The Lear Library

Introduction;

This was a story I wrote when I was playing about with internal mythologies. The initial inspiration for the character was that blood magic in fiction always seemed to be portrayed as evil. The crazed priest sacrificing virgins, etcetera. I decided to try and turn that on its head, make primitive blood-magic a thing of noble sacrifice. To that end, it had to be a sacrifice that the priests and mages made, rather than one that was forced upon others… so I came up with a rather twisted idea for blood-letting primitive ‘law-makers’ called the Galukke after their first member. My main concern was that it glorified self-harm… something that I certainly am not in favour of. Rather tricky subject matter, certainly, and something that I’m still not comfortable with. That’s probably why I’ve gone no further with this series.

I will include a glossary of terms and the eventual aim I had in mind for the mythology of the series after the prose posts.

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She remembered when she was younger, that she had travelled to what everyone called “The Hammerstone.”

It dominated the horizon of this part of the world. It was far from the Home, days upon days of travel. It felt like you’d left every part of your world behind, and had travelled to some distant otherplace. There was a plateau around the Hammerstone, burned vegetation and flattened trees all around. Ash was in the air, even though it had been a long time since the great conflagration here. And everywhere you went on the plateau, you were still aware of the mountainous Hammerstone, a great squat dome of rock, half-buried in the earth.

No-one was really sure how large it was… indeed, it must be massive.

For the gods themselves grew jealous of Galukke and Kushel, who is quick to anger, brought down his great stone hammer upon the Home. And there was flame and storms as Kushel raged against this world, this Home that bore the target of his jealousy. For a long time, the air burned and the rivers choked with blackness.

In time, Kushel’s anger subsided. And the Home began to cool. Before, the other gods would have healed the land or soothed Kushel’s anger. Now, they turned their backs, blotting the sun from the sky. And the Home began to freeze.

***

When she was younger, she’d been told the story of her name and its origins. It was one of her favourite stories. It was a story of Galukke and his greatness, and of how he was still only like others and fallible. Whenever she recounted it, she never told it well; indeed the storytellers could have had her audience rapt for days on days, or through one of the unnaturally long nights of the Home before Galukke started the Cycle.

Galukke had been young, not very long in his blood-power. He had been rash once, as all young men could be, and taken a young man in his tutelage. This child had the Blood as well, and Galukke imagined himself with a fine young man to continue to watch over his people. But the young man’s heart was treacherous.

He learned well, biding his time before seeking to overthrow Galukke. And when Galukke defeated him, he fled to the Deep Home to heal and plot. But Galukke was no fool, and gathered a force of hunters to search for the young man. They met, at last, in a swamp in the Deep Home. And Galukke fought with the man with his Blood magics. The two fought for days upon days, never resting. The winds howled and the ground beneath them ruptured or burned. The skies opened above them, rain pouring through the thick canopy of the Home. And this was the Deep Home, for no light penetrated those thick leaves, just the intermittent flash of lightning from Galukke, or the harsh acrid light of the man’s burning touch.

The two were more evenly matched than Galukke had thought, and they looked to be in stalemate. A hunter, no longer able to stand watching his leader in such desperate trouble, took up his spear. The young man, arrogant in his power, did not consider the hunters with their lack of Blood a threat. And so, the hunter crept forward as if hunting a large and dangerous prey. And when he found his range, he hurled the spear with what strength he could muster, letting out a terrific cry.

The legends say that the spear moved so fast, it was nothing but a blur of metal reflection in a sudden thunderclap.

And then the young man was struck through the chest, struck so hard that the spear point passed through his sternum, through the heart and out of the man’s back. And where the spearhead touched the powerful Blood, it changed.

The spear-shaft was buried in the man’s chest, but from his back exploded a pure-white bird, which circled up over the clearing and began to carol in the darkness. And when the man fell, dead, Galukke called to the bird. And it perched on his finger, still singing it’s enchanted song.

Galukke named the bird Kath, or Spearhead. And the hunter kept it with him at all times, for it was a blessing from the Blood.

***

She remembered the first real killer winter she’d ever faced at the Home.

It had been growing progressively darker and darker over the past few weeks. Pristine white frost had begun to form on the dying leaves of the trees, a stark contrast to the usual lush green of the jungle.

Kath had been five at the time. Or rather, she would’ve been if they measured age by rotations around the sun. But her people didn’t really keep track of celestial ballet, so it is more accurate to say that she was of the physical maturity of someone who has lived out one thousand, eight hundred and fourteen sets of twenty four hours. She was of this age, and she was already under the wing of her Galukke trainer. It had been said to her family, who were naturally awed and proud, that their daughter had the Blood.

And now she walked with her trainers. The senior was M’Bea; a wizened and hobbling old woman who was quick to anger at Kath’s various failures, which she attributed to something she called the heat of the blood.

“Age cools this,” she imparted once. “You learn patience, temperance. When you are young, you get foolish ideas.” and she’d given Kath one of her looks, that made you feel like M’Bea was always going to know where you were. Possibly she did. Kath had never found what forces the Blood had given her command of. But despite her temper and odd ways, M’Bea had become Kath’s guardian for a time.

