The Seven Altars of Dusarra

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Furthermore, many of the root-words have changed meaning or dropped out of common usage; regvosye, meaning an unwillingness to understand, is extremely archaic, and no longer used as the ordinary word for blindness. That is just one example of many.

  Appendix B

  Notes on Eramman Myth and Theology

  In the beginning, according to the myths of Eramma and Nekutta, there was nothing at all except Dagha, and a nothingness far more complete than is ordinarily considered. There was no time, no space, no matter, no energy, no life, no death, nothing at all. Dagha, existing without these things, is therefore totally incomprehensible; it is customary to refer to Dagha as “he,” but actually there is no way of saying whether he is male, female, neither, or both.

  In some way, this incomprehensible being created time and space; however, being outside time himself, he could not directly interfere or manipulate anything within the space he had created. For that reason, there is no cult of Dagha, no worship, and no prayer to him.

  Not satisfied with an empty cosmos, Dagha also created beings that could manipulate it, beings that were within time and limited by it, but were still immortal and unconfined by space. These beings were the gods.

  Since they were created from nothing, they were of necessity created in pairs, each the negation of its twin. In each pair there was a god dedicated to the elaboration and ornamentation of the cosmos, and another dedicated to returning to primordial nothingness. Dagha created seven pairs in all; the seven dedicated to creation are known as the Lords of Eir (from an archaic word meaning both “tree” and “vitality”), and their seven foes are known as the Lords of Dûs (from dusye, meaning “death” and also “darkness”).

  The first pair created are usually referred to by their attributes rather than their names, Life and Death; they do have names, however. The role of Ayvi, the god of life, is frequently misunderstood; he is not in any way a preserver of life, but merely its bestower. He brings the first spark to each seed or embryo, but nothing more; and the Final God does nothing but remove that spark.

  The next creation was of four gods rather than two: Aal, god of growth and fertility, countered by P’hul, goddess of decay; and Bel Vala, god of strength and preservation, countered by Bheleu, god of destruction. Aal is generally given precedence over Bel Vala, but P’hul is considered inferior to Bheleu; the reasons for this apparent contradiction are unclear.

  The next creation was again of four gods, but this time there was no confusion in rank; Aghad, god of hatred, fear, and loathing, and his sister Pria, goddess of love, peace, and friendship, are universally acknowledged as mightier than Sai, goddess of sorrow and despair, and Gau, goddess of pleasure and delight.

  These ten are the High Gods; their four younger siblings are considered lesser, but therefore more accessible, deities. The sixth pair is Leuk, lord of light and bringer of inspiration, and Andhur Regvos, the god of darkness and blindness.

  The seventh and final pair of Eir and Dûs are Tema, goddess of night, and Amera, goddess of the day. With the creation of these two Dagha either exhausted his power or lost interest.

  These fourteen gods amongst them created the world, to provide themselves with an arena in which to manifest themselves; and in the early days of their creation, in emulation of their master, they created lesser gods.

  All the various cults of Nekutta and Eramma agree thus far, with the exception of a few outcast religions and followers of obscure deities; however, there is virtually no agreement as to the existence, number, and nature of these lesser gods, who are actually the objects of most worship, the Eir and Dûs being considered too powerful to waste time on mere mortals.

  Most of the lesser gods are collectively classed as Arkhein, a word of unknown origin, and there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them, including among the more prominent Savel Skai, the sun-god; Mel, goddess of the moon; Eramma the earth-mother; Koros, god of war; Melith, goddess of storms and lightning, and her brother, (or half-brother, or son, or cousin, depending on which cult one adheres to) Kewerro, the god of wind and air, particularly the north wind and storms at sea. Others range down through such minor powers as Eknissa, the fire-goddess, to the obscure and pointless, such as Quon, god of dogs, and Bugo, god of masculinity and petty aggression.

