A Short Novelette: The Tiamat: Demonic Stampede (all three parts)

A Short Story in Three Parts



The Tiamat,
and the Demonic Stampede

((6820 BC) (part one of three))


The Tiamat of the Underworld


Tiamat's Equatorial Stars

Beneath the equatorial starsWhere once, warriorsTurned their eyes, to the deep, deepInto the deep green sea:
Lays a hovering legend—calledThe Tiamat, wicked and terrifying.
Waiting—frightfully waitingAre these ancient eyesFor the gigantic bulk—Of a demigod, to reappear.


Prelude

The author has written three books and several tales on the adventures of the Tiamat, and Sinned. Published in 2002, this being the first published story since. The story here takes place around 6,820 BC, with her antagonist being Sinned, a man close to the One God. The Tiamat’s cohort, being the demigods of Yort, and her sons: Untameable, the First Born, and her rivals Marduk, Seth, the Tiger Woman, the Ram demigod, and the White Brute Gorillas; Lucifer who had his dealings with both the Tiamat and Marduk, was at this time, at his forest temple, outside the city, thus, not involved with this happening, but he was well known throughout the city and had his own temple in Yort, a city fortress. It was the ‘The Age of Pride’ where men and demigods lived in the visible world next to each other.



The Story

The City Fortress of Yort, 6000 BC



Yort, harbour


Her hands were very quietly nervous. Sinned, understood why she didn’t care to talk about it, but she wanted to talk, had to talk about it. But she had come from the Great City fortress, Yort, to see him in Pergamum, to report what took place, was still taking place, at the harbour, in the city, near the woods, she came hoping he could be of assistance. She was here to report what took place by the demigods in particular, the Tiamat and her two sons: Untameable, and the First Born, and her cohort, Marduk, Seth, the Ram, tiger Woman, the White Brute Gorillas. King Thesas III, ruler of Yort was in a deep underground vault within the city, hidden away from the demonic battle and stampede.

Princess Fatemeh, the daughter of King Thesas III, and her mother, the Queen, Ellen sat by her side as they told Sinned the story you are about to hear:

“The boat was already to sail,” said the daughter, “had we not been down at the dock, I doubt we would have escaped; or had been able to get ready to escape.”
“Yes,” said the mother, “the queen’s boats always sail at forenoon on Friday.”
“Just prior to this time was a great upheaval that took place, a great rumbling sound, and then everything started to rock to and fro, even the dock rolled and started to buckle. My mother and I were on board the boat, leaning on the rail. It had lasted about a minute,” said the daughter.
“We both fell flat onto and into the water and had to swim to the dock,” said the mother (exasperated.)
“It is, as you know Sinned, a big wooden dock, but it nonetheless rolled back and forth, what was left of it. My daughter and I hung onto each other for dear life. I remember seeing several of our navy men clambering back up out of the water. We remained for the moment right alongside of the statue of King Thesas the I (near the harbour), the first Thesas of Yort, the one your father fought with so many years ago and captured the Great Macedonian Stone, that had the rules and the name of the One True God, on it, taking it from the Tiamat, and bringing it to Yort, and of course giving up his life for it. How proud we were of him.”
“What did you do when the shock was over?” asked Sinned.
“We were now ashore. We had to climb the hill to Yort, no one to carry us up, no horses or wheeled means of transport to take us. The dock was crumbled in places and great portions of the wood were afloat in the harbour. We wanted to have our King saved from this horrid disaster, only to find out he was hidden in the underground vault.
“As I was about to say, we got as far as the One God Temple, and it was caved-in.


