Coera

Part 1

• How Pol found true love, and learned to prove his truth.
  

Part 2

• How Pol's body was perfected by the Sea.
  

Part 3

• How Pol's mind was perfected through Justice.
  

Part 4

• How Pol's spirit was perfected through Contemplation.
  

Part 5

• How Pol's perfection was acceptable, and his seed was the seed of the Neocarnation.
  

Pol is now an old man, and returns to find Escorielle in her court. He is withered and bent, and his body betrays him. Escorielle plucks another feather from her head - a gray one, and he eats it and dies. But his spirit does not flee. Escorielle smiles and discorporates, and they leave together. As perfected spirits they have three daughters - the 3 Nymphs (Bhumi, L’shmi, Vrahi) - who later return to Coera to tend her and her people.

Pol leaves his servant to become a monk, where he gains much esoteric understanding, and he gains enlightenment on a mountaintop. Once enlightened, Pol speaks with Patar-Ori. (His last feather allows him to stand in Patar-Ori's presense for a year and a day, and absorb his essence as they meditate together). He learns to control his body so that ascetisicm is irrelevant, and learns the secret to happiness and life - love (future, action, confidence), humility (present, ethics, empathy), and memory (past, knowledge, right tradition) - and his disciples collect his sayings and understandings to spread them to the world, where they are manipulated and forgotten in all but a few places.

Pol becomes king of a desert kingdom, and defeats all of the hordes of enemies. He faces his own brother in battle and releases him from his hate. He visits the tomb of his father. Pol brings peace to all the land, but the land goes corrupt and hordes grain, and people become violent when they have no enemies. Pol leaves his kingdom to his aging servant, who finally leaves him to rule the land.

During his reign, Pol eats a feather, then tricks the dust devil into granting grain to the land by giving him any one thing. The devil takes the sword, but cannot have the sheath, and the sword cuts through anything it touches. The devil gives Pol another another wish (perfect the grain) to take back the sword, once he is covered in cuts. Pol's ministers horde this perfect grain which grows anywhere, selling it at high cost to the people, and accidentally eat almost all of the seed crop.

So Pol set off to learn. The immortal Enthess was the omniscient Escorielle, and he must have more experience and better understand reality to be her mate. He sought danger - where there was much to lose, there was much to gain. He and his servant joined the crew of a spice boat, which ran along the rocky coasts of distant lands, trading gold and goods for rare spices. Very quickly he became a master seaman, and a master bargainer. He fought sharks and octupi, natives, pirates, and sea monsters of all types. He became captain of his own boat, with his servant as chief mate. They were wealthy, and Glorious Jewel was the finest ship on the ocean. He sailed to the end of the sea, and cleared the sea of pirates. But he was losing his fleet slowly to the evil Sea Spirit. She pulled down entire ships to her deep sea layer, had her way with them and devoured them. She kept growing larger and more voracious - she was never satisifed.

So Pol sailed his ship straight into her trap. She ate the limbs of several of his men, but he demanded she stop. He struck a bargain with her - he would satisfy her, or freely give himself to her. She laughed, and tried to just eat him, but he had swallowed the first of Escorielle’s feathers, and she was not able to pierce his flesh, nor swallow him down. She took him to her room, but she could not crush him or smother him. He had remained chaste, and had only been with Enthess, so she allowed him inside her, he overwhelmed her. He slept for a year and a day, and she tended to him. She sent away his men along a hidden path to surface, saying she had devoured their leader, and would devour them as well if they did not leave quickly. Only Pol’s servant remained, living on the island at the top of the path, fishing from a small boat, and learning the language of the gulls.

When Pol awoke, he was fit and healthy, and by his side was a glorious woman. It was the Sea spirit, shrunk to normal size as her appetite had been sated. She was hungry, having not eaten since having Pol’s sailor, but her hunger was now in proportion. She ate only Pol’s finger, and when she was finished, she restored to him a magic finger with a kiss - as the sea, she both took and gave. She had learned Pol’s secrets as she watched him that year, and knew that he desired marriage with her sister Escorielle. But the sea is jealous, and she desired him for herself, so she kept him with her another year, as she ate him entirely, a bit at a time, always restoring him with a kiss and bedding him that night. She fed him on fish and secrets, and he learned much from her that had not been known by men.

When she had eaten him entirely, she released him, and offered him whatever he wanted, for while she desired all things, she also gave all treasures she had. Pol asked only for her blessing in his quest for her sister, and she gave it. But she also gave him the sword she had used to cut the hole in his ship. As a giant, it had been a small knife to her, but in his hands now it was nearly as tall as he. It was set heavily with jewels, was always sharp, and would cut anything but its own sheath. She also granted an endless harvest of fish from the sea, if only men were no longer afraid (as Pol was not afraid), and she would call off her monsters.

It was an evening in early autumn when Pol bi’Menan bi’Tal left his father’s house by the lower gate. Outside, he was joined by his servant Mun. Mun was also his friend.

They strode through the long glade of evenly-spaced, red-leafed birch that crowned his father’s hill, then passed over the stone bridge that led beyond the river at the edge of town. Behind them, an orange sun drifted down through gauzy strands of clouds.

“What have you got there?” asked Mun, though he already knew the answer.

