FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL
All my life I had been hearing stories about the Formoru, told in a way meant to frighten children. These bogies of nightmare were sometimes called the Dark Gods. But except for the certainty that they were dangerous and exceptionally evil, no one had described in very much detail. Going faithfully to ritual did not illuminate a child on the subject; the parish druids said not a word about these ancient ones. Yet, it was said that our gods, the Daanan, had defeated them, thereby giving their tribe its greatest victory.
Since those days that are lost to me, and which I cannot now claim as my own, I have learned much that only the high wizards and druids are permitted to know. It is the kind of knowledge that I would cheerfully forget -- if only it were safe to do so.
“What are these Dark Gods? Are they truly dead and gone?” Those were the inquiries that I once put to Cawdour when I was about seventeen.
He looked at me in an odd way. I wondered if he was taking stock of me, trying to decide whether I was ready to receive an answer to the questions that I had asked.
“The Dark Gods are ancient creatures of immense power,” he said.
“So the stories tell us. But are they true gods, or are they monsters?” I asked.
“Both. Or neither. It is a matter of definitions.”
“How would you define those terms, Sire?”
The old wizard shrugged, as if I were being irrelevant.
“Most are colossal in size,” he stated. “Their memory lingers, though they were gone from the world before Mankind walked it.”
“How can that be?”
“Because they refuse to be forgotten. They mind-touch certain mad and half-mad persons in dreamtime. From the visions reported by these mad savants, they Dark Ones continue to be worshiped by the most depraved of human cults. And not only human cults.”
“Sire?”
Some believe that those which lurk at the edges worship them also.”
“Edges?” I echoed.
“The edges of human habitation, the edges of the seasons, the edges of Time and Forever, the edges of dark and light, the edges of dreaming and wakefulness. The edges of life and death. A few of these are found in our folklore -- the undead, the lycanthropes, the beings of the sea. Others have been forgotten, or, in their remoteness, have never become known.”
I blinked. I knew of such creatures from hero stories, but was the wizard implying that they were real? How could one so wise hold such an idea? For myself, belief in monsters had slipped away from me along with with childhood.
“The Dark Gods are held in abeyance by forces even greater than they are,” my foster father continued. “But this power is not immense enough to snuff them out of existence, so they abide like prisoners awaiting their release. The stars say that their day shall come again, but this is not their day. No one can prognosticate the hour when they will rise again; let us hope that it shall not be ere Mankind has withered and turned to dust.
“Is it the Daanan who hold these demons in check?”
Cawdour shrugged. “Most believe that the Formaru were routed by the gods. Others hold that their banishment came about gradually, part of the natural progression of the Cycles.”
I could not help but frown. What were the cycles that he referred to?
“According to the first theory,” Cawdour pressed, “the Dark Gods held sway in realms where our gods hold sway now. There was a great war between the gods of the natual world, led by Nudens, and the Dark Ones. It is said that nearly all of the Formoru and gods were slain.
"But the Daanan, legend tells us, held a secret. They knew the way back from the Pit of Death, and so sacrificed themselves in wild attacks, so that the enemy could be driven into the deep darkness along with them. The Daanan returned by virtue of their secret wisdom, but Death's Hall still holds the Dark Gods captive in its bowels.” He shrugged. “This tale is only a metaphor, the truth, we must assume, was something that our ancestors could not conceivably understand.
“Be that as it may, the Dark Gods are not truly dead; instead, they await the time of their release, eager for revenge against those who discomforted them.”
This was, in the main, the same story that parents had been telling their children for centuries.
Now Cawdour frowned pensively. “The second supposition holds that the Old Gods are dormant only due to the effects of cycles, the universal order to which even the mightiest of gods must yield. To understand this, look at the seasons of the earth. Just as some animals hibernate through inclement winter, so too must the Old Gods slumber so long as the prevailing cosmic cycle endures.
"These cycles are like the magical clock in the famous story, the one which made a sound to awaken its master whenever the time came for him to rise. While the Dark Gods sleep, life as we know it go on. But when they wake.....”
“When they wake, what happens?” I asked.
Cawdour drew a deep breath through grim lips. “By the time they rise, their thirst for destruction shall surely have grown as bottomless as the pit that had imprisoned them.”
I suddenly wondered if the savant was only trying to test me, to assess my canniness when told a false tale, even if by one whom I had always placed at the highest level of trust. “Wherever they presently lay,” I began carefully, trying not to sound naive, “will the world of man be left in peace for the next thousand thousand years, or should we fear?”
Again he regarded me, his glance challenging. Was it intended to admonish me -- not for my gullibility, but for my skeptical tone?
“We should fear,” he finally declared.
* * * * *
Chapter Fifteen
The Dark Ones
