The Mythology Part 2: The First Gift of Magic.
Among the daughters of the Mortals was one named Cassonia, whose beauty was matched only by her curiosity. She sought out Eninshigal in his hidden realm, drawn by rumors of a being made of pure magic. When she found him, she did not worship. She spoke to him as an equal.
Eninshigal, who had known only duty and solitude, found himself captivated.
In loving her, he made a choice that would echo through eternity. He took a portion of magic’s essence and gave it to Cassonia. For the first time, a mortal held magic as part of her soul.
Cassonia laughed with joy, and the first spell ever cast by non-divine hands shimmered into being, a flower of pure light that bloomed and faded in her palm.
But joy cannot hide from the gods. Word reached the celestial courts. A sacred trust had been broken. Magic, the purest energy of creation, had been given to one not meant to hold it. The other gods demanded justice.
Zaharus summoned Diabacrus.
"Eninshigal has transgressed. Punish him."
Diabacrus did not hesitate. He descended upon Eninshigal and cast him into the underworld, into the eternal flames.
And there Eninshigal remained for one thousand years.
Thernus, Goddess of Music, had watched these events unfold. She had seen Eninshigal's fall, had heard Cassonia's weeping, and had felt the silence where magic once sang freely. In that silence, she found something unexpected: love.
She approached Diabacrus in his shadowed hall. "Release him. One thousand years is enough."
Diabacrus refused.
She went to Zaharus. "Forgive him. His only crime was love."
Zaharus refused.
So Thernus did what only a goddess of music could do. She sang.
For days, she sang. Her voice wove through the celestial realms, carrying the weight of Eninshigal's longing, Cassonia's grief, the beauty of magic freely given, and the tragedy of love punished. Her music painted pictures in the minds of the gods.
At last, Zaharus wept.
"Enough. Bring him forth."
Eninshigal emerged from the underworld, scorched and diminished, but alive. He fell before the throne of the gods and waited.
"Your punishment is ended. But your duty is not. You will return to the mortal realm. You will watch over the magic you so carelessly gave away. You will ensure it is used wisely, that it does not corrupt, that it serves creation rather than destruction. This is your responsibility, and you will bear it until the end of days."
Then Zaharus spoke the words that would bind magic to memory forever:
“As long as mortals remember the gods, magic shall remain. Their memory is its anchor. Their forgetting will be its end.”
Thus, it was decreed. Thus, it remains.
Cassonia, the first mortal to hold magic, was later called the Mother of Magic. She traveled among the Mortals, teaching them to shape the energy that now flowed in her veins. She showed them how to weave spells, how to channel power, and how to honor the gods whose names made it possible.
From her union with Eninshigal came Atalinthus, the first demigod, born of divine energy and mortal flesh. Atalinthus looked upon the world and saw a danger: the mortals might forget. They might cease to chant the names, might let the connection fray, might let magic fade into silence.
So he created the Festival of Magic.
"It shall be held every year in honor of my father's sacrifice. The Mortals shall gather and create new magic, each striving to craft something beautiful and useful. The finest creation, the most elegant spell, its maker shall be granted the highest honor: to pray before the Sacred Altar of Eninshigal and receive his blessing."
Those who received the blessing found that magic flowed more easily through them, that spells came quicker, and that power answered with less strain. It was a deepening of the connection, a reminder of the bond between gods and mortals, between sacrifice and gift.
The festival continues to this day. The Grand Chronicler speaks of the ‘Glorious Gift of Lumis,’ witnessing the echo of Atalinthus's decree, a ritual of remembrance, a celebration that is also a plea: “Do not forget. Let the names live. Let the magic remain.”
Cassonia taught. Eninshigal watched. Atalinthus created the festival that would bind memory to magic forever.
And in the underworld, Diabacrus tends the flames where his mother still burns, one sacrifice, one mother, one eternity of fire, purchased by a son’s love.
In the ordering of the realms, Diabacrus sat upon his throne in the underworld, watching the endless river of souls flow past. He had tended to them since his mother's sacrifice, since his own near damnation, and since the day he was made Guardian. But even a guardian could feel loneliness in that vast, shadowed hall.
From his solitude came a son: Palingenmos, the One Who Returns. To him was given dominion over rebirth.
"Look upon the souls as they arrive. Sort them. Prepare them. And when the time comes for their return to the living world, give them this."
Diabacrus held out a chalice carved from a single moonstone, filled with liquid that shimmered like forgotten memories. It was called Firgezzan, the Draught of Forgetting.
"Those who drink shall forget their former lives. They shall enter the world anew, unburdened by the weight of what came before. This is the gift of rebirth: a clean slate, a fresh start."
Palingenmos accepted the chalice and began his work.
For ages uncounted, he stood at the threshold between death and life. Souls approached him in endless procession. To each, he offered the chalice.
"Drink, and be reborn. Leave behind your joys and sorrows, your triumphs and failures. Begin again."
Most drank. It was the law.
Not all souls were permitted to forget. One was denied the draught by decree. Souls chosen by gods for specific purposes. Such a being would carry not only the burdens of a former life, but the cracks through which power beyond mortal measure might answer.
The records do not name this soul. They only say that the Fairy King crossed beyond the ordered worlds to find it, and that Palingenmos, though reluctant, lifted the chalice away.
Among the fragments, one tells of a war so vast it reshaped the world. The dating system places it at 45 BW, Before the Great War, though what followed would make that name bitterly ironic.
Three brother nations fell into war, not by fate, but by betrayal. The emperor’s son turned blade against his own blood and blamed another. The war lasted generations. In desperation, a king summoned a demon. It devoured all. A nameless prince sealed it with his own life. The war ended not in victory, but in ruin.
Some names are missing from these pages the emperor, his son, and the kingdoms they tore apart. Perhaps some names were never meant to survive.
The war lasted two hundred years. The silence after has lasted much longer.
What remains is silence and the memory of those who came before. The cylinder is empty now. The seals are broken. The fragments have been translated, and the story they tell spans from the birth of the world to the creator who walked through a portal, carrying the weight of two lives.
The Ur-Ghul waits. The Fairy King searches.
And somewhere, in a temple that still honors the old ways, a keeper lights a candle and whispers the names that must not be forgotten.
So it is written. So it has always been.
I am the keeper of Myth, and you, the reader, are the keeper of echoes.
