There, he nearly met his end.
A rival merchant had betrayed route of the caravan to a bandit chieftain who awaited their coming like a desert lion crouching patiently amidst the dunes. The ambush was swift and merciless. Kyroun and his fellow sell-swords fought valiantly, but the bandits’ numbers were overwhelming, and he went down, bleeding from a dozen wounds.
After gathering the caravan’s goods and camels – beasts totally alien to the eyes of Tiyana and Gebrem – the bandits departed, leaving the merchants and sellswords for dead. And dead they were – all except Kyroun.
Vision blurred, blood soaking his garments, Kyroun staggered to his feet. Around him, corpses lay strewn like chaff in the sand. He swayed, about to fall, about to join his comrades in death ....
Then a light blazed in front of him, nearly blinding him. Kyroun blinked and rubbed a bloody hand across his eyes. And then he saw the light coalesce into a human-like form that towered high above him, tall though he was.
At first he thought it was a djinn, a desert devil, come to collect his soul in recompense for his many sins. Then the glowing apparition spoke to Kyroun in his mind in a tone that tolled like a great bell.
I am Almovaar, the apparition announced.
Kyroun shook his head in disbelief. Almovaar was a god worshipped above all others in ancient days when Lumaron was only a small trading town. Then, as the town grew into a thriving city, foreign deities gained ascendance and eventually Almovaar was relegated to the background, then nearly forgotten and, by some, shunned. Yet Kyroun, having studied history as a youth, knew who this old god was.
“What does a dead god want with a dying man?” Kyroun demanded. He was beyond any fear of affronting a deity.
I offer you life – for a price, Almovaar said to Kyroun.
Kyroun remained silent. For all he knew, this vision was nothing more than an illusion, a hallucination that preceded death. Still, he did not want to die.
“What is the price?”
Be my Seer, Kyroun ni Channar. Bring me worshippers. Rebuild my temple. Restore my name among the people.
Kyroun’s reaction surprised him. Purpose suddenly kindled in his benighted soul. The emptiness he had known since the day he became bitterly aware that he could not create art like the rest of his family was suddenly filled. He realized he could, indeed, do what the god asked of him.
“I am yours,” he told the deity.
As I have always known, said Almovaar.
Then the god reached out a lambent hand and touched Kyroun. And Kyroun’s mortal wounds healed instantly, and his near-death weariness vanished, to be replaced by preternatural vigor.
As the revived Kyroun stretched his arms in wonder, the apparition of Almovaar began to fade. Before he disappeared completely, Almovaar whispered three names in his mind. And when he heard them, Kyroun knew he had received yet another gift from his new god.
Kyroun knew he would have to leave Lumaron again. But before he departed from his homeland for the second time, two men died horrible, inexplicable deaths. One was the leader of the bandits who had ambushed the caravan. The other was the merchant in Lumaron who had arranged the betrayal. Theirs were the first two names Almovaar had spoken to Kyroun.
Now Kyroun’s path led northward, across the vast steppes that abutted the Bashoob, toward the towering Rafja Mountains, where the legendary sorcerers of Yaghan made their home.
Yaghan was the third name Almovaar had spoken. Kyroun realized he would need to learn the wisdom the Yaghans offered in order to make best use of the power necessary to restore Almovaar’s status in Lumaron. He knew Almovaar could give him the magic. But he also knew he needed to earn the right to use it.
Many had made the arduous pilgrimage to the Yaghan’s stronghold, a paradise in the midst of harsh mountain peaks. But only a few survived, for the Yaghans had laid many traps and obstacles along the way to weed out the unworthy.
Kyroun survived all the Yaghan’s lethal tests. When he finally arrived at the warm land their magic had created from rocks, ice and snow, the Yaghans welcomed him as a pupil. For the next twenty years, he delved into arcane mysteries and learned how to handle sources of power only the most elite among sorcerers dared to tap – and his mastery eventually exceeded their own.
Finally, the Yaghans told Kyroun he had learned all they could teach him. And he finally understood that it was in sorcery, rather than art or arms, that his true talent lay. When he made his way back down the Rafjas, none of the perils that had confronted him during his ascent appeared. There was no need for them.
Once again, Kyroun returned to the city of his birth – this time as a seer rather than a man of war. Many of his old acquaintances failed to recognize him. And to his family, which had continued to prosper, he was a stranger in more ways than he had been before.
Soon after his arrival, Kyroun rebuilt the long-abandoned Temple of Almovaar and gathered the few in Lumaron who remembered the city’s first god. Then he began to preach in the streets and the market squares, seeking new worshippers as he had promised Almovaar in the desert.
At first, he made scant headway, for the veneration of the newer deities had become firmly ensconced. And none of Kyroun’s family ever set foot in the new Temple of Almovaar.
Then Kyroun began to perform miracles. Utilizing the knowledge he had acquired from the Yaghans, he healed the sick and made the maimed whole. He turned desiccated land into lush fields. He made barren women fecund. He destroyed an army sent by a steppe-lord to pillage a border city that was loyal to Lumaron.
New worshippers
