Ancient World: Prologue

I would very much appreciate feedback on this - it's something I've been working on for years, and this is the final version of the prologue (after about 30 previous drafts).

Please rate this if you read it, even if you don't finish it. And please, please review if you have the time. Thanks, and enjoy!

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Ancient World
Prologue

The air hung calm and quiet over the Ancient World, offering a welcome break from the wild storms of the past days. Only the occasional owl, eagle or lyndra call broke the silence, or the scurrying of small ground beasts, and light rustling of leaves in the breeze. Beyond that, all was still. The sun had long since sunk, the rich crimson glow of dusk fading first to hazy grey of early-night, and then a pitch blackness broken only when the thick covering of clouds cleared enough for tiny swaths of moonlight to seep onto the land below. Caught in this momentary illumination, the jutting rises and smooth, snow-capped peaks of the Blænca mountains emitted an almost glowing brilliance, the whiteness of both rock and snow enhanced and captured in the pale, silvery light of the moon. In the full darkness, when the clouds converged once more to smother the moon and the stars in their inky blanket, the Blænca mountains rose as a hulking, sprawling black mass, darker even than the surrounding night. Invisible to the naked eye and unknown to all but a bare handful of those dwelling in the Ancient World, the bone-white exterior rock-face served to conceal a great realm of tunnels and chambers. This hidden world admitted access through only two entry-points, known to an even smaller handful of individuals, and highly guarded. The entry-points ran respectively from of Dreda to the North of the rising mountains, and from Salonria to the South, where a single narrow passageway passed directly beneath each city.

Somewhere within one of these passages, lost deep beneath the Dredan Academy, Adriella Kalesh d’Aradia drifted slowly back to consciousness. The world spun dizzyingly, and long minutes passed before she could see past the churning in her stomach to realise that thick cords of Eldormagen secured her ankles and wrists, and that she was being half-dragged, half-carried through dim, flickering, unfamiliar passageways. Memory surfaced groggily, confused and disordered at first. In amongst the turmoil within her mind, one name sprang abruptly to the forefront.

Kynaris. No! The betrayal cut far deeper than any wounds she had taken, and the name pounded through her mind like a hammer blow throbbing with every heartbeat. Full memory of the night’s events flooded her with stark clarity. For a moment she actually found herself struck dumb with the pure disbelief that what she was experiencing was real, even as her muscles instinctively responded to the situation. She struggled violently against the hands holding her, blue eyes wild and angry and delicate features set in abject incredulity. Fingers entwined themselves roughly around a section of her long, pale gold hair and she found her head wrenched violently backwards. Somehow this forced her mind into action. Her eyes widened in pain, but she still made no sound. Instead, she focused her full attention inwards, immersing her consciousness deeply within herself. A soft shimmering immediately engulfed the air around her, as hot air rising from a flame. She quickly snapped the ropes of Eldormagen shackling her limbs, but pulled back from the verge of striking out at the three men.

“Why are you doing this, -” but the name caught in her throat, the familiar sounds dying on her tongue however hard she tried to speak them. Only a strained, stilted sound emerged, bearing no resemblance to the name whatsoever, though that sound alone brought fresh pain with every utterance. It simply could not be. She refused to believe it, even as tears threatened to spill from her eyes with the undeniable, agonizing truth. But Adriella te Kalesh d’Aradia did not cry. The question itself was superfluous. She was in no doubt as to why they were doing this. The threat had been in place long before she herself had attained the High Seat, yet somehow it had never seemed real; the threat that the sun would fail to rise of any given morning had existed since the dawn of time, but one simply did not plan against such an eventuality. Adriella was no fool, she had laid plans. Not nearly enough, it turned out. Those few remaining intact were flimsy back-up options at best, and there was no escaping the probability that, by now, it would be far too little, much too late. Not a fool? Adriella almost laughed. As it was, she barely restrained a howl of despair.

With great effort, she managed to wrench one arm free from the hands grasping her, and took two surging steps forward before the men yanked her violently sideways. Her head rebounded from the rough wall and she gasped at the pain shooting through her skull and down her neck. Her connection to her Eldormagen slipped from her conscious grasp, and dark speckles floated in her vision. She blinked, dazed and limp for a moment. A moment was all the men required. They quickly snapped the thick manacles of Eldormagen back around her wrists, ankles and neck, and lifted her slight form, moving more rapidly through the passageway.

