Prologue
Author’s Note: The following chapter is, as everything on this site, subject to change.
Prologue
I made a mistake, Wanderer, for I’m not flawless as some would have you believe. I produced the one they named Tyrant. The one who scours the land in a crusade of misguided wrath.
As you must’ve learned in your pursuit of my memoirs, he’s hunting me. He’s forced me into hiding. Forced me to distribute my words of wisdom in slivers. Despair not, however. Disquiet not. I will divulge everything before our paths cross.
I have tutored many magelings before him, and some after, but he excelled like no other. Bar the occasional mischief of an ever-eager student, he was exemplary. His progress made me forgo my self-imposed principles and dare to contemplate a question I’d not whispered in thousands of years.
Had I finally, after all this time, met somebody to rival me? A pupil worthy of my insights?
The yearning that burned in me, however, wrought my clarity, for I, too, am subject to its venom. Just like others of human and elven lineage, I turned reckless. In my excitement I gambled with his emotions, thinking I knew better. I didn’t.
When he fell, I never saw it coming.
As I had predicted, he altered the map of the world. Conversely, he did so through warfare. He warped my wisdom and chose to pay the price in rivers of blood.
But alas, as the quill races across the page, I notice my eagerness has compelled negligence, yet again. You see, Wanderer, I have much to unveil before your journey truly can begin. Therefore I beg of you to listen closely while I share the unabridged truth.
Let us return to the beginning, Wanderer. Allow me to narrate the tale of my ascension.
***
“I’m here, daughter. There’s nothing to be afraid of,” my mother said, her hand gently stirring me awake. “I’ll be by your side, every step of the way.”
“Mother?” I mumbled and opened my eyes to a wall of brilliant white light.
There was a snap of fingers before the light faded. “We have to perform the ritual, but I’ll be here to keep you safe.”
The strain in mother’s voice caught my attention. “What’s wrong, mother? What ritual?” When I spoke, a thick and unpleasant odor stuck to the back of my throat. Moist and uncomfortable, it felt like breathing through a piece of cloth covered in damp soil. Nothing like the pleasant fragrance of flowers I always kept in my room. Looking around, I noticed I was no longer in my bedchamber. Although I still wore my beige nightgown, I found myself in a dimly lit chamber where a handful of figures in dark robes had formed a circle around me. “Where—where am I? Who are you?” I asked, unable to pierce the shadows of their deep cowls.
I pushed against the cold surface under me but paused when sharp edges dug into my wrists. Iron shackles bound me to the block of granite I lay on. Granite carved to resemble the symbolic altars of pagan sacrifice, I’d so often read about. Mother’s words came back to me. Was I to be sacrificed? Sudden fear clawed at my thoughts, but I’m proud to say I fell back on my training. I closed my eyes to command the spirits and to weave the arcane, just as I’d been taught. I visualized how the spirits came to my aid. I envisioned how they burst forth like the flames of a hearth, to break my chains. When I urged the eager spirits into action, however, they dispersed like water between my fingers.
“There will be no invocations from you tonight, my daughter,” mother said, her stern voice leaving no room for debate.
My mother’s prowess with magic far surpassed my sixteen rotations of experience. If she said so, it would be so.
“She’s ready,” mother said. “You may begin.”
“Begin what?” I demanded. “What kind of test—what kind of ritual is this?”
One of the figures limped towards me, the outlandish glyphs on his midnight robes shifting in silver with his movements.
Through streaks of long, gray hair, I saw aged features. His pallid skin drooped and his lips were dry and cracked. The opaque sheen of untreated cataract veiled his squinting brown eyes. For a moment, I felt a pang of sympathy for the old man. He should’ve been in a sickbed, recuperating.
“From history to present. I lend you my future,” the ancient man said, his voice a paradox to his disease-stricken appearance. Dark, rich and soothing. His words bounced against the coarse walls, echoing stronger and stronger until they mingled with themselves. New words formed in the jumble. Plucked from languages I’d never heard before. Soon, a beautiful song developed. A tune brimming with life and warmth and the promise of prosperity. “You’re our future… You’re the past, the present and what will be… You’re our hope and our beacon…” As the song reached its crescendo, the muddy eyes of the ancient man began to glow. Intense, red and orange, like molten lava.
“Your eyes… they’re beautiful,” I said. “They’re—”
The man flung his arms wide and let out a sudden wail. A primal scream that grew louder and shriller with each passing heartbeat. He cried until his air ran out, continuing beyond what seemed human. When he finally collapsed against the altar, and the jarring noise ended, his eyes ruptured. Angry jets of fire followed, bursting from now empty hollows. Bright spots appeared in his gaunt cheeks, heralding the confined flames that surged for freedom. Fire tore his skin apart, devouring flesh and clothes alike.
