Sorry for the lack of updates, but I’ve been super busy. I’m doing well in NaNoWriMo – currently I’ve written 23,450 words – but not as well as I would like. I’ve been spending a lot of time writing papers, and just finished my first draft of “From Ardashir I to Mahmud of Ghazna: Society, Culture, and Identity in Early Medieval Iran.” Only two more lengthy research papers to write this month!

But, as promised, I offer you the prologue to The Divine Madness of Kings. As it’s going, the book is going to need a lot of editing, but at least the ideas are getting out there onto the page!

***

The sound of bells rang throughout the fortress-city of Ulaanbaatar, bouncing between pyramids and obelisks, spires and domes, towers and pagodas, buttresses and minarets. The entire city rested on the top of a gigantic column of stone, expertly hewn out of the earth. Aircraft from all of the planets of the Terran Home Rule and all of the Tribes of the Tyrrhish Nomads circled the city, and few craft from far beyond the borders of the Human Empire joined them as well.

 

At the center of the great city, capital of the Terran Home Rule and the center of governmental affairs of the entire Human race, lay the Grand Auditorium. It was filled to the brim with dignitaries and notables, all sitting stiffly in the pale limestone seats extending upward from a semi-circular stage at their front, containing at least twenty thousand beings from across the known universe. Scattered chatter filled the air, but

A Tyrrhish aircraft, bearing a striking resemblance to a metallic green fish, flew in low over the audience, circled the Grand Auditorium three times, and then sank down onto the floor of the stage, where several beings had been awaiting its arrival. A door opened in its hull and four Humans, dressed formally in the Tyrrhish fashion, with long robes in their tribe’s color of green flowing around them and enormous golden pendants inset with emeralds hanging about their necks, emerged, bearing a golden stretcher. They walked forward and laid it down upon a stone table brought to the Auditorium specifically for that purpose, and then stepped back to their aircraft. The beings who had been standing on the platform before then proceeded to move forward, and stood in a semicircle behind the stretcher.

The stretcher was by no means empty. A cloth of green lay across it, embroidered with golden thread marking the symbols of every Tyrrhish tribe. The Humans standing at each end of the stretcher – one wearing a blue robe with a sapphire pendant, the other with a black robe and obsidian one – turned to face each other, bowed slightly, grasped both ends of the cloth, lifted it off, and let it fall to the floor. The cloth’s removal revealed a still, peaceful corpse, arms crossed over his chest, and his eyes closed. He was dressed in the gray uniform of the Terran Home Rule’s military, but wore a Tyrrhish pendant around his neck. He was a middle-aged gentleman, and had the faintest beginnings of a five o’clock shadow on his face. His short, jet-black hair blew gently in a whispering wind, and his immaculately polished black boots reflected the sun into the faces of the audience.

The Human standing in the center of the semicircle of beings began to speak. He wore a red and black beret, and his dark skin gleamed with sweat as it trickled into his thick beard. “We are gathered here today to honor the death of one of the best of us. A Human who has achieved remarkable things in his life. He will never be forgotten, for without him, we would not be where we are today. An exile and an outcast, thrown out of Tyrrhish society and unwanted by Terran society, this man managed to become one of the most respected soldiers in the Human Empire, earning the trust of every Human under the Home Rule. He was chosen on the basis of his impeccable record to be the representative of his adopted planet, Pallas, on the greatest Human expedition of all time, on board a ship we called the Ambassador. That ship brought a hand-picked crew to the Seven Seas star system, in order to investigate life-signs coming from one of those stars. It was to be our first successful attempt to find sentient life- other than us, of course – in the universe.” The man paused for a moment and drew a small vial of water from a pocket. He gulped it down and wiped his brow.

“Despite many setbacks and terrible disasters, that expedition managed to return not only with the proven existence of sentient life, but also with that life itself. The survivors of the Ambassador expedition brought Juxtani Civilization to us all, and integrated us into a larger whole. We have emerged from this experience as a greater and better civilization. This man helped bring Juxtani Civilization to us, and us to them.

