Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 1 Jacob Tallmon Word Count:140,500 2025 Delene Dr. Birmingham, AL 35214 (205) 585-5841 jacobtallmon13@gmail.com On Ancient Madgyk by Jacob Tallmon-Benson Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 2 An Introduction: On Madgyk The Big Bang was a perfectly explicable astrophysical phenomenon. This is, of course, not to say that it wasn't a simultaneously arcane sacrament. There's always the possibility that some weary deity set it all into motion, but magic, and divinity, you'll find, are often the exact same entity. It's those incapable of faith in one who omnipotently swear the unmistakable intervention of the other. Even so, it's all the same. Gods don't require logic, or initiative, just as it is with magic. The primary difference, however, is that the state of the universe dictates the will of magic. Meanwhile, Gods are pure magic, physically personified, and, thus, prone to their own less magnanimous wills. In the beginning, trillions of lifetimes ago, before minds that would not support both gods and magic, the lack of space that was the universe felt the pulse of that magic, the thrall of those deities, the hum of thermonuclear fission, and began to expand. Like the unravelling of a ball of yarn, all that was, is and shall be instantaneously unwound and engorged. Time and space became a tapestry of seemingly endless rocks, metals, fiery gases and invisible waves, all kept in vacuous motion by the force stretching the universe, even to this day. If one were to venture a journey to see this cosmic cradle, they couldn't possibly predict the sight they would see. The first and last world to begin this endless expansion still hangs where it all came into being, the only motionless body in heaven. Some theorize that, in order to physically reach the point from which the universe first expanded, one would have to travel back in time. For this reason, it is not only correct, but appropriate to preface this tale of the primary planet with: Once Upon a Time . . the magic that was the universe became the universe and the universe was magic. To stand immortal as a reminder of this, the first world was named Madgyk. When the universe and, consequently, all its magic began its pilgrimage of self- evocation, some of it had to be left behind. There needed to be an anchoring point for this great undertaking; a five point seal, set among the stars, the living rite of universal expansion: planet Madgyk. Madgyk is a small planet in the shape of a Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 3 pentacle, its curious, near-two-dimensional form being one if its primary causes for being stationary. This world, alone, stands steadfast against the expansion of the universe, without orbit. Madgyk has no stars visible in its sky, and only one close enough in proximity to technically claim as a sun. The amount of light provided by this star is imperceptible to the eye. The planet is, by design, endowed with five moons, which, in conjunction, provide the world with enough refracted light and heat from that star to sustain the nocturnal flora and fauna. The brightest moon ( Llur Tuung ) is made out of silver, which reflects the most light, reaching the four other moons. When it reaches the zenith of it's orbit, all five moons glow and the planet enjoys its warmest season. The largest moon ( Li ð Tuung ) is made of diamond and, when it peaks, the typically black sky erupts in waves of ruby, aqua, jade and gold. The most dangerous moon ( Breyst Tuung ) is made of radium and, when it peaks, metallic, silver fog descends from the sky and the effects of its light are feared by all. The smallest moon ( Rotinn Tuung ) is composed of chromite and, when it peaks, the light granted from it reflects off its cleavage in a slow, revolving frenzy, akin to a mirror ball. The last moon ( Vart Tuung ) is carved from obsidian and, being the final moon in the lunar calendar cycle , its ascension brings pitch black light, inducing a worldwide frost, to be resuscitated only by the warming, clockwork ascent of the silver moon, Llur Tuung , beginning the cycle once more These moons dance in synchronicity around the five tips of Madgyk, running a cycle which lasts approximately an Earth week. For all intents and purposes, this weeklong period of five nights is and will hence be referred to as one year on Madgyk. Everything lived, grew, and died there just as quickly. The Full, Colored, Changing, Shattered and Black Moons were the only known ways of relating to time, but the inhabitants of Madgyk were not particularly fond of relations anyhow . . . Language is a magic of its own, just the same as love, hope, and conjuration. To that end, all races of plant and animal life on Madgyk possessed the capability to speak, though not all were capable of utilizing the power. Similar to how humans all have the capacity for reason and, inexplicably, we still have the willfully ignorant. Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 4 There were plenty of creatures living on Madgyk, though plant life (that which was capable of surviving the nearly lightless environ) far outnumbered them. Some races were more inclined to propagate Speakers than others. Obviously, you're more likely to encounter a Speaking beast on Madgyk than a Speaking flower, but it was not at all uncommon to hear the flora Speak. While all beings which could Speak spoke the same tongue all across Madgyk, known as Talad, (which translates roughly to Speech [and it is a rough translation of dialogue which you will be reading, coupled with some . . . artistic interpretation), they rarely practiced the talent. On all of Madgyk, there were no cities, no villages, indeed, no place in the world where more than one being lived in peace, for peace did not exist. Not peace, unity, not happiness, or love. The sole example of symbiosis, colonies of insects, all operated under a literal hive mind, serving the single, selfish collective consciousness of their avaricious queens. Life on Madgyk didn't simply live in darkness, but thrived in it. Being a world of tremendous magical significance (serving as the known universes paperweight and generator) was not without its repercussions. When only deities and magic made up the universe, it was utter darkness. There was no ill will, nor, if there were, anything to enact it on, simply the vacant void. Only the moons, still one hundred and sixty million kilometers from the closest star, were capable of offering any kind of light (albeit refracted, half-light) out there. To this day, at the starting line of existence, all light and, consequently, goodness, expands with the tide of creation, away from Madgyk. Light exists not only to serve our eyes, but to serve our hearts. The state of the world and its inhabitants suited the monarchs of Madgyk just fine. Magic follows several finite concentrations of power, those denominations having physical bodies and names. There are five of these deities living on Madgyk. Each dwelled upon one of the planets five points, there holding domain over Their fifth of the world. Each domain was separated from one another by the interconnected range of mountains that bordered the whole planet and divided it. These monarchs are Master Sytúr of the Golden Badlands Sovereign Yndi of the WildWaters Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 5 King Ikami of the Blood Marshes Emperor Ár of the Ashen Desert, and Lord Voy ð of the Veiled Forest The Gods, who thrived as much in darkness as the rest of the planet's living beings, never lived in peace with one another, nor could comprehend the concept, if proposed to Them. While correspondence between the Gods was not unheard of, neither was it prone to success, or longevity. The wars on Madgyk were fought by the will-less minions that the power of each God allowed Them to conjure and control. The inhabitants of Madgyk were merely civilian casualties, unless forcibly conscripted. No one on Madgyk could predict what the Gods had planned on any given moon, even if they knew that the Gods rarely had a plan. The only common knowledge on their deities were Their names, Their faces, and Their punishment for those caught working magic. Everyone is made of magic and, as established, magic is without reason. Some may go their whole lives with so little as a magical thought. Others can not whistle without witchcraft washing over their lips. In every case, save Speech, magic invoked on world called like a banshee to the offended God who personified it. Before they even felt Their arrival, the conjurer was spirited away, never again to be seen. Like divinity and magic, evil and beauty are inextricable here. Content Warning: The idea that became this book began as a dream about a world without any goodness. Consequently, to explain the propagation of sexually reproductive creatures, all progeny are a product of sexual assault. I did not want to dwell on that fact, or do anything to romanticize it. The following prologue chapter features one such assault, briefly described in two lines, before moving on. I have absolutely no intention of including another one anywhere in subsequent novels. I did this to emphasize the evil of this planet, explain how life continues under that evil, and to draw the comparisons between it and ours. Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 6 Prologue: The Hunt The Full Moon, Llur Tuung , was eight hours into its ascent, having just visibly risen over the open Pantheon of Sytúr. The Pantheon is a temple grand in size and minimalist in style, nestled warmly in the ravine of a volcano, whose spout is cracked in twain. This volcano was named Sytúr's Fork and was located on the southern most peninsula, in relation to the planets closest star. It is here that Master Sytúr rules over Madgyk's sandy, yellow badlands from Their stronghold, in front of and a great deal taller than the mountains of the range that acted as fence around the border of Madgyk. The silver Llur Tuung always rose at an angle that appeared as if it were summoned at the top of the shrine itself. It would seemingly rise up the formerly active volcanic shaft, to reach its peak in the starless sky of Madgyk. It was here, when the Full Moon had yet to escape the open chalice of the mountain, nearly as far to the east of Voy ð 's Spire as you could get, while still in the Veiled Forests, that a viciously nailed, black hand jutted suddenly out of a misshapened mound of dirt, covered by leaves. Satisfied that the frost had broken sufficiently since it had last checked, the taloned paw doubled in number, with another bursting forth. The hands pushed aside enough dirt and leaves for a skull to emerge, then, bracing both sides of the mound, hoisted up the skull, as well as a neck and torso, all attached to those menacing claws. The liberated torso revealed the body to belong to a young Álfur woman. Like all Álfur, she had a dark, onyx complexion, piercing golden-yellow eyes, long ears, which came to a conical point, two identures on either side of her neck and a slight stature of one and a half meters. Her unusual characteristics were the malnourished ravenousness in her eyes, the rank smelling black curd crusting her red fur dressings, and the more obvious fecal and urine stains one might accrue from living in a hole for little over forty hours straight. The liberation of her legs and the assuming of an upright position revealed the fur dress to be a loose, roan pelt, still damp with death from its own black blood, covering a Dyr leather belt. The girl, Lo ð, (who named herself 'Blood,' after her first love) with the rising of the Llur Tuung , was only 112 moons old and comparable in physical maturity to a human woman of twenty- two and a half years . It had been pure misfortune that had seen Loð out in the forest so late into the Shattered Moons descent. Loð preferred to bide her time during the Vart Tuung hunkered Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 7 down in any cave she could find, near the Voyð mountains, on the edge of the forest. Any place with only one entrance to protect against siege and insulated walls was ideal, and the mountain was rife with naturally created, mostly empty hovels of those precise specifications. ٭ Late into the descent of the Rotinn Tuung , mo st creatures long had their sanctuaries secured and were stocking them with game, or overeating, in preparation to hibernate. Before we had met with the Á lfur, s he had finally staked one out, filled it with dried sticks and flint and was in the process of slowly moving a large boulder up the side of the SytOyd Mountains, to place in front of the cave entrance. She was mounting the last ridge before her cave, when she took after a Koldus, large enough to stuff her belly full on all Vart Tuung long and wrap herself twice over in its fur. The Koldis are fearsome beasts, badgers the size of bears, with the color, speed and intelligence of a fox. The Koldus which Loð had heard through the treeline seemed irate, but a passing glance through the brush showed Loð that the animal was limping, possibly wounded. Seeing labor and smelling fear, the girl pushed the boulder she was moving enough to the side so that it wouldn't roll downhill. She gave herself a quick pat down, to reassure the presence of her favorite stone knife, rimmed with steel, in her leather belt and was on the beasts trail. She quickly had the animal in her sights and followed it closely enough to spring at its throat the moment it slowed pace, but far enough behind, so that it could not hear her over the sounds of its own frenzied progress. Even with her targets handicap, after two hundred and fifty meters at a near full sprint, Loð was beginning to lose pace. The steadily tilting moonlight only served as distraction for any Madgyk creature on the move. Loð only glanced down long enough to gauge a leap over a particularly rotund vine, but, when she locked her sight again the Koldus had slipped beyond the foliage and the processional grunting had ceased. “ Damn creation !” Loð spat the curse, then, losing all thought of the root issue, missed her bound and tumbled head over heels, rolling a few meters. She landed, behind first, in a caved-in burrow of some subterranean creature, closer to an Álfur in size than a Koldus. She gave herself a moment to wallow in Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 8 embarrassment and another to reorient herself. Anyone who's ever gone dancing can tell you the difficulty of overcoming dizziness, when your greatest source of light is countless, revolving fairy lights. Once Lo ð was back on her feet, though, she noticed there were no lights! The Shattered Moon was barely visible over the peaks of the ÁrTúr Mountains, which separate the desert Empire of Ár and the badland State of Sytúr. Lo ð had, at most, an hour before the Black Moon made the quickly dropping temperature reach freezing point and, after that, who knew how long until she was a flesh and ice sculpture. She had to retreat to her cave