The Dying Gods

Abstract: Part One of a fantasy series inspired by Plato, Eric Voegelin, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, among others. A god is dead, murdered by his fellow gods. Driven by their new-found fear of death, the gods plunge their countries into war. Two young goat herders, Mosy and Nuse, find themselves in the thick of it. As war approaches, the two struggle with each other and with their own problems: Mosy is newly blind, the result of an encounter with a god, while Nuse wrestles with strange dreams and forgotten memories. With their help, Sol, the sun god, must uncover the mystery of the god’s death before heaven and earth are destroyed. For these two mortals sing the songs ofthe Pali, a trickster and a shape-shifter who dies in each of his forms before he is born again. Some say the Pali is false and does not exist outside the souls of his worshipers. Yet the Pali may prove realer than them all