Prologue
From The Past
From The Past
Across azure skies a bunch of tiny leaves drifted into emptiness and solitude. Neither sound of breath nor feel of existence were evident. Yet past its eerie atmosphere a spark of light found its way through withered ruins. Bright and beautiful as a river of shining pearls, water springs flowed around an old room that was long forgotten. The rays fell over faded pages and blunt edges. As discolored as the papers were, in it so vaguely the words appeared. Every page filled with memory. Every page filled with legends hardly spoken of.
Those inscriptions marked earlier times; an age before many generations. It was the ancient history of when Exes and humans used to cross similar paths. When conflicts did not take place, until human greed overclouded their minds. Dust and ash got swept from the pages as the wind blew by. The words written, now appearing more clearly, read:
October, 1701 AD
There have been many sleepless nights. The fires burnt higher and the cries of the two races could still be heard from a distance. I sat huddled on my chair with a nearly overused smoking pipe. How did it come to this? Events have taken a turn beyond my better judgment. Why did it come to this?
They speak of humanity, of freedom, and here they pretend to fight for it. Was it just my illusion or was that a mask to obscure their true objective? Where have the friendships and fellowships gone? Where has the blissful unity gone?
This is something far from all of that. Lord Agean started a massacre that should not have been. The Exes showed nothing but kindness to us. They looked to our every whim and well being. To what extent did this greed take us?
By edge of axe the Exes were gradually annihilated. I spoke to Vladimir with such shame. He was alert and watchful, hiding in my hut. His eyes struck with fear. His youth bore all the signs of the Ex race. I knew his presence here was no longer safe and I watched him with sympathy. I saw in him such a nobility that humans were not worthy of. His dead silence showed his agony and despair.
“What’s going on Master Sage?” said he with a saddened voice of a helpless child. “Why are we fighting?”
“I could give you a reason my boy, but it would not be a just one,” said I, all sorts of passion and hatred passing through me. “It’s not safe for you to stay here any longer Vladimir.”
The young Ex slightly nodded his head in understanding, looking silently out of the window, his eyes stained with tears at the sight of his hometown.
November, 1702 AD
It had already been a few months since the Exes vanished. My heart skipped a few beats at the thought of their extinction and I prayed to god for the young Ex to be safe. Then coming events changed the course of time and I stumbled across a map that concealed within a clue I was not aware of. A sacred crescent they said held the silhouette of what looked like an orb. The engravings were deep and the paper seemed to have been torn carelessly out of a book from the lord’s cabin. I retraced the tracks and retreated to the library. What may seem insignificant to the eye bore a great purpose, and from the descriptions that followed the map, I knew this war was not over.
End of Prologue. The story barely started yet. But I always tend to speak of the past before I head to the present. I'll leave the rest to your imagination and the book.