Eres'al, the Goddess
Hull Beddict:'(The Nerek believe)That they were all born of a single mother, countless generations past, who was the thief of fire and walked through time, seeking that which might answer a need that consumed her – although she could never discover the nature of that need. One time, in her journey, she took within her a sacred seed, and so gave birth to a girl-child. To all outward appearances...that child was little different from her mother, for the sacredness was hidden, and so it remains hidden to this day. Within the Nerek, who are the offspring of that child...it is the female line that is taken as purest...she (the single mother) is known by a number of related names, also suggesting variations of a single person. Eres, N’eres, Eres’al.’ '(MT, UK Trade, p.193-4)
(The) Eres’al: the spirit goddess of the Nerek (MT, Glossary)
represented by Axe in The Fulcra (MT, Glossary)
In the oldest, most fragmentary of texts, will be found obscure mention of the Eres’al, a name that seems to refer to those most ancient of spirits that are the essence of the physical world. There is, of course, no empirical means of determining whether the attribution of meaning – the power inherent in making symbols of the inanimate – was causative, in essence the creative force behind the Eres’al; or if some other mysterious power was involved, inviting the accretion of meaning and significance by intelligent forms of life at some later date. In either case, what cannot be refuted is the rarely
acknowledged but formidable power that exists like subterranean layers in notable features of the land; nor that such power is manifested with subtle yet profound efficacy, even so much as to twist the stride of gods – indeed, occasionally sufficient to bring them down with finality . . .
Preface to the Compendium of Maps
Kellarstellis of Li Heng
(HoC, UK Trade, p.663)
‘Eres’al. That’s the Nerek goddess.'(MT, UK Trade, p.426)
Eres, the species
See HoC, p.818
Onrack:'Before the Imass, there was another people, older, wilder. They dwelt where it was warm, and they were tall, their dark skins covered in fine hair. These we knew as the Eres. Enclaves survived into our time...Trull Sengar:'...And they lived in jungles...?'...Onrack: 'Its verges, occasionally, but more often the surrounding savannas...They worked in stone, but with less skill than us...All Eres were bonecasters, Trull Sengar. For they were the first to carry the spark of awareness, the first so gifted by the spirits.’(HoC, UK Trade, p.659)
Monok Ochem: 'The Eres did not fashion holy sites of their own...but they understood that there were places where death gathered, where life was naught but memories, drifting lost and bemused. And, to such places, they would often bring their own dead. Power gathers in layers – this is the birthplace of the sacred.’(HoC, UK Trade, p.660)
Onrack: 'Eres holy sites burned through the barriers of Tellann. They are too old to be resisted...Hood did not exist when these were fashioned...Nor are they strictly death-aspected. Their power comes... from layers. Stone shaped into tools and weapons. Air shaped by throats. Minds that discovered, faint as flickering fires in the sky, the recognition of oblivion, of an end . . . to life, to love. Eyes that witnessed the struggle to survive, and saw with wonder its inevitable failure. To know and to understand that we must all die, Trull Sengar, is not to worship death. To know and to understand is itself magic, for it made us stand tall.’(HoC, UK Trade, p.660)
Bottle: 'the Eres. The Dwellers who lived in the time before the Imass, the first makers of tools, the first shapers of their world.’(HoC, UK Trade, p.669)
Eres'al, the individual(s)
Silchas Ruin: 'She wanders time, Kettle, in a manner no-one else can even understand, much less emulate. And this is very much her world. She is the fire that never dies.’(MT, UK Trade, p.397)
'Tall, lithely muscled, with a fine umber-hued pelt and long, shaggy hair reaching down past the shoulders. A woman. Her breasts were large and pendulous, her hips wide and full. Prominent, flaring cheekbones, a broad, full-lipped mouth...the woman’s dark
brown eyes, shadowed beneath a solid brow...She took a step...the movement graceful as a deer’s...Her breasts had swollen with milk in the past; her nipples had known the pressure of a pup’s hunger.'(HoC, UK Trade, p.661)
Onrack:'...I came into contact with sorcery. That which the Eres projected. For lack of any other term, it was a warren, barely formed, on the very edge of oblivion. It was...like the Eres themselves. A glimmer of light behind the eyes.’(HoC, UK Trade, p.662)
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