chapter1
There is a garden. A fat, heavy red sun hangs in the sky and the smell of dry, dusty air is everywhere. The garden is full of twisting, winding paths. Walk any path and you will be forced to choose, not once, but many times. The paths fork and divide. With every step you take, you make a choice. Every choice determines future paths. The paths diverge and branch and reconnect in ways that seems random and disorganized. There is a man who is not a man traversing the garden. He leaves no footprints. He casts no shadow. To our eyes, he takes the apperance of a penetant monk, his own eyes hidden behind the cowl of his monk's robe. There is a book, old, leathery, dry, and cracked, chained to his wrist. Inside the book hangs everything that ever will be/was. The man who is not a man is Destiny. This is not a name as much as it is his role in the way of things. None may read the book of Destiny without his permission, and he will never give it. Unlike us, he has no choice, he follows no path. He simply is. The garden of Destiny. You would know it if you saw it. After all, you will wander in it until you die. Or beyond. For the paths are long and even in Death there is no ending to them. Destiny reads his book and walks in his garden.
"And now I stop. And now I look up" Destiny looks up. A wind blows across his garden, sending the pages of the book flying into what lies ahead. As the pages stop, a man appears in Destiny's path. There is a book chained to his wrist and he reads aloud from it's pages. "And now I look up. And now I look to the Destiny that was of Before." The man stops reading and looks at Destiny. Destiny reads from his own book. "And now you tell me my youngest sister was right. That there are paths outside this garden. And that my time is gone." The man smiles. "And now the wind blows and ruffles the pages away from this time of your end and my beginning." The wind arose once more and sent the pages of Destiny's book flying once more, and Destiny is alone. "And now I go to call the Family together. To prepare for what it is that lies before us all."