“But not only did he do these things. No, he also bridged the apparently irreconcilable gap between two peoples who had been separated for the better part of each’s existence: the roving Tyrrhish Nomads and the sedentary Terran Home Rule. He risked his life to go and find the people who had banished him and bring them into the Human fold, uniting the two halves of humanity at last.” The speaker smiled, and thunderous applause filled the stadium.

He raised his hand for silence. “But that is not all. No, not only did he unite Juxtani and Humans and Humans and Humans, but he also exposed the rotten core at the heart of the Home Rule. Along with the legendary Jakken Jalhalla Servidos and others, he helped to save the Human race from complete and utter annihilation at the hand of Banditry and then-Third Thiefking Roland van der Tyke. His work with the Order of the Bronze Dragon brought a terrible plot to slaughter all of humanity into the light, and thereby managed to help save us all, and bring the Home Rule out of the thrall of the Dervishes.” A collective shudder passed through the crowd.

The speaker smiled. “The man whose life and spirit so recently left us to pass into the hands of the Lord was a unifier, in the vein of the legendary Juxtani, Chivak Warbringer. He brought us back to the Juxtani, and brought the Tyrrhs back to us, and then saved us all from an untimely end. He will always be remembered for the sacrifices he made in the name of Human progress, and his death, peacefully in his sleep five days past, is a difficult blow for us all to bear.”

The man straightened up and saluted. The four Humans on either side of him did the same, while the two on the ends of the stretcher bowed their heads and clasped their hands together. “Mikhail Nikkelei, we salute you.”

A long series of speeches began following the end of the opening speech made by First Governor Jonah Michelson of the Terran Home Rule, starting with the Chief Admiral of the Terran Fleet, Michaela Johnson. Her hair tied back in a severe ponytail and her eyes set and hard, her speech was formal and cold. “Mikhail served alongside me on the Ambassador expedition. He was a good man, and a better soldier. Without him, we would not have made it back here alive, and without his insights and connections to the Order of the Bronze Dragon, the Dervishes scheme with Roland would have succeeded.”

Michaela saluted the corpse stiffly and stepped from the speaker’s platform, making room for a Juxtani dignitary, the Vizeri Lord Majias. Lord Majias spoke at great length about Mikhail’s character, emphasising not the importance of his actions, but the depth of his compassion and his wisdom. The Chief Shortel Ambassador to the Humans, Thyrak, spoke next, and told of Mikhail’s diplomatic skills and his impressive achievement of reconciling the Tyrrhs and the Terrans.

Another Shortel, Jarken, a close friend of the deceased, spoke about Mikhail in general terms. Several Tyrrh – including Mikhail’s own father – followed. “When we cast Mikhail from our ranks so many years ago, our community lost a great soul. When he returned to us, not as one of us but as one of them, we had been appalled initially, but his honesty, sincerity, devotion, and drive convinced us to at least hear him out. And when we did, when we returned to humanity as brothers, not as prey, we gained back our lost soul, and gained the chance to build a better future with our own kind – and the Juxtani.”

The last to speak in memory of the deceased was one Derekk Andres san Paolo, the husband of the vanished Jakken Jalhalla Servidos, and the director of the Office of Governmental Oversight. “Mikhail… meant many things to me. He was a close friend, and was a comrade-in-arms during the fight to save Earth and the Human race from Roland’s schemes. As a head of the Order of the Bronze, he showed us all that he was not afraid to skirt the authority of the law in order to do what’s right. He serves as the role model for the Office of Governmental Oversight, and has always been an indispensable part of our team. The world will be a much bleaker place without him. Rest in peace, dear friend.” Derekk bowed his head deeply to Mikhail and stepped back. Jonah Michelson took the stand again to make closing remarks and to invite everyone to the reception to be held in Ulaanbaatar’s Hagia building. Derekk did not wait for the First Governor to finish speaking before walking off the stage and into the wings.

