A New Mythology--Oramon--Nomra and the Living Dark

   In the internal depths of Oramon, Nomra’s kingdom grew. Among her crystal forests and sculptured blocks of stone she grew new, strange plants for the dark spaces. Some of her new flowers gave light and some were made of living gemstones. She created also, great underground seas of water, molten gold, and milk.

   Before Denu and the wolves, and before she created her Night Light, she used Phiron’s fire to animate her first stone companion, Syn, who was cold and dead in aspect, but able to carve exquisite murals, statues, and hallways for Nomra’s expanding world. Phiron also helped her to make birds of sapphire and ruby that filled the halls with eerie music. She made, too, a steed of steel to carry her about her domain. It was named Sylo, and was like Phiron in form.

   Once, as Nomra rode Sylo to the edge of her demesne, she sought to form a new aviary for her birds. Phiron accompanied her, giving his light to reveal the dark that Nomra might form it as she pleased. But there was already someone there, asleep, as Neron and Nomra had slept in the shadow before light awoke them.

   Nomra drew back, startled and the dark swallowed the being up again before it could wake.

“What untold ancient one is this?” she wondered. “I have never seen the like.” Cautiously, she stepped forward again to reveal the being entirely.

   In her fear of new things, she subconsciously formed the dark as she revealed the new one, and in so doing, unintentionally disfigured the being.

   He opened his eyes and beheld Nomra.

   She was frightened by the terrifying aspect of the monster and turned her steed to flee.

   “Seem I strange unto thee?” he asked. “All is strange unto me. If I frighten you, let me veil myself.” And he took the darkness behind him and without Light, formed a covering for his many eyes and fluid limbs.

   “You create without Light,” Nomra marveled.

   “I have dreamed long and dreams are dark, their substance is real to me,” said the being. “The Dark is an insubstantial world, one of unending, unformed possibilities. The chaos of Night is not solid and can form and reform as it pleases.”

   “There is no need for such uncertainty,” Nomra said. “Let me show you the world of reality, of light and form and concrete beauty.”

   “I find true beauty in the abstract, yet you arouse my curiosity: show me these strange things you speak of,” the being said hungrily. 

   “What shall I call you, Strange One?" Nomra asked.

   "What wilt thou call me?”

   “Onys,” she said. “Of the Dark.”

    Onys nodded and approached Nomra. She led him into her kingdom and showed him the marvels thereof. Behind his veil of night, Onys’s eyes sparkled in delight.

   “These are indeed marvels,” said Onys. “I wonder what more marvelous things we could create in this half-light world of yours.”

   “Will you teach me how to create without Light?” Nomra asked.

   “It is not so much creation as suggestion,” Onys said. “To make things with Light is to bind the Dark. To weave Darkness is to teach it movement.”

   So together, Nomra and Onys made Urr, a great eye of living stone that could see far forward and far backward in time. They made also the Je, four winged maidens with long tongues like snakes.

Onys built a breathing throne of chaos in Nomra’s favorite crystal garden and from this blasphemous throne he perverted her creations.

   Onys unformed her jewel birds halfway, so that they were eternally changing shape, from one kind of bird to another and bats and other winged things that had no names. The breathing throne of chaos expanded to fill the crystal chamber and Onys let loose tendrils into other chambers. Eyes budded on the tendrils and soon he watched all that transpired in Nomra’s domain.

   At first Nomra did not mind the aberrant intrusion and expansion that filled her chambers with dreaded Darkness and seething malice. She was thrilled by the ever-changing, though horrifying madness of these new things. She did not mind that the unblinking tendril eyes of Onys watched her wherever she went and wept tears of blood when she bathed in the sea of milk.

   She did not even care that great hideous membranes grew between her stalactites and rained creeping things upon the stones.

   Phiron whispered to her, warning that Onys was a vile creature, that she should not let him conquer her domain. She did not listen. At first.

   She sought to form Darkness on her own, and shaped for herself the first true bats, but she could not bring them to life without the help of Onys. Frustrated, she sat beside the sea of molten gold, poisoned with the shifting chaos and sparkling eyes of Onys.

