From the book
A being born from nothing — as if both creator and creation.
He was certain of his own existence, seeing himself as a self-made miracle meant to challenge belief in everything. He was life, death, existence, and nonexistence. He was both good and evil; and for all this, he called himself of the lineage of shadows. He was the Prince of Shadows.
In an endless desert, along a shoreline where the desert and sea met in a kiss, stood a middle-aged man in a long white robe. With his eyes closed, he listened to the lifeless waves of the sea.