A small boy waited for his father there, sitting on a wooden crate, and bounced to his feet as his father approached. Derekk smiled and knelt before his son, who threw his arms around his father’s neck. Derekk lifted the boy up over his shoulder, causing him to giggle. “Are you done, daddy?”

“Yes, I’m done with that farce.” Derekk put the boy down and grabbed his hand, walking him away from the Auditorium. His son waddled after him, looking up with eager eyes.

“What’s a farce, daddy?”

Derekk smiled. “You’ll learn no doubt when you’re older, Darien.”

“But I wanna know now,” Darien said. He let go of his father’s hand and crossed his arms. “I’m not moving until you tell me!”

Letting out a half-sigh, Derekk knelt down again by his son. “A farce is a show, son. It means that there was no substance behind it.”

Darien thought for a moment. “How was uncle Mikki’s funeral a farce?”

Derekk considered withholding that information for a few moments, and then gave in. Darien could be painfully stubborn, and Derekk had a feeling that his son wouldn’t move until he knew everything.

“Because the government was honoring Uncle Mikki like he was one of them in order to look good in front of the ordinary Humans. But Uncle Mikki only worked for the government for a little bit, in order to bring his people back into the fold, and then afterward did all he good to resist increasing government power.”

“Like you, daddy?” Darien asked, eyes gleaming.”

“Like me, but unofficially. I am still a member of the government, even though it is my duty to make sure they don’t get up to no good.”

Darien nodded sagely. “It all makes sense.” He beamed up at his father. “Someday I’m gonna be just like you!”

Oh, you will be, said a voice in the back of the young boy’s head. That and much more. Darien smiled.

Derekk smiled in return. “We’ll see. Maybe you’ll be something even greater than me.”

“I could never be as great as you, dad.” Darien hugged his father, and Derekk returned the embrace, eyes dancing with happiness.

But you shall be. Far greater.

Sorry for the lack of updates again, but I’ve been super-busy. Unfortunately, I have not finished editing TLOB, and will do so in December, aiming for a January release. Some amazing cover art for the book is in the works – again by the astonishing Sarah Kindler of RISD fame – and I can’t wait to show it to you! I am now, however, focusing all of my attention on National Novel Writing Month, and the novel I’m working on for it, The Divine Madness of Kings. It takes place about twenty-five years after the events of the Jakken trilogy, and follows the rise (and fall) of Jak and Derekk’s son – Darien, first King of Man. I’ll be posting updates and exerpts here, so stay tuned!

Greetings! While on “vacation” in the Southern United States, I’ve been working on my novel for Camp NaNoWriMo, which has been renamed as a working title Tal’kan, so as not to reveal the name of the slumbering one.

I have completed the prologue and the first three chapters, and offer a viewpoint for the first time of a “civilized” Ittek on the planet, as is included below. The manuscript currently stands at almost 10,500 words.

*-*-*

There was a crash and then there was fire.

Shouts filled the air and Herenna Ataki Zovan sat up in her bed, throwing the wool covers aside. She ran to the window, clad only in her nightshirt, and threw open the shutters. What was that? Her eyes searched the village wildly, looking for anything amiss, but she could see nothing except the thatched roofs of the surrounding dwellings. She got dressed as quickly as she could and hurried down the stairs. Her brothers and mother were already down there, running out the door.

“What’s going on?” Herenna called, fastening her trousers. She threw on a vest and hurried after her mother.

Her father was outside, and was the only one to respond to her shout. “Lightning. Came out of nowhere and hit Ziran’s house.” He pointed, and Herenna’s eyes followed the path of his finger.

The house was indeed burning. It was made of thatch and wood, and though it had been burning for less than a minute, it was almost completely engulfed in flames. The Ittek of the village were gathered around it already, and she saw two of them wheeling the pump towards the fire.

