Chapter 6
Histoire of Magic, Man, Creation and Exile
As Ray stepped into the dark space before him, torches that were lining the walls began lighting up one after another, illuminating the temple interior, revealing a massive space. The walls were plain, the glyphs that were usually present in the interior of temples being noticeably absent. On the floor was scattered more debris, clay pots shattered and swords and shields lay broken. The light from the torches only illuminated his half of the room, revealing a staircase leading upward, and further in on the other side, he could see the outline of another entrance, the light coming from outside not being enough to do more than announce the existence of said door. With no other direction to go but up, as he could see the door way opposite him led to the other side of the temple, he began to climb the stairs.
As he ascended the stairs, the glyphs that had been so conspicuously absent in the room below, finally made their presence known. Stone carvings of a god, wielding the items eerily similar to the ones in his possession, rising to meet a giant snake in battle. The god, wreathed in a regalia of feathers on his head and shoulders, the biggest of which stretching from the top of his head all the way to where his back met his legs. A battle skirt around his legs, depicted to be made of jaguar skin, and jewelry on his arms and ears.
The depictions were different variations of the same scene. One showed the god with only staff in hand and the snake rearing back like a cobra, in another the god had his foot against the head of the snake, pressing it down into the ground, his sword poised above his head, ready to strike. It was not all depictions of victory for the god however, as there were plenty where the snake got the better of him. In some, the snake had the god in between its mighty jaws, in others, the snake coiled around him, constricting the god with its massive body. Ray couldn’t help but notice that there was an equal number of victories for the god as there was for the snake. It seemed that the two were supposed to be evenly matched.
He soon reached the top of the stairs, and there he found what must have been the last carving. It showed both the god and the snake, holding each other’s heads, their final battle a monument to the concept of mutual destruction. Ray stopped at the stop of the stairs and just stared at the carving for a few minutes. The carving renewed his enthusiasm to lead others here, he had never heard of such a carving being found before. But then he remembered that he had to go to China after this was done, what good would his fame be then? With a start, he tore his gaze away from the carving in front of him.
Something had been bothering him since he had picked up the staff. Whenever he tried to get excited over something when he was here, his attention quickly got drawn elsewhere. The same sort of slide of attention that happened whenever someone would walk into a room to get something, but forgot what they were doing there in the first place once they were there. The first time it had happened was when he had first seen the murals of wizards on the tentacle-root thing outside. He had seen the mages, and a part of him couldn’t remember there ever being mentioned Mayans having any mages in any of his classes. Yet the excitement one would expect to find at gaining such knowledge was not there. Instead he had moved on in favor of the rest of the mural.
While this could be excused as just the overall mural being worthy of his attention rather than its minute details, the same thing happened to the staff. He had fully intended to hand over the items in his hands at first, such was the law in Belize, but his mind was overcome with greed uncharacteristic of him. He had shaken it off and resolved to do his civic duty, but once again his excitement at having the items in hand had quickly dissipated and his attention had focused on everything else but the things in hand and what they meant. And now here he was, his mind grappling with some realization but frustratingly unable to do the big reveal. It wasn’t like he could say his mind had more important matters to worry about. He did not feel in any real danger, his father and uncle had always made him feel safe and he had absolute trust that they would find him, so it was only a matter of surviving until they did, something he had been taught by Han to do. Sure he had skipped the first step to find water, but to be fair, a city as massive as this would be bound to have a source of water nearby and last he checked it was still day time outside, so unless something happened to him in here, he should be fine.
Getting back to the point, Ray was getting a bit apprehensive by now, the realization that there was something he should have figured out gnawing at his guts. Shaking his head free of these thoughts, he turned it left and right, to see where he could go from here, and saw that there was a door way on either side, looking to curve in, leading whoever walked through to some space behind the wall of carvings in front of him.
