by Alex Paul
We prayed over and over to Kal and, at last, the sound of rushing water outside began to diminish and, soon after, the waters began to recede. We had survived again.
The water level fell below that of the cave floor, so we decided to leave the shelter in case the water level rose again. We made our way to the cave entrance, only to find that the rock fall had sealed our only way out.
Now we were buried alive! After worrying for several days that the floodwaters would return, we realized this was not going to happen and that instead we were doomed to die a slow death from starvation or a lack of water, since the floodwaters had contaminated our stored water supplies.
But to our amazement, water began flowing into the cave! Not a large amount but enough to keep us alive. We followed the water back to its source. A crack in the Earth had appeared and led upward. We followed this small stream and finally climbed to the outside world.
We had hoped we would be safe, but we were not safe at all, for we emerged into a terrible, cruel world, not at all like the world we’d left. The sky was dark and choked with ash and dust. Each day we came to the surface to make observations, and for seven days we were forced back into our cave, our mouths and eyes full of dust and ash.
Then one day, a heavy rinfall filled with large chunks of ice began. Thick clouds of dust and ash still darkened the sky, but as the rinfall continued, the ash was cleared away.
Still, the world remained dark, for now the Earth was covered by thick, dark clouds that flashed light—lightning we now called it, because we had never seen lightning before this time. We wailed in fright at the way our Earth had turned against us and prayed that the steady days of sun and mild temperatures and gentle rinfall at night would return.
Alas, it never did. This darkness and rinfall continued for more than a moonth and then it gradually ceased. The skies cleared at last, but even this was not a happy event, because the world around us had changed and began to grow colder.
We set up our remaining instruments and found that Marduk had disappeared. We never saw it again, so we assumed it had crashed into the Sun, never again to wreak its awful destruction upon the Earth and its peoples.
But that happy news was shadowed by the discovery that our planet had a new north star. The entire planet had been tipped over almost eighteen degrees by Marduk. We theorized what this meant for us but did not begin to grasp the impact until the daytime grew shorter and the temperatures plunged. We were in the northern hemisphere, and we were pointed away from the sun. Disaster was about to fall upon us.
We retreated into our cave with the hope of surviving what we began to call winter. Before we did, we managed to survey as best we could the surrounding lands. The mountain had changed little in shape, but where deep valleys had once branched toward Lanth and the sea, we observed only a giant muddy wasteland filled with the protruding bones of toth and ton carcasses and the remnants of overturned trees.
A meeting of our scholars finally revealed that this mud mix was the remains of the Great Flood, the same foul water that had penetrated into our shelter.
Our Earth had been a paradise before Marduk, while the new world was a bitter horror. The rain was replaced by white snow, for that is what explorers had called it when they visited the Sea of the Never Setting Sun at the top of the world. We disassembled our door that had been sealed by rock fall and reassembled it in the new cave entrance higher on the mountain. We observed the Earth’s condition outside until the wind piled up snow around our cave entrance until it was sealed off completely. Fresh air entered our cave from other places because our fires and lamps
always flickered, even when our new cave entrance was buried in snow.
We had been fortunate enough to discover several dead toth along the mountainside when we first emerged from our shelter. Our scientists agreed the animals must have been pulled into the cold of the upper atmosphere and tossed to Earth. Stripping the hide and harvesting the frozen flesh before it managed to spoil, we were able to add to the cave’s food supply. We found several dead trees near the new
cave entrance and cut them up for wood to burn in the cave. We managed to bring this wood into the cave before we were cut off from the surface by the snow.
We spent moonths inside the cave, and many died of the cold during this time. We were not prepared for this cold
for we only had clothes for the warmer Earth of old. Only furs we made from toth hide kept our remaining group alive, a group which now numbered less than seventy individuals.
