“It is beautiful, grandpa. Its colours are dazzling by the light of the fire,” I said, turning the topaz in my hand. Grandpa grinned. The dancing flames of the campfire threw mysterious shadows across his furrowed face.

“It has not always been like that, my boy,” he smiled. I looked down at the gem in my palm, studying it closely. It was of a splendid orange-yellow colour, generally rounded but rough around the edges. Shaped by Ataos himself, I reckoned. The Axiom of Rock has governed the land since the dawn of time, turning rock formations into staggering pieces of natural art and sculpted towering mountains and sheer cliffs. Gemstones like this topaz are true masterpieces, with colours even the rainbow cannot hope to match.

“How can this extraordinary gem ever have been anything less than the beauty that it is?” I asked, challengingly. I threw grandpa a sideways glance. “Ataos is an Axiom, almighty, mightier even than any of our gods. Surely even the blandest of stones would turn into precious gems at his will?” Grandpa wagged his head in denial.

“Not by his power alone, my boy,” he said. “Never by one’s powers alone.”

He picked a sizable log from the pile of firewood and fed it to the crackling fire. The suns were setting and slowly the light of day gave way to the night, the chill creeping up like a spectre. “Sure, the Axioms are mighty and stand above even the grandest of gods, but they too are incomplete on their own. Have you not learned that every of the world’s Axioms come in pairs?” grandpa asked.

Of course I had. Although I had never travelled beyond the borders of Valènor, I had heard the tales of the travelling Rashari merchants and bards. In far away lands resided powers beyond our wildest dreams. Axioms that shaped the sky, filled the seas and belched fire from the earth. Each continent was governed by two aspects of these forces, sometimes vying for dominance, other times cooperating to create the world we live in today.

Our country of Valènor knew two faces, too. It was shared between Aephea, the Axiom of Earth, and Ataos, the Axiom of Rock. There is fertile soil where our crops grow abundantly, and mighty mountains from where we hew the rocks for our homes. Sometimes we would find beautiful bright coloured gems among them which I take to be Ataos’ gifts for those who respect the rocks as we mine for natural resources. The Keiron tribes like ours have lived by the rules of the land since time immemorial but I never thought of the Axioms who governed it as two parts of the same element.

I looked back down onto my topaz. I found it at the base of the Wall where I was mining for granite. The igneous rocks found at the border with Taran-Ceroth make for ideal building material. With the year’s last season looming, our tribe’s shelter could do with fortifications. I turned the stone in my hand. The flickering light of the fire made the gem look alive with shades of yellow, orange and amber. The fertile soil may grow our crops but could never create gems like these. That power belonged to Ataos alone. What would he need Aephea’s gifts for if he wished to create what he could?

“Even if the Axioms come in pairs,” I said, “Ataos and Aephea govern different parts of our land. Ataos did not need Aephea to create these.”

“He did,” grandpa said.

“In what way?” I asked. Grandpa looked up from the flames. Opposite the fire sat my mother, talking softly to my sister. She was teaching her to knit. My father was a little way off, stacking wheat and corn in storage pots and place them into specifically dug pits in the ground to keep them through the turbulent times of the year. “Didn’t your father ever tell you?” grandpa asked. I shook my head.

Our tribe’s rituals were simple ones; you sow a seed for every stalk you reap and pray to Aephea for a bountiful harvest. When you’re old and lame, you travel to Iura, the settlement at the edge of the country where you tend to the shrine to Ataos. There you give thanks for the land beneath your feet and pray that he will keep it dry from the water that surrounds it. They always seemed rather disconnected to me, as if the lady of Earth governed the living earth and Ataos the dead earth. After all, rocks were not fertile ground to grow crops on.

As if reading my mind, grandpa pointed at the gem in my palm, saying: “It is not alive as flowers are, but it is just as colourful and holds a potent energy that fills you with joy just by looking onto it. These stones hold a power in their own right. That is how Ataos creates them now, but it had not always been like that. Let me tell you the story of our land from before time, and how these treasures of the earth came to be.” I smiled and settled down in the sand, looking up at him as he cleared his throat and began to tell.

“Long, long ago, even before the world was named, the Axioms roamed the plains in all their glory. Where the Air blew, sky was formed. Where the Fire raged, the ashes fertilized. Where the Water flowed, the trees grew and where the Earth lay, the peoples settled. The first people were a mysterious folk of whom we now only know their myths and see their legacies in the land around us.” Grandpa let his eyes glide across the plains. The suns had dipped behind the horizon, leaving the western sky aglow with soft hues of purple and pink. In the distance, the forest was a black spiny mass against the canvas of evening colours. A trackway disappeared into it. Beyond it, I knew, it ran past the ancient ruins of otherworldly architecture and intricate structures. Valènor was dotted with these age old remnants that sat as silent testimonies to the country’s first occupants. To hear them given voice through grandfather’s stories seemed to make them come alive again. I inched closer as grandpa continued.

