1 Chapter one- prologue

In the time before time, there was nothing. There were no heroes, no gods, no fetes for bards to sing of, and certainly no bards to sing. No tales were told in that time for, without light, there could be no darkness. Without time, there was no passing. That was the way it was, until the magic found a way to be.

Magic is by nature unruly, it is wild and it does as it pleases. It came into being simply because no one had told it that it couldn't.

It started as an ember.

The ember fuelled its own will, it became its own legend, and the world began.

From the spark of life, our lowly ember burning in the darkness of the void, a seed was born. The first oak. From the oak the gods were born, and gods wanted more.

As time woke up the gods waged war, they fought and squabbled for their own part of the void to make in their own image and life began.

Worlds sprang from the war of gods, rivers of blood watered the surface and broken bones formed mountains, god-tears were shed and salted the sea, people were formed, and lived, and died, and loved, and learned, and worshipped, and cursed, and lived, and died.

Still our ember burned on.

Bucca, piskies, kelpies, druids, even the pobel vean in their secretive burrows all grew out of the ember, and each shared the spark of magic.

Whilst magic was at the heart of creation, not all creatures could wield it, not all desired to. With the fire of creation spread so thin, the magic began to fade. The gods grew tired, and their slumber became eternal, whilst the Tuatha de teine (the people of the flame) became all but forgotten.

The Bucca knew it would come to pass that magic would be lost, and only the races that forgot their connection would remain. The people who shunned the fire as a mere tool, they would remain and the rest would fade. For this reason they too would fade, if not for the prophetic foretelling of their people. "In Tirna na Nog the fire burns yet, in Tirna Na Nog the time is set, one shall rise from ashes and dust- and bring to pass the Bucca must"

With magic dying, the fire diminished, and with it the tuatha de taine began to fade, as the gods had before them, they grew weary of the worlds and looked to slumber.

A delegation of the people was sent to protect the last ember, and deliver it safely to

Tir na Nog, but as we know... Magic, has a mind of its own. One moment the flame was there, the next- it was not. Magic was no more. Gods were no more. Tuatha de taine were no more. Only one race remained, the humans.