The City and the
Stampede


“All the walls in the city had fallen down, in on themselves like a crushed and open dam…just demolished, crumbled, everything crumbled to the ground. The demigods were fighting one another, the Tiamat with Marduk, Seth with the Tiger Woman, Untameable with the Ram demigod, the First Born with some angelic force called Hawk (eye of the sun, a leader from the dark angels of the person house for angels, someplace hidden in the cosmos). The White Gorillas, among themselves,” said the princess.
Said the mother, a little airless, “There was nothing we could do, there was a big cloud of dust all over everything from the buildings that had caved in. Much of the city could hardly been seen, nothing clear, visible, and fires were breaking out everywhere, all over.”
“What were the people doing, how were they reacting? Did they pray to the One God? Run into any of the temples?” asked Sinned.
“There didn’t’ seem to be any panic. That was the strange thing. I didn’t see anyone hysterical at all. There was a family, by the Tiamat’s temple and it caved in all around them, and they were badly shaken, and the little girl came out crying, and there were a horde of others, actually drinking wine standing and watching from the great walls of Yort, but they just stood there, they didn’t move much. They looked as if they couldn’t move, as if they were in a semi state of shock, and of course nobody helped anybody, everyone looking out for themselves,” remarked the Queen.


The Escape


“How did you get back to the boat?” asked Sinned.

“There was a horse, military horse tied to a post nearby us, and finally the commander of the military took notice of who we were, said he knew you since he was a boy, gave us his horse, so we could get to the dock area and come and see you. We got to the dock finally, found some of our dedicated sailors and we come here. The fire from the city was going so badly, then the wind came off shore towards us, and we sailed away, an awful wind, hot wind for a while. We got to the dock here, and of course they couldn’t get a gangplank out, so we had to swim again to the shore,” said the daughter.
“We had to leave many of our servants in the palace as it was burning, alive with the fire coming on!” said the Queen Mother, with tears now coming from her eyes, “and of course all our treasures.”
“Yes,” said the daughter, “we had to leave the cooks, and housemaids, and just everything.”
“There was a woman on the dock area looking for her husband, had lost him. I didn’t recognize her; she said he was an officer in the Army. There was a young couple also, that lost a child, they had just gotten married, I briefly talked to them, to comfort them,” said the mother. When we got on the boat, we could no longer even see the shore for the reason that of the smoke. The captain had three boats launched on the far side of us, from the smoke and fires. It blocked some of the heat. It kept coming on though;” said the Queen, “we slept in the open air; it was all like a volcanic eruption.”
“Did the demigods cause a tidal wave?” asked Sinned.
“No.” said the princess, “there wasn’t any at all.”



Reverberations



(The Queen Mother, she was thinking about the Captain of the navy, and the four boats that had made it to safety with her, and her husband that was in hidden in the palace underground vault, her mind went back and forth to them, as she sat there explaining it all to the old Soldier of Yort, Sinned.)



“Some of our sailors had stayed up all night and day, fighting the Sea to get here, they are very tired,” the Queen Mother offered.
“Yes,” said Sinned, “to save their Queen and Princess, but I see nobody else, not one old woman, or child, there were lots of people in the dock area, in the crumbling city, by its inland waterways, too, Yort, has a big population.”
“We were all confused in the demonic stampede,” said the Queen, “you have a voice with the One God, He listens to you, speak to Him on our behalf to stop these demonic beasts, please; lest there be nothing of our city to return to.”
“What did you think when it all started?” Asked Sinned (inquisitively).
“Oh,” said the princess “we knew it was the demigods, but it was just that nobody knew it was going to be so bad. There have been lots of fights among them in the city, over who would be ahead of all the temples in the city, who would have the number one temple, since you left, or was ostracized by them, and of course the King could do nothing about it, for you had not obeyed them. His hands were tied.”
“It would seem that you and the King have a lot of work to do now, reorganizing,” remarked Sinned.

