Legends of Orki People

Ayalis Orki - An alternate Earth reality

Jasmine P. Antwoine

The Birth of the World

In the beginning of time, Goddess A’Su was walking her dominion of peace and quiet. As she paced her realm, for as long as nine hundred years, all she encountered was desert and silence. There was no movement in the world and A’Su was alone and cold. Finally, she came into a valley where she found nine large stones, strangely aligned in a circle.

Weary of her journey, A’Su decided to rest there, and she chose the middle of the circle to lie down. When the night came, the rocks began to glow with a magnificent soft green hue. As the light touched her skin, she experienced warmth for the first time in life. A’Su was mesmerized. She was so cheerful that she began to sing, and the music poured into the world and over the stones.

When the silence in the world broke with music, A’Su observed that the stones were trembling and soon after they turned into nine handsome gods. Their names were: Isti, Da, Kel, Ewe, Ese, Ka, Yra, Usha and Ti. The gods began to dance with A’Su and the Goddess sang all night long, happy and enchanted.

After that magical night, she fell asleep, tired. When she woke up, the gods were turned into lifeless stones again. In desperation, A’Su cried and wept over the loss of her companions, because now she felt lonely. Her pain became the fire that put the world in turmoil. Her tears became seas and oceans that covered the previously deserted world.

Seeing that her efforts were in vain, A’Su began to sing again, hopefully. At first the earth became green, as trees and grass appeared in the world. A’Su changed her tone and sang again. A great number of living creatures, from the smallest worm to the biggest bear, began to rummage the earth. But the gods of stones didn’t come back.

Nine months she wept and sung different tunes but the stones remained silent. After nine months, A’Su gave birth to nine children, four girls and five boys: Shara, Danan, Keles, Ewes, Leset, Uka, Yrha, Rusha and Tiek. The Goddess rejoiced at the sight of her children and she presented them with many gifts. She raised them and loved them and she taught them about the music of life.

As her children grew, A’Su began to feel lonely again. She often stayed in the circle made by the stones, longing to dance with her god-consorts again. But the stones remained mute and lifeless. The Goddess transformed herself into a beautiful swan and left the earth for the skies. She gathered the nine stones and took them with her, leaving her children to rule her world.

Orki homeland

The orki homeland is traditionally called Istari, which literary translates as One-Foot. This is where the Goddess A’Su gave birth to her nine children. After the children came of age, the Goddess presented each of them with one part of the Istari, to own and to rule and to call home.

Her firstborn, a girl, Shara, chose the western-southern part of the land, (much about what is Spain, Portugal and some parts of France today). She enjoyed solitude, grapes and oranges. She was skilled in building and navigating ships;

The second child, her first boy, Danan, chose the regions around and above the Danube river. (Central Europe, with parts of today’s Germany, Austria, Checho-Slovakia, Serbia, Hungary and Romania). He was born in that place and forever in love with the landscape, did not want to leave his cradle. He was blessed with plenitude;

The third child, Keles, chose the southern pieces of land (Switzerland, Italy and some Mediterranean isles He was blessed with an adventurous spirit, olives and warmth;

The fourth child, Ewes, chose the Northern regions (Poland and Scandinavia He was a harsh man but he was just and right. He was blessed with a courageous heart;

The fifth child, Leset, chose Northern – Eastern planes (Ukraine from today

The sixth child, a girl named Uka, chose the lands near the Black Sea and some of the Balkans;

The seventh child, another girl, Yrha, chose Northern-Western regions of France and England;

The eighth child and last girl, Rusha, chose the Central Northern regions (Germania, Holland

Tiek was left with Greece and some isles in the Mediterranean Sea. He was blessed to have an easy life of fishing and caring for goats and sheep, enjoy wine and sunsets.

Thus, all the Istari was properly divided between her children and all her children received gifts so as everyone should be happy with his place in the world. A’Su forbidden quarrels and war between her children and made them promise forever to lend a helping hand to their siblings, in time of need.

In time, every child had children of his own and his children had children and so on, until all the land was populated. Nine tribes lived in Istari, as direct descendants of the children of The Goddess. And the tribes of the Orki (literary: the tribes of the swan) were separated each in its own land, but once every nine years they traveled to a meeting place and performed the ritual of A’Su. The meeting place was in the center of Istari, near the Danube River, the place of birth of the orki people.

The First Encounter with Humans

The children of A’Su lived in a peaceful manner, hunting and farming and fishing. They lived in harmony with nature and thanked The Goddess for her gifts in everything they did. Istari was a venerated place, literary sacred, and the orki tribes were in communion with all there was, seen and unseen.

Then, after many years, Istari was visited by a new type of creatures. They looked very much like orki, but were a different kind of people. The orki did not understand the behaviors of these new beings. They venerated a lot of deities and did not understand the ways of the world very well. The nature was strange and scary for them and they did not know how to speak its language. They were not from the original nine tribes, but the orki considered them a sort of step-brothers and sisters, because of their likeliness. The orki called them Palahai (Humans), which literary meant Fearful Brothers, because their lives seemed to be governed by fear. 

At first, orki and humans lived in peace. The Palahai were in small numbers and preferred to live in caves. They rarely left the safety of their caves, only in searching of food and water or for hunting. They lived in small tribes of no more than thirty individuals.

But Istari was a land of plenty which nourished all the creatures that inhabited it, and soon the humans began to flourish. More and more humans poured into Istari, coming from strange and distant places. They spoke different languages and often went in conflict with each other, over land and hunting grounds.

Humans began to build settlements as they grew in numbers. Soon there were more humans than orki and the children of A’Su had to move and leave behind their lives.

The Witch-Queen Nana of the Palahai

Many years after the Palahai set homes in Istari, a new queen had risen from their ranks. Her name was Nana and she was venerated like a Goddess. She was a witch, an envious and ambitious one. It is said that Nana made a pact with the Dark God Ank, an enemy of A’Su, to deliver the orki in his hands in exchange for knowledge and wealth.

Unlike most of her fellow humans, Nana had lived among orki for a while. When she was young, she had been left alone in the world after her tribe was wiped out by a plague. Orki had found and healed her, then took her with them. The Uka tribe welcomed her like a lost child and taught her the ways of the world.    

When she came of age, Nana preferred to leave Uka and go back to the humans. But her soul was corrupted by envy and she wanted to have all that orki had, their knowledge and their wisdom. The humans made her their queen because her knowledge was unmatched.

Nana traveled to the underworld to her God, Ank, and asked for the same gifts orki people had. Ank, who was the dark lord of the dead but was also wise, warned Nana that such gifts came with curses. He will give her wisdom and knowledge and language and the arts of pottery and field plowing, but she will also have to accept war and famine and plague for everything in the world is balanced and no good can exist without evil. Nana agreed because she wanted desperately that her kind could be more powerful than the orki. Lord Ank gave her everything she asked for and everything that she didn’t ask for and so the world became the place that it is today.

Extract from the Worldbuilding of The Stones of Ayalis