Teller of Fate
First Movement: The Birth of a Teller of Fate
The Templar War
…another Oerth.
There existed in the Atlantic a sprawling archipelago dominated by a large island, home to a sub-species of hominid known to legend as the Atlanteans.
They were in no particular different from their terrestrial cousins until the Sea God came. History calls this being Poseidon. He anointed ten of them as kings and, on a secret island in the Silvergrey Sea, altered 120 of them, making them mages of divine power. These six score became the first Templars. In groups of twelve, they founded the ten temples, distinguished from one another by designations of colour: Órga (Golden), Airgid (Silver), Brocach (Ebon), Deargach (Red), Préachta (Blue), Corcra (Violet), Oráiste (Orange), Uaine (Green), Turcaide (Indigo), Liath (Grey). The Sea God became their guiding force, its intimate connection giving them the wisdom to protect their people.
Over time, the Temples were consolidated, some Temples came under the rule of others, effectively ceasing to exist as separate entities. By the time of the Ten Kingdoms’ quinquagen-millennial1 celebration, only three of the original ten Temples were left, the Silver, Golden and Ebon, the others having been absorbed into them; Grey into the Ebon; Red, Blue, Violet, Orange, Green, and Indigo into the Silver.
The Temples were more than the institutes of learning for the Kingdoms; they were the lifeblood of culture and the economy. They trained the adepts of every field: military, medical, engineering, as well as the arcane arts (Magick) through which the Kingdoms governed. They were the issuers of currency, effectively making them the bankers of the Kingdoms. They were the keepers of history and the trainers of all artisans. They were the source of power for the monarchs and culture for the populace. To lose one’s Temple was to be beholden the king who controlled the Temple that now owned the schools, libraries, and chapterhouses that one relied on for the day-to-day business of one’s kingdom.
The absorption—one might almost say, cannibalism—of the Temples meant the consolidation of power in the hands of three of the Ten Kings. If it continued, there would soon be only one Temple, and so only one real King. This would mean the death of Atalanté as it was known and the birth of Empire.
It could mean the end of the peerage altogether. There were dark whispers that it was the Silver Temple that wanted to rule, consolidating its power by absorbing other Temples in a bid to abolish the Monarchies and rule openly. Through several generations of weak Silver Kings, they effectively ruled the whole large island, excepting only the Golden King and his Temple. Though the Ebon King’s Temple had absorbed Grey, the circumstances exonerated the former of any villainy. That and their close alliance with the well thought of Golden Temple saved them from any serious suspicion.
The Templars and their kingdoms might have remained a footnote in the history of the multiverse were it not for the most peculiar discovery. A young mage of the Golden Temple discovered an ancient network of passage to many other worlds, spanning not just galaxies, but universes and even beyond that—to other Aions2 as well.
It was during the celebration of the 100,000-year reign of the Ten Kings that this Mage, Phæthon by name, made known this network. Though it was almost impossible to use, it did surrender its secrets to persistent investigation. Using the knowledge gained, the Golden Magi created their own system of passage, called simply the Portal Network.
At a stroke, the farthest corners of the Multiverse had become accessible for exploration.
Though the well-meaning Golden knew it not, their brothers of the Silver Temple saw other, more sinister uses for this technomancy. The Silver, more than any of the others, had expertise in the art and science of war. They saw the Portal Network as a means of conquest. Using the weak monarchs of the seven kingdoms under their sway for their votes in the Divine Council, as the Government of the Kings was called, they obtained approval to launch an aggressive campaign of colonization.
They were initially supported by the other Temples, Ebon because they thought—with the naiveté of the tools of empire builders throughout history—that ‘civilizing the natives’ would improve their lot and Golden because of the knowledge they hoped to gain about the Multiverse.
It wasn’t long before both Ebon and Golden tasted bitter disappointment. Colonizing turned into outright conquest within a matter of years. The kings, who lacked the discipline necessary for truly beneficent rulers, could not, by argument or threat, be turned from the riches they saw coming from corners of Aions of whose existence they were barely aware.
The Golden King was the only exception; he sided with his Temple and withdrew from the Divine Council. It was the first time that any such schism happened among the Ten. The kingdoms of Atalanté would never recover from this.
The situation in the two kingdoms under the influence of the Ebon Temple took a decidedly graver turn. The Ebon was more militant in many ways than their brethren in the Silver, but they had more heart. Their pleas to the Ebon and Grey Kings to halt these invasions were thus both more bellicose and more impassioned. No record survives of the events in the council room of the Ebon Temple Seat that day, but the result was the murder of the Grey King. It was the first regicide ever committed in the Ten Kingdoms. How this could have happened when the only real power were the nine Ebon Magi in the room isn’t known, but the subterfuge of the Silver Temple was suspected. Certainly, they were involved in what followed.
