Throknama
From Record Of Fantasy Adventure Venture
Purchased by Arben from Bab al-Nasr for a large sum of money. Translated from the original Sanskrit by the scribes of Chrysopolis through the use of the Comprehend Languages spell.
Bab al-Nasr claims it was purchased by one of his agents in Egypt by Pathana, the man who wrote it.
The Throknama of Pathana
He was born beneath the teeth and the gauntlet, by the forbidden bridge and the land of up. Many were hatched of this brood, and it was said that the lichen was of an inauspicious constellation when the eggs fell. But some are chosen for greatness, as the Three Women of the North who are mentioned in the life of Ikula (for that great book is ever my model); as the naga left their homes, so must all whose blood runs cold move if they would thrive; who stands in one place too long bakes in the sun, or freezes in its shadow.
As the life of Ikula glosses over her youth, so will I gloss over the youth of Throk, for he himself has spoken sparingly of the matter, and I can write nothing beyond what he has told me, except where I have been able to supplement his words with corroboration and research; for Throk himself seems to have known little of such sciences as geography and astronomy, though he may gaze for hours in wonder at the stars. Although he speaks the refined [samskrta] speech, he does so in a workmanlike, inelegant fashion, and I have striven to represent his voice accurately, while admitting that I must always stand outside his glow. I have no words, and only hints, with which to write of his love for Kuuanpilan, the curious fumbling in the dark with hemi-linge, the mystery of the cloaca, the gravid months, the clutch they kept warm with their love. Now, of course, his knowledge of every science has increased to the extent that there is much that he alone, in all the world, knows.
In the battles and raids, sometimes even across the forbidden bridge, where the soft skins lived, Throk distinguished himself for bravery and strength. In the penultimate battle, where the green people routed a mass of invaders, King Droom himself slaying their soft champion with one blow, Throk dragged their infidel priest into the homes. But there was inauspiciousness, despite the great victory. The slain one could not be sacrificed to the soul-feaster Semuania, for its soul had already been claimed. Droom fretted, and even the capers of Throk could not rouse him from his gloom. The priests cast their bones and then covered them up, so that no one could see.
The invaders returned, but were too cowardly to fight a pitched battle, instead setting little fires and sneaking like rats. Until the ultimate battle: All kings resolve to dust, but King Droom did it more quickly than most. Suddenly, the invaders had come with magic most powerful, and Droom, still unscathed in honest combat, fell by dishonorable means at the hands of a wrinkled one Throk would later learn was an elderly woman. Then did one chamber of Throk’s heart shatter; but he was still of iron resolve; in the chaos following, Throk himself took the two sacred items and vowed to defend them with his life, for no profane hands may touch them. The spore layers desired them, for they loved harmony and rhyme, and the many who are one desired them, for they, too, had once possessed its mate, forged by their distant ovipositor; but both had soft skin, and must not touch that which is sacred. What good, Throk worried, was standing between the enemies and the sacred if your enemies can reach through you, as though you were made of powder?
And then came the disaster the priests had obscured. Without Droom, and no new king yet lain, not even Throk could rally his people to a successful defense as the invaders came cutting through the green people as though they were dust. One, short and pale as death, cut down Kuuanpilan as she fled to the clutch room. Then did the second chamber of his heart shatter. And as the soldiers’ heads were lopped off like tails, as the women began to smash their own eggs and brain their own lacertets lest their souls be consumed by the invaders, as the labyrinthine corridors filled with pale orange blood, only then did the third chamber of Throk’s heart shiver to pieces. You or I would be fine, yet, but he only had three. When his city fell, he knew that he, too, would fall. In a paroxysm of despair, a triumph of the will to death, he clutched tight the two sacred treasures, and, in full view of the invaders, leapt into the abyss. If he was not the last of his people when he leapt, he certainly was by the time he emerged.
What became of the homes? What hideous undead now haunt its lichen-carpeted hallways, strange spectral men whose hatred and despair kept their souls alive after the body falls? Or did the invaders eat all the souls? Where was Semuania that day?
