the account

In the beginning there was only the Darkness. In it nothing existed: neither heat nor cold nor colour nor sound; not even words or ideas, so that Darkness was merely the way the peoples of the World eventually came to call the non-existence before the Light.

For then came forth the Light, and with it came word and thought, and it was like a small and single star; and from it was born the World as it separated itself from the Darkness.

At first the World was little more than sparse feelings and ideas, like vague threads of a distant conscience, floating languidly towards existence. Slowly, gradually, though, they grew and amassed and formed senses and findings.

From them was born that which would be called the Wood of a Thousand Lights, and called the very cradle of the World. Its trees had trunks made of aroma and touch, and their leaves were music; the grass was weaved from senses, and the wind full of colours and ideas. From a great clearing in its middle sprung forth the Road of the Sun, where the Light rose. The Road coursed away from the Wood, and cut through the Meadows of Moonlight. Across the Meadows the Great Cave harboured remnants of the Darkness; in its almost unimaginable depths beauty and wonder unknown remained asleep - for there were no tales of those who had entered them and returned to the Light.

Beyond the Meadows and the Road, there was then the village, and its name was Goldfair. Its roofs were of golden straw, its streets of grey cobblestone, and the villagers held many festivals with music and dancing, and planted and herded with smiles in their faces. On the other side of the great River and its clear, cold waters, the town twin to Goldfair was covered in smoke, and its name was in a monstruous, feral tongue; for the streets were crowded with noisy, stupid man-eating beasts, and flanked by menacing buildings so tall that forbade any sight of the dull skies. Neither villager nor monster, though, dared cross the high bridge over the River; and therefore, despite being deadly enemies, there was no war.

In that time the Prince still lived in the World, and reigned with justice and dignity and kindness. He was the lord of all lands, and every creature, big or small, powerful or weak, good or evil, paid him due respect. All knew him; under his orders war and conflict ended readily, and the World beheld only peace and beauty. He lived in a citadel on the top of a high mountain, whose name (in a once noble and long forgotten language) was Silverhorn; there every building was carved in stone as white as snow, and embroidered banners waved in the gentle wind, and it was said to be the most beautiful place of all. Music flowed through the streets; the scent of incense and fresh leaves floated in the air. Guards with polished spears and swords garnished the royal palace where the Prince resided with his servants. At the foot of the mountain, green valleys and rivers laden with fish were the lair of a prosperous people, whose houses were built upon great boats on the water. The prairies beyond the valleys belonged to the horsemen tribe, and their steeds ran in large herds over the plains. To the north and to the east the Black Forest spread its shadows and milenary cypress and fir trees, and in its starlit glades fairies and elves held magic rites in honor of ancient deities. Beyond the Forest there was the Desert of Amber, where mighty sultans lived in majestic palaces by the oases, and the dancer serpents would gather to celebrate sabbaths under the moonlight.

The World was beautiful, young and peaceful then, and the rule of the Prince was good.

But then came the Beast, and she had eyes of fire and blood framed in black, and her fearsome bellow was the screams of a thousand tortured souls in their misery and fury. Where she cleaved the earth to surface to the World was called the Pit, and round it appeared ghost-cities: the thirteen Black Stars, inhabited by dark shadows and whispers, blood and sex. Like a great storm the Beast ravaged the World, destroying and distorting everything in her way. In the middle of the Rocky Lowlands she erected her huge Tower of Bones with the remains of her victims, and then slept under it, disappearing again under the earth.

The reign of the Beast, even having brought shadow and dusk to the World once so pure, was however brief, and those who lived in the Stars, in their frenzied, crazied rage, loved their lair and their great Goddess. Still in darkness and horror persisted some dreary grace, and there were lives and secrets in the night that could never exist under the sunlight.

But then the Howling appeared.

No one could say where it came from. But it arose, at first so small that its presence could barely be noticed - or its non-presence. Because the Howling could not be, since it would be the very opposite of the Light that had created the World and being itself. In the Howling the Emperor dwelled, in his castle centered in the middle of a pallid, colourless city, sitting in his grey flint throne. There was there an air of permanent and diseased strangeness, of misconception; nothing lived or moved in the empty houses - hollow, perhaps -, nor between them, and the senses of direction, size and distance were queer, oddly fluid. The only thing able to be in the Howling, apart from the Emperor himself, was the unceasing moans of malignant, unhealthy winds. The few that entered their dominion never returned; it was said that they were consumed by the Howling, turned into the Howling themselves. And terror held the World in its icy grasp.

But while the Emperor exists the Prince will never come back. And, without its Prince, all the World is slowly ceasing to be...