   “Nomra…” whispered Onys’s voice from a thousand hidden mouths. “Nomra…”

   Nomra stood and followed the hissing voices to where Onys waited on his throne of chaos.

   “Come to me, Nomra,” he said. “I desire you. Step into my throne and let me embrace you and enfold you in my murk.”

   Nomra held back as the Darkness seemed to tug at her. “I do not wish to,” Nomra said.

   “Do I not excite you?” enquired Onys. “Have you not thrilled at my intangible and ever inescapable pandemonium? Give yourself over to me, Nomra, let us be one in anarchy. Let the Dark change you as I have been changed, as you changed me, dear Nomra. Let me kiss you!”

   His tendrils of slime and membranes sought to pull her into his throne.

   Nomra screamed and pulled away as the churning mucus lapped at her feet and the sticky webs entangled her arms.

   “Phiron!” she cried. “Save me!”

   Phiron tried to reach her, but the Je intercepted him and herded him towards the edges of Light, where Darkness was supreme.

   “Do not touch me,” Nomra warned Onys, but he only laughed.

   “You cannot escape me,” said Onys.

   Nomra seized his webs of Dark that he sought to enwrap her in and used her new skill to reform them. They broke away from her and she fled from the throne into her chamber of sparkling flames. Onys sought to extinguish them with his eye-covered tentacles, but Nomra reformed the tendrils into solid things and with the faint flame-light, managed to freeze them into stone.

   Phiron had singed the Je and escaped from them. He rushed to aid Nomra and they solidified all of the Dark tendrils, tentacles, and creeping feelers and roots that extended from the throne. Then Nomra sealed up the throne in a cocoon of diamond. She left Phiron to blaze bight and keep the Darkness from emerging while she went to the surface to collect sunlight and fallen stars.

   When she returned to the sealed throne of chaos, she formed a cage of silver to contain her new Light. The first lamp, a dazzling Light, which she called Mihr, she hung outside the cocoon to ensure it remained sealed and kept Onys from emerging and bringing pandemonium to her demesne.

Then she and Phiron went through all the chambers and all the caverns and halls and froze the tendrils and closed the eyes and scrubbed the place clean of unformed Darkness. Syn chiseled away the solidified remains of Onys’s expansions and carted them off to a new pit, called Obis, that Nomra made for the purpose. She left Urr alone in its chamber, but sent Sylo to hunt down the Je, which she trapped in silver cages and hung above the gloom of Obis.

   With her new Underworld Light, Mihr, Nomra was at last able to give life to her shadow creatures. She brought her bats to life and sent them to slay all of her old birds that had been commandeered by Onys and then she formed new birds of diamonds and opals.

   She also made the wolves out of shadow and gave them life with the Light of Mihr.

   So Nomra won dominion over Shadow.

A New Mythology--Oramon--Triona's Abode

   Denu explored the vast seafloor, chasing fishes and playing with the eels. He found in the mysterious depths strange places that mirrored those above: forests of dancing fronds and living stones, great deserts of glittering sand, mountains and valleys. There was even a place like unto Amalteron: a beautiful peak whose cliff fell away, not to a glistening sea as above, but to a churning ocean of deep, impenetrable darkness. It was a place where Nomra’s creation met the Dark within Oramon, a place of unformed possibility.

   Denu called it Unamalteron. He would perch on the peak and stare down into the whirling void. His eyes were the Light of creation and they teased shapes from the Dark. The fancies of Denu were slicked from the abyss and given form and life. As Neron above on Amalteron, Denu was a craftsman. He made the Denites first, a spiny, many-legged contingent to guard his summit should Neron and Nemrus discover him there. They were terrible creatures with poison lances and champing mandibles.

   But the Denites were not skilled in conversation, and Denu grew lonely. He missed Onera, and as he gazed into the abyss below Unamalteron, his longing solidified and detached from the Dark. She was identical to Onera in every way but one: she had no eyes.

   Unonera instead looked into the future.

   “A Light will arise in the Night, and the Children of Denu will be chased from the Day to live in Darkness as a new Age begins,” were Unonera’s first words to Denu.

