MYTHOS: THE WRATH OF OLD TOM LONGLEGS

The old man sighed as he reflected on his task; today, it was his job as the village storyteller to tell the children about the Event. The whole thing was almost a sort of chore, he would tell it this year, just like he had told it last year and the twelve years before. Doubtless, these children had already gathered scant bits of information about the Event, word circulated fast, but most of what they knew was probably only based on rumors and falsehoods. He raised his head and looked at the children sitting in a semicircle around him, their bright eyes glimmering in the dark of the night. Yes, he thought, this is a story best told at night. He spoke to them in his authoritative, encapsulating voice, saying:

“As many of you have already heard by now, today is the day when you learn about the event that shattered our way of life just a century ago, and about the loss of mankind’s greatest city.”

The children were no longer whispering, squeals of delight and chatter echoed in the crowd.

The storyteller asked for silence, and they calmed down again. He continued:

“Now, how many of you know about gods?” he asked.

Almost all of the children raised their hands. Good. The man continued:

“Before being able to comprehend the Event’s needless destruction, you have to understand the forces behind it. You see, before there were the modern gods, the ones worshipped by today’s civilized tribes, such as Allah, Jesu and Tiamat, there were the old gods, the gods of the dank and the darkness, the gods who reigned by fear. “

The children were enthralled now, some of them bracing for a scary story. One of them, a chubby boy with a visibly runny nose raised his hand. The storyteller called on him.

“Yes, Timothy?”

Timothy, obviously shy, said: “When you mean the old gods, are you talking about Cthulu and blood sacrifices and stuff like that?”

The storyteller said: “Well there were some like that, yes.”

Timothy sat down and the old man paused to clear his throat and then went on:

“The tools of the modern gods are holy books and temples; the tools of the old gods were riddles etched in stone circles, hushed whispers uttered in dead languages. Now, it’s important that you understand that these gods were not intrinsically evil, but they acted upon their own whims, a practiced frowned upon by the gods of the modern tribes, who all had strict moral codes. Because of the gods’ mysterious ways of acting, they are largely misunderstood today. When the ancestors of today’s modern tribes discovered the land where the old gods ruled, they also came into contact with the old gods. The savage people that worshiped them called them by many names, but the exploring tribes, being unable to understand their language, described the old gods in their own writing, giving them new names, some of which are still known today. You children have probably already heard of Jack Brickabrack and Crom One-Elbow in your nursery rhymes.”

Many of the children were amused at the funny names, but they kept quiet, fearful of the storyteller. He kept going, unaware of this:

“According to religious lore, there was a celestial war between the clashing old gods and new gods that rent the sky and made the earth tremble. However, the reality was that there probably was no heavenly war, because the old gods, unlike their younger rivals, were not much for theatrics and kept out of heaven, as they thought it to be a silly place. However, whatever transpired, the old gods ultimately disappeared and the ancestors of the modern tribes claimed the land that had once belonged to them, the land that we live on to this day. They build a large port city, and named it Landsbury, after the moon, who had reportedly aided them in their war against the old gods. It was Landsbury that became the flower of the western world, the flower planted on the bones of a long-dead civilization. There was one old god, in particular, who played a part in the tragic end of Landsbury,” The man shivered a bit before he said the name, “Old Tom Longlegs, the trickster god.”

The boy who had asked about the old gods before raised his hand again, asking: “Who was Old Tom Longlegs?”

The storyteller elaborated: “Unlike the other gods, even the old gods, Tom had been around since the beginning of the beginning, and once traveled the galaxy's first roads, the inter dimensional rifts in space. Old Tom might not actually even be a god, but he was certainly a force in the universe on par with any deity. Also called Tommy Bandyleg and Black Tom, the god’s unusual name was the result of the discovery of several statues of him, all at least eight feet tall and hewn out of obsidian. He cut a trim, almost spindly figure, and was usually shown wearing a top hat and dressed all in black. Now, Old Tom Longlegs had no solitary base of worshipers; he was an unpredictable wanderer who kept on the left side of foggy mountain roads, and if any living soul came across him, they were best to look away, for it is dangerous for a human to look upon a god, especially Old Tom. Tom, the stories said, was too powerful and strange for even the new gods to combat, so they ambushed him in the city of Landsbury and imprisoned him in chains of wind, water, and fire in a dark cavern in the depths of hell, in a labyrinth that only a madman could navigate, hoping to deal with him later.”

The children began to be visibly afraid, and a great tension hung in the air. Each of them waited for the storyteller’s next words.

