A Song of the Old World

Artist not known

The child asked of his father: "Oh, father, what are these?"
And the father replied to his son: "Oh, son, these are the memories of the old world."
And the child asked: "The old world?"
And the father replied: "Yes, the old world."
And the child asked: "What is the old world, father?"
And the father told his son this tale.

Artist not known

There was, before the Lord that Lurked below grew angry, the great Ayantakliquethre'ateefser the Outwalker of Fate. He was the king of all that was and was not, ruler of the planes of eternity. He grew weary and aged, his body slowly dying as do all beings of life. Even those beyond the reign of death are subject to this as age goes on, but they do not die.

The great Ayantakliquethre'ateefser seeked to find a way to reject the body and only employee himself to the senses of the world beyond. Ayantakliquethre'ateefser was a wise being, of course, that was why the Ancients had left him to rule in their absence from all things, absence from his domain.

So he traveled to the realm of the Descender.

Artist not known

The Descender was a being beyond and inside, torn from reality after an accident long before time itself, before the God of Time rose from the ashes of memory and the substance of hope. So when the God of Time rose himself from nothingness, the Descender was trapped on the side of things of which time did not exist.

Of course, like all beings, the Descender desired to feel the light of time and the air of space, and so the Descender came down to the realm of all that was and was not, of which the Descender was not a part of.

When Ayantakliquethre'ateefser came to the Descender's realm, the Descender was halfway through the process to reach the old world. Ayantakliquethre'ateefser was a welcome guest in the Descender's realm though, and quickly found himself in the Descender's presence.

Ayantakliquethre'ateefser spoke: "Oh, Descender, I desire of you the ability to withdraw my soul from the limits of realms and this mortal and immortal shell, so that I may not grow weary with age despite deathlessness."

The Descender thus spoke: "Yatha glait, gahahtth kahk. Gruant de tahel glait. Yatha!" which was known in that time, but the meaning has been lost. What we know, of course, is that this is how the Descender and Ayantakliquethre'ateefser spoke. And it was how they began to bargain.

Eventually, Ayantakliquethre'ateefser and the Descender made a deal - they would share the realms, allowing for the Descender to be real and not real (instead of the state of being in which the Descender was in before) and the Ayantakliquethre'ateefser would shed his mortal and immortal shell for the life of not a body, but of an entire realm.



The father looked at his son and smiled. "That is what I have to tell you today, my son."
And the son said: "Father, thank you for what you have told me. But I want to know more."
And the father said: "Tomorrow, my son, I shall tell you more of Ayantakliquethre'ateefser."
And the son said: "Thank you, Father, for bestowing upon me knowledge of the old world."
And the father said: "It is me who thanks you, my son, for taking this knowledge."
And the father and son continued their walk through the memory seeds that fill the world.
And the son knew that he was lucky, for he had the knowledge of a world that was only a memory now.