Monday, June 9, 2014

"A Brief History of Ardalia" by Alan Spade

EXCERPT
A Brief History of Ardalia
by Alan Spade


Description
This mythological, not to say cosmogonic, story describes in a few pages the genesis of the four great civilizations of Ardalia and the most significant events preceding the Ardalia trilogy. For those who have read The Breath of Aoles, Turquoise Water, and The Flames of the Immolated, it offers an interesting adjustment of perspective. For others, it permits an easy introduction to the details of the universe while furnishing a complete synoptic history benefiting from a different viewpoint.
As a bonus: the five first chapters of The Breath of Aoles.


Excerpt
The History of the Krongos
The Awakening of Ast
The eras succeeded one another, and Ardalia was only populated by savage creatures, predators and prey. But the equilibrium remained unstable, the strong devouring the weak before tearing one another apart. Ast, the Creator of all things, incarnate in the vast molten globe of Astar, observed the animal species battling one another, beneath the moons Tinmal and Hamal, without ever achieving a result. The world was chaotic. In order to remedy that, Ast conceived four elementary gods: Cilamon, the god of terrestrial life and father of Aoles, the god of the wind, Andunieve, the god of the waves and aquatic life, and Kerengar, the god of the mineral world.
The creation of the krongos (25,000 cycles of life before the epic of Pelmen and his companions)
Ast decided to help Kerengar to create an intelligent species, the krongos. The latter appeared on Ardalia 25,000 years before our era. One of the greatest krongos mages of that era was named Terenxar. He fashioned a stone that permitted him to link his thoughts to those of his friends. Then he founded what was to become an immense city and named it Terenxinar, after himself. Soon, however, Ast was disappointed by the krongos, for those beings, to which he had given liberty of thought and action, after having hunted wild animals and built their cities, were gradually divided into the Northerners (comprising the inhabitants of the north and the east) and the Westerners (from the west and south of the Glacial Summits). Each people strove to impress the other by means of its architectural achievements, its knowledge and its utilization of magic.
The Genesis of the malians, followed by the hevelens (-21,000 years)
So Ast dreamed of harmony, and from his dreams was born Malia, the goddess of harmony. She and Andunieve gave birth to the malians. But Aoles was jealous, because the wind’s only representatives on Ardalia were winged creatures called algams, so he fashioned a carnal envelope to reproduce himself. His intention was to take inspiration from the krongos and the malians and possess his own people in his turn.
There were no intelligent bipeds in that era other than the children of the earth and the water. He therefore coupled with ten females of a primitive species called hevels, which had the particularity of climbing trees and gave evidence of more intelligence than others, but which nevertheless made use of all four limbs in walking. The Ten First Children, five males and five females, he named Aguerris and ordered them to take care of their descendants. Shortly after their birth, they stood up and walked on two limbs, and revealed themselves to be far more intelligent than the hevels.
Aoles also asked his own father, Cilamon, to watch over the Ten Aguerris and their mothers until the end of their long lives, to welcome them in the branches of his trees and to keep away ferocious beasts, which he did. He also asked him to teach some of them magic, in order that they would not be disadvantaged relative to other beings endowed with understanding, and that too Cilamon agreed to do, because he loved his son.
The Ten Aguerris lived for five hundred years and had an abundant progeniture. And the ten mothers, until the end of their long lives—for they too were protected by Cilamon—continued to conceive a child every year. Thus was born the people of the hevelens. Ast was saddened by that, because he thought that the beings in question would have a shorter lifespan than the others—which proved to be the case—and that they would be in danger of extinction, hunted as they were by wild beasts, so he accepted that Cilamon might shelter them in the form of a tree; but he asked the other gods to withdraw, and no longer to walk upon the terrain of Ardalia in a carnal envelope, in order to leave free will to each of the three peoples, and not to intervene in their affairs. He was obeyed.

Review
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About the Author
Born in Quito, Ecuador, in 1971, Alan Spade spent part of his childhood in sub-Saharan Africa. Very soon, Alan was reading French classical literature, Lovecraft, Asimov, Tolkien, and King. He worked eight years in written press as a video game reviewer.
Alan loves to write science fiction, mostly space opera, fantasy, science-fantasy. And thrillers.



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