1

I sit, gazing upon the ocean. The surf comes in strongly, but without malice — there is no storm hinted by its appearance, merely the presence of the sea. A good amount of my youth was spent observing the ocean during various atmospheric and chronological moods; noontime storms, sunrise, sunset, et cetera. Three weeks have passed since graduation; I have seen both Violet and Slade off, the latter to his paternal homestead, the former on a trip to study abroad for the next two months. Thus, aside of Mum — for Claire was away as well, on a vacation with a few of her theatre friends — I was alone. Mum was writing, which galvanised me to leave her in peace. Thus, I sat upon the beach, observing the ocean.

The interaction between sky and sea is an interesting thing; you see such vivid images there. The clouds are more dramatic, one could say; they sweep in and exist in the most eloquent of fashions, as if wearing their best dresses and ties to show off to their dates, the ephemeral waves that jump above the surface for a moment, taking a stroll upon its surface before submerging once again. I wondered in that moment if dolphins took their movements from the waves, some genetic habit that formed from the cells that rode upon the water’s surface. How interesting would that be, to trace back dolphins to their earliest genetic ancestors and see the same behaviours? What if that was the reason blowholes can exist, that the ancestors were oxidised by riding the surface waves and thus — when amassed to create the first dolphin — lungs and the blowhole were given the ability to form?

I feel I must offer my concept of time as a nonlinear thing. Over the years I’ve had a few concepts of how the universe’s flow goes, most of which seem completely impossible to those with whom I’ve attempted communicate my ideas. For example, that time is but a collection of spirals intersecting at random locations and specific points; there is no real formulaic reasoning behind their locations. They are just there. Thus, there is no real beginning nor a true end; there are infinite spirals, and thus infinite combinations and intersections that one could pluck from and consider a beginning and another an end. Another concept I found in my head was that the universes that exist will do everything in their power to make sure that they exist. Thus, when things seem beyond our control, it is typically due to some cosmic reckoning that allows a fledgling universe its existence — a reckoning formed by the “future” of that cosmos’ existence. The fact that it exists is absolute; its creation is mandated by its being there to have been created. That leads to some pretty perplexing plots, I think, such as the inversion of cause and effect. Is it because one studies that they pass an exam, or that because they passed the exam in a certain cosmos that they studied? I would have shared these thoughts with Claire, but our ways are rarely similar these days. Mum has recently bore the weight of my thoughts, a mass that should never fall on solely one person, methinks, but Slade is away, and Violet and Claire are off and I am in my head all the time, a place filled with, surely, madness and consternation.

From my satchel, I pull a suede-bound notebook, a book with a cover coloured deep blue. There was silver inscription upon the inside of the cover, words scrawled in a beautiful manuscript. I hadn’t read them until the previous day, though I’d found the notebook upon emptying my satchel the evening of graduation. I assumed at the time that I’d been given the book as a gift, though from whom I did not know.

To those who would bring the end of Despair, it read. I sat in the lotus position before continuing, flipping the cover page. The paper this notebook was composed of felt like finest silk to my fingertips, like something sewn together with utmost care and tenderness. I was impressed.

Preliminary Introduction

Reader, I offer you an apology.

That you are reading this implies that you are at the point of your life that marks the end of ease, of a lax nature. Your time as a pupil of the material world is at end; your time as a pupil of the True world, the Aethereal, is begun. This life — the one you must lead, I speak with greatest urgency — will in no way be simple. There are nuances of every single thing in the universe that will soon be revealed to you. No longer shall you experience a singular plane of existence, but, with my help, all of them.

It is vital that you take the writings of this manuscript seriously. To do otherwise is to further endanger everything in the cosmoses that you love. By reading these notes, you are alerting the universe to the fact that you are as aware of it as it is of you. And I promise you, Reader, the cosmos is very aware of your existence.

Before we go deeper into the mysteries of the cosmos, I must ask you to ponder over some concepts concerning this admittedly dense and infinitely expansive subject. Have you ever observed the sky and wondered what beings may dwell up there? Do you look at nature and recognise patterns that most would miss entirely? Do you feel as if you are made of different matter than those about you? Have you wondered where souls come from, or what a soul is? How often do you explore the notion of human nature? How often do you explore the notion of non-human nature? What is human? Why are there laws of physics; can these be broken?