After several moonths, the snow stopped falling and began to melt. Our numbers had dropped to fifty hardy souls; the others had not been able to survive the cold temperatures and meager rations. We emerged to a world so
different from the Earth we had left that our joy at escaping our cave turned into weeping and lamentation, for everywhere we looked there was nothing but white snow where before there had been peaceful valleys and lush grasslands.
The warmth of the sun grew each day until we began to see green lands to the south. They were in valleys far below our cave, and we decided to walk there. Even more of our people died on this long journey, but eventually we made camp by the sea, which was now far inland from the original coastline. My calculations estimated that the increase in sea level had come from the addition of the planet Mar’s oceans to that of our own.
We carried our remaining instruments with us so that we could continue observing the heavens. Every day the amount of daylight was longer and longer, until one day it was the longest day, and then the amount of daylight began to grow less.
It had been warm and pleasant in our seashore camp, and we had even managed to grow some crops to add to our food supply. But we began to fear that the Earth would be plunged into bitter cold once again. We decided to move even further south, for we knew that if we could reach the equator that would offer the most consistent warmth throughout the year.
As we walked south along the coastline we were able to feed ourselves by catching fish. They had survived in great numbers, while animals on land had been devastated by Marduk’s passing. We continued south until the cold weather grew more severe, so we built shelters from toth tusks harvested from dead, rotting toths littering the land. We dug great pits in the ground and placed toth tusks overhead, covering them with toth hides. In the end, we stayed alive that winter by living in these shelters with raging fires burning night and day and eating the last of the herd animals we had brought with us. We ate them because we could no longer eat the meat of the dead toths we found because it had warmed and spoiled earlier in the summer heat, summer being the name we gave to the warm season.
We were very hungry that next winter because we had not set aside enough food. The arrival of the next spring prompted us to continue our journey south. We passed valley after valley on our way south that had been filled in with mud. The bones of men, toth, ton, gastag, and other animals could be seen sticking out of the surface of the mud plains.
Enough gastag and other smaller animals had survived the Great Flood such that we were able to hunt them as we walked south. Finally we walked so far that we entered the land of the Mines. Where once we had feared these people, we now found most of their temples and gardens buried in the mud of the Great Flood. In all our explorations, we could find no survivors.
We eventually found a city that had not been covered in mud. Despite this we found no survivors, so we decided to take over their ample shelter and rebuild our community because, with the rise of sea level, it now lay by the ocean.
That is how our tiny community of twenty hardy souls, the only survivors of the many who had taken shelter in our cave, came to be settled on the southern edge of the Circle Sea far to the south of Lanth, which is now forever covered by the risen sea.
The next winter was mild, assuring us that we had traveled far enough south to be safe. We found a buried granary, probably an emergency food supply for the Mines. It served us well and kept us alive during the mild winter.
We had little time for scientific observation or even for the education of our young people. But I did manage to make scientific observations and these are my conclusions.
The Earth has remained tipped over in its rotation. We are the only planet in our solar system in such a configuration. While this has created four seasons and terrible weather, we are fortunate that Marduk did not strip us of our oceans as it did Mars.
Many people died in the Great Flood. We found no other living humans or Nanders on our walk to the south. If they have survived, it is far from here.
We struggle to survive, and it may be many years before we restore the science that we lost to Marduk. I endeavor to teach the young children about our history, but already I see that they do not believe me when I tell them that there was once no winter or summer. Each equinox when there is equal sunshine all over the Earth for only one day, we hold a ceremony to remind them that every day once had this wonderful blessing of equal sunlight all over the world.
I fear that our stories of the Earth we remember so clearly will become fainter memories with each generation until the idea that Earth was once a paradise will be considered a tale of fools.
