Our Little Gods 2: GOLDRAC, Of the Old Gods.

Chapter 23.

It was one of the cool mornings with thick banks of fog filling the Bethnel's from water level to halfway up the cliffs. The misleading plush clouds seen from above, scintillating in the sun in shades of blue, pink and gold, looked like heavy night snow had filled the gap almost allowing the alien people to cross the natural barrier. It was soon becoming a question of survival for the large army, the cities of Teta and Galle had sent out their troops and they were closing on them with the purposeful slowness of those who believe they have their game cornered. 

Balàs were already making the case for an all out attack on the indigenous population what with the more than easy sacking of Artago, Teta would be dealt within a week, plunder and ransoms would compensate for the loss of time and allow for resupplying and maybe, since the city was a harbor, ships could be found in numbers large enough to ferry the troops across the Bethnel's. 

The Veviensis had spent the night sitting on the grassy floor facing the strait. She had remained there motionless, eyes closed and she did not speak a word. As the sun started to warm up the fog started breaking in banks that tore themselves up on the narrow blade like rock walls. The crowd was growing steadily every instant now. Those who knew had told the newcomers of the powers of the Veviensis, and they all agreed that it looked like she was going to demonstrate one more time.

'I am young here. I can still count my time in days. At first, there was the rush, the quickness of the contact as if this new world thrust itself at me, entirely, in its incredibly complex wholeness. In comparison, the world of my birth, the one called Rabatea was a simple world, a younger world. Everything here is ancient, more so and by millennia. Creatures of many varied kinds in scores, beings by the million and behind all this, sustaining it, giving it structure, essence and spirit there is the taste of the old ones. The elusive perfume of their power, at time reaching the surface, hidden barely skin deep and that would jolt powerfully in your fingers would you but skim it. And at time it feel like the memory of a shadow, the aftertaste of a forgotten fruit, the fugacious insubstantial sensation eschewing one's comprehension. Yes, I feared it would somehow fight me, but instead it reverberated the echoes of my coming worldwide and beyond. I, heralded as such by the world itself, am a god here. Gently I touched the ground, carefully I felt the air and lovingly I spoke to it and it replied. Its mineral voice as old as old can be, slow and simple, shrouded in the fluids that course its skin and coil around its body. It showed itself to me, obvious, naked, immense and absurdly complicated. The place I have to go to is beating, pulsating like an infected wound, crawling like it was with agitated beings desperately trying to weave their puny powers to thwart me and my maker.

But I was here, by this sea and I stood there listening to the trees and the blades of grass sing their particular songs in the wind. I reached out to the rock vibrating in the sunlight, lava, I followed it, I did the journey backward to the large sulfurous mouth of the mountain that had spitted it out not so long ago. My mind sailed the strong winds around and around this world several times. War is already here. It has clearly been happening for some times. Puny beings and their application at destroying each others. My own were doing a little bit of that at this very moment. I called upon the Stained Ones to go and end the sacking of the nearby city and we moved on to a large river where the trees pleased me. I know what has been set into motion here, I can feel it crawling up the mountains, there is a  little city between the two peaks, lakes nearby. There is a king of sorts in that city and he will believe that I am the enemy he and his kind have been waiting for since this piece of lava spat up by the submarine unnamed mountain has cooled enough for men to settle it. So it will be war. I do not like wars, but men are so fond of them. The paths I can take are in front of me, laid out on the ground as if on a map. It is a question of choosing the one that will delay our going from this volcanic island, to the place were we are meant to be and have work to do, the least. Whichever path I choose there are obstacles to be overcome and dangers to face. All at once I know, I have decided on a course and I order that we leave the riverside to move to the setting. The lands there are dry and lesser are the people that will take up arms against our coming until the others come and join them.