To His Grand Eloquence, the Most Holy Patriarch of All Erenth, Prefect of Peakshadow, Scourge of Goblins, Gentle Chastener of the Misguided, Teacher of All Compassionate Truths, Godsend to the Faithful, Patron of the Needy and Stalwart Defender of the Faith.
From Eamon, Prefect of the Provinces; and Feraganno his loyal lettered servant.
In answer to your summons to the Great City to appear on charges that I have misrepresented the Faith, it pains me to say that I have once again taken weak and am therefore ill-suited for travel. I have, however, sent a series of letters in summary of my teachings and in proof of my fidelity to the things I first received at your capable hand. Perhaps by next Spring my bowels will have enough strength to make the journey in person, and a face to face meeting will put to rest any doubts that have arisen. Until then, this letter will have to do.
From the outset, I have used and continue to use the Holy Canons as the principle basis for all my work, and have only superficially drawn on the influence of the other races, to create a more complete history of Erenth. I present it to you just as I have to others. I believe that nothing herein contradicts the teaching of the Faith.
Contrary to the rumors that have reached your ears, I have always taught that the creator God is pre-existent and eternal. He is completely outside the boundaries of things and persons created. He has “neither liege nor peer” as the Elves say. He is the prime mover and is the first cause of all things. I neither hold nor teach that he is one of many similar gods.
As to that period of time called the “First Age” referenced in my teaching, I have held that it begins when the creator brings forth untold numbers of heavenly beings – the oft-called angels. In other words, it is complete agreement with scholars from antiquity. I have never held nor taught that God himself came into being at some point in time.
The nature of these heavenly beings from that First Age is deliberately obscure to us men but that is not to say that they are obscure to all the inhabitants of Erenth. I hold and teach that there are many legions of these beings, from which there were originally seven who were reckoned to be Lords among them. As the Canons say in chapter 1...
“....God created the Arch Angels to share in his glory and to make manifest the craftsmanship of his dreams. One after another he created them. After the Arch Angels, he created lesser Angels which number to the hundreds, and then still lesser which number to the thousands, and still more which are without number and have no count. All of these he named and it is not given that man should know those names.”
The Arch Angels then are those that I believe are synonymous with the Seven Lords of the Elder Races. We know that they and all the host of Angels were full of gratitude and worshiped God from the start. They were similar to him in that they would not age and they dwelled together with him in the light of his power. And they had their desires after him. They wanted to communicate with him and begged leave to make a place to pay tribute to him. So he granted them that right and taught them a small part of his own skill at fashioning. He then turned them loose to see what they would make. The place that they made to honor Him is called Solenth in the High Speech.
Now, the chief architect among these Seven Lords was Agellas, whom we term the Prince of Darkness. He led his brother Angels in the making of Solenth and of its design. In so doing, he began to imagine himself more than a mere planner and leader, and began to think of himself as the greatest of his kin and a rival his Creator.
Now, the chief architect among these Seven Lords was Agellas, whom we term the Prince of Darkness. He led his brother Angels in the making of Solenth and of its design. In so doing, he began to imagine himself more than a mere planner and leader, and began to think of himself as the greatest of his kin and a rival his Creator.
I know that the charge has reached your holy ears to the effect that I contradict the visions of St. Chronolios in the accounting of this history. Other rumors circulate that I think myself more reliable than the Canons themselves. My dear father in the faith, nothing could be further from the truth. I take clearly the admonition that the names of the Arch Angels, the Seven Lords if you will, are "not given that man should know” them. But I do believe that the Holiest of Tomes says that as a way of saying that mankind is not permitted to worship them. It does not mean that no man could ever discover what those names actually were in a literal sense. I ask how could we have kept from knowing something, if others were determined to tell us? Here my teaching has been most controversial among the unlearned of my brother Prefects. This is the source of the rumors against me is but an example of how such tongue-wagging has wasted the time of your Holiness. I believe that will be more clear as I continue this narrative.
Leaving aside the Seven Lord's names so as not to inflame further, we know that God was happy with the results of the angels work in the making of Solenth. He was pleased that his servants had patterned their desires after his. He was most pleased that their own creativity mirrored his own, though he had developed his plans in secret. So God shared the rest of his plans and the Lords and the other angelic hosts were in awe. This did not sit well well with one of them, however. Agellas was afraid that his own glory would be diminished in the eyes of his brothers. So he sowed fear in the ears of all of them and beguiled them by so doing.