GLOSSARY
Lantish
English
Nander
Scientific name
Admarg
Admiral
Agil
Golden Eagle
Agil
Aquila chrysaetos
Alda
Headmaster
Anlop
Antelope
Anlop
Antilocapra Americana
Arbat
Arab
Arlet
Arken’s Nander grandmother
Arma
Giant armadillo
Armoo
Glyptotherium
Arn
Jen’s friend
Amarrat
Ancient Egyptian Civilization in N. Africa
Amarrat
Arken Freeth
14 year old from Lantish Royal Military Academy
Arwulf
Red Wolf
Arwulf
Canis rufus
Asher d’Will
Tolarian prince
Balloom
Arken’s grandfather
Baltak
Tolarian capitol
Ban
Giant Bison
Ban
Bison antiques
Banskin
Bison leather
Belzma
Famous Queen’s Tracker
Boda
Canteen
Boolong Tree
Ash Tree
Burl
Fraxinus Americana
Boonocks
Barnacle
Bosk
Giant Beaver
Plap
Castoroides
Bowmaker
Craftsman who builds bows
Breakmeal
Breakfast
Wakemeal
Brumbal
Tookan 2nd in command
Bruton
Nander chief
Bruton
Bur
Short Faced Bear
Bark
Arctodus pristinus
Calna
Queen’s Trackers Headmistress
Captain Rallat
Captain of the Golden Willow
Catonia
Tolarian port
Celter
Celery
Char
Red Piranha
Charkak
Serrasalmus nattereri
Chata
American Cheetah
Chata
Miracynonix trumani
Chelat
Mar’s hospital in the Water Cave
Cuy
Coyote
Cuy
Canis latrans
Dagger
Fifty-foot long Tolarian warship
Dahl
Tolarian prince
Darwulf
Dire Wolf
Darwulf
Canus dirus
Dog
Dog
Kojan
Canus familiaris
Donov
Cadet who is salcon after Gart
Doublewife
Having more than one wife
Downstroke
Downward sword blow
Drot
One pound weight of gold
Duffle
Duffle bag
Dunkey
Donkey
Eela
Ord’s little sister
Eela
Em
Arken’s sister
Faldon
Yolanta 3rd in command
Fire
Fire
Hin
Firstblow
First blow struck
Firstblow
Firstlight
Dawn
Firstmeat
First serving of cooked meat
Firstmeat
Firstwife
Highest ranking wife
Forla
Tookan Capital
Gastag
Key Deer
Gastag
Odocoileus virginianus clavium
Gazzle
Giant Canada Goose
Gazzle
B. c. maxima
Golden Willow
Tolarian merchant ship
Gris
Whale oil
Hamp
Giant Camel
Kom
Titanotylopus
Hark
Swallow Tailed Hawk
Hark
Elanoides forficatus
Harse
Horse
Masfeen
Equus
Herge
Tookan pirate
Human
Human
No-Fur
Hyna
Short Faced Hyena
Hyn
Pachydrocuta brevirostris
Human
Human
No-fur
Ilspeth of Tran
Asher’s pledged wife
Jalag
Jaguar
Jalag
Felis onca
Jalar
Cadet on Sea Nymph
Jat
Single masted coastal schooner
Jen
Bruton’s son
Jiy
Calling Scrup Jay
Jiy
Aphelocoma coerulescens
Jontor
Captain in Yolanta’s fleet
Kal
God
Tonlot
King Lor
King of Lanth
King Zuul
King of the Amarrats
King’s Harsemen
King’s Cavalry
Klak
Cuban Crocodile
Garn Klak
Crocodylus rhombifer
Koman
1st Lancon Sea Nymph
Kotal
Tookan pirate
LaJah
Nubian warrior serving Yolanta, LaJah also means black in Lantish
Lantish Royal Military Academy
Military Academy where Arken trained
Lam
Llama
Lam
Hemiauchenia macrocephala
Lancon
Lieutenant
Lanth
Arken’s home city
Lanth
Lastlight
Twilight
Lastlight
Lazzoran
City-state south of Tolaria
Leg
Yard
Leg
Lila
Queen’s Tracker on Sea Nymph
Lin
American Lion
Lin
Panthera leo atrox
Lon
Ween’s husband
Lon
Longships
Ships that are galleys and used solely for rowing
