“Your narrator,” I named myself, yet this term must at once be qualified. In truth, it would be more proper to call myself the compiler of this narration, rather than the narrator himself. The principal source of our tale, the central thread around which I have been forced to weave other annals and accounts, is the Chronicle of the Great Calamity scribed by my illustrious forefathers, the Alfredae. I say, “around which I have been forced to weave other annals and accounts,” for among the hazards and adventures of my ancestors’ flight from the Great Calamity many portions of their manuscript were, alas, lost forever. Nor, in the nature of things, was it always possible for my ancestors to directly observe various events and incidents of great moment to our history.
Thus did it fall to my unworthy self, Alfred CCLXXIX, despite my frailties and paltry skills in comparison to my incomparable forebears, to attempt to fill the lacunae in their chronicle with other sources. As for these latter, I will vouch for their authenticity but not their veracity, as they are all of them the product of human hands and thus inherently suspect, due to the well-known mendacious proclivities of that malign race.
No better example to illustrate this last point could be found than the very same Autobiography of Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini which I chose as the prelude to our tale. A strange choice for an introduction to scrupulous history! For the autobiography of this artist is, of course, notorious for its unreliability, inexactitude, and preposterous self-aggrandizement. Yet, it seemed to me that any chronicle seeking to clarify the events and inner forces leading to the Great Calamity must, of necessity, include within its compass the tale told by Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini. This, for two reasons.
Imprimis, Benvenuti himself played no small part in the ruination of civilization which we know by the name of the Great Calamity. At each and every critical juncture of that tangled skein of events and episodes which led to the Great Calamity, does his presence and influence make itself felt. And not his alone, nay, but those of the maleficent characters which he attracted about him like flies to honey, as well. Name all the individuals prominent in the destruction of our lost heritage, beginning with the Rebel himself, and you will find, in four instances out of five, this lowest common denominator—an association with the scoundrel Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini.
Secundus, the wizard Zulkeh himself, blamed by all gentility for the Great Calamity, insisted to his dying day that a proper analysis of Benvenuti’s Autobiography made clear the truth of the matter. Of this thesis, I myself remain dubious. Yet, in fairness to the historical personage of the sorcerer, I felt it both judicious and proper to incorporate into this chronicle the Autobiography of the infamous artist.
With those portions of our tale directly transcribed from my ancestors’ account, the matter is naturally otherwise. These may be regarded as unblemished truth, and this for two reasons. Imprimis, my peerless forefathers accompanied Zulkeh and Shelyid throughout their famous odyssey, in the course of which the hidden meaning of the Great Calamity was revealed. They were present at every juncture, there to observe and record both the event and its inner purport. Secundus, my ancestors’ chronicle was not compiled by witless humans but by members of that infinitely superior race to which my ancestors and I belong. I speak, of course, of pediculus humanus.
* * *
“A louse!” you exclaim.
Yes, I say proudly, a louse. And typical ’tis that even you, gentle reader, will automatically respond with the genocidal impulse of your bestial race, so evident even in ancient times and now, since the Great Calamity, grown systematic and ruthless in its horror. I am a louse, and my ancestors were lice before me. And not just any lice!—but lice whose devotion to science was of such all-consuming passion that they readily resided upon the none-too-well-fed Shelyid, taking advantage of the latter’s hirsute plenitude to record a history of our modern times which is nonpareil. Would humans have done as much? To ask the question is to answer it.
I urge you thus, gentle reader, to suppress your barbarous instincts and heed attentively the tale which follows. For though you despise us, consider this patent truth—that while you squat here in wretched exile, dreaming with bitter regret of your lost wealth and luxuries, we squat here upon you and regret much less, for by your squalid existence you assure our sustenance.