These are things I shall delve into throughout these notes, but I wish you to think of them before you begin reading the rest of what I’ve written. Take a day between thinking of these questions and continuing; whilst you’ve not passed this page, you are still safe. If, by the time a day is over, you find yourself incapable of continuing the material I’ve scribed, then put the book someplace another may find it, and forget about this book. It is for your own well-being that you obey my conditions, something that shall be greatly understood at another time.

Go, Reader; think.

Upon one of the pages in the very front, after the cover page, was a chapter of contents. The first, named Preliminary Introduction, was interestingly enough the only one I could read. The rest were in odd symbols that seemed to fizzle and blur from my perception every time I attempted to grasp them with my eyes.

“Fine, then,” I muttered, closing the book and replacing it in my pack. “I shall do as you ask and think.”

I lay down, my hands supporting my head upon the sand, and observed the sky as the sun fell for the day, recalling myths about thunderbirds and star-people and the various gods of Norse, Greco-Roman, Inuit, Slavic origins. Birds certainly seemed to dwell in the sky, though I knew they nested hither and fro; certainly, the author of this manuscript meant for me to dive deeper than preliminary thought. One of my teachers told me that there were three depths of intelligence, and that the consistently deeper one went, the more intelligent they were. The first was the realm of people and things; the second involved basic concepts and notions, such as want, need, the ideas behind material things; the deepest was the world of ideas, such as morals and ethics and the truly abstract. I scarcely found myself pondering the first, but at that moment I’d been floating in the second. It was time to dive, to delve, to drift.

When I was younger, about thirteen, I’d crafted — for a project in my language arts class — a timeline of the gods. I started with Khaos, the primordial darkness from whence all things stemmed. From Khaos came the Idyllic Gods, the predecessors to even the Titans; these included Creation, Imagination, the Cosmic Laws. No one within the cosmos can be stronger than these, for they even overthrew Khaos’ reign. Next came the worlds, the stars, and the other things Creation and Imagination formed under the Cosmic Laws’ guidance. These were all inanimate at the time of their conception, but Imagination felt that they deserved wills and wants of their own and so breathed into existence Life, who explored the cosmos and cast bits of itself everywhere, allowing for the Titans and Gods to find themselves existing. As to the rest I couldn’t quite remember how each culture’s religions came into being. I think there was something about how each region had its own sky through which certain gods would communicate, or that there were really one set of gods that translated differently… I do clearly remember that my teacher gave me bonus points for my treatise on Truth and Knowledge as separate gods.

Each of the Idyllic Gods, seeking to galvanise growth of the cosmos, had children with one another. From Imagination and Creation’s pairing came gods of magick, Life and his descendants; from Imagination and the Cosmic Laws came Death and her descendants, the boundaries between Material and Ethereal realms, alchemy. Creation and the Cosmic Laws created the various sciences, et cetera. Truth stemmed from Imagination and the Cosmic Laws as well; Truth is absolute. It exists independent of all who would choose to ignore or observe it. Truth is. Knowledge happened as those who could not completely comprehend the magnitude and absolute nature of Truth’s existence attempted understanding Truth; they knew not that one couldn’t understand Truth, but merely observe it, and so they derived from Truth, which led to Knowledge. Thus, those who search for Truth are only to find Knowledge, for Truth is everywhere simultaneously and cannot be sought.

The question suddenly struck me, one of the few the author had dealt me; I never really considered myself of different stuff than those around me. Mayhap of different character, with a variant set of moral priorities maybe, but of different make up entirely? Never. We are all composed of the materials set forth by Creation and Imagination, of star-stuff and earth-stuff, of energy condensed into matter. Perhaps some are composed of less earth-stuff and more star-stuff than others — that is, more Imagination than Cosmic Law, more ethereal in thought than others.

“Is that you, Lorcán?” a voice wafted over me. I realised my eyes had been closed, that there was a person standing over me with a flashlight in her hand.

I offered a semi-startled, “Hello, there. How are you?”

