All things are possible, and alive, and enduring, in Earthsoul.
MAGISTER JAER
In the Outer Sea of the known world lie those verdant isles known as the Outer Islands. The largest of these is a mountainous isle, with many fertile valleys which were Separated once, in the bad time, but are now knitted together by the ancient commerce between man and myth.
Above one of these valleys is a watch tower built, so it is said, in the long ago. A stream flows nearby, plunging over the scarp into the pools of the river valley. Ow trees bloom there, and small birds sing invisibly among the mosses. The young Magister Jaer stayed often in this place while the sun rose and set, time on time, learning the way from one place to another, learning the numen of this place, greeting the numen.
‘Contentment in time. Dweller.’
To this place, among others, the Serpent came. Jaer saw him out of eyes clear as dew in the morning of the world and smiled upon him – which the Serpent had not expected.
‘Have you sought your father yet?’ the Serpent asked, sharpened somewhat by annoyance at Jaer’s composure.
‘Yes:
The one word was all that was needed. The Serpent’s body lowered until only the head was raised above the earth. Jaer reached out a hand to stroke that scaled head, whispering.
‘Iknow your name.’
All things are possible,
and alive,
and enduring,
in Earthsoul.
APPENDIX
THE HISTORY OF THE KNOWN WORLD
At the end of that period which the people later called the ‘First Cycle,’ (FC), there was only one of the great ancient cities left on the shore of the eastern sea, In subsequent centuries that city was called ‘Tharliezalor’ [thar-li-AY-zah-lor] which means ‘High Silver House’ in the ancient tongue. What its original name may have been, none knew. It was said, however, that from this city at the end of the Cycle, and after the general destruction which encompassed much of the known world, the wizards of the first age had departed. ‘The Departure’ is synonymous with the end of the first age. Of the wizards some said they were high lords, others said they were devils. Whatever they had been or hoped still to be at that time, they departed the great city and went westward across the world. They rebuilt the area around Tchent, establishing a university there and a great library. They set up various places of refuge, towers and redoubts, all of which were said to be repositories of hidden, ancient knowledge. They are said to have founded the city of Orena [OH-r’nah], though some dispute this, leaving a great part of their knowledge recorded there.
At the end of this migration, this period of ‘Departure,’ the wizards vanished. Some said they went westward into Wasnost [WAHZ-nohst]. Some said they went ‘offworld,’ while others claimed that ‘offworld’ was only a metaphor for death. Wherever they had gone, they had left a strange heritage behind: A group of reclusive archivists in a single complex of building and tunnels at Tchent, a remote and solitary city, Orena, numerous other refuges scattered across the earth, and a few sayings. These were called, ‘The sayings of the wizards.’
If half life disputes with whole life, half life wins
.
If shadow disputes with light, shadow wins
.
If science disputes with knowledge, science wins
.
We are victorious. We depart
.
This was one of the sayings. After a time, most of them were forgotten, and anything that sounded obscure or foolish was said to be ‘a saying of the wizards.’ After the Departure there was a thousand-year period of violence, famine, war, and ignorance. Literacy was preserved only in Tchent and Orena and perhaps in a few other isolated places. Some say this period of darkness was foreseen by the wizards. Others say that the period was caused by the Departure. Whatever the cause, the lives of the people were brutish and brief, and history existed only in legend and stories passed from generation to generation.
Into this dark world came the Thiene, no one knew from where or why. They were people of marvellous persuasive powers, people of great skill and knowledge, and they joined tribe after barbarian tribe together into a skeletal civilization. They coaxed the archivists out of Tchent and sent them among the people as teachers, sent them to distribute copies of books newly printed in the languages then spoken. The Thiene founded the Choirs of the Sisterhood, insisting that members should be recruited to live full but sequestered lives spent in the study of the Powers, that is the natural powers of the earth and the universe. Taniel was the best known of the Thiene of that time since she actually lived and worked with the first Sisters to compose the discipline of their Order. It was to these Sisterhoods that the history of the First Cycle was given, including the story of its destructive end, prior to the Departure. Taniel taught that the First Cycle ended, at least in part, because of the worship of Firelord to the exclusion of all other of the Powers. This imbalance had brought the world to ruin, and the Sisterhoods were established that the balance might be restored.
The Thiene provided a number of the lost years, giving the date of their entry into the affairs of the world as 1200 SC, Second Cycle. The Thiene were said to be the donors of certain artifacts and tools which they called ‘fairy godmother gifts.’ What was meant by this phrase is uncertain, though it is certain that the Thiene regarded it as humorous.
It is thought that there was some intermarriage between the Thiene and other people of earth. Tar-Akwith often bragged of having had a Thiene great-great-great-grandmother. His wife was a woman of Tchent, among whom there was rumoured to be quite an admixture of the line of Thiene. Certain there
