Kalëon

By N. A. Sylla

He is a being of three souls and one

Kalon, The Sacrilegious One, is born into a world he is meant to protect but sired in betrayal, his conception drives a gentile man to madness, and a Queen to bear a demon child; his birth sees the death of a King; his survival triggers the fall of a mighty city, and ignites a war between two, old enemy Kingdoms a war that will bring Southern Earth to its knees.

Thus besmirched as a harbinger of doom, and host to a malignant life form, Kalon begins a journey fraught with treachery, deceit, and the horrors of war

Meanwhile, far beyond Andryans Earth, beings forgotten even by legend have awoken. They watch and wait; for unlike the War That Cleansed The Heavens, this time, they will conquer Orph, God of All

For their cause, Kalon is the perfect instrument

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Nov 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452526270

N. A. Sylla

N. A. Sylla was born in Coyah, a town in Guinea, Northwest Africa. She lives in Australia with her daughter, and is currently doing a bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Government & International Relations. She is her hobby is daydreaming, plotting stories and plunging into adventures that have nothing to do with reality, or sanity.

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Copyright © 2014 N. A. Sylla.

The right of © 2014 N. A. Sylla to be recognised as the author

of this work has been asserted by her under the Australian Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com.au

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The intent of the author is only to enchant you with the tales of the world woven within the following pages. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-2622-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-2627-0 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 10/27/2014

Contents

∞From the Book of All∞

Beginning – The Next – The Following –

What Came – The Aforetold – The Seen – Beware

Part one: The Trifecta child

Aknowledgements

Prologue

1. Bound

2. Araqiel

3. Breached Walls

4. The Chymera

5. Fight to Love

6. Flight

7. Refuge

8. The Serym-bur

9. The Silver Warrior

10. Rumours

11. A Kingdom’s Past

12. The Orphic Temple

13. The Sacrilegious One

14. The Trifecta Child

15. The Fountains of Uroborus

16. Old Andryin

17. The Cave of Coralys

18. No Yre

19. The Sentinels

20. Betrayal

21. Escape

22. Touch of the Dryad

23. Woken

24. Pursuit

25. Mistake

26. Systrum

27. Cruel Fate

28. The Eyes of Arq

29. Demons Within

30. The Unmaking of a King

31. Aftermath

32. Seal

Epilogue

Glossary

About The Author

About The Illustrator

For Sydney Collins Bah-Bennison,

My dear little brother

For you kept me going even when

Things became too tough to bear

I love you

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to sincerely thank my family and friends for your support and faith in me.

Specifically, I thank:

Zoe Hankins for your fantastic illustrations and cover art; for tapping into my imagination and giving my characters a face; and for generally being amazing throughout this whole process.

Clinton Brewer for the numerous cups of teas, being patient and for helping with Fleur while I worked.

The Rakauskas family for being there for me when I needed it the most.

Mr and Mrs Mulholland for your honest feedback, advice and support.

Aqualline and Nakita for your great help during the final editing process of the manuscript.

Last but by far, not least, I deeply thank Mr. Bryan Berdanier, my year 8 and 9 Advanced English teacher. I will never be able to fully express my gratitude. Thank you for your encouragements to me as a young budding writer; for the time you took editing the very first draft of my manuscript and providing indispensable feedback. Because without these, I would not be where I am today as a writer.

Thank you.

The symbol of Uroborus –

the cosmic serpent swallowing its own tail –

embodies the eternal mystic cycle of life, death and rebirth; Immortality.

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I am near Death, oh brother of mine. Death calls to me sweetly in a song that is most foreign to my senses and mind, but that nonetheless sweeps my heart into an enthusiastic embrace. Why? I know not. Or perhaps I do. Because I have seen the end of the world. And as any such event would, it boasts an ungodly sight.

You see, brother, the world had ended once before; it will end again.

