The Blacke

The Prologue

Prologue

            In the naming of things, these hills have had many.  Most remain secreted and kept only by the best of memories and for good reason; the hills were unremarkable.  Like so many others they rolled up and down between truer mountains, running from a deep brown to a rich purple where they clashed with the heavens and far more sweeping, green valleys.  Mind you, the inhabitants of the region might argue such a perspective, for the hills, mixed in with its many brooks and rivers, delivered to them enough of the splendors of life.  The birds there sang in the ShadowBurn as they did everywhere else, though they were not as plentiful in number nor was their song as diverse.

Still, there was the song, and as the DoaH Star broke the horizon, the song was their acknowledgement of its arrival.  But the birds were not the only creatures already about their business.  The Equine were already running about, getting in their early DoaH exercise.  They preferred the hills and their eyes would have agreed with the aforementioned perspective.  The hills afforded better grounds for them to dash upon.  But geographical location is seldom a matter of choice.  The birds that sang were either here to stay or they were in the midst of an airborne pilgrimage to lands where mates awaited, for such were the makings of this tide of CresTyra.  As for the Equine, they never remained in any place for too long.  It was never in their nature to do so.

            The hills would never have been Hercuron’s ideal choice either, but they were where he landed.  The track his body had traveled arched over the lands, trailing a thick column of black smoke, the stone at his chest finally beginning to lose some of its burning power and, more importantly, its thrust.  The trail of heated, tilled earth measured nearly eighty meters; ten meters for each PahT this discussion had already taken.  Given the point his opponent had made with the Thari-Stone, Hercuron knew the outcome of this debate was drawing close and he would have to redouble his efforts in order to be triumphant.  His back slammed against the ground, jarring him from his stupor.  He could see the dirt his body had forced from its place.  To his left, his right and his rear he could see dirt flying.  That which lay in front of him as he slowed to a stop had been blackened by the energy the stone bled around his crippled but still withstanding shield.  He had been protected from the impact of the stone as well as that of his landing; even the heat of the stone had failed to reach him.  But the source of its power was another matter and probably the reason why his opponent had chosen it as a weapon.  Hercuron claimed to be a Terran, of the Alderonn tribe, a member of good standing of the D’Gardian BlooD.  But to claim that meant to also claim certain properties and weaknesses.  The merest touch of his kind by the stuff of PlythariA meant certain death.  The fate of any sect of the Q’uor-Kwyn was very much the same: death!  The power of the Realm of PlythariA was too vast for the normal mortal to comprehend or contain without expiring.  Still, he stood up at the end of the trench, brushed back his long, thick black hair and tried to recover from the physical shock of the stone.  Hercuron was still very much alive and for the most part uninjured.  He chuckled at the obvious debate.

            “Perhaps you are beginning to understand, my Prince.”  His voice was like a directed source of thunder and it shook the hills in which Hercuron stood. His blue-gray eyes were just pulling the countryside into focus when he saw his opponent land at the very beginning of the newly-formed trench.  He was called Urzod the Almighty, and it was not a lightly assigned sobriquet.  In the brief time of their encounter the only damage Hercuron had done to him was because of his presence within the Realm.  Urzod was Plytharian, a champion of the devils, and his existence was not embraced by the realm that was called TerrojahN.  Still he was powerful enough to withstand the slight eradication of his being.  His ability to heal himself was ever so much greater than the slow grinding of this Realm’s relatively soft teeth.  Were it not for the mists that rose from his form, he would be like any other Terran who strode the realm.