Samuel rushed down the hill with the stamina that could only be attributed to his twelve summers of age, not bothering to mind his feet even on the more treacherous parts. His cheeks were flushed from a strange combination of fear and exhilaration. Behind him was Lysah, whooping with laughter and not bothering to hide her excitement. Keroh lagged behind, his expression guarded and cautious. He made his way down the hill slowly, taking care to avoid the steeper areas most other children would tumble down.
Ahead of them lay the statue. Time alone had not worn it down; half the head had been sheared off, and several fingers were missing as well. What had once been a quarterstaff had pieces missing from both ends, and the sword in the other hand would never be useful for anything other than blunt trauma if it were a weapon.
Finally Samuel reached the bottom of the hill, where the statue itself lay. Lysah followed, slowing to a trot by the time she reached the bottom.
"I told you the Gods were here," Samuel said.
"It looks like he's wearing a skirt," Lysah giggled.
"It's not a skirt, it's a robe," Samuel said, scowling. "Like the ones wizards wear."
"Fine." Lysah rolled her eyes, though it sounded as though she still wanted to laugh. "It's a robe."
Samuel didn't respond. Keroh at last reached the two, and of the three he was the only one who was not panting. "What do you think it is, Keroh?" Samuel asked.
"No God'd let his statue get damaged like this," Keroh said. "Maybe it's just a mortal."
"The Gods all left after the War," Lysah pointed out. "They wouldn't be able to do anything about their statues."
"Saradomin stayed," responded Keroh with a sulk, such as he always had when the subject of religion came up.
"Oh grow up," Samuel began, irritated. "He left like all the others. 'Cept for Guthix, because he's the one who banished all the rest."
Keroh scowled, but before he and Samuel could get into an argument, Lysah interrupted them. "So who do you suppose it is?" she asked, staring up at the statue's mutilated face. Already cracks had begun to run through its nose and one remaining eye.
"Could be Bandos," Samuel suggested. "This guy looks warlike."
"Bandos is like an ogre, stupid," Keroh said. "He'd never take the form of a human, no way."
"Maybe it's not a God," Lysah said.
"That's what I was saying," Keroh said.
"'Course it's a God," Samuel said. "'Ent anyway there'd be mortals getting their own statues during the War. My mum says the Gods never thought of us as anything more than tools."
"Your mum's wrong," Keroh replied. "Saradomin always cared about mortals, and Armadyl left the world because the Avia-" He paused, looking for the word. "Aviansie died."
"I heard it that Armadyl left because he was tired of the war," Lysah said. "Some'd tell you that there's still Aviansie a long ways west."
"Those're just tall tales. The same people would tell you about that great, three headed black dragon way up north." Here Keroh paused again, leaping from thought to thought as only a child can. "Maybe the statue is of Armadyl."
"Nah," Samuel said. "Same problem. Armadyl is like a bird."
"Uh-uh," Lysah responded. "All the pictures of Armadyl have him as a human."
"That's 'cause it was only humans who drew them," Keroh said.
Samuel took another look at the structure. "Zamorak," he suggested.
Keroh shuddered. "We'd feel his unholy power from here."
"Nonsense," Lysah scowled. "It's just stone." She too looked at the statue. "It's probably not him, anyway. He looks like a demon."
"I just-"
"Said humans drew Armadyl, I know. But demons can draw. 'Sides, more people saw him during the War."
They stared at the statue for a while longer. "I'm going to touch it," Samuel announced suddenly, with all the import of a wise man passing down arcane knowledge, or of a soldier marching to war. His eyes roamed across the rock with a sudden lust for exploration and, perhaps, danger.
"You're insane," Keroh muttered without conviction.
"Mayhap," Samuel responded, and started towards the figure. Keroh looked at Lysah, but she just shrugged.
As Samuel reached the statue, he sensed the other two children at his back. They, seemingly unconsciously, spread in a semi-circle about the figure. The stone did not change, but to the three children it seemed to become more menacing than it had been before. They looked at each other, and by some unspoken pact touched the statue at the same time.
To Samuel, the stone- at least the part available to him- was smooth and warm. He did not know what it felt like to the others, but Keroh screwed up his face when he laid his hand on it, and Lysah looked as though she were focused on trying to remember something very important.
Keroh abruptly knelt to the ground. Samuel followed his gaze to what looked like a placard on the statue.
"What does it say?" Lysah asked.
"Dunno. I'll have to clear it."
Samuel knelt to help him. The placard was not large, but the dust and grime was older than any of the children, older, perhaps, than any of them could visualize. In the end, they could only unveil parts of the message.
"What does it say?" Keroh asked. Samuel murmured under his breath.
Lysah seemed to understand what he said. "I can read," she offered kindly. Cheeks red, Samuel stepped aside to let her crouch by the statue. Keroh seemed to find something in the grass very interesting when Lysah reached to touch Samuel's hand slightly longer than she needed to and smiled.
As she took Samuel's spot by the statue, she narrowed her eyes at the incomplete script. "This is all you got out of it?"
"It's old," Keroh said defensively.
