Darkness Falls on a Dark Land, Part 5

Lord Phan is only spoken of in hushed language.  Few believe that he ever actually existed, and the only other member of the Alliance that gets this kind of treatment is Rejon, who was after all constantly and by necessity overshadowed by his fellow Omoxian, the great Trey the Conqueror.  Even though I have a personal interest in the career of Trey, I still respect Rejon, and most certainly Trey’s rival Lord Phan.  Just as the Omoxians and Tikanni struggled for centuries to be recognized as the preeminent race of the Galactic Alliance, which in time led to the complete Tikanni withdrawal from cosmic affairs, it was always a popular aspect of the Alliance of Five story that Trey and Lord Phan sported egos that could hardly keep them in the same room.  Though the complete original text of Enigma of the Dawn, the tale that revived the older Darkness Falls on a Dark Land, has been lost to history in the same way as Shibal, what remains doesn’t always bear this out.  Enigma shows both Trey and Lord Phan to be very personable, if Phan to be remote and given to pursing his own interests, including a relationship with the Hesslan mercenary Kaz Felrek that has never been fully explained.  Alternate versions of Trey emerged in later stories, yet Phan remains consistent.

This is either because there was a central truth to his character or that his existence is a cover for something else, which is why some connect him to a different figure entirely, such as the Modoc fertility goddess of the Vitell.  Others consider this to be an entirely unreasonable supposition, a flight of fancy with not even a modicum of truth to it, yet if there’s a chance of it bearing truth in reality, it’s because Lord Phan himself would be capable of making it so.  Here is the Tikanni who is said to have visited Earth, to have created the Danab, and various and untold other wonders, including an unnaturally extended life, so that even today, somewhere along the fringe of civilization, he still exists.  That would make him at least two thousand years old!  Just imagine such a life.  What else could make it possible except a deep connection to the divine matrix of existence itself, or in other words some link at least to Modoc?  Of all the gods ever conceived, would not the life-giving be the most relevant to the sentient imagination?  After all, random confluence of elemental building blocks could give birth to the universe, but for the complicated nature of self-awareness, would not a more personal touch be necessary?

What is attributed to Lord Phan except this instinct?  The arts of the Tikanni have by some cruel irony joined with the same obscurity as the secrets of the Omoxians.  In this instance it’s because the Tikanni perpetuated and then suffered from exile and persecution, become the very villains they have forever after been accused of creating, awaiting some convenient moment to strike against its former allies, those it helped bring into a community that expanded the knowledge of countless worlds.  Perhaps Lord Phan was or is not so unique.  Perhaps that was why the Tikanni first visited Omox, and were surprised to find beings who fancied themselves their superiors.

Bondquan becomes more interested in my work the longer it persists.  At first, I think, she was convinced that I would grow bored and quit, tired of the effort she was herself took part in presenting as an obstacle, constant resistance and skepticism for very little in return except a few clay statues of Modoc.  On closer examination, they aren’t even Vitell in origin, but Tikanni, and the circle closes that much more.  Does this means that the Tikanni visited the Vitell first, or that Modoc is as much Tikanni as possibly Lord Phan himself?  I sometimes feel myself slipping into madness, although the awareness of it should at least keep it at bay, until I can no longer reason with myself.  Bondquan…she’s the most beautiful of a race of physical specimens, and I know that she stands out because even surrounded by Omoxians I cannot concentrate on any others besides her.  I know this is wrong for someone who has dedicated himself to objectivity, and should be clearing himself of distractions rather than making new ones.  I’m trying to prove theories, not fall in love.  She keeps making me think that she takes me seriously.  How can I ignore that?  It’s so unlikely as to be endearing.  They say that love is the function of life that ignores every other sense of reasoning.

There are other times I look at her and see only the flaws, because humans tend to do that when they’re intimidated, don’t know how to move forward, and Omoxians have had that effect on us from the start.  They weren’t the first aliens to contact us, when we all thought the Danab were the first ones.  It was the Welborn, the vanguard of the Galactic Alliance.  And yet the Omoxians did come, didn’t they?