The Accounts of Padraїg the Mad

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PART ONE

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THE TRIFECTA CHILD

From The Zorquan-Book Of All ∞ BEGINNING

In the beginning there were Power, Knowledge and Virtue. With them were four other great energy houses of all life: Heaven, Earth, Light and Shadow. Together, these seven great attributes made up what later civilisations called Aothir or the Origin: the matrix of energy that manipulated and formed the building blocks of all life forms. These seven attributes were given onto the fabric of existence by Orph, the ultimate entity that governed above all else: God. At first the attributes stayed bound into one latticework of immeasurably vast, raw energy, where each of them existed in a state of interdependence. Eventually the different forms of the Origin’s attributes grew sentient and dispersed over the aether, each gathering character before finally generating singularity of their own.

And so it came to be that all planets ever created, however different they were, shared the same energy houses at the aetheric level; though in different degrees. This was true especially for one of the smallest and youngest planets yet to be inhabited: Earth.

SUMMER of the YEAR 8983

FOURTH AGE

Prologue

The Daughter’s Son

THE shrill cry of a new-born child pierced the air as he was brought into the world. The young mother, flame-red hair pasty and sticking to her face and scalp with the sweat of labour, the furious red of her cheeks in stark contrast with the pallor of her skin, reached out both hands to welcome him against the warmth of her chest. As the patron midwife handed the child to his mother and threw heavy woollen blankets over them both, the door to the chambers was thrown open and the King ran inside, quite ungallantly pushing the midwives out of his way as he did so. He came to a sudden stop beside the four-poster bed, breathing erratically. Overwhelmed, he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came, blank as was his mind even in his attempt to find something to say yet could think of nothing.

The child’s strong, healthy cries resounded around the room and beyond. All those waiting in the grand halls of the castle broke into shouts of joy and celebration. Hearing them, those strewn over the courtyards took up the screams; then mile by mile, the citizens of the citadel who had eagerly been awaiting the birth of the heir to the throne took up the yells of triumph as if they had just won a battle.

The King heard his people’s roar of approval as it echoed throughout his immense citadel. He stared at the wailing child whose cries of indignation for being removed from his place of comfort, were quelled as soon as the mother coaxed a breast between his lips. And the King broke down and wept, falling to his knees.

At the ends of the world, in the land that is forever dark, Tempus the Warrior, Talos the Destroyer and Cyric the Murderer stirred in their prison. Guarded by Tyr the Just, Mystra the Weave and Oghma the Bard, the three that together are known as Shar or the Underdark had little chance of escape. But they felt something; something new to this world. Powerful beyond measure and best of all, untamed. Had they been able to, the three faces of the end of the world would have smiled. The flame that would be key to their freedom had just been ignited. All they had to do was wait; wait for that flame to roar into an inferno. Then, they would wake. They would wake and destroy all in their paths to begin with, then they would take war to Orph himself!

All around the galaxy, in the surrounding worlds and planes, beings forgotten by all myths and legends took notice of the sudden appearance of a being with so vast an energy, that it rippled across the aether in waves. Few of these beings knew the meaning of this happenstance; but for those who knew, the peace that had reigned for hundreds of thousands of years was now a commodity to take full advantage of before the inevitable, approaching devastation.

Through eons, there once existed a being. He was called by many names, yet none knew who he truly was. None could recall ever meeting him, yet all knew of him. None knew of where he hailed, yet the world was his home. The entirety of his existence was bathed in lore and speculations; in truths and half-truths and untruths; of possibilities and imaginings and songs sung by Bards through the ages. He was faceless, nameless, ageless and with no known past. In the Kinfolks’ tales, he was said to unexpectedly appear and wander the lands every few decades or so. He watched and saw all that was. He spoke little and only Truth. He would teach the world one lesson each time. Then he would disappear as if he had never been. The last time he walked the lands, he left one teaching in his wake. They were the last words known to have been spoken by him.

Fragility does not befit Eternity.

With no explanation, he left the world to deduce what meaning they would of these words. Little did anyone know how much their whole existence was centred upon and governed by the principle of this particular teaching; for none knew how to decipher his riddles. He was the Wanderer, the Watcher, the Listener and the Teacher. His lessons made and or broke the world. He was, simply, the Philosopher.

