CODEX TERRANIDIS — PRIMUS LIBER

The First Chapter of Terranis

As it is engraved upon the northern stone of the Coreland

I. Prologus Lapideus — The Stone Prologue

Before words, there was Stone; and before Stone, there was Memory; and before Memory, there was the Unshaped, whose breath stirred the first dust of the spheres. From that dust rose Terranis, the Earthen Sphere, eldest among the firmaments, whose foundations were laid before any other realm received its own book of laws.

Thus the First Obligators of Terranis, guardians of the primal covenant, carved upon the northern cliff the beginnings of this Codex, that all who walk upon soil, or delve beneath it, or raise their dwellings upon its patient back, might know the ancient order that binds the living to the land and the land to the living.

For in the age when the spheres were still unnumbered, and the heavens had not yet divided their dominions, the Obligators spoke the first decree:

“Let that which is owed return.”

And the Stone answered with silence, which is the oldest assent.