Stories Of Zoltah

Place of Pillars

To the north of Tartarus, beyond the Accursed Gorge and lair of the dreaded hecatoncheires, lies an enchanted plain, imbued with a power like no other. There, time stands still as one steps onto the shifting sands, while all around, stone steps rising and falling in undulating waves, lead toward suspended columns of pillars, darted like stars across the purple sky. Each set of these prominent pillars leads to a different world in the cosmos, and before the uplifting, it was through here that both Odin and Zeus, often found themselves traversing to worlds beyond. This honour and right was in olden times, reserved for only those with royal blood coursing through their veins. And any transgressors of this law, whether Asgardian, Olympian or Heliopolitan, fell victim to the same gruesome fate. A tribunal of sentries consisting of three, namely; Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, descended from their towers and cast the would-be offenders into the Great Abyss. This punishment, however primitive and unjust upon the surface, was meant to dissuade those who wished to flee Zoltah, thereby spreading knowledge of our world to the unwitting masses. Nevertheless, it can be argued that Zeus himself regardless of being a king, may have accomplished that which we as the sentries have long since been wary of.

Nowadays, the Place of Pillars is guarded by none other than Annubis, an erstwhile royal from the kingdom of Heliopolis.
Upon leading a failed uprising in their kingdom, Annubis found himself trapped in chains and flung onto the golden floors of King Ra's court. His wife Hathor, would beg Ra for mercy, but he mistook her sympathy for her husband as proof that she had connived with the would-be usurper, and thus condemned them both to imprisonment at the bottom of the boiling River Lethe. They were wrapped in shackles, and each thrown into a sarcophagus – adorned with inscriptions sealing them in forevermore. But as the centuries drew by and the crime seemed not to fit the punishment, (at least in Hathor's case), her sister Osiris, wife of Ra, took pity upon her and in the dead of night descended to the riverside. There, she freed Hathor from the depths of the tar, and rather than flee to safety, the shaken Hathor begged Osiris to free Annubis along with her. After seeing the desperation and love in her eyes, Osiris relented and freed the king's disgraced brother as well, but with her parting words, instructed them both to never return.

They would go on to traverse the barren and treacherous land now known as Tartarus, finally arriving at the Place of Pillars, where they sought an escape to another world. Hathor was first to hurry along some of the rising stone steps leading to one of the countless sets of pillars, and trailing her closely behind, Annubis climbed after her. At this, I edged closer to the precipice of my tower, watching as Hathor looked back at Annubis and smiled, before taking a step forward through the pillars that lead to the world called Earth. Her husband, quaking with joyful hope, followed after her, but in that moment, the ground beneath shook with the violence of an awakening titan. The force was enough to draw Annubis's attention away from the Pillar for but a moment, and when he finally rushed ahead and tried to follow after Hathor, the portal to Earth had shut henceforth.

Ever since, Annubis, distraught and his mind twisted by despair and regret, has roamed around the Place of Pillars, guarding its entrance lest the balance of nature was restored once more, and his one true love somehow returned.