Shadow and Darkness

A cold wind whipped through the peaks of the Pardor mountains, flowing up and over the pinnacles from the Misty Vale. It flew through the night, carrying cold and a bite with it as it cut through the valleys and sped past the peaks of the jagged mountains. The night grasped the realms in its dark hold, unnaturally dark as thick clouds had mounted late in the evening and covered the sky, cutting out any light that would have come from stars and moon. The wind whipped and sped under that dark cloak, rushing from the high peaks down and over Fettin swamp, picking up a taint of smell and a foulness of spirit. It barreled onward, crushing the mettle of those that stood before it in the night, as it continued towards the looming darkness of Bar Gith.

A shiver shook the Goddess of the Stars as she sat in her temple contemplating the cosmos and her celestial place in the realm. Sitting close to her, an enormous white tiger purred contentedly as Tatianna pet the great cat's back.

"A terrible weight sits on the lands this evening, a veil of darkness which seems to be covering sight and thought," she murmured to no one in particular. The tiger looked up at her, a smile in its eyes, lost in its own revelry and happiness at being pet by its Goddess, until it saw its ladies mood. It stood up lithely and let out a growl as it looked around, now alerted to the foul weather which had slipped its notice.

The Goddess smiled at the cat, petting its head and soothing it, "Nothing can hurt us here, but something is taking place elsewhere in the realms. This dark is something altogether too much for just a stormy night."

Tatianna stood and walked towards the halls of her followers. Walking at times like these eased her mind and let her think. She needed to figure out what was happening this night, for something hung in the air with great weight. Perhaps if she sent out scouts, they would be able to tell her what was happening out there.

As she moved into the gathering hall, she was met by a full assemblage of her Order. A meeting was taking place, worried looks plastered on the faces of those seated around the table and anxious talk passing between them. Twaine was the first to notice the sparkle of the Goddess's entrance, standing quickly and clearing his throat. All heads swiveled to the entrance, and soon stools were screeching out behind all the members as they stood and bowed low for Tatianna.

"Greetings Tatianna, your presence is a grace and warms us all in these dark times," Sarvulis said formally raising his gaze to meet Tatianna's.

"You have no need for formality, Sarvulis, family, please, all of you, sit back down." The gathered quickly took their chairs once again, Sarvulis getting another and placing it at the head of the table for Tatianna to sit upon. Sitting down, the goddess smiled at all her faithful, and was met by brave faces which were obviously trying to mask their worry, but each returned the smile as well as they could. "What are you all discussing this late in the night? It must be of some import to get Faerylyn out of his bed." She needed to calm their frayed nerves as much as possible.

A few chuckles and chortles met her comment as the mage grinned widely, then he took on a note of seriousness that seemed the more onerous as it came from him, "This evening brings me no peace milady," Faerylyn replied, "a dark foulness has a hold of the realms it seems."

"We have all felt it, that wind; it bites at the bones and makes the night seem even more bitter than normal. A dark mood it brings on its back," Twaine said, motioning out towards the entrance of the halls, out into the dark night.

Sarvulis nodded gravely, "Yes milady, we have been discussing this terrible night and what it portends. It seems to hold some ill will for the realms."

Looking into each of the eyes of those gathered in turn, Tatianna finally gave a small nod, as if coming to a decision, "We must go out into the night and see if there are any we might be able to help. I have felt this darkness as well my friends, and it troubles me greatly. I am not sure what it means, exactly, but an evil is stirring this night and we cannot let it go wholly unchecked. Go out and aid those lost in this terrible night. Also, while you are out, keep your wits about you and glean any information that may tell us about this evil."

The Order stood as one, bowing low to their Goddess, then began to make haste as they got ready to move out. Sarvulis lingered after the others left, looking at Tatianna with worry in his eyes. "Tatianna, I think we will learn little this night and come home chilled to the bones with nothing to show."

"Yes, this night seems to have a power to misdirect one, in purpose and in thought. But perhaps you will find something for me, or at least, help some poor travelers caught unaware. Do not worry about finding the cause, but do keep a look out for it my leader."

High in the immortal realms, a magical forest grew and was cultivated by Ganat. It raised its towering branches to the sky, emitting a soft light from the white bark of the trees; but this night, the leaves of the glade quivered in the foul wind. Even in Ganat's sylvan halls, that terrible wind whistled, shaking the trees and making them shudder in its dark wake.

