It did not take long, as a newcomer to this world, to realize the gods and religions were different—very different. At my first opportunity, I went to the Great Temple in Käläkhän, found a competent looking priest and asked for education in the ways of the great spirits of this realm, starting with the god of music—I am a bard after all.
The first thing I was told was there was no Ästé of Music.
Ästé? Some people call them gods, the Värgäns call them Great Spirits, but most call them Ästé—or Älté if they are considered evil. Each Ästé has a domain for which they are responsible and an aspect that relates to their domain. Some Ästé abandoned their responsibilities or misused their power and are considered Älté. How does one tell an Ästé from an Älté—well priests and philosophers have spent ages trying to divine a method for telling them apart, but it always comes down to Ästé are the good ones—but what is good?
I was told that when the White Moon severed the hands of Fate from the world, the Ästé of Music abandoned his domain and became so corrupt that Yärôs took the domain away from him and gave it into the keeping of all self-aware spirits, mortal or otherwise. Hey, I’m my own god, being a bard and all, but then so is everyone else who carries music in their soul.
At this point I figured I’d ask about the Ästé of War. I figured it was a safe bet as every place has war god of some type. But no, I was told there is no Ästé of war. There was one a long time ago with the whole “serve the Prince, follow orders without question, death before dishonor” thing. According to the priest, there was a warrior who was the perfect example of the warrior code, loyal, honorable, effective, but as age took him from energy and enthusiasm to experience and skill, he felt his mortality and knew the time when a younger warrior would best him.
He prayed to his god, “All my life I have served without question and I have never asked anything in return, but now I ask a boon before I fall, I ask for prince worthy of my sword and a cause worthy of my life.”
Time moves differently for the great ones, and there is always another conflict. By the time the war god heard the prayer, his beloved warrior had fallen in a senseless battle for a scrap of land that was ruined in the battle to control it. While such is the way of war, the war god felt he had failed his most loyal servant. He laid aside his power for a future god and left his domain to free all warriors from the traditions that cost his servant so much. In recent history, a god of warriors appeared. Not an Ästé of War but an Ästé of Warriors.
So, I asked for an explanation of earlier comments about Fate and the White Moon and learned about the Three Promises and heard the Tale of the White Moon.
Copyright © 2021 by Robert W. Dills