Turning the corner, he walked into a smaller room than the one below, but rather than being empty like its lower counterpart, it sported massive pillars around the perimeter of the room. 8 of them by his count, there were human remains here and there, some still holding unto their weapons and shields, others hugging said pillars, still holding on for dear life, as if they had yet to realize life was no longer something they could cling to. But what truly drew Ray’s attention, was the throne in the middle facing him. A ray of sunshine from above, stabbing through the hole in the roof, illuminated the chair, cladding it in a fabric of incandescence. On the throne itself, sat the body of an old man, surprisingly whole despite its obvious age. The last remains of grey hair plastered against his scalp, his head tilted to the side against his left shoulder and chair. He must’ve been a warrior, for his body was painted with tattoos similar to the ones he had seen warriors sport in the depictions on the root below. His sun kissed skin was radiant, the soft glow defying the light of the sun above. His hands lay resting on the arms of the chair, his legs firmly planted on the ground. The overall impression the man gave was the very definition of the word timeless.
The only odd thing about the old man was the gaping wound in his stomach. It had long stopped bleeding but there were black veins spreading from the edges for a few centimeters. He began to approach the throne, hoping that there might be other artifacts he could take with him. It was then he noticed the shadow. Of course, how could he have forgotten? The tentacle-root had one end stuck into this very temple had it not? His eyes made their way up as he walked closer to the throne, but he found himself slowing down, his back rapidly building up a cold sweat. Soon, he simply stopped walking, his eyes transfixed to what was above him. His body began to shake as the truth of what he was now looking at kept slamming into his psyche, the experience made worse by his consciousness’ feeble attempts at trying to deny it.
For up above, looming over both him and the throne with the dead old man, was the lifeless head of massive black snake, its jaws having unhinged in its final moments of life, the lifeless jewels that were once its eyes perpetually fixed on the throne and its occupant. He began to step back, regretting his every decision since climbing down from the hill leading into the city. How could he have not realized it? When he had placed his hand against the snake, he had clearly felt the scales, so why had he told himself it was smooth? A splitting head ache began to build, as the beast above him destroyed so much of what he had once thought was true about the world. Maybe it was a dinosaur, somehow preserved like the old man on the throne. Yes, that made sense, it all makes sense now.
“Be calm child, Hapikern…. He is alive no more. You may be at peace here.” There it was again, the voice from before. The same voice that had called him forward and filled him with the longing to answer it. But where was its source? Ray looked around the room before his attention once again focused on the old man before him. It can’t be …….
“Yes, it very much can.” The voice resounded throughout the room. The old man lifted his head, and his eyes opened. Ray had thought that the glow of the old man’s skin already had the effect of out glowing the sunlight, but he was wrong. The old man’s eyes were completely white at first before irises the color of jade floated up to the surface, the blacks of his eyes occasionally sparkling with tiny pricks of light, similar to distant stars in the night sky. Ray stared at them, wondering whether or not he’d finally lost his mind.
“Who, or what, are you?” Ray finally asked. If he was going crazy, he might as well get answers.
“I have abandoned my name long ago. The people of this land, they gave me the name….. Nohochacyum.” The old man looked at Ray, his gaze seemingly piercing through the very fabric of who Ray was as an individual. A frown creased his face. “I apologize, I did not realize that you were still under the effect of the World Glamour”. With that, the old man stood up and took the few steps between him and Ray. He slowly lifted his right arm and placed it on Ray’s forehead. Ray, who was now frozen in abject terror of the creature above him and in front of him, could only close his eyes and pray that his death was a quick one. The old man’s hand was cool to the touch and he felt something come out of it and bury itself into his own skull, but that was it. His head didn’t explode into a million pieces, there wasn’t even any pain. Cracking open an eye to see what the old man was doing, he saw that the throne had been reclaimed and Nohochacyum was now favoring him with a smile. “There now, all better?”
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Ray fully opened both eyes and rubbed his temples. The splitting head ache was gone. It felt as if some mental block had been lifted. He had not realized how muddled his mind had truly been. All of his thoughts regarding the murals on the snake, or rather, the patterns on the snake’s scales no longer seemed to dissipate as soon as he thought about them. The excitement he had initially felt for getting his hands on the items in his possession filled him once more. He noticed that even the old man’s voice was no longer thunderous as it had once been.
