Anderoth and the Sea

Five years his journey carried he and his crew across the wide world and when they returned Anderoth was heralded a wondrous hero. Many followed in his wake and ships set off from time to time, exploring all the worlds hidden places.

These journeys brought the attention of Ealor, Lord of the Deep and he watched wit amusement as the tiny crafts scuttled to and fro across his wide realm. Many foundered and drowned upon the shores, others were taken by storms and their ships sent to the Deep Quiet. All this Ealor watched. But Anderoth the first of his kind drew Ealor's attention the most and he marveled at the determination and strength of that sailor, so that he challenged him with ever greater storms and ever more powerful beasts.

Anderoth took all this in stride and learned in time from where many of his travails originated, so that he took up the challenge and the two contested the waters. But never did Ealor unleash his full strength for such Anderoth could not match and it would mean his doom. But he grew ever skillful and he learned the moods of Ealor and these are the moods of the seas. His mastery pitted him against the greatest storms, and deepest waves and he plied the deeps for many years.

But at last age overtook Anderoth and his body could not withstand Ealor's challenges. But Ealor, being of the higher order of the Val-Eahrukun was deathless and being separated from all of his own kin did not see nor fully understand the mortality of the dwarves. There came a time where Ealor spied Anderoth aboard his ship and the joy of his mirth tore the sea asunder and sent huge waves upon his ship. The Dwarf Lord's ship rolled to the side and he gripped the wheel but his arms grew weary before ever Ealor realized it and the dwarf was thrown into the mast and lost sight of the world. He slid over the side, falling into the water's madness to vanish into the Deep Quiet.

His helm and axe sank first and struck the ocean floor near to where Ealor stood and the god looked up to see his friend sinking to depths no creature could go. He saw then that his friend was dead and had left the world of Aihrde. He marveled at death and wondered what it meant.

As Ealor pondered this his brother Naarheit came to him seeking aid in some wild endeavor of his and Ealor questioned him about death and what it meant. And Naarheit told him of it, but he twisted the words and spoke only of Thorax and the Wretched Plains for he loved to jest with Ealor for that god always laughed. But he spoke of the listless dead and how they traveled the Arc of Time and came to the Gegelmesh and there suffered the nightmare of eternity as a slave to Thorax.

For his part Ealor bore no ill will toward Thorax, nor had the two ever quarreled, but he knew that Thorax loved the dark and it grieved him to think that Anderoth and all the sailers of the world should suffer from his rule. The more he thought upon it the more it grieved him. Turning to Naarheit he sought his council and Naarheit saw an opportunity to bedevil Thorax and Toth, to plague the Arc of Time and hinder the workings of Corthain and the All Father all at once. He told his brother of the Arc of Time and bid him rip the world asunder and pull the Arc into the deep oceans, there to govern who must pass to the lands of the dead.

Ealor laughd for this struck him as a good idea and fashioned a great three pointed spear and thrust it into the belly of the world and speared the Arc of Time. He pulled upon it though it would not budge. He laughed all the more and pulled ever harder and Naarhiet laughed as well and bidding his brother to hold the Arc he swam into the deep places of the world to hinder many of the creatures of Ealor's manufacture. He warred upon the mermen, corrupting many into foul fish-like men, the saughgan and many others besides.

But Ealor for his part struggled with the Arc of Time until at last he realized that it was the River of the All Father's thought and he could not move it. But he could see it and govern its passage for he had torn the world asunder at the bottom of the ocean.

Before long Ealor spied the flame of Anderoth passing down the Arc of Time to the Pools of Eternity there to be judged worthy or unworthy of the Stone Fields. And Ealor caught him up as a fish in a net and took the flame of him to the Green Halls. And Anderoth knew the Lord of the Seas and joined him in death. But Anderoth begged Ealor to look for his fellow sailors so that they too could join him in the Green Halls. And Ealor took pity on the Captain and his kind and he saw all the lost sailors who had passed into the Eternal Pools or beyond and he could not bare it.

Ealor gave Anderoth a ship to command, but this ship, unlike any he had sailed in life, plied the Ocean's depths. And Ealor set it the task to gather the fallen sailors even before they gathered upon the Arc of Time and bring them to the Green Halls to join the dead beneath the sea, and thus Anderoth became a Captain in Death and the Admiral of Ealor's fleet.