In the Times Before Time, Heaven belonged to the Angels and the Deep Darkness to the Rebels, who had tried and failed to seize power. In between lay the Earth, the World of Living and Dying, ruled by the Seven Guardians, who treated all mortals, male and female alike, as amusements, to help or hurt whenever it suited them. Each of the Guardians possessed a great Tree—or perhaps the Trees themselves were the original beings, and the Guardians simply branches that had gained the power to separate and move around and instigate events. The Trees all grew together in the Garden of Origins, at the center of the world. They were:
The Tree of Constancy, known also as the Tree of Gold
The Tree of Variance, known also as the Tree of Silver
The Tree of Brilliance
The Tree of Desire
The Tree of Incitement
The Tree of Gifts
The Tree of Limits
Of all these, the most important were Constancy and Variance, for they ruled the Sun and Moon, yet even their Guardians did as they wished, and human beings could count on nothing.
Joachim the Brilliant, also known as Joachim the Blessed (though others say the Blind, for the great mistake he made at the height of his success), sought to change the world. He knew he could not battle the Guardians, so he took a different road. He entered the Secret Woods and allied himself with an Outcast, a High Prince of the Kallistochoi. This became known as the Union of Above and Below. There has only ever been one such union. To attempt to repeat it is strictly forbidden. Those who have tried became known as the Uabi Heresy, and if any Uabi has succeeded, he or she has never revealed it. As to why a Kallistocha Prince would join with a human, no one really knows. Some say he took pity on wretched humanity. Others claim he saw in Joachim something more than human, as if a free Kallistocha secretly walked the Earth disguised as a man. Still others suggest the Prince wished to spite the Heavenly Victors who had stolen his body and imprisoned his head on a black pole, for he knew the Victors had given the Earth to the Guardians.
Out of this joining came the Tarot of Eternity.
Joachim had two disciples, Florian the Wise, and . . . Another. This other became the Hidden One, who is said to have buried his name under a Red Rock at the furthest reach of the world. Joachim allowed each of his disciples to create a Copy of the Tarot of Eternity, and together the three made the Great Journey. They pierced the curtain that hid the Creator from Her Creation. Florian and even the Other stood with bowed heads, afraid to look, but Joachim saw and spoke with Her, face to face. The Angels opposed him and said the Creator should cast him down with the Rebels. But Joachim insisted that he did not seek power for himself or any other human. Instead, he asked the Creator to change the world, not for his sake, or any other human, but for Herself, for only a world of laws and cycles could truly praise its Creator.
The Creator granted Joachim’s plea. The world shifted and the Guardians diminished. Where once they had stood as towering beings impossible to look at, they became almost like children. The five Lesser Guardians left the Earth to move among the distant stars. We can still see them, sometimes visible, sometimes obscured, as the planets—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Some say that without their Guardians, the five Trees withered and died; others that the rulers uprooted the Trees and planted them in the sky. The only ones left were Constancy and Variance, grown small now along with the Guardians who belonged to them. Many believe that the Guardians of Gold and Silver had secretly supported the humans and even hidden themselves behind the seat of the Creator to plead for Joachim against the Angels. Certainly the Sun and Moon have remained strong, while the Five have become small and faint.
When the Three Masters returned, Joachim spent his time in contemplation, or perhaps in communion with the Splendor, the great beings known as the Hidden Mystery, for only their tracks show, like flashes of light. Joachim’s withdrawal later became known as the Great Mistake, for had he stayed in the world, he might have stopped the Other before it was too late.
Florian used her Copy of the Tarot of Eternity to discover the Colors Beyond Light, the Music Beyond Sound. She found the Five Basic Spells and used them, in turn, to create the original Academy of Wizards. Before the Great Corruption, she allowed one of her disciples to create a Copy of a Copy. Many years later, this disciple, or a descendant, created a Copy of a Copy of a Copy. This was given away, or stolen, and it too vanished.
Florian found the Five, but the Other found the One: the Spell of Extension, buried deep in the world’s soul. Some say the Guardian of Incitement revealed it to him during the Ascent, that the Guardian knew he could not stop them but came out to battle just so he could plant the discovery in the Other’s mind. There is no way to know, for the Other became secretive, silent, almost as withdrawn as Joachim himself. Might Florian have stopped him if she’d realized what he was doing? Nobody knows. If she’d found out—and roused Joachim—maybe the two of them could have saved him.
The other made multiple copies of his Copy, for in fact it was the Tarot of Eternity itself that made the Spell of Extension possible. Not all of it, though possibly every piece plays a part, but one picture, one “card,” in particular. This card was called the Dancer, or the Flying Boy. The spell corrupts this picture, and thus all the others.
Only when it was too late did Joachim realize what had happened. Because of the Spell of Extension, he removed the original Tarot of Eternity from the world, and even though Florian’s Copy remained pure, she too took her Copy to the Place Beyond Place. The Copy of a Copy, however, remained, so that some record would survive beyond the distortions of the Spell, for those copies made to enact the Spell of Extension serve only one purpose—to drain the lives of children, destroy every part of them, so that the Corrupter might live forever. Because of this, and because his true name remains hidden, he became known as the Child Eater.
Some say the Child Eater will indeed live forever, unstoppable, devouring child after child, for after all, the Spell of Extension is a poison at the heart of the world. But some say that a single child will destroy him. The Child of Eternity.