Prologue II– First Lessons in Power
1306 Words
The Vast Mountain was not silent.
It had a voice, if one listened closely enough.
The wind carried it, the rivers translated it, the stones themselves hummed with it.
Elar was the first to notice.
The Discovery of Fire
It happened on a night when the sky burned with lightning. A storm had rolled in, the kind that split the heavens wide. The Companions stood on the peak, hair and skin tingling with the fury of it.
When the strike came, it was like the mountain itself had been split. The bolt smashed into a lonely pine tree clinging to the cliffs, and in an instant the tree was alight.
Elar’s eyes widened. He sprinted down the rocks, heedless of the sparks that rained, and crouched before the burning trunk. The fire hissed, crackled, leapt in orange tongues.
“What is this?” he breathed. He reached out, and the flame licked his hand. He yelped, pulling back, skin reddened. “It bites!”
Vaen arrived more slowly, watching the flames devour branch after branch. His gaze was heavy, thoughtful. “It eats,” he murmured.
“Yes!” Elar exclaimed. “It eats the tree, and it grows stronger. A hunger that feeds itself.” His grin stretched wide. “This is mine.”
Vaen frowned. “It is dangerous.”
“All the more reason to master it!” Elar plunged a fallen stick into the blaze, lifted it, laughing as the fire danced along the wood. He swung it through the air, scattering sparks. “Look! The night obeys me!”
But the stick burned too quickly. The fire consumed it to ash in moments, and the flames died in his hands.
Elar scowled. “It flees me.”
Vaen bent, gathering a handful of earth. He smothered a patch of fire with it. “It does not flee. It only dies, as all things do.”
Elar spat into the dirt. “Then I will find a way to make it live.”
That night, he could not sleep. He stared at the embers until they cooled to black.
The Breath of Stone
If Elar found his joy in fire, Vaen found his in the slow patience of earth.
One morning, while Elar hunted storms across the ridges, Vaen sat cross-legged upon a cliff ledge. He pressed both palms to the ground and breathed deep.
He felt something move beneath him. Not the scurry of beasts or the drip of hidden springs, but something deeper—like a slow heartbeat in the bones of the mountain itself.
He closed his eyes, listening.
The stone was not silent. It shifted, breathed, remembered. Its strength lay not in hunger, like Elar’s fire, but in endurance.
When he rose, he pressed his hand to the cliff wall. The rock answered, softening beneath his touch, crumbling into sand.
Startled, he pulled back. The cliff was whole again.
Later that day, when Elar returned, Vaen told him what had happened.
“You made stone into sand?” Elar said, incredulous.
“Yes.”
“Show me!”
Vaen placed his palm on a boulder. Slowly, reverently, he pressed. The stone shivered, fine cracks spreading. Then it gave way, collapsing into a heap of gravel at their feet.
Elar’s eyes blazed. “You broke it like an eggshell!”
“I listened,” Vaen corrected softly.
Elar crouched, scooping up a handful of gravel. “You make things weak. I make them burn.” He grinned. “Between us, the mountain is nothing!”
Vaen’s gaze lingered on the shattered rock. “No. The mountain is everything. We are only learning its language.”
But Elar heard only conquest in his own mind.
The Game of Rivers
They discovered water’s secret in the dry months, when streams dwindled to trickles.
Elar, thirsty and impatient, stamped his foot at a shallow creek. “It hides from me! Where has the river gone?”
Vaen knelt, pressing his ear to the soil. He rose, pointing upstream. “It still flows—beneath the surface.”
“How do you know?”
“Listen.”
Elar crouched, scowling. “I hear nothing.”
“Because you do not want to hear.”
Annoyed, Elar plunged his hands into the mud. To his shock, the ground split. A gush of water spilled upward, soaking them both.
Elar laughed. “Ha! You see? I do not listen—I command!” He leapt, splashing in the sudden flood.
But Vaen only frowned, kneeling to guide the flow with his hands. He carved a channel, steady and deliberate, directing the freed water back toward the thirsty roots of the pines.
Elar noticed and sneered. “Why waste it on trees? Drink it all, and it is ours!”
“The river is not ours,” Vaen replied. “We are its guests.”
Elar drank anyway, mouth greedy, while Vaen shaped the water’s path until the soil sighed with relief.
The First Wound
Power brought lessons, and lessons brought pain.
Elar was the first to wound himself again. He had carried fire too close to his skin, trying to see if his body could withstand it. The flames blistered his arm, leaving it raw and red.
He gritted his teeth, refusing to cry out.
Vaen came to him, laying a cool hand over the wound. At his touch, the pain eased. The blisters closed, skin mended.
“You heal me again,” Elar muttered.
“I do not heal,” Vaen said. “I only remind the flesh what it is meant to be.”
Elar looked down at the new skin, then up at his companion. His voice was low. “And if you were gone?”
Vaen’s eyes lingered on him, unreadable. “Then you must learn to endure.”
The Stars and the Question
One night, they lay again beneath the endless canopy of stars. But this time, their wonder was not the same.
Elar clenched his fists. “The fire burns. The stone bends. The river flows when I command. Yet the stars—” He thrust a hand upward. “They do not answer me.”
“They are not ours to command,” Vaen said.
“Why not?” Elar demanded. “If the mountain obeys us, why not the sky? Why should we crawl in dust while light reigns above?”
“Because we are not meant to rule the heavens.”
Elar turned sharply, eyes flashing. “And who decides what we are meant to do? The one who made us? Where is he? Why does he hide?!”
Vaen was silent.
Elar’s voice dropped, bitter. “Perhaps he fears us. Perhaps he gave us this power, then abandoned us because he knew we would outgrow him.”
Vaen closed his eyes. “Or perhaps he waits to see what we will choose.”
The First Rift
It was the first time the Companions parted in anger.
At dawn, Elar descended alone into the valleys, chasing the echoes of storms. He wanted to summon fire again, to grasp lightning itself, to drag the sky down.
Vaen remained on the heights, palms pressed to stone, listening to the slow breath of the mountain.
For days they wandered apart.
When they reunited, neither spoke of it. But a subtle fracture had formed—small, invisible, like a crack deep inside rock.
The mountain, ancient and patient, knew such cracks well.
Given time, they could split peaks in two.
Thus the Companions grew—not merely in strength, but in difference.
Elar, fierce, restless, desiring dominion.
Vaen, patient, listening, desiring harmony.
And the Vast Mountain bore witness, unmoving.
For now, they were still brothers.
But already, power had begun to teach them what kind of beings they were becoming.
- Writer