   Denu fled from Unamalteron and Unonera and wandered the seafloor until he came to the coral forests of Triona. He found her frolicking with the fishes and she bade him join her. So Denu sang songs in the deep for Triona’s dances and soon he had forgotten the horror of Unonera. When night came, their dances ended and they huddled in the dark reef until dawn. One of Triona’s rays had told her of the Denites and how they devoured eels and sea slugs and hunted the larger fish. She was afraid that they might come in the night and she begged Denu to stay with her. Denu promised that no strange creatures from the deep would harm her, but he stayed nonetheless.

   Each day they frolicked and danced and sang and Triona admired the eyes of Denu. One night she watched as the tendrils of a barnacle retreated into its rocky fortress.

   “What if we were to have a dwelling place like that?” Triona asked. “We could curl away when the night comes into a safe repository and await the dawn in peace.”

   “Better yet,” said Denu, “We could light this barnacle and dance the night away.”

   “But how shall we make such a dwelling?” asked Triona.

   The next day, Denu returned to Unamalteron, where the Denites devoured any passing creature and Unonera sat in stony silence. She heard him approach.

   “The Race of Nez will take your eyes,” she told him.

   “Eyeless thing,” said Denu, “do not speak to me of the future.”

   “Your children will be reviled forevermore,” Unonera said. Denu ripped out her tongue and cast it into from Unamalteron into Darkness, then he brought up creatures from the Dark: scaly creatures with empty eyes and skilled hands. Then he took them to the shore beside the mountain Neronimahnon and took fire from the volcano and set it in the creature’s empty eyes and he called them Trinites.

   He brought them to Triona and instructed them to build a beautiful dwelling.

   The palace formed by the Trinites from coral and spun pearl became the first house ever built. And the Trinites lit it at night with their flaming eyes. Triona called the house Denona, gift of Denu. Triona and Denu sang every day and danced every night and fell in love beneath the sea.

   Until Unonera came to Denona.

   The mute and sightless seer tried to warn Denu to flee, but he could not understand her warnings and locked her out of the palace, hoping Triona would not recognize the likeness of his former wife. But Unonera returned with the Denites to force him to leave Denona.

   Denu and Triona closed the gates and the Trinites defended the palace with fire.

   As they lay besieged, Nemrus had heard from his animals that Denu had been sighted on the slopes of Neronimahnon and had slipped back into the sea. Nemrus went and told it to Neron and Neron called Ariaj.

   “Find the sea monster that once we rode to Onerae,” Neron commanded. “Tell it to find Denu under the sea and kill him.”

   So Ariaj found the monster and sent it to slay Denu.

   Upon the seafloor, Denu mustered a force of Trinites and led them out to do battle with the Denites. The battle was fierce but at last the Denites turned to flee. Denu pursued them back to Unamalteron and faced Unonera. She drew for him pictures in the sand, telling of the sea monster. So Denu made a spear from the abyss and had Unonera stab him with it before the Trinites that had pursued the Denites with him.

   The Trinites returned to Triona with the news of his death, but the spear had not killed him and he transformed again into a dolphin and swam away, up towards the surface where he hid in the desert in the form of a dragon.

   The sea monster came to Denona and found Triona and the Trinites in mourning. The monster returned to Ariaj with the news of Denu's death.

   Beneath the sea, Triona laid a bed of eggs and from them hatched fourscore maidens like unto Triona, but with the heavenly voice of Denu, and they were called Syré, for they did not cease to sing, bringing joy and a balm to the broken heart of Triona.

