Zargyod and Krezzan's wager

Zargyod and Krezzan's wager is a well-known myth in the religious tradition of the Eleven Cities. Although some versions point to moral or philosophical connotations to the story, its most widespread currency is as an eitiological explanation for the state of The Empty Quarter.

Narrative

The precise narrative of Zargyod and Krezzan's wager varies widely between tellings; indeed, the two gods only actually wager anything in a minority of versions. The basic story germ, however, is a demarcation dispute of sorts between the two deities; Zargyod, as the god of fortune, claims he can control fate, while Krezzan, god of time, insists that all fortune eventually bows to him. At loggerheads, the two gods decide to test their relative powers on a single human being - exactly who varies, but it is always a woman - but are barred from doing so by a goddess - either Maryas or Hayan depending on the telling.
Temporarily forbidden from the human sphere the two gods repair to the Empty Quarter and wreak their havoc there. Zargyod churns up the earth, creating the enscarpments and jagged terrain the region is known for and ruining the passage of waterways. Quite how the god of fortune does this is not always made clear, but some sources suggest he does so by shattering seams of metal under the earth, a gesture to his power as a god of metals. Krezzan, by contrast, accelerates the passage of time over the Quarter, eroding cities to ruins and turning plants and animals into withered parodies of their former selves.
Eventually, exhausted, the two gods pause in their contest and admit a stalemate. Accounts differ as to their eventual resolution of the situation. Some versions of the story suggest they pass as enemies, setting up a vendetta which abides through their cycles of mythology. Others attest the opposite, that the experience serves to illustrate their overlapping nature of their divine portfolios and prompts an ongoing liaison between the two gods.

Literary/artistic tradition

The myth is interesting in the context of the commonality of pre-Wesmodian pictorial depictions of Krezzan to depict him as a cloaked giant with his hand placed on the roof of a tower. The image appears in various pre-Wesmodian manuscripts of versions of the myth and is also attested to have been painted as a fresco in various places relevant to the worship of the god, including most of his temples. Most of these murals have now deteriorated to the point of destruction, although those in the temples in Pholyos, Elpaloz and Halumay are still available for study, assuming a scholar can convince the local chapter of the Brotherhood of Rooks of the moral and intellectual legitiacy of their work. Similar murals also exist in the Brotherhood's chapter house and the house of the Bruised Ones in Chogyos, though both show evidence of having been extensively retouched, possibly repeatedly, in the post-Wesmodian era, so their value as objects of study is open to question.
What is precisely being depicted in these images is ambiguous. One possible interpretation is that Krezzan is making a gesture of patronage in keeping with his reputation as a patrician god whose cult concerned itself primarily with the upper crust. In the context of this myth, however, these might equally be depictions of control, showing Krezzan pushing down on a tower (mimicking the process of erosion) or even in the early stages of knocking it over. This would be in keeping with the power that the god of time claimed over all things, and this myth stands as supporting evidence for the interpretation by providing a folkloric example of Krezzan doing precisely this.
In terms of literary accounts of the myth, there are generally held to be four:
* Among musicians, particularly those who enjoy the patronage of the Commercial Guilds the Suite of Copper and Winds is a long-running tradition. Thought to be of pre-Wesmodian origin, the lengthy suite has been expanded on and improvised around for at least two centuries, and is particularly popular in Chogyos. Noted for its series of powerful crecendos, it tells the story of the contest between the two gods in musical form and is often played for visitors to the Commercial Guilds.
* The Book of Favour includes a rendering of the story which depicts Krezzan as a distinctly sinister, phlegmatic, thin-blooded figure; he goes so far as to identify himself as the god of death, a style he never otherwise gives himself in other literary sources. In this version the wager is for the virtue of Qopyan the youngest of The Dog's Seven Daughters, but Hayan steps in and forbids the gods from possessing her in this way. They therefore opt to use her as the subject of the wager, visiting their powers upon her, but now Maryas intercedes and vetos the idea, prompting the shift of venue to the Empty Quarter.
* The Pholian poet Pindaros includes a rendition of the story in his The Time of the Gods. In his version the two gods express a continuously friendly rivalry, coming across as two gentlemen sharing a sport. They initially plan to visit their powers on Teleray, a woman of the Pholian waterfront, but Maryas intervenes to assert that Teleray makes her own fortune and would be a poor - and, it is portentously implied, hazardous - subject, prompting the move to the Empty Quarter.
* A popular children's round frequently spoken in Elpaloz and Andymalon focuses very much on Zargyod's side of the battle itself, using a series of blackly comic similes to describe him breaking the bones of the earth. The poem contains no discourse about why Zargyod and Krezzan are fighting or what the outcome was; interested researchers speculate that the poem may be a fragment of a longer unrecorded work. The fact that it is a round, with twelve lines spoken in a variety of overlapping ways by collectives of speakers, may indicate some ritualistic origin in the liturgies associated with one or both gods.

Commentary

The persistence of the myth in the pre-Wesmodian era demonstrates an appreciation of some interesting overlaps in the portfolios of the eight major gods of the Eleven Cities. Zargyod, a god of fortune, could presumably change the future, while Krezzan, a god of fate, seems conceptually invested in ensuring it played out along preconceived lines. The Brotherhood of Rooks are known to debate such matters, though mostly among themselves, and not to take kindly to suggestions from thaumatologists that evidently liturgical meditations on tension between methodologies might be used as a basis for research into manipulating the laws of probability. Such discussion does take place, however.