  A popular pastime in some areas is to debate the pedigrees of the various Arkhein, a diversion not readily exhausted, since despite the sexes generally attributed to the various deities it is assumed that any Eir or Dûs can mate with any other and produce offspring, or that any one can by himself or herself produce a child. Furthermore, the Arkhein themselves are fertile; Eramma is generally considered the mother of most of the minor nature-gods, though their paternities (if any) are debatable.

  It is no wonder that, confronted with such a tangle, most overmen prefer to assume that no gods exist at all.

  Appendix C

  A History of This Novel

  The Seven Altars of Dûsarra is the second volume in the four-part “Lords of Dûs” series. There are no published spin-offs or related series outside the four volumes, nor are any presently in the works, but the possibility of adding more eventually hasn’t been ruled out.

  I described the origins of the series as a whole in the appendices to the first volume, The Lure of the Basilisk, so I won’t repeat it all here. I will mention a detail I omitted—that one of the early inspirations for Garth and Koros was Frank Frazetta’s painting, “The Death Dealer.”

  When I first wrote the novelet that became The Lure of the Basilisk, I intended it to be part of a series, and I didn’t wait for it to sell before continuing. That first 10,000-word novelet was called “The Master of Mormoreth,” and I followed it up with another novelet, 12,500 words, called “The City of Seven Temples.” I wasn’t being very sophisticated about this; I was setting Garth a bunch of tasks, that’s all. The Forgotten King had him running errands. I knew what the Forgotten King wanted, and that made it fairly easy to figure out what sort of stuff he’d send Garth after. “The City of Seven Temples” was a pretty straightforward follow-up to the King’s implied failure at the end of “Master of Mormoreth.” When the basilisk didn’t work out, he upped the stakes and went for the power of the dark gods themselves.

  As for who those gods were, Appendix B describes them, but some explanation of how I created them, and for that matter the Eramman language described in Appendix A, seems in order.

  The religion at the center of the story began as a reaction to the author’s note in Philip K. Dick’s science fiction novel, A Maze of Death. Dick says that the elaborate trinitarian religion described in the novel was the result of discussions with friends about what a truly logical religion would be like.

  Fascinating as I found the novel and the invented religion, I thought this was pretty annoying, as the invented “logical” religion came out looking far too much like ordinary Christianity for my liking. I decided I wanted a logical, sensibly-structured polytheistic religion, and tried to devise one.

  To create names for my gods and goddesses I hauled out my copy of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and turned to the appendix of Indo-European roots, figuring I would find words that sounded natural and appropriate to English speakers. I had to modify some of them considerably, but eventually I had a list I was happy with. I also had the basis for a lot of the Eramman language, modifying the Indo-European roots to fit.

  And then the Forgotten King sent Garth to steal from the dark side of my new pantheon, and I had the basis for “The City of Seven Temples.”

  Since I’d borrowed from Frazetta once before, I didn’t hesitate to include another Frazetta-inspired scene, this one based on a painting entitled “Against the Gods.”

  I was pleased with how the story came out, but I never managed to sell it in its original form.

  Altogether, I completed four Garth stories before deciding to switch to novels—the two novelets already mentioned, and two short stories, “The Eyes of Kewerro” and �
�The Dragon of Orgul.” I also began several stories that I never completed.

  Eventually I put aside the idea of a series of shorts and turned “The Master of Mormoreth” into The Lure of the Basilisk as the first step in switching over to a series of novels.

  When The Lure of the Basilisk sold, Lester del Rey, the editor who bought it, immediately asked for a sequel. It wasn’t hard to figure out what to use; I hauled out “The City of Seven Temples” and expanded it to novel length.

  Expanding 12,500 words to novel length was amazingly easy. The first three chapters had been one page in the novelet version. All I did was treat the novelet as an outline and flesh out all the incidents.

  Except the result was still a bit short, and Lester had some major problems with the structure, so I wound up cannibalizing “The Eyes of Kewerro” and adding that material in as Chapters Four and Five. (Those chapters are about half the short story.)

  That took care of it. Lester wanted a new title, on the grounds that the word “city” sounded too science-fictional, so The City of Seven Temples became The Seven Altars of Dûsarra.