as soon as possible. Being caught during the Vart Tuung without food was unintelligent and unpleasant, but being caught without shelter was fatal. Lo ð was breathing warmth back into her sharp fingers, quickly scanning the forest for any kind of consumable vegetation, when she heard a stifled cry. My Koldus , thought Lo ð, the idea of a toasty, fur coat and warm, bloody meat heating her from the inside, as she unleashed her knife from her Dyr leather belt. She tiptoed in the direction of the distress call, then froze, figuratively, to the spot. A higher pitched, angry mewing joined in with the Koldus' bawl. Loð, almost imperceptibly, shifted the teal-blue undergrowth of the rauttre tree she was positioned behind and looked on at a scene she had never before witnessed. Lo ð spotted the Koldus, doubled over itself, trying to suffer in silence, while still expelling cubs. In most situations, an adult Koldus, this close to the Black Moon, would use the extra bodies for warmth. This litter must have been premature. It would never do to wake up, mid-hibernation, just to find yourself a meal for your progeny. Wiser to be wary and abandon the minute threats to their frozen fates. Lo ð s dark knuckles flashed white with the strengthened intensity of her knife hands grip. If she moved right, she could take the great beast down in a single strike, and, if swift enough, might secure all (now) three cubs and strangle them before they fled. Armed with a plan, she braced her knees, lowering closely to the ground, for the pounce. The fourth cub was beginning to crown. Lo ð knew she hadn't much time, before the Koldus was ready to leave, or before the nights chill set into frost. It was now, or never . . . A flash of two black blurs erupted from the trunk and top of Lo ð s hiding tree and, before the exhausted prey had time to grunt his alarm, the Koldus was dead. Lo ð s knife was stuck truly in the Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 9 midst of the animals throat and, astride it, having attacked from the canopy, a club, fashioned from a blue gem fixed into an animal bone, was lodged firmly in the Koldus' bleeding, black brain. Clutching the bone with both his hands, the assassin locked his golden eyes on Lo ð' s. This Álfur stood a large toadstool taller than Lo ð and was, clearly, a born hunter. In the rapidly vanishing moonlight, she could make out his horned helm (the four sturdy horns of an Aerb) curved down and outward to frame his face, the two spikes split down the middle into four sharpened, bloodied points. His lips were cracked so harshly they were bleeding from being pulled so tightly into a maniacal grin. In that brief second, the Koldus corpse collapsed lifelessly, pinning Loð under its own weight and the weight of its killer. The cubs had fled, stumbling over their newborn appendages. They did not care where they took them, even if their sightless eyes hadn't been met with total darkness. Loð wrestled to free herself and, had the stranger not been standing on the neck of the Koldus, directly on her chest, she may have succeeded. The man bent his knees and leaned forward, until his rotten breath overpowered the black blood pouring out over her chin. He continually leaned in and, fearing her position more than his intention, Loð tucked her chin, taking in a mouthful of pitch-like blood and spitting, as forcefully as she could, directly in the other Álfur's eyes. That did the trick. The barbarous male instinctively attempted to upright himself and, with a perfectly timed jostle, Lo ð threw him off balance and wriggled out from beneath the great beast. She wasted no time; not having let her knife leave her grasp, she pulled it up and out of the Koldus' gullet, liberated her legs, and flipped onto her stomach, jetting off on all fours. She heard the embittered voice of the hunter cursing her, but she dared not risk a backwards glance. Her eyes were on the skies. As the Rotinn Tuung vanished entirely behind the ÁrTúr mountain range, Lo ð knew the Vart Tuung was already rising, though wouldn't be visible until she was long frozen. The blaomao trees began to wilt and royal blue leaves, as large as canoes, began falling en masse. Attempting to weave in and out of the flattening foliage, and ducking and rolling to dodge a few, left Lo ð even more exhausted and disoriented. When she knew she had been turned around several times, Loð still trudged on as quickly as she could carry herself, so as not Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 10 to risk her panic transfiguring into hopeless fear. The wintery air began to form icicles in her lungs and the sweat on her forehead was solidifying, stretching her skin as quickly as she produced it. When her left foot next stepped over a fallen leaf, the ground gave way and, for the second time that night, the world spun out, and she found herself on her back, again, facing the lightless void. Since she had already lost her momentum, she sat up quietly, craning her neck in every direction, keeping her