A Story of Forever

Part 19

After years and years and years, finally the plans for the final battle had come to fruition. Finally, all the Yemars, living and dead, were ready for battle. They had their weapons forged in fire and they had their warriors forged in suffering and love and hope and hatred. They had their plans ready, their ranks were organized, were equal, and their hearts were courageous and resolved for the battle to come. But they couldn’t proceed without all of their warriors.

Mamon was still trapped in a cave, still bound by the entrails of their son. Wolver was still chained, Fryer was still chained, Harimon was still in the sea.

Now, Naia had spent innumerable years frozen in time and shifting in time in that womb underneath the earth. She had taken time to understand and feel all the bindings in the world, as intimately as she understood and felt the suffering of her own life. She had been working on a spell to unbind every chain. And finally, finally, it was ready.

She sang her unbinding song standing over Mamon. A song with all the power and magnificence of pouring rain, of flowing rivers, of cracking ice, of blowing winds, of landslides and avalanches and wildfires and hurricanes. With all the force of earthquakes and tsunamis and every work of nature’s, of Puri’s undeniable power.

Finally, finally, Mamon’s bindings cracked apart and fell at their feet. And Mamon rose, unfettered, untethered, burning with love and protection and courage and hatred and a need for revenge. Burning like no fire had ever burned before, and like all fires would forever burn after. Burning like a wild thing, untamed and untameable and oh so beautifully dangerous.

Mamon and Naia went immediately to Fryer the dog, at the entrance to Oellon. There, in the darkness, secretively, Naia sang the unbinding song. And it was just as glorious and magnificent and breathtaking as the first time she had sang it. It was just as beautiful and terrible and powerful, flowing with the patterns of nature and the hills and valleys and lakes and rivers of Puri Themselves.

Fryer lept up out of his chains and went to go join the gathering army in Oellon. The people there were so delighted to see him, unchained and free at last, able to follow his heart into the throes of battle. Able to give up his life for the lives of the future generations and the future of the Earth itself.

Naia and Mamon then went to Wolver, who was still in his chains, a sword plunged into his throat. Naia sang him her spell. She sang it calmly and clearly and confidently and secretively. And her melody flowed over his chains and into the bindings holding them together. Naia’s song seeped into them and loosened them. But since Wolver’s bindings were physical as well as spiritual, Wolver had to use his own strength to help break the bindings.

And he had grown big enough and strong enough that he could. He could break the bindings. So he thrashed and kicked and writhed until all the chains were off of him. Naia took the sword out from his throat so that he could speak with his voice again. Savilig and all four of the children were overjoyed. They embraced each other, and they went off to join the war.

Harimon had grown so large that they could easily just rise up out of the sea. And so that is what they did. And everyone was awestruck and stunned to see their vast, mighty, powerful form towering over the lands, harbringing death and destruction to any and all enemies, harbringing the end. Harimon breathed deeply of the air, and savoured in their life above the surface. They knew that it would be short, that the battle was coming soon and in the battle they would die. In the battle everyone would die.

Mammon and Naia joined the ranks of the soldiers, dispersing all the knowledge they knew about the Uzras and what their weaknesses were and how it was possible to defeat them. The two rallied the troops and instilled courage into the hearts of everyone who they met.

And all families were reunited, all communities were brought together, and the whole of all the Yemars and all their many allies embraced and rejoiced. The atmosphere in the air was one of excited, buzzing anticipation, as much as there was fear present in all the hearts of all the people. They were doing it. They were doing it. They were doing it at last and now, at this point, no-one could stop them.

And so all the forces of the Yemars and their allies were ready.

But the forces of the Uzras had been readying themselves for battle too. They had seen the signs and portents of the end times. They had seen the northern lights blazing, burning brighter than they ever had before, they had seen the rivers rushing faster than they normally did, they had seen the storms that battled and battered their settlements. And they knew that they had to prepare. For they would not give up their world and their domination without a fight. And they didn’t care who had to die in that fight, if everyone had to die in the fight. They would bring their own sort of revenge to the ones who were set out to oppose their rule.

So all the living Uzras got prepared for the battle. Karkion prepared, and Thrash prepared, and Geyna prepared, and Spirug prepared. All the dead Uzras in the halls of Forkava prepared. All the people with power and influence and wealth and comfort organized themselves into their own army. And they made an army built on inequality, built on power and domination and subordination, because that was all they knew. And they took their many weapons and sharpened them.

For three years before the beginning of the final battle, there was a never ending winter. There were storms and blizzards and harsh, vast, biting winds the likes of which the world had never seen before and the likes of which the world would never see after. This was nature preparing itself for the war. This was the life force of Puri making Their wrath known to the world.

The wall that the Uzras had created for themselves had all but crumbled up until the point before the three-year winter, years upon years of winds and vines and water and ice and tree roots cracking it apart and crumbling it away. But the winds and the storms of this great winter tore down the last remaining stones of the wall once and for all. The wind and the storms and the snow and the winters reduced the final protection that the Uzras had against the attacking hordes into nothing but a pile of crumbled, scattered rock.

The dead of Oellon needed a way to rise up from the depths of the lands and enter the land of the living. And they were willing to sacrifice anything in order to make that happen. And so they built a ship, a magical ship, entangled and woven with many enchantments, with the enchantments and magic of every single person of Oellon. And they built the physical body of the boat with what they had on hand, what they had that was important to them and their bodies. And so they built the boat with their fingernails.

They rose out of the fog, and rose into the world of the living. The living Yemars welcomed them and cheered them on and they embraced the loved ones that had passed on to the other world. Descendants and ancestors came together. And all people, living or dead, came together. For all Yemars and Yemar-allied folk, living or dead, were one unending community, and they always had been, and they always would be.

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