Jol’Tor’Ree (Earth)
Mountains of the Armenian Plateau
The Future Independent Republic of Kurdistan
10,994 BCE
Utep paused on the steep mountain path to catch his breath. His pack was heavy with digging tools, filled to the top by the harshest Workmaster, a brutal overseer who delighted in inflicting pain and discomfort upon the primitive hominids. The rulers were tall and powerful, their red hair flowing over their broad shoulders. Utep dared not pause too long, as the buzzing metal birds had eyes that would see the people and tell the Workmasters if a thrall rested before the clang of the gong.
The people must always be working when not eating, sleeping, or resting after the gong sounded. Utep did not have the words to describe how long the rest period was between the two gongs, but it was usually the time it would take a small red bug carrying a piece of leaf to travel about 15 paces. Utep enjoyed watching the bugs work. They never stopped working, just like Utep and the people.
The Workmasters utilized harsh and immediate punishment. If one were lucky, the Workmaster would only hit the worker for an infraction, usually with his gloved hand holding a stiff metal rod. This was the best way. If a worker repeated mistakes or was unlucky enough to catch the attention of the harshest Workmasters, a glowing painstick would inflict excruciating pain. The painsticks possessed powerful magic, and they terrified the people.
The painsticks caused most to scream in agony and shake uncontrollably on the ground for a short period. The fortunate ones would soon arise and resume working. Those who did not rise quickly to continue work would be beaten. Sometimes, the victims arose after the beatings… and sometimes, they did not. Workers who could not work due to illness, injury, or painstick traumas were taken by the Workmasters into one of their floating metal houses, high into the air over the mountain, and thrown through the sky door to their deaths.
The Workmasters resembled the people but were giants, with two large, muscular arms and two powerful legs as big as tree trunks and as hard as iron. They were much bigger and stronger than the people, standing two heads taller than even the tallest workers, such as Utep. The Workmasters could easily lift one of the people off the floor and throw them against the rocks for punishment, but it usually took two of them to push a struggling thrall to their death out of the sky door of a floating metal house.
Their ruddy hair flowed in shades of dark red, like the water that flowed from the people when they were thrown from the sky upon the rocks on the mountain. Most Workmasters had their hair tied into a single braid at the back of their heads, allowing their powerful arms full motion to assault and punish errant workers for their infractions.
The cruelest Workmasters had no hair, allowing maximum freedom of motion to inflict pain upon the thralls. Senior Workmasters had their hair arrayed in many braids, like vines falling from a tree to the ground, and they wore shiny metal symbols on their garments, made of a mysterious cloth tougher than animal hide.
The Workmaster Commanders had light hair the color of tall, pale hay when the sun god burned hot in the sky. Their garments displayed many emblems made of metal the rulers called “gold.”
Why was this?
Utep did not know. Utep did not care.
Sometimes, the people were forced to watch workers thrown from the sky door if their crime was severe or if the thralls needed a reminder of who held power in the mountains. However, the people rarely noticed… they had learned to look away.
To live is to work… and to work is to live.
And Utep wanted to live.
With their floating metal houses, strange devices, and powerful magic, the Workmasters sought gold, the shiny, soft, yellow metal found in thin veins within the rocks of the mines. Utep did not understand why the metal had such value to the Workmasters, as it was soft and could not be used for tools.
The Workmasters called the hard, heavy metal used to make tools “iron,” which was abundant in the region. But gold was rare, hard to find, and even harder to extract from the rock. Gold was melted into heavy square plates and stacked in their floating metal houses. The metal houses would ascend every few passages of the sun god across the sky until they could not be seen, taking the gold to the sky gods. Eventually, the metal houses would return for more shiny metal.
Why do the sky gods need gold?
Utep did not know.
The people slept in houses made from magic liquid rock shaped into forms by the Workmasters, which solidified into hard stone after only one rising and setting of the sun god. The people were constantly reminded of the Workmasters’ superiority, with their talking boxes, painsticks, and metal birds controlling their movement and pursuits. Loud gongs signaled changes in the people’s activities, and deadly walls formed from threads of lethal white light outlined the people’s living spaces after the work was finished and the sun god disappeared.
As unsophisticated hominids with minimal social organization and no written language, Utep’s primitive people proved easy to control and manipulate. This defined the Workmasters’ intention. The people’s simple, verbal language utilized a limited vocabulary. No words existed that described individual identity or independent actions, thus facilitating their ability to obey commands and labor in the mines. The thralls, purposely denied the ability to mature into anything close to civilization and enlightenment, remained compliant workers.
