The Legend of Demnog

By Seth Stadel

The secret sleeps in darkness deep,

where worthless and majestic meet

and cowards come to guard their keep.

Found among ashes and charred historical artifacts, The Legend of Demnog follows four strangers Cleatis and Sesstis Pumpernickle, Gottlieb of Shifting Corners, and Unsun Uvskapple as they search for the Legend of Demnog, an ancient treasure and suit of armor greedily sought after by the two opposing governments of the lands of Demnog and Wooernog.

In this tale of mysteries and dark secrets, four strangers soon discover that their paths are about to lead them to discoveries they never could have imagined.

Through personal recounts of their fragmented pasts and dialogues with moot guides, each of these four strangers unknowingly finds himself simultaneously living out two contrasting lives, one of which evades everyone but you, the reader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781426976612

Seth Stadel

Seth Stadel grew up as one of four brothers whose names were unintentionally alphabetized by order of birth. An active researcher, Seth currently lives in Illinois, where he is completing his next two novels, The Nachinarë and The Parables of Ancient Ocmär.

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The Legend of Demnog

Seth Stadel

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© Copyright 2011 Seth Stadel.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

isbn: 978-1-4269-7660-5 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4269-7662-9 (hc)

isbn: 978-1-4269-7661-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011912361

Trafford rev. 09/15/2011

9781426976605_TXT.pdf www.trafford.com

North America & international

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Contents

Chapter the First

Chapter the Second: The Legend of

the Four Narethemar

Chapter the Third: Cleatis and

Sesstis Pumpernickle

Chapter the Fourth: Gottlieb of

Shifting Corners

Chapter the Fifth: Unsun Uvskapple

Chapter the Sixth: The Dialogues

Chapter the Seventh: Kaleb and

Janet Stäkemiller

Chapter the Eighth: The Dialogues

Chapter the Ninth: The U Document

Chapter the Tenth: The Meeting

Chapter the Eleventh: The Dialogues

Chapter the Twelfth: Tarsadan

Chapter the Thirteenth

Chapter the Fourteenth: The Oracle

of Olína

Chapter the Fifteenth: Harwell and

Lairafin

Chapter the Sixteenth: The Dialogues

Chapter the Seventeenth: The Gardím

Chapter the Eighteenth

Chapter the Nineteenth: The

Unexpected Meeting

Chapter the Twentieth: The Dialogues

Chapter the Twenty-first: The Last

Days of Cleatis Pumpernickle

Appendix the First

End Notes

To Miss C and Dr. A (Teacher)

Your zeal for literature changed my life.

The proof is in your hands.

Thank you.

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The Legend of Demnog[1]

Chapter the First

While a deadly storm vented its rage over the southern parts of the Hinosh-rí, a female Gòmí, highly petrified he was hunting her, secretly hid with her abducted, unnamed newborn son inside a tiny cave.

The year was 972 of the Ninth Age.

A bolt of lightning followed by a crack of deafening thunder struck the ground at the entrance to the cave, causing the baby to shriek profusely. The paranoid mother immediately sought to silence her son, realizing his incessant cries would reveal their hiding place. She knew he was following them.

Pushed by the fear of being discovered, the mother quickly pressed onward, running in the direction her feet took her. Though she could barely see her next step in the heavy rains, her mind could feel him closing in on them.

Some time later a small light appeared in the distance. As the mother neared the source of the light, which was coming from a one-room house, she felt a strange familiarity about the place. When she reached the threshold, she suddenly realized this was the very place from which she had fled nearly a year earlier. Just as she turned to escape back into the storm, the front door opened, and she was forcefully pulled inside.

An elderly Gòmí closed the door and locked it, ignoring the screams of both mother and baby. With a long white beard and a hand-carved cane to support his crippled-over back, the elderly Gòmí patiently tried to first calm the mother down. But with the baby screaming in her arms and a sudden loss of strength after running through the storm, the mother collapsed, falling into the arms of the elderly Gòmí. After the baby settled down and fell asleep, the elderly Gòmí worked through the night to restore health to the mother.

Early the following morning the elderly Gòmí bitterly wept as he finished the burdensome task of burying the mother. She had died in her sleep. With many unanswered questions on his mind, he began to speak.

O hear me, my child, and answer me! How could you think I raped you, and how could you flee from my fatherly embrace to a place where lustful arms ensnared you? Can you not answer me from the grave? In time, may the gods grant you permission to answer me.

After several hours of weeping and reflection, the elderly Gòmí returned to his house, finding his thoughts quickly distracted in his efforts to calm the cries of the baby.

