The Une Papers

Well, I got around to transcribing the Testament of Earth, which tells the history of Lindara’s use of her sage to forge an empire on the Earth. I think I never got around to transcribing this particular Testament because I never revised it after initially writing it in 2004, meaning most of the details contained within are uncertain and out-of-date. Nevertheless, the Testament of Earth is now presented on the Akmae um Unelde page. 

I also discovered some fragments of the planned Testament of Karlaniul (recounting the history of the period following the second fall and banishment of Imaria), which was likewise never “completed” or transcribed. So those fragments are now available to read on the Akmae um Unelde page as well.

Finally, I added a PDF to the Archived Writings page which contains my notes on Zarnozian Code (my made-up alphabet) and Zalankari (my made-up language) as well as some explanations of the names in The Une Papers, including lists of names changed.

Behold the fabric of this world is torn

The Cities of Life and Death no longer

Linked by the well known Road of Serbiran

The skies have turned black

The gods now our sole protectors

We, their sages, slaves to the Eldare

Fear the divorce of Une

Now a Universe vast in emptiness

Where can we hope to fit in this

Scheme of the age after Creation?

The Transformation of this realm has begun

Oh, you supreme Goddess of the Light

No longer in communion with the Father who bore you

No connection to his realm save Karlaniul

Regent of Heaven and Sire of the Dark

Has he not told you of our coming?

This world is not yours alone any longer

The gilded lamps of your glorious age may dim

You may see no more your preeminent hand

But instead the faces of your new brethren

Behold your charges already turn from Light

They seek what resurrection your betrayal took

When your exile first began

Here they’ve been reminded of their former Lord

They look to him again and to the Music

Fear not—we are subject to your works

The Twelve are our forebears

Please watch over us in this City of Life

Regard the marriage with the maidens of your hand

The Light most of all among the Works

Most of all above the Powers

The Light is what will sustain us

Should you only one day reaffirm your Might

Reclaim the throne you will lose in time

Restore the order of the first Albayain

In the presence of the second Humans

We shall regard Golden Nature as King and Queen

If you only adopt us in word and deed and love

They approach us

So dissimilar in form

And similar in thought

What shape thought takes

When it seeks understanding

Does it copy new forms

Like the beautiful symmetry

Of our eternal young faces?

Or the orb epicenter in our eye,

The basis of this the Earth,

The basis of this the Universe

They admire, study, and seek

Find a path to completion

In the makeup of our flesh

Take our flesh itself then

Assume us and love us

Gods and human forever one

Elovanon, Forsaking Father of the Earth

You have cast us out from limbo

And here in the living world we are weak

Do you know what awaits beyond the veil?

Tell us, then, so we may defend the Earth

For this is a holy land amongst the seas,

A land without the work of another’s hand.

Did you make this realm we are cast into?

Do its inhabitants know the severity of your face?

Will the rocks and plants and waters respect us?

We know so little of things to come

And yet we hold premonitions of the Ten

And of their King and Queen, shapeless though they are

Powers circle the plain as we speak

Ice, cunning Lady of the Word;

Fire, sturdy Huntsman of the Summer;

Air, glorious Maiden of Song;

Stone, steadfast Smith of Jewels;

Water, loving Mother of Tears;

Time, distant Watchman of Dreams;

Beauty, fair Patron of the Spring;

Wisdom, secret Master of Lores;

Life, judicious Keeper of the Scales;

Death, fearsome Guardian of the Keys;

These await and king and queen know not

The terror of your second creation.

Elovanon the Bearer of the Earth                 

There is no order in the Realm of Une

Beauty hides in creation under twelve stones

Twelve eyes watch in fear of their father

Twelve nations search in search of questions

Do not reveal the new land!

The conflict of the brethren will break us

The marriage of the children curses freedom

Curses the self like the tide of unopened stars

The King and Queen will not know

Why their faces now appear to them

Their wards will revolt, obsess in us

Seeing their father’s new toys

Do not show us to them, Lord of Heaven!

Show us to ourselves alone

Maintain the veil of innocence

Cast us not into freedom of choice

We are faulty and will find the firstborn alluring

We are creatures without power

You have made us this way

You have made us impotent

Empty in imaginations of our forebears

Desolate in pursuits and ambitions

We know nothing but your eternal peace

And the beauties under the veil

Maintain the secrets of your labor!

If only so for one more day we may speak not.

Oh Human objects of immortal fascination!

Oh terrible flesh of jealousy!

The Eldare are worthy of pity this hour

For Elovanon has come to love with true fervor

The subjects of his Second Creation.

Let us hope pride does not become them as well!

Let us pray the Vengeance follows its course,

Resisting the temptations of the City of Life

And the wiles of the Ten and their King and Queen.

