Metaphysical Cannibalism

When people hear the word cannibalism, dark images fill their mind’s eye. Vicious murderers with a taste for violence and the most dangerous game, or desperation in the dead of winter once starvation has already claimed a kill or twelve, or a unfailingly polite gourmand with such a refined palate that only The Rude are fit to grace his table and feed his guests. These all have their place, but Metaphysical Cannibalism is a different animal entirely, lets take a quick bite.

What makes us human instead of just another beast? Anthropology says we’re all animals to the core and it’s culture and heritage that make the bald ape into a man. The three peoples of the book seem to believe the deciding component is the “soul.”
If you’re not sure what it is, or you think the body you walk around in has anything to do with who you are, then it follows that part of a person is present in the flesh, even after death. Metaphysical Cannibalism is present on earth. It’s rare, and mostly found in parts of Polynesia- there’s even a vicious ailment tied to the dietary practice, but the Kuru prion deserves its own spotlight.

This sort of Cannibalism isn’t bestial, violent, or even all that far fetched by christian standards. I’ve written one severely misunderstood group of cultures into this fantasy world. When the mightiest warrior in a Polythi clan suffers a deadly snake bite, falls to her death, or breaks under extreme age, their spirit and all its strength clings to the corpse, fighting tooth and claw against decay and oblivion. The clan that survives is all that’s left to save them from that oblivion. The only way to bring that spirit back into the clan is to incorporate their flesh into the living clan. Consuming the freshly dead, and the flesh of mighty heroes protects the clan’s sanctity and might by incorporating the mighty fallen into the living bodies of their clan. The Polythi believe this makes their clans stronger and wiser than the older peoples. In reality, it also makes them nearly impossible to break and fearless in the face of death or adversity as long as someone’s left to bring their body back into the clan. Eating the dead is a religious rite. It protects the dead and strengthens the living.

The Battle of Silver Fields: Vengeance and Alienation

Elleda’s Vale was comfortable and safe, Lor’s Mercy had provided them with enough basic supplies to last years or build an entire city but the queen was unsatisfied. Her kingdom was a tattered ruin of what it had been just the year before. She knew that others must have survived the kethel attack and was determined to reunite her people. Lor did all he could to persuade her to stay, showed her ecstasies and indulgences beyond measure but her iron will of was set upon her path and he could neither change it nor decide to imprison her there. He took her hand in his and spoke as his crimson eyes held her gaze, “I build these burrows to be your escape, not your fortress. Return when you wish but I will not protect you from a kethel horde.” Lor spawned a Lily formed of brilliant ruby from the air and hung at Elleda’s breast, “This is my favor, my heart. It will give you strength and power in your efforts, victory if you’re clever. Do not forsake me, my prize, or my gifts will burn away as morning dew before the heat of day.”

When the mageborn queen told her plans to the company, Nikos the gray-bearded elder priest offered praise of her return to the wayfarer faith almost before her words were out, but as she revealed the favor of this new god his approval soured. Sel, son of Ora was quick to raise his little knife and promise the blood of a legion, but others were wiser. Guardsman Nel had fought a few of the savage keth in their escape from Callor and knew how formidable they could be. Nel and Master Anis pulled Elleda aside and pled for caution, but Ora spoke too with the fury only a mother can muster. The course was set and keth would bear witness to Ora’s fury and Queen Elleda’s glory.
Elleda’s entire company set out with Lor’s blessing and under the cover of night. For days they moved quiet and slow through trees and foothills before they found an outpost of Kethel savages lodged in a crevice between two hills. The long grass gleamed silver beneath the two moons and they knew it was time to strike. Everyone able to hold a weapon had one and had practiced, save one; the elder priest Nikos carried an oaken staff but set it aside to preach the dangers of trusting heathen gods or barbaric peoples and trusted the might of those who hung on his every word.

Queen Elleda, Master Anis, Nel, Ora and her son, all kept silent as the company crept through the camp and killed its defenders one by one but Nikos would not accept such weakness from Dev’s Faithful. He aroused his congregation into a screaming and zealous fury and they tore down into the valley like some sort of screaming beast or mindless storm. The keth awoke at once and sprung into battle with bared claws and fangs. Something about Elleda drew their eyes and brought out their hatred. Each of them targeted her first and fought hard for the chance to tear her apart. She fought with strength, bravery, and grace but without the support of Guardsman Nel at her back, she would have died that night.

