History of a World of Immortals without a God Translated from an unpublished manuscript in the library of a continental university

Dr. Gervaas Van Varken is a dour ship‑chandler from Rotterdam, his miserly habits and bleak view of humanity leaving him isolated. Yet a restless intellect pushes him to seek knowledge beyond his trade. A chance encounter with an elderly Parsee merchant in bustling Bombay offers a doorway to the extraordinary.

In the shadow of the Himalayas the Parsee introduces Van Varken to the Great Magician of Tibet, a figure wrapped in legends of alchemy and forgotten sciences. Under austere tutelage he learns to read strange symbols and to contemplate forces that bend the sky. The experience leaves him humbled yet eager to go farther.

His curiosity soon brings him to Hesperos, a luminous city of immortals whose citizens stare in wonder at his foreign presence. Assigned to a three‑member committee, he is shown intricate maps and taught fragments of a universal language that binds the continent’s cultures. Amid dazzling architecture and whispers of a law that makes life both endless and fragile, Van Varken begins to question the nature of existence.