This part recounts the story of the inhabitants of one area of Sonmatia Four about 20,000 years earlier, from NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars.
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The Monuments of Zolko
King Zolko struggled to pull enough air into his lungs as he sat on his throne and looked over the shriveled fruit and hard bread on the silver platter close at hand. For a moment he bristled, then relaxed as he remembered the even-poorer food in the marketplace these days. Several councilors sat in lesser chairs, also struggling to breathe while keeping their gaze respectfully low. Servants stood, hands behind their backs, trying to hide their discomfort.
The great doors at the far end of the hall opened, and a well-dressed man strode in. For a moment, harsh sunlight entered, along with some reddish-brown dust. The door guards quickly closed the doors and tried to muffle their coughing.
“Councilor Ganlo!” the king said with both a friendly greeting and frustration. “Why is the air so thin today? Did you speak to the priests and scholars?”
Ganlo stopped the proper distance from the throne and bowed. “I did, Your Majesty, as many as I could find. Some have abandoned their duties and left the city. The priests have been praying day and night, they say, and the scholars have searched every book. No one knows what else can be done to appease the gods.”
The king suddenly stood, his chin thrust forward. “The scholars have repeatedly stood before me and proclaimed that all important knowledge is in their books! I want all of you on the streets, searching for answers! I will not
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let this be the end of our great kingdom!”
The other councilors, most of them old men, started to rise.
“Sire, there is one other possibility,” Ganlo said, head half-bowed.
“Speak!”
“There is a woman in the marketplace. She calls herself a prophet, but the priests deny it. She says we need not fear, that the gods will save our kingdom by taking a few to a new land flowing with nut milk and honey. She gathers people around her to listen, and children sit in her lap and are comforted.”
The king stood thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “How does she say the chosen few will be selected?”
“I do not know, Sire.”
“Go! All of you! Sit at her feet and listen, and come back in three days with what you learn!”
The councilors of King Zolko listened to the prophet for two days, and when she was at table eating, or asleep, they questioned the priests and scholars further. Some of the councilors became convinced that the wrath of the gods could be appeased by great works. Others were not so optimistic, and tried to discover how the chosen few would be selected, as the king had ordered.
On the third day, Councilor Sarto crept away and sold all his property to hire a ship and many strong men. He believed the gods would look favorably on them if they found the most beautiful gemstone in the world and placed it in the temple. He carried books and maps from the great library, all telling him that such a gemstone could only be found across the sea, in the Desert of Bakka, somewhere along the eight degree line, for that was the number most sacred to the gods.
Also on the third day, Councilor Memna, the greatest politician in the kingdom and the king’s official speaker, slipped away from the group to sell all her property and hire a ship. “I shall create a city in the wilderness, seventy-six kilometers west by northwest of here. All who love the gods may come, bring their children, and help make a society of peace and harmony.
The gods will see our creation of love, smile upon us, and make the wind to blow and the rain to fall.”
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Word spread rapidly, and when she arrived at the dock to board the ship, hundreds of people were already assembled and ready to follow, in rowboats if necessary.
On the evening of the third day, Ganlo and the few other remaining councilors entered the king’s hall.
“Your Majesty, we are divided on how the gods might be appeased. Sarto seeks the most beautiful gemstone. Memna plans to create a city of peace and harmony. The priests, however, are convinced that only great monuments would be pleasing to the gods, monuments bearing the likeness of the high kings, such as yourself, and the high priests . . .”
“But I sent you to learn how the chosen few will be selected!”
“We were able to discover little, Sire. The prophet only babbles about children and their pure hearts. I don’t think she knows.”
The king questioned the other councilors. They were all in agreement with Ganlo, and could add little else. Silence prevailed in the great hall as the king rubbed his chin. Finally, he spoke. “So be it. Scribes!”
Two old men emerged from nearby rooms and sat down at writing desks.
“Let it be known that all men, and all women not with child, must report to the palace at sunrise every morning until suitable monuments have been raised to let the gods see the faces of all the high kings and high priests of the land.”
“But Sire,” Ganlo interrupted, “bringing that much stone from beyond the sea will take years.”
The king took a breath of the thin air. “Then we shall not use new stone.
We shall take down the buildings of the city, one by one. If necessary, only the foundation of the palace will be spared, a place for the gods to rest as they admire the beauty and grandeur of the Monuments of Zolko!”
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The City of Memna
Councilor Memna worked side by side with her people, never asking them to do anything she wasn’t willing to do. So it was that they worked with glad hearts, and within a year they all had houses and the new city was functioning well.
The air seemed to get no worse, and some even said it was a little better.
The drought continued and the crops were poor, but they shared alike in what they had, and Memna made sure no one hoarded more than their share of anything. She dispensed justice as cases were brought to her, barely pausing in her work with stone chisel or garden hoe in hand. The people around her listened to her wise words as they worked, and knew in their hearts they had chosen the right path and their city would be pleasing to the gods.
“Why do you not take the best food and live a life of leisure, like King Zolko?” a young woman asked, pausing in her work to comfort her baby.
Memna smiled. “The gods are pleased when each citizen gives what she is able, and only takes what she needs. That is the essence of civilized life. King Zolko’s way is the way of the animals in the jungle of Torku.”
The girl smiled and returned to her work.
As the months of the second year began to pass, some of the people of the City of Memna became unhappy. Memna’s judgments always favored social harmony, and whenever that goal was in conflict with the needs of an individual, the group won and the person lost.
