We’re floating in a sea of molten lava. It hisses and bubbles, lapping around us. The light is an eerie red deepening to black high above us.

“Long ago," Ruby begins. "When the earth was still in its molten form, I was created.”

The magma begins to settle, its fiery colors get deeper, turning from yellows and golds to coppers and deep reds. Bubbles begin to solidify, their surfaces fracturing as they harden, forming crystals.

The crystals join in clusters, separate, and regroup, in what seems like a joyous dance, their surfaces reflecting the fading light in a rainbow of colors. A blob of hardened lava bumps against us, then moves toward a group of crystals. The crystals shy away from it.

“Ugly little thing!”

“Does it think it’s one of us?"

“Yuck!”

“Shoo!”

“Creator why won’t they let me join them? Why do they say I’m ugly and deformed? Why did You make me different?” It's Ruby's voice, but a young, sad Ruby.

“You are beautiful, Ruby. Far more beautiful than any of them. I have created a covering for you, hiding you for now. When Time comes, your beauty will be revealed. You will shine gloriously – and with a purpose these others will never know.”

“Creator, who is Time?”

Creator chuckles. “Time is not a being, Ruby. But you will understand – in time.”

The magma darkens and thickens. It’s hard to move. The crystals complain.

Suddenly we crash through the outer layer of magma into utter darkness. As our eyes adjust, we can see stars and galaxies – millions of them, as far as the eye can see.

A Gas Giant passes in the near distance and the ball of magma from which we just escaped, gives chase. We follow it as it takes up orbit around the gas giant.

It’s intensely cold out here. Just as suddenly as we left, we return to the ball of magma. The crust has thickened. Only the core is still liquid. The crystals are still complaining, their voices fading with the light. We are in utter darkness, complete silence. And it’s cold!

How long we’re here, we don’t know, when we hear a faint rumbling. It grows louder and louder. We can feel a faint vibration that grows with the rumble until we are being shaken.

“Creator!" Cries the young Ruby. "Where are you? What’s happening? Is our world alive again?”

The rock around us cracks, shatters, and once more we are in a lava flow. We are moving. Up! Up, up!

“I'm hot! I'm hot again! Oh, beautiful heat! And I'm moving! What joy!” Young RUby.

Although we cannot see it yet, on the surface above a giant chasm appears, filling quickly with water as the land is split apart and the continents are created. Smoking mountains materialize in a chain, zigzagging across one continent and then another.

The top of one mountain explodes, shooting lava and molten rock high and wide - we with it. High into a cloudless blue sun-filled sky. Falling! Bouncing, rolling, tumbling.

“Ouch! Creator! It hurts! Make it stop!”

We come to rest in a bed of hot ash. Lava flows over us once more.

“Thank you, Creator! That was terrifying!”

“Rest now. Time is near, Ruby!”

“But what is Time?”

The light fades and we are once more in total darkness and unable to move.

Above us, the solidified lava flow is barren of life. Clouds darken the sky. Rain falls, then turns to snow and ice. Centuries pass. The lava eventually gives way to a river, and - that land was filled with light - Light dancing and bouncing over pristine snow-capped peaks, granite boulders, perpetually misty waters, feathery green trees, and silver-tipped grasses where baby animals frolicked.

People live in that land filled with sunshine and beauty and spend their days in pleasant pursuits: Long, hot, summer afternoons playing under green-canopied fruit trees; endless winter evenings snuggled deep in warm blankets with flames dancing in the brazier; untold hours listening to stories of high adventure, mighty battles, fierce revenge, beautiful women, and handsome men, who conquered and survived and even thrived despite it all.

But there came a time in that beautiful land – a time of darkness, terrifying and unpredictable. A time of betrayal from within, when brother betrayed brother and son his father, when friend and foe looked alike.

A land, a time, a people filled with a black fear so deep that no light could shine.

NEXT: The book RUBY HEART – The Legend Begins.