Throk fell. For a long time he accelerated, and then he passed through warmth, which made him drowsy, and then fire. And then he entered a field of hovering bones, which at first filled him with terror. But he passed through the bones, scattering them, and fell beyond. Then gradually he realized he was slowing down. He slowed until he stopped, and before he fell again he grabbed the edge
He had fallen through the earth and come out the other side. But, and this is very important, he did not fall through the center of the earth. It is well known that no shaft passes through the true center of the earth; and had he fallen through the center Throk would have ended up in the Great Southern Land that the Moslem saint Aristu has written of. But Throk saw only a shadow or glimmer of the center; and although his actions are explicable only as a plunge through the earth that features a loadstone at its center, pulling all bodies to it, he clearly got diverted. He did not pass through the omphalos, for no one ever has.
Now, the earth has an axis, and this passes, we know, through the North and South Poles. The sages have written a great deal about the North Pole, and so our knowledge of this place is quite extensive. It is surrounded by four islands, Utarakuru, Aparagoyana, Pubavideha, and Barata, which last lies above, and some say contains, the lands of men. In the center of these four islands lies the turbulent lake Anawdat, and in the center of the lake is the great black Mount Meru, through whose stony heart runs the pole. Of the South Pole we know much less, although it is said that it is surrounded by a great landmass, the equal or better of any in the north. Although how firmly our knowledge stands is in dispute, for the sage Umbatoreko has written: The pole that we see is not the real pole, for the real pole is the one that cannot be seen, except by some adepts, whose lips are sealed. Some tell stories of a king of the west who sought the northern pole to his peril and despair; none tell stories of any who reached it hale and returned.
Had Throk started at one pole, he would have passed through the omphalos and reached the other. But he did not, so he did not and he did not. Has he not seen enough without seeing the very center of things? And perhaps he sees nothing but the omphalos now.
And then there was the cold that burns. Not the cold of stepping away from the fire, but a cold that stiffens and slows. Legends only had he heard of such a cold, which covers the ground like white fungus in the legendary Outside, a place that means death. Throk resolved himself to death; but then a being huge and white and covered with what Throk styles hideous hair, and all this too as white as the ground, a being we know well as the rock bear, came roaring in like an avalanche, and the warrior spirit of Throk moved his sluggish limbs. Well that he did not meet the mirka, whose sight none survive! But even the vicious rock bear is death to most men; yet Throk donned the fabulous gauntlet, sacred to his people, and it with it slew the rock bear. With his talons he cut open the carcass and let its warm blood flow over him, limbering his joints and staving off death for a moment. The clouds of steam sent up as the blood hit the snow enveloped him like a nimbus. Bright red and slick as a snail, he hastened to find shelter from the death cold.
All around him were mountains, higher than anything except the depth of the void; he felt his footsteps drawn along, as though by the sweet smell of woman. There at the foot of one he found a structure, its roof spreading like wings, out of which jetted orange men, as blood flows from a wound. They brought Throk into their warmth and laid him by the fire. They were colored so brightly, their skins as loose and flowing as a curtain. These things are commonplaces to us, but there was so much Throk had never seen. He tried to express to the bright men his thanks, but their words were strange and puzzling. They bathed him, washing away the blood, and were surprised to find he bore but slight wounds, which they healed him of. In the warm bath, Throk gaped his mouth wide, and the men leapt backwards in fear. To show he came in peace, Throk showed—unprecedented gesture of trust!—the sacred items, but when they beheld the necklace of teeth, they became hostile, and fetched long weapons, or even wrapped their fists in cloth. How much more picturesque it would have been had he been wearing the necklace; and the men, in their removing the blood from him, had uncovered it then; but this is not what happened, and I can write only truth, for would Throk speak faithlessly? Faithless, though, were the soft ones; even their open hands were weapons! Throk slew two with his shining gauntlet and fled into the depths, for here were the things he knew: darkness, and stone, and the twisting of corridors. Men and doors tried to stop him, but neither could stand before his wrath. The gauntlet shone as it battered down a great door; the men he passed had fists that struck as hard as stones, and as quickly as the bat; Throk staggered beneath their onslaught. His shattered heart was in danger of exploding as he felled the last one. He could sense more coming; their tread was silent, but Throk was accustomed to darkness, and understood every vibration that scurried along the stone floor like mice ahead of them. A strange guttural sound snipped off abruptly in the distance. Bleeding orange everywhere, Throk crawled across a blue floor and behind a red curtain. This, we now know, was the Bridge of Manu, and who dare cross the bridge that is not a master of flowers?