“Kynaris, please!” Adriella gasped the moment her head cleared enough to speak. She tried to struggle against the men carrying her, but her muscles refused to respond to her commands. She had lost her hold on her Eldormagen, but for the moment she let it remain lost; Kynaris would not let this happen. He would stop it, she was sure. He would! “What are you doing? I do not want to wield Eldormagen against you, but do not doubt that I will do so in defence of my life if you do not desist, now! All of you! I command you to stop!”

“In defence of your life?” Kynaris’s voice was cold and hard, not at all the voice Adriella was used to emerging from those soft, beautiful lips. The eyes she had gazed into so often in love now bore into her like circles of pale blue ice. He laughed humourlessly and reached out to brush strands of hair from her flushed cheek. She tried to shy away from his touch, but the bonds bit into her neck as she moved, and a shiver ran down her spine as his cold fingertips grazed her skin. She closed her eyes tightly against both the pain of the bonds and the sensation of his touch, blocking out the image of his face floating before her. A face at once so familiar, and yet all too alien. “You judge us too harshly, my love,” his tone and expression made a mockery of those words, and Adriella blinked back tears of confused anger and loss. “We are not going to kill you.”

“No,” she snapped bitterly, “what you intend is far worse than death! You are going to take away everything that I am! What you intend is to leave me a living shell, remembering all that I once was, all that I once had, yet able to touch none of it, feel none of it! I mean what I say, Kynaris. Do not force my hand. Let me go, and perhaps something can be salvaged from this.”

The men suddenly released their grip on her arms and legs and Adriella tumbled painfully to the ground. The Eldormagen at her wrists and ankles had dissipated, she noted vaguely as she struggled to sit. The room was as unfamiliar as the passages they had taken to get here, and she could obtain only the vague impression that they were somewhere to the south of the Academy, south of Dreda itself. Adriella raised her head to regard the three men with a steely gaze, her expression commanding. All three men backed away slightly - few could meet the gaze of Adriella Kalesh d'Aradia and not quail beneath the strength and authority carried in her dark blue eyes - and Adriella pushed herself onto trembling legs.

“Listen to me, all of you. I do not want to hurt you. You cannot imagine you will succeed in this,” she shook her head slowly and gazed steadily at each of the men in turn, resting finally on those familiar brown eyes, once so warm and loving. She no longer recognised him. “Kynaris, you of all people know exactly who I am…what I am, what I am capable of! I beg of you, stop this now before I am forced to put a stop to it myself! You know I will never let you carry out your plans! The attempt itself is futile. Stop this now, and save yourselves a great deal of suffering!” She began to pull her awareness inwards once more, to form a fresh connection with her Eldormagen, but she paused as Kynaris took a step towards her with a cold, humourless smile.

“Look at you,” he spat mockingly. “You, the most powerful creature on the mortal plane. You, who sit in the High Seat of the Council of Dreda, with both Dreda and Salonria hanging on your every move, every word, every thought. You, who have succeeded in passing all but one of the Fandian’Eldormagen, the first seventh level Fandian‘Eldormagenus in over four centuries! You stand there and attempt to talk your way out of danger! King Gameald made a mistake in setting the Fandian’ as he did; you have all the power and none of the sense to use it! Such goodness, such purity, such strength, the very things which give you this power will be your undoing. You should have struck us down at the first, and yet you did not. Could not! You are a fool, Adriella. I can only assume your final Fandian’ is that of intelligence, which you can never hope to pass because you have none! You cling too readily, too desperately to your love, to your hope, that I will falter. You are as close to perfection as any could dream of being, and yet you have failed.

“The power of the Fandian’ will be mine, Adriella, make no mistake. And even now, others are taking control of each member of the councils of both Salonria and Dreda. You refused to listen to reason, all of you, and now the power of the Fandian’Eldormagen will flow instead through those poised to use it as it should be used! Those who truly understand the teachings and instructions left by King Gameald; those fools in the New World have been left to their own devices for too long, left to forget, and you - all of you! - are content to allow what should not have been lost remain so, though it is finally within your power to restore the old ways as they should have remained!” Kynaris’s eyes burned with wild, zealous fire and he slammed his fist against a wall with his shouted final words.

“And you dare to question my intelligence?” Adriella replied incredulously, “you are blinded by your own foolish, ill-advised, underdeveloped interpretation of all you have read regarding the united lands of old. King Gameald did not intend this, Kynaris, of that much we are certain! You are putting everything at risk in this ridiculous endeavour, and I beg you to put a stop to it, now - not for my own sake, in the grand scheme of thing I am unimportant, but for all we have worked to maintain over the centuries. You are about to throw the Ancient World into a worse turmoil than you believe the New World suffers even now! Put a stop to this, or I swear by Eldormagen I will kill you and all who follow you rather than allow this abomination you plan to continue! Gameald‘s blood, I will strike myself dead before I allow this to take place.” 

