XYMYX

The Course of Memory

On the Wall of Memory lies all knowledge: wisdom, intentions, sorrows, and utopias. Everything—what is, what once was, and traces of what is yet to come. That is why the Memory holds the instant when the spark ignited the 128 suns. From that moment, the brilliance of the suns, set against the shadows of the universe, gave rise to the Era of Mist: neither light nor darkness, but balance.

The pulse is the rhythm that sets the pace of all movement, beating in two times: one releases the spark, the other draws it back. They are the heartbeats of a universal heart. In the Memory it is written that for every remembrance there is an oblivion, for every spark a shadow, and for every defeat, a lesson.

Zila, the magnificent master, was the only one able to access the full knowledge of the Memory, and more than that, he understood the fifth element: the void. He did not share his wisdom openly; instead, he entrusted his disciple Hikari with the clues to navigate the path that leads to the Wall of Memory. Those were Zila’s final words, before he himself became one with the Mist.

Hikari and his three sons tattooed the sacred knowledge upon their skin. Their command was clear: when facing the Wall of Memory, they must pray, chant, and insist on the mystical verbs to glimpse the fifth element. Thus were they called the Four Servants of the Escaque. Whoever followed step by step the markings etched on their skin could enter the cavern and stand before the Wall of Memory.

In this universe, as in all others, the soul is woven from water, air, earth, and fire. But in times of chaos, the fifth element appears.

It happened before Master Zila dissolved into the Mist: throughout the universe was heard a screech like twisting metal. It is written in the Memory—the fifth element contains the void. The void provoked a collision among suns, comets, planets, and moons. All dimensions were threatened with destruction. The Four Servants of the Escaque had to summon severe countermeasures to keep the spark from extinguishing. When they finally neutralized the void, much of the universe had already been devastated.

The Servants hastened to forge a grand pact: to create a ciphered codex and a key. They were shaped in a place that cannot be spoken of and in a time that cannot be named. The most skilled seekers recorded that the forging of the pact, the codex, and the key took place in the same secret gallery still known today as the Cave of the Tayos.

There, according to the songs of origin, lay the forge where the parts of the rule were mixed to encode the path to the Wall of Memory. The teachings tattooed on the skin of the Servants must follow this rule—an immense act of deciphering the route. It was called XYMYX, and so it remains known.

To master XYMYX requires a series of trials, designed to test those who believe themselves ready. The summit consists in conquering the greatest amulet: Lilith.

The Four Servants of the Escaque joined with humankind, showing the tattoos on their skin—maps leading to wisdom, instinct, and strategy—toward the Wall of Memory, and to warn them about XYMYX.

These events were colossal, beyond imagination. Refugees from the collision of suns and stars sought shelter wherever they could and founded new communities. The Servants helped them demarcate their new lands, and soon they learned the Theorem of Ashtakona. There were vertical grids, others horizontal, and still more reaching into depth—the logical diagram of space that occupied astonishing realms.

• Some founded the city of the Floating Titan Balloons: clusters of dwellings that touched neither the crests of waves nor the tops of trees. The lightness of air.
• Others settled in Boca de Socavones, the caverns of the dormant volcano where the primordial fire rests, a fiery land of shadows beneath veils of ash.
• A third community arose in the City of the Channeled, where water flowed through underground passages, flooded valleys, and silver cascades, carrying sorrows and memories away.
• The fourth community, the inhabitants of Zarrientos Island, were the most beautiful beings in the universe, with bones of lime, wearing masks and shields so that no grain of sand could mar their beauty. They embodied the earth.

The Four Servants of the Escaque decreed: when those from different worlds meet, they must stand tall as if to reach the sky, open their arms without leaving the ground, and trust in strength and strategy. They issued, as it was written, a Manifesto: four rules, six clarifications, and four mysteries.

The Memory is always seeking apprentices—the Unusual Lords, who must devote their lives to becoming worthy aspirants. If their lives prove exemplary, they will one day become Servants of the Escaque.

To know XYMYX is to walk the path that unravels the mysteries of the world and its fissures, to understand the children of the orders, to discover the Servants of the Escaque, to stand near Zila, to glimpse the Wall of Memory, and to intuit the fifth element. To restore history itself.

The fifth element has been contained for a long time. Yet all sense the approaching end of the Era of Time. It may all be destroyed. But it is certain: everything will be built anew.