"Sunyl'sTale"
by Sunyl Saunterly

Note - Recently a Prydaen bard named Sunyl Saunterly spoke to a group at a mentor Cleric Day gathering. The subject was ostensibly "Prydaen Gods", but her tale, as it turned out, was more her own tale than dogma. We relate it here as she told it.

"Your world is passing strange to the old ones among us, you know.

"When I was born to my parents, Proudfoot and Mrowr, it was in the foothills of our land. There were broad meadows where kits could play at hunting, and my sister and I knew them all like our own dooryard. There were deep woods near where Proudfoot sought game enough to feed his family, and Mrowr, my heartwarm mother, spent her time giving the newest young ones lessons in the clearings nearest home.

"One of the things I came to know, listening to my parents, was our gods, Demrris, Tenemlor and Eu. Mind you, I was not 'taught' about them. Oh no. They were as real to me as the person sitting next to you is to you.

"Demrris, he is all sparkle, bright passion, blinding in his intensity. He is exhiliration, bounding leaps in the grass, absorption in the hunt, belly-laughs at a good prank, single-minded curiousity...and raging grief."

"Demrris it was who taught me to focus unblinking on my prey until the moment when I leap. Demrris showed me how to ignore a hole into which I cannot stick my head without my whiskers brushing its sides. THAT was a lesson hard learned....

"Demrris chuckled when my younger brothers and sisters practiced stalking my tail, and he laughed outright when I dodged during the last moment of a game of catch-'em and my littermate fell into the stream.

"Tenemlor, now...Tenemlor is the cool hand on the forehead of the sickly. Tenemlor always seemed to me to be much like my mother, Mrowr. Peaceful of heart, soothing in her touch, serene as a summer drizzle. Tenemlor it is who helps ease the passing and rebirth of the dead, and Tenemlor makes the heart-aching of the living bearable, once Demrris loosens his grip."

"And Eu...Eu is over all. Picture the sky above you as a giant bowl upended over you, covering everything you know as your world. That bowl is Eu. Eu holds all in himself: corporal things like trees and grass and beasts, as well as the intangibles like emotion and intellect and purpose.

"He always seems to look like Proudfoot to me.

"Most of you cannot know the devastation of our lives in the last days before we came to your place here.

"I lived in a hub with many other kits and some elders, Balam amongst them, for part of my youth, but my parents called me home before my lessons were done. There were rumors, carefully kept from the kits, of terrible things happening. I only remember an occasional audible word from my parents' whispers, and while I could not hear all they said, I knew it for something hideous, and I kept the littler ones from hearing even those few words.

"Came a day when Proudfoot called us all into the dooryard, Mrowr and kits all. The sky was overcast, coming on rain, as he bade us goodbye and safe paths, and he laid his hand on each of our heads. Save Mrowr. For her he had a soul-touching gaze and a whispered endearment, and then he turned and strode away.

"Many days we waited for Proudfoot's return. Many days Mrowr gazed at the horizon, looking for his form, and many the times when her head would lift, listening to something no one else heard.

"His return, when it came, was ... horrible.

"My litter-sister and I were out in the meadow when we heard wailing. We paused only to glance at each other with trepidation before we began leaping homeward, running without heed for briars or sharp stones or ... anything else.

"Demrris ran with us that day, goading us on past our endurance.

"When we reached our familiar home, the sight was almost more than we could bear. Mrowr and the youngest kits all lay dead, scattered about the dooryard like autumn's crumbled leaves. And amongst them stood what used to be Proudfoot.

"It wore rags that used to be Proudfoot's clothing. It carried Proudfoot's gear. But it had terrible wounds, wounds that no one could hope to survive. Its eyes were wild and burning. It smelled the air as though searching for prey.

"Demrris took hold of my sister's hand and pulled her with a shriek into the carnage, her eyes blazing at the thing that used to be our father. And there she died, ripped to shreds by its sharp claws.

"I was shamed that I did not join her in that heedless headlong rush, shamed that my legs trembled so badly they would not hold me.

"And then I saw what a body's eyes should never see. Mrowr and the kits, even my litter-sister, all bearing grievous wounds, began to stir and stand and stumble....

"The horror of it kept me hidden, and Tenemlor put her hand on my head to still my thoughts for a time.

"I came to myself some days later. I do not recall how I came there, but I was in a makeshift camp with others. I soon realized that they roamed the countryside, burning bodies.

"This is contrary to everything I was taught to hold dear, you understand. Before this time, when we died, our spirits would leave the corporal remains and join Tenemlor on her Wheel. There we would rest. When we were ready, or when we woke from that dream, we would rebirth our spirits into another body, be born again into a new life.

"Now, however... Now we could no longer do that. The bodies were being raised, the spirits trapped and enslaved, and we could do nothing to stop it...save to burn the bodies. Or so many believed.

"Others held that burning the bodies mattered naught, that the spirits still went to the Wheel. I cannot say, myself, for I still live in this life.

"My first sight of what you find so common here, a resurrection, was anathema! My dear elf-friend had died, and I bade his spirit farewell and journey safely, and I prepared to burn his body to keep it from that ... that horrible false "life."

"One of your holy people chanced past, however, and restored his spirit to his body. I screamed and ran! My only experience with this had been seeing my kindred rise undead, you see.

"Happily, he found me and showed me that all was well. I cannot yet understand what happened, or imagine that Tenemlor is content to mind her Wheel without our company. I only pray that when my time is at hand, I am allowed to seek Tenemlor's serenity without hindrance and ride my time on the Wheel.

"Demrris and Tenemlor sometimes feel very far away now. Your own gods are very ... intrusive? Territorial? They seem not to acknowledge even Eu, who holds our world in his arms. And they are so jumbled! The simplicity of our life seems to be gone forever, and I grieve for it yet."

.