<i>Once, in a far away land bordered on all sides by other such lands, a boy was born. He moved around a lot, his parents never seemed happy where they were, so the boy got used to being by himself without a real circle of friends.

He became quiet, withdrawn, and capable of being entirely by himself with no worries whatsoever.

Children, as children do, teased this boy.

Why wouldn’t he come and play with them?

Why did he sit on his own?

He must be some sort of freak!

He cried his tears, and he fought his fights, and all he got was damp and bruised.

So one day, this boy decided to just stop letting it affect him.

He took his heart, and his emotions, and he spun a web of ice, and he wrapped them up in it and tucked them away somewhere cool and dark, all his vulnerability hidden away in the darkness, just ice and emptiness filling up the space, a child driven only by clockwork, going through the motions.

Until he met her, at least.

She was the most wonderful girl: Fiery red hair, emerald green eyes, and an IQ higher than her cup size.

Gradually, he unwound his crystalline web, exposing more and more of his heart to the air, and to her, until for a time it was as if it had never been imprisoned in the first place, and his heart swelled in his breast, and he was happy.

Until he had to move again.

The lover’s parting was a tearful one, as such partings often are, and the boy wrapped his heart back up in its web, and tried to once more resume his cold and aloof position.

But it was not to be, his heart had truly grown with her, and it was too big now for the web; he could block some of his emotions, but he couldn’t stop feeling the terrible void they (and she) left.

So, when he came of age, as boys do, he left his home, to wander the world and seek for himself meaning and, maybe to fill her gap with another.

 In time, he came to a mountain monastery, devoted to a strange energy called the “Dark Flame”.

Here, he was taught of the magics, and learnt to wield the Dark Flame, and became a powerful warrior, and he met the second woman who was to change his life.

The boy, now a man, and a warrior at that, felt the icy noose around his heart shatter at his first meeting with her, and he was smitten with the beautiful maid who was followed by the two dragons.

For a time, he was again happy, although his love for the lady Skye was kept hidden from all, including her; simply being near her was cause enough for jubilation.

Until he came along, that is.

The temple, his second home, was attacked by a group of murderers called the Crimson Void, and he himself was thrown into a duel with one of the mightiest of warriors, a man by the name of Left Crimson.

The man that Skye would fall in love with.

Defeated by Left Crimson, the boy could do nothing but watch as Skye fell for him, head over heels.

She loved him as sure as the rose blooms in summer, and as sure as it’s thorns it destroyed her.

In the end, the boy’s revenge on Left Crimson was thwarted as he killed himself, but Skye had invested so much of heart in him that when he died, so did she, as sure as if he’d impaled her himself.

With the Dark Flame destroyed, and his second love dead, the boy returned home, the whisperings of magic in his head growing louder and louder, until he reached the town of his parents birth and found them in their graves, put there by bandits for the price of a loaf of bread.

Finally, the pent-up power of Sheetha that flowed through his very soul was released, and his mind was overwhelmed by the sheer destructive capability that lay in his hands.

Now, all that remains of this far-away land is a foul desert, home only to raiders and worse, hideous unclean THINGS dragged there from other places, other times, and further away than that. At the centre of the waste lies a single clear spring, the “Tear of the Nation”, and it is these clear waters that the Sighing Sword was forged, and with the suffering of a once-great land was the blade imbued.

The boy took this blade, and with the power of Sheetha still flowing as the primary force in his mind, he cut a swathe of destruction through the surrounding kingdoms, slaying all that he pleased and delighting in the anguish he caused.

Eventually, a robed man on the road defeated him, and with potent magics of a sort still unknown, he bound the power within, restoring the boy’s sanity, and with it the knowledge of what he had done.

The boy wandered once more, lost in a miasma of despair and self-loathing, gaining as he did some extra knowledge and some extra features.

For he soon discovered that not even the sweet embrace of death could free him from the torment of his memories.

When first the old man freed his mind again, he was dazed, but quickly came to realise the enormity of his evil.

He knew what he had to do.

Taking the Sighing Sword in his two hands, he lightly lifted the blade and, with all the force his trembling limbs could muster, rammed it through his own heart.

 

The fires burned him terribly, but he knew that he deserved it.

As far as one can be in hell, he was content: he had done wrong, and he knew he was being punished.

Which is why he was somewhat surprised to be pulled back into life, back into his old body.

Except, not quite.

He discovered that his teeth had elongated, becoming vicious fangs, leaving him looking a little more like the carvings he had seen of Sheetha.

This shocked him, and since it wasn’t an experience he was keen to repeat he quickly left, consigning himself to the fate of wandering.

He wandered first through the Wastes, slaying the monstrosities that dwelled there and seeking out the old sites of worship, finding what he could of Sheetha and the other gods of his world.

Finally, in a cave deep beneath the deserts, he found, bound in the flayed skins of heretic’s children, the complete recording of the history of his world, along with it’s name: Skysend, the plane of balance.

