Appendix

In the beginning there was the first race, who were the Dragons; the children of Xanadu. They had power beyond imagination; they could alter their shapes at will, and do all sorts of things that would be considered impossible by modern folk. In their altered forms they mated with many of the other creatures that filled the world, and passed on fragments of their power to later generations. Some of these races gained a little of the wisdom of the Dragons; others gained fantastical abilities, and even now the blood of the Dragons still flows in their veins.

But despite all their powers the Dragons were different from their father and from the other gods in one important aspect: they were mortal. This difference was not one that concerned them as first -- when you have an indefinite life span and near divine abilities the difference is not immediately obvious -- until a Dragon dies.

The oldest and most powerful of Xanadu's children was Baal -- who could be said to be the first mortal, the oldest being in the universe besides the gods -- and he fathered many powerful children. Baal's mate was Anu who was good and clever and shone brightly, and she and Baal were a perfect pair, created for one another as Xanadu's first children.

Anu's love was the faerie folk and she tended and loved them. From her they gained wisdom and understanding, and their long lives, but they also inherited her one weakness -- a vulnerability to the "Dead Metal", iron.

Only the elves overcame their fear of iron and used it to make beautiful artworks. In time an elven smith fashioned a sword of it, from a vision that had come to him in a dream. He did not know what it was that he made, for there was only peace amongst the Dragons and their young kin. It was a magnificent sword and he was pleased with his work and showed it to Anu. Anu sensed the future and saw only destruction, and unaware that this future might stem from her own actions she made to take the sword from the smith. In his surprise he struck her with it, and she died -- the first Dragon to ever die.

At first Baal could not understand what had happened. He called to Anu but she did not respond. He tried to summon back her spirit, but it had passed beyond his power. Baal called for his father and begged for Xanadu's help, but when Xanadu explained that Baal and all the children were mortal, and that in time all of them must pass from the world, Baal fell into a black rage and cursed his father, and fled to the dark places beyond the world.

There, in the outer darkness he wandered. His heart was sick with misery for the loss of his beloved; his mind raged against the betrayal of his father, who had made his children only to die. There, in the darkness, one of the Old Gods came to Baal, a god who had no name but is known only as "Darkness". And Darkness spoke with him, and told him that this course need not be set, and that if Baal had the will there was a way to cheat his fate and claim the power that Xanadu had denied him.

Baal returned to the living world and called his children to him. He explained what the god had told him and that he meant to wrest the power of immortality from Xanadu and the other gods. Most of the Dragons were shocked and dismayed and refused to have anything to do with Baal's plan. But five of his sons stood with him: Arhiman, Estu, Leviathan, and the youngest of Baal's children, the twins, Apollyon and Abbadon.

Baal began to plot his course. He created servants of fire and called them the Birds of Baal, which in the first tongue is "Baalrukh", and he summoned a great host of the younger folk -- but not of the elves, for he blamed them in part for Anu's death.

Baal sent his forces throughout the worlds, and they looked in far places and for him they found certain things of which the Old God had spoken, and Baal began a great ritual.

The world shook, the seas froze, and fire fell from the skies. The Dragons became scared and called for Baal to stop but he would not. They tried to stop him and he struck them down. In desperation they summoned to them all of the young folk who had not sided with Baal, and fell on him en mass.

Baal's forces were well prepared, and though he and his son's were few in number they were great in power. The first war raged and Dragon destroyed Dragon, and Xanadu wept.

When it ended Baal and his sons had been slain and his host was destroyed or scattered. But, though Baal and his sons were dead their power did not fully pass from the world. They became spirits of darkness and evil lurking in the Otherworld that borders this world. Baal sought to continue his course and continue his ritual even after death.

The Dragons who were left summoned his spirit, though it cost them dearly and caused them great pain, and they bound it into an orb of black stone drawn from the heart of the world, and cast him into the outer darkness. Seeing their father vanquished Baal's sons fled to deep places and hid.

The war was over, but many of the Dragons had died and the survivor's hearts were heavy with grief. Most decided to leave the world and walk in the bright places beyond where their hearts might be healed, and it is said that the Dragons may return when they are ready, or if the power of Darkness again threatens the world. Although most left, a few of us stayed to watch over the young folk and guide their feet in the paths of peace and light. We became known as the "Irin" or Watchers.

The Watchers sought to teach all that the Dragons had learnt to the young folk, and we began with the races beloved of Anu. The elves learnt quickly and well, but they were unable to learn the magic of the Dragons for it was too powerful for them. In those days magic was a single harmonious and balanced force. There were elements and forces, spheres and influences, but not branches or divisions in the modern sense. This was the magic of the gods, and also the magic of the first race.

The Watchers divided the magic into pieces, pieces that in the latter days came to be called "colleges" and the elves found that they could master one of these, but not more than one. In creating the pieces, we had broken the whole. Each piece had an underlying principle that was one aspect of the whole, incompatible with the others as though a different language. In making the magic understandable to the elves we had prevented them from ever understanding the harmony of the whole, and from hearing the music in the magic.

Perhaps it was this lack of harmony, and of knowing that they could never understand the whole that drove the elves to learn all they could about their world. They took Kadath the city that Xanadu had built for his children, renamed it Eldamar or "Elf-home" and made it their own. They explored the world and the wanderers that can be seen in the night sky, and built doors to other worlds like their own. They acquired knowledge and great power and yet were not content.

Some of the elves began to believe that what they were missing was the power of the Dragons, the ability to see magic as a balanced whole, and they sought to learn the other pieces of magic. At first they could not comprehend the other pieces but over time they began to realise that there was a second whole, another principle of magic that all the pieces fitted, a dark principle, the Dark Path. We forbade the elves to study this, but some will not listen.

The elves that follow this path have begun to learn the knowledge of the Dragons but the dark magic stains their souls and auras and they are becoming something other than elves. Baal's sons whisper to them from the void, and I fear for them, and for all of the young ones, for from the dark place beyond the world I have heard the Old God laugh.