Eternal Foe
Chapter - 05 The Serpent King's Sword
The digging had gone on day and night since the discovery. The few who occupied the campsite took shifts in keeping the excavation going. Now that there was a clear goal their morale soared and a new fervor crept into their efforts.
Teela slumped to her cot, she too had pitched in with a pick and spade wanting to see what further secrets hid beneath the black sands of Vaneda, yet very little had been uncovered in the time since the discovery of the tower. The most exciting revelation since then was uncovering of another two towers, all connected by a single catwalk. However, their attempts to dig through to the fortress' base had yielded nothing. It was as deep as its battlements indicated. With their small crew there was no possible way to complete the dig in a reasonable timeframe. Melaktha had sent Calados Sal to the King in the hopes that he would provide extra manpower; that they had not yet heard back from him did not indicate whether that was good news or bad. Closing her eyes Teela drifted off to sleep, fatigued from a full day's work.
She couldn't remember when she had woken or how she got to where she now stood. She stood within a wide crater, its radii stretching for many miles in every direction. No, not a crater, a pit; a man made pit. Support beams held back the obsidian sands that threatened to drown the cavity. Sitting within the centre were three massive towers punching the skyline with impressive height, each tower bore a theme in its structure. One tower seemed built from a single block of granite, the keep's walls ran straight up and down but for the skull carved into its base. Another looked to be made of purple quartz and the shape of a snake had been fashioned in a coil around the length of the tower. The final tower was carved of a flawless, white material; Teela could not identify its texture, at its base the head of a lion had been set into the stone.
The skull and snake towers were constructions of magnificent beauty and repulsiveness; eye-catching structures with dark and grotesque themes. But the lion tower was magnificence realized. A shiver rand through Teela as she wondered if these were the three towers they had recently discovered; the first tower they had uncovered was of the same material as the skull tower and the other two were purple quartz and a brilliant, white stone. Had she really slept so long that they had finished the excavation without her? Teela looked around; there didn't appear to be anyone else nearby.
She walked closer to the lion tower, drawn by its bestial majesty. Her eyes were affixed to the lion's head carving, as flawlessly white as the rest of the tower. What stonemason or stonemasons carved this? Surely this could only be the work of magic to produce such a piece of art? As she approached the closed maw of the lion she noticed a rock embedded within the ground next to the giant head. That in itself was of little note but for the hilt of a sword protruding from the stone. The grip of the sword was wrapped in leather like any other but the pommel was at its end was unique; a serpent's head wrought in iron with a forked tongue licking the air from between its lipless mouth.
Teela gently touched the snake's head pommel, as she did so the image of a man, unbeknown to her flashed within her mind. She retracted her hand at the sudden vision, unsure of what it could mean. She tried to focus on the man's face, he had looked both surprised and eager. But at what? She again touched her hand to the upended sword, again the mysterious person appeared. It was an unusual face, strangely devoid of distinguishing features; there was a nose, a pair of eyes a mouth and lips as there should have been, but there was nothing to mark them as belonging to a unique being. Teela thought of the masks the villagers wore on occasion, faces without features.
What did stand out about the fellow was his mail cap. At first glance it looked like a well polished, silver link headdress. But then she noticed that it cast a greenish tint, which was highly unusual considering he was surrounded by nothing but darkness. His body armour was of similar design, covering a slender body that seemed to have no muscle tone. Whoever he was, he was certainly a strange looking individual.
"Go on, draw it!" the figure urged Teela. She looked at him questioningly. He looked and sounded eager, which gave Teela reason to pause; whenever a complete stranger so avidly implored you to do something it generally did not yield pleasant results.
"Who are you?" she asked the enigmatic creature.
He looked torn between whether or not to further impel her to draw the sword, or answer her inquiry. "I am Mekasha, King of Reptos and Acolyte of the God Serpentius."
Teela's inquisitiveness turned to cynicism, "I think I've been in the desert way too long."
It was now 'Mekasha's' turn to be curious. "What desert?"
"If you hadn't noticed we're in the middle of the desert, an island strangely enough, called Vaneda," Teela informed him, sensing Mekasha's ignorance on the subject.
"What of Derren-Ma? That is where we entered when we were imprisoned within these walls."
Teela's mind began to race, the texts that had led them here mentioned Derren-Ma, a place that existed over a thousand years ago, and that a great power was contained inside a fortress constructed there. Now she was cautious, how was this King Mekasha tied to the three towers? Why was he imprisoned here, what crime had he committed and lastly, what great power did he, or the 'we' he kept referring to, wield?
"I must leave now," she told the Reptos' King.
"You cannot leave!" He cried vehemently. "Draw the sword and set me free."
