Preface to Chronicles¶

Time is like a river which passes endlessly towards an ever distant horizon on its journey to its end, evading those that travel on it by always remaining out of reach. As far back as I can recall there have always been parchments or amber cubes to tell the tales of our forefathers who lived before us. The long succession of these borrowed stories tell of the tortuous and hard ways. One thousand times they have been interpreted and one thousand times retold by other hands.

I rarely questioned in the course of my life my ultimate and unfailing memory. But now the years are taking toll on my old and weary bones and I feel it is my duty to entrust, as others have done before me, the history of my life. As long as it is possible to bring forth from this old memory, which sometimes hesitates but still remembers, I will leave behind my steps, my footprints on my beloved Atys. What nicer wish could I ever pronounce than that my writings will one day join the esteemed records of those chroniclers who came before me. Today I dare to finally narrate to others all of the memories of intimate friends and all which I observed, and to write, in my turn, chapters of the Chronicles of Atys.

Erlan, Chronicler