FORM

Prologue

Two shadows glide in loose circles upon a backdrop of cascading luminescence. The smaller following the larger. The waves of their glowing song intermixing in resonant interference, woven into the radiant fabric of their surroundings.

"Rezil, can you tell me what they were?" Aethe was still haunted by the vision of them. They had been so foreign and so familiar.

"Aethe, you must reflect on whether you want to seek this truth. It may unsettle you further still. It may bring you no comfort." His voice was calm, a warming presence in the lightscape around them. There was only the slightest lilting note that teased at Aethe, saying I know who they are, but I may not tell you.

"You haveto tell me. I need to know! I was swimming for so long trying to forget, but the image wouldn't leave me. They haven't returned but their memory haunts me still." He knew he was desparate and knew Rezil could see it, but he didn't mind, couldn't mind, not when the promise of respite was so near.

"Then I will tell you a story, a long story, but I can't promise that you will find your answers, only that they are there to be found.

"The two whom you saw, a black stranger and a woman of fire, they are the ancestors of our ancestors. Their ancestors lived in a world similar to ours, but different in some of the most basic ways. Their Ocean-Sea had a bottom, a floor--"

He stopped as Aethe's gasp rippled through the lambent hills and valleys of his story-song. He waited till the last perturbations of the sound had subsided and continued:

"Their Ocean-Sea, it also had a top where there was empty nothingness for a great distance, above which was a sky." He paused again, eyeing Aethe to see if there might be any more distractions. "The sky was like the Ocean-Sea floor, only it's color shifted constantly from red to orange to yellow, and so on through every color till deepest purple. Each time the sky returned to dark red, they counted another day. So, there was time there, in a sense, and it passed as it does here, where our daysong echoes the past of their daystream. As the days continued to pass, our ancestors' ancestors grew in size and knowledge.

"Each of the people who lived then was unique, each one's skin was a different color. Their artisans discovered that they could create things, woven sculptures, of their own colored flesh. slowly, as they continued to grow and create stunning works of deep wisdom and beauty, their Ocean-Sea began to vanish until they could walk on a land where water had been relegated to small pools dotting a new orange landscape filled with orchards of their marvelous creations.

"They had not yet learned the working of living sculptures, except in the most simple of forms. These creations, butterflies as they were called, were far less lovely than their Trees, and so the people's works remained sedentary, forever in a glamorous repose. While they covered the land with their trees, more sinister and veiled intentions filled the sky with butterflies. Amidst our ancestors' ancestors' ancestors a Queen emerged to rule and lead the people, a giant White Queen from a family of White Artisans, known for their skill. This Queen had a servant, our most sacred legends tell us, and this servant had a son, who served as well. This son had a daughter whose skin was too dark to serve the White. Her name was Inor."