"I have seen Time. I have seen the outside of it, from outside of it. I have watched it flow thick and dark across the earth. Seen it flow into space like chains that pulls us ever onward, towards Journey's End. I have touched stars that have never known the Cataclysm. I have been chilled by space that never knew the beat of Ethelen wings. I see the words as I write them now...future, present, past. I see them through the skin of my body. I leave them to you, and I fade. I flicker like a candle...my body has fled. My soul must soon follow. I cannot exist in the Now, in Time...I must go to the light. I must find the Beyond. If I am mad, pray for me. If I am sane...I cannot long remain so. For I know now that Ura, the darkness unshaped...she is paper-thin, and the endless expanse of light, the Mind of God lies beyond." - written by ..................... circa 1204 AC
The Glimpsing Tome has enjoyed a fluctuating but always prominent place in history. The details of its origin are disturbingly vague. The earliest known record of its existence was when a young
Librarian found a thick and dusty tome whose author had been erased from the page. This by itself would not have been noticeable except for the fact that several other literary works, also filed as 'anonymous', also written in the same hand and style, were brought to light. They were old. They had been in the
Great Library for some years already. They all shared the same peculiar traits.
None of these books were signed, 'by anonymous'. The space where either the name or the moniker of anonymous would go was simply...rubbed clean. No tracings could reveal the name that had once been scratched there. The only logical conclusion was that they were all part of the same collection.
They might have remained a passing curiosity for literary professors if not for the fact that in 2047 AC, one of them was found to contain a garbled passage about the 'clipping of starlit wings' and the 'fall of rising vessels' and 'the
Eye of the desert opens'. Less than a year later, disaster struck when the
Pillar of Wings erupted in magical energy. The shockwaves split the foundation apart, dropping the tower into a bottomless abyss. The only building left standing from the Pre-Cataclysmic era, the pillar's disappearance was soon followed by the dismal, intermittent sounds of the
Aither Fleet falling from the stars like slain birds, hitting the dunes in muffled explosions. There was no other known relic that could power
starships, and the loss of the Aither Fleet was a massive blow to the pride and hope of the people.
After that the Glimpsing Tome, as it came to be called, became an object of fierce interest and contention.
It was dangerous because it was prophetic. It was frustrating because every reader took away something different from the text. And it was unsettling because many of the
Old Faith saw the author's greed for knowledge as a sin, and his desire to enter the 'Mind of God' as a blasphemy. The leaders of the Old Faith encouraged learning and science, but the last thing they wanted was to lead anyone to follow in the author's footsteps, or allow the book to fall into evil hands.
And so the Tome was hidden and locked away in the darkest depths of the Library. Permission to examine the book is extremely hard to obtain, and a good reason for doing so must always be given. Still, its warnings have at times saved many lives and prevented wars. It is viewed as a dangerous, fickle but valuable tool, and is now in the hands of the
Archivists who control the Library in the wake of the
Aeternum's rise to power.
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