There was a war of Magick in the Northern Islands that night as the Silver, accusing the Ebon of killing the Grey King, attacked the Ebon strongholds. All lay students of the Ebon Temple fled from its towers and libraries as the Ebon Mages gathered their acolytes to the last defense of their Temple. The northern skies glowed with the flames of burning buildings before the sun rose. A single night of treachery almost wiped a Temple from history.
There were more firsts that night. The Ebon Temple was officially banned. The Grey Kingdom ceased to exist. With the withdrawal of Golden, the Ten were now Eight. The Ebon King formally submitted to the authority of the Silver Temple. The Kings under Silver control followed suit within days, effectively retiring the Divine Council. The Magiarchy of Atalanté was born.
⁂
For 60,000 Years, the Empire of Atalanté conquered and slew across the Multiverse. They seeded countless legends and myths in the peoples they dominated. Most intelligent life in thirty Aions came under their rule. These territories were now called the Pleroma, the Shining Empire. The echoes of that time will be felt until the Multiverse finally recedes into the long sleep from whence it came.
The remnants of the Ebon Temple fled to those Aions under the control of the Golden Kingdom. For their part, the Ebon Magi helped in the defense of the Golden controlled Aions of the Pleroma. They were joined by several Silver Magi, disillusioned with their brethren. The populations were protected by wards of death and cloaks of invisibility.
Once safely in the fastness of the Golden Aions, to the Ebon and rebel Silver Magi were made known the secret of the Golden Temple: the other seven orders of wizardry were represented here. Rather than succumb to the deaths of their Orders, small bands of wizards from the Temples absorbed by the others had taken the totality of their stored wisdom and retreated to the Golden Temple. When the colonization of the Aions began, they followed their Golden brethren and helped found the Golden Kingdom, as the Golden controlled Aions were named. This was why the Golden Magi were able to defy the will of the Silver Divine Council and to brush off the persistent meddling, spying and outright sabotage of the Silver Wizards. The secrets of all ten Orders of Magick were hidden in their deep halls.
After a little unpleasantness regarding old feuds was settled, the Magus of the Golden Temple proposed a divination to help determine what course of action to take to stop what they feared would be an eternal Multiverse-wide empire. The method they chose was called the Timpeall. It hadn’t been performed since the first of the Temples was absorbed, for it required twelve Mages from each of the Ten Orders and One as the ruler over all.
This One was the Mó é Féin. He was of all Orders and of none. The one who currently held this title resided in Muintir an Tí, a retreat on a northern island of Atalanté atop the highest mountain on Oerth. In truth, it was not known if he still lived. He saved the Magi the trouble of finding out by showing up as they debated the wisdom of a trip to fetch him.
The Mó é Féin was Phaethon, the same one who had discovered the portals long before and had helped engineer the Portal Network. Anticipating the call after the decimation of the Northern Kingdoms, he made his way to the Golden Hall for the seventh and last Timpeall.
⁂
They learned much more than they intended that night. The Silver Temple was no longer Master of Itself. Some Silver Magi had dared the Apian Roads in Nonspace and had released something from another subreality. They could not learn what it was, for the Timpeall would not say. What it did tell them was that the Magi who had done this thing returned declaring that they had found the ultimate god and demanded that all worship it. The closest the Atlanteans had ever come to acknowledging the existence of a deity was Poseidon, who was a daily reality. They had no truck with worship. Not even the repudiation of Poseidon as a god upset that immortal founder of their civilization, but it did mightily bother them. That the Sea God was unbothered by this outraged them as much as this new god did.
The Multiverse was to be conquered by the Silver Temple as a sacrifice to this ‘White God’. If the other mages could not stop this, the White God would consume every intelligence it could reach.
The decision was made to kill the White God. The six-score and one Magi of the Seventh Timpeall bound themselves then and there to the terrible Oath of Immortality, forgoing the Gift of Death until such time as the White God was dead. In that same act, they formally severed their ties with Poseidon.
Unlike the Airgid Temple’s apostacy toward Him, this betrayal angered the Sea God. Atalanté shuddered and the sea rose in storm. The Timpeall silenced the storm and calmed the islands. Poseidon was master of the Temples no more.
The newly immortal Templars sent their agents out into the Multiverse to learn of the White God, his places and powers, as well as the positioning of his toadies, the Silver Mages and their followers and armies. Other agents they sent; thieves, assassins and worse to hinder the Silver Temple’s armies and to sow the seed of rebellion. Later, they were instrumental in mitigating the carnage of the Pangenoside as millions of races were literally fed to the White God. They helped prevent the extinction of most and preserved the culture of almost all.
The Magi of the Timpeall themselves prepared for assassination. They endured punishing initiations in arts martial and occult, making themselves the instruments of death that would—when the Day came and the White God arrived at the White City (as the capital of Atalanté was renamed)—perform their singular task. After one hundred and ten millennia, that Day finally came.