Just then a disciple of Sinned came out from a cavern, asked, “When will you be finished here, we’re retranslating a few of the complex words on the Mesopotamian Stone, your friends are waiting?”
The Queen and Princess listened, their ears odd for a moment. The Queen was very tired. Sinned got up, the daughter got up.
“You understand,” said Sinned (now a very old man).”
The disciple had started to walk back to the entrance of the cave; they had been sitting outside by the old ruins, where once the She-Ocean, one of Satan’s lovers and mates, had held up, where she tried to seduce him. And in time they actually became friends.
Sinned took a long look at the jewels and fancy dress the Queen had on, although drenched from her swim, and the many rings the Princess had on her fingers, several, then started to meet his disciple who was waiting by the entrance for him…

“Well,” said the Queen, “what can we do?” (Near desperation.)
“You just don’t get it, you and the king and the people of Yort, have rebelled against the One God, now he is trying to get your attention and I guess he still didn’t get it…maybe you need more pain, before He straightens things out for you…some people need to get hit between the eyes to get their attention. You come to me, yet do evil against the name of the One God.”

Then the disciple and Sinned started to walk into the cave, said the disciple, “Who’s going to write this story, you or me?”
“I don’t know,” said Sinned.


Short Story: No: 422 (6-24-2009).



The Tiamat, in:
King Thesas’ Weakness
((Part two of Three, to ‘The Tiamat, and the Demonic Stampede’) (6820 BC))



Oblivion - and the Tiamat

[Sonnet of the Tiamat]
Her mouth sunken with undying black blood The same, King Belphegor in Hell sips. Silently at night about the halls of Scheol Unnoticed, she walks dribbling the cursed blood; The Tiamat has found her pacing-place, divine Where she sneers in jest, at Belphegor’s whims. O Hades and your relentless cryptic sides! The fallen demigod has mockery eyes! Ah! I hear her echoes from walls of stone From pre-history and to dawn’s eternal. She bellows as from Arch kingdoms, far below, As I stand here in wonderment and stare A sad gaze, who feels his soul eternal I hear her blind echoes, echoes, echoes! #512 [3/1/05]



King Thesas III

King Thesas I, was a soldier, warrior, and ruler, as was his son, King Thesas II, both now dead, both worthy of their thrones. Why was King Thesas the III, not like his grandfather, or father? Thus, a weakness to the great city of Yort, which he allowed demonic temples to be built, in fear of his life, not raising a finger when confronted by the demonic forces of the Tiamat, and her sons, Untamable and the First Born, Lucifer, the Ram,
and even Marduk.

The Queen of Yort had now left Pergamum where the Queen and Princes had asked Sinned for intervention, to stomp the onslaught of the demonic stampede, killing and wreckage, they were doing in the city of Yort, that was taking place, for demonic domination of the city, its people, and temples…

Nimrod, Sinned’s scribe, has just asked this question of Sinned, hoping he could explain it…