Her father rushed to join those her brothers and mother, who had grabbed buckets full of water and were throwing them onto the flames, but Herenna could see that they were doing no good; they were only trying to make themselves feel better.

Half-dazed, Herenna walked forward slowly, noting that the doors and windows were burning the brightest. She saw blue flames appear at those orifices, and wondered at the flame’s odd behavior. Perhaps Ziran was storing some of his odd alchemical ingredients there.

The pump was made ready, a long hose made from shirp skins – the animals that also gave the villagers wool – trailing from its rear to the nearest well. Two Ittek grabbed handles opposite each other, flanking a large bellows, and began to move them up and down, like a child’s see-saw. Their pumping action powered the bellows, which created some sort of vacuum that pulled water up from the well, and then spewed it out the end of the device, which culminated in a nozzle at the end of an extension of the house, which a third Ittek held.

After a minute of frantic pumping, no water came out. One of the pumpers dropped their handle and raced along the house, looking down at it as he went. He stopped a few meters down and called back, “It’s cut! The hose is broken!”

“Get leather!” someone called, and several Ittek rushed over to the ex-pumper, who began to bind the whole with leather.

There was a second crash, and Herenna shrieked and fell over in surprise, her ears ringing and her vision black. She closed and rubbed the life back into her eyes and ears and slowly sat up.

The second lightning bolt had hit the door of old Ziran’s house, ignoring the cluster of downed Ittek in front of it, who were now surrounded by pieces of flaming wood. They all scrambled to their feet and staggered away from the house, which collapsed a moment later. Splinters of wood and shards of metal were sent flying out from the wreckage, and several Ittek screamed as the burning rain hit them.

Did he get out alright? Herenna wondered. She looked at the wounded outside the house with concern, but other than minor burns from the debris, they all looked fine. Ziran, however…

The Ittek working on the hose had fixed it by that point, and the pumpers began pumping once again. Water spluttered and then gushed forth from the hose, hitting the house at high speeds.

Too late, Herenna thought sadly as the steam began to rise. It is lost….

I’ve been hard at work again, this time on a short story: “Glimpsing Yggdrasill.” It is a tale of the Juxian Mythos, taking place during the New Dominican subjugation, about two hundred and fifty years after the events of the Jakken Trilogy. It has all you could ask for; war, space battles, kuvuthuses – and a terrible beast that drives a poor maintenance worker mad. The first draft is done, and the first part of the story is below. Enjoy!

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62 AAJ, Subdateyn 12 – The New Dominican Subjugation

 

“Critical damage sustained. All crewmembers proceed immediately to lifepods.”

Daniel Keyes was more than happy to oblige. The automated emergency notification system rang loudly through the halls, carrying over the blaring klaxons filling the air.

Daniel was fortunately only one corridor away from the nearest lifepod collection when the fatal energy beam struck the hull of the Elkhound, taking advantage of the shield generators downed by enemy strikecraft swarming over the surface of the ship. As a member of the ship’s maintenance staff, he was not himself a soldier, and so had priority in obtaining an escape pod and had no responsibilities to carry out before he left. His charge was in its final death throes, and there was naught he could do but get as far away from it as possible before the dormant explosives laced throughout the ship’s core were activated.

Seeding explosives was a common practice among the warships of New Dominica, and yet the ships flying the colors of the Jalhalla Kingdom never seemed to learn from their mistakes. Indeed, a glimpse out a passing viewport showed the ambushing fleet rapidly closing in on the dying Elkhound, their silvery, stream-lined shapes causing Daniel to shudder.

Curses echoed in the overly-large halls of the ship as soldiers – some panicking and others grimly doing their best to maintain decorum and order – ran to and fro, finishing their final duties on board the ship they had known and loved. Most of the curses were directed at the “thrice-fucked Terrans” and their “pigdog shitters.”

