Of all that is, I, Aromathus, am alone, the first and last. I am the world, and the world is of me, and through me is made whole. The world was made by the Great Maker, who shaped its mountains, and pulled forth its clouds and lit its fires and poured its waters and set all in motion. This is the manner of the creation of the earth with all there is within and upon it. The Great maker had made this place from the elements. Out of the Darkness was made fire, which pushed the darkness and out sprang air, from which water traveled and flowed and birthed Earth from the cooling of fire. And from their actions with one another, Aromathus was formed, guided by the Great Maker. The desire had come to Great Maker to create worlds, and the desire came to create this world, and through that creation, the will for there to be me was. I, Aromathus, was born from the need for rocks for an eye to see itself, for the wind to hear itself, for the fires to warm itself and the waters to cool itself. The rocks willed me to be their eye; the fires willed me to be their eye, the winds willed me to be their eye, the waters willed me to be their eye, and they made me to view for them all the shapes of the World. The wind blew and the fire sang and the water roared and the roots of the mountains twisted in the dark rocks as they beat themselves until they cracked and I was. The wind was my feet, the rain my hands, the rocks my body, the fire my eye and I was aware. I looked up in the warmth of the day, and saw the greater light mirrored to my own eye, and knew it to be the fire that was my eye. And I saw a lesser light in the cool of the night, and knew it to be stone, and I knew these lights looked upon me, and we trembled in the awe of one another. I looked around in both the light of day and the dark of night, and I saw all that I was, and named it, calling it to awareness itself. From the world that is my body I drew out the elementals, and then the race of Elements who shared the world with me were, and I was no longer alone, and there was a new age, the time of Harmony.

The Elements sang and danced for the joy of their lives, and I was a part of that joy. The stately hum of order, the maddening piping of Chaos, the beating of the drums of stone, and lilting of the strings of wind, the roar of the horns of fire, the ringing of the bells of water, it was the music of Aromathus. I sang, and they listened to me. I sang of the life within the World and they played their music, and it twined in Harmony, and from my words we made songs. We shared thought, and I taught them to feel the trembling of the world as they sang and we were free. We joined in song, and called forth the Great Tree, the first living thing for it was from us and not of the Great Maker, it was born that it might hold the might of our song, and echo through the spheres. And upon the Great Tree we danced and sang and dwelled, and each of us were wrapped in the emblems of its branches. Great is the stature of that tree, and great the strength given to all who must climb it; and the winds that clutch and sway its branches can be most fierce, and the view downward dreadful. How deep do the roots of that tree thrust themselves, to what light do its branches rise, what fruits will it bear, we knew not even though we had called it. And we did not care, for the moment was all that mattered, and so, the music of the spheres was ours, and we made it great. This was our world until the end of the time of Harmony.

We laughed, and sang and danced, wheeling through the nothing that surrounds us. We sang out, and heard only our song, and thought we were alone, and sang to fill the nothing. And long was our time of Harmony, where even Order and Chaos balanced in unison.

Once I was adrift in the thought that there was but our world fashioned by the Great Maker, and set alone in the great nothing. But through the coming of the gods after, I have learned much. Now I know that the Great Maker willed into existence everything known and unknown, and saw fit to create not only Aromathus but other places, other kinds of worlds, and hung them all in the nothing like droplets in a vast sea of lights and darkness. At the last, the Great Maker created the other gods who were infused with a small, finite, portion of the Great Maker’s own boundless power that they might shape and work and make things beautiful and cunningly wrought from the elements. And these greater beings were set throughout the worlds, but there are more worlds than they, and so they take to move, and find new homes, and some did come to Aromathus, and that was the end of our Harmony, and the birth of our slavery to them.

One day as I, Aromathus, lay on a branch of the Great Tree, high above the clouds, singing out in the joy of our song, I saw the light in my eye darkened, and in that moment the gods opened the door in the great tree and entered our World. In the days of their first coming of these gods, they were full of vigor and the will to change and build. The gods were upright and tall, with an inner light of beauty that streamed from them always. Twelve had come to Aromathus, and they set about to make homes for themselves. At first the gods made to dwell in the elements, Urnomox was the first. He looked and took to the waters, dancing in the waters and delighting in the joys of the sea with Mareth. Hadar and Naranes took to the depths of the stone with their kin Voluge and Charith. Voluge delved deep and with Charith found the inner fires, and Hadar found the veils between the worlds and Narenes sought the cool of the dark below the roots of the mountains. Traalar sought the calm of the air, and Toronar with her. And Seldarine and Relvith dwelt in the shadow of the Great Tree, and they learned from me, and I from them. Only Grummish and his kin Larathane were restless, and found no home, but prowled upon the world, Larathane ever pestering him. And so the six elements found those who would master them.

Each moment was rich and full, from the gods the Elements learned to sing new songs, from them I had the understanding of many things. I lived all my time in their presence and I studied the Suns and worlds, and learned from the gods of what was beyond. I took to walking with them, and these were the teachings that the gods shared with me, Aromathus. They had heard our song, and came that they might take some of the song we had made and with it use it in their own way. From the gods I learned to take the fist step on the path is to meditate upon numbers and their patterns and so I learned that rhythm and balance and pattern can be expressed in terms of numbers and that to shape something to a new pattern the numbers that are patterns in themselves will determine all forms throughout time or space. I was made aware of time, and the counting of time, and the shaping of things through numbers and I was guided how to dream things through them and to form them in my mind before I shaped them in sand or stone. The full art, which was beyond me, was to carve time spirals, which hold the meditation forever and guide others into the pathway of their thoughts and hold power over all space around them. Many, many time later, as I near the end of my living freedom and long to lie again in the rocks, I can see that in the twisting of thoughts into knots was the gods' weakness, that their sorrow was locked into the spirals.