Throk, not knowing he had bought himself time, found himself in a bright light that gleamed without warmth; there before him stood a silver pavilion, with pillars of silver, carved exquisitely with tiny swirls. Within its shelter sat a gold box of eight sides, studded with red and blue stones whose faces burned in the cold light, a tiny eye of light imprisoned within each. Inside the gold box was a tray of black velvet, as soft as dust, fringed with pearls, and there in its center did he behold an array of teeth, the mates of the ones on his necklace. And only then did Throk understand what he must do. It came to him like a fire in the remains of his heart. Semuania had not abandoned him, he had, rather, given him the most exquisite gift a man has ever had; he had given him the gift of revenge.
The master of flowers arrived, his hand already shaking in readiness, and he fell over into a rubbery mess. Throk strode across the bridge of Manu that the rest had been too lawful to cross, and with fire and claw he moved through them as a harvester. They were as dust. He had learned the lesson of the soft ones, and he granted no mercy; some were skilled at hiding, but even in shadows none can hide form Throk. He literally could not hear their screams. As he left, warm despite the falling white, the building had been painted bright red inside, and was in flames. He himself was once again covered in blood that was not his own. “So shall it ever be,†he hissed, speaking for the first time in the refined speech.
Long was the trip over the mountain, and down the far side, soaring like a bat. There he came to warmer climes, and everywhere were his brethren, or at least atavistic approximations thereof. He spoke to them soothingly, and promised them their day would return. For they have been ground beneath the heel so long, and their suffering moved Throk to pity. And they marveled that anyone would deign speak to them, so lowly had they become, eating dust. “In dust are the bodies of innumerable kings,†Throk told them, for he brought comfort to the afflicted. For when he had been afflicted, some brought comfort to him, and it was a sham; the comfort of Throk is true; Throk never forgets, and all will be repaid when the ledger is reviewed.
Some say King Nala of the Nishada suffered more than anyone who has ever lived; he lost his kingdom and his wife and all his possessions in a game of dice; all he had left was the cloak on his back, and when he tried throwing it over some birds to catch them for food they flew away with it. But what is his grief compared to the grief of Throk? What is the grief of Parvati over headless Ganesh compared with the grief of Throk? Who has suffered as he has?
For all suffering is just, and governed by the dictates of karma. Yet Throk’s suffering, unique in the world, is unjust. Throk alone is not bound to the wheel of karma; he is completely free; and the woes he has been afflicted with are the crimes of others. Throk is not to blame!
If the suffering of Throk is to compared to anyone’s, let it be compared to Siva’s when his wife Sati died, goaded to suicide by the calumnies of her own father Daksa. Bearing her corpse on his shoulders, Siva danced the Rudra Tandav—the dance of destruction that threatened to destroy the world. Then he could have destroyed all! His grief and his hate were like a fire flowing from his third eye. But Siva does not dance the dance immediately. First he decapitates Daksa. Before the immolation comes revenge.
Throk saw a lizard in the forest weeping tears, and the tears were blood. “Yes, that’s about right,†he said.
Many heard stories of Throk in the wilderness and vowed to slay him. They came in the hundreds, but Throk dispatched them all. They found their limbs growing heavy, such that they could not run as fast as before, and then Throk was upon them. Fire he rained on them, and his very touch was poison. As he feasted upon their flesh, marks of pity would appear upon his back and sides and bleed freely. They hounded Throk, and harried Throk. But Throk just wanted to be alone.
Finally, Throk took on the mantle of a man and walked among us, to see who these people were who had repaid him nothing but evil for his kindness. He saw children, their hands sawn off, lying in pools of their own dysentery, viminal arms too weak to move, their eyes a banquet for flies. He saw women burning alive, screaming as they flailed against their chains, which grew red and sizzled upon their flesh. He saw the rapacity of nobles on horseback, their vile bodies clad in silk, practicing decapitation techniques on a farmer’s daughters. When he saw what happened next he turned away. Fire followed him everywhere, the fire of his hate. He sat in the wilderness, and dreamed of a way to cleanse the earth. He dreamed a fire in the heart. And then he erupted in blood and fell over unconscious. It was there that I found him, bleeding out onto the ground. Dead crows lay scattered around him. I wrapped him in a cloak and carried him home, where I lay him in my bed. When he awoke, his first words were, “Kuuanpilan,†and then “Semuania.†I thought he spoke a strange tongue, and only learned the meanings of these words later. He remained delirious.
