And don't forget, one of the (many) aspects of the Hero Wars is "Who is the real sun?"
For what it is worth, I'm fairly certain that certain parts of Elmal's mythology was bitten off by chaos in the darkness, and that other parts have been deliberately stolen/covered up by the Fire Tribe (un-just tyrants!)
My entirely NOT-in-Glorantha view of it is that once there was the Fire tribe, whole and perfect. Yelm/the emperor in the middle and all arrayed about him in their proper places. Some had the job of maintaining order in the outer reaches of the empire, and their names reflected their position as instrumentaliteis of Yelm. They may even had the same name/title, just in different places (Think of bishops of the catholic church, all routinely called "The Bishop" within their domain).
They failed. One of them or all of them, it doesn't matter, they failed.
Yelm was killed.
Still, those that were left kept guarding the court, but what was right was no longer entirely clear.
One (or more) tried to stop Challana Arroy from leaving the court. She "healed" him (or them) (and Challana Arroy of all people knows that there is always another way, and healing can be more powerful than violence), so that he saw more than the glory of the Fire Tribe. He (or they) decided that they guardianship had failed, and was now pointless, and went looking for a new purpose. At least one of them joined the storm tribe, who called him Elmal.
One (or more) kept his people in order, and became worshipped directly by them. This protected one flank of the empire, so it seemed the right thing to do. But by changing the proper order of things, he (or they) became farther damaged, never fit to the old position again. At least one such survived the darkness, called Yelmalio by his people.
Others stuck to their posts, some of whom may have survived to return as fairly nameless servitors of Yelm after the compromise. Some at least tried to return Elmal to the fire tribe at one point, but they were probably those who had abandoned their proper role (so could have included Yelmalio).
Of course, none of this explains what the sky looked like to the storm tribe before Elmal came. Was there a sun? Was there light? Was there night and day?
--Bryan
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