Pendulis, 18 September 1153 according the Common Calendar
Chapter 2. The Tale of the Beginning
Chapter 3.4 Fourth and Fifth Sense
Chapter 5 Creation of the Gods
Chapter 8. The Three Books of Evil
Chapter 8.3 The Book of Destruction
Chapter 10. The Tale of the Shard
Perhaps you are wondering how I can write about the entire History when that History is still incomplete, and how I know all about History? Sometimes I do too. The fact is that I am Chronicler and Chairman of the Guild of Oracles. Besides the Present, I can see the Past and the Future, even more so than most people. That was one of the reasons why I, of all people, was chosen to Chronicle this infinite History of the Land of Karchan. But enough about me, let me begin with my story.
Ages ago before war, before peace, before land and sea, before time, there was only Existence, for naught had yet been created. Within Existence came Awareness, persisting without time, without thought, without meaning, though it felt no pain, for not even that had yet been created.
There came a point when Awareness illuminated a path which it had trodden before. With "memory" came a sense of Time, and hence Time was born. Awareness grew to encircle the new concept, and in the union of the two came Thought, the force of evolution of Awareness through Time. But Thought was only full of emptiness, for naught existed of which to think. Time was a renegade, and it proceeded around throught the void by itself, relentlessly marching, only toying with Awareness when the mood struck.
Finally, Time mingled with Thought enough to sire a child, and this child was called Dreaming. The aspect allowed Thought to run and play with concepts which did not or could not exist. Awareness and Dreaming led to Emotion, a secret child behind the back of thought who was too busy with Dreaming's other delights to notice. Awareness regarded Thought as necessary through Thought's own arguments, though it felt Emotion's importance through the language of feeling, and it found itself unable to choose between the two. Dreaming came to Awareness's call of distress, forming a concept of an Other to which Awareness could put such difficult questions. Other was formed in the image of Awareness through Thought's powerful abilities, though Thought found itself unable to make Other more powerful than Awareness was already.
Awareness and Other asked each other questions, but neither could answer any better than Awareness could originally. Still, each of them found in the other a sensation of companionship and comfort despite the confusion and difficulty that Awareness constantly presented. Together, they grew and learned, combining their Thoughts, sharing their Emotions, experiencing each other's Awareness, letting each other dance through their Dreams until they became as one, a whole composed of two independent parts, each amplified by the other. And their dreams were filled with wonder, both with the answers they had found as well as their questions, and in these dreams was a new child born known as Reality, in which they placed all of their knowledge.
From Reality the two removed the ability to create new aspects, for by now the two had enough children to worry about, and Time had become quite a bully. Reality wept at being so restricted, but the two explained that Reality had within it all that Existence had yet created. It was explained that Reality had the task of sorting out all the dilemmas which had manifested, and that once the answers were found, power would again be restored to Reality to change itself as it would see fit. Reality retained its bitter sense of loss, but accepted the challenge.
Time was not to enjoy such and easy solution, however. Time found the quarrels of Emotion and Thought amusing, and so Time used its relentless abilities upon Reality, forcing the mostly incapacitated child to bow to its will. The two watched this and grew displeased. They could not openly defy Time, for Time was nearly as powerful as they and had intertwined itself deeply into Existence. They could, however, grant Reality aid. Dreaming again aided the two in their time of need, suggesting that perhaps if there were more than one Reality, Time would not have enough strength to annoy all of them at once. Though they had no intention of spawning more children until their current problems were solved, they did find a compromise.
Against Reality they brought their wills, splitting his consciousness into a billion trillion fragments, each possessing bits and pieces of the knowledge of Existence. All the tiny bits of Reality coalesced and formed the Multiverse with its pockets of realities all similar and yet different. And within them the truths coalesced into the forces of the world. Like the original two, all things contained the forces of thought and emotion struggling against each other. Balance and imbalance, light and dark, selfish and selfless, all ranges were created and distributed amongst the streaming new woner Reality had become, each tiny bit working with the others in strange and sometimes undiscernable ways to reach the ultimate answer that the two wait for silently..."
