how to farm, and tame the land. How to make the soil bountiful and to grow wheat. She made beasts from the raw materials of the world that submitted to the will of men so that the people could eat, and the land became plentiful. And the people made him High King, and her High Priestess.
And over the years, the people prospered under their leadership, and built a great city. And in the city’s center, they built a great Temple surrounded by a park. The Temple rose up to the sky, terrace upon terrace - a staircase built to the clouds - and on the peak of the temple, there was carved a great chair of stone, and Gorgomog sat in his throne with his shoulders amongst the clouds, and his head above them, and looked out upon the world, and befriended the Sun, and saw all that was.
And Morianoth, his wife, was lithe and a huntress; the people’s mother. Fair haired, and fleet-footed as the deer in the woodland. She ran with the wind, and heard the voices that it contained and sang with them to the Moon. She loved all that grew, and cared for the forests and the fields, the grains of wheat and the acorns from the oaks, and the seeds of the apple trees she collected, and she strewed them across the ground, leaving new life wherever she went. While he lived and grew roots in his throne and his beard grew long and bees swarmed about the horns of a great stag that grew from his head. She ranged widely and grew the wings of a falcon, and he saw the world from one place, even as she touched it with her hands.
And they had children who learned the ways of the world, and who created new things, and who learned from their Mother and Father, even as their Mother and Father learned from them. And ever it was that Gorgomog sat upon his throne, and Morianoth sought out new things beyond the reaches of the City’s dreams.
And after many years of wandering, Morianoth returned, but she was changed. It was said that she had come upon three dark enchantresses who lived amongst the stones of the mountains - sisters who were possessed of the power of primordial chaos - and they had put a spell on her, and with her tried to lure Gorgomog from his throne, so that the enchantresses could take his skin so with it they could allow chaos back into the world.
And for the last time, Gorgormog stood up from his throne, and he waded across the lands, and the sea as a giant with his feet in the deeps of the earth, and his head crowned with clouds and lightning, and Power stood upon his brow. From his lips, he blew a cleansing wind, and Morianoth was cured of her bewitchment, and she pursued the enchantresses on the wings of the wind, and he spoke the names of the enchantresses, and the earth shook, and the sky wept, and the seas raged as they battled across the earth. Morianoth and Gorgomog sang secret names, and bound the enchantresses in a prison deep beneath the earth. And Morianoth and Gorgomog cast down the throne from the heights of the Temple where it shattered utterly on the ground. And they joined hands and spoke to the stones of the temple, and asked for passage into its interior and descended out of the world abandoning the people, so that no being could be possessed of their power until the temple is broken.
And so the world passed into the hands of their children, who lacked their wisdom and strength, and so there is still sickness, for the names of ancient evil have been lost, and none now know them. But it is said that some day their youngest child will arise, and with the child’s help Gorgormog and Morianoth will be found, and that the people will live in the bliss of the world’s bounty forever.