“What did you do to me?” Ray asked, “And I’m sorry but I’ve never heard of the name Nohochacyum. I know you probably expected me to recognize it but I’m drawing nothing but blanks.”
“I owe you an apology child. I interrupted your rite of passage into the Divide, and as such you still remained under partial influence of the World Glamour. As for knowing who I was, there is no need to worry. The records of who I was to your people have been largely erased by my own command. All you would have been able to find out about my name is that I was one of the gods that aided your people in becoming who they were. My grudge with Hapikern did not give me much opportunity to ingratiate myself to the Mayan people after the initial settlements.” Nohochacyum explained, his head resting on one of his hands as he gave Ray an assessing look.
“I can tell from your reactions to everything that you really have no idea what’s going on here. And yet your body and mind has such a solid foundation in place, which was why I chose you in the first place.”
“What are you talking about? Chose me? For what?” Ray asked, but before he could fire out another barrage of questions, the old man flashed from his chair to stand before him in the time it took him to blink. “It would be far easier and less time consuming if I just transferred the knowledge I can share with you directly. We don’t have time to do otherwise.” And with that he reached out with both hands and clasped either side of Ray’s head. Once again Ray felt something leave Nohochacyum’s hands and enter his skull.
The headache that had assaulted him just a few minutes before came back in full force and his vision went white.
*****
Eons ago, there was nothing but chaos. Pure chaos with no direction was simply nothingness. But then, the Progenitor decided that this chaos needed to be channeled, otherwise it would be quite a waste. Chaos was the purest form of possibility you see. Every decision ever made, every action taken was but chaos given direction. The Progenitor saw this, and in his infinite wisdom, bent Chaos to his will to perform the 7 Great Acts. Through these Great Acts, the Progenitor sculpted the universe as we know it.
For his first Act, he saw that there was only darkness, so he created the stars to provide light and created balance. The Progenitor enjoyed the light with its ability to illuminate and was enthralled by the potential mysteries that the darkness could hide, but saw that there was nothing for the light and dark to reveal and hide respectively. Thus for his second Act, he drew forth the elements from the fabric of Chaos in the first act of Magic and formed many worlds. He used the properties of Chaos to influence the possibilities, and thus fantastic planets dotted the tapestry of the universe. But these planets were bare and were missing something that would make each one a true work of art as the Progenitor intended. So for his third Act, he forged himself a mighty hammer and forged the planets with mighty blows to allow them to sustain life. Then he channeled Chaos to create the liquids necessary to support the life he intended to create. To complete his third Act, took chunks of Chaos and molded them into seeds, sowing them into the worlds he had painstakingly prepared.
Taking a step back, the Progenitor noticed his worlds were stagnant, for his fourth Act, he rearranged the worlds and created the first Laws, weaving Gravity, Time, Space, Life, Death, Destruction and Creation, and by once again letting the powers of possibility that Chaos provided, created the rules of existence. Such was his great work that the worlds now had moons and were close to the stars, allowing the life he had already sown to flourish. But what use is all that he had created if the plants were all that he made. Thus the Progenitor used his mastery of the laws he had created and created the beasts that roamed his worlds. He expressed his boundless creativity and ingenuity by making them in all shapes and forms.
Yet, the mighty Progenitor was still not satisfied. For when he had made all the countless beasts, he had diluted the sheer power of possibilities and created what we now know as potential. He had weaved this concept into his creations, allowing them to change their nature as they see necessary. But the creatures he made were nothing but instinct. Yet he enjoyed them far too much to simply wipe them away and start anew. So, he decided to make something new, something far more intelligent and he used himself as an example. He created the races and gave them all gifts alongside the power of potential he had extracted from Chaos. He made the Elves, the Dwarves, the Orcs, the Gnomes, the Tieflings, and finally he made Humanity. Having been made in his image, he saw fit to let us wield a shadow of his great power, and the races dubbed this gift Magic and called the unfiltered source of power Genesis. It is from this source of power that all other sub-types originate.
