Profiles in History: Aun Aulatah

The Tonk, or Tumerok as some still call us, came from the double world Ezheret-Hazahtu about a generation before the Humans came from Ispar. As you probably recall, in the second generation the Virindi, whom we call the atua ngamaru (please do not ask for a literal translation, this is a family journal), tempted some of the Tonk to submit to having their forms changed. "Follow our path," they whispered to the Tonk, "and we will make you powerful, part of an orderly wholeness, free from fear. Of course, there will be some pain on the road: nothing is achieved without pain." "Follow our path," they whispered to a half-grown Tonk called Aranpuh, "and we will make you a King."

The Virindi thereupon took those Tonk who chose to follow them, lopped off their tails, shortened their faces, stood them bolt upright on their legs and on the soles of their feet like Humans, and dyed their bodies a rich Virindi purple. (Your historian suspects that it was now that the name "Tumerok" came into being, to describe them: T-Human-onk. But we will probably never know.)

The altered and the unaltered Tonk split into two different xutas, the Hea and the Aun, and settled on different parts of the island Palenqual (which has also been called Marae Lassel and Arramora). Some of the Hea left Palenqual and settled on Dereth, and it was these whom the Humans first met when they came to Auberean.

Now among the first generation of the Aun Tonk who had come from Ezheret was a visionary shaman called Aun Shimauri. He spoke in dreamwalking with the Animae Tanae the forest, Audetanga the mountain, Volkama the river, and Palenqual the island herself, and they told him many secrets to help him in aiding the struggles of the Aun against the Hea who had captured their totems.

Some of the other world-xutas do not always understand the word-endings we Tonk use in our names at different stages in our lives; so I will explain about the different names of Aun Shimauri's honored son. As a child, he was called Aulapuh. Later, when he rose to the beginning of adulthood, he was called Aulakhe, which can mean "drummer" or "apprentice." Aulakhe learned that the atua ngamaru had received the great Aun Tanua as a prisoner from the Hea and had taken him away from Palenqual. Aulakhe resolved to go in search of Tanua, and his friend Aun Tikakhe the drumcrafter went with him.

No records tell how they made their way to Dereth, for no portals between the two islands existed at that time. Perhaps Tikakhe, with his drumcrafting skills, was able to fashion a crude boat. Tikakhe told the tale of their journey thus: "When we trekked across the Mountains of the South on our way to find the great Aualuan Kenchaua, Dread Mattekar pledged his hides to form Buadren's head. When we traveled up through the Deserts and over to the Plains of the Northwest, Fire Auroch pledged his hides to form Buadren's sinews. When we finally settled here, near the akiekie of Aula's new ani, Ispar Celdisethaua, mighty Oak promised his limbs to form Buadren's body."

It was in the northeast of Osteth, near the hut of the great planar mage Celdiseth, that the two Aun settled and built their camp, their akiekie, and Aulakhe became Celdiseth's pupil. From him he learned to cast a portal into the heart of the dungeon called the Lightning Sea where Aun Tanua was imprisoned. Adventurers would come to the camp, to be instructed by Tikakhe in the art of crafting the buadren, and if they were strong and valiant enough, Aulakhe would summon a portal into the Lightning Sea where they might go, not to rescue Aun Tanua (which was impossible at that time), but to comfort him with an ember from the akiekie fire.

Here there is a break in the record. We know that Aulakhe studied with Celdiseth for many years, and came to be called Aulauri the shaman and Aulaua the elder shaman. But when we next see him, he is called Aun Aulatah, the chieftain of the Aun xuta, and about to accomplish his greatest work.

He reconciled the Hea and Aun xutas. He brought them together and made them whole again, and gave the restored xuta the name of Shi. It is not recorded whether he was able to restore the Hea to their original shapes, though I would not put it past him; in any case, all the Shi Tonk today follow the original, healthy and graceful Tonk body plan, running on the toes of our feet, our lashing tails balancing our heads and arms forward to reach out and grasp, our jaws holding a full compliment of sharp teeth.

Aulatah died old and full of years, and was buried in the Derethian fashion, not burned as in the old tradition, which proved unfortunate, as you will see. In the southeastern parts of Dereth, that after the Cataclysm was split off as Omishan, a great colossus was fashioned in the image of Aulatah; it stands now above a waterfall in the Kydi Delta, its right hand holding the severed head of a fallen enemy.

And that would have been the end of the story, if not for the cursed Archons. After the Fall of the Kings, in the general devastation of Dereth and the surrounding islands, many tombs had collapsed, and the remains of Aulatah, among others, had been taken to the subterranean catacombs below Artefon, on the old site of Sawato, and reburied there. When the wards were set on the Fettermounds, the land had shifted and the course of the River Prosper changed, to fill the valley of Artefon and cover the Catacombs with the waters of a great lake.

In Solclaim of our first year out of the Shelters, the Archons set the Drudges to damming the waters of the Prosper, and uncovered the tombs of Artefon. Aulatah's remains were among those stolen from the tombs, and his keh was imprisoned in a great crystal within Hahnain's Seminary in the Archons' Holding. The Archons have been sent to their reckoning, but Aulatah's keh remains in the Holding, asking passing adventurers to bring him the ashes from the fire that burnt in his honor in the Catacombs.

As Aun Tanua taught us, it is wrong for a Tonk to be buried after the manner of a Human or Lugian, trapping his keh in the earth. Aulatah should have been burnt in the fire that honored him, and that is why he asks for the ashes from that fire. Now he awaits the day when heroes shall recover his bones and burn them with due rites, and his ashes be scattered by Great Sister Wind, and his keh ascend to Blue Mother Heaven.