Pleased at his work, the old man continued:

“The flaw of the gods’ plans for Tom was that they assumed that as his worshipers died off, his power would decrease. After all, this was how the new gods themselves acquired power. What they did not understand was that the old gods drew power from the land itself, not from the number of people that believed in them. And while Old Tom Longlegs sat in the Pit, his anger, his resentment of the new gods grew until it boiled like molten lead. The excess anger was made physically tangible at Landsbury, which suffered a series of disasters and misfortunes. Tom’s servants, the ravens, brought him food to eat every day, so he did not starve. The story goes that Old Tom eventually used his powers of trickery to talk the chains into releasing him, and he fooled the stones of the labyrinth into rearranging themselves into a straight path. And when Old Tom finally emerged into the light after thousands of years, he targeted his anger at the cities established by his rival gods’ worshipers. Tom used all his power to forge a pact with the trees and the vines and the grass and roots of the land. It was with these weapons that Tom attacked the three neighboring cities of Moontown, Schanassus, and North Landsbury; vines sprouted and grew almost overnight, houses were engulfed, roofs collapsed under the weight of the foliage, and briers grew into dense forests of thorns from which there was no escape. The ruins of these cities remain unexplored to this day, and it is assumed that there were no survivors. There were some attempts to enter the old cities; rescue parties trying to get inside were attacked by aggressive flocks of ravens and driven back. Today it is understood that the three cities belong to Old Tom Longlegs, he has reclaimed them for his own, as payment for the wrongs our ancestors committed.”

Then, there came the part that happened almost every time he told the story, one of the children asked the old man what had happened to Old Tom.

The old man replied: “Tom's whereabouts are unknown. Some speculated that he settled in the three cities and built a temple there, but what is far more likely is that Tom went back to his traditional temple: the temple of the road, where he could wander about and do as he pleased. That is why, should you ever come across a stranger dressed all in black on the road on a moonlit night, you should bow your head and try not to gaze directly at him, because it may be Old Tom Longlegs wandering along towards god-knows-where.”

He let the last line hang in the air for emphasis, and when the story was over and the children had gone home, he sat in the darkened clearing and reflected. He was an atheist, something that was almost impossible to find after the Event, when deities had physically made themselves manifest. But it gets to a certain point, he thought,where atheism is all humans have left, where, despite all evidence of the gods’ existence, humanity can at least express displeasure with the way the gods have been running things. There was something unfair about that, to be sure, that even disbelief had been taken from them, but the old man hastily put such thoughts out of his mind, as a raven was flying overhead.

Samuel's Tale:

They said Sam was mad to forsake his shelter, mad to try to eke out a living amidst the vines. Perhaps there would be food, he had thought, perhaps there would be a place of safety. But the other voice in his head, the calm, sneering, voice reminded him: There is no safety here, only the certainty of death. And Sam eventually realized that death reigned king among the maze of vines, that death was the only thing you could count on in the ruins of Moontown.

Sam traveled light and was always on the move. He never stayed in one spot for more than eight hours; there was so much to do: food to be gathered from rubbish heaps, fires to be made and extinguished, water to be found. Ah, yes, water. Water was the hardest to find. Sometimes Sam stumbled upon old rain barrels full of the stagnant commodity, other times he licked the insides of gutters, or cut apart shoots and sucked their fluids, which, although not water, staved off thirst for a while. Sam lived his ramshackle, wandering, existence until the day he met the man dressed all in black.

Sam had first spotted him in the afternoon, or so he thought (vines and overgrowth blotted out the sky in most areas). He cut an odd figure; he was dressed in an elegant black suit and silken top hat, carrying a silver-tipped cane that caught the light as it moved. Thinking him to be a vagabond or a robber, Sam raised his machete and pointed it at the tall man threatening to cut him down should he advance another step. The tall figure turned to face Sam and for a moment, the young man felt a chill run down his spine.

“Lower your weapon, Sam,” the man said, “ If I wished to kill you I would have done it by now.”

“How did you know my na –" Samuel began, but the figure snapped his fingers and there was just empty space in his hand where his machete had once been. Sam cried out in alarm, and, realizing that witchcraft was afoot, turned to run away as fast as his legs could carry him. Suddenly, a peculiar feeling overwhelmed him, as if the blood in his legs was made of clotted cream. He could not move. The figure in black approached him and said:

“I wish only to travel with you, and perhaps, should my whims allow it, help you reach a place of safety.”