Over the following year, the elderly Gòmí found that his songs, as well as other song-like poems and riddles, quieted the baby. One riddle the baby particularly favored.

The secret sleeps in darkness deep,

where worthless and majestic meet

and cowards come to guard their keep.

Every time the riddle was spoken, the baby giggled with delight. After one such instance, the elderly Gòmí softly spoke, and the baby listened attentively.

Legend has it this riddle was originally a clue to the whereabouts of a Treasure and Suit of Armor, given to your great ancestor, Demnog, by his father, Gonnog. Legend also has it that the younger brother of Demnog, Wooernog, was given a riddle as well, believed to be the complementary half of the riddle of Demnog. Though Demnog and Wooernog were given every means to find the Treasure and Suit of Armor, they never actually found it. No one in all of the Land of Demnog knows what the riddle given to Wooernog spoke of exactly. I spent years of my life in the Eastern Lands, seeking only to learn the riddle of Wooernog, but I could find no one who knew anything about it and concluded that only the Line of Wooernog would know. Though I feared to approach and question them in Divinora, I nevertheless disguised myself and set out for that great city. But my identity as a citizen of Demnog was compromised shortly thereafter by an alleged friend, forcing me to return to these Western Lands having never learned the riddle of Wooernog. Though I am too old to continue such a search anymore, you are young and full of life. When you are old enough, journey north to Divinora and learn the riddle of Wooernog, for the Legend of Demnog belongs to the Lineage of Demnog alone.

Over the following weeks a series of storms plagued the southern parts of the Hinosh-rí. When the cries of the baby could no longer be cured by songs and riddles due to the storms, the elderly Gòmí gathered three days’ food and water and set out in the middle of the night for the Land of Wooernog with the baby, never to be seen again.

Chapter the Second: The Legend of

the Four Narethemar

[Note: The following three works were produced by an advanced machine. Though a thorough search was conducted throughout the Lands of Demnog and Wooernog, we could not locate so much as a rudimentary block founder,[2] nor could we find anyone who had ever heard of such a machine.]

(The following three works have been traditionally credited to the Saven, Cleatis Pumpernickle,[3] though much of what follows was believed to have once been oral tradition in the Land of Wooernog, varying somewhat from one city to another.

Throughout his writings, any explanations concerning the traditional view of the Saven race were believed to have been written by Cleatis. All parenthetical comments concerning the contemporary views of the race of men were later additions by the Line of Wooernog, who were forced to use parentheses to distinguish the actions of the gods in order to maintain the integrity of the ensuing works.

The following story was popularized within Saven culture by the ferryman, Wave Giba, and the records in the Repository[4] reveal him to have been the last documented man to ever return to the Novel Main and there conduct business.)

"Legend has it that when the Oćnar were created another race was crafted along with them, beings able to physically grow and increase in knowledge, eventually surpassing all created order in their ability to wield power. They were known as the Narethemar.

"When Yormel and the Vanarmeh were banished from the realm of Ena Ocmar, they illegitimately seized the newly-fashioned Narethemar and carried them into the Nothingness, where they were hidden until their powers would fully develop. But the Oćnar were sent after the abducted Narethemar and were commanded not to return without them.

"As the Oćnar began to search for the Narethemar, they knew they would be forever trapped in the desert of the Nothingness if markers were not established to guide them back to the realm of Ena Ocmar. From their powers, the Oćnar crafted stars to light the Nothingness around them, and every star was numbered.

"When, from their hiding, Yormel and the Vanarmeh saw that the Oćnar were searching for them, they crafted many stars of their own, stars completely devoid of light and able to darken the Nothingness. But these stars could not maintain themselves and after breaking apart, their remains collapsed into one large abyss. Yormel and the Vanarmeh hid themselves in the depths of this abyss, along with the Narethemar.

"As the Oćnar continued to make their way through the Nothingness, they soon realized that certain stars of their crafting turned immediately black upon their formation and broke apart. They found that these stars had been placed within the abyss.

"Suspecting the hand of Yormel to have fashioned such a thing, the Oćnar came together and crafted a star larger than any they had made so far and threw it into the abyss, and its radiating light, as it broke apart, caused one paranoid Vanarmeh to promptly emerge, revealing the secret location of the Narethemar. After killing him, the Oćnar immediately made their way down into the abyss where Yormel, the Vanarmeh, and the Narethemar were hiding.

"Since the stars crafted by the Oćnar could not maintain themselves in the abyss, the Oćnar assumed the appearance of stars themselves, knowing the abyss could not overcome them.

"When at last the