Our Little Gods 1: RABATEA, the first World of the Daughters.

Chapter 11.

"In the wounded heart of the goddess it lies

On the antique magnificent mutilated body

The bane will seed and root and fruit in our agony.

Fanned up by the hot winds of the commons' anger

And fed and guarded by the water plowmen's prayer

It will drown if only the three would stand to oppose

Earth, sea, rock ; skin, blood, bone. Bleak and morose

Plagues will spread as armies on the blighted land

The white blooms of the crater shall flourish

And the mixed blood sons of the three will be one

Two and their servants. Three rocks, five be gone

It will drive sons against fathers, even the children

Those of the white one will seek the blood even

And the three will find the door and fight the war.

And the one will find the door and fight the war."

"Broken heart of the goddess

splendid old mangled body

The root of the whip and, in their seed or fruit rotten.

From the most common jaw rage hot and wind,

We need water far more than we need bread

Objects of only three submerged

Skin of sea and land, blood, bone, lock. Gloomy and dark

Scratch a better friend, host of land degradation as if

Flowers, blooming in the tank

Half of the blood, three sons

Two boys. It is a rock for all three, and killed the foe.

In order to bring a child into the world, is the father of your son

Who is in the blood,

And door of three, to find the war.

And in the war, I find the door"

"This are but two of the six translations in ManWord of the main poem in GodWords that speaks in clear terms or as clear as, of the cataclysm and the coming of the Veviensis and of the Three."

Maasil was always bright red when he had to speak to more than one person at a time. He was after all very shy. He was showing them a transcript in the common tongue of a GodWords text that he had placed reverently on the table. The boys could not take their eyes from the intricate symbols on the linen square. The harder they looked the symbols seemed to shift and morph into others and change place. Ghost of words were echoing in the back of their minds. Terrey's face was drenched in sweat and Farenn was looking vaguely in the space between himself and the linen squares on the table. Oneg was the only one retaining an air of focused concentration, as composed as a sixteen years old could be.

"Some of the other translations are too artistic to take seriously," Maasil was pushing on oblivious to the emotions of his audience.

"But this one seem to make sense on more than one level since the cataclysm actually happened and the Three have been found. Of course we should always be weary of projections when we translate GodWords that are related to emotional events close to us historically and emotionally. But we can trust this translation since it was put into ManWord 10 years before the cataclysm and 182 years before you were born." At that point Maasil placed another transcript on the table above the first one.