The primordial entity, older than language, was quiet for a long time, but Telmus was patient; time was almost meaningless here. His patience was rewarded when the demon began to speak at last.
"I have watched the rise and fall of a billion billion lives," he said finally. "I have seen empires build glorious towers towards heavens they invented, and I have seen those towers crumble into dust. I have heard the prayers of the first thing that ever knew fear. From this vantage point, Destiny is not a path one walks. It is a story that is told. But you are both the storyteller and the character. The quality of the Destiny is not measured by its ending, for all endings are the same. It is measured by the beauty and the courage of the story that is woven from the raw, random, and often brutal material of existence."