"We have been bestowed with great forces of both thought and emotion. We can harness their powers for the good of all, or we can let them war with us as so many others have done. Time still holds reign over our and all other lands, and this is an aspect which we must simply succumb to, for resistance is dangerous and eventually futile.
Also, like the tale, all of us have deep within a need for an "other", one to share our awareness, emotions and dreams. This quest will be repeated throughout all of time and everywhere on the worlds, for it is a truth from beyond them.
The gods are people once like us who have come to such insight of the nature of Reality that they have gained some of the promised power of alteration. By their sheer will they may render and remake some parts of Reality. The gods of good aid those less enlightened, whereas the gods of evil use their superior knowledge to contort and control for their amusement and gain.
Worse yet, this Darkness had a mind, an evil mind, composed of all the nasty bits and pieces of all the yet created things, if one could call it evil. It wasn't just evil, it was just indisposed towards everything but itself. Not that is ever encountered anything but itself, oh no! The Darkness thought itself to have always been, and always would be, undisturbed by anything else. The evil mind of Darkness couldn't even grasp the concept of there being anything else but itself. Yet, suddenly, this time, the Darkness was in for a shock...
In this darkness the omnipotent being Rakah was created out of the good parts of Existence, Awareness and all the other entities to function as a counterpart to the Darkness. At first it was not much, alone in the Darkness a tiny pinpoint of light, surrounded in a halo, the one sole existing thing. It split the Darkness, it rendered it, it tore it to pieces with its unearthly light. The Darkness looked menacingly at the small pinpoint, growing more fearful and tense by the minute. Rakah, in the form of a small point, infuriated the Darkness even further, by moving randomly about with not a care in the world. Suddenly the Darkness reacted with violence, grew tall and big, surrounded the small point of light with its most dense darkness and tried to swallow it up, quench its light, extinguish it forever, so that the Darkness could go on to be, uninterrupted. But the Darkness dared not attack it head on, for it had a power which was unknown to it. The light grew, however. It grew in the form of a small cloud, with in the middle still that lightsource ever present. The cloud started slowly to expand and the lightsources in it became numerous. Slowly but inadvertently the Darkness was pushed aside, by the one thing, the only thing, that it hated, for indeed there was only one thing besides Darkness now, Light.
Henceforth I will call Rakah a she, but whether or not she was a she has never quite clearly come forward from the story. That part is assumed by the folklore of the people inhabiting this place, which of course isn't all their fault. If you ask me, Rakah slipped up on that part while creating them. Well, that's not all her fault, a lot of it they have to thank to themselves. But I must be getting back to my story.
Where was I? Ah, yes...
Rakah, being newly born, however, didn't have any of the senses the people nowadays have. She knew that she was there, that she existed, but she had no way to check this assumption. She wished to be able to have a notion of herself, feel her presence, and she created the First Sense, the Sense of Touch. Now she was able to feel herself rubbing against her. She knew now that she really felt good about herself. It immediately gave her a sense of coordination, which was severely practical. She noticed that she could move herself, twist herself into any shape she wished. During the first time after she created the Sense of Touch she had a lot of fun and possibilities changing and twisting her shape into all sorts of forms. It is even said that all the shapes that have ever come into the world since then, had all been a shape of Rakah in her practices with this Sense.
She could make herself very compact, and when she did change into a shape, immediately would the Darkness envelope her tiny self. Not attacking mind you, but abiding its time, for its time was sure to come.
The Darkness did try to win back some of the territory. For example when Rakah tried a very long stretch of herself just to see how far she could come and what it would be like. At that time, Darkness saw its chance and tried to push through Rakah right into the middle of that long stretch of herself. Rakah could feel the Darkness tugging and pushing slowly yet extremely strong and with all its strength in the middle of her, at that time, rather long body. The Darkness almost went through Rakah splitting herself into two separate parts that time. Before this could happen, though, Rakah sprang back into a large shape like a sharp spring and so prevented this story from an abrupt ending.
