Return of the Crimson Guard

This, the first of wars, paroxysmed for time unmeasured. Ever Light thrust yet dissipated, and ever Night retreated yet smothered. Thus the two combatants locked in an ever-widening gyre of eternal creation and destruction. Countless champions of both Houses arose, scoured the face of creation in their potency, only to fall each in turn, their names now lost to memory.

Then, in what some named the ten thousandth turn of the spreading whorl of the two hosts, there came to the shimmering curtain edge of battle one unknown to either House, and he did castigate the combatants.

‘Who are you to speak thusly?’ demanded he who would come to be known as Draconus.

One who has moved upon the Void long enough to know this will never end.’

‘It is ordained,’ answered a champion of Light, Liossercal. ‘Ever must one rise, the other fall.’

Disdainful, the newcomer thrust the opponents apart. ‘Then agree that this be so and name it done!’

And so both Houses fell upon the stranger tearing him into countless fragments.

Thus was Shadow born and the first great sundering ended.

Myth Fragment

Compendium Primal, Mantle

PROLOGUE

The Elder Age,

Time unmeasured

The eruption had wounded the world. Denuth, a child of the Earth, was first to penetrate the curtains of drifting cinders and so come upon the crater. Steaming water the colour of slate pooled at the centre of a basin leagues across. A slope of naked jagged rock led down to the silent shore. All was still, layered in a snow of ash. Yet a stirring of movement caught his attention and he picked his way to the water's edge to find an entity sembled in a shape akin to his own with two legs and arms, but slashed and gouged by ferocious wounds. Blood was a black crust upon the one and darkened the waters around him.

Gently, Denuth turned the being over only to start, amazed. ‘Liossercal! Father's own first born! Who is it that set upon you?’

A savage smile of blunt canine tusks. ‘None. Best ask whom I set upon. Are there no others?’

‘None I saw.’

The smile crooked down to a feral scowl. ‘All consumed then. Taken by the blast.’

‘Blast?’ Denuth narrowed his gaze upon the alien power. Yes, alien — for who could possibly fathom the mind of one born with Light's first eruption? ‘What exactly has occurred here?’

Wincing, Liossercal shrugged himself from Denuth's support. He sat hunched, arms clasped tight about himself as if to hold his body together. Thick dark blood welled fresh from his deeper lacerations. ‘An experiment. An attempt. An assault. Call it what you will.’

‘An assault? Upon what? There was naught here but.’ Denuth's voice died away into the stillness of the ash-choked water. ‘Mother Preserve us! An Azath!’ Glancing about, he took in the immense crater, attempted to grasp the scale of the calamity. It has pained us all! ‘You fool! Would you stop at nothing in your questing?’

The pale head rose, amber eyes hot. ‘I do as I choose.’

Denuth recoiled. Indeed. And here then was the quandary. Something must be done about these ancient powers before their antagonisms and limitless ambitions destroy all order once again. Draconus's solution horrifies, yet well now could I almost understand such… exigencies. After all, was not eternal imprisonment preferable to such potential for destruction?

Liossercal struggled to his feet, stiff, hissing at his many wounds, and Denuth knew a terrible temptation. Never before had he heard an account of this entity so vulnerable, so weakened. Soletaken, Elient, what were such labels to this power who may have moved through Light before it knew Dark? Yet now he was obviously wounded almost unto expiration. Should he act now? Would ever such a chance come again to anyone?

As if following the chain of the Child of Earth's thoughts, Liossercal smiled, upthrusting canines prominent. ‘Do not be tempted, Denuth. Draconus is a fool. His conclusions flawed. Rigidity is not the answer.’

‘And what is?’

A pained grimace, fingers gently probed a deep laceration high on one cheek. ‘I was exploring alternatives.’

‘Explore elsewhere.’

A flash of white rage, quelled. ‘Well taken, Child of Earth. He comes, does he not?’

‘He does. And he brings his answer with him.’

‘I had best go.’

‘Indeed.’