Page 1 of Silverbow
Prologue
On the first day, a day that may have spanned a millennium or only a single moment, there was nothing at all. The vast emptiness devoid of all matter stretched in an infinite expanse of black. There was no light, no sound, only the cold, desolate darkness.
Suddenly, the blast of a horn rippled through the emptiness. But there was nothing to carry its vibrations, no ear to hear its resonance. There was only Nimala. Cast into the ether from some other place beyond, the God of Spirit drifted. Formless, intangible, filling the unfillable void, Nimala was everything and nothing at all.
Perhaps it was Nimala who brought that horn from where they had come, managed to cling to the curved tube and flared bell as they hurtled through time and space. Or perhaps, in the eons drifting in the nothingness, with nothing but their own despondent lullaby to keep them company, Nimala found a way to craft their own horn to replicate that single note they once heard. Perhaps Nimala meant for the horn to return them to the place from which they’d come.
But even as Nimala worked the valves and their songs were swallowed up by the lonely darkness, they remained. As time stretched eternal, the song grew more forlorn, more bleak, until one day, Nimala composed the first summoning.
It was Simdeni who was first drawn to the Horn of Making. And when he crossed the ether to answer its call, he brought his drum, placing it in the palm of Nimala’s outstretched hand. With stick and mallet, Simdeni pounded, shaping valleys and gorges, hills and mountains. And with one ringing blow, the God of Earth set the globe spinning and caressed it with his rich, rumbling bass.
On Nimala played and next came Mosphaera, Goddess of Air. She wrapped her winds around Simdeni’s form like a lover, giggling and caressing. Her delightful trill flitted through his peaks and spires, raced low across his plains and sighed through his valleys. When her affections went unrequited, her winds became a tempest as she howled her rage and heartbreak, drowning out the drums as she scoured away the sharp edges of Simdeni’s rough hewn globe.
Solignis chased Mosphaera. The God of Fire pined for her, needed her, to feed both his flame and the bellows of his many keyed organ. It was for Mosphaera he climbed the scales to hang the sun in the sky. But Mosphaera loved another, and it was envy that had him burrowing to the core and battling the God of Earth. Where his infernal flame boiled rock, stone belched into the sky and lava seeped out in red rivers, rewriting the song to his liking.
Sakaala was last to answer the Horn of Making. The Goddess of Water fell upon the globe and tempered Solignis with a furious hiss. It was her aria, her reverberating strings, that pushed Mosphaera from Simdeni’s low places and claimed them for her own. Where she clashed with the Goddess of Air for the right of being, their songs unleashed thunder to rival Simdeni and lightning to challenge Solignis.
After so long alone, so long with no one to hear their song, so long with no one to sing or play along, Nimala reveled in the company of the other gods. It was they who took the role of conductor, trying to meld the parts into movements, into pieces. Composed by the God of Spirit, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water sang a new song; a harmony heard never before and never since.
Nimala kept composing, but often, the others improvised and played off page, hardly paying any heed to Nirmala's work. And soon, they grew despondent again. Simdeni had shape. Mosphaera sighed. Solignis consumed. Sakaala flowed. Nimala could only watch and listen and compose.
But compose they did, etching their favorite bars in the ether between the stars. The God of Spirit found a new octave with the Horn of Making, and with its rich, resonant sound, they snagged the interest of the other gods once more. They were persuaded to put down their storming and sighing and erupting long enough to to take up percussion and wind and keys and strings again, and they coaxed forth a new song.
It was the song of life; lush and green where Sakaala and Simdeni sang their duet; pale and gritty where Solignis held fast. Mosphaera scattered seed in her sighs, and Nimala reveled in their creation as roots took hold and grew.
Pine forests carpeted Simdeni’s strongholds, plains of grass whispered at Mosphaera’s touch. Creatures of wing and feather delighted the Goddess of Air. Creatures of shell and scale sprawled in Solignis’s shimmering heat. Schools of fish swam in Sakaala’s watery depths. For a time, the gods basked in the serenity of that song.
But again, Nimala grew despondent. They could not touch life the way the others could. So the God of Spirit scrawled a new solo for Simdeni, the first to answer their call. Simdeni took it up, belting out the bass of this new song, sculpting the dwarves from his beloved stone. But what Simdeni didn’t realize was that Nimala had written a part for themselves. A duet. And the God of Spirit filled their heads with thought and their hearts with dreams.
The stone men played with rock and flame, but rarely did they emerge to be kissed by wind or rain. Soon, Mosphaera and Sakaala grew envious and asked for their own songs, so Nimala composed a trio. And as the goddesses sang, Nimala played their horn. That became the song of men.
Solignis never cared much for life. He burned, devoured, consumed. But above all, he had always wanted for Mosphaera. So Solignis invited Nimala to his organ, and in the places where flame melted stone and belched sulfur into the sky, he played along with their horn, hatching the dragons; gifting them the wings he so desperately wanted to sail in Mosphaera’s skies.
For a time that may have been a millennium or a single moment, the gods sighed in the cacophony of this new song.
Nimala was at last contented, having gifted the dwarves and men with the dream songs. There, the folk could walk with Nimala between worlds. The God of Spirit could finally touch them.
The other gods may have looked the other way had the dwarves and the men not started worshiping Nimala in their halls, naming the God of Spirit and sending up offerings. But gods are jealous by nature, and they would not be outdone. So to their most devout, they began to teach their own songs.
Simdeni taught the dwarves his songs of metals and ores and gemstones. Mosphaera and Sakaala taught the men their songs of shapes, trees, storms, and shadows. And new voices joined the chorus with the godsung gifts.
Nimala fretted over what might happen when the wrong notes were struck, the wrong valves pressed, the wrong strings plucked. In their hubris, the others did not heed Nimala’s warnings. And as Nimala feared, those who weren’t chosen to bear the gifts began to covet the songs.
At first, the gods were flattered. Men flocked to the sacred places adding their voices and their instruments to the racket. But the music became disfigured and distorted. When men tried to craft their own Horn of Making, the song warbled, and the gods were faced with something new.
A new minor key that crept and clashed. A song of darkness and envy and pride. A song to challenge the gods.
With that song and grizzly sacrifice, red blood turned black, and the witches rose from the sacred waters at Templeton. They sang new songs, songs not meant for men, not even meant for gods. And in those new depths of darkness lurked beasts so foul, they siphoned souls and devoured the godsongs. Where spirit, earth, air, fire, and water tried to right the melody, they were absorbed into the tune, adding to the dissonance.
Faced with these new terrors, terrors the gods could not rein in, the chorus of an age ended.
There was only one final song left to compose. A funeral dirge for the world they had loved. It was a final gift – the creation of a being that could contain what was left of their own songs. Nimala’s careful conducting and resonant wail wove all five melodies together, and from spirit, earth, air, fire, and water, from those entwined voices, came the elves.
Gifted with their sacred, pure songs, the gods hoped the world they once loved would survive even as their resonance faded. And one by one, they drained what was left of their gifts. All but one.
Solignis did not trust his fire with the elves alone. So with the stroke of a final key, he gave the hottest spark to the dragons.
And when the final notes of that elegy ended, when the last reverberating blast of the Horn of Making faded into the space between the stars, so too, did the gods.