The Canons record that Agellas got the other Lords and the angelic hosts to petition God to abandon his plans for making Erenes, of which Erenth was to be just one part...
“But God would not relent and with a word he created night as a canvas and flung the stars upon it. And he drew the circle of Erenth in the midst of the canvas and brought the sea down upon it. And he called up the mountains and carved out the rivers and the valleys. And he brought forth grass and trees and plants of many types. And he brought forth animals in a multitude of kinds. And all of this he did with the uttering of his single word.”
Now we are not the only people to have a sacred history. I have found that this event is recorded also in the ancient lore of the Elves, and spoken of in agreement by a curate of the Dwarves. It is recorded in a portion of what they call the Song of the Aenirasa:
...and they became spirits
of earth, water, wind and fire
and there they dwelt in the elements
and considered it a great gain.
Others took the form of the giants
and faeries and spirits of wood and water...
As to the exact nature of these beings is still a mystery though they are mentioned in the so-called Song of Tens which must be memorized by all Elven children. Apparently these angelic beings have put on these new natures, “cladding themselves with substance as raiment.”We come now to the founding of the Pit of Darkness -- what the elder races call, Malenth. I can presume that most of whatever you have heard that I taught, is nothing more than a damnable lie. I hold and teach, along with our scrolls, that some of those that Agellas had beguiled into protesting against the creation of Erenes hid their amazement behind their own pride. By refusing to express it, their hearts were hardened and rather than experiencing joy, found only bitterness. They would not be bowed and in their stubborness asked for a new home, from which neither Erenes nor Solenth could be seen. God granted this wish and made Malenth. I believe it is as St. Javero the Just recorded in his visions -- a place of natural darkness, but one that has come to be lit to a red-orange glow by the sheer hatred of its denizens. I have never spoken otherwise in public or private.
But, I do know of a man, initiated into our faith after a long life of many tribulations. He was slain during a battle and subsequently raised under the rites prescribed by the faith, upon a consecrated altar by my own hand. He now lives his life as a priest of my Prefecture and has forsaken his life of war. This priest claims to have maintained consciousness in death. And is now my most effective weapon against the fell forces of darkness. His experiences are telling and he has history to add to what the rest of us know of that accursed plane. I hasten to add, that I do not consider this information as sacred truth, only as true as that priest knows it to be. I believe it myself but do not compel the faithful of my flocks to do so.
It is not so much that his accounts differ from that of what Javero divided alternately into Hell, Hades, Tarterus, the Abyss and the Gray Waste, but that Fr. H. gives a different account of the workings of the place. The good saint of old was inclined to believe that all of these evil forces, which he termed devils and demons, were in league against the forces of light. To hear the father speak of it, they are hardly allies and more often bitter enemies in a great "Blood War".
Regardless of whether those things are true, my narrative continues.
At the founding of Malenth it is said that the faithful angels all wept to see a third of their numbers enter. The deepest irony, of course, is that while Agellas had stirred the others to their actions, he did not join them. Rather, he believed that even then, he could turn the hearts of all creation toward him. So he planned to bide his time and among his brothers feigned that his envy and selfishness were appreciation and dedication. He was only successful in fooling his brothers, for the Canons record,
But God saw the trouble of his heart and said, "Though you seek ill, I can make all things well. For even the worst of your thoughts must serve mine in the fullness of time." But God was not understood and the angels looked on in wonder. So God said, "Make a people for me. Whom I might love and whom might love me. Do what you will and show forth your handiwork."
I will grant that there is controversy for many, and perhaps even for your Supreme Holiness, in what is to follow concerning the Elder Children of Erenth. First, in complete harmony with the sacred writings, I do not hold that the Elves spring forth from trees, or that Dwarves spring forth from the ground, as some others do, and who are not summoned to Peakshadow to give answer.