Imaria will find a face for her Light

And Eshemei a weight for the Scales.

Human eyes are closed by the Mirrored Void,

And they rest with the patience due to them.

How long may a human mind not think?

How long can the new human flesh not love?

When there is nothing to look upon

There will be nothing worth our longing.

But in the instant of Revelation, all will change!

Elovanon, Seeker of Power, do you know

What might resides in the Human soul?

Is it entirely unlike the Powers of the Formless?

We cannot trust in this betrayal,

Nor in the Eyes of the Carti.

Should Arfea not know of the coming Doom,

What hope can there be for any Albayain?

Rest, human senses, and dream of sleepless death.

Your father has not prepared you for

The Challenge of the Twelve Brethren.

Who can say what shape the Earth took

When the Gods themselves were still shapeless?

How can one expect to find order

In the desperation of Revenge?

Elovanon, Giver of Energies,

Elovanon, Draftsman of Change,

Look upon your plan with reason

And know that the City of Life is beyond measure.

The Earth is but a mirrored void.

Allow it to take on the charm of the Golden Age.

The Eldare welcome flattery like a guest.

Make the Earth a guest in the Living World, then.

It will reflect your praises and be still.

Here the new plan may take shape,

for plots require the true inwardness of death.

The Road of Serbiran leads ever South,

and the Void will be its signpost.

Rejoice in the impending imposition of Death!

The Eldare will know its sting

as soon as they look upon themselves!

Elovanon, First Father and King of Heaven,

do not rest alone in your mansion of bitterness.

The Eldare have forgotten you, but we know

How stings have pierced your heart

At the forsaking of your Firstborn loves!

Turn your hate instead to love,

And turn bitterness into hope,

For your mind cannot resist the creation of companionship.

It cannot resist the urges of the hand.

Make, then, the Carti, who will be your hope

Who will be you and yet not you

For the Carti will not question their Father’s love

Nor will they question the Plan of Vengeance,

Which even your blinding aura cannot hide

Yes, we know of the Vengeance you seek

Against the Proud Twelve of the City of Life,

Those who sought their own glory more than yours.

Yet beware their cunning and their independence,

Lest the Vengeance return through your new Children.

Send the Carti out into the City of the Firstborn

and there they will find the secrets to the plan you craft.

There they may be your hands in the absence of your hands

And your eyes in the absence of your eyes.

Yet, you will see well, and know how the Eldare have toiled,

And how their sum of their Creation has bested you,

And you will know how to best them.

Shatter the fabric of their City,

Challenge the Light of Imaria, and

They may yet come to respect your lineage and grace.

The Diamunul are the most beautiful and strongest jewels in Une. They are the fruit of the great tree Nuline, fashioned by Lindessa after she broke her tutelage with Selikat. While studying with Selikat, Lindessa came to be obsessed with his great work, Elozafanul, a jewel of great beauty and strength, which Selikat had used to carve the city of Tanrok, home of the Eldare on Perilorze. Finally, she stole Elozafanul from Selikat’s caverns, fled to the jungles of Perilorze, and used her domain over plants to use it as a seed for her next creation, Nuline. Thus, the Diamunul became descendants of the domains of both Lindessa and Selikat, and marked the Eldar of Love’s first foray into the domain of Jewels.

Her love for these new jewels of her creation grew so great that she forged them into her Weapon, the Daggers of Love. She also renamed herself Lindara, or “Beautiful Jewel,” because of this new creative period. However, her time spent at the base of Nuline was short lived, as Imaria prepared to mount a mission to bring Lindara to justice for her treachery against Selikat. Thus, she fled the jungle and secretly returned to Tanrok, where she convened with Quiamas and struck up a plan to assassinate Imaria. Only with the power of her new daggers could such a feat be accomplished, and indeed, the power of the Diamunul in her blades allowed Lindara to kill Imaria at a great convention of all the leaders of the Empire of Light.

After Lindara seized control, rumor of her new powerful weapon spread fast. The Daggers of Love appeared to upend the balance of the Weapons of the Eldare, and so Lindara used this knowledge to her advantage, issuing a reign of fear over her brethren. Only Karlaniul dared to curse her, deforming and destroying what remained of her physical beauty. When she took to the arduous task of breaking the Light of Perilorze, she often used her Daggers in attempts to destroy it. Eventually, after studying Imaria’s lore for a long enough time, she managed to break the Light, but her Daggers were shattered in the process. It is unknown what happened to the shards of the Diamunul after this event.

Eventually, after the Eldare and others in her Empire learned of the Daggers’ destruction, which she desperately attempted to hide, her reign became more and more chaotic, and she lost power to Serbiran shortly after.

After Lindara’s subsequent return to the throne of Supreme Emperor, it appeared the Diamunul were lost forever.