THE TALE OF ADRAM

Golem tells the story of how he, Time, and Memory came to be...

"I have been granted, hmm, no," he pauses, shaking his head, "not granted...powers have been thrust upon me that I could never have imagined. You see, when I fell down that hole I found much more than the bottom of the Abyss.

"I found an old man. The Old Man, actually. His name was Adram. He was the founder of order in the universe. Now, you're thinking, 'that didn't happen until recently, when Dworkin made the Pattern', but not so. Long ago, before there were the Courts of Chaos, there was simply....chaos. Creatures lived in it, formless, timeless, guiltless, void of feeling and inhibition of any kind. They had no memory from moment to moment, they did not understand nor feel a need for time or linear thought.

"Then one of them...remembered. First he only recalled the last few moments, but he grasped at them as though they were life itself. Then he remembered days, weeks, and he strove to keep track of everything he saw or did until he could recall a large portion of time. Indeed he created time at that moment. He had changed, evolved, I suppose, and he wanted others to share in his discovery.

"They weren't interested, but though they did not realize it, they had changed as well. With every moment of Adram's memory, they became more like him. He set off on his own and began to create a device that would impose his thought, his *time* and memory upon everything, the entire universe such as it was. And he did.

"When he was finished, Order was imposed upon everything around him. The controls of his device were rooted in a stone, which he carried with him always. He rejoiced in the new, material world that he had surrounded himself with. His fellows, however, were not so pleased.

"He had forced them into flesh, so to speak. He had imposed the order upon them as well, taking away their freedoms and thrusting uopn them unfamiliar feelings and conditions. Several of them set out, determined to destroy him and the device and to restore chaos to the universe.

"They pursued him through unfamiliar worlds, tearing through the barriers he erected behind him as he passed, until at last, he sealed himself as best he could into a universe of his own. They entered there as well, but several of his pursuers, seeing the beauty of what he had created, turned on the others and destroyed them or drove them back, allowing him to truly close the gates and lock them out.

"Those that remained trapped here have lived for millennia, witnessing the growth of this pocket of the universe. My father, Benisato is one of them, the one who led the charge against the others. Adram is the creator of the Logrus, as well, his own little remembrance of times past. He founded Chaos, fathered many children, then, one day, simply gave it all up and dropped into the Abyss, never to be seen or heard from again.

"Until he found me at the bottom. You see, the recent events, the disruption of the Pattern, the destruction of the Jewel on the rim, weakened the barriers he had erected so long ago. His stewardship of the universe had weakened him as well, and he could no longer uphold the order himself. He needed someone to pass the stone to. Someone who could protect and control it. He chose me. Or rather...us."

He pauses, the light in his eyes growing brighter. "When the Jewel exploded, all those who were beside it were destroyed, their physical being evaporated and what remained rushing outward from the blast to find the nearest being. They are all in here," he says, patting his chest. The sound is rather more solid than it should be.

"It was all our rabid instinct to survive that kept me alive as I fell, and it was the Old Man who kept me alive afterward. He repaired what he could, and replaced what he could not. I was in a strange state, then, waking, yet not. I felt everything he did to me, even when he replaced my heart with one of his own construction, though I do not think he realized it. At the center of that heart is the stone that keeps the universe turning."

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