Teela ran from the Lion Tower, shaking her head as she realized she was still asleep. How did one wake from a dream exactly? She stopped and let out a blood curdling scream of frustration and the world turned to black.
She awoke with a start, sweat dripping profusely from every pore. She gasped and heaved as though she had indeed run. She wondered if she screamed aloud, she hoped not that would mean a lot of awkward questions. She dressed quickly, just throwing on a long tunic. There were some things she needed to know that hopefully Melaktha could fill her in on.
Leaving her tent she noticed the night sky starting to lighten, she hadn't realized she had been asleep that long. Melaktha was where she expected to find him; at the rim of the excavation. He smiled and waved to her as he noticed her making her way towards him. His smile dropped slightly as he took in the serious expression on her face.
"Is something the matter Captain?" He asked politely.
"I'm not sure," replied Teela. "Would you mind if I asked you some historical questions?"
Melaktha's smile returned, "Certainly my dear, that is after all what I do."
"Have you ever heard of a King Mekasha?"
"I can not say that I have," Melaktha said with a frown.
"How about the Kingdom Of Reptos or the god Serpentius?" asked Teela.
Melaktha mused for a moment. "I am not sure about the name Reptos, but according to Avionian interpretations of ancient hieroglyphs, an army of the Snake God once waged war on the lands of Eternia. The details are sorely lacking but the author of the paintings credited two great heroes as having defeated the Snake God's army, but how and what became of the invading army is still unknown. It's possible that Serpentius' army were called Reptos'."
"What more can you tell me of the Snake God?" urged Teela.
"Only what everyone else knows," Melaktha sighed, "Little is known of the Twelve Gods. Serpentius is one of the six dark gods along with Horde Prime, Y'Nago, Demortae, Gedrag and Ifre. It's amazing that we as a society, have this belief in deities but no dogma from which to draw these beliefs."
"Where do you think we get our religious beliefs from.?" Teela asked the historian
"A good question. On the face of it, there is the Twelve Gods, six to represent Good, six to represent Evil. Six male Gods, six female. Therein you have the popular ideas of good versus evil and balance. Popular Eternian mythology always contains references to these two ideas, as does any good story. In any fable there is a protagonist, or the good guy whose balance is upset by the machinations of the antagonist, or the bad guy, the evil doer."
"So you're saying that you think the Twelve is a wildly popular tale?"
"No, not at all! Please don't get me wrong. That is but one explanation, I mean, what is not to say that all stories are derived from the one true story, the one true word as it were?"
Teela rubbed the sides of her head, "This is all too confusing."
"Now you know how I feel most days. That is how I will continue to feel until there is overwhelming evidence to reveal the absolute truth. Something that I believe will elude us for eternity." Melaktha confessed.
Teela thought about Serpentius' army, one day seemingly vanished from existence. Imprisoned maybe?
"Oh that's right!" Melaktha exclaimed. Teela looked at him. "In the hieroglyphics the leader of the Snake God's army is depicted wielding a sword. Nothing unusual in itself, but the sword is painted several times by itself that usually indicates that an item or person has some significance."
"What did this picture look like?" Teela asked warily.
"The sword had a wending blade design, like a snake in motion and its pommel was drawn in the shape of a serpent's head. Curious isn't it?"
Teela felt flushed, Melaktha had described the sword in her dream, only now, could she be certain that it was indeed a dream. Whatever it was, Teela was suddenly sure that the man she had met was both the leader he claimed to be, and the one time bane of Eternia. Now the dig did not seem like such a good idea, Teela sensed that only trouble could come from unearthing the Three Towers in full.
A young scholar, Schojen if Teela remembered correctly, ran excitedly up to Melaktha. "Sir, sir!" he cried. "It's great news, Calados Sal has just returned from Eternos and he's brought a small army with him, we'll have this dig finished in no time!"
Teela once heard Queen Marlena say "When it rains, it pours." Teela knew now precisely what she meant.
The dream was so real that Mekasha wept at the thought of having been so close to freedom. He knew that it was more than a dream, closer to a vision. The time of liberty was drawing near, he knew the human woman was close, he could almost taste her. Would she draw the sword if she came into its presence? Mekasha hoped so, then he could bestow a reward upon her for her service to the Reptos' and Serpentius, he would make her his Queen to repopulate the race of Reptos. As repulsive as he found her Mekasha knew the Snake Men would have to mate quickly to bring their kind back from extinction. The Reptos had been wiped out, Mekasha was sure of it, there was no way He-Ro and Eldor would have let his people remain unchecked in the world.
Yes, a new mother to the Reptos would have to be chosen from the race of man and the human female he had envisioned would do just fine.
