A Story of Stars - Never Forgotten
#1 of A Story of Stars
This is the introduction chapter to my series, A Story of Stars. It's an epic fantasy written similarly to what you would find on a bookshelf with each part being a chapter more or less. I sincerely hope that you find the story enjoyable, a lot of work and thought has been put into it. I will write a chapter roughly once a week, so please look forward to each installment! Suggestions and feedback are also always welcomed.
If you enjoyed the chapter, or even if you didn't, I'd appreciate even the shortest comment. Thank you kindly~
267 After Age: Month of the Knave 22nd
The walls seemed perfectly aged, the ceiling just the right height, the uneven and jagged flooring believably sprinkled with little pools of moisture dripping from the stalagmites above. Cobwebs abounded like gossamer drapes and scattered the lantern's light into an array of interesting patterns. All of it meticulously arranged into the seemingly random rawness that was nature. Perhaps that same meticulous attention to detail was why Rera had sensed that something was off, a nagging thought that prodded her to look deeper and realize that the chamber was not truly a construct of natural events, but only an imitation of it crafted by a skilled sorcerer's hand.
"Found something?" Dign asked as he moved through twin pillars of jagged stone.
Ignoring her friend and colleague, she pulled up the hood of her robes and willed one of its enchantments to life before glancing thoughtfully around. Frowning, Rera waved her hand and mumbled a spell. It radiated throughout the damp chamber in a small pulse of green light visible only because of her hood's enchantments.
Dign lifted his own hood and peered through the dim light, but quickly gave up and shook his head. "I do wish you'd speak to me instead of going off into one of your little mental isolations whenever you have a haunch."
She smiled knowingly while a fox-like tail curled around her slender waist. With another wave and series of soft words the green pulse again radiated from her and again nothing seemingly stirred.
"Did you see that?" she asked her human companion.
"See what?" he replied, wrinkling his nose and adjusting his thick spectacles. "I see a lot of stone and a lot of cobwebs, nothing more, and Ahura only knows what you're trying to do with a simple chime spell, all the more one without a chime."
"The spell itself is unimportant," she said dismissively and perked up her ears eagerly. "Watch carefully." Again she repeated the spell, but it was obvious that her colleague did not see the faint tendrils of sorcery carefully examining her enchantment without so much as a flicker.
"What?" he asked, confusion slowly etching itself on his face. "I don't see or sense anything at all."
She unwrapped her tail and let it wave behind her while she moved forward and pressed a hand against the jagged wall. "It's there though, even if you can't see or sense it. A subtle spell so carefully woven that it is as fine as the spider silk above us, but more powerful than anything I have ever seen."
He walked up beside her, his arms crossed, but with an expression of surprise on his features. "I doubt it, it would have to be at least-"
"Four hundred years old, during a time when even the greatest of mages could accomplish little more than what untrained children can do today," she finished. "I know. But we also don't know very much about the Oath Age."
Dign made a face and sighed. "I can already see the curiosity in your blood stirring."
She gave him a teasing glance. "Want to take a look? Who knows what it's guarding?"
"As if anything I said would change your mind," he retorted with a snort. "You're the boss, just remember the Academy only sent us here to survey the uncovered caverns..."
"And survey we shall.." she replied, focusing on crafting a spell that would hopefully entice the elusive enchantment to reveal more of itself so she could isolate and examine it.
The waiting enchantment pounced before her spell could take form. All around them the room burst into a green radiance as bright as the sun, blinding them with the intensity of raw vyr that was flooding the room. Her blood burned hotly as the spell gripped her and brought her to her knees, stealing away command of her own body.
"What's wrong, Rera?!" Dign screamed, his face twisted between fear and concern. His eyes wildly scanned the room, a hand shading them from the blinding brightness that he could avoid if he would only remember to pull down his blasted hood.
Tendrils of magical energy continued to wrap around her body, dulling her senses, fading away the world in a blurry green haze. Dign's voice became garbled and faint, her perception of time and positioning eroded. Was she standing? Floating? Falling? Had it been seconds or hours? She didn't know any more.
Then, with a jarring suddenness, it all ended in a rushing roar. Silenced washed over Rera as her senses again provided her with information. Blinking tears out of her eyes, she stood and looked around. Dign stared at her, as wordlessly surprised as she, for a few moments before they both looked ahead.
An ornate chamber dwarfed them, so spotlessly clean and so lavishly decorated with carvings, polished marble, golden objects, and massive statues that for a second she thought they had died and gone to Zhev'nah. Carefully she moved forward and continued examining the room.
Behind them was a massive stone door, at least four times her height. The smooth obsidian walls rose high above them, lit by small floating orbs. She couldn't see the ceiling, only walls that endlessly rose into a peaking darkness. Before them was a short corridor that rose up a set of stairs and ended before a excessively ornate throne. Above it a flat panel of dark marble was marked by glowing symbols that pulsed a soft purple.