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Those who saw the city as a hive, whose purpose was to function as efficiently as possible, were happy. Artists and other sorts of free-thinkers did not feel the same.
Also, travelers occasionally arrived from the old capital city, now being quickly dismantled to create the monuments King Zolko had ordered. They hoped to find better air, less dust, and perhaps a little rain, but were disappointed. Memna tried to silence them and brand them as heretics, but the truth crept throughout the city like a disease.
Some people gathered in houses late in the evenings to carry on the traditions of their previous guilds and orders. One such order contained a couple of old masters and several young students, all dedicated to mental discipline and psychic abilities. After doing her share of the work of the city for more than a year and a half, Nosta, a young woman of the order, decided it was time to act. She knelt before her masters one evening.
“I believe the City of Memna is pleasing to many of the people, those who never have an original thought in their heads. I do not believe the gods are so small-minded. I have repaired a little boat that no one wanted, and I plan to depart tonight. I will find the fabled Arch on the Island of Glimpa, where I will sit in meditation until the gods receive my offering of mind and spirit, or until I die.”
The masters and the other students of the order quickly gathered as much bread and dried fruit as they could find, and went down to the shore to see their brave friend off in the darkness. Nosta was never seen again by mortal eyes.
After that time, the air became thinner and thinner, and no more clouds appeared in the yellowing sky. The crops failed at both the Monuments of Zolko and the City of Memna. By the end of the second year, the people were dying and had forgotten all about the joys of peace and harmony. No one in either city claimed to know what might be pleasing to the gods.
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The Fabled Arch of Glimpa
Day one. I rowed all night long. As the sun rose, my arms felt like lead, but I dared not stop or I would drift south. I entered a second-level walking meditation, but willed my arms to move instead of my feet. In a clear sky, the sun seemed bent on cooking me. Somehow, as the blessed evening finally arrived, I crawled onto the rocks at the south end of Glimpa.
Day four. The sun-blisters on my hands and arms are beginning to harden. The air is so thin, I drag myself along slowly, ever searching for the Arch. I found one spring with water, but many others are dry.
Day seven. The fabled Arch stretches itself before me, silent as a . . . tomb.
My tomb, I guess. Whether the gods accept my humble gift or not, I know my mortal body is done. I shall never know the touch of a mate, nor bear a child.
Perhaps, if my offering is accepted, the wind will blow again, the rain will fall, and my friend Kelsa will ask Regno to join with her, and they will have a daughter and name her Nosta.
Day eleven. At sunrise I sit on the Arch to salute the new day and summon courage and joy into my heart where dread and fear lurk in waiting. I can see smoke rising from the City of Memna, and in the exact opposite direction, somewhere in the Desert of Bakka, more smoke from the Mines of Sarto. By mid-morning I seek the shade beneath the Arch, and descend into the deepest levels of meditation. Slowly, without any act of will, I allow my spirit to rise up to Heaven.
Day fifteen. I am completely out of food. I am too weak to travel far, and
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the only things growing here are bitter and make me lose more than they give me. Even if I had the will to return to the boat, I know I would die on the way.
No, I will finish what I started, here, at Glimpa’s Arch. The act belongs to me, the consequence, pleasing or not, belongs to the gods.
Day seventeen. I can no longer climb the Arch to see the sunrise. My world has shrunk to the little strip of shade beneath the Arch as it moves from hour to hour.
Day twenty-one. Yesterday I sat in the most joyful awareness of the gods for half the day and all the night. The morning glow in the sky was like a gift to me, a little private celebration, for I no longer have the strength to follow the shade. After I write this, I will prop myself against the base of my beloved Arch, giving everything in my mind and heart and spirit to the gods. As the sun climbs into the sky, I will die.
My hand shakes and I can write no more.
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The Mines of Sarto
No writings or recordings have been discovered that detail the lives of the people who worked these mines. Apparently all of the people who labored here were driven by an intense desire to find a gemstone worthy of offering to their gods. There is no evidence of slavery.
Nor were there any class or status differences. Councilor Sarto appears to have worked right alongside the other miners, day after day, until the very end. Judging by the positions of bodies, tools, and gemstones, the following reconstruction of events seems most likely: Sarto and his followers decided on this location about half a year after crossing the sea. With shovels and blasting powder, they dug shafts into the bedrock until they found veins of crystals that angled deep into the planet.
These they followed as far as they could, bringing every find to the surface to be cleaned and inspected.
About a year into their work, they could go no deeper as carbon dioxide began to fill the lower tunnels. Many miners died from the bad air or sheer exhaustion. Sarto and a few hearty followers pressed on, taking turns working for just a few minutes each in the deep places.
Those who could no longer work in the mines helped to clean and sort the crystals, each hoping to find the object of their quest. When nothing else could be done, they burned whatever they could find to send their prayers up to the gods.
The day came when only Sarto and one other miner remained alive. The
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miner was large and strong, but his name is not known. He struggled up from one of the deep tunnels, placed a dirt-filled box at Sarto’s feet, and died.
After honoring the fallen man with tools in his hands and gemstones over his eyes, Sarto was amazed to find, in the box of dirt, the most beautiful cluster of crystals he had ever seen. Alone, he lovingly cleaned the precious object. With his last bit of strength, Sarto placed it on a boulder for the gods to see, cried himself to sleep, and never woke up.