ears pricked, for any sign of peril. Though born with proficient vision suited for darkness, as the temperature dropped, Loð's sight became hazed from the fog of her panting breath. What she eventually spotted was as distressing as anything. Less than a meter from where she sat, there was a particularly tall, rotund tree root, attached to the rauttre tree from which she had stalked the Koldus. The hole she sat on was the very one she had rolled into, cleverly disguised as a leaf. Standing up, with the foliage partition littering the ground, she could even see the Koldus corpse, abandoned by the hunter in his haste to escape the quickly setting chill. Enervated from chasing, then tripping, then fleeing, only to trip again on her back, in the same exact spot, Loð laid herself flat once more and began to contemplate the benefits of an icy death. Loð tried to flex the feeling back into her fingers, but they were practically useless now. It took her a few seconds to realize that it was working, that she wasn't flexing any longer, and that her fingers were wet and warm because they were being chewed upon. She jerked her hand away and scampered from the blind Koldus cub, who was still chewing, convinced his snack had dubiously slipped his jaws grasp. The Álfur stuck her bleeding fingers in her mouth and, wihtout hesitation, took her knife, still in her uninjured hand, and brought it down with a crack on the infant's skull. The tiny carnivore ceased all movement and Loðs brain had taken up the slack. The Gods had given her a gift, practically delivered her salvation, and she would not waste it! She bolted to the clearing, attempted to move the adult Koldus and, finding she could not, removed its front paws with four mighty slashes, and returned to her hole. There wasn't time to skin the larger pelt from the animal, so, using the burrowers large paws, she set to deepening the hole until she could fit comfortably, insulating the ground with billowy blades of sky Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 11 blue grass. Bracing the top with the sturdy blaomao leaves, Loð labored without pausing and carefully lowered her legs into her burrow. Without surfeit of time, she pulled the little Koldus cub to her, cautiously covered up the slight entry with leaves and packed it tightly with the last of her store of dirt and grass. Now that she was protected from her greatest threat, the reward of a nap was in order. Then, perhaps a Koldus snack. It was remarkably cozy, truth be told; a definite upgrade from a freezing cave, no matter how spacious. Lo ð prayed she'd feel the same in an excess of thirty hours from now . . . ٭ And she, more, or less, did. Through the Vart Tuung 's thirty-four hour rise and fall, and the consequent first eight hours of the Llur Tuung 's ascent, Lo ð slept, skinned her Koldus with her knife, ate, and slept some more. The plants, which were all fully bare as little as six hours ago, all bloomed back into life within minutes of being touched by the magical, combined light of the five moons . With the obnoxious exception of the unplanned for necessity of gastric functions, the Black Moon passed without calamity. This nearly was not the case, as a greedy Jyudkin worm, hungrily excavating her ear for brains, awoke Loð with such a frenzy, her right hand immediately dug the intruder out, while her left hand shot straight through her humble roof. She twisted her clawed pinky finger, being cautious not to rip the Jyudkin, lest she tear the body and the head push its way deeper, just to feed on and incubate inside her skull. She quickly jerked her left hand back inside, to ensure her other ear was parasite free, when she noticed her hand wasn't cold. She didn't wait any longer, shooting both fists into the balmy air. Here is where we joined the Álfur woman, stretching her cramped muscles and adjusting her sight to Madgyk's most luminous season. It had been approximately twelve hours since Lo ð had finished her last helping of Koldus and was craving a roasted Haena bird. The Haena bird is an incredibly succulent horned pheasant, with four sturdy legs and metallic and stone plumage, found most commonly in the corner of Madgyk where the forest Realm of Voyð met the maritime Dominion of Yndi. The closest base of the VoyYndi range was a quarter moons travel away. In preparation, Loð returned to the clearing, now already brightly colored again by the briskly returning Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 12 vegetation, to see if the adult of the Koldus had not been thawed quickly enough to be spoiled. She would butcher herself a steak, take the luxury of firing it, then set out for the mountains. Stepping through the brush, she walked up to the crusty, red and black mess, grabbed two great handfuls of fur near the shoulder and lower back and heaved. The body moved an inordinate amount to the force applied to it and Loð gasped and took a few steps back, as the dead creature hunched its shoulders and began to rise. Madgyk is a world of