The golden light of the Atlas had a way of preserving things, making the passage of centuries feel like a single, elongated afternoon. To the high gods who inhabited the ivory towers of the upper sectors, time was a river that had finally reached a tranquil lake.
They spoke of the Great Erasure as one speaks of a distant storm that had once rattled the windows but had long since dissipated into the mist. They called it the transition to the Stable Age, a period where the architecture of existence was no longer threatened by the chaos of the un-made.
Yet, in the shadow of the golden mountain, in a valley that smelled of ancient cedar and sun-drenched rosemary, time felt much more visceral.