The planet and system of New Dominica, as well as its four allied systems, had been free of the oppressive rule of kings for many years. Following the rise of Darien Servidos, First King of Man, New Dominica and its associated systems had managed to win independence from the newly established monarchy, at first through fighting a bloody war, and then when that looked about to fail, by direct negotiations with the Terrans and the Juxtani Congregation – a government of sorts that managed affairs between different interplanetary civilizations. The Juxtani – as Humans now called all aliens – had been discovered only recently by one of Darien’s fathers, Jakken Servidos, and the Human race was still adjusting to the idea of being part of something larger than themselves.

Had it not been for the discovery of that vast conglomeration of alien societies, New Dominica never would have been able to get its freedom. As it was, the rise of Darien came at a bad time for the Human Empire, seeing as the Humans were a newly inducted member of the Juxtani Congregation and had to look their best before the older alien races represented there. In order to avoid continuing the civil war against New Dominica and Eden – which reflected very badly on humanity, as no other civilized Juxtani race fought amongst themselves for so long – Darien had chosen to grant New Dominica and her allies independence, as well as the planet of Eden.

But Darien’s word was no longer valid. Though his reign had been long and – even New Dominicans will grudgingly admit this – prosperous, his heir had never been clearly named. When he died in 58 AAJ, his three sons had taken to squabbling, and the Kingdom of Man had been divided into three “autonomous but unified kingdoms”: Jalhalla, Paolos, and Andria. Almost immediately, it had become clear that the three new kingdoms did not consider decisions made by Darien’s government valid, and the Kingdom of Paolos had reconquered Eden, which had been granted its independence at the same time as New Dominica. Ever since that day, New Dominica had known that its turn was too coming, and had begun to prepare again for war.

The time for war had indeed come again, but only after two hundred years – or fifty Juxtani dateyns – of waiting. The largest of the three Human kingdoms – and the only Human government with a representative in the Juxtani Congregation, whose capital was Earth herself – the Kingdom of Jalhalla, had finally decided to take back New Dominica. But New Dominica had been ready, and when the Juxtani Congregation made no move to intervene – after all, the Juxtani consider each race to be its own sovereign civilization, and they do not generally interfere in the internal affairs of a member civilization, even if they might disapprove – New Dominica has defended itself from the invading Jalhalites. The war had lasted almost two years now, and was taking its toll.

The Elkhound was the last of its small fleet of three left intact – save for the massive gash Daniel could glimpse far down the hull that opened the boxy brown ship into empty space. The last vessel standing wouldn’t last much longer, either, as the emergency airlocks had failed, and the air was thinning rapidly. Daniel had only a short distance to go, and by the end of it he was already beginning to feel light-headed. That did not bode well for the soldiers still on board.

Five of the twenty escape pods in Daniel’s sector were gone by the time he arrived there. He didn’t waste any time in leaping into the nearest one, sealing the gleaming chrome door behind him, strapping himself in, and pressing the eject button. His stomach dropped as the escape pod disengaged from the Elkhound’s artificial gravity – it was a miracle that the gravity drive was still working when the airlocks had failed – and then we watched through a small viewport as he sped away from his drowning ship.

He bid his love farewell as he took the controls and directed the pod towards the nearest large gravitational well. The Elkhound and her sister ships – the Deerfish and the Steel Caribou – had been carrying reinforcements – including the ships themselves – from the Blackfrost system to New Dominica, having run the blockade at Blackfrost and taken a circuitous route to the center of the alliance. They had been so close to their destination when the Jalhalite warships struck; another day would have seen them at the edge of the New Dominica system.

But they would never reach their goal now. Daniel watched sadly as the Elkhound exploded in a dazzling array of very short-lived light, the only one of the fleet to successfully detonate itself. The maintenance man smiled cynically as he counted the damage done to the Jalhalites by the explosion. He counted at least seven small craft severely damaged, and at least two mediums destroyed, not to mention a horde of strikecraft. It hadn’t been bad. But how many New Dominicans had died? How many of our strikecraft were destroyed? How many escaped?

