And it came to pass in the days of stillness, when the Zedos system lay barren and without voice, that the Quaskians set their dominion upon the seventh planet thereof.

For Zedos 7 was rich in the hidden treasures of the deep places, and its mountains bore minerals of great worth, though no living creature had ever stirred upon its dust.

And the Quaskians, being a people small in number yet mighty in wisdom, did build cities of order and industry upon that lonely sphere.

They laboured with care, neither wasting nor corrupting, and the land yielded unto them abundance.

But afar, in the wide and swollen empire of the Marshians, envy awoke as a serpent in the heart.

For the Marshians had grown slothful in their greatness, and their armies were many yet aged, and their coffers vast yet emptying.

And they beheld Zedos 7, and coveted it.

Then the Marshians rose without counsel or warning, and sent forth a host of ships like locusts upon the wind.

They descended upon Zedos 7 with fire and thunder, and smote the Quaskian dwellings, and laid waste the place of habitation.

The Quaskians fought as lions, yet were overcome by the multitude of their foes.

And word of the desolation came unto the Emperor of Quask, who dwelt beneath the twin suns.

His wrath was kindled, and he vowed vengeance upon the Marshians, and commanded that the armies be gathered.

But the armies were few, and the gathering slow.

Yet the Seventh Army, under the hand of E‑yarn the steadfast, was near unto the Zedos system, and was charged to contain the ruin until help should come.

And E‑yarn beheld the Marshians feasting upon their ill‑gotten spoil, and he said within himself, “Now shall the proud be humbled.”

He commanded a great bombardment from the heavens, and the sky was rent asunder, and the Marshian fleet was broken like pottery before the hammer.

The Marshians who remained upon the ground were confounded, for their ships were ashes and their leaders slain.

Then E‑yarn descended with his warriors, and smote the encampments of the Marshians, and took captive the officers and the scribes of their administration.

And behold, victory was nigh.

But in that hour E‑yarn lifted his new weapon, the dread Dildo Gun, whose name was a jest among soldiers yet whose power was terrible.

And the weapon grew hot with exceeding heat, and burst upon him, and his flesh was marred, and his visage disfigured.

His soldiers bore him swiftly unto the healers of Quask, who laboured long and saved his life, though his form was changed.

For they set within him devices of metal and crystal, that he might endure the trials yet to come.

Meanwhile the Marshian scribes, with Smarsh their chief among them, were carried upon a vessel toward Quask for questioning.

But Smarsh was cunning, and he spake unto Griff, a Mektonian of great strength and little wit.

And Griff hearkened unto Smarsh, for the Mektonians were gentle and easily swayed, and some whispered that their hearts leaned toward the Marshians.

Together they fled, and seized a Caravalda craft, small and swift, whose power came from the mould that clung to its hull and yielded dylithium crystals.

But they knew not the ways of the vessel, and it reeled through the void like a drunken beast, and was broken upon a distant world called Earth.

Yet Smarsh and Griff lived, and hid themselves among the children of Earth, and took upon them new customs and new names.

And when tidings of their escape reached E‑yarn, the Emperor spake, saying, “Let the honour of pursuit be his who won the battle of Zedos 7.”

And E‑yarn, though wounded and weary, obeyed, and journeyed unto Earth in his own Caravalda.

But Earth was a land of one sun only, and the skin of the Quaskians, pale and thin, was fashioned for the light of two.

And E‑yarn grew faint, and his strength failed him, and he lay often as one dead.

He took unto himself instruments of vibration, that his flesh might stir and gather energy, though it brought him little dignity.

And the sun of Earth was feeble, and the mould upon his vessel withered, and the crystals were not formed.

Thus was E‑yarn trapped upon Earth, and his mission unfulfilled.

And Griff, seeing the wickedness of Smarsh, turned away from him, and sought peace.

But Smarsh plotted still, and his shadow lengthened.

And E‑yarn, knowing where both fugitives dwelt, could not rise against them, for his strength was spent.

Yet the Quaskians possessed a spark of telepathy, faint as a whisper in the wind.

And E‑yarn set himself to raise his hair, thin and wiry, that it might stand as a bowl, like unto a dish that gathereth the waves of heaven.

For he hoped to send a message across the void, unto Quask, that his people might hear and come unto him.

And he laboured day and night, though his limbs trembled and his breath was shallow.

Thus dwelt the Hero of Zedos 7 upon Earth, beneath a sun too weak for his kind, striving with all his might to call homeward.

And the days grew long, and his hope flickered as a candle in the wind.

Yet he did not cease.

For duty was upon him as a mantle, and he remembered the vow he made before the Emperor, and the blood spilled upon Zedos 7.

And this is the account of E‑yarn, and of Smarsh, and of Griff the Mektonian, as it is written in the Third Chronicle of Quask.