CHAPTER ONE

Bound

THIN grey mist rolled in from the sea like the lazy breath of an entity. Sheathed in an odd lustre of green and purple, it slid over and around the towering bulks of the Sypery Mountains rising east of the Western Great Seas of Tymora. The mist writhed and seemed to pulsate as it wound its way further between the mountains and down one of the deepest ravines known to man. Here, it settled and started condensing into a viscous pool of a rare fluorescent and silvery substance, Tsylun – more commonly known as Angel Blood.

Against one side of the ravine was a frothing waterfall. On the other side, facing the waterfall, was a multi-tiered, dome-like structure built into the body of the mountains and bathed in the shadows cast by the rocky overhangs. Protruding from each of its ten levels were stubby, obelisk-shaped turrets barely fifty feet tall. The structure’s walls were smooth, rendered and had in total only ten windows that the naked eye could see. If one sought to look beyond the physical world into the Yreal, one would have counted perhaps another hundred other small windows set in neat rows upon the surface of the dome. Further, had one cared to look through most of these windows, an ancient and deadly use of Yre would have instantly, but temporarily blinded them; anything they might have seen would have been erased from their minds. Yet if one could see beyond the mosaic of the glass frames and the illusions yonder, one would have understood why those who built and kept this place, went to such pains to repel outside probing.

The sight would have shattered an onlooker’s mind beyond repair. For, the dome, more precisely the Citadel of Syrth Hatan, was not just home to the most powerful men in Southern Earth. It was also a prison. But not that of man. It was a prison of beings and entities, and of entire worlds and planes. A concept that would break the minds of any who were not trained to see.

It is also here, unbeknownst to all but one of the guardians of Syrth Hatan, that the Zorquan – Book of All, was hidden. Although, even he was not privy to its exact location.

The mist, now an incandescent pool of thick liquid Tsylun, roiled, whisked and basked as it slowly took on the shape of a ceremonial lance. It was ornate with carvings of ancient deities and Alchemical symbols that had been lost to mankind centuries past. The giant lance hovered eight feet off the ground pointing towards Syrth Hatan and emitted a low frequency vibrating sound.

A thousand feet away, twelve men who had been listening for this very sound, lowered themselves into lotus positions and started chanting arcane words.

A man with windswept hair the colour of the sun, sat cross-legged at the bottom of a small rowing boat floating two and half miles offshore. His eyes were closed in intense concentration, his brows furrowed, his jaws set, his shoulders squared and his back held ramrod straight. His fingers were intertwined over his lap as if in supplication.

As his concentration deepened, the air around him filled with flickering energy and the waters started to stir in protest, rippling outwards from the small boat like they sought to flee from the man within. A slight wind started blowing, rocking the boat slowly at first, then dangerously, thus making the waves rise and fall as if in torment.

The energy around the man grew more intense, raising the temperature at least fifteen more degrees in a four-mile radius. The water around the boat started to steam. Overhead, dark clouds ripe with flickering purple lightning amassed and, pushed by the rising wind, rode inland with unnatural speed.

The man’s breathing quickened and became shallow. Sweat beaded his face and his linen shirt clung to his back. His hair danced in the lashing wind, a few strands clinging to his forehead. In the near distance, thunder growled and lightning arced across the sky.

Finally, in a hollow breath, the man uttered one word.

Four miles inland from the position of the boat, amongst the mountains, the lance of Tsylun quivered and emitted a different subsonic sound this time. Then, as if shot from a gigantic bow, it sliced through the air, slammed against and pierced through the invisible barrier around the dome with explosive might, blowing into a million shards of light. The mountains shook and groaned as chunks of stone dislodged and shed off them. The air seemed to recoil then grow still until, with a sudden and thunderous blast, the barrier around the dome exploded into smithereens as it was ripped apart at the seams.

