In the beginning, say the wights, the world was one big ball of flaming liquid rock. What?

No, no. Not the beginning of the universe. The beginning of the world. Of course other stuff was made first – stars, for example, and space, and darkness, and light. Now, no more interruptions.

As I was saying, the world was once a ball of flaming matter. Yes, perhaps “rock” was the wrong term – and what was it I said about interruptions?

Thank you.

The world carried on in a fiery manner for a long time, and during that time, the first wights came into being. They were fiery and fluid, like their world, and they would spend their days frolicking in the depths of the molten world, or resting on the surface, staring at the stars.

Gradually, they became aware that their world was changing – it was cooling, and the molten matter was being sealed away beneath hard, dark rock. And then water formed, and sky, and plants and animals. And as the land and the sea took shape, some of the wights changed to fit these strange new places. In this way, the wights began to differ from each other, and eventually became all the people we know today.

It was also at this time that the wights learned that they were not the only beings living in this world. There were other beings, creatures that looked like wights, but had a kind of werelight about them that no earthly darkness, or earthly light for that matter, could hide. These they called ilu, in the old tongue, for the light that was in them.

And the ilu were in the world, and were the world. They were in the land, they were in the sea, they were in the sky, and in the world’s molten heart. They taught the world all it knew – and they taught the wights they met along the way.

Then the ilu fell.

But that is a story for a different night, Lith. Your mother is already making faces at me, for keeping you up too late. Come back tomorrow, child, and I’ll tell you more.