After two days a woman came into my hut. She was a Hindu of the south, and she carried a bow, so I called her Srikandi. She began to speak to me of the man before me, and she spoke as though they had been life-long friends. She pierced the veil of Maya and showed me his true form. She told me his name was Throk, and instructed me not to touch him, for his touch was death; and I trembled with fear, but she assured me I was in no danger. She bound Throk’s wounds with poultices she had contrived, and left to find him meat, for Throk cannot eat fruits that fall from trees as we do. While she was gone, Throk blinked into consciousness, and we spoke. I was amazed to hear his story, which I did not understand. Sensing that this was all so important, I began taking notes in secret.
Daily, then, did Throk speak to me, while Srikandi hunted, not only of his terrible past but also of his plans for the future. He had seen the misery of all of humanity, and had vowed there were two ways to end it. Only one was universal conflagration; the other was the mercy and love of Throk. And at night he spoke of Semuania, a god I had never heard spoken of, although I had heard of a thousand or more. Srikandi and I sang songs.
[Thirty-four pages of songs praising Semuania, deleted here.]
Once Semuania had been a great god, many ages of the world ago. His followers grew to terrible sizes, and their footsteps were like thunder. But they had declined through cataclysms and carelessness, until very few remembered Semuania at all. Throk would restore a paradise on earth by restoring the glory of Semuania. Even the children of Manmas, or Manasa, preach that before the snake was reviled men lived in paradise. He told us both certain things, but I fancy there was much he told only me. He said that Srikandi’s heart had already turned to him, but that I was special, because my heart still held questions. He did not lay his hand on my shoulder, for poison leaked from his pores, but his tone was compassionate and avuncular. He adjured me always to question his teaching in my heart, lest he become drunk with the wisdom of Semuania, and lose his perspicacity. To his delight I would hold a ribbon in my teeth and shake my head to snap it straight, and Srikandi would shoot it through with an arrow. We passed many happy days.
Then Throk sat beneath a butter tree. Bees fell dead around him, and we swept them away. Then he cried out in pain, and blood flowed from a dozen wounds on his body. His lips moved in strange positions, as though he were speaking a foul and barbaric language. Then he fell over. A week later two women in cloaks as black as night came and threw themselves at his feet. We named them Ratri and Ushas. We built a litter and levered Throk onto it with tree boughs. “My race will die with me,†murmured Throk, “but I will not be alone.†When he grinned his smile was blinding.
We bore him far, and every week, or few weeks, he would bleed freely again. Some thronged around us, and some were far away, and did his bidding there. When I showed him a map of the world, drawn on the ground, after the teachings of the elders, he laughed and called me silly, for the world was much larger and stranger than I ever knew, and Jambudvipa is not the world’s end; no, nor are the four islands the limit of the lands of earth. I knew this, but did not understand the importance of his words. We stopped and spoke to learned men as we traveled, and all were impressed by his wit and learning. He knew things no one could know. Often we were taken into the homes of the wealthy, and their slaves bowed before him; while their masters exchanged puzzled glances. It became increasingly clear to me that Throk knew many he could no know. Everywhere people moved as he willed, like Chaturanga pieces. I could not fathom his depths. To some he appeared as a Brahmin and to some he appeared as blue-throated Siva, but very few perceived his true form.
He was seeking a place of power, and as we passed the many Saktipetas that were founded when the pieces of Sati’s rotted corpse dripped off Siva’s shoulder, I assumed, each time incorrectly, that it was here that we would halt. But we never did. Instead we struck west, south of Lalkot, gathering a throng as we went, as the drunken god Devanyesa did when he conquered the Hindus; and they were as merry. When any opposed us, Throk would strike him down. Even the Raksasas learned to fear him, and the wild beasts turned aside for him. Snakes rained from the trees as he passed under them, and crocodiles made bridges of their bodies when we came to a river. My heart was light. Srikandi and Ratri and Ushas he sent on varied missions, but I was always by his side.
The eye of Throk does not blink. At last we entered the Desert of Tar; we followed the dry bed of the Sarasvati River, sacred to Brahma’s consort, and now our gay journey turned perilous. But Throk spoke to the desert toads, and they showed us where to dig for handfuls of muddy water. I soon perceived that we were approaching Somnat, the temple of Siva as the protector of the moon. The choice seemed apposite, for what place could be of greater power than the towering lingam of Siva? Once, they say, the lingam was taller than the highest mountain, and so thick around that no horse could race around it in forty days at full gallop; and it was known as the Gate of the Gods; but it had plunged into the sea in times long since, leaving only a tall sliver, which had been encased in a temple of gold. The tide itself comes up to the lingam and does obeisance. An enormous bell 80 darni in weight [>400 pounds] tolls in its honor, with a voice that might give birth to all other voices.