Chapter - 05 The Serpent King's Sword
The digging had gone on day and night since the discovery. The few who occupied the campsite took shifts in keeping the excavation going. Now that there was a clear goal their morale soared and a new fervor crept into their efforts.
Teela slumped to her cot, she too had pitched in with a pick and spade wanting to see what further secrets hid beneath the black sands of Vaneda, yet very little had been uncovered in the time since the discovery of the tower. The most exciting revelation since then was uncovering of another two towers, all connected by a single catwalk. However, their attempts to dig through to the fortress' base had yielded nothing. It was as deep as its battlements indicated. With their small crew there was no possible way to complete the dig in a reasonable timeframe. Melaktha had sent Calados Sal to the King in the hopes that he would provide extra manpower; that they had not yet heard back from him did not indicate whether that was good news or bad. Closing her eyes Teela drifted off to sleep, fatigued from a full day's work.
She couldn't remember when she had woken or how she got to where she now stood. She stood within a wide crater, its radii stretching for many miles in every direction. No, not a crater, a pit; a man made pit. Support beams held back the obsidian sands that threatened to drown the cavity. Sitting within the centre were three massive towers punching the skyline with impressive height, each tower bore a theme in its structure. One tower seemed built from a single block of granite, the keep's walls ran straight up and down but for the skull carved into its base. Another looked to be made of purple quartz and the shape of a snake had been fashioned in a coil around the length of the tower. The final tower was carved of a flawless, white material; Teela could not identify its texture, at its base the head of a lion had been set into the stone.
The skull and snake towers were constructions of magnificent beauty and repulsiveness; eye-catching structures with dark and grotesque themes. But the lion tower was magnificence realized. A shiver rand through Teela as she wondered if these were the three towers they had recently discovered; the first tower they had uncovered was of the same material as the skull tower and the other two were purple quartz and a brilliant, white stone. Had she really slept so long that they had finished the excavation without her? Teela looked around; there didn't appear to be anyone else nearby.
She walked closer to the lion tower, drawn by its bestial majesty. Her eyes were affixed to the lion's head carving, as flawlessly white as the rest of the tower. What stonemason or stonemasons carved this? Surely this could only be the work of magic to produce such a piece of art? As she approached the closed maw of the lion she noticed a rock embedded within the ground next to the giant head. That in itself was of little note but for the hilt of a sword protruding from the stone. The grip of the sword was wrapped in leather like any other but the pommel was at its end was unique; a serpent's head wrought in iron with a forked tongue licking the air from between its lipless mouth.
Teela gently touched the snake's head pommel, as she did so the image of a man, unbeknown to her flashed within her mind. She retracted her hand at the sudden vision, unsure of what it could mean. She tried to focus on the man's face, he had looked both surprised and eager. But at what? She again touched her hand to the upended sword, again the mysterious person appeared. It was an unusual face, strangely devoid of distinguishing features; there was a nose, a pair of eyes a mouth and lips as there should have been, but there was nothing to mark them as belonging to a unique being. Teela thought of the masks the villagers wore on occasion, faces without features.
What did stand out about the fellow was his mail cap. At first glance it looked like a well polished, silver link headdress. But then she noticed that it cast a greenish tint, which was highly unusual considering he was surrounded by nothing but darkness. His body armour was of similar design, covering a slender body that seemed to have no muscle tone. Whoever he was, he was certainly a strange looking individual.
"Go on, draw it!" the figure urged Teela. She looked at him questioningly. He looked and sounded eager, which gave Teela reason to pause; whenever a complete stranger so avidly implored you to do something it generally did not yield pleasant results.
"Who are you?" she asked the enigmatic creature.
He looked torn between whether or not to further impel her to draw the sword, or answer her inquiry. "I am Mekasha, King of Reptos and Acolyte of the God Serpentius."
Teela's inquisitiveness turned to cynicism, "I think I've been in the desert way too long."
It was now 'Mekasha's' turn to be curious. "What desert?"
"If you hadn't noticed we're in the middle of the desert, an island strangely enough, called Vaneda," Teela informed him, sensing Mekasha's ignorance on the subject.
"What of Derren-Ma? That is where we entered when we were imprisoned within these walls."
Teela's mind began to race, the texts that had led them here mentioned Derren-Ma, a place that existed over a thousand years ago, and that a great power was contained inside a fortress constructed there. Now she was cautious, how was this King Mekasha tied to the three towers? Why was he imprisoned here, what crime had he committed and lastly, what great power did he, or the 'we' he kept referring to, wield?
"I must leave now," she told the Reptos' King.
"You cannot leave!" He cried vehemently. "Draw the sword and set me free."
