Greg Stafford
Part 2 Issue 10, Autumn 2011
Part 3 Issue 11, Winter 2012
Part 4 Issue 12, Spring 2012
Teelo Imara
Let us discuss Her life as Teelo Imara.Her Quest was not done.
She had made her Tent, but it was not yet full. It stood like a field of light, surrounded by a garden of beauty. It shimmered, translucent from the outside, solid on the inside.
Yet She was not done.
That tent stood in an Otherworld. Yet, which one? It was not clear. It was not done. She was not finished.
Teelo Imara had Her task before Her. She was surrounded by her most loyal followers, the Seven Mothers and the others who would be called Saints of Her Life. And they, in turn, had with them their followers and devoted people. And they, in turn, had as followers those who would never be leaders, but who would benefit from being followers.
Teelo Imara was back in History, the world of the living, and many tasks lay before Her. But She placed most of those tasks into the hands of Her followers, who carried out those deeds in Her name and with Her power. They did the deeds of humans. When the deeds of a deity were required, She stepped forth.
Thus, Yanafal Tarnils led her army in Kostaddi and into Dara Happa. But when they stood before the walls of Raibanth, it was She who walked alone to the fore, and stood within the range of arrows. The archers shot, and their arrows had been blessed and enspelled and empowered and borne by spirits. Yet they fell upon her as flowers, and when the odor wafted upon the walls, all the archers stopped. The orders of their superiors, whether delivered with promise or with threat, were met by stares of incredulity. The archers could not believe that their officers did not see what they saw: a goddess of grace and wonder.
So it was left to the priests, who in their turn summoned the very god of their city. Ancient Raiba, who had been reawakened fourteen centuries before, sat up in his temple. The great statue creaked and groaned as only moving stone can do, and after it stepped from the confines of the building, it took on the suppleness of flesh and grew to proportions suitable for such a being. It walked down the grand Imperial Way, stepping carefully over the astonished soldiers assembled as reserves in the streets.
Raiba gazed over the walls of the city at Teelo Imara, whose own proportions grew to match his. They looked at each other, and after a short time without words heard by any but the most powerful humans, the god stepped over his own walls onto the plain before the city. There he knelt, and paid homage to a deity greater than he.
The priests, watching from the walls of his temple, wasted no time, but gave word to their leaders. And in no time at all, the leaders assembled and opened the gates to their city. They came out in procession, and they offered honey and pearls and the tokens of beasts and grains to Her.
And so it went with the other gods of Dara Happa, even monstrous Shargash, for all of them are wise and perceptive.
Meanwhile, in other lands Her legions fought on.
But this was not Her main work. She had other tasks, more important. She gathered to Her the awakened memories of her former selves. Velortina and Deveria and Davu and Ferandarus were recalled, relived, and rejoined.
But all that was only a prelude.
Her task, at that time, was to make Her place in the Otherworld. To take the tent which was nowhere and place it into the known universe. This was not easy, but She was not weak either.
She tried several times, but each time She was thwarted. She realized that Her opponents were the Old Powers, who had gathered from the Three Otherworlds to resist Her. They prepared an expedition to destroy Her immortal tent again, and set Her work back for another hundred lifetimes. An army of immortals assembled to venture forth from the Otherworlds and bring down Her ethereal temple. Though She had failed at this in the past, this time She assembled Her own army. So it was that She sent Her minions against Castle Blue.
She did not fight there. She remained in Torang, and then traveled to other places and consecrated them. She went to Hagu, to the Tent Cave, to the Stake, and to other places where she had, in previous lives, attempted to make Her temples. In each of those, Her worshippers gathered, praying and making sacrifices.
The fight was left to Her minions. She assembled the requirements for a leader there, and from the many men and women who struggled to meet them, She selected or constructed Rufus, the Red Emperor. It was a trick of Hers, with parts and powers joined together from an apparent defeat. At another time, a range of Otherworld mountains turned into giants, which were broken by gods into bits, which then changed into birds of fire that incinerated the defenders of Castle Blue. That was a fierce war, and not every victory went to the Lunars, but in the end, the forces of the goddess were successful.
Only then did She go to Castle Blue, and She accepted the homage of the forces of the universe who had thwarted her in the past.
Then She retired to the Dancing Ground. There, with a core of Her worshippers, including the victors of Castle Blue, She performed Her last terrestrial rite. She danced, and upon that ground She created the Otherworld which was to be Hers. Every place and every time where She had tried before to make Her Otherworld was joined in that moment to Her, and when She ascended into the Sky World once again, all of those places where She had struggled were brought with Her. In that way, She created Her Otherworld, which included some of everyplace. The world is made of everything, and so is Her World. She finished Her task of the Impossible, and She created Her Otherworld, which includes some of the Gods World, and the Sorcery World, and the Spirit World.
She rose, and She remade the world.
Yet To Come
She told us:
“We are All Us. We are born, love and hate, we create and destroy. We die, are transformed and return yet again in new form. We all come from The One, unimaginable Taraltara; and to That shall we all return once again. This world and this life is not the end. As illuminated beings it is our duty to protect the weak, to defy the strong, and to teach the Great Secret of Being to all who are yet to attain it. It is our duty and obligation to recall our common origin, our common life, and our common ultimate destiny. We must remember:
We Are All Us
We are all Us
The Victory shall be ours
