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Otset Ingos: chpater 36 of Gantzor the Coldsword


The two garlanded oxen, under the gentle goading of their Kabadka driver, drew the brightly decorated wain on which Ingos Earthstepper lay, rumbling under the northern archway of Mar Ratholmen. Mirutháli and her three companions walked alongside it. And from the east came Silsawiste and her companions, Dëanathra, Filwidávas, and Koromanyë, returning from their embassy to King Olverúno. Atop the great rock the Melainë gathered, and at their head came Kerorkîn, now healed of his wounds, along with Rákare Zorthinen and many northern Melainë. From the West came a throng of people of the Hyûvandri. The nearer villages had heard the news of the Dolorous Stroke and sent the fathers and mothers of their settlements to stand in their places. They came weeping, mourning the loss of their Ailéga, Astûthéga, Paitevónga; Dâyevadu Ingos, Ingos, Father of peoples. At the end of the day a body of strange folk arrived on horseback from the Southlands to join the escort. People said they were Thendâ, that is, Doitherúna who ride horses and tame many kinds of beast. 


It was a momentous meeting, and overwhelming for Vidnî and Arbros, who had never been in such company before. And Rauno named them Ilgurath Aphtu, ‘Children of Hope’, before the assembled company, and all there gave a shout of rejoicing.


On the next day, the company got ready to depart along the Giants’ road to the Southlands. 


A hundred miles south of Mar Ratholmen, the Road crosses the great river Berusilwa. Here in the midst of Berusilwa is an island which is joined to either bank by two great bridges of many arches. That place is called Ravinnigos, and there is a natural harbour which ships can reach from the southern Sea. The Berusilwa runs for much of its course from east to west, but soon after Ravinnigos it bends towards the south and, growing ever wider, meets the Sea at Yivanówa, in a wide estuary thronged by birds and dolphins. 


When the company going south with Ingos arrived at Ravinnigos, Rauno stood up among them and proclaimed: 


‘Here at Ravinnigos the Entellári will found a city of defence and refuge for the Hyûvandri, and it shall be named Tídris.’


Then many ships came to harbour, and their crews were Fâwiengri, the riders of the rolling waves. In the greatest of the ships, the Êlestië Pereigus, came Tithiánë, the Queen of Féor Êlesti in the western ocean, who had sailed far around the Great Western Cape to reach Ravinnigos. And the body of Ingos was carried aboard, and all the company entered into the ships and passed down the Berusilwa to its mouth at Yivanówa. And here at the mouth of the river there was another wonder. For a mastless barque of oars, all draped in sable cloths, was moored in waiting, and the body of Ingos was carried from the great ship Êlestië Pereigus into this smaller vessel. And then Queen Tithiánë and her eight noble maidens of Fëor Êlesti entered into the barque, and the maidens took the oars, and the Queen took the rudder, and the vessel cast off and passed out into the open sea. And in their minds the watching company heard the singing of the nine Elestia.


Not far out in the great bay of Yivanówa there was an islet with a flat top raised above the reach of the waves, even at their wildest. Here a bed of logs fashioned from the wood of landorúya wood, which is neither rotted by water nor abraded by weather, had been prepared. The nine Elestia laid Ingos upon this bed, and here with runes of safekeeping until his day should come, they left him lying. And a spell of inaccessibility was laid upon the place, so that none should climb up to it. And after that the islet was called Otset Ingos, the Island of Ingos.

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