The Myth of Solquan and Demnasa

I am dabbling with a fantasy novel. This is a myth I wrote which is told within the greater plot of the book. I predict I will require more of these as the book continues.

In the age before mankind spread across the hide of Kem, when the world teemed with trolls, elves, and other ancient monsters, the gods were young and walked freely in every land, nearly unaware of one another’s existence. In those times, Hartem held only one title, the god of war, whilst his twin brother Hartom embodied the reciprocal principle and form of peace. The twins so loved one another they shared a bride, Demnasa, from whom all life flowed. One day while stirring his inferno in the cauldron beneath Mount Virnouz, Solquan, the god of fire, heard a song carried upon a voice unfathomable in its glory. When finally he discovered the source, the sight of Demnasa struck him dumb and helpless. Solquan bent before her and vowed eternal devotion. Demnasa found the fiery god both beautiful and terrifying, making love to him on the banks of the River Shayphjlib. However, she refused his vow of devotion and fled into a mist of her own making. Solquan, overcome with passion, pursued the goddess to no avail. Day after day, her voice called him either up from the caverns of Virnouz or down from the skies where he replenished the flames of the sun to the banks of the river where their passions and magic merged time and time, over and over. At the completion of each coupling, Demnasa vanished again in a haze that seeped from the very hide of Kem. In frustration, Solquan sought out the god of spiders, Yatsu. In exchange for the deadly prick of poisonous heat Yatsu installed in her children’s fangs, she wove Solquan an endless spool of fine web thread. On the occasion of their next coitus, unbeknownst to her, Solquan tied the web round Demnasa’s waist and let her flee. At dusk, after following the trail of web, he discovered her lair in the soul of the forest Gargoom where she and Hartom made love on a bed of white flowers and ferns. Solquan silently cursed Hartom and fled in aimless madness through the wilderness. The next morning, Solquan awoke with his jealousy transformed to hate. He resolved to stalk Hartom and slay him. He swore to take Demnasa as his bride and from their union establish a glorious kingdom across the whole of Kem. To aid him in this search, Solquan forged the moon in his volcanic furnace and hurled it into the night sky as an ashen lantern so that he and his elven servants might spot his rival in the night. As per their arrangement, Hartom possessed Demnasa in the daylight and Hartem in the dark. On this night, as did all of the inhabitants of Kem, Hartom stood in a clearing, gazing in awe at the celestial oddity that had interrupted his deer hunt. Solquan and his elves set upon Hartom and smote him with fire and molten metals. Without the prowess or inclination to fight them, Hartom surrendered to the heat and released his spirit. The phantom essence of the god of peace escaped the attack and slithered about the land in search of Hartem who lay in the arms of Demnasa deep in her sanctuary among the trees. When Hartem awoke, he felt instantly the soul of his twin intertwined within him and he cried tears of blood onto the white flowers of Demnasa’s abode. She begged him to explain his sorrow and when he described to her the visions of Hartom’s death in the fires and liquid metal, Demnasa collapsed in guilt before Hartem. His rage at her confession unleashed a charge of cosmic magic that roiled the tribes of elves, trolls, and fanged apes into frenzies of murder and conquest that lasted a thousands years, forever referred to in the histories as The First Cull. The Cull eliminated entire populations of creatures who once dominated the world. During the war, Hartem and Solquan fought many battles that ended in draw after draw. As the wars and his battles with Solquan grew more vicious and violent and Hartem healed his wounds in lengthy trances and slumbers, Demnasa pleaded to the soul of Hartom for calm and reconciliation in the heart of his brother. Lack of progress in her appeals led Demnasa to steal away and offer conditions to a defiant Solquan who demanded nothing less than her betrothal. Demnasa chronicled for the god of fire the results of their mating so many years before. His fire now moved within all the creatures that came after their coupling. So robust in its mingling, his fires and her life giving magic created a new creature now creeping in the shadows of the wilds. She called them men. If she could only halt the destruction and the ill between her two lovers, the age of men might produce a world worthy of unifying the gods in peace. When she had gone back to Hartem to massage the presence of Hartom within him, Solquan investigated her claims that his fire lived in all new things alive. He found these men and he felt a pride in their existence. He indeed witnessed his fire in all the new life that somehow thrived amidst the chaos of the old, cold creatures’ conflicts. He realized his love for Demnasa, even though not founding the glorious kingdom he had envisioned, blazed nonetheless. And so he sent word to Hartem of his hope for an end to the violence between them. The dispatch awakened the spirit of his twin now entirely entangled with his own and he agreed to end the fight. Demnasa revealed men to Hartem who quickly foresaw their potential and he took up his wife to the heavens and set about building a place from which he could observe this blossoming new world.