“Then why do so many people worship him?”
“Novron is believed to be the son of Maribor, sent to aid us in our darkest hour. There are six actual gods. Erebus is the father of all of the gods and he made the world of Elan. He brought forth three sons and a daughter. The eldest son, Ferrol, is a master of magic and created the elves. His second son is Drome, the master craftsman who created the dwarves. The youngest is Maribor and he, of course, created man. It was Erebus’s daughter, Muriel, who created the animals, birds, and the fish in the sea.”
“That’s five.”
“Yes, there is also Uberlin, the son of Erebus and Muriel.”
“The god of darkness,” Alric put in.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him, but wait—are you saying the father had a child with his own daughter?”
“It was a terrible mistake,” Myron explained. “Erebus forced himself on Muriel while in a drunken rage. Their union resulted in the birth of Uberlin.”
“That must have been awkward at family gatherings—raping your own daughter and all,” Hadrian said.
“Quite. In fact, Erebus’s original sons, Ferrol, Drome, and Maribor, slew him because of the incident. When Uberlin tried to defend his father, all three turned on him and imprisoned their nephew, or would that be brother? I guess it’s really both, isn’t it? Well, anyway, they locked Uberlin in the depths of Elan. Even though he was born through a terrible violation, Muriel was heartbroken to lose her only son and refused to speak to her brothers again.”
“So now we’re back to five gods.”
“Not exactly. Many people believe that a god is immortal and cannot die. There are some cults that believe Erebus still lives and wanders Elan as a man searching for forgiveness for his crime.”
The day was growing dark and the wind picked up, heralding another possible storm. The horses started to become spooked, so Hadrian went to check on them. Alric got up and walked around, rubbing his legs and muttering about being saddle sore.
“Myron?” Hadrian called over. “Would you like to help me unsaddle them? I don’t think we’ll be leaving soon.”
“Of course,” the monk said eagerly. “Now, how do I do that?”
Together, Hadrian and Myron relieved the animals of their saddles and packs and stowed the gear under a small rock ledge. Myron summoned the courage every so often to stroke their necks. Once everything was put away, Hadrian suggested Myron gather some grass for the animals while he went to check on Royce.
His partner sat on the path, staring at the cliff. Occasionally, the thief would get up, examine a portion of the wall, and sit back down, grumbling.
“Well? How’s it going?”
“I hate dwarves,” Royce replied.
“Most people do.”
“Yes, but I have a reason. The bastards are the only ones that can make boxes I can’t open.”
“You’ll open it. It won’t be pretty, and it won’t be soon, but you’ll open it. What I don’t understand is why would Arista send us here knowing that we couldn’t get in?”
Royce sat on his haunches, his cloak draped out around him. His eyes remained focused but he was frustrated. “I can’t even see anything. If I could even find just a crack, then maybe … but how can I break a lock when I can’t even find the door?”
Hadrian gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder before returning to Myron, who had finished feeding the horses and had joined Alric, sitting over by the cliff’s wall.
“How’s it coming?” Alric asked with a bit of annoyance in his voice.
“Nothing yet, just leave him be. Royce will figure it out. It just takes some time.” Hadrian turned his attention back to Myron. “I was thinking about what you were saying before. If Uberlin is considered a god, why did you say Novron is not? After all, they’re both children of gods, right?”
“Well, no, technically he’s a demigod, part god, part human. You see, Maribor sent Novron to—well, let me jump back a bit. Okay, so Ferrol was the oldest and when he created the elves, they spread, albeit slowly, across all of Elan. When Drome came along, he granted his children control of the underground world. This left no place for Maribor’s children. So mankind was forced to struggle in the most wretched corners left to us.”
“So the elves got all the good places, and we got stuck with the dregs? That doesn’t sound very fair,” Hadrian said.
“Well, our ancestors weren’t happy about that either. Not to mention humans reproduce much more quickly than elves, who have a much longer life span. This made conditions rather crowded and it only got worse when the dwarves were driven to the surface.”
“Driven? By who?”
“You remember what I said about the gods locking Uberlin in the underworld? Well, he created his own race, just like Drome, Maribor, and Ferrol.”