I knew not who it was yet; the light was blinding me to her face. I could tell that the ends of her hair were coloured red, and that she wore a dark blue jacket, but the rest of her was covered in the darkness of night. Hollowhaven hadn’t streetlights, but semi-opaque sidewalks that bioluminescent creatures flowed through at night; most of the island was either powered by water, solar, or thermal energy. As the water flowed through the island’s cities, they realised that they could create pathways of light at night by adding a layer of creatures that give off light. And no one really drives on the island, a feature not entirely exclusive to the Silver Crescent, but certainly the least number of cars on an island would be the amount on Hollowhaven. I sat up as she sat beside me, turning her lamp to full brightness so that we could see each other. She had copper freckles upon her slightly tanned face, and brilliant hazel eyes that glinted either silver or green, depending on the source of illumination. Her name was Rhiannon Shae, and she was a member of the graduating class I would have been in had I not taken an extra year.

She said, “I am well, I guess. Boundless summer days to rest and I cannot seem to sleep.”

“Something on your mind?” I asked, still reeling a bit from the fact that she was speaking with me. Rhiannon was known to not speak to anyone but those she held in highest regard. A cold girl, it seemed, had I not looked into her eyes and seen nothing but subdued warmth.

Rhiannon nodded. “A lot is always on my mind. C’est la vie for me.”

“Why’s that?”

She stared at the sea, ignoring my question. A few moments passed; a breeze with the softness of down feathers blew back Rhiannon’s hair. Upon the breeze, I thought I heard a whistling of some kind, as if something was calling for me. I turned and saw nothing behind me, nor before.

“Did you hear that, by chance?” I asked.

“Unfortunately.”

“Not my question—"

Rhiannon snapped, “Obviously, Lorcán; I was referring to the whistle as well.”

Something in her manner seemed rigid and urgent; I felt the need to stand, and so I did. She was on her feet, looking at the water still. Another whistle, sharper this time; something within my chest felt like it was folding, and I fell to a knee.

She commanded, “Recede from the shore, Lorcán. Off to the boardwalk — or, better yet, the street. Take my lantern.”

A bit perplexed, I inquired, “Can you see without it?”

Rhiannon scoffed at the idea. “Oh, believe me; I don’t want to see. Go.”

The lantern was in my hand; I walked from the beach backwards, slowly, as if to shed light for Rhiannon if she required it. Unfortunately for me, I tripped over a plank I’d not seen arrive so close to me. I dropped the lantern, allowing it roll down the slope and back towards Rhiannon.

“You had one job, Lorcán!” she shouted in disappointment.

“My regrets; I’m coming for it!”

“With alacrity, Lor—” A high pitched whistle shot across the shore, wrenching from my cognizance the rest of her sentence. I was on my knees, clasping my shocked ears. I heard wood sliding against a metallic surface before a loud thud landed nearby. There was a horrible clacking sound before I felt myself thrown a few feet into the air; I landed in soft sand and rolled so that I was somewhat submerged in water. My satchel was, however, untouched by the sea; I rose and instinctively fell to a crouch, hearing something speed past my face.

“Leave him be!” hissed Rhiannon as something sped past me and landed with a horribly wet thunk; there was a sharp exhalation and a scream that threw me from my sprint and to the ground, my fingers just short of reaching the lantern. My heart beat a thousand times a millisecond as I scrambled for the lantern and rolled onto my back. Over me loomed some ugly creature I didn’t recognise. Its skin was translucent and aqua in colour; there were four eyes, two where the nose should be; thin fins extended from its back and gleamed cold silver in the light of the lantern. I could see the organs of the creature, its beating heart and rattling digestive system; it was hungry. Its maws opened, a horizontal line from one side of its face to the other, revealing an infinitesimal count of razor thin teeth.

“Oh,” I whispered in response to the frightening sight. It lunged as Rhiannon slid in between myself and the animal, engorging itself upon what seemed to be a crude spear with feathers attached by leather string to the spearhead. The creature reeled from the pain, giving more space between myself and Rhiannon and the beast.

“Told you that it was better to leave this unseen,” Rhiannon said before disengaging her spear from the shrivelling creature. As if all the air was sent free from its skin, the animal deflated to the size of a shrimp before catching fire coloured whitish-blue. “Sirens. Ugly as hell. Ick…”

“What do you mean… you mean sirens, as in the Odyssey?”

