None
can truly say how the world came to be, or for how long it has hung beneath the
heavens, but in the West it is thought that in the beginning there was nothing
but darkness. Darkness upon darkness upon darkness: Deep waves of night without
end, stretching beyond the comprehension of man. And all was held fast by the
great dragon, Hydra, the Queen of the Eternal Night.
And
yet, within the dragon’s coils a single glimmer of light burned, and this was
Fenix, the Firebird, first star of the night. But though she was the beauty of
the heavens, Hydra saw in her only the marred perfection of her darkness, and she
vowed to destroy the Firebird. For an age unknown they contested with each other,
until finally Hydra’s poison fangs found their mark, and she threw her foe down
and crushed her beneath her weight and the Firebird burst into fragments
without number.
It
was a hollow victory. For now the night sky glistened with the light of the stars,
and Fenix rose from death as the brightest light of the heavens, bringing forth
the first day, and Hydra was cowed by it. In time she crept into the sea,
sinking down in the depths where the Firebird’s blinding rays could not reach
her, and there she remains until the end of days. Her reign of darkness had at
last come to an end.
And
it came to be that Fenix gave birth to a child, and that child was Sphinx, the
Lioness, the Mother of All Living Things, and she carried the secret fire of
creation deep within her womb. From her bounty all would be nourished, and the
Firebird made ready to bless the first of her daughter’s children.
But
the Firebird had also given birth to a son, a twin to the Lioness, and he had
been born separate from his sister, and incomplete, and the mark of death was upon him.
His name was Wulf, the skull moon, whom we call the Watcher, and despite being
a pale reflection of his sister, he was proud and vain. He adorned himself in
white, and bathed in the reflection of his mother’s rays, and after a time he
began to believe that they were his own. He chose the night as his dominion,
for only then could he outshine his mother.
Wulf
looked on his sister with envy, for he too longed for children. Yet, because he
had been born without the secret fire, he was sterile. This hurt his great
pride, and soon he began to devise a way in which he might bring ruin upon his
sister’s children.
And
so Wulf whispered to Hydra, for it is well known that the skull moon has always
been able to sway the sea, and he stirred her anger with honeyed words and
reminded her of the hate she had for all of the works of the Firebird. And as the
great dragon shook with rage so too did the seas, until her wrath had become a
storm the likes of which the world will never see again, wracking the
Lionesses’ body as she struggled in the act of labor. And as she writhed, great
fissures opened, even beneath the sea, and there was born Sphinx’s first child:
Pestis, the Creeping Doom.
And
since he had been born of envy and malice, Fenix cursed Pestis, and he became
the Prince of All That Crawls In Darkness. His children were thoughtless things
with no concept of good or evil, and it was their desire to reproduce and
multiply, devouring each other as they did so, and shortly they covered the
world with their numbers, and Wulf laughed to see how pitiful his sister’s
children truly were, and the Lioness wept.
But
the Firebird heard her daughter’s cries, and so she flung a great lance into
the heart of the crawling host. The lance head buried itself so deep in the
earth that the secret fire burst forth in a hail of ash and flame, and the sky
became as night, and all but the hardiest of Pestis’ loathsome brood were wiped
from the face of the world. Wulf saw this and trembled, and hid himself within
his sister’s shadow, which he does still to this day whenever the Firebird
grows angry with him.
When
the darkness was lifted, the Lioness gave birth to her second child, and the
Firebird blessed it with the greatest of her gifts. For to this day the
children of Chloris, whom the Telchines call the Emerald Maiden, can live
without murder, and receive their sustenance from the waters of the sky, and
the light of the Firebird. Slowly, they too multiplied, bringing beauty wherever
they spread, and the Lioness looked on them with love.
This
the Watcher could not abide, and so he whispered to the children of Pestis, age
after age, filling them with his envy and spite. And so the children of Pestis
began to feast upon the children of the Emerald Maiden, and it came to be that
some among them grew, and grew, and grew, growing ever larger and more powerful,
until at last the first of the cold, scaled sea dragons rose from the depths to
lay claim to the world. They feared none, and once again the Lioness was awash
with blood.
And
as it had been before, the Firebird took pity on her first-born child, and
reached for her mighty lance once again, her eyes full of tears for the
children of Chloris. But before she could cast it, the Watcher stood in her
way, and the world fell into the darkness of the first eclipse.
And
it was then that Wulf made a pact with his mother: He would tell her how she might
rid the world of the dragons while sparing the children of leaf and tree, if
she would grant him three boons. And, though she knew the Watcher did nothing
out of kindness, she consented.
Wulf
smiled, and reminded her that she had borne the poisoned kiss of the Queen of
the Night and been reborn. She need only do so again, letting the world fall
into darkness and cold, and the terrible children of the sea would wither and
die. But the children of Chloris would merely sleep, and they would awaken with
the Firebird’s return.
As
for his boons, the Watcher first asked that he rule that time when the light of
his mother waned, the King of Winter for time everlasting. Next he asked that his sister bear children of the
secret fire so that they might survive the cold. And lastly he would have these
children do him homage, for he could never have children of his own.
And
the Firebird saw that there was wisdom in Wulf’s bargain, for until he was
appeased he would forever strive to bring misery to her first child, and so she
consented to the bite of Hydra’s fangs, and the world’s first winter began.
Rain
turned to snow, rivers to ice, and Wulf ruled over the first kingdom of frost.
And as promised, the dragons died in droves until all but a few were felled by
the deadly cold. Those that survived returned to the sea, and did not trouble
the world for a long age thereafter.
And
when the first spring came, the Lioness gave birth to her third child, Cernas, the
Hunter, whose offspring were both blessed and cursed, for though they were truly the beloved
child of Sphinx, they were also forever indebted to Wulf.
The
Watcher both loved and envied his chosen children, and to them he gave mixed
blessings. To each of them he gave a special gift, so as to set them apart from
one another, and he taught them his tricks and slights, so that they might
thrive through the use of their wits. But many of the children of Cernas he filled
with the desire to shed the blood of their brothers, and cursed their wombs with
the Watcher’s curse, so as to punish them for possessing what he could not. And
so the children of Cernas were doomed to shed their hot blood to amuse the Winter King.
But
when the time came to bless mankind, the Watcher found that he had but one gift
left, and it was one that he was loathe to give away. For, as the Firebird had
lain in the sleep of winter’s embrace, he managed to pluck a single feather
from her wings, hoping that in its flames he might learn the secret of
creation. This feather he was forced to surrender, and so the first men were
taught the secret of fire, and ever since then they have used it to cheat the
Watcher’s winter, and to forge the tools that have made them master of all of
the children of Cernas.
And
so, then as now, the men of the West worship Fenix, the Firebird, above all
other gods, and call for blessings from Sphinx, the Lioness, mother to all. And
always will men spit curses at Hydra, the dread serpent that lies deep beneath
the waves. But, when they drink, they raise their cups to Wulf, The Watcher, if
only out of fear . . . And perhaps that does not displease him.