When Skysend was called forth from the void, it was simply a flat, lifeless disc, balanced on the end of the great Axis of the Multiverse, serving as an end cap to all possible planes.

But six God-Brothers saw it one day, and rejoiced, for were they not gods without peoples? So, each took a sixth of the disc and on it fashioned peoples, each in his own image, to worship them, and for a time all was in balance and Skysend prospered, a haven of truth and enlightenment.

The God-Brothers moved freely amongst their people, and each considered himself the greatest, his virtue the strongest, and in time each began to covet his brothers their lands and peoples.

Thus began the first Godswar.

As the territories of the various gods grew and shrank, the balance of Skysend was disrupted, and it threatened to tip over, spilling the multiverse out into the entropic darkness beyond, and the ninth sibling of the gods was called forth to prevent this catastrophe.

Great was the wrath of Sheetha, the sister-goddess, and she scoured the lands clean again of all life, before calling her brothers to her at the hub of all possible realities, where only she and the destruction she represented was a constant.

Here, the writing in the book became more of a frenzied scrawl, as the author transcribed words not meant for mortal ears.

“Lo, Brothers, behold my wrath for I am vexed most greatly with you!

This land was to have been a paradise for you, but you have despoiled the gift and threatened all with your greed!

So, I shall place in the heart of Skysend a country of mighty warriors who shall be the guardians of balance, and I alone shall reign over them, and they will ever keep you in check!

To repopulate this world we shall, together, fashion a single people composed of all your strengths, not the flawed creatures you have made in your pride!”

And the God-Brothers were ashamed, and hid their faces from her, and they wailed and gnashed their teeth for days and nights until she relented and favoured them with a smile, for as destruction always follows creation, so does creation always follow destruction, and she was queen of both.

(There was an excised fragment here, consisting of a sonnet in praise of the goddess)

“Be not sad, Brothers of the Faith. You all shall have your own tribes of the new people, each in equal number, and thus shall the balance be maintained! But should one of you walk amongst your people, or seek to gain power over another, I shall once more intervene, and none will be spared my wrath!”

And this was the Accord of the gods.

And the new people were made, and each was crafted in parts by the gods:

From Kristan, the god of beauty, they received faces, each different from the other.

From Ekli, the god of wisdom, they received minds, that each could strive to improve his lot.

From Tannhaur, the god of love, they received hearts, that they may continue themselves.

From Denris, the god of pleasure, they received genitals, that their joy may ever increase.

From Zerma, god of speed, they received legs, that they may range the world over.

From Hetsovi, god of craft, they received hands, that they may forge new tools to serve them.

And Sheetha breathed on them the spark of life, and each took a seventh of that which was made to its lands, and there they settled and grew again.

Thus began the golden age of man.

Each god took a man from his domain to be his champion; the one who best represented their virtue, and gave them great power.

Only Sheetha stood aside, waiting for the one who would be her chosen warrior and bring about her time again.

The champions were blessed for lo; they would not die, but would simply become closer to their god each time.

Thus, did the gods warp the Accord.

 

On reading this, Khoryos was enlightened.

For a thousand years he did walk the earth, dying many times, and each time coming back and each time a little closer to godhood.

He gained magical eyes, that he may see in the night as in the day, see the living wherever they may hide, and see the hidden truths that surround all.

He gained a tail of brilliant, cerulean hue, and countless more changes to things that could not be seen.

 

In time, he came across a long-forgotten shrine to Sheetha in the desert, and there found a crystal orb of most radiant orange, as if lit from within by a great fire.

Which, in a manner of speaking, it was.

 

Upon touching the crystal surface, Khoryos felt a great rushing sensation as he fell through the walls of the crystal , finding himself transported into a great hall, dominated by a statue of the goddess Sheetha from which sprang rivers of molten metal, and seven great forges on the banks of these rivers.

This was the Godsforge, the sacred tool of the champion of Sheetha, and it was here that he mastered the shaping of metal. When he left the crystal, he discovered he could now touch it in safety, and carried it about his person.

He wandered for another thousand years, plying his trade as a warrior and a smith, until the newly formed Council of Priests decided that having the embodiment of the apocalypse living in their realm was too dangerous, and so decided to banish him.

 

Because Skysend was placed on the Axis itself, it was inaccessible by outside mages, but people from it could easily make a one-way trip into the multiverse, and so Khoryos was banished by the combined powers of the plane’s greatest sorcerers, plummeting down the axis until his path intersected with another plane, a strange world where both humans and anthropomorphic animals lived together, if not in harmony.

He thought to find acceptance here, but to the humans he was too close to an animal and to the furs, he was too close to a human, so he left again and travelled further, until washing up in a strange plane far from anything he had seen before, where all manner of species lived in harmony.

The people seemed happy to accept him but he couldn’t allow himself to reach out to them, the physical scars of his long years prominent and the mental scars more so.

So he contented himself to sit on the sidelines and observe, until someone came into his life that changed all that…