> Enbaktavar's most holy place is in Anadikkiland and is called > Serkarkos.
And here's how that place was dedicated in the Seattle Farmers Second Age game, which takes place in Anadikkiland. This is adapted from the game log. Note that we stuck to the name "Humakt" for Enbaktavar in play, for simplicity.
Rob
The story so far:
Jagrinor the Handsome of Maple clan cursed the womb of Tanekke, a woman of Longneedle clan and worshipper of Darkka the bear goddess, who had insulted him. Tanekke and her husband Voski, an Orlanthi warrior, dispatched Uruk, a Humakti, to kill Jagrinor, and Tanekke swore that her first child born after the lifting of the curse would do Humakt's will on earth. She became pregnant that Spring, and was certain that she was carrying Death's child. [Tanekke, Voski, Lormak, and Uruk are player characters.]
Death Week, Dark Season 906
Shortly before Dark Death Day eleven Humakti appeared in the village like wraiths, unchallenged by the weaponthanes (who we later learned had been pursuing mysterious ghost wolves). The swordsmen were led by Uruk of Talastar, who had killed Jagrinor the Handsome on behalf of Voski and Tanekke. Beside him was the Carmanian Bisokarvu Blacksword, known to Voski by repute as a great servant of Hum'akt (or Engarvu, as the foreigners put it), and the priest of the Maple Bladesong shrine, Ezkarast Winter.
Approaching Tanekke at her sewing, Uruk asked her, "Are you ready to go to the edge of the world?"
"I am," she replied, gathering her work, "but I do not go alone."
"Should we follow you?" Voski asked his wife.
"No, I will return at the Dawn," she replied. She took up a song of
Darkka and marched from the camp with them.
In fact, Tanekke had been preparing for this moment since Spring, although it came sooner than anyone had expected. With the help of her family, she had dug a cave outside their village and dedicated it to Darkka on Berrying Day. There she spent her nights, and some of her daytimes, singing to the Brown Mother a prayer for survival while spinning and weaving.
Voski followed the parade of death and the singing bear-woman to the borders, where Voski and his companions were challenged by a neighboring patrol and turned back. The black cavalcade was clearly headed to Maple lands, where two days away lay Serkarkos, the place where Humakt came from the Underworld bearing Death, whose shrine the Anadikkings call Bladesong.
Returning to his village, Voski told Lormak, winner of the year's Great Hunt, "I want Tanekke back safely."
"What's in it for me?" Lormak asked.
"My eternal friendship."
"I can get there. But you owe me one."
Creeping along secret paths through deep ravines, Lormak had some close calls with Maple patrols. They knew that someone had been through, but they were too confused with the comings and goings of the Humakti and ghost wolves to prevent the cunning bear-son from reaching Bladesong and hiding in the dark woods nearby.
Bladesong showed many signs of recent improvements and disturbed dirt - clearly, the High Karm Survilstar was keeping his promise to build a true temple. Next to the site's ancient standing stone stood a new building, a low squatting thing of dark rock with a doorway only two feet tall. "So Humakt is approached with humility," Uruk offered by way of explanation.
"I'm going to have a hard time getting into that thing in my
condition," breathed Tanekke.
But the Longneedle forager was not taken into the building, instead being seated in a place of honor inside a circle of Humakti as Uruk (his teeth freshly filed for the occasion) led the swordsmen in the rites of Dark Death Day. Even from there she could feel the chill that came from the crevice into the Underworld. Finally Uruk approached her and told her to stand up.
"It is the child's time," he said.
Reaching out with his huge sword, he barely touched her with it and she was open, bleeding, with no time even to feel pain. With a huge hand he took out the shrunken red baby she had carried for Death. Ezkarast raised his own sword. "You have no clan and no kin," he said, and quickly cut twice through the umbilical, bringing screams from the ugly child. He and Uruk grabbed the struggling creature, and hurled it through the door and into the crevice - into Hell. The new Temple of Bladesong was consecrated.
Now the pain came to Tanekke but she struggled from the circle, bleeding and sobbing. She took out a bone needle, and stitch by stitch, closed up her womb. Darkka's song faded but never stopped, and by the time she had expelled the afterbirth, her bear-tough hide was knitting itself.
"Clearly, Humakt does not want her," growled Uruk.
Not long after, she heard a quiet call. "Sister, let us get home to the cave." She found Lormak, who retraced his secret paths and returned her in two days to her village, without encountering any of the murderous Maples.
"Humakt took the child," she told Voski, sitting down heavily. "You're
doing the dishes."
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