Prologue - the scars of the past Long ago there was a land, it was fresh and fertile, it was perfect. It was called merlänya. This land had mountains that touched the sky, rivers that quenched the land and the great forest, which was the beginning and the continuance of all life that dwelt within its borders, and as the sun rose for the first time the elves were awoken into the world. The elves lived in the forest, and so it gave them immortality, and so they made a covenant with nature, they would have immortality in exchange for the allegiance of elf and nature and in so doing they would never take the life of any living creature. So for aeons they never killed a single living creature, only eating fruit that grew from the trees, and through their pact with al life the trees grew to form dwellings for the elves, and so there was peace¦