“Get—get away from me!” I screamed when the ancient man, now a raging inferno, pushed up and staggered towards me. I thrashed against my restraints. I ignored the pain of cold iron cutting into my wrists. “Mother, help—”
The old man touched me, and the flames followed.
Thousands of searing needles burrowed into my skull, obliterating my every thought. The excruciating pain was beyond anything I’d been trained to endure, far beyond what any mortal mind can withstand. My world shattered, and I was sent hurling into a void without end.
I couldn’t tell how long I drifted in the emptiness. Hours, I think, or perhaps even days. Then, out of nowhere, emerged a ray of sunlight to bathe me in its brilliance. It dispelled the darkness and carried away the memories of agony. When the light faded, I found myself face to face with mother, yet again.
She was one of the greatest archmages to have lived, and a renowned emissary and peacekeeper. She never faltered or lost her composure, yet here she was with tears in her eyes and with a tremble in her voice. “I feel your pain, my dear, but we have to complete the ritual,” she said and moved out of sight, her long, white hair trailing behind. “She’s ready. You may proceed.”
“Mother, are you crying?” I asked in my blissful confusion. “Why are you sad? What ritual are you talking about?”
“Worry not, novice. Your questions will be answered in due time,” another figure politely responded and approached, his gray eyes radiating like polished steel in midday sun. He didn’t wear a robe like the others. Instead, a waterfall of quicksilver hair twisted, flowed, billowed and writhed around him as if by its own volition.
My thoughts were jumbled. Only the faintest recollection of the figures and the chamber lingered in the back of my disarrayed mind. His features, however, were unmistakable. “I’ve read about you! You’re the elven archmage Ail’li Imagen, aren’t you? Mother often cites you for your miracles.”
His chuckle chimed like a dozen soft bells in pleasant harmony. “Your words are nectar to my soul, child. Miracles come at the cost of failed experimentation. Plenty of those, I’ve had. It has taught me the importance of restraint, and I hope to pass this experience to you. When the choice has to be made, I will guide you true.” A wistful smile graced his lips when he used the back of his knuckled hand to stroke his neat pencil mustache. “I do apologize for the suffering I’m about to cause. No singular being is meant to harvest this kind of power, least of all an unprepared human soul such as yourself. But we do what we must do, as we always have. As you always will.” He raised a hand for me to see, and then, with a snap of his fingers, vanished in a whirl of colors. Birds of paradise took his place, emerging out of thin air to circle the chamber. Red lizards with wings followed, puffing tiny fires of miscellaneous colors in their glee. Butterflies of gold joined them. Miniature owls and bright yellow toads with giant eyes too. Critters of every kind imaginable popped up to fill the space in a discordant chatter of squeaks and hoots.
A large squirrel jumped onto the altar to peer at me, its winter fur pristine and perfect. Somehow, I knew this squirrel in particular was Ail’li, or at least a part of him. While we locked eyes, the squirrel’s coat lost its shine, and then its color.
Beginning with the squirrel, the whirlpool of colors waned, transmuting the lustrous display into a monochromatic puppet-show of lifeless silhouettes.
To see such excellence reduced to nothing but a bleak resemblance of its past luster filled me with sadness. I whispered my lamentation. “Why? Why create such beauty only to abandon it?”
The squirrel moved in response. It darted up my leg to leap high into the air. It lost its features during its ascent, turning ethereal at the peak of its trajectory, and then charged towards my chest.
The merging struck me like the blow of a sledgehammer. I coughed for air but before I had a chance to recover, another animal charged me, and then another. On they came. An endless stream of critters turned blunt, until the lack of breath sent me spiraling into the void.
Warm light … Mother …
This time, my memory returned, and the pain along with it. “Please, mother,” I gasped. Pressure turned my words to a desperate wheezing. It felt as if somebody had placed a score of heavy leather-bound tomes upon my chest. “Let me go, please … it hurts. I can’t breathe …”
“She’s ready. You may proceed,” mother said.
My fists trembled with ire. I clenched my teeth and willed the spirits—no, I wrested them—to disintegrate my chains in a surge of fury. I saw the incipient sparks bounce from the dull iron, ever so briefly, before the spirits vanished like smoke in a gust of wind.
Mother spoke over my screams of pain and frustration, her prior trepidation nothing but a faint memory. “I will break your magic, daughter. The ritual cannot—must not—end prematurely. You must stay strong. You must accept our blessings, daughter. Sister, you may resume the rite.”
