In the seventh hin of the first naezje of the reign of Imhotep son of Khonsu, during the two thousand three hundred seventy-eighth year of Terran reckoning, there was discovered in the star system of Beta Cygni a subspace conduit previously unknown to the two Races. This conduit was unstable, but unlike the many fleeting and impassable nodes that flicker throughout the Silent Void, in that it behaved in a most peculiar and chaotic fashion. This discovery began the saga of the Atankharz]ythi, though none could then foresee that the words of the Prophets would be fulfilled on account of it.

In those days, the wise and learned Dr. Raphah, versed in the words of the Prophecies and the ways of space and time, came to study the node of Beta Cygni. It was he who discerned, by the cycle of collapse and stabilisation in the node, that it was maintained by a portal of the Ancient Ones, whom the Destroyers smote in long days before any Vasudan touched the stars in the Silent Void.

Now this portal had long fallen into disrepair, but through the endless passing of ages its components had come for a time partially into re-alignment, opening the node for brief intervals as it went through its turnings. And in fulfilment of the Prophecies, Dr. Raphah passed through the conduit to the other side with hope in his breast that he might be able to repair the Ancient portal. But he did not know what that deed would begin, neither what fate would bring to him nor to our ancestors on account of it....