“Garuthgonar and the Abyss” is a novella that tells the story of how the survivors of one of the periodic apocalyptic events that have wracked the world of Tharenweyr escaped both moral and physical disaster. Its significance for the novel Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead is that it tells of the ancestry of one of the novel’s major characters — Shaan, a Saral or demi-god figure who provides a focus for the ragtag group of “heroes” that come together to save the world from yet another catastrophe.
Story:
On the eve of their Confirmation into the Warrior class of the people known as the Made, two friends head out into the forbidden areas of their land, the Valley of Azsh, driven by the obsessive desire of one of them to expose the lies on which he claims their culture is built. Durras (Shaan’s mortal father) must face the madness of his friend, the immoral manipulations of his dead ancestors and his own fear of the “bottomless” abyss known as Garuthgonar to ensure that there will be a future for his unborn son and his people.
This is the first publication of “Garuthgonar and the Abyss”.
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