The eleven ageless men sitting around the crystal dodecagonal table within the dome flew to their feet in alarm, a few sending their chair clattering on the ground behind them. They instantly knew what was wrong. Running towards the doors of the grand room, each reached within their golden ceremonial robes for their cyfs. Not one of them would reach the doors in time.

At the other end of the Kingdom, nearly three and a half million leagues east of the Sypery Mountains, the twelfth old man, Silas, felt something blistering hot slice across his psyche. An involuntary gasp escaped his throat and a sudden chill danced over his skin, giving him goose bumps and raising his hackles.

He knew that something had gone terribly wrong.

The moment the barrier around Syrth Hatan had collapsed, the twelve men sitting amongst the boulders with tendrils of energy leaking off of their skin had opened their eyes, and in perfect unison, clapped their hands together to seal the word of power they uttered next.

KOHR! Bind!

The Word was not just a word. It had substance and weight. It had power; potent power, ancient as it were. It was material and sentient and, fed by the tendrils of energy surrounding the twelve chanting men, exerted its will upon the eleven wise men in the citadel. It bound them in time and space; suspending them in timeless in-animation.

Then the Word was gone.

The air grew still and everything was quiet except for the monotonous music of the waterfall and the growling thunder in the distance. The twelve men stood up shakily, panting and trembling from the feat they had just performed. One by one, with a slight whispered word, they stepped through the very fabric of space-time and disappeared.

The blond man twisted his body sidewise and violently threw up over the edge of the boat, hurling forth all he had had for breakfast a few hours earlier and more besides. When there was nothing more to regurgitate, his body started shuddering as he dry retched. It was all he could do to stop himself from leaning forwards too heavily and risk capsizing the boat. When the dry retching stopped in turn, he sat back and tilted his face up to the sky, feeling the thick drops of rain splatter against his feverish skin.

He took deep breaths and calmed his frantic senses and nerves, frazzled by the excessive use of Yre. What he had just accomplished had never been done before. He would not have been surprised had he been worse off. No human body could be subjected to such an ordeal and come out of it unscathed. Then again, his body was no longer entirely human.

He had combined the manipulation of Yre with the use of Alchemy to create an object powerful enough to breach through the defences of the Citadel of Syrth Hatan, home to the twelve Wise Men of Little Kesh, redoubtable and feared advisers of the crown; their social status second only to the ruling bloodline. In reality they had more power than the King. The general populace of the Kingdom did not know this of course, but those well versed in the complex mechanisms of court politics knew it all too well.

Sighing and fighting the deep sense of fatigue gnawing at the edges of his mind, the golden-haired man opened his eyes and stood up gingerly, careful not to make any sudden movements that would rock and tip the boat. Focusing, he muttered words of power before taking a step forwards into nothingness, disappearing from sight.

For this man – if one could name him thus – there was no time to rest, as this was merely the beginning.

CHAPTER TWO

Araqiel

IT was a time like no other, he knew. A time tainted with pervading streaks of darkness was afoot. He could not pin down what was wrong exactly. His attempts at grasping at an explanation felt akin to seeking a purchase on the twisting body of an electric eel; staying always beyond his reach. Aside from the whip of Yre across his psyche earlier, all he could sense were the slight shifts in the structures of the elements around him – shifts in the waters, the air, the fires; even the earth elementals – impassive of them all – were out of sorts and agitated… A time of change was imminent, and it did not bode well.

There was little he could do but stand back, wait and observe as events unfolded. He had never been one to meddle with happenstance, strongly supporting the view that what will be, is better left to be. However, in this instance, he felt uncomfortable and uncharacteristically dissatisfied with such a detached approach. He had to do something. Though he was uncertain of what could be done. It was impossible to prevent that which stirred when its true nature escaped him entirely.

Then inspiration hit.

After grabbing his cloak off a hook near the door and flinging it across his shoulders, Silas hurried outside and mounted his mare. He set a course southbound towards the forest and rode until his cottage dwindled out of sight behind him. He knew he could take some form of action if he uncovered the nature of this change; and the only way to do so was simple: Araqiel.