It would be incorrect to say that the battle took place in a certain place or time for, such was its magnitude that the fabric of Reality was torn. That battle was still fought and always had been. It will still be fought when the Multiverse finally dies again. In a purely mundane sense, though, it was fought at the White City and the Timpeall fatally, as they thought, wounded the White God, which fled to die. The remnants of the Silver Temple fled after it. The Ebon Temple died to a Mage, it appeared, along with most of the Timpeall as the blood of the White God consumed them and the whole Archipelago. Atalanté died on that Day.
⁂
There were thirteen survivors of the real War to End All Wars; the battle to free the Multiverse from the White God. They were all that remained of the one hundred twenty-one Mages of the Timpeall, the oracle which saw the end of all things if the White God, supporting the Silver Temple, were to win Atalanté.
That war destroyed an empire spanning thirty Aions, already decimated by the White God’s blind lusts and appetites. Thinking that, with the deaths of their comrades, the war must be over, they let themselves forget. Disappearing into the emerging cultures of their Oerth, they waited for death to release them, one by one.
This did not happen. They forgot themselves but did not die. Only one retained any awareness, the one who had led them, the Mó é Féin. He it was who was attuned to the echoes in of the White God, ITs Temple, and, as he was later to learn, ITs pursuers, the Ebon Temple.
Disguised as a beggar, he first heard the whispers of the Silver Templars’ return. He came to himself and, crisscrossing the world, found and roused the others, preparing them for the battle to come.
During this task, he discovered that some Magi of the Ebon Temple had preceded the arrival of the Silver. Gladly, did he welcome them and together they began planning the defeat of the Silver and the protection of their Oerth.
⁂
Both the Silver and the Ebon Temples had survived almost eighteen thousand years in the Aions outside the former Pleroma, hunting each other, continuing the war begun in a city on an island that no longer existed. None of them were still, strictly speaking, sane or human anymore. They became aware of the Oerth eventually but didn’t recognize it.
They had fought each other initially by enslaving, modifying and even creating races and civilizations from which to build armies to attempt the annihilation of the other. Being able to operate outside of time, the Templars were able to push the evolutions of entire biospheres and later the cultures of the intelligent races they created, by moving solar systems through other Aions, aging them as they went, and bringing them back fully formed. The races thus generated were programmed to hate and fear the Temple they’d been bred to fight as well as the races created and enslaved by it.
This species creation went a long way to replacing those races extinguished by the White God. Many of the races they created were ones that, owing to the rather careless way the Meta-Laws of the Multiverse were abused, were enslaved thousands of years earlier when the Shining Empire still existed. Thus it was that, when they found the planet of their origin, they mistook it for one of these creations, gone to seed. It’s even possible that it was. This gave Phæthon and the other survivors of the Timpeall time, for they knew that, though the White God would not be misled, IT would not know the truth until ITs worshippers began to suspect it. Then and only then would IT come; they would have time to prepare. They had failed to kill IT. Something else had to be attempted.
Phæthon knew something that none of his companions did. He knew that the others of the Timpeall had not died. They were eaten alive by the White God, but because of their Oath, not only were they alive, but they were also undiminished. In agony indescribable, they could not even communicate with the outside. Only Phæthon, the One of the Timpeall could sense them. A scheme to free them and, by so doing, bind the White God was forming. After the other twelve were awakened to themselves, they would build a prison secure enough to hold a god.
Azhure’en.
It was never made; it had existed from eternity. Its cool halls and anything they contained were all that would survive the Dissolution, when the Multiverse ceased its expression for the Seven Greater Eternities of its dreamless sleep. In form it was a titanic building of multi-hued blue stone. Everywhere that intelligent life had ever seeded itself in the Multiverse there existed the potential for an incarnation of this edifice.
It was everywhere, countless billions of iterations, all linked in an endless chain. But until the crisis which finally saw the necessity of imprisoning of the White God, no one ever dared make it real. It was part of the Metacosm from which the structure of Reality was made flesh.
The plan of the Timpeall was to bring Azhure’en to manifestation. This would require that it be grown in actuality everywhere it existed potentially.
They intended to use this to trap the White God. All they had to do was lure IT in.
But first they had to make it. The physical edifice needed to be finished, properly consecrated, and then burned—at just the right time. The real Azhure’en would manifest from the astral image, using the energy released by the conflagration.
The Timpeall, assisted by the Ebon Temple’s various Magicks on the peoples of the world, succeeded in mobilizing the world to fight the perverted armies of the Silver Temple. Their ace in the hole was the Silver Templars ignorance their true location—the Oerth of their origin—and of the trap awaiting the White God.
