A Crippled Cathedral

What is a Narthex? Who were they, these complex beings? They were the eldest race ever to live in the universe and existence. They were a race of dragons, rich in power and magic and life. They walked on two legs, like people, but they were fierce like real dragons. They were violent and vicious as well as intelligent and cultured. They invented the first technologies and they settled the first cities. They ruled a kingdom at the center of the universe, and they wrote the first laws of the governance of beings. 5000 million years before the time of humans, they were at the peak of civilization within their race. But this did not last forever. As with all races, eventually they fought and they had civil war.

After the first planetary war, things were fragmented. Narthex discriminated against Narthex. And although the prosperous ones lived in peace, there was often bloodshed among many of the same flesh. In the largest Narthex galaxy, the inner planets were the home of the wealthy, and the outer planets were the refuge of the poor and the orphaned. Even though it seemed inconspicuous and gray, this was where the conflict grew hot as an iron sword, ready to strike.

GS0851 was one of the many millions of children that was birthed by wealthy parents and then dumped into an outer-planet orphanage, which he did not understand. He could walk and growl only a few days after his own birth. So, for the Narthex people, children were seen as nothing but a nuisance. Who cared for all these children? Only orphans themselves who grew mature enough to care for the young that were tirelessly abandoned. Among them, homeless Narthecies would ravage the outer planets, scouring for food and taking residence in the crumbling ancient castles.

Perhaps, at one point, these planets were bustling cities. But the universe had already reached its peak millions and millions of years ago. Now the Narthex civilization was fragmented. The outer planets were mostly in ruin. And although some beings could live there comfortably, most of them suffered a life of poverty and waste.

In a cold concrete building, GS0851 sat with his wings wrapped around himself to keep warm. He stared out into the cold gray sky. The sun was setting, but he could already see the shadow of an inner planet on the horizon. On its darkened side, the lights of cities dotted the planet like the facets of a sparkling diamond. He sighed, wondering who birthed him, who his parents were. Why did he end up in a miserable place such as this? The planet was dying, the cement floor was cold. And if he strained himself hard enough, the boy thought that he could hear the laughter and the bustling cities of life coming from the other planet. The luxury and wealth of the Inner-Planet Narthecies - they had glimmering lights, food, warm waters and warm clothes made of materials that GS0851 had never seen. For once in his life, he had an out-of-body thought. Who was he, and where was his place in the universe on this barren empty planet?

This was a fateful day, for GS0851 spent many a twilight watching the planetrise of the far-off inner-galaxy cities. It was his ritual. To come and lean against this ruined building, and stare at the other planet until he slept. But on this particular day, another boy would happen upon him, feel his Nave, and take pity on his sorrow.

Sensing his thoughts with magic, one of the older Narthex boys kicked him squarely in the leg, sending a sharp pain through his whole body. The bigger Narthex laughed at GS0851’s pain. He had no wings, no hair, no tendrils. But he was an intimidating force to look at; his smooth skin was a pale white, with blue markings running along the length of his limbs. His cold eyes perceived GS0851, who shivered against the weight of their gaze. The toddler boy lifted his wings around himself to hide.

“What is this, whelp? Thinking such thoughts about one’s parents? Well, aren’t you a pathetic lot!” the tall and slender dragon said. GS0851 looked up from under his wing and saw that the Narthex was speaking to him with his voice, rather than telepathically transmitting his thoughts through casted magic. GS0851 wished he could use his magic, but for as long as he could remember, magic was something that he was not blessed with. He could not feel the warmth of the magic inside him. And silently he cursed to himself wondering why the meanest of Narthecies were blessed with the power of magic.

The one with blue markings kicked him again. Then he rested his foot upon the face of GS0851, making sure to rest his hook on the smaller boy’s tender cheek. The hook was his long fifth-digit, razor sharp and gleaming in the light of the twilight sun. Gripping his face, the Narthex cranked his prey’s head around so that they were once again staring into each other’s eyes. GS0851 opened his mouth to squeal in pain, but no sound escaped from his pathetic maw. Instead, he just stared into the larger boy’s eyes.