But Throk laughed at Somnat, and said it was a mark of folly, and had been built in the wrong place. By this point he had so thoroughly mastered ancient wisdom that my own education, once a wonder to the world, now seemed the halting protoliteracy of a court lady. He quoted Umbatoreko and drew in the sand calculations I could not follow. “As the Manmas guard their secret, so does the world guard its own,†he said. But there is no guard against Throk.
The lingam had indeed fallen; perhaps Somnat was indeed built on ice. He led us instead to the ruined city of Melua, some 500 danurmusti [~100 miles] away from the shore. It was built all of brick, with grand sweeping staircases, and was almost consumed by the desert. Throk dug beneath a crumbling archway and pulled from the sand a tooth. Everyone cheered. We began to dig wells and repair the missing roofs. When the well diggers turned up an old graveyard, a special team was dispatched to build Throk a throne of skulls. In Somnat the monks trembled; their god had but one lingam.
Hail to Throk, whose wisdom preserved us in the desert! Hail to Throk, who led us to out new home! Every day we find something new and marvelous here. Bronze chariots. Ancient weapons. Strange writing only Ushas can read. A lightning bolt with the body of a bird and the head of a lion, whose voice is thunder. A collection of exquisite woven bands, perfectly preserved. Throk sends out messengers, and he also falls into bloody syncopes; but when he does, it only increases our numbers. Some who worship the fire god Masda, and who have been persecuted under the Moslems, have seen in the fire of Throk an attractive alternative. The Moslems [Pathana] have been carelessly linked to me by homophony, such that some say Throk is a second coming of Moamat, or worse that Throk is Ala and I his prophet. Many are the slanders cast against him, and much has he had to bear. “Let us record it in the ledger,†he often says. The plovers themselves whisper in his ear, perched on a piece of wood he holds there.
Some say Throk is a foreigner who comes to deceive; but this can hardly be so. Four are the prophets have entered the land of Barat from the west: Devanyesa, who planted the grape as he went, and founded his city at the Thigh; Tomas the dubious, man of the spear, unsure of even his own martyrdom, who could call fire from the stones; Elisa Abuya, who taught of two gods, each taking his turn on the seat of godhead; and Moamat son of Kasin, who spoke with the sword for Ala. So four should be the prophets who leave Barat for the west: the naga; the staga; and the followers of Gautama under the sorrowless Devanampriya are but three. Surely Throk is the fourth! Let his word spread like fire!
For Throk’s fire is as wide as the sea, as bright as the sun, as [etc. This goes on for seventeen pages]. His hatred is a tower of fire; but also a tower of fire is his love. He has built the tower in the heart, and he has anchored it well. This tower will not fall.
Let the weak come to Throk and they will be strengthened. Let the downtrodden come to the Throk and he will stand them up. Let the humble come to Throk and they will be made proud. [Etc. Eight pages more.]
We have built him a great statue of bricks, and the statue is also a furnace. Fire blazes in its eyes. People ask what the statue is of, but I have seen Throk’s true face. Would-be assassins, screaming the names of their strange gods: Ala, Ali, Useyan, fall before him. He has never been bested in combat. The yali and the cobra hold no terror for him. The yaksini plays her harp of bones in vain. The swift tiger paces in frustration. Is this the omphalos? Where is the place to fall, to fall through the earth’s center?
Praise Ratri, who has been sent to the Rum on her most dangerous mission yet; to reclaim the teeth that were doubtless stolen from the green people long before by perfidy. She has with her a woman from beyond the roof of the world, and will meet with many more on her journey. Watch over her, O Semuania; I fear the worst, for on the day she left I came across an old statue of a woman, half buried in the sand, with the head and hand broken off.
But the will of Semuania is supreme, and who speaks his will but Throk?
[Fulsome praise for Throk & Semuania, their mercy, their charisma, their kindness to children, their skill at art and science, etc. for uncounted pages.] His might surpasses Sikander’s; his charisma surpasses Krisna’s; his knowledge surpasses the Mokot’s; his lingam surpasses Siva’s; his strength surpasses Bima’s; his cleverness surpasses Tvastri’s. Hail Throk! Hail Throk! [Etc.]
[Then, scrawled on the bottom on the MS, in a much sloppier version of the same hand:] O Great Siva! What have I done?
