ORIGIN OF SPECIES: Part III

(…in which the course of Evil-lution is described…)

The Shaman Ugurk stood on the ledge at the opening of The Cave, looking out over the broad valley below, and a black rage rose up within him, stifling his breath and nearly obscuring his sight…

In the brightness of Full Day, when the Sun stood directly over the entrance to The Cave, and before it began to descend, ultimately darting its rays to the very back of The Cave as it drew level with the opening of The Cave, before vanishing into the Earth again, Ugurk gazed out on a group of the creatures who had invaded and taken up residence in the Valley below, and who so threatened the very existence of Our People. It had been eighteen Moons since Ugurk had slain the first of them, the first Wo-Man, and the intervening days and nights had been filled with trouble for Our People. The Evil Dream walked among them in the flesh, and The Shaman Ugurk was powerless against it.

Ugurk was a child of seven summers when he had first seen the Wonder that he had again witnessed just two summers ago – the Wonder of the Double Birth of Ogrim and Ugrim, sons of Ygrim. On that glorious night, the very stars in the night sky had seemed to Ugurk to dance for joy. How could such a portentous event, such a Wonder, of such seemingly good auspices, have been followed by this invasion, this abomination, this degradation, which seemed sure to destroy the life of Our People as it had flowed on since time out of mind?

It had been five summers before that Wonder, that Ugurk had been caught up by the Evil Dream. Ugurk had maintained a troubled and desperate, solitary watch over Our People for all of those five summers, seeking to identify and turn away from them the Doom which the Evil Dream had foretold. He had been foolish enough to think that with the Wonder of the Double Birth two summers ago, that the danger had been averted, and that Our People were safe.

“Fool!” he snarled, in his dry old man’s voice – the Spirits who rule this world kept Our People in constant danger, from which they relied on the Shaman to protect them – and The Shaman Ugurk had failed Our People, he had let down his guard, he had relaxed his vigilance – and some Evil Spirit had sent this great Evil upon them, and had foreshadowed it to Ugurk in the Evil Dream.

The creatures that The Shaman Ugurk observed from his place on the ledge high in the cliff-face, at the entrance to The Cave, were the Evil Dream brought into the world, in full flesh – and they seemed to spell the Doom of Our People. Ugurk stood there in full day, seeing the Valley below teeming with their numbers, and thought of last night’s Waxing Moon, and of The Process…

The Process was always good, it always went well, but last night there had seemed, for the first time, something lacking. There were the required and natural couplings, of course, among all of Our People – except, of course, The Shaman Ugurk himself – but there was not the excitement, the energy, the certainty of future births that had always accompanied The Process before.

Part of it might have been that there were so few of Our People left to