“Look at you, whelp. I could hear your miserable thoughts from a flight away. Do not curse me for my gift of casted magic. We are a dying race and none of the elders even use their magic any longer. I have no wings, yet here you are wasting yours. If you wish to escape my scrutiny, why not spread your wings, and take flight away?” The larger dragon released him and GS0851 slumped against the derelict building. He placed his hand against his cheek, where the hook had dug in and left a drop of blood. Still wordless, he lifted his wings as if to beat them into flight. But then he slumped again with his back to the concrete wall. Now GS0851 was standing feebly and something about his body was off. He had not yet grown into a mature Narthex, but his body had no sense of proportion. His legs were underdeveloped, his tail sickly and underweight. Although his wings felt strong and filled with power, the membranes were thick and heavy. The young boy looked dehydrated and hungry.

“My name is Torrance,” the older boy said telepathically. He cocked his head to the side while he looked at the smaller one. Something within his Nave told him that he needed to be bonded to this boy immediately, for a Narthex never has a wrong intuition within his Nave. To hear the Nave speaking from inside the flesh of his chest, Torrance knew that this was a Narthex’s first instinct to act. Which is why the Narthex became the dominant species at the beginning of the universe. Inside each Narthex, there was still a bit of fresh stardust from the beginning of time. Because the Narthex were one of the first races to ever be born from the Big Bang. So even though humans came eventually, the number of stars within their composition had already been lost and refined until they could not feel their original stars anymore. But a Narthex could; a good percentage of a Narthex’s body was made still made of the original stardust. And that is why Narthecies had a great sense of power, wealth, and magic.

“I am GS0851” the young pup finally muttered. Tired of carrying his wings, he let them slump down beside him and winced against the pain of their weight.

“Such big wings and your hooks have not even grown in yet, whelp. That is, of course, to say that you were born with hooks were you not? Now why does this miserable thing not have a name for yourself yet? How long have you been dumped here upon the Seventh-Tier Stone Planet?” Torrance seized the boy by his jaw now and turned his head side to side, as if to inspect his face and his markings. GS0851 didn’t flinch, but his eyes filled with burning tears. He clenched his small hands at his sides.

“I do not know,” he managed to squeak. “The years I did not count, the rotations of the planet I did not count. The day I was born, I was here. And the elder nurse gave me my number, and with that she was gone. Perhaps my parents were gone long before my numbering, too.”

“Ahh,” the older Narthex vocalized with understanding, and perhaps a hint of annoyance. “Look at your coloring and marking. Rare is this color of the mane, in my advanced seasons. If I did not find you such a nuisance, I would perceive that you were my brother. The mane of yours, does it grow darker in the colder season when the planet is away from the star?”

“It does,” GS0851 said simply. “Azure in the Stone Planet’s winter.”

“Yes,” Torrance agreed, nodding his bare head. “Indeed, a rare hue.” He did not have a mane, but the blue markings on his skull, his Altar, shone bright with the underlying magic in his veins. Now he seemed to hold the younger’s face with tenderness and fondness. His thoughts ran in his head, but without grasp of the casted magic GS0851 did not hear them. Torrance stepped away from the delicate frame of the tiny Narthex. He allowed himself a moment of thought and stared at the stars that were beginning to break into the darkening sky. The silence stretched on. Then he clicked his hooks on dusty ground.

“Such a weak and insignificant sprog you are, young one.” Torrance spoke again finally. He grabbed the boy roughly by the wrist and pulled him along to walk down the filthy street with him, for without wings, Torrance could not fly.

“Now recite your number to me again, whelp.” Torrance snapped, avoiding eye-contact with any other being as he swaggered on. GS0851 did that. Then he went silent again.

“You will come with me, for we have royalty in our Nave, young one. You must come to meet my gang and see for yourself that the Seventh-Tier will not be our home forever.” Torrance dragged him on, pulling forcefully and speaking quickly while he moved into the maze of abandoned buildings with haste. At this point, there was nothing but walls surrounding them. They were once houses and the foundations of skyscrapers and castles. Now there were only gray walls of stone and concrete and ash, creating a forest of sorts, but without trees – only barren urban slabs and monoliths.

