Friday Fiction: Of Morlakor Shyreen and the Youth Doravor

OF MORLAKOR SHYREEN AND THE YOUTH DORAVOR

 

I. Disquieting Disappearances of Some Deities

 

Things were definitely not correct in Elrinster. The gods did not answer when invoked, nor did any devil have the civility to appear when conjured. The priests and magicians both made their separate complaints to the divinely appointed Gorsach of Elrinster, but the Beloved of Heaven was as baffled as the lowest hedge wizard in his kingdom.

"The gods are silent," moaned the priests. "The oracles are mute, no message can be determined by the cast of stones or the flight of birds; any amount of human blood merely stains the altar or befouls the floor. Do you help us, Favored of Lords!"

"The demons are gone," the magicians whined, in a somewhat less public interview. "The crystals are clouded, and all meaning has left the cards. No pentacles, nor any amount of incantation, can draw even the smallest imp forth. Do you aid us, Commander of Devils!"

The divinely appointed Gorsach, whose communications with Heaven were rather one-sided affairs (he praying, the gods presumedly listening), and whose power over devils was limited to charms given him by the priests, wisely nodded his head and said nothing to either embassy.

And so the priests and wizards left, rather uneasily, with this vague reassurance. But, even with the concerned attention of the Grand Gorsach, things went from bad to worse. Soon even the little spells, and the little comforters of life, failed or disappeared.

Pregnant women stayed fat and sickly because the stork never arrived, and people continued insomniac through the nights, waiting for the sandman. Even the bogeyman failed to carry away several enterprising boys who had stayed out late in defiance of parental dictates. These imbalances caused the people to grumble, and eventually an envoy was sent to the Gorsach.

The Gorsach, wisely, said nothing.

And so it went on, and then things began to be whispered about the disreputable mausoleum on the outskirts of the city, wherein lived Morlakar Shyreen, a reputed sorceror, who, as yet, had made no complaint.

 

II. Mysterious Magics of Morlakor

 

This dreadful potentate lived in numinous estate, let it be repeated, in an abandoned mausoleum on a high hill on the outskirts of Elrinster. The slopes directly below his dwelling were strewn with tombs and dark yew trees, and even in the brightest of sunlight the hill seemed to be deep in shadow. An iron gate ran all around the foot of the hill, to keep unwary adventurers out and the restless dead in.

As has been said, rumors began to circulate about this Morlakor and his doubtful dwelling. Belated travellers reported that odd, shining persons were passing up the cobbled path to Morlakor's door, and that pale ghosts still walked slowly in Morlakor's garden. So it seemed, to discerning persons, that the hill of this seldom-seen wizard was the last outpost of any magical activity whatsoever.

To which assertion, of course, both priests and magicians disagreed. The gods, the priests contended, were disgusted at recent disbelief among the people and had withdrawn, while the magicians claimed the demons were all off attacking the moon, and would soon return with plunder for those faithful during their absence. Of course, the priests hastily added, heavenly rewards awaited those who obeyed the priests and offered sacrifice for the gods' forgiveness.

And so these went on, discounting the idea that Morlakor now had the approval, company, and blessing of all gods and demons, as was generally held by most discerning persons.

Indeed most inhabitants of the city would go at dusk and wait as near as they dared, to see these shining persons as they passed on to Morlakor Shyreen's house. The priests and magicians execrated and confuted the wisdom of watching these processions, and they spoke of the unutterable and blasting sin that such watching was, and foretold the horrible and inescapable dooms that would come to those thus gazing on beings that were surely mere phantoms devised by Morlakor to mislead the faithful.

Then they disguised themselves as peasants, and went thus to to witness the gods and demons proceeding on their way to the house of Morlakor Shyreen.

So it was that on the sixty-sixth day of the crisis the priest Bolorhayn and the magician Jorg received a message from a passing god, that caused a little hope and much cogitation.

 

III. Subsequent Search for a Savior

 

This message, or rather, as Bolorhayn righteously put it, this revelation, placed an entirely new face on the matter. It was duly relayed to the Grand Gorsach, who received it with pious exclamations and no little relief.

Granted, that some of the particulars of the redemption of all the gods and devils were a trifle stringent. After all, children born of virgins were rare enough to come by, but to find one that was male, born at the spring equinox, and come at least to manhood, was, as even the priests and magicians agreed, almost impossible.

"Nevertheless, such a person must be found," proclaimed the Gorsach, who had a happy gift for recognizing the subtly hidden.

And so a quest and a reward were announced, and the Gorsach's heralds and ambassadors descended on the land like a plague of locusts, scouring the countryside for the needed man.

Finally, at a little village on the far rim of the Gorsach's realm, a herald was benighted along the highway, and had to perforce seek shelter in a crude hut some way off the path. Inside he met a humble woodcutter, of perhaps twenty years of age, who invited him to remain the night.

In return for this kindness, the herald modestly proclaimed his purpose and position as a duke (a slight exaggeration) on a mission for the Gorsach. After a little coarse wine and a rough but hearty meal, he even disclosed that he sought a man, and of what sort.

"Now that is odd," remarked the woodcutter thoughtfully. "For my mother always averred that I had no human father, and certainly, my birthday is in the spring."

The herald, a substantial man and of about middle-age, choked, and nearly expired in a fit of surprise. As soon as he recovered, however, he plied the youth with questions.

It seems that his mother had been visited by an apparition by night, and nine months later had been delivered of a son. Such escapades, of course, upset the neighbors, who promptly stoned her as a harlot, and took the boy away to be raised in the most polite and civil atmosphere available.

So it was that the youth Doravor had grown up to be a woodcutter.

Notes

Now this little fragment goes straight back to my Junior days in high school. I had just discovered the work of James Branch Cabell, in the Del Rey editions, and was rather besotted with his writing style. I had to try it out. The result was ... difficult and indifferent, and I never completed the tale. Morlakor Shyreen (whose name echoes Cabell's figure of Miramon Lluagor, and which name would later go on to be appropriated for the omnipotent being in the Ortha/Goldfire/Morg stories) would be revealed to be the ultimate power in this universe, with Doravor to take his place as his begotten son before he moved on to another venture. For this to happen Doravor would have to slay Morlakor's incarnate self, so becoming the God of his world. Thus I tried to work out a 'mythic' tale, while turning my hand to some 'Cabellic' irony. I would not try this style again until The Gods in Flight, which see elsewhere in this blog.