The roots of one of the mammoth trees had formed themselves, or been formed, into a great throne, upon which a being of great power, an aura of white tinged with red, sat brooding in the terrible night. Ganat sat upon his throne in anger, looking up at the dark sky, trying to answer the odd night's happenings. The wind, though attenuated compared to what the mortals in the world were feeling, was still biting and blinding, cutting at his mind and gnawing at him. The wind held a presence he knew all to well, yet it had been stained and altered into something foreign, twisted and changed. Yet, he was not exactly sure if he was right. His mind felt cut-off and he was dubious of the presence he felt carried by the winds, perhaps it was just a trick of his mind; the insecurity made him that much more irritable and angry.

Standing from his throne, he began to pace around underneath the swaying branches, trying to clear his thoughts. "I wonder how they are doing?" he muttered. He stopped his pacing, and with a flick of his wrist, a spark of light lit in the air in front of him, slowly growing outward from that initial point until a circle of light resolved itself before him, hanging in the cold night air. His mind searched the night for the feeling of his followers, and the light began to twist, slowly at first, then more quickly, with multiple colors flowing and weaving in an out, suddenly stopping with a jarring halt showing a clear picture. The scrying showed Koell working his way up the slopes of a great mountain range, stopping at times to look up into the night, then moving on quickly once more. The colors swirled and the vision shifted and Geseg was shown in the window of light, he was moving quickly through a dark forest, great black branches grasping at him, but always he moved onward, keeping his head low as if following a trail. Again the vision switched, and Revtal and Fenaly were shown to Ganat, standing at a great gate of a city, talking with a guard. Finishing their conversation, Fenaly turned and opened a portal, the two mages stepping through and moved on. The visions kept altering before Ganat, and all of his Dawnbringers were shown to him, all hunting, all working their way through the dark, but none seemed to have found anything. Turning his back and moving again towards his throne, the window collapsed upon itself, winking out quickly in the dark night. "They seem to have found nothing.." he muttered angrily as he stalked along under the canopy.

Just as the light of the scrying window was extinguished, another began to take shape in Ganat's mind, followed quickly by light beginning to drop from the heavens into the clearing. Through the clouds, a swirl of stardust and ethereal silver flows rained their way down onto the grass of the clearing, and formed into Tatianna. She appeared before Ganat, smiling to hide her worry, and dipped her head in a slight bow, "Greetings Ganat, I hope you will pardon the intrusion."

"Evening Tatianna, you are always welcome." Ganat said inclining his head in respect. "In fact, I was hoping we could speak. I can see why you are here; your smile does not hide your worry so well. What is going on this evening?"

"I do not know.. for sure. We have both felt this same evil, it is too apparent to miss, yet, it feels different than the evil which has been spilling over these lands for so long now. This evil does not seem to come from Seluctruh."

"Indeed, I was thinking the same earlier. It seems to recall something to my mind, though what that is has not become clear yet."

Looking deep into Ganat's eyes, a frown slowly formed itself across Tatianna's face, marring, if just barely, the perfectly formed lines of her immortal beauty. "I too feel this same.. thing. I have sent my Order out to look to the innocents, though they would much rather get to the root of things. However, this night, I fear that nothing can be truly found."

Ganat's averted his eyes from Tatianna's and stared at the trees about him for a moment, then turning, he began to pace once again, a smirk crossing his lips, "I have sent my Dawnbringers out to find the source. This evil must be quenched! It cannot be allowed to take hold! I must know where it comes from so that we can destroy it."

"This evil is one which should not be Ganat, it was lost long ago and has now begun to show itself in its true form," a deep voice emanating from everywhere and nowhere broke into Ganat and Tatianna's conversation.

Ganat's eyes widened as he spun around, eyes glaring around the glade looking for the source of the voice. Tatianna was the only one there, and she merely nodded gravely in acquiescence. Slowly, a light began to form between Tatianna and Ganat, growing in intensity and power, pulsating slightly and finally coalescing into Tarin. "Greetings my friends, I am sorry to have eavesdropped but some matters reach my ears wherever I am in the realms, and you two have been talking of something of great import."

Ganat's eyes narrowed a bit, but he made a deep bow fitting of the creator. Tatianna curtseyed gracefully for Tarin, though she held the frown on her face, "Yes Tarin, this dark night has Ganat and I wondering and thinking that we are facing some evil which is new to the world."