Rakah was a little more careful after that incident and she was henceforth more aware of the Darkness surrounding her then of old, yet still the Darkness would manage to thwart her plans, as we will see.
So now Rakah was aware of herself and from this point onward, there was a desire for creation, burning brightly within her. Rakah now could feel, but she couldn't see what. Rakah looked about itself and saw nothing. Which wasn't all that strange, seeing there was Darkness and everything, nobody could see a thing. This was clearly not very good, and Rakah created for itself the Second Sense, the Sense of Sight, in order to see what was going on. Along with the Sense of Sight, Rakah created, without apparently knowing about it, the things to see, white and black, colour, light and darkness. Finally Rakah got a good look at herself. She seemed to be made of a fleeting gas with all sorts of small floating dots of light in it. She could see where she would float past herself, she could see the dim points of light floating inside her. Finally she could see what it was all about.
Finally, she created the Third Sense, the Sense of Hearing. She didn't do this out of sore need, not because she needed it or anything. It was just incomplete. She could feel what was happening, and she could see what was happening, but in order to bind these two together, to have a connection between the seeing and feeling, she needed a third sense. And at the same time she created sounds, without knowing it. She could hear herself, floating by, roaring by at great speed, and gently stopping. She could hear as well as see and feel the different points of light inside herself. For the first time in her comparatively short existance she could hear herself be. It was a small, thing, high sound, always in the distance and Rakah couldn't exactly make out what it was. It was all around her, and, after closer examination, inside her too. She could almost feel the tone, and from this she became aware that life itself has a tone of its own, and each life has a different one. This gave her great joy.
'Tis said that this is the first time that she wished there were other beings around, so she could hear more tones, and perhaps these all together might make something other than that monotonous tone. This, wise people of Lore say, was the first time that Rakah had got the need to create something. Although I don't know if this is true. (The Darkness ofcourse, had no tone whatsowever)
Finally, she created the Fifth Sense, the Sense of Smell. In order to supplement the Fourth Sense.
First there was Darkness,
Then there was Light,
Rakah the being who exists,
Was born there that Night.
Rakah wanted to feel around,
So she created feeling.
And she felt being unbound,
And the First Sense gained its meaning.
Rakah was so very alone,
So she developed Sight,
To see what she was doing,
And the Second Sense was borne into the night.
Rakah wanted to hear,
So she made hearing,
And it was to her very dear
And the Third Sense went into being.
As encore Rakah created the last two
as final supplement to all unabated
The ability to smell she had to do
And the Forth Sense was created.
The power of taste only was left.
The last one of the five,
And she created it with zest,
And the Fifth Sense came to life.
'Tis said in lore,
That she made one more.
But that one is as yet unclear,
Even to the greatest seer.
And so this sad song ends,
For how it will continue, on us it all depends.
(Lay of the Five Senses)
Then she took from her body a single point of light, and threw it into the darkness in front of her. Immediately something strange began happening to the light, and under the influence of the thoughts of Rakah, it became bigger. This dot grew really big. Not that it amounted to anything like the shape of Rakah herself, but yet of a fair size. It was a sphere, totally white and giving off so much light that even Rakah had some problems looking into it. She looked at it, and she thought she had created the most beautiful thing ever to Grace her eyes. Which wasn't all that strange, seeing it was the only thing she created yet.
But quickly her interest waned. The white sphere, which we now as Yasa, the Consumer, was very dull. Nothing was happening, you just could look at it, or don't look at it. Rakah needed a new challenge, something that would evolve in time, Rakah sought something to divert her attention and took another of her tiny points of light in order to create a whole new concept. This point of light was a lot dimmer then the other one and it wasn't the idea of Rakah to make another Sun. She made it grow like the sun, but to only a small size. When it reached the size she wanted it to have she dimmed the light even further, and the heat she was feeling from it became less intense, and then suddenly a crust developed around the sphere. After much tinkering with it and yet not bringing in too much detail, she sent it on its way around the sun.