Workmaster arrogance permeated the air. They overconfidently constructed polished surfaces and walls of brass, stainless steel, and gold-plated metal. Not realizing their mistake, these surfaces reflected the people’s actions back to them, acting as mirrors. During work periods, Utep would often drop a tool at the foot of such a surface to catch a glimpse of himself. The Workmasters purposely denied the people the ability to assess their countenance and develop self-awareness, or so they thought. Slowly, over many cycles of the sun, Utep had gained a sense of identity.
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Sleep usually came easily to Utep, but this night, restlessness motivated him to wander. He navigated in the dark around others sleeping on the ground in the stone house and quietly stepped through the open door. The white light barrier shimmered in a circle around the people’s homes, with a low hum that the people learned to ignore. The people did not fear the night in their rock houses because the Workmasters used the powerful magic of the light wall to keep harmful animals at bay.
The larger, more intelligent animals quickly learned that breaching the light wall meant death. Smaller, less intelligent animals often touched the lowest white light threads. Utep amused himself when the long, slithering, fanged creatures tried to slink through the barrier over the lowest shining filament. They contorted into a writhing ball before disintegrating into colorful sparks. Such was the entertainment given by the gods to the people.
Utep slowly sat down against the cool outer wall of the stone house. The night was warm, and insects buzzed and chirped in a hypnotic rhythm. He sometimes fell asleep like this, alone against the wall, lulled into slumber by the insects’ sound and the magic light’s hum. He gazed up at the sky, taking in the specks of light, and considered.
Were they sky gods?
Utep did not know.
He saw the pale sky god each night just above the distant trees, which comforted him. The pale sky god was a trickster, constantly changing shape and position. Utep liked that. The sky god was a complete, bright circle tonight, and the extra light in the darkness pleased him.
Why did the pale sky god change each night, and the other small twinkling sky gods move slowly with the coming of the heat and cold?
Utep did not know.
As Utep fell asleep, he shifted his posture and glanced upward. There was something different among the small sky gods, something Utep had never seen before. A long, curved smear of colored light partially filled the night sky, almost as big as the pale trickster sky god at one end but much longer and thinner.
What is this? Utep thought. Is something wrong with the sky gods that they would spill their light? Were they sick? As he fell asleep and dreamed, Utep wondered if the gods would be thrown out of their floating sky houses due to illness.
Utep awoke in the dead of night, and he felt a strange sensation. His senses of sight and hearing were somehow more alert than usual, which was odd, given his lethargic state. Utep gazed upon the doorway of the stone house, which seemed to slightly undulate as if not anchored to reality.
Then, he saw a light blue glow radiate over the top of the nearest stone houses across the path from him.
Was a Workmaster here? Utep thought. If so, I must quickly enter my home. I must not be seen outside after the sun god departs. Utep stood, turned, and looked down… at Utep.
At least… Utep thought it looked like Utep.
As Utep looked down upon himself, he noticed a thin, glowing, white cord attached from the back of his head to the back of the sleeping Utep on the ground. He batted at the cord like a buzzing insect, and his hand passed through it with a slight pause and a disorienting thud in the back of his head, like a light slap of someone’s hand.
What is this magic?
Utep did not know.
Utep straightened his posture, took a slow breath, and turned. The light blue glow had transformed into a shifting shape, condensing like fog over the water, slowly becoming solid and recognizable. It was a man, like Utep… but not like Utep. The man was larger than Utep but smaller than the massive, towering Workmasters. The glowing god-man had a stern, bearded face and fierce, piercing eyes. He wore brilliant white robes edged in glowing golden threads, bound with a sash of light blue, which morphed and stirred like a living creature as he moved.
He approached Utep and stopped in front of him, eyes blazing.
Is this a sky god?
Utep did not know… but felt that the god-man came from the sky.
Utep felt a strange emotion as he gazed upon the sky god, one he could not put into words. Survival instincts had always shaped Utep’s behavior. The Workmasters had molded Utep into a stable, predictable slave. Seeing the sky god reminded Utep of how he felt when he quickly gazed at his reflection on polished metal in the mines or contemplated the tiny lights of the sky gods at night, falling asleep against his house.
Why had a sky god come to him?
Utep did not know.
Utep felt afraid, but only for a moment. Fear was soon replaced by a new sentiment hitherto unknown by Utep’s people—awe and reverence—an emotive connection that transcended the mundane. The people used simple words expressing their modest feelings – a low, resonant grumble for the satisfaction of a full belly, a mid-tone trill for the gratitude of a warm blanket on a cold night. For the first time in his hard life, Utep felt a connection to something he could not see or touch —a relation to a magical place more profound and more significant than he could comprehend.
