The Unbecoming of Vigorix the Bold and the Rebirth of Vigorix the Enlightened
Scholars debate the authenticity of this Vigorix tale. Though it explains certain gaps in Vigorix’s conquests, the style and structure do not match the bulk of surviving records on Vigorix, and its ostensible author — the Chieftain Dellian — was born fifty years after Vigorix’s death. Most likely, the tale was passed down to Dellian through the oral tradition, who then entered it into the record as her power and influence grew.
The rivulet fell in pearly drops upon the rock face, forming a dancing pillar of spray, its sing-song patter carried across the Vale. That great Warrior Prince, the one heretofore known as Vigorix the Bold, heard its carrying song as he rode upon his war steed. And the falling water spoke to him. Its rhythm and randomness flowed and intertwined with the clop of his horse’s hooves, and it drew him, as the softest scent of honeysuckle draws one to inhale in summer, into the verdure, the bosom of that pleasant valley.
At first his horse, fair Zinfandel it was called, followed that woody path. Then it seemed that Vigorix himself, hand upon the reins, urged her on. The heron flew high above, then hunted in the shallows.
And it was there that Vigorix for the first time in his life found peace. For his horse, upon arriving beside that willow-shaded pond of legend, refused to advance further. Startled, for a moment, by the harsh diving attacks of a red winged blackbird defending its nest, Vigorix spurred dear Zinfandel on. Yet the horse, breathing deep the air of peace, refused to clatter up the road to rejoin the receding war party.
And as the symphony of rushes and insects rose about them, and the tympani of bullfrogs rumbled, Zinfandel lay down in the rushes. So too did Vigorix, under the warming summer sun. Thoughts of war and his war party receded from his mind. The bloodlust waned; the sounds of clashing steel were but memory, and then not even that.
A dragonfly alighted on Vigorix’s outstretched hand, and he sank into its thousand-lensed eyes. With a flurry of its wings, an overpowering urge gripped Vigorix, and rising with a shout he tore off his armor, and, raising his sword, he plunged it into the mud to its hilt. Then, naked, he strode into the pond, felt its cool water rise about his sun-baked body, dust-caked from riding on the road to war.
He submerged himself beneath Zinfandel’s majestic stare and let the turgid waters of the pond settle about him. He communed with carp and salamander. He sank into the sticky mud of the pond until he became one with it. And a vision of a thousand such ponds, pouring into each other in an endless cosmic loop came upon him. And he drank deeply of each of them. And each filled him up to the brim of his soul. Each reflected a part of him back — the love of war, the lust for violence, the love of his mother, the honor of his children, the beauty of a cup chipped just so on the rim — and he felt as one with the universe.
A great bull frog rose up before him and with its sticky tongue grasped him and swallowed him down, slick flesh upon his skin, and then regurgitated him once more upon the rushes. Zinfandel reared up in surprise and fright. And rising from the mulch once more, he mounted Zinfandel, and, clad now in armor of mud and spirit, he rode forth, a cry of war and peace wish upon his lips, for he was Vigorix the Reborn, the Scales of Chaos and Balance of the Universe, prepared to wield mercy and death in equal measure in his unquenchable quest.