Lysah sighed. "Fine. I can still read it." She cleared her throat dramatically and spoke in a grand, uplifting tone of voice. "In the early ages, Tumeken did come to this world of RuneScape…"
"What?" asked Keroh. "Is that what it says?"
"No," Lysah said. "Didn't you ever read Tumeken's Dream?"
"No one's read Tumeken's Dream," Keroh said, scowling.
"My mum read it to me when I was little," Samuel said.
"Fine," Keroh said. "I think you two are the only ones."
"Not true," Lysah said. "In Avarrocka they have great libraries, with books the size of this." Here she held her arms out, hands enclosing a space of about half a meter.
"There's no way," Samuel scoffed. "No one could read that."
"Just like no one is reading the statue," Keroh said, irritated.
"Oh, fine," Lysah grumbled. "Just a joke." Keroh glared.
She cleared her throat again. "Here lies, in memory of the Mah…jer…aht? who fell in defense of- it stops here, and starts again here- blessed in Zaros' name be they-"
"Don't say that name!" Keroh cried out, stricken. Samuel looked pale.
"You two are babies," Lysah said. "It's just a name."
"Everyone says-"
"Saying his name won't bring him back."
"Just please don't say it, OK?" Samuel this time. "It's bad luck."
Lysah looked at him. "OK, fine," she huffed. "I won't say it. Blessed in his name be they, the blood of Senntisten in their veins. And now it says the quote is from some bloke named Ali the Wise."
"That sounds like a Kharidian name," Keroh said. "What's a hump-back doing way up here?"
"My mum says not to call them that," Samuel said. "She says it's… demeaning."
"Would you shut up about your mum?" Keroh snapped. "Gods, you'd think you'd have proposed by now."
Samuel's face heated up and he looked ready to start yelling before Lysah interrupted. "What's a Mahjarrat?" she asked, though it may have been equally to defuse the tension as to actually find out.
"I heard they were powerful necromancers," Samuel said, still sounding slightly sulky. "They're one step below Gods, too."
"Didn't one attack Avarrocka a few years back?" Keroh asked.
"Dunno," Samuel said. "No news from there reaches us."
"Must be powerful to be able to attack a city all by himself," Lysah said.
"Oh, they are," Samuel said. "Some can raise armies of skeletons and the like, and some can take out a thousand people just by waving their hands."
"That can't be true," Keroh said.
Samuel just shrugged. "Whatever they are, you don't want to cross one."
There was silence as the children gazed at the statue. They did not, and perhaps would not ever, know the full significance of what they were looking at, but they were drawn to it somehow, in some way they could not know.
"What's this?" Keroh asked suddenly, kneeling once again to get a closer look at a strange symbol inscribed into the stone.
As the others leaned in to see, Keroh swiped as much dirt as he could from the symbol engraved into the stone. It was placed just adjacent to the name Ali the Wise.
"What is it?" Samuel asked, voice hushed.
"Some kind of… snake, or something," Keroh answered.
"It's like the snakes up north," Lysah whispered. "It has the pattern on the back and everything."
The symbol was a coiled, serpentine figure, head resting in the center and the body radiating outward in a perfect circle.
"That's weird," Samuel said. "I've never seen any God symbol like that."
"I don't think it is a God symbol," Lysah said. "I've never seen any like it before."
Samuel wondered at the thought of there being some undiscovered God out there, dead, or alive, even, and shuddered.
Keroh looked to the sky. "It's getting late," he said, covering his eyes. "Maybe we should head back."
"I guess," Samuel said, not yet totally willing to leave. Lysah sighed.
"Fine. Tomorrow, maybe?" she asked.
"What, coming back here?" Keroh asked, surprised.
"Yeah, sure."
Keroh seemed to struggle for words, perhaps trying to find a valid way to avoid coming back, but merely said, "OK."
As the children began to depart the statue, another figure emerged from the trees.
He was an older man, at least by appearance, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat that obscured most of his face. He watched the children climbing the hill, waiting for them to go out of sight.
Finally they did, and he proceeded towards the statue they had just left. He carried a staff but did not lean on it too heavily. He knelt by the statue.
"Reple me nervis hostium," he whispered, barely audible even if anyone had been around to hear it. He stood once, turned, and disappeared once more into the forest. No one saw the jet-black bird wheel from the canopy, and if they did, no one would think any more of it.
The world was silent once more, and talk of Gods was once again stilled.
Oh. Hey!
So, this is a new venture of mine. It'll involve Mahjarrat, Rituals, and God Wars. The main plotline will be of the forces that led to the eventual fall of Senntisten, as well as the 13th Ritual of Rejuvenation, or at least the preparations for it.
This is just the prologue, and I hope the first chapter will be out sometime this week. Fingers crossed. Also, I'm sort of unfamiliar with the sort of story length I'm planning for this one, so be patient with any slowness, but I'm planning on keeping up :)
Have an awesome day!
P.S. I'm not totally happy with the way this chapter went. Maybe I'm paranoid, but… I don't know. If my suspicions are correct and you find this chapter not to be as good, wait until the next to judge it totally.