Homeless and orphaned Narthecies lived in all these pathetic structures. Sleeping, staring at the sky, foraging for scraps of cloth, or eating cakes made from dirt. The elder nurses lived in gathered villages where they offered small supplies of foodstuffs, often stolen from inner-planet freighters. Sometimes, the wealthy would send supplies or donations in order to keep the peace. But the outer planets knew this was an empty charity. The outer planets would not last, and the Narthex Era of Peace was coming to an end. “Peace” as they called it, was a name that was invented by the wealthy inner planets. But this was not Peace to the outer-ones. Too many ruined and poverty-stricken Narthecies lived on these outer planets and dreaded their life of suffering. They were born, they lived hungry, and then they died young and lonely. If there was ever a time for there to be a revolt, it was now. This is what Torrance felt in his Nave.

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Now they were away from the village center, away from the eyes of the elder nurses. Even though the elder nurses were once orphans themselves, they acted as the authority over the younger ones, often trying to enforce rules and lamenting when a youngster ran away from the gathered villages. In their minds, even the poorest and most desperate of Narthecies figured that they would be safer if they lived clustered together. Inner-Planet Narthecies sometimes called these “The Colonies”, although there was no official name for these camps of the poor, wretched and lonely. Beyond these villages, there was nothing. Not another living creature or race, sometimes for many hundreds of miles of cracked terrain and crumbling structures. Narthecies did not venture far, for in these days, they often lost their sense of magic, and without magic, they died horrible deaths of starvation and loneliness when their Nave could not bring them home again. The practice of magic was dying now, and almost all the outer planet Narthecies struggled in learning to use their magic. Of course, there was the exception of Torrance.

The pair was still surrounded by barren streets made of cement. But that is only because this planet was completely paved over and developed with cityscape long before it was abandoned. Now they stood in what they knew as a “clearing”. But this meadow was not like the grassy, quiet, tranquil place like the meadows of Earth. This was more like a concrete parking lot – gray, cold, desolate and filled only with the echoes of Torrance’s claws raking against the pavement.

“We are away from the nurses now,” he said with a gruffness on his voice. “Do you feel it, whelp? The planets are dying. I feel it in my Nave. And I felt you in my Nave when I heard your pathetic thoughts. There is a destiny here and a large, powerful body lives underneath your Transverse… I can see it in my magic.”

What is this boy saying? GS0851 was thinking to himself. This was barely the start of his evening and already he was being taken away from his comfortable place in life. Suddenly, all these thoughts were a whirlwind, whipping around in his Altar. It didn’t matter that he was sad. GS0851 thought his life was fine as long as he had a routine. He planned to sit and stare at the stars, stare at the planets, and think. He ate a rare tuft of grass that he found growing in the corner of a building. And then he sat and wondered and prepared to sit and wonder for days and days, living out his existence of loneliness and emptiness. Now a Narthex twice his size was kicking him and dragging him out to the uninhabited zone of walls, speaking of the death of the planet, rambling, and piercing his flesh with his claws. He whimpered.

Then, Torrance grabbed the young one firmly by the jaw again and brought his Altar close to his lips so he could speak. If Torrance heard the thoughts of the other one, there was no sign of it, and he did not speak about it. Eerily, GS0851 could feel as if he was being watched, and the hairs of his mane stood on the end of his skin. His wings drooped behind him, dragging on the rough floor. Then Torrance began:

“We must prepare ourselves for the war to inevitably come. But first, you are to have a name. Not the number that the inner-wealth decided for you when you were birthed on the slab. I shall pick your name, since I feel in my Nave that you are my one and only brother.” He paused here and covered the young one’s eyes as if to look to the stars for guidance and hide him from seeing his magic at work. Then he spoke again slowly.

“We had a father by the name of Yewseppus that mated with his second-mistress and dumped us coldly here on the Seventh-Tier. First myself, five thousand years ago, and then You five hundred years ago. If he sired any more sons, my Nave cannot tell. But I was named by my nurse, and she gave me the name of her father from ten thousand years ago. So, I will give you the name of our father. But not because I love him, only because you annoy me.”

“Yewseppus?” The young pup squeaked, unsure of his voice.

