Istu awakened

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No light defiled the sacred darkness of the chamber cruelly gouged from the mountain's interior. With a sense that was not sight, the gathered worshippers knew the presence of their priest and leader, resplendent in his long robes of pallid, fine-textured leather and headdress of obsidian and iridescent green metal. They perceived not the colors of Light, which were a lie; they knew the subtle shades of blackness.

The priest raised a strong hand and spoke to heads bowed in dark communion.

'In the secret places of the Mountain,' he intoned, 'pent in the stone that flows like water, that burns without the foulness of Light, the mother fluid of our race, there beats…' Ritually, he paused. At once came back the ringing answer; 'A Heart!' 'Our Heart.' Another pause, then, 'And it is lost to us.'

'Lost!' The word scored the soul with a keening of pain honed fine by the grinding centuries. 'But when shall we forget?' 'When the Great Dark ceases to fill the space between the stars.'

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