In the darkest hour, when half the company had fallen to the bloody earth and the sun waited just below the horizon, Elleda took Lor’s Ruby Heart in her hand and offered up a prayer for aid. As the last word escaped her lips the mist of the valley floor took on a life of its own and enveloped the keth, slowing their movements and weakening their blows. The Battle of Silver Fields was almost lost on account of Wayfarer zeal, but won by the grace of Lor and his love for Elleda of Callor. Weakened but far from broken, ashen-bearded Nikos and his surviving priests stood firm in their devotion and waited for Elleda’s good fortune to fail her.

Founding Elleda’s Vale: Salvation and Apostasy

As the first kee city was brought to a smoking ruin, its forty-two year old mageborn queen drifted on a south bound tide with a drained and despondent company of forty-eight men, women, and children aboard old fisherman Oleg’s barge. These broken kee had been artisans, servants, priests, mothers, and guardsmen, all cast from home. That they survived at all was declared Dev’s doing by those faithful present and many of the others thought so too. When the vessel set down in a forest of white trees Elleda’s new retinue rejoiced, but she knew better. If the enemy chose to hunt down their quarry, the trees would be searched first. The savages would circle the trees and one by one, Elleda and her company would be slaughtered like vermin. The Callish Queen led them to the wooded valley between mountain peaks in the southwest. After a devastating night and a hard day, Elleda and her company built fires among the trees and mighty stones. They huddled there as frost set in and suffered.

Ever a mighty and willful woman, Elleda’s heart shattered for her people and she could not rest. She wept for the dead and feared for the living, casting wishes into the cold black of the sky in hopes that Dev might hear, but he didn’t come. She felt eyes from the line of trees and readied knives but no battle came. A day of endless foraging and fruitless hunting bore another night of restlessness as hidden eyes bored into her and a weary spirit set frailty into her flesh as well. On the third day she crept out of camp like a ghost making its way back to Dev and sought the owner of those eyes. As the sky grew dark and the night turned her breath to mist, the weight of her spirit overcame her withering body and she fell into a mossy bed of age-old trees. For hours she laid there and could neither rise nor rest, but in her frailty, she felt those eyes turn back to her again and she called out to them. “Bring me aid or death, oh watcher in the dark. Without one the other will find me soon.”
As she watched, the exquisite black shape of a statuesque man carved itself from the very shadows and pulled her body into its mighty arms. His blood-red eyes gazed into hers, pierced through her frailty, and ceased the withering at once. The touch of his hands on her flesh brought pleasure like nothing she’d felt before and warmth pulsed through her like a ray of sunlight. As he opened his perfect lips and words spilled out she found herself hanging on each one. “Dear maiden, you are fairest and strangest of your kin. I couldn’t let you fade without knowing you first.”
As his lips curled into the white crescent of a smirk, Elleda found her voice. “What are you? My people are starving but we need nothing so much as I just needed you…”
“My name is Lor but I’m too basic and too arcane to address such questions.” That pearly smirk widened as he continued, “My needs are simpler still. I must have you. What treasure might earn me your affections?”
As her body vibrated beneath his touch, Elleda opened her lips and uttered the one thing she needed more than him. “Food… shelter… for me… and my kin.”
With a laugh that caught breath in her throat he replied, “To share your nights I will bear you and all your kin past hunger, frost and fear; past the freezing winter and into the very heart of spring. Bring news of your bargain back to your kin and call my name in shadows to seal our accord.” He returned her to her feet with more grace than she thought possible and his pitch black form dissolved into the mist. His crimson eyes held her entranced until they too finally faded as light first touched the sky.

Elleda made her way back easily, but found the camp in chaos. Anis, an old artisan tried to keep peace and order in her absence. He worked to direct everyone in what was needed to survive but simply could not muster the authority to overrule six fanatical priests and their eleven zealous supporters. The ashen-bearded priest Nikos refused to let Dev’s agents forage for their own sustenance, roaring that it was an injustice to the seminary and unfitting for its servants. Though infuriated, his refusal was irrelevant in light of charming Lor’s offer. “Wise Master Anis and celebrated Nikos, our most senior priest, put your troubles aside. I’ve found a benefactor with food and shelter for us all.”
Anis and Guardsman Nel exchanged a look of worry but it was Ora who queried first: she who supported her last son of eleven years, watched the rest die at the claws of keth and avoided taking sides. “Who would possibly agree to that in this twisted place? No Keth’ll get its filthy claws on my boy…”
Still Queen Elleda Callor in their eyes, she assured them, “He’s no keth and has shown no reason to distrust him… asked only for company and offered us our lives.”
With eyes narrowed, Nikos interrogated her, “How can he possibly support forty-nine on his own? How can we trust this unbeliever without consulting the Seminary’s Words? Would our god and master approve of what you’ve given for such a mighty service?”
She raged freely, full of indignant wrath as his presumption “If mighty Dev abandons me for saving your meager life then I will be lost knowing I saved forty-eight souls so the Seminary’s orders might be realized. This bargain is beyond your ecclesiastic control and mine alone to make.” As Nikos’ blustering ire grew Elleda threw back her head and hair to cry at the last shadows of morning as they began to fade, “LOR, CHARMER, COME AND SEAL OUR DEAL!”
From the black of the forest floor rose majestic red-eyed Lor and the priests looked on in shock. As the light of morning touched him, the empty air around his body was set alight by hair-thin lines of power. “You’ve called me in my glory, my prize…” A magnificent smile graced his face and a two-thumbed hand stretched out for her as his aura burned in the light of this new day, “come, take my kiss to claim your salvation.”
Nikos moved fast and lunged for her wrist but she was swifter still. As her hand touched his the morning sun bathed the forest in light and as their lips met the company fell into such a deep sleep that they missed the winter entirely. Only Elleda remained awake, and circled in Lor’s arms her every desire was met and exceeded.

