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

Chapter 28.

There he was again. The wall of fire filling the back of the vast cave crushing everything with radiating heat. The cascade of lava murmured its viscous song which echoed against the carved walls of the place of worship. The undulating vertical surface was as mesmerizing as the first time in the cave of the blacksmiths, but this time he had no other purpose than to meet it. There was no destination to rush to, no appointment where to be, no one that might be offended by his tardiness. It was just him and the lava, the scorching heat, the radiant light, the presence. Ah, yes, the voice in the noise, the voice that spoke to his mind, deep, earthy and intimate. It vibrated in unison with his whole being. He took one step towards the cascade and the voice engulfed him; as before, so long ago, he could feel the sweat beading on his skin drying instantly and the light baking his body. He kept moving forward, one step at a time, elated and crushed by the sheer magnitude of the power barely contained within the grotto. He had to close his eyes for the heat but the light would still come through his lids, hued in pink but as strong as before. Waves after waves of heat fell upon him as he offered himself to it. Head lifted up, his hands raised from his sides as if of their own accord in acceptance and surrendering and the god inside his head purred like an insanely happy, impossibly large feline. He stood by the pool where the slow motioned cascade of lava poured itself. The smooth rock floor uninterruptedly turned into dark viscous lava, the fat ripples created by the fall itself piled one on the other and sunk ever so slowly in the unknown depth. 

***

Something was different this time and it was not coming from him. As soon as he had entered the Tannoz forests he felt it. Of course, the men were gone, most to the plateau to the unavoidable war, but there was something else. The people, the domn folk they seem concerned, unable to fully concentrate on the tasks of their daily grind. It was as if their minds were elsewhere. It was not until he took his gloves off and showed, for all who cared to look, his red hands that people started confiding in him. The gods were silent. For twenty days now the gods had been silent. The Sadintagars had been quiet for centuries but there always was the ghost of a rumble to be heard. Pitne's magnificent cone never went a day without a plume of smoke that would sometimes melt the unavoidable accumulation of snow at its summit. The un-befouled altar of the Eticaraxe constantly shook and grumbled and murmured to the priests its pyrolytic song. Even the forbidden mountains of the Bogaskoï peninsula: mighty Opur and his two sisters Gurngingir and Auragingir sent plumes of smoke far and high enough to be seen from Sàmàs and the shores of the Greyflow. 

Twenty days ago. Fenelon calculated had been the day 'She' had crossed over from the other world. The gods had clearly heard her come and now they waited, but for what? Fenelon wondered. He rode on towards the river and the border and reached it a the point where both Darkwaters and Greyflows mingled their courses into one single strong flowing body of water. From the other side, the giant stone heads of the guardians stared on at him as he rode downstream hoping to find a ferry or a ford. He first saw the tall stone pillars of the line ferry above the dense foliage of the trees growing near the water. The docks too were deserted. Luckily enough the ferry was moored to his side of the river and he had no difficulties pulling it across to the other side. Once there, he allowed his horse to rest and feed on the long green grass growing in the shade of the tall trees. Fenelon stood between two of the stone heads guarding the entrance to the Huwanapîstì, the lower great plains of the Qwertig tribes.  His father's people. 

No one. The vast expense of long-bladed grass dried up by the summer's sun was obstinately empty. The riders guarding the closed realm were reputed to never allow anyone unchecked for longer than it took to saddle a horse and yet Fenelon was standing here for all to see between the stones heads his horse erring in the shades and no one came. 

They were with their silent gods. Throngs, living in cities of tents gathered at the feet of the smooth sloped Pitne. They told him that it was the same with the Sadintagars and in the peninsula with the three major gods. They were restless, like children, fearful of the silence of their tutors. Many chanted and prayed days and nights. The black idols carvers worked ceaselessly, producing the little sculpted figurine that men and women bought off them to offer to the gods in the pools of lava or the crater lakes. The sound of their chisels and mace filled the nights and in day time it droned on underlying the life of the vast camps of idle pilgrims, fitfully waiting for whatever event that could put an end to the ominous silence of the gods.

He only rode to the forges because he knew the way, he remembered the buildings and the smells, there were just so many more people. He couldn't help but wonder where they had all come from. The Huwanapîstì had looked empty both time he had ridden across it and looking at the Utanapîstì from the terrace of his mansion in Sàmàs, he had only seen light running on an undulating expense of dull grey-green grass that often looked like ghost waves of a long-dead ocean, but he had never seen so much as a rider. The street-less city was packed with people and the plaza with the ablution pool was filled with them to the point of forcing Fenelon to elbow his way to the three gaping doors cut in the mountain face. He chose the middle one this time for he had nothing to give to the blacksmiths to forge. He chose the middle one because he was drawn to it as if a hook had caught him in his stomach, dragging him towards the door along with the crowd of penitents and supplicants gathered here to compel by their sheer numbers their gods to speak to them again. 

***

 Fenelon was totally unaware of the commotion that his proximity to the pool was causing behind him. Eons ago this was the place for live sacrifices. The willing victims would stand where he stands and throw themselves into what they called 'the furnace of oblivion'. This ancient ritual had died out and such proximity to the lava was considered unwise and disrespectful to the god. But more than the trespassing on holy property, what shocked the Quertigs assembled in the vast lobby of the temple was the fact that Fenelon's hair should have burst into flames by now, as should have most of his garments short of his leather boots, and it had not. The man was standing right on the rim of the furnace, his head bent right back and his arms outstretched on each side of him as if he was praying. The lava moved. Like an oversized bubble rising from the pool's surface. Except, it kept growing and became a pillar of lava that bent towards him and engulfed him. It sloshed back into the furnace leaving no trace of what had happened. Fenelon of Sàmàs was gone, the ungainly Natural of the age, the reluctant King of Peace of the Seer sisters of the Lakes had been taken as a willing sacrifice by the gods of his father. Would it be enough to make them speak again?