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understand them, they set about teaching him their language.
After two years of instruction, Horban was taken before the
King, who by tradition is named UL-GO or given the title 'Gorim',
apparently a term of respect.
The conversation between Horban and the Gorim of the Ulgos is
remarkable not merely for what it reveals, but also for what it
tantalizingly conceals. In his report to the Emperor, Horban provided the
following summary:
The Gorim first demanded of the emissary what business he had
in the land of the Ulgos and why he had desecrated their holy place
at Prolgu.
Horban replied as diplomatically as possible that since the Ulgos
chose to live beneath the ground, it was impossible for outsiders to
even know that they existed. He described himself as an investigator
sent to confirm or disprove persistent rumors about a people living
in the mountains.
Then the Gorim asked how Horban had escaped 'the monsters',
and would not elaborate on his cryptic question when Horban
professed ignorance of any such creatures.
* Obviously, the Algroths, Hrulgin, and Eldrakyn, among others.
And then, in open violation of the most fundamental tenet of
good manners, the Gorim asked Horban the name of his God. The
question was so startling that Horban was able to quote it verbatim.
'And who is your God?' the Gorim said, his face stern. 'Is it he
who cracked the world?'
Horban quickly realized that the Ulgos could not be held to an
etiquette which had been developed by civilized men to forestall the
inevitable wrangling and probable bloodshed which would
accompany theological disputation and chose, therefore, not to take
offense. He replied, as formally as possible, 'I have the honor,
exalted one, to be a disciple of the Great God Nedra.'
The Gorim nodded. 'We know of hiim,' he said. 'The eldest save
Aldur. A serviceable God, though a bit too stiff and formal for my
liking. It is the third God, Torak, the maimed one, who is our enemy.
He it was who cracked the earth and unloosed the evil that bestrides
the world above. Truly, had you confessed to the worship of Torak,
would you have been carried to a pit and cast down into the sea of
endless fire that lies infinitely far below.'
A shaken Horban had then inquired of the Gorim how it was that
he appeared to have such intimate knowledge of the seven Gods.
The response of the Gorim sparked a theological debate which has
lasted for over 900 years. He said: 'We know of the seven Gods
because UL has revealed them to us, and UL knows them better than
any, since he is older than they.'
This simple statement was, of course, a thunderbolt which
galvanized the theologians of all the western nations. They were
immediately roused from their involuted efforts to each prove the superiority
of his God and plunged into the most significant debate in five
millennia. The fundamental question, of course, was: 'Are there seven Gods
as we have always believed or are there eight?' If there are seven,
then the Ulgos in heathen idolatry worship a false God and should
be converted or exterminated. If there are eight and this mysterious
ul is also a God, then has he not been excluded from ceremonial
offerings for over 5000 years? and ought we not propitiate him? And
if there are eight, might there not be nine - or nine-hundred? Alorn
theologians confirmed from their sacred writings that the God of the