The Gospel of Saint Veloth, v 1

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In the Darkness shines the Light. The Light is everlasting in its brilliance: unchanging, unmoving, unassailable. Yet the further it casts its Rays, the less shine and warmth and structure it carries to them. We were cast from the Light long ago, and it is of little use to us now.

As the Rays are cast into the Darkness, so the Shadows form them. Many are the names given to the Rays, and many those given to the Shadows, but few are of concern to us, as we are bound to them only through the Light, and they are as distant again to us as it is.

The Ray that most concerns us moved forward, its shape ever becoming colder and dimmer, until it was cast into a gray-lit chamber in the form of an Aldmer. This Aldmer was Veloth, and he cast his gaze around the room in which he found himself, regarding in turn each Corner and each Door that gave the room its square form. Behind him lay the Door of Origin through which he had come, and -- its contents being already revealed -- his gaze did not dwell on it.

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Veloth was born of the waning radiance of his Ancestors, of good birth, clarity and cultivation. As he moved from the cradle that had brought him to the world, he encountered his first obstacle: a dark shade was cast over his homeland and people which sought to halt his advance.

The elders who raised Veloth had trained their steps to be ever shorter, they looked always behind themselves at the Light that preceded them, and they tried to ensure that their students would gain no knowledge they did not already have. Veloth's lessons repeated endlessly, each time with less substance than the last, as his elders attempted to strip his essence to its barest foundation.

The Aldmer did not wish to lose the Light, and so they attempted to halt their movement away from it. But that would not return them to the Light, nor would it show them a way forward. Unchanging, unmoving, unassailable, their teachings were of little use to Veloth.

Veloth, even in his early days, stood apart from the rest. He did not look back. But in those days before his Revelation he could not see forward either. He looked inward instead and perceived his own Light, and in his Light he recognized the shape of his Ancestors. Just as his Ancestors had been shaped, so too was his Light shaped. To look at the Light itself would be to look back, so he chose to look at the Darkness that surrounded it instead, and the Darkness looked at him.

So nurtured by the Shadows, Veloth's spark could shine on its own, and to Veloth the Shadows revealed a way forward. Veloth rejected the teachings of his elders. When bereft of wise guidance without, look within, for a faithful heart carries answers.

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While Veloth stood apart from his kin in perceiving the Door that opened to him, he loved his people, and was quick to show them his discovery. His elders, however, disapproved: blinded from staring endlessly at the Light, their eyes could not pierce the Darkness, and they were doubtful and afraid.

One of them, less cowardly than the rest, ventured to block the doorway. This was the champion Trinimac. He swung his cudgel at all those who attempted to go through the Door, trying to knock them back to immobility. Yet Veloth's vision was strong and decisive, and Trinimac's ignorance could not match it. Without perceiving it, Trinimac slowly gave way before the advancing students, until he fell unheedingly back into the doorway and his Light was swallowed.

The students looked into the doorway, trying to discern Trinimac in its obscurity, but could only hear his voice. Trinimac spoke as a new man, seeing that to which he had been blind. He instructed the students of the knowledge he did not already have and bid them join him in the Darkness. Some of the students hastened to him and were likewise swallowed, but Veloth stood still before the doorway and observed it, and then shifted his gaze from it.

So he taught his people not to advance heedlessly, but to remain ever circumspect.

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Veloth's gaze fell instead on a dark Corner beside the doorway where dust had gathered. The dust revealed itself as Malacath and his followers. The remaining elders followed his gaze but were cowed by what they saw, their fears and hesitations realized. They looked away from their fallen kin, and looked away from their unruly students, and returned to their single-minded contemplation of the Light, a barrier to Veloth no more.

Malacath and his people despaired at what they had become, and despaired at being abandoned by the other elders, and despaired at having fallen before Veloth. They let the wind carry them away from their home and were forever dispersed. Veloth and his followers had been spared the same fate, yet Veloth seized the wind, for it could carry them forth as well.

As they had kept their form and purpose the wind carried the Velothi as a body over the waters that had enclosed them and they stepped forth on their journey. A heedful mind does not turn away from Mistakes once made, but allows those Mistakes to guide it, and so becomes stronger.