It had been a half of an hour before midday when he left his cottage. The instinct that drove him, also told him to seek a fast counsel from Araqiel; before the sun set over the western horizon, it pushed. The distance between his location and Araqiel’s was at least three hundred and sixty-six leagues, a journey that would take him the best part of a week or more, considering how near impossible it was to navigate the last leg of the journey.

A luxury I definitely do not have, he thought.

Knowing that he was exceedingly unfavoured by time – or fate – Silas coaxed his mare, Avarti or Avar – as he liked to call her – into a gallop for the first five miles. Even if he rode her to death, he knew he would never make it to the Old Man of the Trees in the time he had.

Unless he used the portals.

Mapping the fastest route in his mind, he kept Avar in a relentless gallop across the small grassland between the sprawling Qieskan Forest and the city, on and through the thin foliage and young trees skirting the edges of the expansive woodland.

Instead of following the well-trodden paths used by merchants and common folk, he tugged on the reins, deviating from the communal road and angling more towards a rarely utilised path. The further he rode, the older, taller and thicker the trees of the Qieskan Forest became. For the half of an hour it took to travel over the first five miles, Silas and his mare’s pace had stayed constant and inexorable. The old man could feel his mount slowing as her energy waned. He knew that she still had a bit more power left in her, but it was a reserve that would soon be exhausted if he did not hold back on the speed.

Though he did not want to exhaust her and knew that he must soon give her a break, he was not altogether worried. He knew they had to be very close to their first stop. In a matter of a few heartbeats, he scanned the wide expanse of forest surrounding them on all sides, searching for signs that would point to their first destination. He spied one almost twenty feet ahead of them in the form of a number of trees whose deformed trunks, stunted growth, blackened leaves and peeling barks pointed to some form of anomaly in the area. He abruptly reined Avar in and dismounted, leading her to an area oddly cleared of trees but with undergrowth so thick it was impossible to see where one’s feet landed. Once there, they did not have to go far. Barely a couple of minutes of walking, they came upon what Silas had been looking for.

Ahead, in the middle of the thickly overgrown clearing, were four white boulder stones set in a rectangle. They rose like spires cut from hills of rock, their surface smoothed by time and weather, or the constant wallop of Yre – said some – into a glossy opaque sheen. Carvings of complex Mathematical and Alchemical formulae for the manipulation of space-time continuum, crisscrossed within painstakingly detailed Geometric prisms along the stones’ edges. The ground surrounding the stones, extending outwards to a radius of five metres, was charred black by the ever present energy leak. This was the anomaly afflicting the trees in the immediate vicinity, preventing normal and healthy tree growth. Only the weeds blooming rampant seemed immune to the adverse effects of the leak.

Silas led Avar to the spires and came to a stop in the middle of the stone bound rectangle. Almost instantly the air around them started whirring. Slowly at first, then faster until the whirring became one continuous droning background sound. Avar neighed in protest and stomped a hoof in agitation. She whipped her tail from side to side and flapped her ears. The eerie feeling, provoked by the energy-saturated air of the portals, always disconcerted her. Silas patted her gently and muttered to her in a tongue only horses of her breed could understand. She calmed just as a wave of static energy gathered around them. Both Silas’ and his mare’s hair started rising of their own accord, standing on end. As a powerful surge of static force warped the air, Silas felt every single cell within his body dance with raw energy.

A sudden flash of blinding light whipped around them in torrents for a few breaths. And then they were gone; disappeared from amidst the spires and leaving nothing but an energy charged volume of air in the portal’s vicinity. Within moments, they were transported over a distance of approximately three hundred and sixty-two leagues. They reappeared in the middle of a secondary set of stones forming the second end of the portal, escorted by bouts of crackling electricity, whirling shafts of light and muffled gushes of wind. The addition of the latter element made Silas feel as if they had been spat out by a giant maw.

Unconsciously brushing a hand over his hastily tied white shoulder length hair, he led his mount away from the portal before mounting again. Silas looked around them to gauge how far they still were from their final destination. By the look of their surroundings, he surmised that although the forest was still very dense, they were only about ten miles in from the end of the sprawling forest where thinner and younger trees hugged the bank of the river Sors`dur.