incalculable enigmas and seeming impossibilities, but, even here, it is unusual for the dead to reanimate. On their own, anyhow. Loð's hands fumbled at her leather holster, but, in her parasite induced frenzy, her knife had been abandoned on the base of her burrow! The Koldus was poised on all fours now, bearing mostly on the unwounded back legs, its concave head erect, its severed, bottom jaw hanging limply and crushed eye sockets penetrating the space that Loð occupied. The second she gathered her nerve, she spun on her heels, planting her right foot for a powerful kickoff, when a calloused hand seized her ankle and brought her face down. It was the hunter, shedding the hide of the Koldus he gutted to survive the Vart Tuung The congealed blackness that had been spat in his eyes now covered him entirely, giving his own dark skin the appearance of melting; only his mad yellow eyes gave away his identity as hunter and not shadow. His horned helm propped up the face of the Koldus, until the nearly hollow corpse fell from his shoulders as he stood, like a victorious parasite reemerging from its conquered host. Lo ð kicked at him, trying to gain just enough leverage to liberate her trapped ankle, but to no avail. Her first kick landed, glancing off his knee, bringing him to his other. After the long night trapped in so little space, her muscles were still waking up. Had she been at full strength, she knew she could have broken his knee. With the second kick, the hunter caght her foot with his free hand. She tried to flip over, yet, with her ankles viced, the hunter put his knee in her back, grabbed her wrists and kept them pressed against her neck, keeping her face in the dirt, while he wrestled with her fur dressings. Loð lay there, snorting dust, and tasting blood, from gritting her teeth so fiercely. None of the pain hurt as much as the stifled fury welling in the woman's chest. Pure indignation siphoned the rest of Loð's senses to fuel her rage. She had barely even registered what exactly he was doing, before the Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 13 concluding thrust was signalled by a self-satisfactory grunt. The horrific deed took slightly over two minutes and was done . . . for her. A curtain of darkness swept instantly over the clearing, as though the black heavens themselves plummeted to Madgyk to smother the moonlight. The hunter was struck blind from the rapid disappearance of light and struck motionless with fear from the sudden onset blindness. Had he not lost his sight, his fear only would have apexed. The venom inside Loð expanded beyond her ability for containment. Her golden eyes darkened into a fiery garnet, and her pink tongue drooled unnatural, tyrian blue ooze. Words were awakening themselves in her essence: words that had lived, simultaneously, hidden by and powering her heartbeat. All this flowed from her, intrinsic with the words she chose. “ Imínn . . . Filthy . . . BASTARD . . . Bórjta . . .” With this second incantation, the hunter, attempting to flee, fell to his knees, seized with paralysis, skin burning like fire. All her words were the same language, but the enigmatic power in her inflection made half of them unrecognizable, even to those who spoke Talad. “Whimpering, coward of a man! Þ ett Dyríd . . .” At the words, his body convulsed uncontrollably, teeming with the arcane ardor Lo ð effortlessly evoked. “What is your name, scum?” The hunter, still blind, turned his head towards the voice, tears streaming from his eyes. “Spare me, oh, terrible goddess! Your servants name is Eiði!” “Not any more . . . Eí Nefní Voyð .” In a chorus of screams, that seemed to come from the ground itself, the hunter, once called Eiði, felt his legs buckle into his chest, his arms fold themselves backwards, out of their sockets. Before the lamentations ceased at last, his neck snapped, as his body continued its entropy, folding, breaking. When the bright moonlight returned, as quickly as it had been snuffed, nothing remained, save a puddle of emerald, Á lfur blood. Lo ð stood there, wide eyed (golden once more), chin dripping with the royal slime, and statuesque, not with regret, but with fear. “What have I done?!” As if in answer, a sharp, black hand, the color of space, Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 14 protruding from a black robe took her by the shoulder. By comparison, the hand made Loð's beautiful dark complexion a blush, dusk glass. The sudden touch, also by comparison, made Loð feel warm and something else, entirely indescribable in her tongue. The sensation was pleasant, but the suddenly prominent taste of the magic spittle still pooling in her jaw was not. The woman heaved forward and retched. The black hand lowered a few decimeters to pat her gently on the back. “God's work, dear daughter. That's what you've done. And quite expertly, I might add,” cooed the lilting voice of the deity, Lord Voyð. Á lfur and Vergur Five moons later, the Llur Tuung was reaching its peak in the sky again and, at the foot of the tallest mountain on Madgyk, Voy ð's Spire, a baby Álfur made her first cry, under its caprine silhouette. The babe was abandoned on the edge of the valley, adjacent to the forest of Voy ð , where she had been whelped. Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 15 Naked, bloody, and with her severed umbilical cords still attached at her stomach and each side of her neck (allowing for rapid gestation), the infant couldn't realize it, but she was exceptionally lucky. Any other parent, provided their race, would have either sold their offspring, smothered, or devoured them. The girl, more gray than black in complexion, but rolling around in bright jade blood, shrieked and shrieked. She was only a decimeter and a half, her umbilical cords the width of shoelaces, but her cry was shrill and, consequently, carried further. The only ears to hear her were those of the Lon in the mountains, the Aerb from the forest and the Refú of the river, whose mouths (in the case of the Refú, both mouths) salivated at the sound of tender, helpless meat. The three began quickly setting in, desperate to be the one to reach the prize first and make off with it, before the race became a battle. Magic has and will always act in neither positive, or negative interests, just, indeterminably, in interest. Whether it was the girl, strong with magic, like her mother before her, or the world was wielding its own, the stone outcropping the Álfur had been laid upon vanished. The little babe went rolling down the slight hill, tumbling a few meters away, right into the open petals of a fragrant lumstra flower. As the nearest of the beasts, the mountain Lon, carefully and quickly wound downhill with its four prehensile feet and chittering intimidatingly, the lumstra gently wrapped the newborn with its thick style, pulling her deep into the corolla and closing its petals, shielding the infant from sight and smell. The flowers stigma gently bent, popping its sweet, pollen covered head in the mouth of the Álfur, simultaneously feeding and quieting her. Not seconds later, the Lon (a fleet footed, saber toothed primate) was visible from the slope, where the baby had just formerly been. Shortly thereafter, a gargantuan, quadri-horned Aerb rammed through the treeline so quickly, it nearly collided wth the sudden, steep alcove. The Lon quickly abandoned its search for the source of the, now absent, cries and retreated back up the mountain a bit, to begin chucking rocks from a safe distance at the ox-like intruder. A mighty, double-mouthed python, the copper and ruby patterned Refú slithered stealthfully from the nearby stream. Poking its horned nose around the underbrush, using its sensitive underside to feel vibrations from the earth, it felt the rustling of the Á lfur. Intelligently avoiding the other beasts by meters Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 16 and undulating towards the closed lumstra blossom, the Refú unhinged it second jaw from the top (Refú have one mouth on top of the other; the top mouth, closest to the eyes, does not serve as a mouth for ingestion, but as a corosion proof pouch for the secretion and storage of highly fatal, acidic spit. Once the acid is diluted with the victims blood shortly after their very quick death, that mouth unhinges and bends behind the head to allow the bottom mouth to ingest victims up to three times the Refú's size). It was then that a rock missile from the Lon met with a headbutt from the Aerbs thick skull, ricocheting off, striking the Refú in the head and instantly dead. After a solid ten minutes of back and forth, the remaining living predators became bored with the stalemate; the Lon, unable to fling anything harder, and the Aerb, unable to scale the mountainside. Forgetting why they had been gathered there in the first place, they parted ways in search of food. By now, the baby had had her fill of pollen, drank her fill of nectar and was nearly asleep. The Llur Tuung was almost gone and the Colored Moon, Li ð Tuung , was catching the last of its light on its ascent upward, turning the sky scarlet, tawny and cerulean, when the child at last awoke. The lumstra flower was not a sentient plant and whomevers spell it was under couldn't last forever. Álfur younglings mature at a much faster rate than humans, roughly seveny-three times faster physically and one hundred and eighty times faster mentally, though their lifespans eclipse ours. This meant that only one nights nursing on nectar and sleep had allowed the girl to grow to the size of a healthy nineteen week old, with the mental acuity of a six month old. The tiny babe kicked and struggled, just in fidgety anxiousness of her incoming gas, and put too much strain on the orange petals, bending them down and gently rolling onto the navy blue grass. The petals upturned, to subsume the nutritious, multi-hued moonlight. The child was anxious to use her new, barely visible teeth and to give crawling a go. She righted herself to her hands and knees, and set out for the world. It did not take long for the three umbilical cords, still attached at either side of her neck and stomach, to catch onto a rock and some twigs and tear themselves from her in the girls haste. Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 17 She soon collected many wayward insects on her sticky-with- nectar hands and, tickling her skin with their slight legs, she popped them eagerly into her mouth. While the Full Moon was a time for hungry animals to fill their bellies, the Li ð Tuung was the most subtlely gorgeous nights of Madgyks calendar and, after the nearing subtropical temperatures of the Llur Tuung , it is the night most animals might be found sleeping in the temperate glow. That night of highest climate was the greatest generator of Madgyk's water system. Consequently, when it came to an end, the following Li ð Tuung always saw a rainstorm on one of Madgyk's five dominions and, as fate would have it, this night, the rain fell on the head of the Á lfur. Had she been higher in elevation in the mountains, or in the desert of Ár, on the opposite corner of the world, she would have had the Kar to fear ( a six eyed, sharp toothed, deep- violet, killer raven), or some other predatory bird. As it was, the forest domain of Madgyk had smaller, less ornery avian specimens, such as the downy Geiss and the quick flitting Kufgrud. Though the girl crawled her way through the mud, the heavily woven canopy shielded her from most of it. Unfortunately, it also kept her from having more than intermittent drops to drink. The babe made her way, keeping closely to both the treeline and the mountainside, until she found a blaomao leaf, bowing under the weight of the lavender raindrops pooling in its basin. A small Orðr was washing its marmot-like face in the receptacle that was almost scraping the ground, but scampered off at the sound of the girls menacing coos. She drank and drank, until her thirst had been slaked and her hands and arms had been cleaned of nectar, mud, and bugs, and the rest of her washed of her mothers emerald blood. She at last looked like a baby, and not an ebony, tentacled alien for the first time since birth. Quite contentedly stuffed and exhausted, the little girl decided to make her way back to the protection of the foliage. She found a minute hole in the trunk of a rauttre tree, which she was just capable of squeezing herself into and just lucky enough to find uninhabited. When she awoke, in the middle of the Lið Tuung , she repeated her process. This is very much how the childs first few moons went, until she learned how to walk, by her first Broken Moon. She never would have survived her first Vart Tuung , had it not been for a geyser she had discovered, hidden near the base of one of the eastern-most Voy ð mountains. Falling asleep spooning the jutting Jacob Tallmon Ancient Madgyk 18 aperture was the only way she had made it through the night warm enough to stay alive. Once she had mastered steps and the art of stealthfully applying them, the Álfur had become an accomplished sneak by her second Li ð Tuung . Now that her teeth had strengthened, she could recognize the signs of a fresh kill, follow scavenging birds to its location, listen for large predators, and hide when they came near. It wasn't until she was seventeen moons old (intellectually a ten year old, with the body of a foot tall three year old) that the girl saw her first Speakers. The Álfur was pushing herself further and faster, without resting. The upcoming mountainous border she could survey up ahead was backlit by the dazzling array of Colored Moonlight. This is the balmiest and brightest night to live on Madgyk. The Colored Moon, being the moon to peak after the Full Moon, sends waves of light, in every colour imaginable, streaking across the horizon. The girl loved imagining those lights were the Gods, fighting legendary magical duels overhead. This time, she was not far off. As she concluded her voyage up the entire north-eastern length of the mountains of Voy ð , she came to the corner where they meet the Mountains of Syt ú r and form the SytOy ð range, the only border and entrance into the Golden Badlands of Syt úr . She heard a tremendous cacophony, like bombs going off and dozens of animals hissing and spitting at each other, and immediately ran into the forest for shelter. From the relative safety of the treeline, instead of a divine struggle, she saw an unholy display. Giant creatures, formed of fire, were standing side by side on the tops of the mountains, facing into the forest of Voy ð . She had been unable to make out their light from the warping pattern of colors in the sky, but now in plain view, the mountain was on fire. There were at least a hundred of them, burning almost five meters high. They were only discernible from a single inferno running the length of the mountains by their tremendous yellow eyes and shades of arms, which were hurling flaming missiles onto the scene below, whistling through the cool, night air. Sliding down the mountainside came at