Twelve gods had come to Aromathus, and they began great works, dwelling within and shaping the elements. The gods joined nothing except to make new combinations. Though they were of one family, they lived apart, dwelling in the elements they now claimed as their own. In their minds dwelled numbers, for this is always at the heart of their power, and how they shape the world, and measure of the dance of the heavens; for them numbers are as to our music, but crystallized and held fast. Twelve gods there are and of these the greatest is Seldarine, and his two brothers Voluge and Grummish. These three hold dominion over the other nine, and through their guiding, make many great works. Of the first is Seldarine, for he was the first to take the power of our song and to shape it to a new form. On the day the gods stepped into our world through the door they had made in the Great Tree, Seldarine looked about and saw the great stretches of stone. Together with Relvith they took the elements and made things to grow. Plants they called forth, shaping earth, making them need the warmth of the fire in the sky and the cool of the water, to breath the air and took of order for shape and chaos to change the cover of our world. Grasses, and flowering plants, but the greatest of their craft was many lesser images of the Great Tree our song had called. Forests and glades blanketed the stone, and tamed the elements. Yet they were not done, for Seldarine and Relvith held that to work and care for these fragile things they had made, there would need to be servants, who would move through the trees, and tend to the wearing of them by chaos. And so they joined again, and made Elves to walk under the shade of the trees, and care and tend to the deep woods. They joined again, and made many small things with fur or feathers to help the Elves tend the plants. Voluge and Urnomox saw what had been made, and took to furrow in the earth and shape the waves. To help them carve out the fathomless caverns beneath the earth, Voluge and Charith joined and created the dwarves, beings hard as the stone which formed their bones, yet restless as the fires that burned within them. Together they all carved from magical, living stone new palaces beneath the grass. They delved deep to the roots of mountains, and shaped and wrought many things. In gemstones they chipped to catch the lights of the fires of the sky, and made gold and silver nets to hold them. To help Urnomox and Mareth dredge out the seas shape the sea floor, they joined and created the immense but gentle sea giants they called whales. Mighty palaces the shape of mountains yet of living things called coral were so made, and in these places beneath the waves, all manner of new forms of earth and fire were shaped, called fish, who swam and leapt beneath the sea. And other things where made, lesser whales, and things that I no not what to call, but that have shells, or many arms or nothing but slithe bodies and great mouths, and all number of more things.

Twelves Gods there are, and eight did make many things. Yet of all these Grummish strove for supremacy, and took upon himself the title of the Champion, even though Seldarine was counted as the head of the gods for his role in first crafting new things. Grummish roamed the world, and ever after came Larathane, who did cause the elements to do processions and forced into the dance of life and pleasure; Grummish could not bother, and in his head he heard his voice heard above a multitude; and in his mind always in the tournaments he bore down all rivals. And ever a gnawing in his heart caused Grummish to find no place to rest.

In those days the gods were still radiant with energy, never still. But that radiance diminished as their true nature showed and worsened. Larathane wanted to create something, alone without consort; and his product was to be a celestial thing, higher than all other works. Restless and impatient, Grummish strove to find a place where he might make his great work, and reveil that he was the greatest. Yet all the elements had been taken, the Earth, the Fire, the Air and Water had masters already, and Seldarine had taken Order and Chaos to combine all the other elements. And so Grummish roamed, and Larathane followed, taking a bit of each element and warping it to fit his own madness. From the ground rose insects and pests, and they made to dwell with the natural world, yet others grew to only devour, and these were sent to pester Grummish all the more.

Of this I was made aware, for I saw it happen, and it was terrible. The gods had come, and dwelt with me, and I with them, but Grummish’s heart was closed to me, and I knew nothing of his mind save his hunger to make his great work. On the day that larathane’s pestering drove deep into Grummish, he turned and struck his brother, and Larathane fled wailing, and caused a hole to be torn in the world. A veil exists between the world above and the realms that are below where Hadar and Naranes dwell; and when Grummish struck Larathane a shadow came into being beneath the veil; and that shadow became matter; and that shadow was projected apart. And what Grummish had created became a product in the matter, but it was horrible and twisted. And it assumed a shifting form molded out of shadow, and became an arrogant beast. The other gods looked at this thing that was made and grew angry. They left their dwellings and gathered about the hole, and there was a loud argument. Grummish cried aloud that they had wronged him, for none had helped him to make his great work. Seldarine spoke, and called Grummish false, that any would have helped him, but Grummish grew great in his anger and he and Seldarine stuck blows. Then did Voluge, the great balancer, step between them, and commanded that they cease, and silence filled the place where the hole in the world was. Seldarine then named Grummish’s work Demon, and since it was not of union of beings, but of wrath that it was to be trust back beyond the veil, and the gods denied demon the right to dwell on the world, and so it was cast out. Yet demon longs to return, to delight in the world, and yet destroy it, for from wrath did it come. Woe to any who open a way for its ilk to enter once more.

Relvith then offered and joined with Grummish that he might have his great work. And thus were the Orcs made, yet in them is the restlessness of Grummish, and part of his strife with the other gods, and they delight in the making of war with the other beings of the gods. Thus were made the three great races, the Elves, the Dwarves, and the Orcs. Yet Grummish was not at peace, for he felt slighted, and caused his children to war upon the other works of the gods, and thus did strife enter into our world, and never had we had peace since. For Relvith, her sorrow at helping birth the creatures that became the action of strife caused hre great pain, and so great is her grief that she withdraws from this world, and all the trees and plants lose part of themselves for a time each turning of then sun as she weeps.

THUS ENDS THE SONG OF AROMATHUS