After that she created the land, brown soil, and the water to fill the bigger gaps of texture of the planet, and the sky, air, and clouds of vapour, to wrap itself around the planet. The land and the water in it's vastness didn't have much detail then, nor where there any living things and the entire planet looked alone, desolate and rather rough around the edges. In the making of planets, Rakah had only a dim idea of what the idea was, and she thought to create details later, however, this didn't happen because, without intention, she created something out of her own matter which would do it for her. After that creative process was over, out of her own matter, she created two shapeless forms. Then she took two points of light from herself and put each one in one of the shapeless forms. However, in one form she planted a fierce flowing point of light, piercing its tiny gas cloud thoroughly, while in the other one she put a smaller light, barely able to penetrate the gas cloud.
Then she created a small fireball, put in the two forms and send it slinging towards the planet. The fireball journeyed towards the planet, went through its thick atmosphere in one piece and crash-landed on a small clearing in the middle of the future Land of Karchan. The giant fireball came unto the clearing at a very high speed and crashed deeply into the soil, spilling out sand and earth in heaps all around it in amazing clouds. When the dustclouds lifted, a crater was visible. Not large, for it wasn't such a large comet, yet the extreme heat that the comet generated fused the earth together, making it glasslike. The inside of that crater was still comparatively hot, yet was losing much of its heat in the cold air.
Where the comet had hit the ground, the ground was smooth, brown, very hard, and solid all round. At the bottom of the crater, when the dustclouds were gone, could be seen two forms or shapes looking around and that was when things started getting wrong.
Darkness was still out there and watched Rakah create the sun and the planet with contempt, waiting for a chance to thwart the plans of Rakah without success, but now, at last, its time had come. The Darkness created for the first, last and only time something. Something evil, something dark, something containing nothing but the Darkness itself, in its most compact form, It was a shard, a Black Shard, a shard made of solid Darkness. Now Darkness waited until a good opportunity would arise for it, to try and destroy everything Rakah created. However, the Darkness always took the sly route, the route of obscurity, so nobody would suspect that the Darkness was behind it. And when Rakah was looking at the place on the planet where the two shapeless forms were put, the Darkness took its chance, and managed to get on the other side of the planet, the dark side. And quickly, before Rakah could interfere, the Darkness enveloped the planet for a few seconds and disappeared again. During those seconds the Shard was inserted into the least bright form by the Darkness, and the Darkness disappeared again without Rakah, and the two nameless shapes, knowing what had happened. But the Shard stuck in the form, throbbing like a bad evil heart, and could not be detected, ready to start its evil work, to change the shape and bring it over to the Darkness, so the Darkness would have a servant on the planet, ready to do its evil bidding.
The two beings called themselves Karn and Zhanos, and they had, just as Rakah, the power to create and to destroy. They looked at the land and both thought it a desolate place. But while Zhanos liked it, Karn sought to improve it with things that would enliven it a bit. Zhanos was not at all pleased at this, as he liked the desolation and all and loathed changing it.
Karn wanted to create things and Zhanos wanted to undo them. At last Karn could take it no longer, and formed some vocal cords. And then they created, between themselves, the first fight.
'Why do you say that this desolate place should remain the same?', spoke Karn for the first time, with a high clear sound as the sound of a knife gently being stricken against a crystal glass. Zhanos was shocked at the new development, also formed some vocal chords, less adept then Karn but still functional.
'Because I like it the way it is, and I don't want you to meddle with it!', said Zhanos with a harsh and particularly unpleasant sound. Karn sighed.
'But what do you want from me? I mean, look at this place, it is totally clear that Rakah meant us to do something with it, in order to amuse her.'.
'I am telling you to leave it the way it is, it is nice and desolate, and I like it!! If you start changing it again, I'll have to try and stop you!'.
At this, Karn was shocked yet his brow darkened and his face stood resolute, not bent on giving in into the whims of his brother.