Sam managed to wheeze out the words: “Yes, sir” through numb lips, and at once motion returned to his body and he stumbled onto the ground, panting. He raised himself, and turning to his new companion asked: “Who are you?”

The man replied: “In your boorish, lackluster tongue my true name would take too much time to pronounce, although recently some have taken to calling me Tom. You may do so, if you wish.”

Sam asked again: “What are you doing out in the briars? Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here?”

Tom replied: “ I’m a wanderer by nature, as is everyone at heart, especially you, my dear Samuel. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that only a madman would make a home of this wasteland?”

Sam was quiet for a moment. Tom continued: “ Don’t worry if you are, for Old Tom is a friend of the madman, and a finer friend you could not ask for. Should you allow me to accompany you, I will show you safe passage through the vines.”

Samuel paused, then said: “Swear it.”

Tom shifted, as if the process of swearing made him uncomfortable. Sam held out his hand to shake and Tom stood still as if pondering an answer. Sam again said:

“Swear it.”

Tom said: “ You drive a hard bargain my dear Samuel, but I must respectfully decline—"

Samuel interrupted him, asking for a third time for Tom to keep his word. Tom let out a groan and tore at his clothes and gnashed his teeth but finally, grudgingly took Sam’s hand and shook it, a grimace upon his shaded face.

Sam was worried that without his machete, he would not be able to hack through the vines that surrounded every inch of the ruins, but Tom’s presence seemed to make them recede, opening tiny pathways that sealed up behind them. Sam was also worried that there would not be enough food to sustain both him and his new companion on their trek, but Tom never seemed to eat or even sleep at all. Tom had several other quirks that puzzled Sam; he always traveled on the left side of any pathway, even if the left side was strewn with debris and plant matter, and he sometimes muttered to himself in some language Sam could not understand. Despite the fact that Tom was odd, to say the least, he began to take a liking to Sam. Every evening, when Sam and Tom lay down to rest, Tom would produce a deck of cards from his breast pocket and he and Sam would play old card games by the firelight, some that Sam had played as a child, and some that tom seemingly made up on the spot, such as Snatch the Queen and Crazy Sevens (Tom had a fondness for the number seven). Sam learned more and more about Tom as well; he usually talked in a playful, jesting manner, but could become bitter in an instant; he was always gambling (he had a set of dice wherever he went); and he seemed incredibly paranoid about people following him, often going to bizarre stretches to cover his trail. Sam unconsciously averted his gaze from Tom’s face; when he had tried to look at it before, he couldn’t remember its appearance or even if Tom had a face at all.

Sam remembered one day when he and Old Tom passed the ruins of a hospital, Sam said something about Moontown being “a living hell”. Tom chuckled as if the phrase amused him. He said: “No, Sam, no, no, no. Hell is much worse than this, it’s a truly dreadful place – they have no idea what fun is down there. All that torture and such, not my style. Not to mention the eighty-something different dialects of Hell you have to learn in order to communicate with anyone.”

Like most musings from Tom, Sam mostly disregarded this one as the ranting of a madman, although he followed up with a statement that he was an atheist and didn’t believe in hell. Tom laughed again, saying: “Samuel, have I ever told you the great truth of the world?”

“No. I don’t think you have,” said Sam.

“The truth is, my dear boy, they all believe right at the end, when they step over the edge and into the darkness, they all believe.”

Sam shivered and tried to put this out of his mind, but Tom continued: “I think I’ll make you my prophet, Samuel. Samuel the Enlightened has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? And all the others are getting prophets these days.”

As usual, Samuel had no idea what Tom meant.

Finally, after weeks of wandering, Sam and Tom reached the “safe spot” Tom had promised to lead them to. It was a clearing full of rows of stone markers, a place where green grass was allowed to grow without the interference of the vines. Examining it, Sam saw other dwellers milling about in makeshift huts.

“Now, Sam,” Tom said, “over to the left of those bushes over there, you will find food in the mornings and food in the evenings. There’s some lumber about if you want to form a house, the people here are quite friendly, or so I’m told.”

“Oh Tom! Thank you! Thank you so much!” Sam cried, but his friend was already gone, as if he had never been there. A raven cawed in the distance. Sam sighed, knowing that settling down was not for Old Tom, that Old Tom would remain a wandering soul for the end of his days. That’s very ‘proper’ as Tom used to say, Sam thought. Very proper indeed. And Sam suddenly remembered what Tom had said to him: They all believe, right at the end, when they step over the edge and into the darkness, they all believe.