“Have you no Nave?” Torrance growled, pounding his fist on the young boy’s face. He was growing horns there, but since he was still young, there was nothing but a hard bump where the horns would inevitably grow in. Nevertheless, the blow hurt him strongly and his tears spilled at the pain of the strike. Even though there was already a red stripe of his natural marking there, the young boy knew that his face would grow even redder with pain.

While he cried, Torrance dragged Yewseppus into the doorway of an abandoned high-rise by the tail and wrapped his nose and eyes with bits of cloth and bandage. Although they were hundreds of years old, and even thousands of years old, these boys were still boys. They were not yet Matured Narthecies, for the Narthex race could live nearly forever since their magic kept them young and strong. However, with the first Narthex War now over, the species was threatened. Not many of them existed anymore, for they had all killed themselves with war over the last many millennia. Long before humans even evolved on Earth, the Narthex thrived, warred, and died. Now Torrance had an earthen vessel of water, and he was washing Yewseppus’ dirty face, tail and wings. He dipped his slender hands into the vessel until they were wet with water, then he splashed the water onto the young one’s body and scrubbed him with his fingertips. Silently, he allowed his magic to seep through his hands, not only assisting him to clean the boy, but also to heal him of the cut on his cheek.

“You are to live with me and help me, brother, for we will begin the revolution,” Torrance said as he pulled at loose hairs from Yewseppus’ mane. Torrance ran his claws through the mane and noted that more horns were beginning to grow along the being’s spine.

“What revolution?” the young one said, genuinely curious now. Why was the older one washing him and showing nurturing? This was against Narthex nature and it fascinated Yewseppus, for the Narthex race rarely showed affection. Now Torrance was inspecting his tail, grasping it by the base and holding it up to the light so he could see, there was a split towards the end of it and no doubt it would someday grow tendrils - the common sign of strong inner magic. Did the young one know that these tendrils held power? Despite being underweight, the tail was heavy. Narthecies in primitive ages often used their tails to fight one another, and now Torrance examined this tail before him and realized that it was something of a marvel. It was still intact now, but with age and experience it would be broken and filled with the telltale notches of battle like a true Narthex. This young boy didn’t know that he was a rare specimen. But his body showed all the signs of someday being the most powerful creature in the universe. Torrance looked at his own tail now. There were not many breaks, even considering that the elder boy had already bullied many others and been in many fights. He answered Yewseppus now.

“For years we knew that the inner planets hoarded the wealth and kept it for themselves. But we of the outer planets are getting older and wiser now, long after the Narthex war. A few of us have changed. We no longer sit alone or scavenge or waste our lives being orphaned and poor. The inner planets put us here to rot. We must revolt against them and kill their leaders. My Nave told me this when I was younger. And now I have found you and you will help me with this cause. Do you feel the strength within your wings, brother?”

Yewseppus lifted the bandages from over his eyes so that he could peer out and see Torrance. But instead he whispered,

“I still do not understand.” There was an awkward silence, occasionally broken by the wind howling through empty windows of the abandoned building. At this moment, none of the other Narthecies alive knew for certain that there would be a second Narthex War. But Torrance knew.

“You will understand, with time.” Torrance said, smirking through his fangs, and he brought forth something that Yewseppus had never seen before - a whole fruit, still fresh within its rind and glistening as if it had just been picked from the pod in which it grew. Food that he had never seen before, even when such luxury was given to him from the nurses in the gathered villages. When Yewseppus was given a meal, it was usually gruel, made from grains, water and dirt that was mixed by the elder nurses. If he did not have the gruel (which he had only seen a handful of times in his life), he ate the dirt from under the foundation of the buildings, and the occasional blade of grass that somehow found its way to grow between the cracks of ancient structures. Now before him, Torrance held a foreign object filled with color and life, and within his Nave, Yewseppus could only know that it was food. He seized it and turned it over in his claws with disbelief.

“What is this that you produce before me? Surely no casted magic can be strong enough to conjure such a thing. Instead, you must be using your magic to toy with my Altar.” Yewseppus said this with the most strength in his voice that Torrance had ever heard. Now he knew that he had his brother's attention.

“Eat it,” he encouraged. “Then you will see what we have done while I awaited to meet you.”