“The first peoples were beautiful, in both body and mind. The men were clever and capable of building the massive structures, the ruins of which remain with us to this day. The children were little treasures of innovation, bursting with ideas and solutions. But it was their women who were most wonderful of all. The brightest of sunrises would pale next to their beauty. The year’s hottest days would feel cold compared to their warmth. Their love is what men would wage wars over and their smiles would bring peace again. It is no small wonder then, that Ataos fell deeply in love with one such woman.”

I tried to imagine a female so perfect she would enchant even a force of nature and I chanced a look at my own mother. She was ripe of years and greying at the roots, but her smile was that of a child who looked upon the world for the first time. She had always been like that and so long as she wore her smile, her beauty would not fade. In my mind, Ataos’ lover was a mystical, ethereal version of my mother.

“Of course, Ataos decided to try and win her heart,” grandpa smiled. “In an effort to impress her, he created our land, lifted the mountains from the sea and covered the earth in a fine, soft layer of sand. He was very pleased with the result, but unfortunately, the woman was not. She looked at the sand at her feet. She looked out over the plains. She looked up at the mountains and tears would well up in her eyes. No, my boy, she was not pleased at all with Ataos’ work. When he saw her cry, he was confused. "What is it that displeases you? Are you not glad for all this land I made for you?", he asked. The woman answered; "That I am, o divine, but the land is dead without colour." She waved at the fields on the horizon, where Aephea’s fertile grasslands lay as a green sea at the edge of the endless sands. In them, countless flowers of every colour danced softly on the wind. Ataos said: "I cannot create fields or flowers. I create the rock, the ground you walk on, but colours are not of my making." And so, the woman turned and left, leaving Ataos heartbroken.”

Grandpa paused and stared into the flames for a while. My mother’s gentle singing came drifting in over the crackling of the fire. Her voice had soothed me as a child and her songs would lull me into a peaceful sleep. I smiled when I saw my sister’s head resting against her flanks, the knitwork still held loosely in her hands as she slept.

“Her rejection laid bare his shortcomings,” continued grandpa. “Ataos, he who wielded the power to form the very land and make mountains reach the roof of the sky, could not create colourful fields like Aephea could. To win the lady’s heart, he had to learn to make colours and so he sought to consult the Axiom of Earth to ask for her aid. Aephea listened when Ataos told her of his works and how his lover had left when she saw it had no colours. Aephea felt compassion for his woes. "Look at my fields," she said. "Look at my flowers. They are vibrant, painted with the colours of the rainbow." And Ataos looked and saw the roses, the lilies, the irises, the dahlias and the marigolds. Each flower was more beautiful than the next. They put him in mind of the woman he loved and then he decided. "Aephea," he said, "I wish for my most beautiful rocks to be of the colours of your most beautiful flowers." Then, Aephea picked him a rose, a lily, an iris, a dahlia and a marigold and Ataos brought them with him. He walked his lands and looked closely, picking rocks of the most beautiful and intricate shapes and makings. When he had selected only the best of his creations, he held his hand over the stones, crushed the flowers in his fist and gently poured their colours out. The red of the rose turned the ruby red, the white of the lily coloured the diamond, the iris turned the sapphire blue, the dahlia painted the emerald green and the marigold,” here, grandpa pointed at my hand, “turned the topaz a beautiful amber orange. The results were breath-taking. The suns’ light shimmered off the gemstones, turning the bland rocky landscape into a sparkling sea of vibrant colours.”

“And the woman?” I asked. “Did she like it?”

Grandpa laughed. “Yes, she did indeed. She was so moved by the wonderous colours that she vowed to protect the land that bore them. Together with Ataos, she poured her appreciation for the ground and its treasures into every single gemstone, filling them with the most powerful and ancient of magics: love. She pledged her heart to Ataos and when the Axiom settled in his final form, the sacred Spire at Land’s Edge, she built a dwelling at its base to be with him.”

“The dwelling that would grow out to become the settlement of Iura,” I concluded, and grandpa nodded.

“The story tells that when she died after a long and happy life, Ataos turned her bones into the most precious and most beautiful gems of all.” He eased another log onto the fire. The flames licked at it eagerly. “When we die, our flesh feeds the soil from which new flowers grow,” grandpa said, “but our bones petrify, and we hope we lived such beautiful, fulfilling lives, that they turn into gemstones in the colours of our souls.”

We sat there quietly for a while. I watched as the flames munched down the wood, fingering the topaz, wondering whose bones I now held in my hand.

“I hope so too, grandpa. I hope so too.”