I have always taught that they, along with Halflings and Gnomes and the three races no longer known to us, were the individual creations of the Seven Lords. However, I have also taught that one of these races no longer known to us – the Waymen who were makers of war referenced by St. Chronolios in his revelation – were called “Urok” by the elder races. Though they have disappeared from Erenth, it is commonly held among the scholars of the Elder Children of Erenth that the unholy illegitimate offspring of the Urok are still living today, though they have become disfigured in body and soul by their own foul desires. But, I will return to that in good time.
After each of the elder races were created, God looked upon them and was pleased with the work of the Seven Lords, and pronounced them good. But once again he revealed his plan to those who attended him. His intent was to bring forth Man, he said, who would be as a ruler of all these people and who would tame Erenth and administer all of Erenes. Once again, the heavenly creatures were in awe of his plan and yet once again, Agellas was filled with malice.
The Elves Song of Lament records...
So came the time
when he whose name is not spoken
rose among his peers
and petitioned the Ere of All
saying, "How is it that you
demanded much and gave little?
Grant you,
that the people of our fashioning
be given the chance
to prove themselves in your sight,
or else to give surety
for your deep discontent."
All Seven Lords were in agreement with this new strategem though it was the fruit of the heart of Agellas, and though God warned them against such a plan, they were allowed to pursue it so that the wiles of their evil companion would be at last laid bare. So, for a short time the Elder Children of Erenth lived by their own rule, but the Waymen were stirred by their master and his wickeness. For Agellas who had fashioned their hearts, made them of the same stuff as his own and they each became like mirrors of his envy and selfishness.
Eventually they showed that they were bringers of strife and guile. The peace of Erenth was not held against them. All the rest of the Elder Children lived in fear of them and hid across the face of the world. Even the Aenirasa, those beings of Old who had left their first estate and become one with Erenth were in part enslaved. And as for the evil one, he reveled in the power and might demonstrated by his Waymen, the Urok, and in this he showed his true face to the horror of his adoring brothers.
According to Navarre the Traveler, who has heard such things with his own ears, the so-called Dark Tells recall this period fondly. The Tells are still lauded by some things not mentioned except in the shadows of the fell parts of Erenth.
One day [the evil one] made War and he was Happy. It was the best of all of the makings. [The evil one] loved only War. For he loved the sound of metal and screaming. He loved the smells of fear and burning dead. He loved the tastes of blood and salty tears.
Then “God then sent some of his Lesser Lords to Erenth as Titans to separate the Waymen from the other races, so that all might have a chance to flourish.” This Lesser Lords are called Titans in the Westrun tongue, Tytanos in the old High Speech, and Aenirede in the Elvish.
The elves say of these same events,
...So the Ere of All
sent a host of Aenir into Erenth
to be deliverers of his justice
upon its face.
They were to visit wrath
upon the Urok and upon those
that followed them.
So it was that the Urok were driven
to the Accursed Place and banished.
Those servants who came to Erenth
were called the Aenirede
for they were sent out from the Aenir.
And in another place,
...then were sent the Aenirede,
to bring wrath and who now must tarry,
though they still long for Erenes, their first estate....
As for Agellas himself, he was banished from Solenth entirely and forced to serve that thing he most hated. And the elves hold that he was sentenced to ever feed the forge of the sun and to be consumed with the task of pulling it across the sky, blind and heedless to what happens below it. He is forevermore a servant of all and appreciated by none.
And now my Most Reverend Father in the Faith, I have come to what you probably deem to be the useful end of my narrative, and not coincidentally, the portion of some of its greatest controversy. For our Canons are remarkably silent in what followed except to say,
So the Elder races tarried and the fortunes of each rose and fall as the tides of the sea. Afterwards, one by one, each race was given the chance to rule Erenth in order, except the unfaithful Waymen. So the ages of Erenth passed as the Lords of Solenth and the peoples of Erenth waited for the great gift of God to be revealed.
And while this abbreviated narrative of six complete ages is true, it is far from complete. It does not behoove us, nor credit our relations with the Elder Races, to consider that nothing significant to the history of the world happened until the so-called Seventh Age and the coming of Fergus.
In the next pages I will attempt to cover each of the next ages in as much detail as I can. With your patience, I shall finish these missives before I see you next. Remember me in your prayers and know that my delay in coming to see you, there is naught but great regret.
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