  The Seven Altars of Dûsarra was first published June 1981 by Del Rey Books, ISBN 0-345-29264-2. The original cover art was by Michael Herring, but Lester wasn’t happy with it, and replaced it with a Darrell K. Sweet cover on the five (or more) subsequent printings.

  The second printing was dated March 1984, the third June 1984, the sixth October 1986.

  The novel has been translated into German, Polish, Spanish, and Italian—though I don’t consider the German translation satisfactory; even with my limited German I can see that it seems pretty unimaginative, sticking too close to the literal English rather than using idiomatic German.

  The Del Rey edition went out of print in the early 1990s, and I reclaimed the rights. In 2001 I signed a contract with Wildside Press to publish this new edition.

  In preparing the Wildside Press edition I’ve generally followed the Del Rey edition. Lester’s editorial hand was much lighter than on The Lure of the Basilisk, so I saw no need to review every single page against the original manuscript, though a few typos have been corrected.

  The only significant differences are in these appendices, and the new map. The map in the Del Rey edition, although based on my own original map, was drawn by Chris Barbieri, and Wildside was unable to obtain the rights to it. We are therefore using the revised map I drew for the new edition of The Lure of the Basilisk, as adapted by Alan Rodgers at Wildside.

  Appendices A and B were in the Del Rey edition; C and D are new.

  In preparing these editions, I found myself thinking that The Lure of the Basilisk really showed how much of a beginner I was when I wrote it. The Seven Altars of Dûsarra seems far more polished, and while I see a few places I’d have written it a little differently now, I’m still quite happy with it.

  Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Gaithersburg, MD

  December 2001

  Appendix D

  The Histories of Garth of Ordunin,

  Written and Unwritten

  The original 1974 plan for the Garth series was for twelve stories, ranging from 3,300 words (“The Dragon of Orgûl”) to novel length (The Lady in the Jewel). In chronological order, they were to have been:

  1. “The Master of Mormoreth”

  2. “City of the Seven Temples”

  3. The Lady in the Jewel

  4. “The Scepter of Dor”

  5. “The Eyes of Kewerro”

  6. “The Dragon of Orgûl”

  7. “The Decision of the Council”

  8. “The Fall of Fortress Lagur”

  9. “Skelleth”

  10. “Return to Dûsarra”

  11. “The Jungle by Night”

  12. “The Last Quest”

  “The Master of Mormoreth” was to start with a prologue explaining the series premise, and “The Last Quest” would end with an epilogue wrapping the whole thing up. The theory was that these could eventually be gathered into two volumes—a collection and a novel. Or possibly, if they ran longer than expected, two collections and a novel.

  All the stories except “Skelleth” and “Return to Dûsarra” were begun; four of the first six were completed, but never published.

  In 1975 or early ‘76 the plan was modified slightly—”The Decision of the Council,” “The Fall of Fortress Lagur,” and “Skelleth” were to be combined into a novel called The Decision of the Council.

  In 1976 I decided that I should focus on novels, and the list was revised again, becoming primarily a series of novels. The first, The Overman and the Basilisk, incorporated “The Master of Mormoreth,” but expanded and extended the story, and was completed in 1978. The other novels were left unwritten until the first sold.

  In 1979 The Overman and the Basilisk sold and was retitled The Lure of the Basilisk, and the series was continued, now planned as five volumes:

  1. The Lure of the Basilisk

  2. The City of Seven Temples

  3. The Eyes of Kewerro & Other Stories (short story collection)

  4. The Decision of the Council

  5. The Last Quest

  The Lady in the Jewel was dropped from the series as no longer really fitting in properly; the possibility of inserting it somewhere later was kept open.

  The proposed novel version of The Last Quest would combine “Return to Dûsarra” and “The Last Quest.”

  The second novel, The City of Seven Temples, was written, expanding the 12,000-word novelet “City of the Seven Temples.” Lester del Rey was not satisfied with it, and felt that it was too slow in getting to any sort of action or magic, so it was extensively revised, incorporating a piece of “The Eyes of Kewerro” into an early portion of the novel, resulting in The Seven Altars of Dûsarra.

