A World in the Making

Before the world was, there were before it mighty spirits, these beings of immense power sailed the cosmos and possessed great power. Stars were formed and destroyed, celestial bodies formed and shattered, light was blazed to life and extinguished. In the first instance of their being, some spirits felt compelled to bring forth life and others to end it, and so it was that for eons these spirits scattered across all that was and the chaotic duel of creation and destruction was wrought across the whole universe.

Finally seeing that such acts served no purpose, the mindless destruction and the spirits came together and devised a new approach. A new form of of creation would be devised. One that would live, grow, produce other of itself before being taken to die. In this way, continuation and growth were ensured without stagnation.

So it was that in the early years of this world, before even the Aildar were to walk the world these spirits in concert for the first time and so was the world made as we know it to be. Mountains raised and valleys levelled. Beneath the earth was kindled fire and over it was covered water and in this concert of creating and destroying there was brought forth life, fleeting and brief by standards of what had come before, but vibrant.

Throughout the millennia uncounted of their cooperative rule the world grew and was sustained carefully and all was held in careful balance where the death of the old brought forth life and new fruits in the young. However, though they had built this world, it was not their own. Though none of their number, either of Creation or Destruction could recount their first appearance, a new form of life was soon discovered. Wandering the valleys, crossing streams and mountains these new beings were in many ways far less than the spirits that had roamed the cosmos and built the world and yet also similar, since, while devoid of much power, and being creatures of matter and not spirit they were much alike to the world that the spirits had built, but much aside from that they also communed and reasoned to a greater or lesser extent amongst each other.

So it was that a grand forest was raised up of great wonder, since it seemed to be at one time growing and thriving and also to be aflame and withering in such a manner that to look upon one place or another the mortal mind would struggle to perceive if at one moment it was one of life or death. To this strange wood the spirits bequeathed their rationality and understanding so that they might speak with the new creatures that roamed their world on terms they could comprehend. And the nature of this wood gave it the name Ame-by-Amarwe (A-may-by-Amar-way)

The spirits roamed the camps and villages of the new creatures and in their wandering selected three of those that were the greatest leaders of the three largest groups of these creatures, and entering into their dreams they called them over many days, until finally the three came and met each other outside the boughs of Ame-by-Amarwe.

"What strange land is this?" One spoke to others.

Another replied, "Perhaps the realm of the gods? Behold how it marks in great intensity the aspects of making and unmaking that is the character of the world we know."

The third intoned sorrowfully, "I hope in truth they are not gods that make this place, for callous building and breaking of the world, as we see embodied here, bodes ill for those who reside as part of that world. Would that this brush and those trees could speak, what cries of anguish would we hear from them that are kept forever dying and yet live?"

The first spoke once more, "Yet it seems our doom is to walk within, for thrice did I receive summons to come this way, and now I am at this place of wonder and woe, I feel a great compulsion to enter herein."

The latter two agreed in like manner to the first and so they entered in Ame-by-Amarwe.

Though dense and confusing to the mind to wander within, to see the animals seemingly giving life and taking it, the growth of burning saplings and the falling of verdant leaves, it seemed to men that the woodland welcomed them and assisted them on their way, shifting this way and that to accommodate their march and lead them towards the center of the mighty woodland.

Once arrived, the three men stood, filled now with great fear, as before them stood the largest trees they had yet seen, dozens of meters high, but most strangely there were carved into the bark of these trees what seemed to be the faces of men, and from within where the eyes appeared to be, light streamed forth, and the faces of that were set within the mighty trees were stern.

See "The Knowing" to continue...