“Perhaps not precisely those, but, generally speaking, yes. You alright, Lorcán? No scrapes, right?” I shook my head, only slightly befuddled. “You’re wondering why it attacked you, if I knew it would be here, et cetera, aren’t you?”

Scarcely managing to soothe my breathing, I said, “Yes to the former, more than the latter. I’m happy you were here, or else I might not be.”

Rhiannon shook her head. “How oddly logical you’re being about this,” she acknowledged.

“I don’t think it’s all really settled in yet, honestly,” I admitted. It took me awhile to fall into shock; when Mum told me that she was again with cancer, it took two weeks for me to fully feel the implications.

“Fair enough. It only just happened a few moments ago. You should thank your friends before we venture to a place we can comfortably chat, though.”

“My friends?”

“Yeah, the whistlers. Probably wind spirits, Aurai or something. Sirens don’t make sounds like that, especially when their prey is so close at hand. The Aurai were warning you, which is interesting in itself. Considering that from your reaction to the siren you haven’t the foggiest about how the world is actually run.”

“Oh. Well, I thank you, Aurai, for ensuring forewarning.” The wind blew about my face, and I felt warmth there, as if someone was planting kisses upon my brow and cheek. Rhiannon smirked at my faintly blushing face as she lifted the lantern to guide us to the street.

Vaguely puzzled, Rhiannon remarked, “They’re fond of you, Lorcán, the Aurai. I’ve not seen that swift a response before.”

I pleaded, “Start explaining things to me please, Rhiannon, before I start actually displaying signs of panic.”

Rhiannon chuckled and turned off her lantern, nodding at the bench sitting outside the currently closed library, to which we ventured. She crossed her legs and adjusted the ring on her right middle finger before looking towards me.

“Have you,” she asked, “found anything interesting lately? A fossil, a shard of glass, a button that you’ve kept?”

“A notebook,” I said in reply. Rhiannon’s eyebrows went up, her curiosity piqued. I withdrew from my satchel the notebook and offered it to Rhiannon, who shook her head.

“Even looking at it makes me tingle; I’m not holding it. It’s meant for you, and it has great power. Where’d you find it?”

“In here,” I said, holding up the edge of my bag. “It fell out when I dumped its contents onto my bed.”

“Who gave you the bag?” I thought about it for a tiny moment; my mother had given it to me from a suitcase of old things she’d kept over the years beneath her bed.

“Where did the case come from, Mum?” I’d asked. Mum had looked at me with her tired, green eyes and smiled gently, sadness clouding her expression.

“Your grandfather. He would want you to have it; I feel his urging. Would you like it?” Instantly I’d felt connected to that bag, as if I’d been meant to obtain it. Eagerly I nodded, and with great joy I took it up to my room immediately, adjusting the strap and placing my schoolbooks in it for the next day.

“My grandfather, Mum’s dad. Indirectly from him, I should say, for he passed before I was even conceived. Mum kept his stuff, or he bequeathed a good amount of it to her.” Rhiannon nodded, still gazing upon the book.

“Was he or your mother a practitioner of magick or something of the sort?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Mum writes science fiction, and he was a writer, too. He came from a line that practised Druidry, though. So, maybe. Mum’s mother was Catholic, though; I don’t think they practised Druidry on a regular basis, if at all.”

“Interesting… well, what of your father’s side?”

“My grandfather on my father’s side was Romani, I’m told; they all were.” I found her line of questioning starting to make me feel tired, though that may have been the shock kicking in.

“Why immediately mention your grandfather?” Rhiannon queried.

“Because he made spells whilst my grandmother made potions.” Rhiannon nodded, understanding the connection between my family history and whatever it was that was going on in her mind. I asked, “What is it that you’ve all figured out in your head, Rhiannon?”

“Ah, it is so rare to hear it pronounced as it was originally intended… your mother taught you Gaeilge?”

“She did, aye.” I replied.

Rhiannon smirked. “Cool mother you’ve, Lorcán. To answer your question, I think this book is what brought upon you the siren. It sensed the sudden spike in, shall we say, ethereal awareness, and attacked to consume your essence.”

“So, there was nothing personal between the siren and me? Just happened so sense me and, as a fox does a rabbit, attacked?” Rhiannon nodded and shrugged simultaneously, performing that behavioural mechanism dedicated to notifying one that aspects of what one had uttered were mostly correct, but could be better defined. “Well, that makes me feel a bit better.”