The younger of Kath’s two tutors was Guul, a pale-skinned wiry youth from the mountains. It had been him who’d taught Kath to hunt, and to cut her hair, and to keep her knife sharp. He had handled most of the more physical tutoring of the little Kath while she was still just an initiate in the ways of Galukke.

Now, the two of them walked towards a raised stone stage. The smooth, dark rock appeared even darker due ancient rust-coloured stains covering the worn surface. Even in her young and relatively uninitiated state, Kath could almost taste the copper tang of the power in the air.

“This…” M’Bea took in the massive stage with a sweeping gesture, “is the site of Galukke’s great sacarifice.” Kath’s eyes widened in surprise and she looked at the raised area with new sight. No wonder she could feel the Blood pulsing through the air here. M’Bea continued. “We will return here in five days, for the meeting of the Galukke.”

She turned without another word and began to head for home. Kath and Guul dawdled behind however, to allow the spindly man time to admire the foliage around the area

“See…” he breathed “The cold will kill this area for sure if it does not go unchecked.”

“Guul?” asked Kath worriedly, but Guul smiled brightly.

“There is no need to worry, little acolyte.” he said calmly, reaching out to run a hand through her rough-cut hair. “We are gathering here to begin the next cycle. Galukke’s miracle will continue.”

And after six days, the sun began to warm the earth again.

***

Kath perched on her haunches, watching M’Bea as she scrawled in the dirt with a bony, gnarled finger.

“First,” she grunted, pulling long grooves into the soft soil to make a triangle. “You learn about your loyalty,” She drew three sharp lines across one side of the triangle. “Loyalty to your family. They birthed you, fed you, taught you and cared for you before we came. Everyone is loyal to family. Yes?”

Kath nodded, showing her comprehension. M’Bea gave her a measuring look, then nodded sharply and bent back to the drawing.
“Second, more important; loyalty to your tribe.” Two lines were drawn across the adjacent side so that the top surface of the triangle was still blank. “Tribe supplies food, warriors, and local laws. Safety. The tribe is very important. Yes?”

Kath nodded again, looking hard at the triangle. She could still remember the last time she’d not paid attention to M’Bea’s lessons on her responsibilities. The beating she’d received had been harsh indeed.

“Third!” The sharpness in M’Bea’s voice indicated Kath had been dwelling too much on her own thoughts and not on her lessons. She sat up straighter and nodded attentively. “Third, most important…” her finger drew a single line across the topmost side of the triangle.” Most important is Galukke. Always.”

M’bea drew herself up to her full, crabbed height. “We are keepers of law between tribes. Galukke’s word is sacred. Galukke’s word is law from Galukke!” She drew a clawed finger up her scarred arm. “We are bearers of Blood. We are the axle of the Cycles. We give all.”

Kath’s voice joined M’Bea’s in the recitation of the oldest mantra.

“Blood, body self.”

M’Bea nodded, the barest of smiles gracing her old features.
“Good, acolyte. This is Galukke. You remember your loyalty.” Her hand smoothed the rich dark earth flat, and then she said curtly. “Take off your shirt.”
Unthinkingly, Kath obeyed. Her body, approaching young adulthood, was already bearing the signs of maturity, battle and blood ritual. Long, graceful scars crossed back and forth across her arms and stomach.
M’Bea clapped her hands and Guul stepped up behind Kath. His stone knife slid from the sash around his waist, and Kath tensed her back. She was familiar with this; she’d seen the triangle before on the backs of the shirtless hunters, on the backs of other Galukke, on the back of Guul as well. She pressed her hands flat on the stone she was crouched upon and bowed her head respectfully to M’Bea.

Guul bent over her back, hands moving with careful precision. Of course, Kath made no sound.

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The final plan I’d had for this story, which was hinted at occasionally… the Hammerstone, the freezing of plants, the lack of reliance on an annual cycle… was that the world on which Kath and the others in the story lived had been struck, many generations ago, by a meteor. Struck hard enough to throw the small planet out of its orbit and sent sailing through space. As the gods “turned their back” on the world, the planet receded from its home sun and began to freeze.

The first blood magician, Galukke, committed suicide, spilling his potent blood, to create a second sun that would orbit the world and warm it. Eventually, of course, the magic would wear out and the sun would die. It would take tens of lesser Galukke to re-create the sun. This was the beginning of a Cycle, the only measurement of time the world recognised from a celestial body; the amount of time it takes for the artificial sun to burn out and be renewed.

Galukke were meant to be law-makers, enforcers and healers rolled together, managing the relatively lawless world and protecting it from the monsters of the Deep Home, thick jungle where not even the artificial sun’s rays can pierce.

The self-harmI mentioned never really appeared in these excerpts, but the Galukke’s power was meant to come from using their own blood as a catalyst, deliberately cutting themselves to let the power ‘flow.’

Overall, I enjoyed writing this, even though my discomfort with the self-harm subject matter at the heart of it made me end up scrapping the project.