Prologue: Forward by The Historian

In which the origins of this tale are discussed by its finder.

Greetings to you my dear friends, I am, well, I’ve been in the news enough recently with my discovery, so you already know who I am. So just simply call me The Historian. My purpose here, is to tell you how the events you are about to read about came to be in my knowledge; rather the scrolls so famously spoken of, came to be in my possession.

 

I was, three years ago, twenty five years and four months of age to the exact second, when I was out as I sometimes am on weekends, out for a stroll in the great Alaskan wilderness that I live in. At the aforementioned exactness of my age, the sun was still up, for as you well know, the sun never sets up here in summer, though indeed, it was getting lower every day. It was this very moment that I spotted the chest.

 

It was of a wood that was blacker than the cold depths of space, no matter how impossible that sounds. It seemed to absorb the light itself, for no light would reflect off its surface in any manner. It was as though someone took a Black Hole, and fashioned it into a box, somehow limiting its pull to all but light. Looking at it, I got a distinct sinister impression. The metal though, it was white, and it was gold at the same time. It shone with a purity and holiness that one could never find, even if one ransacked all the holiest places on earth. The metal soothed my discomfort of the strange wood, and no matter how often I shook my head, or rubbed my eyes, or blinked, the box would not go away.

Thus I was convinced I was not dreaming, as I am known to do.

 

I grabbed the chest, and picked it up, thinking it would be quite heavy, yet it seemed lighter than air. I tell you, and I shall repeat this many times, this was not a normal chest. Well, what to do with it? Some would have left it, others buried it. Some would’ve destroyed it, others turned it in. I, as is well known by now, took it home and studied it.

 

It took some three months before I conceived to try opening it, filled as my thoughts were over the strangeness of its materials. During those three months, I searched the internet many times over, but not even in fiction, could I find a satisfying answer. I was ready to laugh it off as a trick of fairies, as some foul imp’s practical joke on a man who was out minding his own business, enjoying nature’s beauty. Yet, nothing, no world mythology could satisfy me, no religion held the answer. I was as on my own as when I first saw it.

 

Thus it occurred to me to open it, that its contents might yield some clue as to its origin. I fancied very little was inside, maybe a coin or two, or maybe some artifact that belonged to a lost civilization with previously unknown materials. I thought maybe I had discovered proof of Atlantis. Yet imagine my surprise, when I opened it, and found it filled with parchment papers, books, and scrolls; lots of them, almost a whole libraries worth of knowledge. Each had strange designs I had never before seen, in characters I had never before seen.

 

The Characters, each character of the language on those old parchment papers was in and of itself, a work of art. It looked to my eyes, as something of a hybrid of every written language ever conceived of by Man on Earth, even cave paintings.

 

My mind could not comprehend the sheer vastness of this language, for on one parchment, I counted over ten thousand symbols, and not once did they repeat. This was not a normal chest, a normal language, or a normal discovery. I believe I’m repeating myself. Anyway, moving on, I took that parchment out, and stared at it in fascination.

 

Days wore on, and it occupied my thoughts. Suddenly, I realized some three months later, I understood this language. By the very same power that brought this chest to me, I learned the language through unnatural means! Science says magic cannot exist, for it has no valid explanation, and leaves it as superstition. Yet there are many things it cannot explain. So until someone tells me how I can learn an entire language by staring at it for a couple of months, I declare it to have been an enchanted parchment meant to grab my attention, and keep it while it secretly taught me to understand the language of that unnatural chest’s contents. Not very scientific I know, but it will suffice for you, as I flat out refuse to debate the matter, or to give you a second option, or opinion. A miracle, there, that’s a common enough explanation for unknown phenomenon.

 

Having realized I knew the language, I flew back to the chest eagerly, and read parchment after parchment, scroll after scroll and book after book. I have read of legends and terrors, of Wars and loves, of Gods, Mortals, and the things of the darkness best left undescribed at the moment. I have learned that chest contains history, the history of an entire Multi-verse.

 

Since that moment, Scientists the world over have tried to explain my discovery, but can’t. One might think they would keep it, but the chest has attached itself to me somehow, for no one ever thinks to keep me from it. So here we are, in the present. I will begin to fulfill the chests only request, that I share its contents with the world, that the history of where it came from not be forgotten, but remembered, and perhaps used.

 

But to tell it completely, I must start at the very beginning, when everything was created, and all the trouble started. I start not with Mortals, and mortal problems, but with Gods. In future volumes, I will make notes within the books when necessary, but for this first book, no such task is necessary, for this is the start, nothing came before. There is no back story, no background, nothing, for we start from the beginning of time itself, or rather just before. So get comfortable, get something to drink, and turn on a good light.

 

Ready? Good. Let us begin then, as I said, at the very beginning.

 

In the beginning…

Author's Note

This is actually the first character, though you'll not see him again in this story, I think. His purpose is to help me get started, by giving you a sort of idea what the story's about. Sort of like an expanded edition of the back cover of a paperback. If you stick around long enough though, I promise you'll see him again in book 2.