“Why’s that?” she asked me.

“Because it means I’ll either just have to stop reading it, and eventually whatever spike overwhelmed my existence today shall fade away, or I can continue and see what happens in the book.”

She conceded, “Essentially, yes. I don’t see why this helps you feel soothed, though.”

I chuckled. “Ah? Well, honestly, neither do I. But I am soothed and satisfied with these choices.”

“Have you any concept as to which you’ll go after, Lorcán?” I watched the stream of glowing green flowing beneath our feet a moment, nodding nearly imperceptibly.

“I can’t help but seek to finish a good book.” Rhiannon rose to her feet and began walking away. “Was it something I said?” Rhiannon didn’t stop to answer my question but continued beyond my eyes’ ability to follow her. I let it be, standing again and stretching a bit before replacing the notebook in my satchel and walking home.

It was drizzling a bit as I returned, opening the door to our manor and resealing it shut. Mum was in the living room, unlike when I’d left earlier in the day.

“Hello, Mum. Taking a break?”

“Yeah. I made supper, if you’re up for pasta and garlic bread. Also, I got a phone call from Ms Irigis, letting us know that Slade made it mainland safely.”

“That was sweet of her,” I said, placing my bag on the steps leading up to the bedrooms before I grabbed a bowl and scooped spaghetti into it. “How’s she handling his leaving for his father’s place?”

“She expected it, she tells me. He needs to reconcile with the men in his life too, she thinks. I dunno… do you feel the urge to—” My look of utter disapproval made Mum explode with laughter. “Oh, oh no, I guess not, hm? My boy loves his mum too much, eh?” I planted a kiss upon her cheek before dropping myself onto the couch rather pointedly.

“Absolutely,” I replied. “Wouldn’t trade her for the world.”

“Well I would hope so, if trading me could save the world,” she said. “Promise me you would? The world is worth so much more than me.”

“Unless your perspective of the world would be what could save it from such a horrible deal. Who would offer that, anyway?” Mum looked at me with a faintly melancholic glance.

“You’d be surprised, Lorcán. How was the ocean tonight?” Rows of swirling teeth flashed through my mind. I flinched but played it off as if I were shifting my weight on the couch.

“It is perpetually beautiful, Mum, much like you.”

“Sycophant,” she snorted. “But thank you.”

Changing the subject, I asked, “How went your writing for today?”

“Twenty-seven pages, all of which I deleted. I can’t seem to describe the process of cosmic dissonance as I want, but that’s to be solved later. Perhaps next week. We shall see.” The person on the television began advertising soap, demonstrating how its suds scraped away excess oils to purify the skin.

“Could I read it, next week?” I asked sweetly.

Mum nodded before she leant her head on the top of mine, chuckling a bit. “You could write it by next week.”

I grinned, shaking my head. “We don’t have the same voice; your readers would be displeased.”

Mum chuckled, prodding my ear. “Fair enough, m’lad. Fair enough.”

For the rest of the evening Mum and I discussed random things, tangential topics and the typical, before Mum realised that she was tired, and I recognised my own exhaustion, for we’d both faced beasts today, and it was time for bed.

“Love you, Mum!” I yelled down the hall.

“And I, you, wolf cub!” I heard the light go out in her room; I closed my door and pulled the string on my lamp to make it bright enough to read beneath, for I found the urge to read more of the notebook. Gazing upon the table of contents, I found three more sections I could read: the second chapter of the book, Introduction, the third, The Premise, and the fourth, Of the First.

Introduction

If you can read this, you have thought, and this is the first step to your enlightenment. I do hope you’ll continue reading, despite the hardships that shall come of it; the work detailed in this notebook is an important one, and if it is not completed I fear the destruction of the cosmos as an entity composed of light — that is, the universe shall succumb to a powerful darkness. It is easy to compare light to dark in terms relative to good and evil, but this is not the case. There are those who show great light and do great evil, and those who dwell in utter darkness to do pure good. But with the darkness I speak of — the kind I seek to ensure does not overtake the world — comes a great price that should not be paid, that cannot be paid lest everything in the cosmos that can die does so.

But more of that shall be mentioned shortly; this is the introduction.