Utep fell to his knees in amazement, looking up at the glowing sky god, and attempted to utter words in his primitive language, words contemplated and felt but never spoken before by the people. Lacking the vocabulary to vocalize his thoughts, Utep’s Soul pleaded internally to the sky god, astralspeaking without verbalizing,
ooo My god, I am Utep, a servant. ooo
ooo Have mercy. Do not harm me… ooo
Utep bowed his head, afraid he would die like the unfortunate people thrown from the Workmasters’ floating houses.
ooo Please… ooo
Utep, strong Utep, who never questioned the established order of the Workmasters… opened his Heart to an unknown god.
And the Multiverse was pleased.
The glowing god-man knelt and gazed into the lamps of Utep’s Soul with a knowing smile.
ooo Arise, My Son… ooo
Utep and the sky god arose together, Utep’s gaze averted, his body trembling before the incomprehensible. Utep wanted to hide in the earth, like the slow-moving creatures with hard shells, concealing themselves in their earthen burrows. But Utep did not run…
He was Utep! He was strong – a leader among the people. But he was less than the gods, and for the first time on what his descendants would call Earth, a sapien Soul prostrated itself before the Multiverse in humility and reverence.
And the Multiverse rejoiced.
The god-man astralspoke to Utep,
ooo Behold! ooo
Utep observed visions of the unfolding of the ages before his astounded eyes. Utep’s primitivesapien brain could only process a modest component of the celestial inputs provided. Utep was stunned, speechless, and in awe. He saw visions of people, not unlike the glowing god before him, living their lives in strange clothes, using magic devices, and inhabiting floating houses. Utep beheld hollow metal mountains and moving metal boxes that held the people. Utep observed and thought, but he did not understand.
The people, they called themselves… did he hear correctly?… Hew-mahns… they were Hew-mahns… living and growing prosperously on the… what was the name?… Err-th. Errth.
Humans, Utep’s progeny, would grow, prosper, and develop the Earth. The people would learn the magic of the gods and become almost like gods themselves. And Utep, the loyal servant of the Workmasters, was pleased.
Utep’s vision faded, and he stood before the god-man. Then a sky goddess, a beautiful woman arrayed in flowing white robes trimmed in shimmering silver and gold, approached them from beyond the deadly light wall. A stunning vision of shining grandeur, she opened her arms as she walked unharmed through the sharp rays, the beams intersecting the golden radiance that surrounded her, tessellating and flashing around her auric shield.
Why are the people worthy of the sky gods’ attention? The Workmasters are not gods but powerful rulers, unconcerned with the people’s welfare.
Why do the sky gods care about the people?
Utep did not know.
The glowing sky goddess walked up to the bearded god-man, touching him on the shoulder and engaging him with an enigmatic smile that conveyed a long-standing association. The god-man responded with kind eyes and moved to the left of Utep’s line of sight, allowing the sky goddess to stand before Utep.
She stepped up to Utep, slowly grasping his hands and peering deeply into his Soul. Utep’s arms charged with surging pulses of energy, nearly bringing him to his knees. In a flash, he remembered many seasons ago, when the sky gods’ anger had exploded in a bright light and similar sensations, killing several people. Utep reeled as visions entered his mind – waking dreams of his multiple future lives, though he could not understand living beyond the present. He fell to his knees before the sky goddess, still clinging to her hands, overwhelmed…
- He would be a traveler clad in orange-red robes, the color of the setting sun god, searching for truth… and discovering the most incredible truth of all was to serve the One greater than himself…
- He would be a holy man, divining the path through the Many Mansions of the One in the caves, the mountains, and the deserts… finding the truth of the One but paying the price for his faith…
- He would be a learned man, using the Hew-mahn magic he saw in his visions to create life from lifelessness… but he would lose his own.
Utep prostrated himself before the sky goddess, his mind frozen with images he could not process… yet his Heart touched hers. Somehow… she was familiar. Utep knew her.
I have always known her.
The sky goddess knelt, gently grasped Utep’s temples in her hands, and with almost a whisper, she looked into his eyes and astralspoke,
ooo Behold! ooo
Utep’s mind filled with bursts of different visions, terrifying divinations of calamity, destruction, and death. He cowered in fear at blinding explosions like a sun god dying, burning metal mountains, and people fleeing from huge waves of water, higher than he thought possible to witness.
