Growing up in the shifting, ethereal sands and deep, dark forests of Dhakira, one often hears that “words have power”. The sentiment echoes in the chants of priests, the spells of exorcists, the books of conjurers. It shapes even the most mundane utterances, the jokes between friends, the secrets shared by strangers, by ships passing in the night. Every word spoken, each stroke of ink on the page, is a promise. A wish. A manifestation of a person’s will that has the power to shape reality itself. In Dhakira, words are humanity’s sword and shield.
The origin of humanity’s language, though, is contested. The historians that align themselves with the priesthood, the Vox Dei, claim that language was a gift from the gods so that humanity might glimpse just a sliver of the power divinity holds. The gods created Dhakira and its antithesis, the Domain of Demons, in a glorious moment of genesis, and graced their favored creations with the ability to protect themselves from their necessary though regrettable counterpart. One cannot have a world of great light, of course, without a world of great darkness.
As attractive as this origin of language is, most of humanity thinks it is merely wishful thinking. They demand, “if we were all gifted with this divine power, why does it require decades of study to learn spells and runes? Why must we spend hours in rituals and prayer if every word is the voice of the gods?” If the gods intended for humanity’s language to protect them all from the menace of demons, they sure did a sloppy job of it.
The most radical theories of language’s origin emerge from the Vox Geminae, the historians that think themselves enlightened and posit that Dhakira and the Domain of Demons were once one unified plane of existence. Long before humanity entered the picture, there was no Threshold, no doorway, no thin veil between the mortal world and the unknowable darkness of the demons’ world. There, in that tumultuous, volatile mess of physical and spiritual energy, creatures that manifested aspects of both humanity and demons shaped their lives merely with the power of their words. Life. Death. Creation. Destruction. One word held the weight of the universe itself, and the cosmos bent to the will of these Geminae. Recognizing their great power, the gods tore the world in half, trapping physical energy on Dhakira and spiritual energy in the Domain of Demons. Severed and splintered, the Geminae became humanity and demons instead, weaker now as a half of a whole.
Still, the language we shared as unified beings persists, and words remain our only connection to our spiritual self and the power we once had that could rival the gods’. Every spell that humanity casts to keep demons at bay is a double-edged sword, cutting away the part of us that would lead to realizing our full potential. Needless to say, it’s difficult for this peaceful, cooperative school of thought to gain traction when demons are kidnapping vulnerable humans every other week.
The newest theory of language’s creation, and the one supported by most of humanity and accepted as the official history, is championed by the Vox Populi historians. A society of exorcists devoted to the protection of humanity, the Vox Populi historians find the very notion that demons are connected to humanity or can use language utterly preposterous. To them, demons are incapable of something as intricate as language - they are beasts of elemental and spiritual energy, they have no brains or permanent bodies, how would they even produce words? Not a single record of a demon speaking to a human or producing text of any kind exists in the historical record. No, words are a mortal creation, and their unique use as a weapon as well as communication developed to protect humanity and force demons to adhere to laws and rules, to bind them. Simple words do not bend reality to our will, the specific rhythm and vocabulary of spells bend demons to our will.
Their evidence is simple: as soon as humanity began using spell syntax to set up barriers around their homes and bind demons to contracts, demonic meddling in Dhakira dropped dramatically. From daily disappearances to just a couple a week, then a month, then a year, it took a mere handful of generations for humanity to look back on their history and accept themselves as great innovators, wise and industrious creatures that triumphed over the evil demons with a weapon forged only for them. Quickly, any bard beginning their tale with “remember when we lived in fear of the demons?” was met by a befuddled audience, this collective memory of a life under the looming threat of demons all but faded.
Sure, one hears of the occasional disappearance, or catches sight of a headline declaring “exorcist saves family of five from hungry demon stalking their doorway!”, but such stories are often brushed off as mistakes of the ignorant. These tragedies only happen to those that are weak of will, easy prey for a starving demon flitting between the transitory spaces dotting the mortal world. Growing up in a Port, people never hesitate at a doorway, pause in an empty bus station, sprinkle salt on the stairwell for fear of passing through the Threshold. No, Ports are safe, exorcists monitor the arcane energy flux for miles, and even in the most remote edges of the desert they can detect the Threshold opening and the Domain of Demons seeping in. They’re always quick to sew them up, just a couple readings from their tomes that they barely have to glance at, memorized over years of training, and humanity is safe again.
The solution is so simple, it’s hard to imagine a need to study that dark, foreboding world beyond the mortal one. Surely, the Vox Populi propose, demons only want to kill, to destroy, to terrorize humanity - why else would they spirit away foolish travelers to their own domain for untold horror and torture? What reason could they have for inflicting the pain of grief on countless families? Why study something as base and simple as “chaos”? It cannot be changed, cannot be understood, and doing so is a waste of time. The Vox Populi insist that the demons are not anything like humanity, they are not faceted like mortals, their nature is fixed. They cannot be tamed, reasoned with, or trained. They live in the moment. They cannot learn, build friendships, loyalties, alliances - they have no memories, nothing that connects them to each other or their world. They are monsters.
Despite the exorcists of Vox Populi’s strong stance on studying the Domain of Demons, in recent years the Vox Geminae historians have begun training their own exorcists. More scholar than fighter, the Vox Geminae tirelessly seek ancient texts and oral histories scattered around Dhakira, desperate to find evidence for their cause. Instead of closing Thresholds, they hold them open, trying to glimpse into the Domain of Demons and understand the world beyond.
Oddly, no exorcist has been taken during one of these rituals. It’s difficult to know for sure why certain people are taken by demons, since none have ever returned, but it is generally accepted that those with intense emotional wounds and little will to fight back are most at risk. Consequently, the Vox Geminae exorcists joke that they are not emotionally vulnerable enough to be targeted by a demon, but there is always a note of regret in their words. What they wouldn’t give for just a peek into the other world, to hear a single word uttered by their spiritual twin, to see the aspect of themselves that would make them more powerful than the gods. What is tethering them to Dhakira, to their humanity, that prevents them from passing through the Threshold? Their innovative minds? Their capacity for love and loyalty? Their fighting spirit?
Their memories?