"Ahura's bossom, where are we?" Dign asked as he stepped up beside her. "What did you do?"
She flattened her ears and shrugged. "Nothing. As soon as I began crafting my spell the enchantment lunged at me. It felt as if it were coursing through me, looking for something...then we appeared here."
"And where exactly is here?"
"That, my friend, is a wonderful question," she replied with a wry smile. She stepped up towards the throne, glancing curiously up at the panel with the strange markings. "Wherever it is, it's an incredible find. If we can make our way back this alone will make us both legends at the Academy."
Dign sighed. "I'll settle with living, thank you."
She tossed him a sidelong glance. "That's why you've been my assistant for so long. You need more ambition, more drive to surpass me."
Ignoring his rolling eyes, she moved closer so that she could peer up at the panel. The symbols were utterly unfamiliar despite her knowledge of ancient and current languages. Frowning, she instead examined the panel. It was set on top of the wall and was fairly thick. Sorcery likely kept it attached because she didn't see any design holding it up. It also somehow felt out of place with the rest of the chamber.
"Another haunch?" Dign asked, watching her carefully.
She didn't respond and instead watched him stand beside her through their reflection on the polished surface. The sight of herself always made her feel a bit self-conscious. Here she was, a young and supposedly beautiful aefth-creamy skin, emerald eyes, silken tail and ears hued a lovely shade of black-doing what? Muddling through some caverns in the middle of the wildlands of Roleca. It made her feel a little guilty because it always felt like she didn't belong. Still, choosing between pumping out kits and following her passion at the Ail Academy had seemed an easy enough choice, whatever her mother and sister thought.
She glanced at Dign's reflection as she mused on her mother's wish for her to settle and have children. Dign never gawked at her body, even when she was lazy and chose to wear less than she probably should have while in their camp. He was loyal and honest, looked up to her and respected her, never hesitated to question her ideas even if he agreed with them. Their relation wasn't even remotely intimate, but if she ever did marry she wanted a male just like him.
"Rera?" Dign asked, frowning as he stared at her. "Want to let me into your world?"
"Um, sorry," she replied hastily, banishing her irrelevant thoughts and reverting her focus to the markings rather than their reflection. "I don't recognize any of these characters, not even components of them. We won't be able to make sense of this room without help, so I suppose we should simply focus on-"
A swirl of golden light rose from the panel, silencing her. It twisted and turned and shaped itself into the semblance of a humanoid body, then darkened to a murky black as it lowered to the floor. The massive figure, clad in heavy armor that did little to cover his tail and ears, sat in the throne as if it were made specifically for him and regarded them.
"A-an aefth..?" Dign whispered.
She swallowed and shook her head, tail lowered and ears flat."No, a lodeci. A full blood." Many compared the aefth to foxes because of their appearance and the ability that some of her people possessed to tap into the collective knowledge of their bloodline. The lodeci were similarly once compared to wolves, fierce and warrior-like in every way.
"Hail, strangers. I am the faded memories of Durandal, once an ebon meister of the old gods," a powerful voice that filled the entire chamber boomed. "If all is as Azrael hoped, then perhaps the age you live within is brighter than the murky grays of our own time, and it is so then I would tell you of this same Azrael, a mortal without a soul, a construct forged by dark ambitions. He is but one of the great unknown heroes of the Oath Age.
"Heroes not only because they halted the tides of darkness, stilled the wrath of light, and freed those who had been slaves to themselves, but because they surrendered love for duty, shed tears for those they had never known, and gave their lives for a future that would never whisper their names."
"I vowed that their ardor would not fade into the forgotten nether. I promised that they would shine in the hearts of those that would come after, but I fear that fate has left me with little time to do so. So with all of my heart I dedicate the last moments of my misguided life towards accomplishing this great task. I, Durandal, last of the ebon meisters, hereby sear truth within this place of nothingness, here where no eyes will see, and pray to the Unyielding that for a single moment my words shall shine brightly. Not for me, but for them.
"I would call this tale that of Azrael's life, but words he once spoke deter me. Remarking on the night sky he once suggested that our lives were ever similar. No grand struggle between chaos and order, no battles between good and evil. Simply a universe filled with constant, ever present darkness and bright stars that struggled to shine only to quietly perish and give way to another. The people of our world bathed in hatred, war, indifference, each waiting for a star, a leader, a saint, to brighten their lives for but a single moment, to turn away those who preferred the shadows.
"If one were to think of it in this matter, then perhaps this would be a story of stars..."
Rera blinked in utter surprise as the figure finished, oblivious to the blinding wave of whiteness that swallowed both her and Dign and drowned their minds in a raging storm of sensations, sounds, thoughts, and words.