Before there was life and breath, death and birth, Isfalinis, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the Etyni, there was His Highest Above and naught else.  There was no light, no darkness, no sound, no substance.  All was Void and He was alone.  He was and is all-wise, all-knowing, but of himself. 

He formed the Etyni from the depth of His thought and to each, he gave manifestations of Himself.  They numbered eleven and, after them, he likewise shaped the Cyrleni.  Though the Cyrleni were lesser in might and power, each was unique and blessed with qualities that even the Etyni lacked.  Thus, while it came to be that many Cyrleni served the Etyni, each who did so served of their own choice and for their own purposes.

The first of the Etyni were Cydion and Niella and they were followed by six others, Fenr and Itesa, Henji and Lelpfios, then Eicai and Naedda.  Thus each of these were but one of a pair.  They were mirrored manifestations of each other and, afterwards, when such words came to be, they were called brother and sister.  This was true of all but Cydion and Niella.  Before the time that such words were given, Cydion had been discovered in his great deceit and was therefore riven from she who might have been his sister, just as he was shorn from all the Etyni.  And in that dividing arose the greatest of rivalries as fire against fire.

Though the words brother and sister were given to the other three parings, the Etyni are not kindred blood as we of latter days understand it.  No, these siblings were like unto each other as two halves of the same thought.  It was their task, as shall be recounted, to give shape to the world, to Isfalinis, that His Highest Above had created.  To fill the Void that it might no longer be empty.

With these eight there were also shaped three other Etyni, similar yet different.  For their gifts, while less clear, were no less wondrous.  And these gifts came to be revealed in the events that followed.  The Etyni who bore them were named Zaris and Oltos and Isi.

To each of the Etyni, His Highest Above imparted special knowledge and a measure of his divine wisdom so that each understood aspects of the world that was, and is, and is to be.  For though His Highest Above intended a perfect world, He knew in its freedom that such perfection was impossible.  Thus were gifts of knowledge and foreknowledge given as guardianship against the ills that would afflict His perfect vision.  Nevertheless, none of the Etyni were as farseeing as Vaenna of the Cyrleni to whom was granted the power of prophecy.

Into the Void that was, and yet was not, His Highest Above gave form to Isfalinis.  A sphere, perfect and unmarred.  Thus she was likewise imperfect and empty.  That was the great paradox.  And His Highest Above charged the Etyni to take her and shape her as suited their skills and their vision, to make it a place of paradise and wonder, a habitation to tear back the emptiness of the Void that had been.  A realm to be filled with life.  For life was what His Highest Above intended and he gave the spark of that vision to each of the minds of the Etyni.  For though the Etyni were given the power to shape and form in that age before time began, they were not given the power of life.  Life is of His Highest Above and from Him alone, though Cydion, in his pride, sought otherwise and failed.

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The history includes the forging of Isfalinis, the shaping of the Four Races, the coming of Death and Birth, the Harrowing of the Ie’dhae, the Schism of the Aestari, and the onset of the Great War that ended the Age.