People do not by nature keep good track of their own lives. A man makes friends and loses them; he finds, misses, and replaces lost love; he falls out of one lifestyle and into another. Ask him his origins, and he gives you not a factual accounting of his early childhood, but a series of unconnected vignettes either lacking narrative flow or else forced into a predetermined narrative with the ugly sticking points sheared off for poetics’ sake.

“..On the third day lightning fell from the heavens and burned a third part of the village. Eleven died by fire, and seven more suffocated. The great metal ship hung in the sky and rained death to usher them into the world…”

So too it is with cities, and this is particularly true with the Eternal and Only City. They say that if it is not held within Living Memory it is not worth knowing, yet Living Memory begins a full two and a half centuries after the Eternal City’s founding. Two and a half centuries! This is the time it took to begin the framework of Living Memory, the two giantish lifetimes between concept and execution. Today our records of this shadow-time, with civilization half-begun, are distressingly limited: we must rely on written word, on visual arts, and on oral history.

“…Hidden in the leaves, Climbing Star watched; he crouched under the blanket of the forest to see in safety. Eleven buffalo they slew; twelve less one fell to their flat death-bows. In a circle they arranged them; sacrificed them to the darkness. Climbing Star heard their shadow-chants; the chill of Unlife entered his bones…”

Most accounts of the early history of Ka-Rone were destroyed during one of the various reformatory periods of that era. It was not uncommon for a new power bloc to cement their authority by eradicating all records of the previous administration, a tradition which has happily fallen by the wayside with the ascension of the Most High. Only a handful survive, and from them we extract a confusing, contradictory image. There are a few basic facts, however, on which we may all agree.

“…When they heard Chief Brostodler’s response, they grew angry and threatened to kill a tenth of the People. Chief Brostodler laughed at them, and summoned the Raccoon Guard, and there was much battle. The Chief fell with black fire burning her, and five of the Outlanders perished with spear-wounds…”

Before the giants came, the Diamond Isle was a lightly inhabited land, occupied primarily by colonists from Old Habadad. Their arrival therefore displaced only a few peoples, who mounted a brief and scattershot resistance before yielding to giantish conquest. After their arrival, the giants designed and constructed the city themselves, deigning to manual labor no doubt due to the scarcity of client-race manpower. The project of construction took fourteen years. During this formative era, giantish cartographic expeditions crisscrossed the Mother Countries, making contact with the various extant nations, most notably Old Habadad. At this time the giants declared themselves a peaceable people, desiring only to spread the light of wisdom through the world.

“…Sing song of time!
Song of art!
Song of invasion.
Song of death,
White-capped sea collapsing into single steel bird smashing to cinders
Disgorging onto crude earth dark dark what should not have come
B a d
bad religion and
Worse philosophy…”

All else is speculation. The mode of the giantish explorers, the three days darkness, the electrical storms that presaged their landing — these are unsupported by the evidence. The slaughter of Openarms is purely apocryphal.

SEE ALSO: Habadad, Living Memory, the Most High