Utep then beheld a vast, glowing, dark-red sun god, more prominent than the usual bright sun god, trembling in the sky before his vision. He felt a violent shaking of the earth, so fierce that Utep watched as all the stone houses crumbled and fell to the ground. Utep put his hands on his face and cried out in anguish and fear, and then he screamed in terror as he felt he would die.
The very Earth was shrieking in pain, and Utep heard numerous loud cracks of trees and wooden poles snapping apart. As the tremors slowed and stopped, silence descended. Utep listened and opened the fingers of his left hand, timidly peeking out with his left eye at what must be the destruction of the people and their houses. But no, the night had returned, with the melodic buzzing of insects, the croaking of small, green hoppers, the humming of the Workmaster’s light fence, and the people snoring in their houses.
What magic is this? Do the gods destroy the people, but the houses remain, and the people still sleep after the judgment of the gods?
Utep did not know.
The glowing sky gods had vanished, and Utep was alone in the open space in front of his stone house. Overtaken by mental exhaustion, he returned to the other Utep, propped against the wall. He sat beside his other self, leaned back against the wall, and fell asleep.
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Utep awoke against the outer wall at the early rising of the sun god, something he had never let happen. Sometimes, the metal birds with eyes would fly about early with the first light, and he did not want a pain stick substituted for his early meal. Several females preparing the early meal glanced his way but did not meet his gaze. None of the people wanted to alert the Workmasters because all had come to know that there was never just one punishment…
One infraction would ensnare many. The people had learned not to speak up, to keep quiet, and to stay alive.
Utep arose and stretched, among the first to consume the morning meal, then proceeded up the mountain path for the day’s work. His strange, distressing, and unforgettable night went unnoticed by the Workmasters, which was extremely fortunate.
Several passages of the sun god followed, leaving Utep with an increasing feeling of unease. In the late hours, after the sun god had departed, Utep remembered the colored band of light in the night sky that had heralded his encounter with the glowing sky gods, revealing visions of death and destruction. He exited the house and looked up into the night. The small, glowing band in the sky had morphed into a large crescent, as if the sky gods had cut the firmament with a magic knife. At the end of the radiant strip was a bundle of colorful glowing rocks like the bags of gold ore the people gave the Workmasters after toiling in the mines within the mountain.
As he stared at the sight, the rocks seemed to move slowly in the night sky like they were alive. What is this? Are the sky gods throwing stones at us in anger? The people had pleased the Workmasters by not receiving punishments for many days. Why would the sky gods be angry? The glowing rocks overhead scared and perplexed him.
Utep decided to call upon the sky gods to ask for answers. That evening, as he drifted into slumber and his mind became unattached from the memories of the day’s hard work, Utep attempted something altogether new. Utep’s primitive guttural language conveyed simple, non-nuanced information involving subjects, actions, and objects. To call on the sky gods would require emotions and passions he did not know how to express.
Feeling the primacy and superiority of the gods at a deep level inside himself, he put the will and wishes of the gods and his people before his own necessity and survival. And, for the first time, an evolving, noble sapien Soul on Earth called to the higher astral levels of the Multiverse for help and assistance.
And the Multiverse rejoiced.
Awaking during the night, Utep slowly and carefully exited the house. The insects chirped and hummed as usual, and the glowing rocks were still threatening overhead. Utep looked around. No blue glow could be seen. He decided to walk towards the edge of the houses, near the light wall. Utep stopped in the clearing and silently asked the sky gods to come forth.
He waited.
After some time, he noticed a faint light blue glow to his left. Turning, he saw that the bearded sky god had returned, emerging from the forest. The sky god effortlessly walked directly through the light wall just like the goddess had done, with no red sparks or agonizing death contortions. Utep stood stunned as the god-man approached and thoughtspoke into Utep’s mind,
<< Utep, your heartfelt question – your prayer – has been heard. After the sun rises today, you will see the Workmasters leave in their ships, never to return. The rocks in the sky will fall to earth and kill all the people who are not safe in the caves. Before the sun rises, you will instruct the women to place all the food in animal-skin bags. When you see the Workmasters’ ships rise into the sky, you will tell the people to run to the caves with all the bags of food. Any of the people who do not heed your command will die. >>
Utep listened and accepted the sky god’s message. He did not yet have the words to respond, but he bowed his head and thoughtspoke – somehow – to the god-man,
<< I am a servant of the gods. >>
Utep looked up into the glowing face of the sky god and uttered in his primitive language,
“Bei jolob,” —I obey— bowing his head, descending to one knee in reverence.