Once spring came and the great sleep subsided, Lor’s gifts were so many and mighty that their camp had become a spacious burrow with enough food and supplies to last them years. No matter what this new benefactor had provided though, Senior Priest Nikos could not be swayed from his fanaticism and spoke out against the beautiful one-time queen. He called her apostate, and begged her to return to the fold. Elleda’s will held strong and Lor’s crystalline heart hung from her neck as a mark of grace and borrowed might.

Chronology continues with The Battle of Silver Fields.

The Cataclysm: Igniting the Race War

By the death of the first king, Elleda of Callor had grown into a beautiful woman with the willowy frame that all mageborn possess and the willful insistence of a favored child. The silver streaks in her skin and hair marked her out to everyone in the first kingdom and earned her the throne beside the young King Tasus Callor. She took comfort in the well-being of her people and joy in competition, so she excelled in everything she set her hand to and outstripped the king in combat, scholarship, and admiration from the callish people. King Tasus, ever happy to enjoy his status, allowed Elleda to command his kingdom as the years passed and indulged his every passion while his vibrant queen remained as young and beautiful as the day they wed.

As Tasus began his forty-eighth year, Elleda finished her forty-second with the same grace, beauty, and vigor as the previous twenty. Fishermen spoke of great clouds of smoke over the cliffs to the west and the first whispers of abandoning the wayfarer path were heard and silenced beneath the waves tearing at the gray cliffs. Kee men had seen signs of native fishermen on the far shore while out at sea but had never made contact in four long decades yet it was in this forty-second year on Previdya that the Keth finally made their intentions known.

Callish nobles wrote that the thunder of mighty drums woke them in the night. Smoke and the smell of human filth drifted on the air as kethel warriors sent kee settlers back to their jealous wayfarer god. Queen Elleda dragged King Tasus through the palace that dark night but he was overcome with grief at what Dev had allowed to pass. He clutched at his broken heart as he fell back into his throne and could not be moved to rise. Elleda pleaded with the wayfarer god to protect him but Tasus labored for each breath and expired as the last callish king on previdyan soil. Elleda and her nobles were separated in the bloody chaos and the survivors of the first kingdom were scattered like dust on the wind.

Chronology continues with Founding Elleda’s Vale.

Callor: Coming to Previdya

The earliest records of our people were penned before the first kee even set foot on Previdya. The first settlers attest that it was much like this one, a cycle of seasons: hot and cold, rising and falling. Trees dotted its land and seas drew out the lines of its shores. We were all the same in those early days. We honored our elders, followed the teachings of our wayfarer priests, drafted out our lives beneath the gaze of Dev’s incorporeal servants, and chastised the very thought of magic as evil and subversive to the true way.

It was these early and misguided children of a foreign and imperious god that first passed through the world-gate and settled on an island off the coast. This island jutting out of the sea atop sheer gray cliffs would be the first kingdom: Callor. A short-lived kingdom it would be. As the last ink dried in the sacred wayfarer texts the world-gate slammed closed and severed the naive callish children from the miraculous seals and dogmatic commandments of the wayfarer seminary in their crystalline nexus between worlds. That year, the first child of Previdya was born. Elleda was something new. Her flesh was marbled like the stone of the palace and her eyes carried a spark our people hadn’t seen before. She was taken from her mother’s breast and groomed from birth as the crown-jewel of the young prince’s kingdom, every whim satisfied with a flourish. She was the first of the kee mageborn. Had she been raised otherwise she may have withered long before the cataclysm forged her birthright and secured kee power in this new world.

Chronology continues with The Cataclysm.