'Well, then, maybe you should go ahead and try!', said Karn to Zhanos. And then commences the very first fight, and one of the best, ever told in the entire history of Karchan, it was also the last time that two beings of such terrible powers came in contact with each other. The exact choreography of the fight is not given here, as it reaches far above our concepts of fighting. Some people say that they used their vast minds to trick each other, and that the entire battle took place between them without moving. And if that is what you want to believe, then go ahead because I am not about to write anything down to try and mar this great event with words that are totally inadequate.
Oh, well, where was I?
After a particularly long while of continuous battle, they stopped fighting. Both in extremely good health and both unable to get the other one to yield. Apparently, they both were made of the same stuff, and were completely equal to each other. There was no difference between the two, except maybe in their minds. And as they were exactly the same, they were an exact match for each other. It was impossible for one to triumph over the other. But then Rakah, seeing that the amusement had stopped and that there never would be a conqueror, she choose between Karn and Zhanos. And she choose Karn. Creating a being not unlike Karn and Zhanos to serve as her messenger; Fate. Immediately they were made aware of the choice that was made by Rakah, and Zhanos turned aside, his expression horribly changed in a mix of hatred against Rakah and Karn, and surprise, and the knowledge of the fact that he wasn't chosen. This bitter memory he cherished forever and from this point on his hatred never diminished or increased, it was constant and eternal. He walked away from the clearing that day and withdrew far away in the rocky mountains in the South of the land, never to be seen for a long time. Then, the night fell, and the sun disappeared over the horizon.
And Gods to reign all over the world and shape it after the way he thought it was meant to be. All these Gods were named by the Elves, and their names are here given. What the original names of the Gods were, or whether they had names or not isn't known. Among these Gods were Atalaya, Goddess of Every Living Thing, guardian of all that lives and breathes upon Kúri, Manatoba, The Smith of the Gods, who could make anything for them, Mielikki, Queen of the Forests, who covered the Land in lush and growing things, Meadel, King Under the Sea, who was in charge of the ocean and is the guardian of all Ships, and Havens, and Ports, and see-faring people in general, Furchin, God of the Land, guardian over mountains, hills, valleys, and every other sort of landscape.
'I greet you all, my Gods. I have created you after my own image, so you can do my bidding.', Karn spoke to them. Manatoba was the first to speak.
'And what is you bidding, father?'.
Karn was a little taken aback, he never considered himself a father, but he was now, at least in the eyes of his children.
'My bidding is to you to develop the world you see around you as you see fit. I have all the confidence in you I need, for you are of me, and have the same ideas as I have, and therefor you will always do that which I feel to be good.' The Gods nodded.
'I have to leave now, and leave you.'
'Why must you leave?', Atalaya spoke with a clear and beautiful voice, 'Why cannot you stay, and help us, guide us, give us advice as to what it is we should do?'
'I have no advice to give you, all the ideas you have are already shaped inside your minds, ideas I put there, and I wish of you to make them come true in this world.' At this, Karn turned around and walked away. When he was at a fair distance, he turned round once more, and said in a clear voice :'Fear not, for you have nothing to fear. I will not be gone far, and wherever you go, I will always be within hailing range.'
Karn left them and disappeared into the mountains, as Zhanos had done previously, and if, by any chance, you might see an old man, clad in rags, sitting beside the road, take care and don't act foolish. Atalaya, Manatoba, Mielikki, Meadel and Furchin talked about what they were about to do, and it was agreed by all that Furchin, should take care of the making of a place for the Gods, where they could rest and live. And Furchin journeyed with the other Gods to the shore of the Great Ocean, and commanded the ocean floor to rise above the waves, and low and behold the ocean floor moved, and a great earthquake came. The ground shook with rage, and all looked at Furchin in awe of his power of creation. Below the waters a great brown shape appeared, rising steadily until it reached the surface of the ocean. Above the waters, the land rose, and rose, and a fairly big island became visible. Then Atalaya stepped forward, raised her hands, and a veil of illusion came down around the island, to keep it hidden from all creatures that had no business there. Next in line was Meadel, King of Water, and he let the waves break upon the soil, creating by their compound impact a long beach on the south side of the Island, and dozens of fjords on the west-side. Manatoba pushed forward and laid on the island roads of pure white stones, shimmering in the sunlight. Mielikki cast beautiful flowers as the world has never again seen to grow wherever they rest, covering this place in such beautiful colors and greenery that all after would pale by comparison. Then The Gods made their place there, build their own houses, which do not have their equal among the palaces of men and elves upon the earth. And after this great work was done, they rested for a while upon this Island, each in their own home.