“King Thesas the III, comes from a noble family, as you know Nimrod; he has a reddish and dark brown beard, a low forehead, and walks with a slump like an older man, like a near dead man you might say, and he mumbles more than talks, with the accent of a hissing snake, an annoying whisper. He has thin, cold hands; perhaps his veins are too thin for him, although he can talk several languages.
“His grandfather was an old tyrant, but a good diplomat, and when the demonic underworld tried to make a dictatorship out of Yort, a revolution started throughout the land, and his cries were heard in the great heaves by the One God. The Tiamat was refused refuge by both, the underworld, and Yort, she and his sons were in exile, in the great woods beyond the gates of Yort, Ura’el the angelic being sent to tie the Tiamat and those with her, escaped.
“King Thesas the II said to me one afternoon, back when I was a soldier, ‘The straits, both the Dardanelles and Bosporus, must remain open to our ships.’
“He spoke with the belief and hardness of a warrior king, fifty, if not a hundred times on this, to the point of becoming wearied from not being understood. You see it had to do with trade, the livelihood of Yort, ‘and once the straits are closed to our ships,’ he went on ‘Yort is at the mercy of any and all the demonic beasts or demigods in the land, in particular in the Black Sea, were the Tiamat lives. We therefore, can have no safety, no freedom to develop, no security from her and her kind from invasion as long as our ships and dreadnoughts cannot enter the black sea, there is only one thing for Yort to do, not allow the demonic beasts to blockade it, and therefore to arm. She must build a fleet and carry the Great Mesopotamian Stone, with its sacred writings on it in the lead ship, the sacred words of the One God. Other than that, it means crippling of our productive power, by diverting it to build a navy, and we simply must do it.’
“So you see, Nimrod, the second Thesas, was as his father, a man of faith, military cleverness, and a leader. When he died, Thesas the III, was not invited to the demonic conference, outside of Yort, the Tiamat shrugged her shoulders.”
“And what came of that conference?” asked Nimrod.
“We are dealing with facts, with conditions that existed then, and because of them, now. Thesas the III was no diplomat did not have any national aims for Yort. He sees the problems, as they were under his grandfather and father’s realms, but did not produce a revolution to come off against the demigods; he knew the rivalry between his predecessors, and he tried to gain by treaties some advantages and securities, that later would have to be gained or lost by wars. But no wars ever developed, and the sacred stone was given to the Tiamat to keep, until I retrieved it, he never used its power, or prayed to the One God. During this time, the demigods invaded parts of Italy, and Greece, and India, and other empires around the Black Sea, but they wanted Yort, and they took it like cutting up whole salami, piece by piece, until they had the whole thing.”
“Yes,” said Nimrod, “the Tiamat and its horde were awful; I couldn’t believe the stampede they produced in Yort, when I heard it.”
“Isn’t it horrible?” Sinned said his chin in his palm, his elbow on his knew.
“But what produced such a coward?” asked Nimrod.
“Whose to say,” said Sinned, “but a fair guess might be, he was not from the same blood stock of his forefathers, and when he was a boy he was kept in dresses until he was thirteen years old, his father being in battle after battle, seldom at Yort to insure he’d be a great soldier some day, because his father always wanted him to be a great soldier. And soldiers make kings and kings make peace and wars.”
“So, whose fault is it?” asked Nimrod.
“It is not always the fault of the ax, but of the tree as well.”


No: 423/ 6-27-2009








The Tiamat, in:
Refugees from Yort
((Part Three of Three, to: ‘The Tiamat and the Demonic Stampede’) (6820 BC))





King Thesas III





Cursed by the Tiamat

The Tiamat shaped her mouth
Saying to the Queen, “My servants’,
You, you Queen Ellen: the whore
To King Thesas the III
May say this to them,
‘Your God hats me—me!
And I hate them…
And if I cannot live in their city
And have to turn my face
To the seas, I will destroy Yort
Rain down on her—
Like a giant bird, a vicious fish,
And she will pour out her soul
Like showers of wheat.”’

And so it was, a stampede with the
Demigods of old, for domination
Of the city of Yort!

Note: 6-28-2009 (No: 2535)


The Stampede of the demigods were heard around the Mediterranean Sea, all the way to the Black Sea, to the land of the pre Hittites (the Catal Huyuk Culture, which did not survive past 5700 BC, but lived as far back as 7500 BC and shared the same blood as the Yorkites, but up and disappeared, an unknown extinction, it is was said, they disappeared about a generation after the disappearance of the demigods, sometime after a great flood, of which there were several in this area of the world, and after the death of Sinned); and the echo of York traveled all the way to Amazon Female Warriors of Konya Plain, to Kish, and Uruk, and Damascus. The Queen, Queen Ellen and her daughter, had asked for help from these pre-Hittites from Cappadocia and in eastern Anatolia. Offered them tons of silver, which was generally found in that area and mined, and sold to Yort, and throughout the region, and old world…her people were now persons in exile…



