Bane of the Outcast

Prologue: The Sundering

       

Prologue:

The Sundering

    The Outcast, the lone and banished god, stood at the edge of the world watching creation burn.

    A hollow had settled itself into the marrow of this place, this place where spirit had been broken. Once, he had cradled this world in the palms of his hands, breathed life into its people, nurtured its livestock. He had helped fashion this world stone for stone.

    And now he had destroyed it. A single tear carved a track through the dirt and soot that stained his face as he gazed out over the destruction. Pillars of smoke rose into a writhing black mass of thunderclouds. The sun and stars had fled the sky, devoid of all light save for the celestial silver rings that surrounded the planet. Green and silver lightning flashed across its darkened vault intermittently, spectral and knife-like. In the distance, the holy halls of Sanctuary crumbled, great walls of metal tearing themselves free of the foundation he had once called home, where he had sat among the Architects. Beyond that, the jagged peaks of the mountain range known as the Edge stood framed against a dark backdrop.

    "The soothsayers of the north had a saying," a voice behind him called out, and the Outcast whirled around in the direction of the voice. A dark figure moved through the murk, striding solemnly forward. "'Follow a path to the edge of the world, and there you will find darkness'."

    The Outcast unsheathed his sword of obsidian, a broad blade, five feet in length. Though ancient, the blade had not lost its serrated edge, even after all of these centuries. The blade hissed as it cut through the air, and wispy shadows licked up from it like dark flames.

    "Who are you?" the Outcast shouted. "Show yourself!"

    The figure stepped into the pale light, and the Outcast recognized him instantly. His true name was E'tan, but the world had another name for him.

    They called him Breaker, and had proclaimed him as their champion. It was he who had bound the scattered nations of the world under one empire, he who had been woven out by the hands of the Architects to undo the Outcast. The Outcast had tried, time and again, to wipe this stain of a man from the earth, this man of flesh and steel, this false god, but it seemed he had not even the decency to simply die.

    The Breaker paused in his stride. Though he had marshaled an army against the Outcast, he did not have the weathered look of a soldier; his skin was smooth and olive-colored, and a supple mane of golden-brown hair stirred in the wind.

    "I had hoped to find you here," the Breaker called across the distance. He looked around at the destruction. "So this is how the world ends . . . Sundered by darkness and flame. By war." He paused a moment.

    The Outcast turned his back toward him, gazing out once more over the world. He let a number of heartbeats pass, during which time lightning arced across the charred stretch of the sky, leaving a deafening roll of thunder in its wake.

    "War," the Outcast echoed, revolving the syllable on his tongue until it tasted strange. It was a simple word, but it carried with it a great weight. And yet for all that it implied, "war" was simply too small a word to describe what had occurred.

    No. This was annihilation.

    "Before the dark times . . . before all of this," the Outcast said, gesturing widely to the annihilation that surrounded them, "I used to come here and gaze down upon the valley and find comfort, solace. But the world and all its peoples – my peoples – have abandoned me."