Teela ran from the Lion Tower, shaking her head as she realized she was still asleep. How did one wake from a dream exactly? She stopped and let out a blood curdling scream of frustration and the world turned to black.
She awoke with a start, sweat dripping profusely from every pore. She gasped and heaved as though she had indeed run. She wondered if she screamed aloud, she hoped not that would mean a lot of awkward questions. She dressed quickly, just throwing on a long tunic. There were some things she needed to know that hopefully Melaktha could fill her in on.
Leaving her tent she noticed the night sky starting to lighten, she hadn't realized she had been asleep that long. Melaktha was where she expected to find him; at the rim of the excavation. He smiled and waved to her as he noticed her making her way towards him. His smile dropped slightly as he took in the serious expression on her face.
"Is something the matter Captain?" He asked politely.
"I'm not sure," replied Teela. "Would you mind if I asked you some historical questions?"
Melaktha's smile returned, "Certainly my dear, that is after all what I do."
"Have you ever heard of a King Mekasha?"
"I can not say that I have," Melaktha said with a frown.
"How about the Kingdom Of Reptos or the god Serpentius?" asked Teela.
Melaktha mused for a moment. "I am not sure about the name Reptos, but according to Avionian interpretations of ancient hieroglyphs, an army of the Snake God once waged war on the lands of Eternia. The details are sorely lacking but the author of the paintings credited two great heroes as having defeated the Snake God's army, but how and what became of the invading army is still unknown. It's possible that Serpentius' army were called Reptos'."
"What more can you tell me of the Snake God?" urged Teela.
"Only what everyone else knows," Melaktha sighed, "Little is known of the Twelve Gods. Serpentius is one of the six dark gods along with Horde Prime, Y'Nago, Demortae, Gedrag and Ifre. It's amazing that we as a society, have this belief in deities but no dogma from which to draw these beliefs."
"Where do you think we get our religious beliefs from.?" Teela asked the historian
"A good question. On the face of it, there is the Twelve Gods, six to represent Good, six to represent Evil. Six male Gods, six female. Therein you have the popular ideas of good versus evil and balance. Popular Eternian mythology always contains references to these two ideas, as does any good story. In any fable there is a protagonist, or the good guy whose balance is upset by the machinations of the antagonist, or the bad guy, the evil doer."
"So you're saying that you think the Twelve is a wildly popular tale?"
"No, not at all! Please don't get me wrong. That is but one explanation, I mean, what is not to say that all stories are derived from the one true story, the one true word as it were?"
Teela rubbed the sides of her head, "This is all too confusing."
"Now you know how I feel most days. That is how I will continue to feel until there is overwhelming evidence to reveal the absolute truth. Something that I believe will elude us for eternity." Melaktha confessed.
Teela thought about Serpentius' army, one day seemingly vanished from existence. Imprisoned maybe?
"Oh that's right!" Melaktha exclaimed. Teela looked at him. "In the hieroglyphics the leader of the Snake God's army is depicted wielding a sword. Nothing unusual in itself, but the sword is painted several times by itself that usually indicates that an item or person has some significance."
"What did this picture look like?" Teela asked warily.
"The sword had a wending blade design, like a snake in motion and its pommel was drawn in the shape of a serpent's head. Curious isn't it?"
Teela felt flushed, Melaktha had described the sword in her dream, only now, could she be certain that it was indeed a dream. Whatever it was, Teela was suddenly sure that the man she had met was both the leader he claimed to be, and the one time bane of Eternia. Now the dig did not seem like such a good idea, Teela sensed that only trouble could come from unearthing the Three Towers in full.
A young scholar, Schojen if Teela remembered correctly, ran excitedly up to Melaktha. "Sir, sir!" he cried. "It's great news, Calados Sal has just returned from Eternos and he's brought a small army with him, we'll have this dig finished in no time!"
Teela once heard Queen Marlena say "When it rains, it pours." Teela knew now precisely what she meant.
The dream was so real that Mekasha wept at the thought of having been so close to freedom. He knew that it was more than a dream, closer to a vision. The time of liberty was drawing near, he knew the human woman was close, he could almost taste her. Would she draw the sword if she came into its presence? Mekasha hoped so, then he could bestow a reward upon her for her service to the Reptos' and Serpentius, he would make her his Queen to repopulate the race of Reptos. As repulsive as he found her Mekasha knew the Snake Men would have to mate quickly to bring their kind back from extinction. The Reptos had been wiped out, Mekasha was sure of it, there was no way He-Ro and Eldor would have let his people remain unchecked in the world.
Yes, a new mother to the Reptos would have to be chosen from the race of man and the human female he had envisioned would do just fine.