Marion Zimmer Bradley - Night’s Daughter

Of the Half Lings of Atlas-Alamesios

IN the beginning was the Serpent, and later it was told among Men thatthe kindred of the Serpent had come first, and had aided the hands of theMakers in the fashioning of Men. However it was, in those days the Serpent-kinwere not known as Half-lings, but as Mankind, as well as the Sons of the Ape.In those early days, so it was said, at the center of the Year, when the Sunbegins its returning-round, in the Night of Great Darkness, it was the Serpent-lordwho coupled in the Great Rite with the Priestess of the Night. So it was thatthe blood of the Serpent (so they said in those days) had entered into thekindred of the House of Night and the very blood of the priestesses. The chiefamong the priestesses, who in those days were called the Daughters of the Moonand Stars, came to be known as the Queen of the Night; or in later days, as theStarqueen.

And since the Serpent-kin had come so close to the heights of thought andsentient intelligence of mankind, in their pride of creation, the priest-kingsof the House of the Sun wrought other Halflings. They made the Seal-folk andthe Kindred of the Dolphin, to go down into the depths of the ocean beds andbring up oysters for the tables and pearl-oysters to adorn the girdle of theStarqueen and the crown of the Sun-priests; they also herded fish for the netsof the fishermen.

Later they created the Bird-folk in the hope that they would haveservants who could fly and bear messages between their towns; but in this they mostly failed, for the Bird-folk were so fashionedand structured that their wings would not bear them. (The Makers had decidedthat first of all, all Halflings should bear the shape and the semblance ofMankind.) And furthermore, the Bird-kindred were mostly half-witted; some ofthem had wit enough to be singers and musicians at the courts of Starqueen andSun-priests, but otherwise that experiment was not a success, and by the timeof our tale, few of the Bird-folk remained on Atlas-Alamesios.

They also created Halflings from the Dog-folk, in the hope that theywould have servants of the uttermost faithfulness; and in this they were mostlysuccessful, for the Dog-folk were intelligent, but not too much, so that theyfound their truest happiness in serving those they loved. They also created theKindred of the Cats, but these were rebellious beyond measure, and fled to theinterior, where lay the remains of the People Who Had Gone Before (some said thesewere the first of the Makers) and there they lived, preying upon thecountryside. And they created the Ox-folk who could bear great burdens, andfrom their labor were built the mighty pyramids and temples which stand to thisday in the ruins amid the jungle and tangle of deepest rain forests.

It is not known how long Mankind and the Makers lived at peace with theHalflings. All civilizations have memories and folktales of a Golden Age whenall people lived at peace. Perhaps there was such a day, and perhaps not.

But, and it is not known how or why (but rumor says that it alloriginated with the Serpent-kin), it became known even to the Makers that allwas not well between themselves and the Halflings. Not only did men scorn Halflings,but Halflings who had too little of the true blood of Humankind began to thinkof themselves as flawed, inferior, lacking what was essential to being human.And in some ways this was true, for, having too little of human intelligence,some of the Halfling-folk were too witless even for servants, far less able toconduct their own lives. Partly because of this, when Halfling interbred withHalfling beyond the borders of their own kindfrom innocence or because thepriests, in malice or simple curiosity, had ordained itsuch a tangle ofgenetic materials came into being that Men were filled with loathing. The sightof a Bird-Serpent was terrible to them, or a Dog-Ox, or a Seal-Cat. Harmless asthese were, they were also useless, and not fitted for survival; their livesoften became burdensome to themselves and to their masters.

And those of the Makers who experimented, not only with couplings betweenill-mated pairs, but by breeding from germ cells in their hidden vivariums,created more terrible things yet: the dreadful Feathered Serpent, and theDragons of the Changing Lands, who partook of the nature of Eagle and Serpent,and the Lion-Eagles who ravaged the deserts. And these too, escaping from theirhidden places, interbred with one another, and created at last such a confusionof forms that, they say, the gods themselves rebelled at what they had done.

It would take too long to tell of the wars and troubles which followed:of the demand of the people for a King from among untainted Mankind; of thewars between the Sons of the Ape and the Kindred of the Serpent; of theestablishment of the Royal House of Atlas, and of the Sun-kings who were theirpriests. And it was from the House of Atlas that at last the word was given,that the making of Halflings must cease, that no Half-ling might be allowed tobreed even with his own kind unless he could pass certain Ordeals to prove theworthiness of his blood to reproduce its own kind (and there were few who coulddemonstrate intelligence enough even to enter these Ordeals), and that thevivariums must be destroyed. Also, they declared that the mating of Mankind andHalfling must cease forever.

And to this last there was some reason. For in themaking of Halflings, they had retained (in order that their servants shouldincrease rapidly) the swifter breeding of the Animal-kind. The Halflingslooked much like Mankind; but they littered with the swiftness of theBeast-kind, so that one of the Dog-kindred could sow the earth with forty orfifty sons and daughters while only one generation of Man's children, three orfour in number, grew to maturity.

And so the priests realized that soon they would be swamped in Beast-folkwithout wit to learn or to rule, and would have a great multitude withoutenough intelligence to be anything more than slaves. Nevertheless, though manyof the priesthood and the House of Atlas were thus enlightened, there werestill those who felt it right that Mankind should rule over all the Beast-kindand Halflings, and that they need have no obligationto treat them in accordance with Law or even common humanity.

Now at this time, there lived in the Temple of Night a great priestess who called herself, asher mothers and foremothers had done, the Queen of the Night; as with all such Queens , her personal name was long forgotten. Shehad taken, as had many of the Starqueens, a lover from among the Serpent-folk,and to him she had borne three royal daughters. When the word came down fromthe Great House of Atlas that all mating with Halflings should cease, she wasvery angry; yet she bowed her head in apparent docility; and even agreed, asthe Great Atlas was old and dying, that she should mate with the heir apparent,a quiet and priestly youth known as Sarastro, to bear him an heir who shouldjoin in his blood the two royal houses of Atlas-Alamesios, the Great Temple ofMother Night and the Royal House of the Sun.

Although the Starqueen was now almost past the years of childbearing, sheagreed to this; the two were married in the Temple of Light, and a year laterthe Starqueen bore a child, a daughter whom they named Pamina. When thisdaughter, hereditary Starqueen and heir to the House of Light, came to sit uponthe throne of Atlas-Alamesios, then (thought the Starqueen) her daughter Paminashould nullify what the Starqueen considered the weaknesses and follies of theHouse of Light.

But the truce between the Priest of Light and Priestess of the Old DarkGoddess could not last. In the second year, before Pamina was weaned from thebreast, Sarastro and the Starqueen quarreled because of her vicious and crueltreatment of her Halfling servants, which she would neither amend nor cease. Sothe Starqueen fled from the palace of the Sun-kings and took Pamina with her tothe Temple of Night . There she vowed enmity forever towardSarastro and the House of Light. Sarastro was grieved, for in spite of all herarrogance and pride, he had loved the Starqueen with all the strength of hisheart, and loved her still. But his father, who detested the woman to whom hehad married his son, said, "Let her go; she is an evil creature, and soare all those of that kindred. One day you will marry another wife who willbear you a son without the taint of the Serpent."