  That also resulted in rethinking some of the series structure, since there were loose ends in The Seven Altars of Dûsarra that were to be tied up in The Decision of the Council, and waiting an entire volume to address them seemed to be a mistake. Besides, the intended title story of the collection had been cannibalized and was therefore no longer available.

  The revised plan was this:

  1. The Lure of the Basilisk

  2. The Seven Altars of Dûsarra

  3. The Decision of the Council

  4. The Dragon of Orgûl & Other Stories (short story collection)

  5. The Last Quest

  The Decision of the Council was written in 1981, and retitled The Sword of Bheleu. Its resemblance to the original fragment from 1975 was very faint, and although much of the intended plot of “Skelleth” did wind up incorporated into it, virtually no trace of “The Fall of Fortress Lagur” remained. In fact, by that point I think I’d forgotten “Fall” had ever existed, though one or two minor elements survived.

  And after that was done, I looked at what I had left to work with, looked at the short fantasy markets, thought about how the series had developed, and decided that the only short story I still cared about at all was “The Dragon of Orgûl,” which could hardly be a fourth volume all by itself.

  So it was expanded into the first four and a half chapters of The Last Quest, which was retitled The Book of Silence, and the series was completed in four volumes, rather than five.

  The astute observer will have noticed that this means the following stories were not included anywhere in the final version: The Lady in the Jewel, “The Scepter of Dor,” “The Fall of Fortress Lagur,” “The Jungle by Night,” and a fraction of “The Eyes of Kewerro.”

  “The Fall of Fortress Lagur” and “Eyes of Kewerro” could still have fit into the series reasonably well; the other three just didn’t belong in Garth’s adventures as they eventually developed. I may yet re-use some of the premises, though.

  Here are quick summaries:

  The Lady in the Jewel: The Forgotten King wants a sorceress named Sharatha, who rules the city of Ilnan, removed from the world. Garth initially assumes that this means she must be killed, but learns th
at in fact she is from another universe, a world inside a magical gem, and was exiled to Garth’s world by her enemies. He agrees to escort her home, but finds himself entangled in the same web of feuds and power struggles that caused her exile in the first place.

  The link to the main story arc of the series was to be that the Forgotten King could not carry out his plans for Garth’s world as long as beings from other worlds lived in it; thus, he demanded that Sharatha be removed.

  “The Scepter of Dor”: The Forgotten King wants a magical scepter that’s in the possession of Dor, Lord of Therin. Dor has no intention of giving it up while alive, and Garth discovers that Dor is very hard to kill—he has multiple bodies sharing his consciousness.

  “The Fall of Fortress Lagur”: The heavily-fortified port city of Lagur, Ordunin’s major trading partner, is one of the magical keystones holding Garth’s world safe; the Forgotten King wants it destroyed, so Garth raises an army of overmen to attack it. Frankly, I think I abandoned this one because it was such a boring premise. Another fantasy siege—big deal.

  “The Jungle by Night”: Garth is passing through the jungles of Yesh, far to the south of Eramma, on an errand for the Forgotten King, and trespasses on the tribal lands of the Kikoru, who decide that an overman’s hide would make a good trophy. The Kikoru are fierce, and the tribe’s shaman is a formidable wizard, so the result is an impressively bloody sword-and-sorcery battle. This one had some nice cultural details for the Kikoru, but was very short on actual plot.

  “The Eyes of Kewerro”: Kewerro is the Arkhein god of the wind. In order to locate certain items the Forgotten King wants the Eyes of Kewerro, magical gems that allow their owner to see anything, anywhere in the world, that’s touched by the wind. These gems are sealed in a tomb on the uninhabited polar continent, and Garth fights his way through various menaces in order to rob the tomb. About half of these menaces wound up guarding the village of Weideth in chapters 4 and 5 of The Seven Altars of Dûsarra.