Prologue
PROLOGUE
I sit at a small table of roughly hewn wood, on a plain wooden stool, with a long black feather of a Great Wing quill in my hand. The quill hoovers over brown-stained paper, brittle with age so old I fear it will disintegrate into powder before I have told my tale. Behind my right shoulder a rectangular shaft of bright moonlight splashes across my back and spills onto the cold stone floor of the dungeon cell, illuminating portions of the old paper and much of my desk. A thick candle, half consumed, with a dim flame, assists the moonlight in my endeavors to record the events of my past.
Know you, Pilgrim, I am an old man. Not long to remain in this confinement of silence and solitude. But once, a long time ago, I was a warrior-monk and great wizard of the Bretan Order. Of the four religious orders on my world, the followers of the Bretan Way were the most hated—and the most feared—of all. We were hunted. We were rooted out of our homes and our castles, even our cities, because we believed in the heresy—the belief—that Human and Grand Dragons were somehow distantly related to each other.
And worse, perhaps even the key to the hundreds of pogroms assailing Bretan followers with b****y reprisals and near extinction, was the belief that Dragon Prophecy was a lie. A deliberate lie created by Dark Dragon gods and fed to their dragon children in an attempt to assuage their merciless souls and justify their hatreds for all of Humankind.
Why the gods of the Great Dragons so hated and so feared their distant human kin still remains unknown. What the seeds planted were for this vile belief were planted so far back in our distant past not even the greatest of wizards or mages could ascertain.
Except perhaps myself, Pilgrim.
Once, I was a great wizard.
Once I was a great warrior.
And once, so brash and so confident in my abilities, I and a dragon princess named Ursala—the last of the Pearl Princesses—challenged the Dark Dragon gods themselves and fought against them for years as we tried to tear down the Old Ways and create a New World free from prejudice and religious chaos.
And, as you read this memoir—if you read this memoir penned by my shaking hand—you see I failed, we failed, to tear down the old terrors and build a new world filled with light.
Forgive my shaking hand and rambling words, Child. I am old. My mind is sometimes not as clear as it once was. My wizardry powers no longer at my command. Somehow the stones in the four walls of this prison cell drain me of my magic. If you find these manuscripts after I am gone, I hope you read them and take in what I am trying to say. A Great Evil Unseen controls the Middle World we currently live in and the Netherworld from wince all Life originates and returns to, and from where all Magic comes.
Read my words, Child. Heed my warnings. Know the enemy you face. For even now it resides in the deepest corners of your mind and in the darkest corners of your soul.
