Photo © CE Ayr
Everyone knows the great disasters, when our new god Anandani severed links to all other gods within his freshly renamed territory. The floating temple, fallen. The ice bridge, collapsed. The silver dancers, frozen.
Our leaders freely pledged to Anandani. Surely they had weighed his promises against his threats.
Mabbadeg’s egdalamada are less dramatic, perhaps, but more prevalent. Amorphous rock warriors that protected his people, instantaneously stilled. Now any odd, misshapen boulder is suspect, feared, avoided.
But not by me. I know nothing of Mabbadeg, but I pray to him, clutching the egdalamada.
Please, hear me. Break through. Return.
Save us.
Word count: 100. Written for this week’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt challenge. Thanks to our fearless leader Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting, and to CE Ayr for providing this week’s photo prompt. Click here to read the other 100-word (or less) stories written for this prompt!
Tales from Eneana 
What starts out as an intriguing exploration of local deities ends on a highly emotional note. I can feel the narrator’s fear and pain. Knowing how real Eneana’s deities are, I hope for them that Mabbadeg listens.
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Thanks for the great comment, Gabi. Unfortunately, Anandani has a tight lid on the entire country — no other gods can get through within its borders. It’s the only instance of that ever happening; deities normally can’t get that “close” to Eneana (for reasons that are hinted at in the origin story “Kakika”). Unfortunately for the recently renamed Fentoren, Anandani is a capricious and unpredictable god. Downright nuts, to be honest. They may have solved some of their problems by uniting into a more coherent nation under a single deity, but boy, they adopted a whole lot more. And anyone who didn’t immediately convert — like all the priests of the previous religions — suffered the most. It’s a troubling time, which of course makes it more interesting to write about!
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Nice emotional tone
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Glad you liked that, thanks for reading JHC!
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I wonder if the prayer will be answered or will fall on deaf ears.
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Sadly, no other gods can even hear prayers within the realm of Fentoren, now that they have pledged the whole country to Anandani. And he is a jealous, power-hungry god, it turns out. Thanks for reading, Iain!
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Wonderful story. Remeniscent of some of the very old tales we read in high school.
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Thank you so much, I love those old tales and am happy to be compared to them!
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*Reminiscent
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Intriguing mythology.
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Thanks, James! What you see here is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. That’s the great thing about having so much of the world building scaffolding done — I have this huge backdrop to use for these stories. But the even greater thing is *not* having the world building details all set in stone, so I can easily make up new details, like the “rock warriors,” which fit in just fine with the rest of it, now that I think about it. 😉
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I like this idea of rock warriors, or rocks that might be warriors so are suspect.
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Mabbadeg is a god of underground, rocks, mountains, darkness. The idea of these amorphous, rough rock creatures the size of huge boulders fighting for his people is so perfect for some of the religions that crop up around him, I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. I also love the idea of people suspecting any weird looking rock. When I was a kid, I’d make up stories about “odd” things I found in the woods, that they were telltale signs of witches or fairies or elves — I’m picturing these rocks being the same, only some of the time, it really *would* be the remains of a magical rock warrior. 😀
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I’m sure that’s how our minds have always worked, or at least they did when we were surrounded by strange-looking natural objects. We’re a little distanced from the wilderness these days 🙂
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Well, I make up strange stories in urban environments, too. I think some of us are more prone to it than others. 🙂
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They are called story tellers 🙂
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I’m happy to be part of the club. 🙂
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🙂
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The way this is written and your choice of words make your piece stand out, quite aside from the tale which is intriguing. Awesome
Click to read my FriFic
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Thank you, Keith! I spend a lot of time choosing exactly the words I want, so it’s nice to have the effect noticed.
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it seems that anandani in spite of his shortcomings is a unifier. who knows? something good might come out of it in the end.
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Unfortunately, Anandani is a unifier the same way a dictator is. True, some people do better under him, but it gets much worse for others. Thanks for reading!
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Maybe one day, with enough prayers, Mabbadeg will break through and reclaim the land.
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He hasn’t yet, and none of the other gods either. This event happens fairly late in the timeline of my world building, though, so I haven’t gone far enough yet forward to figure out what happens. It’s going to be epic, whatever it is, and probably pretty awful for the long-suffering Fentoren. Thanks for reading, Ali!
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I like the hope of a prayer has in this cruel world.
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Rather hopeless, in this situation, I’m afraid; the other gods can’t even hear them, and it’s frankly risky to pray to Anandani. But they’ll find other ways to cope, I’m sure. Thanks for reading!
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Hopefully this is not a reflection our world…
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Not directly, at least. I try very hard not to simply copy cultures, religions, and historical events from the real world into Eneana, but of course there are only so many ways that humans can act and think, so there are bound to be similarities in places.
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Dear Joy,
Judging from the story and subsequent comments there’s a tangible feeling of despair. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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The person in the story is definitely feeling desperate, and wiling to reach out to any god that might help. Something about the boulder in the image just felt profound, that way.
Thanks for reading Rochelle!
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The tone is dark and foreboding. Your story captured the emotions well, Joy.
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Nice of you to say so, that’s the mood I had in mind. Thanks for reading, Neel!
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The tone is dark fantasy but it translates into current events. I loved it. :o)
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As dark fantasy often does, I’d say. 🙂 Glad you enjoyed it — thanks for reading!
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A microcosm of religious history all over this world.
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Well the details differ, and of course in real life we don’t have monumental divine magic artifacts that suddenly fail when the leaders switch religions, but yes, I agree the underlying problems are pretty universal. Thanks for reading!
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I liked how there is a glimpse of hope after all that darkness.
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It’s always good to hope, even in the most terrible circumstances. Or especially then! Thanks for reading!
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I get the feeling we should all be praying like that.
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I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Thanks for reading!
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I liked your story, but I think that I would like it more if you explained what a egdalamada is.
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I’m sorry that confused you. They’re described in the following sentence: “Amorphous rock warriors that protected his people”. Thanks for reading!
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