The Jalhalites had been waiting for them; doubtless the Terrans had posted defenses at all systems near New Dominica that could be used for fueling. The attacking fleet had been a large one – two large battleships, four medium battlecruisers, and about twenty smaller vessels. Over twenty-five Jalhalite ships to the New Dominican’s three – and the Jalhalite ships were more advanced and better-armed, having been outfitted with the best Juxtani and Human technology, while the New Dominican ships were old, bulky, slow, and under-armed. Daniel and his fellows had never stood a chance.

The Terrans had jumped out from behind an asteroid cluster when the New Dominican fleet had been forced to stop in the orbit of an uninhabited system to recharge their fuel cells. The Steel Caribou had gone down before anyone knew what was going on, vaporized at the center of a web of concentrated energy-fire. Daniel was glad he hadn’t been on board.

The Deerfish had managed to open fire before she went down, and it was those few precious moments of weaponfire that had allowed the Elkhound to survive for as long as it did. In its few moments of battle, the Deerfish had managed to cripple one of the larger vessels and destroy four of the smaller ones, as well as severely damage one of the medium ships. Then it, too, succumbed to energy-fire, leaving the Elkhound all alone.

Even then, the last ship had put up a brave fight, finishing off the damaged medium-sized ship and destroyed another five small ships. The energy beam that spelled doom for the Elkhound had been from the undamaged large vessel, which even now was directing the efforts to regroup the fleet and capture any enemy strikecraft remaining.

It would be a while before the lifepod reached the nearest gravity well of sufficient size – New Dominica itself. Daniel had no hopes about actually surviving uncaptured once he reached the Jalhalite blockade, but he might as well try. Besides, they might keep him alive as a prisoner. Daniel was no soldier; for him, imprisonment was better than death. He might believe that freedom and independence were worth dying for in the abstract, but when it came down to his own personal survival, he would rather be a living slave than a dead freeman.

Behind Daniel, the Jalhalite strikecraft began to scour the area for any lifepods. Daniel didn’t even bother to hide from them at first; he didn’t care how or where he was captured, but just wanted to remain alive. He quickly noticed, however, that the strikecraft weren’t capturing most of the pods; many of them were simply being destroyed en masse. Bloody Jalhalites, Daniel thought, praying that he was too far away to be caught. At least if I make it to New Dominica, my lifepod will pose enough of a mystery that they’ll immediately take me on board.

I hope.

Fortunately, Daniel was well out of the sweep’s range, and his pod soared at an astonishing speed out of the asteroid belt. It would take him quite a while to reach New Dominica; it had been a day’s ride away using the Elkhound’s engines, and the pitiful things in the lifepod couldn’t go half as fast. Normally, lifepods had slower-than-light engines, which would have meant that Daniel was stranded forever. However, the New Dominicans had made a very covert deal with the pseudo-civilization of Gorano-Banditry, and so had acquired experimental technology allowing vessels as small as lifepods to travel for brief distances through the Interstices – what Humans still sometimes called the Ethyr – an alternate dimension that one could enter, travel in, and then emerge back into real space and be in a totally different location; similar to the pre-Juxtani idea of hyperspace. Ships traveled through the vastness of space by frequently flitting between the two dimensions, abusing the laws of physics in the Ethyr to travel fast than the speed of light.

The engines on the lifepod were much slower than those on most ships, of course. The pod’s computer informed Daniel that the journey to New Dominica – if that was indeed the source of the gravity well, which Daniel was very sure it was, seeing as the current system did not register as it had no planets, only asteroids and comets – would take about five days. It can only go one-fifth as fast, Daniel mused, strangely calm in the face of almost-certain death. No Human had ever made a lifepod journey of that length successfully. Maybe a Juxtani had; who knew?