With great compassion, the god-man stood before Utep and bowed down on his knee to address Utep eye-to-eye. Knowing Utep’s primitive language was inadequate, he thoughtspoke,
<< Utep, you do well to put the needs of the people before your own. You are humble, and the Multiverse hears you. You are brave, and you will lead your people to safety. I am not a god… I am Uriel, a servant of the One. Your descendants, who will arise on this Earth, will understand in time. >>
Utep had no words. Here was a god saying he was not a god but a servant, like himself. Utep slowly began to understand. His Heart and Soul opened to the Multiverse, and he thoughtspoke a prayer of thanksgiving, thanking the gods for his life and the lives of his people.
And the Multiverse rejoiced.
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The women were unhappy when Utep arose before the sun god and told them to put all the people’s food in animal skins. He had been fair and considerate to them throughout their lives, and the women did not want to disobey a strong male who was kind, unlike most of the other males. Several of the other strong males questioned Utep’s directive, but in response, he pointed to the sky, implying that the sky gods had commanded him to do so.
Being accustomed to not complaining, the males lost interest in the issue, as it did not immediately affect them. The males and selected females began the path to the mines within the mountain to start work. Then, just as the sun god was creeping over the distant hills, Utep saw a metal house of the Workmasters leave the ground. He knew the metal houses never rose into the sky until the sun god was high overhead. Suddenly startled by a low rumble, followed by sharper tremors in the ground, Utep frantically looked up to face the angry mountain gods.
He saw one of the sky rocks crash down beyond the distant mountains, leaving a trail of dark smoke like wet grass thrown upon a fire. Some sky rocks were larger now, while another smaller sky rock plunged into the valley beyond the river, creating a giant flash as bright as the sun god. The rumbling in the air soon turned to shaking in the ground, terrifying the people. Eyes were wild with fear as a giant wind blew through the camp, knocking over tables and stinging Utep’s eyes with dust.
“Ha-gii!” Yelled Utep. “Ha-gii-kitima!” —Run— —Run to caves!—
Utep grabbed several bags of food and shouted for the women to do the same. The people rushed up the trail, food bags in hand, as millions of icy comet fragments ripped through the atmosphere and began to smash into the Earth. Utep sprinted ahead of the people, dropped his food bags at the mine entrance, and sped back down the trail to help the older women reach safety. They ran in fear as the turbulent sky rocks shattered all around them, the concussions knocking them off their feet.
While Utep helped the oldest people reach the caves, he saw the metal houses rising into the air, just as the sky god said would happen. Suddenly, a metal house violently exploded as a sky rock crashed into it… Then another house erupted in a blinding flash of elemental light. Utep gripped the inner wall of the cave entrance as overlapping shock waves from the impact washed over him, knocking him to his knees and showering him with dust.
Shielding his eyes, he peered up to see a large sky rock, the largest yet, plunge into the midst of the floating metal houses in the distance and explode in the air like the fierce death of the sun god himself. The shockwave from the impact shattered the mountainside, chasing Utep, who had turned to run deeper into the cave. The mighty wind from the blast blew him across the cave into the far wall as it whipped through the cavern, terrifying and choking the people huddled within.
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Three journeys of the sun god across the dark, dirty sky occurred before Utep ventured hesitantly to the cave entrance. The people had hidden deep in the caves where the Workmasters had ruled over them, taking refuge beside the large metal machines used to mine for gold. The walls shone with an unknown light, a sickly gray-yellow hue that the people had endured their entire lives. Ironically, now that destruction had rained down upon them and destroyed their oppressors, the nauseating glow in the dark cave was now an unlikely source of comfort.
Utep stared dumbfounded at the valley from his high vantage point on the side of the mountain. He could barely recognize the scene. The smoky sky remained dark and dusty, and the air was difficult to breathe. The village of the people at the mountain’s base had been destroyed by the sky rocks, with the houses made of hardened liquid rock demolished. The clear water river flowing in the valley beside the village was now brown and choked with mud. He walked down the trail a bit, where he could see several of the people who had stayed behind, their broken bodies twisted and deformed in the wreckage.
He then gazed across the valley to where the metal sky houses rested on the ground and saw destruction. He looked up and saw nothing floating in the sky. He walked the path around the mountain’s edge to the broken machines, a path he had never been allowed to walk. As he approached the wreckage strewn about the mountainside, he saw the shattered bodies of the Workmasters, many in pieces, missing limbs and heads.
Utep came upon the upper body of one of the cruelest Workmasters. True to his nature, he died with a painstick in his gloved, dead hand.
Why did the sky gods do this? And how can a sky god like Uriel, powerful enough to kill the Workmasters, say he is a servant just like me?
Utep did not know.
But he knew that to serve his Master in the Sky was his greatest wish.