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The Fitful Slumber of Rania
Tomes of Amaxathroth > Ink, Blood and Parchment |
Once an empire held sway over now-savage Emreca. Stern and rapacious priest-lords ruled forest, plain and mountain with the same iron grip held upon the hearts of their followers, and named both the Lantac and the Passac oceans that bounded their power. But the God of Emreca was an old and fading God, and the soil of Emreca has fed an aeon upon the buzzing of demon breath - it crawls to swallow even the ruins that might show what manner of men tamed this vast land.
Only words are left. There are women who serve a priesthood upon the slopes of Rania, a volcano that slumbers but fitfully upon the Passac coast. A man might journey years from Rania to find the Lantac, stalked each step by clawed and hooved demons, but yet these women know the ocean's name, and speak that name just as the Komo of the frozen ice, or scholars of Magak in Meddin lands. Mighty indeed is an empire that marks the tongue of man across ages - and remember well, rare scribe, what little comes of power if there is but an age to wait.
A mighty city of this long-past empire once stretched from the shores of the Passac to the very foot of Rania, as great as the crystal palaces of fallen Yorm, but volcanoes are angered by the acts of men and whims of women. The priests of Rania, who build shrines upon steaming rock and torment themselves with fire, tell that three times has their God woken in anger to bury all within sight of the peak temple beneath burning rock. This the fearsome demons of Emreca know, and little plagued is this land of forest and broken blackrock by spawn of the Undergods.
Women chant the ancient songs upon the slopes of Rania, that the God remain pleased and men might live to hunt lesser serpents in the bays and rivers. Little do the two meet, save but furtively. This is the way of Rania, taught by fire-scarred priests of an iron grip, who smile whilst setting chains and scalding rocks upon the screaming few who disobey their rule.
[ Posted by Reason on December 2, 2006 ]
