The Seven Colored Flame
This is a book written by Ayxan Koldorcha
"Though I am told The Seven Colored Flame is perfectly enjoyable as a pure work of fiction."
Overview
The Seven Colored Flame
The Primordials come into existence by rising from the sea already covered in wounds as if of battle. They heal themselves and take counsel, each of them want a world to live in, but feel that the task of fashioning one by hand would be beneath their nobility. Instead they decide to create the gods, who will then create lesser spirits, who will create lesser creatures, etc. etc. until there is a whole divine hierarchy able to set to the task of making the world.
To lead this assemblage, they create Eraxsha, the Seven Colored Flame, greatest of the gods.
The other deities protest his leadership, and demand a contest to see who should be ruler. There are contests of stories, song, art, dance, craftsmanship, and feats of physical prowess. He wins many of them, and places highly even when he doesn't triumph, showing himself to be gifted and powerful in nearly all things. But another god, Thraetaona, wins the contest of craftsmanship by inventing the harp, whereas Eraxsha declines to create anything. This victory allows Thraetaona to win the entire competition, and the gods decide to elect him as leader.
Eraxsha overpowers Thraetaona, takes his harp, and refashions it into the first bow. He uses it to lay low first Thraetaona, then the gods who object to this act, and finally to drive away a Primordial of Law who sought to enforce the results of the contest. Eraxsha takes Thraetaona captive as his prize, then gives a speech about how conquest is nobler than creation, for the former has the power to reshape the latter, and is crowned King of the Gods.
He is charged by the Primordials to finish overseeing the creation of the new world, but repeating a portion of his speech from the previous chapter, he declares that it is more noble to conquer an existing world than to make one anew. Taking the gods and greater spirits, he forms an army and does battle with the Primordials, slaying several, and trapping the rest inside of their nascent world when Eraxsha's army collapses it from the outside. The army then tramples about the heavens, forming a road of stars as they travel to, and do battle with, 11 other worlds created by other gods. They win many victories and suffer some defeats.
Eraxsha speaks with his gods and other gods. He talks and learns about the nature of nobility, the purpose of violence, how friendships are formed, and how losses are endured. The composition of the army changes as they travel. Some gods leave to stay in the worlds they visit, others join as willing participants or as captives. Eventually they arrive at the 12th world, a massive plane-sized cityscape inhabited by powerful mages. The world had been dying for a long time, and most of the plane was taken up by elaborate tombs.
Eraxsha felt that he had found the world he was looking for at last. With the mages to do the dirty work, and his army's youthful energy, he could reshape this world to his liking. In a thousand years of battle, he crushes the world beneath his heel. He takes the mages captive and keeps them safe. He creates a palace of flame sitting high above the world, and the terrible heat of its fires melt the city away to primordial lava. This palace would be the sun of the new world. The other gods make palaces which become the stars, and the most powerful goddess creates a lesser version of his great palace which becomes the moon.
Eraxsha takes his new mage subjects and commands them to remake the world to his will, following whatever laws he sees fit. The other gods do so as well, in proportion to their power and excellence.
Eraxsha has a son, Hashan, who is tutored in the ways of Law and Magic by the greatest mages among the god's subjects. He becomes great friends with them, and when he comes of age, he leads a rebellion against his father. He defeats a third of the gods, but is defeated by his father. Eraxsha tells his subjects that every creature has a right to rebel against their overlords and creators, striking them down and taking their place. He tells his son how much he loves and is proud of him, before stirring the waters outside of the world into a great whirlpool and tossing his son and the rebellious mages inside. They are afflicted and tormented by the dark waters, and begin trying to escape. Eraxsha tells them when they do, he will welcome them back into his court.
Eraxsha and the other gods have and resolve several disputes. They discuss the sort of world they want to live in, and what their subjects are up to. Eraxsha becomes a secondary character at this point, usually showing up at the end of a chapter to resolve the conflict. Usually he does so by judging a victor, giving a speech summarizing the lesson of the story, or by killing the participants.
At the final section of the story, Eraxsha wanders across the universe, exploring and searching for a new world to conquer or raid. He fights and loses to an unknown antagonist, who shatters Eraxsha into many colored flames, which are scattered across the world. The people and gods fall upon these flame fragments and devour them, only to be ignited by Eraxsha's divinity and nobility. Some manage to keep hold of themselves through a complex alchemical process of heating, forging, annealing, and quenching their souls, safeguarding the divine flame within themselves. Others burn alive, and seven differently colored Eraxshas step out of the conflagration, before uniting to form the true King of the Gods once again.
"There are secrets hidden within these words. Those who are wise will understand what I have said, though it is more than the truth of my visions."