Confrontation/Chapter 5

The voice of The'Galin pounded in me, a steady rhythm. At first, it was just words that I heard, but as time passed the words gave way to a sense that I was being read like a tablet, that The'Galin knew me in my soul. I felt a sense of burning in my soul, burning but not pain, and when I placed one hand on my fur-lined scales I felt an intense warmth born of no fire.

"Long we waited for you, Xilar of the Kruath'ri... Drakel prince.. Long we waited.... Yet your form will not do for this, so we shall remake you.... Accept our deal and though your name be not changed, none will remember Xilar the loathed, Xilar the worthless, Xilar the fallen.... In another image shall we make you.... and you shall be our voice of reason in the world... You wish the communicancy of the Gods.... so be it. Xilar, I accept you... Where all others rejected you, so mired in their own squabbles were they, I will exalt you and you shall be my harbinger and the world shall be forever changed by the words of your mouth... Say only this... Say that you will serve me... Give me your devotion and you shall rule this age... Know this, however: when we are done, Kruath'ri, you will have not a people. The Silari will be no more... Even your mountain cousins, the Drakel, will be driven to extinction..."

This thought chilled me somewhat. My race would be destroyed for my service.... My devotion to an individual would sentence an entire people to death. The madness this implied was not lost. The Drakel too would fall? I considered this with some great pensiveness.

The Drakel and the Silari were not-so-distant cousins. Our creation myths told that we were created by different gods, yet we spoke the same language, had very similar appearances, and interbred true with each other. Many Silari had taken Drakel mates and had children. The same was true the other way. Whether the offspring of such unions were Drakel or Silari, who could say... only comfort and location dictated the difference. Silari coloration was far more varied than the Drakel; some of us even possessed the multichromatic talents of the changing lizards. The Silari were horned while most Drakel were not, and our fur was more pronounced then that of the Drakel, whose reptilian features were dominant. This fact puzzled some who thought that it should be the other way: would not the fur make the desert Silari hot while it would warm the cold mountain Drakel? Both the Drakel and the Silari represented an intersection of mammalian and reptilian ancestry; of that there was little question. The truth, I knew, was that Silari fur was a rather effective cooling mechanism, offering greater surface area from which heat could dissipate. Our fur felt and looked similar to most other mammals' fur, but it had properties unique to the Kruath'ri.

Kruath'ri, citizen, the word that both Drakel and Silari adopted for members of their respective races. Among polite society in both cultures, the word was also extended to members of our cousin people; among less polite society, it was reserved...

"You reminisce much and take much time... You argue with my cause... You preserve loyalty to a lost creation that services the very gods who destroy our world. I tell you, unless you rise against their iniquity, it is not for your people you need to fear but eternal warfare."

What he was stating was disingenuous. There was truth in it, but little, and its meaning was being clearly twisted. Worse, he did this without hiding the fact from me. I knew well his intention. I debated more, feeling certain that service to this being was madness, knowing that I was in the presence of an evil more pronounced then the world had ever known. How the epic hero who loved Creation had become this being who bid me join his ranks, I knew not, but it must have been a terrible fall indeed....

"No...!" I cried. "What you seek, you will not find in me. I will not betray my people..."

"What a shame," The'Galin said, and his voice seemed genuinely sad.... "It is a pity they won't treat you with the same courtesy."

I shivered involuntarily, a chill of trespass running through my being. What had he meant by that....? I did not know...

As it happened, I would resist The'Galin's call for a while longer. I would even fight him. I later came to wonder why he allowed that, why it was necessary, but I can come to only one conclusion: though I protested, the damage they had already done to me was extensive enough. Regardless of what my lips and even my thoughts said, I was already his....