Kthaahthikha

XX - 0700

'It began,' he said, 'when I was a soldier, a young man fighting for my country against the invasions of the Tartars. We pushed-onwards against the enemy, and made fare headway in the forests, but in time the tide turned against us and we were forced back into the forests. The men fled, ill-equiped to face such a such a swift-moving and battle-hardened foe. We retreated southwards, and scattered, and in time I was alone and wandering the forests, alone and unsure of myself.

'The Tartars were an unbroken line to north, and so when I came to the moutains I was in no real situation to turn back to the north. I though only about self-preservation now, for I was one man and could hardly defeat an empire. The mountains seemed to be enough to defeat the Tartar cavalry, and so I determined to push my way through to the Transcaucus and find sanctuary there.

'I wound my way into the ranges, trekking through valleys and clambering atop of swaying peaks, and in time I lost my way and stumbled upon this peak. On the one side is cavern in which I sheltered for the night, and from above I could here strange noises that beckoned me upwards. I scaled the slope, and discovered the forests, and whilst resting by the lake I noticed the strange creatures that swell in the water.

'I was terrified by these things - a superstitious peasant ill-informed about the cosmic wonders of the universe. I fled away from beasts that, water-bound, could never touch me, and stumbled down into a pit that lead to a being of manifold terrors.

'That pit lead to maze of shafts - shafts like those of a mine, but of a glossy smoothness and a milky-white hue. I stumbled about lost in them for days, until I came upon a high chamber at the heart of which, upon a dais, there sat an orb of aperfect whiteness that shone with brilliant light. I was entranced by the thing, yet fearful to touch it. My attempts to excape the shafts, however, prove at every turn to come to nought but failure. In the end I lay in a distant tunnel of the labyrinth, and as I did I heard strange cries and music that seemed to come fromsomewhere just below the surface of this world.

'I tried to resist. I was terrified of what might await should I give-in. But it was no good, for I was only a human being.

'In the end I crouched before the orb, and it reached-out its influence and left a part of it in my mind.I saw, then, the full extent of it's history - a tale too long to tell were I immortal, which thankfully I am not. The orb spoke of cities that rested outside of time - of Khahir where existance was shaped and of the ancient citadels of Nyarath and Gayra that were erected before lost Mu fell into the sea. It spoke of its own passage, across aeons of space and time, falling slowly towards the earth drawn by the imprisonment of one of its own brethren - a creature without flesh forced into a crude physical form, and impacted upon the face of the earth.

'The two entities, they managed to connect, they existed in some strange symbiosis of the mind. Electrical impulses flung across the globe joined them where they sat in their respective resting places. In time, men dug them up, and it was with these men that the beings fashioned these receptacles for their physical forms - places of undeniable security where they might await slowly the arrival of a time that will allow them to shattere these inert, sedentary forms, and return once more to states beyond time and matter.'

I observed the man, amazed at the concepts that he shared with me. perhaps one day such ideas might be commonplace, but to me, then, it was as though someone had opened a door to an entire other reality.

'At first, I was its slave. Its other servants had been destroyed by war and famine, but it made me stronger, warped me with its influence, having learnt from experience of the unique frailties of the human being. I brought it mice, and then rabbits and birds. It had no need for the flesh, provided that the creatures be alive when brought before it. Then the thing would kill them, somehow, and I would eat the meat. Under its auspices I prospered, I was freed of the tunnels, I built a house upon the plateau and in time improved upon it. My mind, my body, all were strengthened by my master, and whilst I could never - and no doubt never shall be able to - control it utterly, I trained my mind to the point where I could parly with it . I delivered ultimata, made agreements, and my master realised that, as powerful as it was, it needed me'.

I keep thinking I've mis-spelt Transcaucus, but I haven't. Buck 65 rocks.