⁂
The end game began shortly after the Silver Templar’s armies began their assault on Oerth, when they found out exactly where they were. This information the Timpeall leaked to them when they were ready for the fight. It must be remembered that, though they had been on Oerth almost from the beginning, the Ebon Temple’s presence was known only to the Silver Templars and to Phæthon, the former Mó é Féin. And even he didn’t know that the Ebon Templars survived in bodies of flesh. The Silver Templars’ flesh had withered long ago, due to their constant proximity to the White God.
When astronomers spotted a large dark mass cascading over and covering the Moon as it headed for Oerth, the Silver Temple mistook it for the White God when, in fact, it was Ebon armies. Once they realized their error, the Silver Magi, as one, abandoned their battle with the weak humans and rushed to meet their ancient foes. It would be the first time they’ve battled each other directly since the death of Atalanté.
The Ebon Magi already on Oerth tried desperately to get the vulnerable human armies and several million civilians out of the killing zone, for the battle about to be fought was way beyond humans’ abilities. This involved moving them to the other side of the planet. They had barely accomplished this when the Silver met the Ebon.
It is impossible to describe the passionate hatred that these Templars had for each other. The issue they had fought over millennia earlier was the control of the Cosmos; and to them the Cosmos was Atalanté. Their initial battle had destroyed the issue they fought over. The wars that resulted, creating almost as much as they destroyed, were one long howl of rage and grief. But they had never met in battle all the long years since that first time.
That final meeting happened in the skies over the ocean grave of their home. Silver had a slight advantage of numbers, but Ebon had the strength of living in their own bodies. The battle raged and tore the dimensions over a surprisingly small area of sky, never getting beyond the atmosphere and recoiling almost fearfully from the waters that shrouded their homeland.
Previously, only Phæthon could detect the members trapped within the White God. As a result of the performance of a special rite, the free members of the Timpeall could make their presence felt to those trapped within. They could provide aid and comfort and effect the beginning of their plan to imprison the White God. Owing to their long confinement, the Lost, as those of the Timpeall in the White God were called, had developed an intimate psychic connection with IT. Through their new connection to the free members of the Timpeall, the Lost were able to change ITs thoughts.
The first thought they implanted was the knowledge of the situation on Oerth. This brought the White God home just as the party in the skies over the Atlantic was heating up.
The White God’s presence was subtle and was not, at first, felt. It manifested in the ebb and flow of battle as first one side, and then the other gained the upper hand. IT was able to ‘plug in’ to the very souls of the warring Templars.
As this was happening, Azhure’en was being consecrated. This was accomplished by a Tantric rite to ensoul the Entity that was Azhure’en and the birth, which delivery was accomplished by the destruction of the physical shell that had been built.
As soon as Azhure’en was born, the White God sensed it as Life, which it craved. It had not fed for a very long time. It fled the battle to suck the life from the new entity. In doing so, it pulled itself out of the combatants. This had an immediate effect of killing all the fighters. It was necessary that the ancient feud end and the only way to do that was to kill the twisted things that were all that was left of once noble beings. Their corpses hit the water and submerged to lie over the ruins of their ancient home—a fitting resting place.
The only ones spared this were the Timpeall. They were waiting for the White God at Azhure’en. Once it entered the building, it was trapped. The 121 members formed the Timpeall one last time, and the essence of the White God was inextricably linked as well. To leave, it had to break the circle, but nothing could.
All the Timpeall members but Phaeton and the sole surviving Ebon Templar, his sister Paris, then withdrew from the Circle. The 119 other members went to their final rite, freeing themselves from the Oath of Immortality. Phæthon went with them while Paris stayed behind in Azhure’en as an anchor to keep the White God in place.
Death had been denied to the members of the Timpeall for near one hundred and forty thousand years. With IT imprisoned, they could finally die. A piece of Atalanté that was part of the Sacred Mountain where the Palace of Muintir an Tí was built, survived its death. It consisted of a plateau whereon was a circle of huge black stone pillars. Each member of the Timpeall stood atop a pillar and Phæthon, standing in the center recited the Rite of Release. The last of the Templars, but for the siblings, rose burning with white fire into the air and dispersed upon the wind, finally dead.
Once done, Phæthon was determined to see the Multiverse again, visiting the Aions and civilizations affected, and effected, by his people.
In Azhure’en, Paris took the final step of that drama—a fight with White God that would never end, ensuring the safety of the Multiverse. She screamed “No more Gods!” and plunged into the heart of the White God. Whey both vanished except for flashes that were as light shining on otherwise invisible objects; Paris battling the White God for eternity in the cool halls of Azhure’en.
- 50,000 years ↩︎
- Aion’ — a spacetime continuum. Infinite in spatial extent, Aions are home to an infinite number of universes.
See: The Quilted Multiverse ↩︎
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, July 2026
© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved