The Forest of Kilrane was inhabited. Not just by mankind, but by others of a sort that fit neither fully into the races of men, nor in that of the animal kingdom.
The eyes of these inhabitants watched the progress of unwary travelers moving up and down the winding turns of the forest road from the darkness of the deep woods. These beings were not born of any natural order but existed under a curse that they themselves had brought upon their variant kinds by invading the Mid-World, in an ancient act of defiance.
These were the Half-Men. They had once been men and women of old, walking upon the Surface World in the days when the land was still young. Before they misused the knowledge given their patriarch to establish dominion over the earth and all its living creatures. Before they took the power of names and twisted it to perform abominations and perversions.
They were the direct descendants of Cain. Those who, in their desires to become gods, had given their daughters as wives to beings never meant to mingle with humankind in such ways. They were the ones who thought to bring their abominations and debaucheries into the pathways extending towards the Holy Mountain and offer their own sacrifices to The One who had decreed the curse. To appease the Holy One. To rectify their grandfather’s rejected offering of the bounty of the field with sacrifices of things that would bleed upon the altar of Heaven.
For each of their abuses in seizing the summoned animals and passing with them through the oculus gate into the Mid-World, these cursed men and women were ripped apart and remade into creatures that were no longer completely whole, either in body, mind, or reason.
For this wickedness, they were banished from the face of the earth, confined to the Mid-World, and would find the door of Heaven forever shut. By their insolence, they were cursed again to eternally age with the ravages of sin working through their hybrid bodies without the respite of a natural death that would free their souls from their corrupted bodies. And to their posterity who still remained in the Surface World, they left behind only the bloodied vestiges of what they once were when they dared to traverse from the land cursed by the sins of their patriarch to a place that existed outside of the lands deemed to mankind.
And when, in time, the sins and curse of their fathers reached maturation in the line of their children and the sickness had increased by each of their successive generations, the world was reshaped by water, upheaval and global cataclysm and all passages between the two worlds went dark.
Like the children born into the rebirth of The Lamb are made citizens of and yearn for a Heavenly eternal realm, these cursed half-men, lost in their depravity were displaced citizens of the buried world that had gone down into its own watery grave and they longed to return and die with it. They were witnesses to its destruction through mysterious mirroring waters that collected in pools within a mystical woodland. A place regarded as a Holy Wood.
Through the mystic pools, they witnessed the rebirth of the old world coming back to The Surface. They witnessed mankind’s preservation through the surviving eight persons, and animals with their mates being set free to populate the wilds of the baptized earth. They witness a rededication of the earth to The One, who spoke its being and also spoke its curse. Recognizing that they could no longer be a part of the baptized Surface World, they ached over the loss. But rather than repent of their evil, they fell even deeper into the darkness of their hearts. And in that apostasy, they heard, through the waters of the wood, a voice coming from a pool that also railed against The One as they did. A voice like that of an ancient serpent, back in the days of the First Garden. And they took up the voice and repeated its words in a mantra that gave succor to their anger. And they made that voice their own, joining its call to engage in a war against the Hosts of Heaven, and against the Promised Seed that would one day restore all authority and dominion to their rightful owners.
Every thing that openeth the matrix [H7358] in all flesh, which they bring unto the LORD, [whether it be] of men or beasts, shall be thine: nevertheless the firstborn of man shalt thou surely redeem, and the firstling of unclean beasts shalt thou redeem. [Num 18:15 KJV]
All flesh [is] not the same flesh: but [there is] one [kind of] flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, [and] another of birds. [There are] also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial [is] one, and the [glory] of the terrestrial [is] another. [1 Cor 15:39-40 KJV]
***
The first of these accursed apostates to follow “The Nomad” into the Mid-World was a man named Lamech, from among Cain’s lineage. He had followed the Way of Cain, a path of deceit and violence. When he found the place populated by a small family, he took from the Mid-World a wife out of time, named Zillah, whose name meant “buzzing shadow”.
He brought her to live as his second wife into the city of stone called Enoch by the one who had built it. And in time, she bore him a child which they gave two names for they believed he would be a man of two destinies. His first name was Tubalcain, for they believed he would serve to redeem the legacy of Cain. And for his second name, they chose the word “Pan”. Which meant “All”. For they believed that when he came of age he would with might and strength make all right again and break the curse that had hardened all the world against them. They believed he would be to the one to ultimately crush the head of the serpent.
And they raised him to believe it as well.
But his rise to power brought only desolation and the very judgments of heaven down upon all who followed him and all who would follow in his legacy.
As a young man, Tubalcain learned to harness the power of fire in the melting of ores and he fashioned the first forge of stone for pouring and shaping metal. And with that skill, he fashioned the first weapon designed to pierce and cut the flesh of all living creatures. And he taught others of his craft until he had gained a loyal following of both men and women committed to finding the hole in which the serpent had crawled through to escape the consequence for its ancient deception.
Eventually, Lamech, seeing that his son had grown into a man of influence, might, and power, took his son aside and told him of the secret paths he had learned were still in the high hills secretly following his grandfather in his mysterious nomadic wanderings. And of the mysterious place between the seen and unseen realms where he had taken his mother, from beyond the world of their fathers.
***
“But be very careful! You did not see the LORD’s form on the day he spoke to you from the heart of the fire at Mount Sinai. So do not corrupt yourselves by making an idol in any form–whether of a man or a woman, an animal on the ground, a bird in the sky, a small animal that scurries along the ground, or a fish in the deepest sea. And when you look up into the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars–all the forces of heaven–don’t be seduced into worshiping them. The LORD your God gave them to all the peoples of the earth. [Deuteronomy 4:15-19 NLT]
Excavatia 