Nursing a worry about time, Silas urged the mare to a steady canter forwards. Despite his sense of urgency, he knew that pushing his mount to move any faster would only exhaust her sooner; and he still would not make it on time unless he crossed another portal or teleported. But he knew that there were no portals that linked any closer to their endpoint than the one at their current position. As to the latter option, teleportation was one of the few arts that Silas actively tried to avoid using, for reasons known to none but him. Instead, he resigned himself to a canter, knowing that even if he was smiled upon by the gods and was able to make the journey to and from Araqiel’s grove before sunset, he would be cutting it extremely close.

Within the first mile away from the portal, the trees started thinning to younger and smaller coniferous ones, marking the approaching end of the forest. By the time they had ridden for the best part of an hour and crossed eight miles, even the thick undergrowth had given way to low grass and well-trodden paths with occasional persistent weeds springing stubbornly from the now rocky ground.

It was the sound of running water, the smell of mud from mangroves further downriver, and the occasional river stones underfoot that heralded the approaching end of the present leg of their journey. Within another mile they came in sight of the river Sors`dur in all its majesty. It spread like a twisting blue mass, a glorious and impressive body of water four miles wide and seven hundred feet deep in some areas – mainly around its delta further downriver. A beast this massive was often well deserving of any name it begot which, in this instance, meant ‘behemoth’ in the old tongue of the Northern Lands of Earth.

The whole body of the river wound across the entire width of the continent of Southern Earth like a cleaving wound cut into the earth by the blade of a capricious god. It hauled itself from the darkest recesses of the bowels of the Sypery Mountains in the west and wound down across the lands; growing wider and deeper as it neared its delta in the industrial town of Port Islands, whence it finally threw itself into the waters of Port Ammon and the Eastern Great Seas of Umberlee.

Although the sight was daunting, Silas was not deterred nor did he break stride. Instead, he tugged on the reins and his mare veered right, galloping for the best part of a quarter of an hour upriver, where its master knew an old stone bridge to be. Made of countless black stones of all shapes and sizes, the stone bridge curved elegantly above the river’s colossal width. It stood to reason that a bridge its size would have to be supported by monumental pillars from beneath. Amazingly though, like the eleven other bridges of its kind, it was not. But due to the bindings of an old art known only to the Wise, it stayed firmly in place, never showing a sign of failing, age, or the wear and tear of time and weather. Polished metal railings set on both sides of the stone bridge scintillated with spark-like reflections of the harsh sun of midsummer.

For the following three quarters of an hour, Avar cleared the bridge, alternating between a trot and a walk. Then they stopped, allowing both a quick, if well deserved, rest. As they stood on the opposite bank of the river, before them, rising so high that the canopies were lost amongst low hanging clouds, stood the Aldr Woods. A thin fog that seemed sentient shrouded the menacingly large bulks of the elder trees that held the many-thousands-of-years-old legend.

These trees were a whole of two Ages older than the new world. They had stood and proudly survived the cataclysmic end of the Second Age of Earth, an age known as the age of The Four Moons that ended with the War of the Elements one hundred and five thousand years ago. And before then, they had witnessed the end of the Prime Age itself. An Age very few things or beings of the new world will profess to have seen.

Silas spurred his mare forwards to a slow canter within the Aldr Woods. He cut a path through the low underbrush and manoeuvred around precariously uneven ground, avoiding mossy, protruding coils of burly roots that were perhaps as old as the world; while moss and vine covered boulders the size of houses rose around them with haphazard grace. All the while, he strained to see through the increasingly thickening fog used by the spirits within the trees to shroud their presence from men of ill repute.