"New to the world it is not my daughter, but Ganat had it right to some extent, he does know this thing in some ways, but it has been changed by a being much more powerful than what Ganat knew. The presence you both feel comes from the deeps of the Mist Vale. It is an evil power which seems to think it can now invade our lands, and it has been taking many opportunities recently to spread, one of those opportunities was Barset. I fear what once was Barset is no more; his light is now buried under the dark thing which took him. I have been following its progress for some ages now, for I had hoped that it would not turn into what it has. It seems that my hopes were in vain. It now moves openly and freely among us, and this night it has some plot, but what that is, I know not."

The darkness seemed to grow thicker around the three Gods as they sat in the silence, Tarin's words resounding in their heads. Each looked furtively at the other, worry, something so foreign to the gods, creasing their brows. One evil form was more than enough for them, and each was more accustomed to Seluctruh's evil, as they had been fighting it in their own way for ages upon ages now, but this new darkness was unknown and untested, and they knew not what to expect.

Ganat broke the silence in exasperation, "Tatianna and I both have our followers out in the night, they will find this evil, and we will purge the lands of it!"

Shaking his head, Tarin whispered almost silently, "I think that it is too late for such action."

Darkness reigned over the forest of Bar Gith, day or night it mattered not, for no light was permitted by the black trees to pass their bows, leaving the ways underneath that canopy covered in shadow at all times. The night allowed freedom to some, and horror to others. This night was much like others in those dark woods, yet the wind from the south and east stirred the normally stale air and brought a sense of doom, even to those evil things which were used to the darkness.

"What is this wind Demron? It is something which seems new to me, yet it has been lingering in my mind for some time now. Gnawing at the back of my thoughts.. We all felt it when we were up there in the forest, and it seems to even follow us down here, somehow," Saperio said as he sat in his ebony chair around the great table which was the meeting place of the Shadows. The leaders of the clan had gathered immediately upon sensing the growing darkness, and had been talking in circles for some time about not understanding this new form of evil.

Carsus sneered in disgust, "We have been over this already.. we don't know what it is!"

"Yes, we have covered it already, but what it means we still don't know Carsus. It is good to feel evil moving in the realms. Yet.. this is a different evil. We do not know what it intends. Perhaps we can use it for our own goals.. Perhaps it will use us. We must be wary," Demron replied, looking between Saperio and Carsus, wanting to see some understanding. Saperio gave a slight nod of his head, while Carsus merely held his angry expression.

Carsus's disagreeable comment was cut short as the whole room began to swirl in darkness and shadow. The shadows in the corners, the ones hiding in the cracks of the walls, the darkness beneath the table, all of it began to move at once and as one. It shot from all its hiding places, moving and flitting about the room, and swirling around the three surprised Shadow Lords.

The three dark mortals jumped to their feet, quickly pulling their weapons and preparing for the fight, each letting out a sound of disgust and bewilderment as their shadows were taken from their control and now swirled about them with some hidden malice.

The darkness kept twisting and moving, deepening the gloom about the forms, as they stood back to back in a tight circle ready to ward off the coming attack. The swirling shadows only increased their pace, and then began to tighten in upon the mortals.

Demron was the first to attack, plunging his mace deep into the writhing mass of darkness. The others felt their leader's assault and followed suit, each lashing out at the swirling nothingness which enclosed them. The weapons moved through the darkness touching nothing and all three lost their balance as they found no form for their weapons to bite into. The three slipped, falling forward, and each seemed to fall endlessly, lost in that dark mist.

Cold, hard, unforgiving ground was the first thing to return to the consciousness of Demron as his head began to clear. An ache wracked his head, and a terrible nightmare had taken his mind the evening before. He was used to being the nightmare, not having them. His eyes slowly opened, and as the first impressions of his surrounding became clear, he realized that it was no nightmare. Not daring to move, he surveyed the darkness about him just moving his eyes. Saperio lay in a heap only a little ways to his left. Carsus was also in a pile, but towards Demron's feet. Beyond his two clanmates, an evil emanated, darker than the night itself, rooted to the ground yet exploding up into the heavens above. That power drew him upward from the ground. He felt his limbs picking him up, yet he had no control over it. He looked about and saw Saperio and Carsus lifting themselves as well, their eyes wide with bewilderment. They were forced to stand, and upon standing, they were frozen to the ground not able to fight nor flee, and their heads were wrenched back forcing their eyes upon the darkness before them. Its black form suggested a tree, it was almost an impression in the mind more than something that was seen, yet in the darkness it could not be said for certain, but its power and grip over them were crushing. The mortals heads were moved backward, looking high into the sky above, each only perceiving that the evil that held them was vast and seemingly limitless. Their heads then were forced down, their eyes required to be downcast before its might.