But it was either try that or die. Daniel set the autopilot to direct him towards New Dominica and then activated the machine that would put him into a state of suspended animation, leaving instructions for it to wake him shortly before arrival or if something unusual happened. Gas began to hiss out the sides of the cockpit as needles gently pricked his skin.

Daniel thought of his wife as the emptiness took him.

Just a brief update – there’s been almost no progress on Torrek’s Slumber (the title of which will likely change soon), as I have been busy editing Dark Aeons – and the first editing read-through has been completed! Additionally, “Dark Prophecy” has also been edited by Peter Merlin, and is finished now in its entirety! Waiting for his editing on the other stories and on Michael Ireland’s work on The Libel of Blood. I expect to make some progress in Torrek’s Slumber and a few short story projects soon though!

I am pleased to announce that I have finished the initial writing of all of the short stories to appear in Dark Aeons! “Afflatus Divine” and “Ascenscion” have both been finished. I was happy with “Afflatus Divine” for the most part, but couldn’t get the feel of a good ending right. Parts one and two are better than three, I’m afraid to say. “Ascenscion” was just a fin little short piece, included in its entirety below.

And what now? Now I focus on Torrek’s Slumber mostly, and continue to slowly edit the short stories and send them off to their editor, Peter Merlin, while I wait for Michael Ireland to work on The Libel of Blood. Mr. Merlin is currently editing “The Winds of Madness,” “Dark Prophecy,” “The Silver Door,” and “The Wolf’s Key.”

*-*-*

Ascension

The old priest smiled and raised his hands to the sky. “They come for me now, my followers! My chariot of fire, come to take me up to heaven!” The crowd gathered at the feet of the old man looked up at the sky in awe as a bright spot appeared and then grew, its light soaring through the sky to illuminate the priest’s balding head. He held his right arm up in benediction and smiled. “I leave you now, my flock, but you are in good hands! My altar boy will serve you well, and you now know all you need to know. I shall see you when heaven descends again to meet Earth!”

The priest closed his eyes and again lifted up his arms. The column of light struck him head on on, and the pillar of brightness soon became too much to look at. As the crowd shielded their eyes, the pillar expanded and then contracted. As the light began to dim, the crowd again turned their eyes to it. They all saw a dark patch in the center of the figure began to rise up along the column of light, gaining speed as it ascended higher and higher. Some even fancied they could see his hand raised in benediction.

The altar boy, though, standing to the side of the column, could see into its heart with eyes unclouded. He saw the light for what it truly was. The small bodies of millions of tiny, winged imps, glowing with a foul inner light, had soared down from the sky and surrounded his mentor, clawing at his limbs and tearing his clothes. He alone could see the terror reflected on his master’s face as he was dragged up into the sky, faster and faster, by those terrible winged things, up into a realm of eternal torment. As the crowd marveled at the priest’s ascension, the altar boy despaired. He had not ascended – he had been taken to the skies by foul daemons! But who would believe him?

And what fate awaited the new priest now?

I am very far behind already, but the prologue to Torrek’s Slumber is done!

*-*-*

The old being leaned back and sighed, his eyes flitting over the treetops below him, bathing in the last light of the dying day. He could feel the life seeping out of his body, and with it went the source of power. He bid farewell to the microorganisms departing his ailing shell, and wished them well in whatever ventures lay yet to come. The rock beneath him was covered in dense moss that cushioned his aching bones, and would provide his tenants with a most suitable place to rest.

                In the distance, towards the setting star of the planet Tal’kan, a thin stream of smoke crossed the sky as the inhabitants of the distant village of Mantuun lit the communal fire in the town square. The old being’s lips curled upwards in a friendly smile as he imagined the scene: families from across the village gathered around the fire, the product of a long day of labor. The day’s catch would be roasted over the open flames, and the young men and women would boast of their daring feats in catching this yarin or that urynx, while the elders told tales of ancient glory to the children who would gather around them.