“You cannot kill me while you continue to harbour even the most minute hope that I will falter in this, and be redeemed.” Kynaris scoffed. “And you cannot let go of that hope because it is what makes you who you are! You have lost. Do it now, if you can, Adriella. Strike me down. Strike us all down!” He took a step back and spread his arms wide. His two companions eyed him nervously, but did nothing.

Adriella sighed bitterly, and submerged herself completely within her Eldormagen, shuddering slightly as the energy engulfed her being and surrounded her slight form with intense transparent, shimmering radiance. She raised one hand before her, and the shimmering, rippling air shifted forwards to concentrate down her arm and around her spread fingers. Suddenly the fluttering of a thousand tiny wings burst into being all around her and she let out an agonised cry, falling abruptly to her knees. Nymphs. Thousands of them; she could feel each tiny, razor set of teeth as they set to devouring the veins of Eldormagen flowing unprotected on the surface of her being. The shimmering guttered and fractured around her and she bent to cover her head with her arms against the invisible onslaught, the unbearable pain. Soft laughter brought her head slowly upwards to peer at Kynaris through unbidden tears of agony. Blood flowed freely from her nose and dark spots floated dizzyingly before her blurry eyes.

“What…have you…done?” She gasped hoarsely, coughing violently in an attempt to clear the blood filling her mouth. Her gaze snapped from side-to-side as she attempted to take in her surroundings; the unfamiliar room seemed nothing more than a simple square of brick and stone, with smooth wooden panelling beneath her feet. “Where have you brought me? Kynaris, what have you done!?” The last was lost to a shriek of pain as the nymphs renewed their attack with hungry, eager vigour. The shimmering air around her guttered violently one final time before fading away to smooth, unbroken air once more.

Adriella toppled forwards onto her hands and knees, panting heavily, and dripping blood from her nose, mouth and ears. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, crimson droplets that ran down her cheeks to mingle with the rest in pools beneath her trembling form. The pattering of wings silenced, but she knew they were still there, waiting, hungry, their eager appetites whetted for the taste of her Eldormagen. Finally, she sank back onto her heels and rubbed trembling hands over her face, trying to wipe away the blood. Her movements were slow and stilted; though the immediate pain had vanished the moment she re-submerged her Eldormagen, the wounds left by the nymphs seared like a thousand tiny cuts running throughout the inside of her body. She shuddered violently, barely resisting the need to curl into a tight ball and weep. “What…is this place?” she croaked at length, raising blood-speckled blue eyes to meet Kynaris’s cold brown ones.

“This place?” he spread his hands and looked around slowly with feigned interest. “Why, it appears to be a simple, stone room, my love.”

“Stop…calling me that!” Adriella shouted. She tried to stand, but her legs would not hold her and she fell painfully to one side. “You make a mockery of everything we have shared and it is beneath you, Kynaris, whatever else you might be capable of.”

“You have no idea what I am capable of,” Kynaris responded coolly, “you know nothing about me. As to this room, it truly is nothing extraordinary. The nymphs, on the other hand…well, false modesty aside, they were rather a stroke of genius on my part. Bred especially for you, Adriella. I have been working with them for months; there were thousands hatched, each one absolutely perfect, if I do say so myself. And each, tiny, perfect one of them responds only to your own, individual source of Eldormagen, does that not make you feel special?” Kynaris barked a note of humourless laughter. “Thousands, pressed into this tiny room…even you cannot withstand that, Adriella. So I suppose that renders you…defenceless.”

His eyes wandered upwards slowly, a thoughtful frown creasing his forehead. There was a momentary silence, and then he smiled, and a small tremor of pleasure passed through him. “Yes, I believe that, by now, the power of the Councils will have passed into more worthy hands. Enough talk. Bind her!” he commanded. His two companions stepped quickly forward and pulled Adriella to the centre of the room. She struggled weakly, but her strength was greatly diminished, and pain still surged through her entire body with every thudding heartbeat.