From behind the dark form a figure moved sinuously around the tree, towards the men. It emanated the same evil as that held in the towering black limbs, and the three mortals could feel it moving towards them, approaching at a casual pace. Their heads were allowed up slightly, to view the form before them. Their eyes were met with a dark and stocky being, everything about it radiated a sense of evil and vileness. The clothing was dark and moved perfectly with the being as it glided toward them. The skin of the face was weathered and creased, hard and tough, and the eyes ice blue, cold and forbidding, cutting to the bone with a gaze. A mantle hung loosely from the shoulders of the being, its cloth like nothing they had seen before, rough like the hardest bark, yet flowing like spider's silk, black like the tree that stood behind the being. It glided toward them, stopping within an arm's reach, and looked each of them in the eyes.

Each man looked into those cold eyes and knew his fate. The power which had held them was released and they were allowed to act of their own free will. Each immediately dropped to one knee and bowed low before their new deity.

A cold wind whipped across the dry Plains of Gorud, pushing dust in billows before it, the dirt in the wind glowing red in the sunrise which was just awakening upon the land. The sun peaked above the mountains, sending its rays of dawn down upon the lands, cutting the darkness of the night before. The people of Windy Bluff opened their shudders, letting the cold in but praising the light which saved them from another dark night. Their minds let the sun rid them of the fears of the night before, and their worries disappeared as clouds that have a stiff wind at their back, getting rushed away to the horizon. A similar wind as that clearing the minds of the mortals had pushed the clouds of the night before west, off and away from the lands, and left a shining bright new day.

A meeting was taking place near the foothills of the Kithan Mountains. Outside the gates of the Fortress of Light many made their way in and out of the impenetrable Fortress as the search parties returned from their wearying night. Gloomy drawn faces met Ganat as he waited for his clan to return, and each of his faithful that came from back their hunt of the night before passed into the fortress with little more than a bow and a shake of their head. Koell was the last to make his way back.

Bowing low as he approached, Koell waited for Ganat's lead. "It was a hard night Koell, I can see it on your face. Tell me all you have found."

"Many evils have happened this night, though what they were and how they happened were hidden from our eyes. I have spoken to most of the others, catching them on the roads on the way back here, and all of them found nothing but cold last night. We saw the Tigers as well, and I spoke with them, but they found nothing either." Koell's head slumped a bit, his eyes downcast as he continued. "I followed my mind as I could, but something was blocking me the entire night. The other Dawnbringers all went west, but I went east, knowing it was something out there that was causing that evil. Something fought with my mind, always turning me from where I truly wanted to go.. but I knew I had to go east, to follow that accursed wind. I was high in the passes of the Pardor range when I became petrified in my tracks, unable to continue on, only able to turn away. I walked slowly, grudgingly down from those heights, knowing that what I needed to do was beyond those mountains, but unable to face that darkness." Koell looked to the east, to the mountains rising far on the horizon. They seemed small and diminutive in the cold morning at this distance. "I am sorry Ganat, I have failed you this night. I was only broken free of that grasp on my mind when the rays of dawn began to peak over the mountains. I knew I had to come back here and report."

Ganat eyes followed Koell's gaze, looking across to the mountains in the distance. "It was beyond your power Koell. It is not your fault. There was something at work last night that surpasses a mortal's power, however great that power is, and however great that drive to fight it is."

Koell's closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly, his hair blowing back in the steady wind, "I still feel that taint even today. Something has broken last night, a floodgate burst at the seams, which had been retained for a long time before, but is finally free of its bonds and seems to be moving in the world now."

Solemnly, Ganat's head nodded his agreement, "Your senses tell you much Koell. I fell the same evil moving. Come, we must prepare for this coming darkness."

The God of Righteousness and the leader of the Dawnbringers turn, their backs turning to a fire-like glow from the sunrise.

If you find any problems with this, or any other page, please do not hesitate to contact us,