In the middle of this Island, a mountain could be seen, and none of the Gods occupied it. And Manatoba called to the Gods, that he would make a meeting place there, for all the Gods. And he created a place, unrivalled among all the houses of the Gods, huge, and visible all over the Island. Their first real meeting was held there.
It is said that in the First War these books were lost, but a strange inscription written by a traveling scholar was donated to the library in Pendulis in the recent era that claims the books were purposely dispersed. Some things even I cannot see.
It is known that evil cannot create, only destroy, and indeed these new monstrosities were the result of the Touch of Evil upon mortal souls, for all the hapless creatures enslaved by Zhanos' Thauranko were forced into grueling labor in the blight of Darkness, or twisted into things unnatural. Most notably of these perversions are the bloodlust-filled Metguul, The Lich Kings, and Uliimathroqu (The Devourer of Thrones).
The souls of mortals possessed by those of Dagorii's daemonic and formless children, when bound to mortal creatures in unholy ritual, became what some call vampyr and others vampire, though neither are right. Osnodon, Lord of Death, found among the captives from the Sunlit Lands some who were indeed slaves, but willing slaves, devoted deliverers of his twisted Curse upon mortalkind. To these few he granted Unlife that gave them powers over the husks of those that had died, and through them the zombie, vampire, Skeleton and other such desecrations of the Undead have come to be known.
Most terrible of these workings was that of Kulanin who deceived and seduced Dagorii's most loyal High Priestess, an elven maiden from the First Family that had betrayed her kin for love of evil, and she bore unto him a beast of such unspeakable horror and destruction that even Zhanos was appaled and Kulanin smote it's name and banished it the depths of Kuri where none would cross it until the end of all time, when the beast's name will be remembered and it will devour the world...
If you'll excuse me, I always get a bit sad at that part. Where was I?
So Zhanos schemed, and His servants crafted, and all too soon He was prepared to destroy the new and great world that mortals had been making in His absence. He summoned His sons, the Thauranko, to Him in His dark castle on the tallest fell mountain in the lands on the now Dark Side of the world. Up there, where there was no air and no light nor the other things all creatures on Kuri need for life, He told them of His plan. They were surprised, for His plan would not fail this time, and they knew it instantly upon hearing it. This time all things would come to be destroyed, Forever. Soon, He would not need even they his Sons, and then Karn would go, and then Himself, for this is what the Shard of Darkness deep within His being drove Him to do.
The Thauranko exchanged a glance, a meeting of minds, and a decision was made. The war began, and again the nature of mortalkind nearly drove them to the destruction of themselves, when again something amazing happened. Two things actually.
One thing, was that the God of Will, of Fire and of Freedom, sacrificed his godly essence for mortalkind to be free to craft their own Fates through the use of Magic. The more suprising thing, and even as Zhanos became aware that it was going to happen, the Thauranko attacked Him as one and together His sons betrayed Him and tore from Him His essence; the Shard of Darkness, taking it far away from Him and thusly striking him of much of His apocolyptic power.
The corruption on His being was irreversable, but the diminishing of His power had made Him less than Godly, and so it was that he was exiled by his own children, to walk the sunlit lands as an Immortal, a Lesser God, thus insulting him moreso than even Rakah had by choosing Karn over Himself.
Hereafter, Zhanos was no longer the true ruler of the Throne of Evil, and His power was divided among His Thauranko. Therefore, the Immortal and ever evil creature that once was Zhanos is ever after refered to as Zahnos when he reappears in History to strike at the workings of good and set vengence upon his Sons.
This ended the Second Great War, and time thereafter began in the Year of 0 of the Age of Mortals (AM), and the Age of Civilization was mostly forgotten.