Pol, who was already smiling, beamed, and held forth a grand bow. “My birthday gift,” he answered. The bow glinted in the fading light of the sun. The curving shaft, more than half his height but as narrow as his thumb, was inlaid with knotted patterns of silver and bronze that recalled the devices in the crests over his father’s door. The wood had a dusky gray grain, and he did not know its name.

Mun admired the bow, but did not ask to hold it.

Pol drew an arrow from his quiver and notched it. The bow was as light as the arrow, or lighter, and Pol had the greatest strength of his father, yet he could only just draw the bow to his shoulder. With a quick motion, he drew back and released. The arrow flew to the stump of a tree, and when it struck, the arrow shattered.

Mun ran forward to inspect the mark. When Pol arrived, he said, “The arrowhead is too deep to retrieve. Unless you have another quiver hidden beneath your cloak, you should practice with greater care.”

Pol placed the bow behind his shoulder, but did not unstring it. “My father said this is the bow of a man. I mean to bring back the greatest buck that can be found, to prove him right.”



The moon was full, so Pol and Mun walked through the night, following the river upstream toward the hills. The clouds from the evening had disappeared with the sun, and the stars rivalled the moon with their brightness. Past the mid-harvest fields, past the mill, the river led them into the forest. They knew of a clearing deep into the growth where the river pooled and creatures would often come to drink. Picking their way silently between roots and fallen leaves, they passed the night life with little notice.

They reached the clearing before morning and climbed a large tree near its edge. Perched in the great curving branches, they waited patiently, only occasionally tapping out a quick question or joke on each other’s arm.

The morning sun rose to find them alert and wide-eyed, watching the tree-line intently. Birds began to welcome the golden glow with their song, and a rabbit cautiously approached the pools edge for a drink. Pol and Mun remained still. An hour passed, and so did a fox, a racoon, and a half-dozen wild pigs. Mun rolled his shoulders against the rough bark of the trunk and stretched. Then, strolling out from between the trees across the pool came a doe, than another, and another pair. Four deer, and between them a fawn and a yearling, and then, as they reached the water, the buck came behind him. He was old, and wise by his eyes, and stood at least to Pol’s shoulder in height. He held his head aloft, feigning a sniff for danger as he proudly displayed his great crown of antlers. With measured steps he marched down between the other deer, who bowed and parted for him. He tasted the water.

Pol had not moved. Mun tapped his shoulder, Here is your shot.

Pol shook his head. He is not the greatest.

Mun’s mouth drew to a line. You will not find greater this close to the edge of the forest.

Pol hesitated, and the deer serenely disappeared back into the trees. “You are right,” he whispered to Mun. “We should go deeper.”



That afternoon, they were walking along the edge of what had become a stream, and Mun picked berries from bushes as they passed. “We only brought food for the day,” he reminded Pol. The stream twisted and turned through older growth, and there were times they had to walk in the shallows to continue.

Pol is the eldest son of a border lord. As a very young man, he went hunting, as he was apt to do, with his servant. He took his birthday gift - a splendid bow. They strayed deep into the forest, and Pol came upon the court of the a forest Maiden. She called herself Enthess, Nymph of the spring he was drinking of.

Pol was struck by her beauty, and enthralled for a night. She gave him a gift - kissed his ears - and demanded a gift of him - he gives the best thing he has - his bow. Then she sent him, and bade him not return on pain of death. His servant met him outside the clearing, where he had waited the week out..

But Pol could not be turned away. He left, but thought of nothing but returning. His sorties into the forest became longer and longer, much to the grief of his father. Pol abandoned his duties as lord heir, and concentrated only on finding Enthess again. After many years, he succeeded, and was granted access to her court. She endured him for another week, then sent him away again. This time her gift to him was his life. But Pol was captivated. He left his family altogether, and became a Forest Priest.

His father was distraught, and died soon after. His second brother became lord, and banned Pol from their home. But Pol knew none of this. He sought Enthess a third time, though she had told him he was only permitted the first time.

When Pol found her again, he was a man, and the greatest forester of all times, and an ascete. He drank only the dew and rain, and cooked no food - eating things only as they were provided, yet he was as healthy and strong as any man, as was his servant. He entered her court under pain of death, and asked her to marry him. She laughed. “You do not know who I am - for I am Escorielle, Queen of the Forest.” But Pol did know who she was - he had worshipped her thoroughly, and knew her very well. He was pure, and as worthy as a man could be. Enthess-Escorielle thought on this. She could not consider his offer, for they were too far unequal - the most worthy man was still only a man - he would die shortly, and forget all he had learned, forever reborn as a child. She was spirit, and could not bind herself to an infant spirit. But when she brought him to her bed for the third time, she found she loved him, for he was without fear, and could not see him killed. The morning he was to leave, her servant gave him a small box. Inside were three times pardon from Escorielle (for violating her court, for asking for her hand, and for boldly approaching her, when she knew who she was), as well as three feathers from Escorielle’s head. The servant would only repeat the words of her goddess - she did not expect him ever to return, and she released him from her service. The feathers were a gift of grace.

Pol bade his servant leave him, but as Pol could not abandon his love of Escorielle, neither could he abandon Pol.