The Land Below our Feet III (Legacy)

SAVIOR

The furious winds made the sails swell as they pushed them forward and allowed the group of light watercraft to gracefully advance across the gentle ocean waves.

Ulgiak rested near the ship’s intimidating bowsprit, which depicted a massive reptile’s head attached to it. His sight fixated on the horizon as his fingers ran distractedly over the map extended before him.

But even when his eyes seemed focused on the miles and miles of open sea that extended endlessly ahead, his mind was in fact very far away from there.

A pestering doubt vexing him once again as the memory of his land's falling and his paradoxical rise to power came back to fuel the fears he felt. The anger of their foolish dismissal reigniting as he cursed their stubbornness… If only they had listened to him back then!

But they hadn’t. And that’s why they had perished beneath the scorching lava flows.

The sinister omens had begun long before the first black clouds appeared in the blue Tainshan sky. Right when the summer heat and the dysentery had arrived and struck them with full force, untimely taking away his daughter and his wife.

When Ulgiak had sobered enough from his drunken bender, he soon realized that death had cruelly spared him and left him to suffer a meaningless life.

The thought of such a pathetic existence had felt so unbearably painful at the time that, driven by an incontrollable need to disappear, he had run to the mountains and spent the next few weeks buried in a narrow cave, wishing that the darkness reigning inside it would eventually swallow him with it.

He didn’t know what had exactly compelled him to do it, but after days of self-imposed starvation and sensory deprivation, he had finally emerged from the shadows with a rumbling gut and an aching back.

The bright sun had ruthlessly stabbed his sensitive eyes that fateful morning as he shielded them from its piercing rays and slowly scanned the horizon to orientate himself. That’s when he saw it, the tall column of rising smoke.

Yet, the column itself was not what had made him feel such dread, but the surreal sight of the panicked flocks of fleeing birds that suddenly flew above him.

So many, that the sound of their flapping wings had momentarily dazzled him, and their congregated mass obstructed the morning light, casting a portentous shade that obscured the sky.

Then it had happened, the ground had trembled beneath his feet and made him fall flat on his ass. Instinctively, he'd reached his palm and tried to lift himself back up, but when he went to touch the soil, he noticed that the surface was unusually warm.

His eyes had slowly traveled from the loose dirt between his fingers to the peak of the Mahuna Kela and the idea of jumping into the blazing magma had sparkled fleetingly in his mind.

“Go back” – A voice in his head had yelled at him – “You need to warn them before it’s too late.”

And so, against his will, he had rushed back to town.

For three days, he had camped outside the palace begging to be granted an audience and pleading to the soldiers that they let him warn the King.

But when he finally got an answer from someone other than a wry-faced guard, it was a dismissive lecture about how the Mahuna Kela had been emitting gases for centuries, and that there was nothing to worry about.

-You don't understand! – He had shouted at the officer that had come to inform him that he needed to go home and stop talking about stuff that he didn’t have the slightest idea of.

They had thrown him out of the palace’s entrance, but they couldn’t force him to leave the main square or keep his mouth shut.

So, he had spent the following week tearing his throat raw as he uselessly tried to alert every indifferent passerby. He had loudly preached day and night, telling them about the signs he had witnessed until his voice had devolved into a faint whisper, and eventually into a quiet babble.

“I must sound like a madman” – He had told himself. He had almost decided to let them all die and was about to go back and climb the Mahuna Kela to meet his own demise, when a woman approached him and acknowledged his presence at last.

-Is it true? What you say – She had curiously asked, while she pressed a young girl against her chest – Is the end nigh?

-It is – He had croaked, nodding emphatically at her – And you all need to get out of here before it starts.

-Did the Gods tell you that? – The woman had insisted with an almost excited glint dancing inside her eyes – I bet they did! I bet you are the chosen one!

He still wasn’t sure what had happened that day, or how… But next thing he knew, he was surrounded by hundreds of people demanding to know all about the message from the Gods.

-The voice said I should come and save you – He had shyly mumbled at first – It is not safe here anymore, tragedy is about to strike, it is time to go!

And somehow, they had listened. Not only that… They had believed him! So, he had ended up being dragged by the mob to a fleet of royal ships among thousands of raging women, children, and men, who had taken them by force, regardless of the present guards and their futile efforts to stop their advance.

When they’d heard the first of the series of violent explosions that would coincidentally ensue almost immediately after the last one of them had stepped on the stolen watercraft, none of them seemed to be the least surprised.

They had all calmly watched their land being mercilessly swallowed by the flowing rivers of molten rock while the desperate screams reached their ears as they sailed away to the unknown.

Once the trance they had all fallen into had dissipated enough for them to take their eyes off the eerily hypnotic catastrophe, all their pupils had questioningly landed on him.

-Al-hesh! – The woman he'd first met had proclaimed with conviction in a loud voice, raising her fist in the air and urging the others to join her.

-Al-hesh! Al-hesh! – They had all started shouting in unison, cheering for him, and trying to graze his clothes for a bit. Which made him feel just as flattered as he was overwhelmed by it all, because he knew perfectly well that Al-hesh was the Tainshan word for “The voice of the Gods”.

The thought of pointing out their obvious misjudgment had briefly crossed his mind. He considered telling them how he was a simple man trying to do one last good deed before he died… But then he had looked at their lost expressions, and he’d felt incapable of killing their hopes and breaking their hearts after what they had all just left behind.

They needed a savior, and maybe that was his true fate! After all, he’d heard a voice. Had he not? So, who was he to say that it wasn’t from the Gods?

-Don’t be afraid – He’d found himself telling them instead with a reassuring gesture and an open palm – I will deliver you all to a new and better land soon!

So, he had sworn right then and there, that he would keep his word, whatever it took.

Ten years had passed since that ill-fated day, and a lot had changed. Still, despite Ulgiak´s best intentions, they hadn’t found that promised place, neither could they return to the mass-grave that their land had turned into yet. So, they had become raiding nomads, living day by day.

There had been dark times, there had been doubts… And a lot of sacrifice and pain. But when he was about to give up once more, the Voice had favored them again. They’d found Selahrian´s map, and they were finally on their way.