Vol.7, Ch.3, P.6
Six centuries past, a young and gentle Rakliammelech lived in a valley village. Atop soil and under sun he toiled, daily, quietly, to bring bread to the board, and withal to nurse his only family: his lame but beloved mother.
Till one day, violence visited upon the village. Nafílim forces were come, wreaking wanton death and ruin. And when the sun had set and they had passed, Rakliammelech found himself horribly hurt, and his mother murdered and marred beyond recognition.
In the days that followed, Rakliammelech consumed himself in supplication. He prayed for his mother’s peace; he sued for Suffering’s cease; and he pleaded. Pleaded for some power, any power at all, to resist the world’s Unreason. And come piling snow or panging storm or parching summer, such were his prayers, and such was his persistence. Forsooth, this Rakliammelech as he meditated was terrible to behold, it is told: terrible and decrepit, grim and gaunt.
But at the last, he attained to Revelation. A voice warm and strong had reached him; and it was the voice of Yoná. And She thus spake to him that the Roun shall be as his, that She wished him wield it upon the swelling Wycke of the world. Hence was conceived the Roun of Orisons and the grace of magick unto Man.
Thereafter did Rakliammelech roam the land. And wheresoever he went, he conducted the Roun, conferring to his fellow Men the means to confront the Nafílim. Thereby were they, who for long had trembled and were trampled underfoot, indued at last with the strength to defend brethren and neighbour both.
But when boons of thanks thronged his way—rank, riches, and renown galore—Rakliammelech did not reap, but refused them all graciously, electing to live as his mother had bred him: a mere and common Man. “If gifts and gratitude must be paid,” he always said, “then pray lay them at the feet of Yoná, Most Divine.”
And when his time came to walk the earth no longer, those that loved him and the Deiva above devoted themselves to forming the faith of Yoná. And as shrines and churches arose, and creeds and Scriptures were writ, so did the Roun endure in conduction, preserving unto present the communion between Man and Almighty.
Such, in brief, is the tradition of St Rakliammelech—the “sanctioned” history as handed down to every living Man.
…But even as I recalled it, there he was, grinning in the flesh afore my very eyes.
“A bit belated, but allow me to introduce myself,” he said sprightly. “Yes; I am Rakliammelech—the saint of whom your histories sing.”
Little so absurd had ever met my ears, but being grounded yet in good sense even in my anger, I could see that he was not lying. And with that same clear and icy sense, I whetted and worked my wits, and there decided to see what move this Rakliammelech might next make. And as though to indulge that thought, the living, breathing bale began to amble hither again. Stride after leisurely stride he strode, caring not at all for the sword so poised and pointed upon his throat.
“And as Saint,” he said as he sauntered, “hark thou my sermon: that there doth indeed be a God.”
I must needs know this mummer’s mind. Nay, not to sympathise with his perversions, but to better fathom him as a foe. And so I walled myself in wariness, that neither might I be entrapped nor strung along in his entwining speech, and said, “…One named ‘Yoná’, I presume?”
The saint’s smile jerked. “Yoná?” he yapped. “Hoh! Dear me, that fat old frog I kept as a kid? Nay! Oh, nay!”
…A frog.
A slimy, marsh-dwelling frog—to which millions had devoted passion and prayer; to which reverence was the iron rule; to which the harried and the hopeless had ever looked for love and deliverance.
To which sacrifices uncounted and inconceivable had been offered.
“But the sermon starts here, Rolf,” snarled the saint. And halting, he spread his arms once more, wide as wings; and lifting his face, he looked upon me and professed: “The peoples of this world… they are a race weak and wretched.”
“So what?” I snapped back.
As men are meek, so must they grope for a god—to be sure, there’s a time and place to assay such assertions, but here and now wasn’t it. Besides, no premise may permit so false a god to spin the world as he pleases, I should think. But then there came a glint in Rakliammelech’s eyes, as though having gleaned something as they gazed into mine amidst these misgivings.
“Ere the inception of civilisation,” he orated on, “the longfathers of you lot were but beasts trembling in the shadows of their betters who teemed the world over. Yet in time, they overmastered the monstrous menaces, and in afterdays fashioned themselves the lords of the land. How came this, do you reckon?”
“You would hint that humanity was bred from beasts?” I pointed out. “That much sounds to me a gainsaying of your ‘god’.”
“Never mind you that,” chode Rakliammelech. “Answer.”
This saint was studying me, just as I was him. Indeed, deeply did his eyes plumb, reaching down to scrape at the very bottom of my soul. Guardedly then, I gave him his answer.
“…They mingled, I imagine,” I said. “Uniting, that together might they fell even mammoths and monstrosities.”
“Ah yes, brilliant!” remarked Rakliammelech. “Good. That makes me glad. Now tell me: how did they band together?”
“Through wisdom,” I said. “They saw in time that ‘many’ proves mightier than ‘few’.”
“But how worked they this ‘wisdom’ precisely?” pressed the saint. “To produce such power through rapport?”
“…”
Wisdom alone cannot a folk and family forge. Something essential must serve the glue. Something shared. Blood does so for beasts; blood, and the boon that is safety in numbers. But such become mere packs, flocks, and herds, thriving and thinning with the seasons. It is only we tallfolk that took things further. The question is: how?
“Yes, yes,” smiled the saint. “Delve the deeps. Seek the answer. Thring and thraw your every thought. Such the sole stairs to sagehood be.”
Pleasing little to play along, I asked him back: “Well? What is the answer, then?”
To which Rakliammelech’s lips bent merrily beyond their moors. And pausing to breathe a deep and pompous breath:
“Faith,” he sighed. “The very first of its kind. Simple, primitive, yes, but under the gaze and grace of God, your beastly forebears banded together. And weaving their banners and anointing their chieftains, they at last embarked towards evolution.”
I considered this. And through the mists of my mind, I imagined it: another time, another aeon, when “yore” was yet young. And in the corner of some cave lost under the stars, there huddles creatures man-like, but not man-born. Their tongues could only hoot and grunt, and their conscience could answer only to urges at hand. But in that cold and lonesome dark, they look upon one another. And within their wide eyes, there wisps a thing yet unthought; at the sump of their so-crude souls, there plays a ripple beyond reckoning.
And that is awe.
In especial, an awe for some tremendous majesty beyond their mortal mould. And like a little fire, the awe lilts and flickers—
—and coaxes the cowed creatures out of their cave to share with them all the world that they shall conquer.
“You thought it the other way ’round, didn’t you? That Man made the world, and so his gods thereafter?” said Rakliammelech. “Nay; ’tis God that was the maker. And that is nary a myth, Rolf Buckmann. No… ’tis Reality.”
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Notes
Nafílim
(Language: Hebrew; singular: Nafíl) The “fallen ones”. In Soot-Steeped Knight, a “demon” race considered separate from Man, though alike to the latter in all aspects save for complexion and the native gift of odyl.
Rakliammelech
(Language: Hebrew) Possibly “רַעכְּלִימֶּלֶךְ” (“evil-vessel king”).
Yoná
(Language: Hebrew) From “יוֹנָה” (“dove”).
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