Sweat beaded on her brow, and damp strands of hair fell across her face as the men pulled her into a prone position on her back and secured her there with heavy ropes of their own Eldormagen. A thick, shimmering gag was forced between her lips, so that she lay in complete silence and stillness, save for her wide eyes darting back and forth in angry desperation as her mind worked frantically. She knew exactly what they were planning, knew that there was no escape. Yet her mind refused to admit defeat, even as the three men knelt in a triangle around her, each fully suffused with the intense shimmering of his own Eldormagen, and began to chant in soft, lilting, ancient words she herself scarcely recognised.

Hours seemed to pass as she lay helplessly listening and watching, until finally the men rose to their feet, and the chanting gathered in volume and intensity; the room filled with deafening echoes, and a glowing crimson light that built from somewhere within Adriella herself then spread to engulf Kynaris’s eager form.

Suddenly the door burst open and a white-faced, terrified-looking Green Mage stumbled through the threshold.

“My Lord Kynaris, you must stop!” the woman gasped. “Something is wrong with our calculations. The others…the Mages sent to take those of the High Council, they…they are all dead, my lord! The ritual, it works only as far as fourth level Fandian‘Eldormageni. Beyond that, the power…the power of the Fandian’ is too great…the Council will awaken at any moment. They know, my Lord…My lord, no! Wait! I -” Kynaris did not take his eyes from Adriella, but raised one hand towards the doorway, open palm facing outwards. The Green Mage was still stuttering her terrified protests when Kynaris abruptly clenched his fist. The protests broke off, and she crumpled onto the ground.

“Lord Kynaris?” The Mage to Kynaris’s left gasped. The crimson glow intensified and grew, engulfing the four figures in an unnatural, searing light like bloody flames. “My Lord, did…you hear? We…must stop!”

Adriella screamed through the Eldormagen gag at the sudden intense pain as the crimson glow exploded into a thousand shards. It felt as though her spine were being torn outwards from the base of her neck, and she closed her eyes tightly, praying for it all to just be over…one way or the other. Kynaris’s face danced before her vision even in the darkness beneath her closed lids.

“It is too late!” Kynaris growled, “the Mages I…sent were too…too weak; could not cope with…such power. I will not…fail!”

Suddenly Kynaris and the two Mages flew backwards as though struck by a monumental force, rebounding from the stone walls to fall, writhing in pain on the ground. For Adriella, the physical pain vanished as suddenly, along with the gag and bonds holding her, though the memory lingered poignantly and left her trembling and sobbing, and unable to move beyond curling into a ball on the ground. She scarcely noticed the sound of Kynaris’ pained groaning become low growls of anger, finally growing into screamed curses that resounded furiously from the close walls and low ceiling of the room. Finally, the sound ceased. Kynaris climbed to his feet and threw both arms out behind him, palms open, each facing one of his two prone and whimpering companions. Their whimpering broke abruptly as Kynaris closed his fists forcefully, though he swayed on his feet from that little exertion.

With unsteady steps, he made his way to the centre of the room, where Adriella sat now watching him in silence; she had forced her features into a controlled expression, yet her face was drawn and blood-stained, her once bright blue eyes drained and haunted.

“Apparently the Mages you sent were not alone in their weakness,” she sneered hoarsely, each syllable feeling like a knife drawn from her throat, raw as it was from screaming, “it seems you failed after all, my love.”

His back-handed slap sent her sprawling sideways. “Silence, hrachned,” he cursed furiously. Red spots danced in Adriella’s vision, but she managed to turn her head back towards him from her fallen position, meeting his gaze. The once-familiar eyes were wild and dark as he glared down at her.

“You will keep,” he snarled, then spun on his heel and strode to the door. Once there, he turned back with a feverish expression, lips curled into a smile, all trace of rage vanquished in an instant. His voice was now calm, deliberate, edifying. “I may have failed, Adriella, but you are defeated all the same. You, and your clueless Council of idiots, poisoning the land with your deficient rule. Gameald’s word will be obeyed at last, nothing you do can stop that now. I will be back - you may turn out to be of more use to me alive, for now.”

The door slammed heavily behind him, leaving Adriella alone in the pitch darkness. Flimsy back-up options? She had been a fool! A single option remained to her now, and she prayed to anything she thought might listen that it would be enough. She lay back and closed her eyes, beginning a sequence of mental exercises designed to calm and relax every fibre just to the brink of sleep. A single, untested option, and no telling how long it would take, if it worked at all. No telling that it would be enough. For the love of Gameald, it had to be enough. Smoothing closed eyelids that had snapped open unbidden, Adriella took a deep breath, and began the sequence again…