“As … you … wish …, gra-nd ar-ch-mage,” the shorter of the remaining two figures said and bowed. She articulated each syllable in the slow cryptic way someone might repeat a foreign word heard for the first time. “As … you … wish.”
Their nonchalance boiled my blood. I whipped my head in my mother’s direction. “You’re mad! You purge my magic and speak of rituals. You speak of blessings and whatnot. I demand answers, mother! I demand—”
“Aje, muhave muhja do.” The foreign incantation cut me off as it rung loud enough to shake the foundation of the chamber. The chanting figure, an exotic nomad with purple eyes and dark skin, gazed at me from underneath her cowl. She never blinked, not even when dust and loose gravel rained from the trembling stone ceiling. She chanted her incantation, over and over. Even when she turned to smoke and her robes fell to the ground, her words persevered. To the sound of her own echo, her gaseous form reached for me.
I shied from the misty tentacle, but there was no escape. When we merged, a tsunami of emotions followed to wreak havoc in me. I wanted to weep, scream, lust and laugh, and I did those things. I poured all my emotions into a wail that carried me past exhaustion and into the bliss of the void. This time, however, I was the emptiness. When the wave of healing warmth came to whisk me back to the world of consciousness, I returned a hollow husk of my former self.
“We have suspended your humanity, daughter. It’s a horrible thing to do, no matter how temporary, yet we had to cleanse your emotions if you’re to survive the undertaker,” mother said, her face twisted in a sneer. Disdain filled her voice. “I hold no love for him. He’s finicky in his cruel methods. A wicked soul undeserving of life. Nevertheless, we must complete the ritual and he’s perhaps the strongest among us. In this case, we had no other option.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”
She turned her attention to the remaining figure. “She’s ready, foul one. You may proceed.”
“As you wish, grand archmage,” the last figure whispered in a mocking tone, his raspy voice sounding like gravel being ground under a millstone. Underneath his cowl, pallid and leathery skin drew tight against hollow cheeks. Tufts of misplaced white hair garnered an unshaven chin. He presented a sinister smile that never reached his dark, lifeless eyes. “We have seen the unfathomable, and thus, we have to act. You will experience asperity beyond imagination and it’s our purpose to prepare you.”
The final archmage forged perversion where the elven archmage had conjured life. He summoned terrible creatures to torture me before tearing me back from the brink of death with forbidden magic. Giant insects devoured me, piece by piece, and tiny devils with long claws rended my flesh. All the while, his cruel laughter mocked my pleads for mercy.
I was on the verge of insanity. A tiny spark of hope, however, kept me lucid. As his warped mind reached new heights of creativity, I could tell his powers diminished similarly to the purple-eyed nomad. Suffice to say, it’s more of a blessing than a curse that my memory fragments here.
I have no recollection of how much time passed under his wicked hands but when I finally stirred, it was to the flickering of normal candlelight casting shadows against the course walls. I can’t begin to explain the importance of such a minute change. I pushed myself up, blinking in disbelief. Thick candles in gilded sconces adorned the room and a heavy fragrance of roses overtook the earthen smell. Then I saw it. My slender wrists no longer carried the weight of iron. The realization filled me with such relief, I couldn’t hinder the assault of emotions. I curled into a ball, and I wept. I wept for the suffering I’d endured and I wept for my newly gained freedom. But most of all, I wept for the betrayal at my mother’s hand.
“I never wanted this, daughter,” mother suddenly said. “Not a sliver of my soul enjoyed what we did, yet it had to be done. The ritual had to be performed.”
I’d not heard her approach. I wanted to push her away when she pulled me closer. I wanted to punch and kick and scream. What I wanted more than that, however, was the comfort only a mother can provide. I surrendered in her arms.
“I wish I had more time with you,” she said. “I wish I could see you grow up to be the archmage you always strove for, but sadly, my sacrifice is necessary.” Her embrace softened while speaking. “My part of the ritual draws closer. From now on, you’re the last of our kin. You’re the gatekeeper of our world and the last bastion of defense against whatever comes. I hereby name you Dykstra, my dear.”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand,” I mumbled. Once I’d untangled myself from her arms, she was already turning insubstantial. The warm light that previously brought me back from the void pulsed like a second heart within her. Flickering strong and steady.
She smiled a mournful smile. A warm smile, full of love and sadness. “I love you,” she mouthed before the brilliant orb within her intensified.
I shielded my eyes, though it did little to help against the warmth. It brushed against my naked hands. Infused me. Heat and light filled me. Brilliant light. Scorching heat and brilliant light that turned my insides to cinder. I combusted like a signal fire. No, not a signal fire. A star. Akin to a flickering star in the black sky. Like a star that swallow the endless night. I burned with the power of the raging sun. The sun.
I was the sun.