Everything was still and silent. Where there had been cawing and twittering of birds, the chirping of insects and rustling of leaves as a backdrop noise in the Qieskan Forest, the Alder Woods was like a giant beast holding its breath. With these kinds of conditions all year round – and for as many years back as could be remembered – it came as no surprise that the Aldr Woods was the least frequented expanse of land in the Andryan World. Most travellers or merchants, or even bandits and marauders made a point of taking a detour around the edges of the forest, never daring to cross it. Caravans from the southern cities avoided the area altogether, choosing instead to brave the high tariffs on trade imposed in Port Amon, traverse to the city of Senex in the far east and power on through the eastern wing of the Qieskan Forest into the city of Dominus.

After they had travelled eight miles into the woods – a feat that took them a little over an hour to do despite the conditions – the fog thickened to the point of impenetrability, reducing visibility to nought. There was also something new to the feel of the air. Something akin to the pull of a will stronger than any exerted by mundane Yre. The cloud of fog seemed to breathe with power; writhing in a cohesive mass given substance by a force so old, so very ancient, that not even the tree spirits knew its origins.

Then, there was an abrupt end to the living mass. It opened onto a strip of grassy clearing. Beyond the clear strip, a tall curtain of fog rose to indefinite heights with wisps of multi-coloured lights dancing within the fog, emitting an odd whistling sound.

With a lift in his spirits, Silas breathed in relief as if the sight of the Yreal barrier was the best bit of news he had come across all day. They had arrived.

The old Andryan dismounted hurriedly, whispering gently to his mare and patting her mane. Silas stilled himself for a few heartbeats before crossing out of sight within the barrier formed by the living mist. Avar, un-tethered, lowered herself to the ground and rested her head upon her front hooves to await Silas’ return. The Zuran breed of horses – like Avar – was a very ancient and intelligent kind of beast unlike any of the common breeds. They – just like elementals – were able to understand a very specific form of speech, unlike any other land animal, and were also known for their extreme discipline. It was that discipline now that kept her completely still as she waited for her rider to return.

The very instant Silas stepped through the curtain of fog, he felt every single hair on his body stand on end. His skin broke out in goose bumps as cold shivers ran through him like static force. Every single particle in his body bounced frantically with the sudden surge of Yre. Silas breathed deeply, his eyes fluttering shut for a few seconds as he composed himself.

Now this was the real deal. This was true Yre, raw, pure and untainted by mortal whims and their nigh-insatiable desires and lust for power they are not worthy of. This was an ancient and very potent force that would have crushed him had he had any trace of malice or ill intent in him. This was Yre at its strongest.

The curtain of fog had opened onto a grove of trees resplendent in every sense of the word. If the trees of the Aldr Woods had been ancient before, the trees of the grove were ageless. They were as old as Earth itself. These same trees had glowed and blossomed during the hundred years of the First or – as many called it – Prime Age of Earth when the High Beings had visited the planet and enchanted the lands by the creation of the Zorquan – the gold and silver plated almanack that foretold each and every thread of happenstance on Earth. From the newly enchanted lands had come Yreal spirits – born of the matrix of energy used to manipulate and change matter: Yre – that rose to inhabit the hearts and souls of the young trees and dreamscapes of the young world. Now, after seven hundred millennia the hearts of the trees still beat with the Yre of the High Beings while the spirits from the dreamscapes walked the Earth.

This part of the Aldr Woods was utterly otherworldly. The rays of the hot midsummer sun that could find their way through the thick foliage of the grove glowed more brightly here than out in the open, though they held no warmth. It felt to Silas as if he had stepped into a different time stream altogether.

A sudden and eerie whir cut through the air and the very fabric of the world seemed to shift around him. Silas snapped to attention, his Andryan eyes glinting as he scanned the grove. From behind the trees, a small humanoid creature scurried in and out of sight, darting from behind one tree to another. Silas squinted, trying to make out what it was, but he could not be sure.

Whatever it was, he did not pay it any more heed. He could not sense any malice from it. In truth, he could not sense the faintest trace of malice for miles on end. The grove was unnaturally pure, and this made the old Andryan feel slightly disconcerted. No matter how holy, everything in the human world had – in order to maintain balance – a streak of evil. But not