Upon the Queen’s arrival back at Yort, after visiting Sinned in Pergamum, within a matter of minutes it was already beginning to seem unreal, Princess Fatemeh by her side, and King Thesas the III, still in the underground vault. That would be the boom of their memories, in years to come, she was on her own. It does no good to go over the stampede again; the evacuation had started of Yort. Some twenty-thousand people take a long time to move to nowhere. Yort, and its outskirts were no longer a pleasant place. Ragged soldiers, mud-holes crowded with civilians, bundles laying abrupt, bedding, sewing things, babies, broken carts, all in the mud and the drizzling rain. There were more people piling up outside the gates of Yort, and no means to evacuate them, and no place to go. In the empty fields, and farm houses were the only places people could sleep, or down the dark side of streets, but even there were mud puddles, some too deep to go through, you had to go around them.
The Queen banged on doors, now in bare feet; she had only one blanket herself. It looked bad. Then she found Rufa, the son of the commander that knew Sinned, he had a platoon of some fifty soldiers with him and he was an officer. He had ten carts, and asked her, along with his soldiers, that evening to put blankets on those carts, and sleep in them, inside the fortress, waiting for word from the pre Hittites, to see if they’d assist in the evacuation, as the city continued to burn for a week.

“This refugee business was hell all right,” said the Queen to Rufa, who had been taking the wounded out in the carts outside of the fortress to be cared for by the others, and in the process the whole area was infested with the dying, and malaria, and no one able to kill the mosquitoes, and they were flying in the faces of everyone. The Queen and her daughter during these days, took big doses of sleeping potions, and repeated the process of caring for the wounded, as the Tiamat fought Marduk, and the other demigods, stomped through the city, on a rampage. Wherever the Queen slept, in the carts, in the farmer’s house, it was now all crawling with lice. Hungry lice, even the cots in the farm houses were full of lice. And Rufa, would say, “Queen Ellen, these fellows are nothing. You ought to see the real grownup ones!”
Madame Rosalina, a big CatalHuyuk woman, gave the Queen what little bread and wine she had, served in her small cramped dinning room, the queen still complain, said to her, “The room was lousy, Madame,” and she simply said back (cheerfully), “I agree it is, but it is better than sleeping in the road!”
“I agree that it is,” remarked the Queen, and the Queen went out with the Princess and Rufa, waiting for the tribal king from the East, near the Black Sea, to rescue them with food, lodging, and bedding, it was still drizzling, and the landscape still muddy and there was an eternal procession of humanity moving along the stone roads and ruins in the city and in the woods, aimlessly.
Many of the stream of Yorkites, were moving slow and sodden, fleeing peasantry south, to southeast, hoping to meet the CatalHuyuk leaders, with big wheeled bullock and buffalo carts, bobbing camels, trains and rains of people, a long stream, ragged, with rain soaked cloths. At one point, all the Yorkites were being routed to the east, to meet the Calvary of men from the CatalHuyuk lands. There was one ragged looking hungry farmer on the back of a cart, not allowing the Queen space to ride, and so she walked, she was too tired to demand, and becoming too humble to request, and Rufa saw this man, he was ragged, a farmer and he pulled him out from off the cart, picked him up and threw him like a rabbit to the side of the road. Kicked spuds into his side, smashed him in the face a couple of times, he shouted at the top of his voice, the man now had a bloody face, and wild eyes, not understanding what it was he did, and was allowed back into his cart, but only because the queen allowed it, and he made room for her. Nobody in the line of march had paid any attention to the incident.
When they had crossed over the bridge, between the boundaries of Yort and CatalHuyuk far-lands, they were greeted by the CatalHuyuk army, and the rains kept coming, coming, and coming. There was talk about a great flood in the makings, that Sinned had predicted one. The Queen accepted a glass of wine, from the CatalHuyuk king, “But what about my poor people out there in the road?” said the Queen.
“Oh well,” the king shrugged. “It is always that way with the people. They will be scattered, we cannot help them all, but you and your soldiers we can, under my command, and you as one of my wife?”
She stood up, straight and disheveled, looked toward Yort, and knew the king would die were he was, and the demigods would not leave until every brick was torn down, “Yes,” she said, “it is better than the street? Eh?”


No: 424/ 6-28-2009