At this point, the Progenitor was incredibly happy and satisfied with all that he had accomplished. Watching his creations live their lives, he decided to give them all, once final gift. For his final Great Act, the Progenitor in all his kindness, gave his creations free will. He took a step back and let them live their lives, and only interfered when asked. He was content to watch us live, laugh, love, cry, and although it hurt him whenever we hated, killed, envied, he still loved us.
Humanity lived in relative harmony with the 6 other races. Until the great Sin. You see, at some point after the Progenitor had created the universe, the races cumulatively prayed for some way to traverse through the other worlds. Magic was yet in its infancy and the branch of Translocation was not even a concept yet. The Progenitor was intrigued by this request, and in a fashion that only the Progenitor could have done, he once again bent Chaos to his will, and sculpted the World Tree, it’s branches and roots all connecting to the many worlds he created. Just as the Universe he had created was ever expanding because of the power of Chaos, so was this tree, always growing, always connecting to whatever new worlds would pop up as a result of the Progenitor’s great work. The exact nature of the Sin cannot be known to you at this time, but know this, the Progenitor was torn, for the Sin had placed the other 6 races against Humanity, and they demanded that Humanity be wiped out from existence as punishment. The Progenitor could not bring himself to slaughter his children so wantonly, especially as the future generations would have not been at fault for the sins of the ancestors. So instead, Humanity was exiled to an obscure region in the Universe, and was allowed to live under the stipulation that no more than 10% of the total population was allowed to wield the Gift of Genesis at any given time until an indeterminate amount of time had passed. Only then would they be given the chance to rejoin the cosmos at large.
*******
Ray’s vision returned to normal, his body hunched over, taking deep gasping breaths.
“Why am I not panicking about all of this? Why do I feel like this is something I’ve known my entire life?” Ray asked. And it was true, the hysteria that such knowledge would’ve normally caused a person was nowhere to be found.
“Because your very being has always known this. It is something that all of his creations know inherently. The gods of old purposefully gave everyone different versions of the truth, as our previous attempt at keeping to the rules destroyed the planet we had originally inhabited. But these are truths for another time.” Nohochacyum said as he walked back and sat on the throne once more. “I took the liberty of checking some of your memories to see what the outside world is like and I must say that you mortals have done quite well for yourselves to have gotten so many technological advancements through Artifice alone. I also now know how it is your body and mind have such strong foundations. That father of yours has probably been preparing you to take on his legacy. I know it is a lot of information to take in, but I simply do not have the time to answer any questions.”
“You’re right, it is too much information to take in, but my father promised me answers when this was all over, and as such I’ll just have to have faith that at the very least the answers he gives me will help me find the answers to the dozens of questions you’ve raised.” Ray could only sigh in defeat. He was far beyond getting surprised at this point and after having put aside so many shocks to the back of his mind all day, really, what’s a few more? If anything, this would all be a dream or illusion he was experiencing after fainting from a botched landing.
“Good. The reason we are running out of time is because the corpse of the snake above me. His name was Hapikern. My grudges with it are my own, and something I’ve long settled. In our final fight, I burned up all of my magical progress to temporarily increase my power enough to defeat and kill him. What I didn’t know, was that he had been infected with a shard of Chaos. I took out his core and integrated it into myself, but not before a sliver of his power was taken by the shard. All this time I’ve sat here, doing my best to suppress it, but at the end of the day, despite me having been given the title god, I am still but a man. My ability to suppress the shard weakens as we speak. I…. I did not want to do as the other gods did and pass on my progress to someone else. But the flows of Chaos are moving forward, and I feel that my power will be needed in the trials to come.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Ray asked incredulously. He was wrong, there were definitely some things that could shatter his attempts at compartmentalizing.
“An astute one you are. Yes, I am offering you my power Raymundo. I am offering you the potential of a god.”