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spirits and the wisdom of other men and even the wisdom
of Gods and Prophets. And men and spirits and Gods and
Prophets gave us their wisdom, and behold, they knew no
more than we. All believed that the fate they followed was
the true Fate, but none could offer certainty or proof. Thus
it was that the task remained before us. And we took
counsel with each other, for we saw that others, by reason
of their adherence to one fate or the other could read the
Book of the Heavens only indistinctly, but that we, who
still sought truth, could read it clearly And the burden of
our task grew heavy for truly, in our choosing we choose
for all of man,
To aid us to choose aright we turned to the pages of the
book of the stars that speak of beginnings. And on the ' first
page of the Great Book it is written that at the beginning
there was but one Destiny and one Fate for all that had
ever been made, and the fate was a purpose and a
necessity. But it came to pass in the timelessness which existed
before there was any man to consider the meaning of time,
that a Second Destiny came into being, and it was also a
necessity and a purpose. And the second purpose was at
odds with the first, and the pull of the one against the
other strained the very fabric of creation. And out of that
stirring there came to be awareness, for each Destiny
became aware of the other. And they became mortal foes,
for each stood athwart the path of the other, and so long as
both existed, neither could be fulfilled. And each Fate put
its hands upon events to twist them and turn them so that
the other fate might be defeated. Great forces were set in
motion which must inevitably collide; and the two Fates
spake unto those who would be their instruments.
The voices of these two Great Destinies and the words
they speak are called Prophecy' and a Prophecy must
be fulfilled. Were there but one voice and one Destiny,
our task would have ended with the discovery of that
voice. But there are two voices and two Prophecies, and
all of creation is a battleground between them. And the
Prophets of the First Destiny proclaimed that the other
Fate was an error and an abomination; while the Prophets
of the Second declared that the First Fate had been the
embodiment of evil which had now been supplanted by
truth.
And we considered these Prophecies and teachings,
and it was possible that an error could lead inevitably to
evil, but it was also possible that evil might have existed
from the beginning of time in order to be corrected.
Now at about the same time that we learned of the two
great voices and the two Destinies, it came to pass that the
world was also divided, even as the rest of creation, and
behold! The dividing of our world came about as the
result of the touch of one Destiny upon the other, for the
God of the people called Angarak was the fruit of the
Second Fate, and the stone which he raised was the
instrument of the First Fate. So vast was the force of their
coming together that earth herself could not bear the
weight, and the lands parted like cloud before Torak and
the stone he raised, and the seas came in, and that which
had been one became two.
And when the movement of the seas and the dry lands