                It was a good life for all. The Ittek peoples took from Tal’kan only what they needed to survive, and lived long, full lives with almost no worldly possessions. They respected Tal’kan and paid him his dues, and Tal’kan allowed them to live peacefully upon his skin. It all worked.

                For now.

                Deep within his failing heart, the old being knew that this harmony was not eternal. It was in the nature of any being with sentient intelligence and will to try to improve his material lot, and give himself more than he needed. And with that, came waste. And with waste came pollution. And with enough pollution – the slumbering giant would awaken.

                It had happened before; a few isolated villages had managed to regain aspects of their technology, lost long ago in a terrible disaster. Three of these villages had risen during the being’s own lifetime, and he had been forced to destroy them all – man, woman, and child.

                It was a hard task to bear, and the destruction of those villages – still so innocent, and yet full of such dangerous potential – had been the worst moments of the old being’s long life. But the Ittek were learning, and more and more villages were beginning to cluster together, forming what came very close to resembling cities, and the development of disturbing levels of technology in some of the larger clusters was becoming a more and more frequent occurrence.

                Genocide on a massive scale would soon become necessary to hold the Ittek in restraint. They could not be allowed to venture beyond the continent of Itteros, and they could not disturb Tal’kan’s body to any great extent. Were his Order powerful enough, it would have been far easier to merely wipe the Ittek off the face of the planet and leave it at that. Even if the Order was that powerful, however, the old being could never have brought himself to do it. All life was sacred; the Order had taught him that. It was a cruel joke played by the Elders that all life also seemed hell-bent on destroying all that was not their kind.

                The tendrils of smoke began to thicken, and the old being smiled once more, his dark thoughts broken. Still, that day was long off. It would certainly be longer off than his body would last.

                Footsteps sounded on the path behind him, leading up to the ledge upon which the old being sat. A figure with dark skin and a growing black beard, clad in the traditional green and yellow cloak of the Order, rushed about the bend in the Cliffside path.

                “Beastheart,” the old being said calmly. The newcomer stopped beside the being and knelt.

                “I came when I felt your tor leaving you.”

                “Very good, very good,” the old being said. The old being himself looked much like the younger one kneeling beside him, save with even darker skin and a long, flowing beard of glistening silver. “Tell me, what do you see out in the distance?”

                The younger being turned. “Smoke, master. From the village of Mantuun. Likely preparing their meal for the evening. They are harmless.”

                The old being coughed. “Yes, that is what you see. But there is more, Beastheart. There is life there. The souls that created the fire that gives off that smoke are no less important than yours, or mine, or those of the trees that surround us. Remember that always, Beastheart. For too long has the Order sneered at the Ittek living their humble lives under the light of Tal’kan’s star. They may have the dark potential in their souls to destroy this world, but until that potential is realized, they are more innocent than we are. Always remember that.”

                “I will,” promised the younger being. He looked troubled. “Are you dying, master?”

                “Passing on,” the older being replied. He smiled. “It’s about time, too. I have watched over the Order for three dateyns. I have seen those I love grow old and die around me, while I live on always. It is a cursed life, this long one that chose me. And now, Beastheart, it has chosen you. The tor have spoken. You shall lead the Order when I am gone.”

                The young being looked speechless. “But master, surely there is a better-”

                “There are none better, Beastheart,” the old being continued. “You understand the true goal of our Order better than any other. We are to keep the slumbering giant asleep, and not let him wake until the time is right. We are to protect Tal’kan and ensure that it is not wounded. We are to use whatever means necessary to keep the spirit of the planet safe, and to protect those creatures that cannot protect themselves from the dangers of civilization. The dangers of civilization, Beastheart – not from civilization itself. The Order, I fear, has lost the true meaning of those words over time…”

                There was silence for a few moments. “Before my tor pass onto you, Beastheart, there are secrets that you must know. Things that only the warden of the Order can ever know.

“For all is not what it seems.”