The pyromancer, Gophriyth Zer'esh, fled with the last remnant of his kind to Lower Atalicon during the War of Wind and Fire (which he knew as the Maelstrom War). When the aeromancers came to the Island, they captured Zer'esh and bound him to the pulon with a wizard-made slave crown. He managed to free himself from that early version of the crown and attack the aeromancer forces stationed at Waearc, the town where the pulon stood. He sent a feedback look into the pulons meaning to short them, but later learned that he had destroyed the twin on Pulon Island and killed the pyromancer that operated it.
Zer'esh formed an army, but Estare Raqiya, the elfin aeromancer that ruled Lower Atalicon, began to remove the air wherever Zer'esh's army moved. A few were able to breath thanks to devices created by sympathetic wizards, but most began to die. One of Zer'esh's closest friends lay dying of suffocation when he discovered the ability to invert his magic, voidmancy. He transformed her into the first voidwrought and all those who were with him. They marched on Raqiya's palace. There, Zer'esh defeated the aeromancer one on one.
Zer'esh took on the name Coshek Shamayim (Dark Heaven) and became the Voidmancer. He kept Estare alive through voidmancy through 1700 years, using him to control the Atmosphere Resonance Crystal to allow the remnants of living people to continue to live.
He also changed the name of the Island to Maarath'gaal (Desolation Loathing) perhaps because of what he had become or perhaps to instill those feelings in any who sought to come and conquer his Island.