I am the Hunter. For reasons that I shall not explain yet, I can only give you one of my epithets as a name for me; I wish to not create much dissonance this early in your studying of this Tome, the Relic I was able to leave behind. I seek to quell a monster that, without meaning to, I helped create. My intention to create the monster means nothing; my will to destroy it is everything.

What has this to do with you, you may inquire. I shall answer: everything and nothing.

You can still put down this Tome and leave it for none else to find, where it shall vanish from existence and you shan’t remember it ever again; you can reclaim your life entirely for yourself and never have to fret over such matters as light and dark and Relics and Tomes again. Thus: nothing. I’m certain your life will be greatly lengthened this way.

You can continue reading through this Tome, practicing what you learn from it, growing stronger and fighting off monsters, understanding the matters of light and dark and Relics and Tomes, learning more about how the cosmos was put together, understanding a truer version of the universe. Thus: everything. Your life will more than likely become vastly shortened this way.

By turning the page, you enter the latter world, the one from whence you shan’t return. You enter a higher level of Truth, and that is a very dangerous thing to do. Whereas in the previous introduction I asked you to think, in this I ask of you a different action.

Choose.

I stopped a moment, thinking of the event on the beach a few hours previous, of Rhiannon appearing to stop the siren from ingesting me. It had been hungry, and I appeared to be a good source of food for it; there was no real malice in its eyes, just that which I’d projected onto it. Could I go through the world the same, now, with that memory? Thinking of those like myself — new to the concept of such creatures’ existence — who weren’t lucky enough to have a neighbourhood Rhiannon around, able to save them when the time came… I wondered how many deaths were caused by such circumstances. Shark bites, jellyfish poisoning… what if they were at the hands of greater things, scarier things? Was it in me to deny the chance to help people who needed it?

Some major part of me decided it wasn’t; the page was turned.

The Premise

You have chosen to continue through this Tome. I must offer you one final warning, for after reading this Premise you may still set aside the book and live a mostly normal life. The Premise of this Tome is compound in nature.

First, I must explain to you the monster I have created and aim to destroy. This includes the history of its inception (to be explained through the story of its creator), its composition, its abilities, its effects.

Second, I must detail the world within which we dwell. This includes cosmogony, family trees, maps, and the sciences most pertinent to the universe.

Third, I must explain to you the concept of reincarnation and its pertinence to you.

Fourth, I shall provide an index of those terms which have very specific meanings.

Fifth, I shall provide you space to store your memories, for this is — you shall come to see — as much your Tome as mine.

To put the Premise into a single statement, I require your help in the destruction of Despair, that monster I created with a different purpose than that which it is being utilised currently, and so I aim to teach you how to craft the creature that shall bring Despair’s demise. This Tome is part manual, part historical account, part journal. The task I ask of you shall require you use all three functions.

If you feel that such an undertaking is not something you are capable of, put aside the Tome and allow another the responsibility. No judgement shall come upon you for it, Reader, and I do thank you for your honesty. Otherwise, take a deep breath and turn the page.

My finger touched the edge of the page, hesitating a moment. I felt something great were to happen once I flipped the paper over, as if I would never be able to turn back again, that I would become part of this universe in a deeper sense. My curiosity was piqued beyond comprehension. To destroy despair? What a glorious undertaking, should one complete it! Imagine, a world without depression, without anxiety; there would be no more hopelessness, no more woe!

But would you survive? The question startled me, stopping me from turning the page. Would you live to see Despair ended? I wondered why my mind would sponsor such thought, and — as usual when faced with doubt — found the counterargument. Does it matter whether I’ll survive to see the fruits of my labour? Why should it matter, so long as it is completed? Despair dwells without me, and it can perish that way as well. Steadfast once more, I turned the page and found myself falling, it appeared, into some deep level of consciousness I knew not that I could obtain. Imagine, if you will, opening your eyes in a deep pool of water, with nothing but aqueous space flowing around you. Within this space lies pure, unmitigated understanding, as if you are absorbing through your pores information that is relayed to your brain and you apprehend innately. This is how I felt when reading the Tome, as if I were inside a bay of consciousness and could comprehend every bit of it. A voice similar to my own began speaking in my mind, and I could see the hand of he who wrote the Tome as he wrote it, with the view of memories upon my eyes.