A New Mythology--Oramon--Denu and the Wolves

   Neron and Onera made their abode on Onerae and repopulated it with creatures. They gave the island a spring that produced a cleansing water, to purify the memory of the horrors that had befallen the island. They called the spring Nyr for it was restorative.
   “Now let us make one like us,” said Onera. “Like me.”
   “Like you?” said Neron.
   “Yes, but new. I will sculpt his features and design for him a unique countenance and he shall be named Denu,” said Onera.
   So Neron created a man upon his wheel and Onera designed that he should be handsome and unique from all other creatures, though he bore the form of Neron and Onera and Nomra. Onera bade Ariaj give Denu eyes of Light, so Ariaj brought down stars from the sky and set them in the new man’s skull. Onera wished for Denu to have the voice of the birds, so Neron formed vocal chords like those of the birds but stronger and more magnificent and put them into the new man’s throat.
   “Now bid him rise,” said Onera.
   So Denu rose and his eyes were powerful and his voice was beautiful and Onera loved him. But Neron was not pleased. He did not like that Onera spent most of her time with the creature who bore their likeness.
   One day Nemrus came to Neron with the bloody corpse of a hart.
   “Something has come from the dark and slays my creatures,” said Nemrus. “A strange creature unlike the others you have formed.”
   “How can this be?” said Neron. “None of my creatures would kill another.”
   He knew not that Nomra had at last learned to form shadow creatures in the depths of the Darkness of earth. She had found forms there in the gloom, some she could awake with the fire of Phiron, who often accompanied her in the deep places she created. Others, she formed herself from the darkness of dreams, but they could not be awakened by any light brought into the shadows.
“I will make a new light,” said Nomra. “One for the dark.” She formed crystals into a globe and put into it fallen stars and brightness captured from the Light that shone by day. With this light she brought life to her dreams. Some of these dreams escaped through the cleft and came to the forests of Nemrus, where they destroyed his creatures.
   Neron sent Denu to find the killer, hoping to keep him away from Onera. But Onera followed Denu and together they searched for the killer. Onera knew only one other who had killed before and she was afraid of what this new creature meant.
   “Fear not,” said Denu, “no dark thing can harm you whilst I am with you.”
   “Nomra did not use dark things to kill me,” Onera replied.
   At last they found the killers, for there were many, and they feasted on one of Nemrus’s elk. Denu called to the killers in his magnificent voice and the killers were startled. They turned to run, but stopped, for the voice of Denu was enticing. They tried to answer him; they tried to repeat his strange and elegant call.
   “Feast no more upon the innocent,” Denu told the killers.
   The leader of the killers, the first-formed, replied, “It is our nature, our intrinsic purpose. We are Dark and must kill the Light.”
   “Light and Dark are both in all,” Denu said. “Light makes the Dark come to life.” And he settled his eyes upon them. These were eyes of Light, the power of creation, and the shadow killers became flesh and blood. The killers could now be killed. And Denu called them wolves. The wolves, fearing death, fled back to Nomra in her underworld. Eventually, they slunk back out at night to continue hunting. And Nemrus hunted them in the forest with the first bow and arrow.

   Denu secretly admired the wolves and sang to them at night and they answered. Neron heard these songs in the night and mistrusted Denu the more for it. He strictly forbade Onera from keeping company with him but she met him secretly in the deserts where abided the strange life Onera had designed. Denu sang her the first songs and with his voice and eyes of Light he could shape new sounds and realities.
   But Ariaj saw them there and told Neron.
Neron was wroth and went to find them in the desert, but Denu heard him coming and transformed himself and Onera into wolves. Neron could not find them, though he searched the whole of Oramon. Onera and Denu explored the desert and swamps in their new forms and settled awhile in the cold regions of mountains and lived like the wolves, even feasting upon the animals.
At last, Neron discovered what had been done to trick him, and with the aid of Nemrus, hunted them down from the mountains and across the plains toward the sea. Heavy with child, Onera was not fleet enough. They reached the shore of the sea with Neron and Nemrus close upon their trail.
   “Go on without me,” Onera told Denu. “My father will not harm me or the child, but I know not what his wrath may have kindled against you. It is almost time and I cannot swim thus.”
   So Denu dived into the sea, transforming into a dolphin, and vanished. Neron and Nemrus found Onera upon the sand, wracked with the pain of birth. As she brought forth seven children, she changed back into her old form.
   The seven children of Denu were like unto him, with starry eyes, but also bore the mark of the wolves, with fangs and claws and silky hair. They also bore resemblance to Onera, if only to her darker nature: the darkness of her shadow.
   Neron was horrified, but Onera loved them and named them Ner, Deru, Nom, Ee, Nerus, Nu, and Dena. She took them to Amalteron and raised them in the orchard of Nomra. Neron returned to Onera and Nemrus continued to hunt for Denu, but Denu hid in the sea with Triona, who liked to keep secrets.