The Darks

52Hear now of the universe that came before ours, the last to rise and fall before this one began.

53It was not like our universe. Its skies were other skies, and its worlds were other worlds.

54In it there were civilizations not of our kind, alien peoples beyond number, who crossed between their stars and built upon a thousand shores.

55And near the ending of that universe there came an age of terror, and it is called The Darks.

56In The Darks the civilizations rose against one another in a war whose breadth no mortal mind could hold.

57Suns were darkened by the fleets that passed before them. Worlds that had been gardens became cinders. Peoples who had endured for ages were ended in a season.

58The Watcher watched.

59For Rollo had watched wars before, in universes long erased, and he had not moved.

60But in The Darks, Rollo perceived a presence unlike any other he had watched.

61It was an evil beyond other evils, and it moved within the war as rot moves within wood.

62Its name is Daeus.