The Prologue
Sabira
Sabira rose from a sleepless daze, crippled by dread. Kraan was mere days from sieging, uprooting, and destroying Ravamorn, assuring a complete sweep of all Caeldemar. Yet Sabira, her brothers and her sisters defied him nonetheless. For all the darkness he spread, and the violence he ordered, and the despair he wrought, they remained stubbornly within the high stone walls of Ravamorn, two hundred strong opposed to the six hundred of Kraan’s forces bolstered further by an array of dark creatures and foul, sorcerous beings.
The barracks was empty save for her and two others. All other Fallen were out inches from the gateway between survival and extinction. The bedding was strewn every which way, pillows and blankets and trinkets and memories, hours away from all being wiped away. If Sabira and company were to fail.
It was not her mission alone; two companions would join her through the Void. One, Prodirren, a quiet, stoic, ultimately gentle being who kept to himself and had few words to spare. The other, a cunning strategist and an equally fine warrior, Boln, the big hulking brute who loved to laugh and make others laugh even amidst the darkness at bay. But there was no time for that anymore.
Prior to the task, Sabira had spoken to each only a handful of times. And now she would embark with them into the unknown, into the worlds they loved and called home without ever returning again to their true home. There was no turning back. Caeldemar was gone. It was all but Baluum-Solituud, the land of the reign of Kraan and the Evomere.
Amidst even this, Sabira remembered the sacrifices of her friends for this to even be attempted. Many had perished. Many more were going to fall. All of them knew it to be so. But Denari believed this course would work. And Rahmozia had tasked Sabira and the others to this quest.
Hopefully they know what they are to do. Hopefully their sacrifice will not be in vain.
Kraan
As dawn rose on the fourth day, a triumphant Belguerrin overlooked the battlefield. He perched his torso while he leaned over a remarkably wide and rocky peak, the gaze of the fighting miles away, but clear somehow even amidst a rich, grey fog. Caeldemar was once a great valley, filled with all sorts of life. The rivers flowed gracefully and slow, winding gingerly and with white waters, and the trees grew aplenty alongside, green and red and even some white. Tall mountains sprung calmly behind the river, and wide hills blended well with the bold sun and cowering moon. Creatures abounded to fill the earth: of the air, of the ground, and of the waters. There was harmony, beauty in the middle of a pleasant and free earth.
But now the land grew horrid while the bold sun was polluted by a potent darkness. The grassy fields and meadows near the keep of Ravamorn turned to plains of sand, and the forests about were all but ash. The mountains became black and grey, without the snow they once adorned, and the hills were a pale and richer yellow, their grass stale and decayed. Fire and smoke and destruction were in any and all direction, growing richer with each passing hour. All source of life was gone. The creatures were all destroyed. A terrible sacrifice, but one worth having, Belguerrin sighed. It was Baluum-Solituud from now until forever. The Fallen, Belguerrin thought to himself, were finally broken. As this thought cleared his mind, cold steel pressed against his left cheek. He turned towards his attacker, and immediately his eyes were vacant. There, standing before him, was Radah, the Golden Warrior as the Fallen called him, his armor shining brilliantly even amidst the black and bleak air.
“Surprised you would abandon the Fallen at the eve of their annihilation.”
“They are not defeated. They are delayed, but not gone,” the Golden Warrior responded assuredly.
“Don't be coy with me Radah. The Fallen are overmatched and outnumbered. My campaign has taken only months. I am correcting what your precious Master wrought. But those standing opposed to real freedom will all die. Even you.”
“If such be the will of Kavod, I will obey. Yet it will be freedom, true freedom, that I might lay down my life. But My Master will bring it back up again.”
“Impossible,” Belguerrin answered while staring at the helm of gold where eyes would show. “I was there, Radah, when Kavod began. Nothing that is dead can come back live again. It was I who helped forge the worlds, I who helped create the laws, I who helped instill order from where there was disorder. But then he made them, and now it is all for nothing. Look at what I must do to undo their chaos.”
“You are the one who wrought this destruction, Kraan,” Belguerrin hated when anyone called him that name. Especially this one. “You are the one who raised the chance at disarray and destruction when you ensnared their hearts. Muddled their minds. Poisoned their souls. Lied about My Master. And yet hope endures forever even in the storms of despair. And even this will be but a signpost to the glory of My Master, the glory of which He has had from the beginning, and of which I shared with Him.”
“Rattle on and on about the glory of your master, Radah, and it will mean but nothing. Fools speak of plans while the wise do without words, as it is written. His faults are now revealed to all of my brothers and sisters. All of the true brothers and sisters. Our kingdom is at hand, Radah. Bend the knee to my reign while I still have mercy left before the purge.”
“It is by belief, not strength nor intelligence nor even fate that the will of the One comes to pass. For even the black is not black to Him. Therefore, trust in Him who wills all for the benefit of all, save for those who will not for the benefit of all, as it is written. I will see you again, Kraan, on this very field. And on that day, all will be set right of which you made wrong,” and after the word wrong, a gust of wind twisted and flew from the earth to the sky, and the Golden Warrior was gone.
A motionless Belguerrin slowly and pensively turned back to the battlefield, pondering the words of the Golden Warrior. It is not surprising for Radah to boast, but in lieu of the defeat of his Fallen? In lieu of the open seals? What is the Almight planning? Why did Radah leave? He shook his head assuredly. Only I am the Master. Only I wield dominion. Only I wield salvation.
As the battle below his boots turned to attrition, Belguerrin entered the fray, and helped the army push their assault into the very heart of Ravamorn. The Fallen, decimated by the prior three days of fighting, lost their ground slowly. Centimeters turned to meters, and soon meters turned to the thick gate of Ravamorn itself. As the Fallen gave in, Kraan's forces, wounded but not without resolve, shattered the wide and thick gate of Ravamorn and began to flood inside. The Fallen retreated to the heart of the Ravamorn's keep, waited in the final room holding the Havenkey itself, and prepared for the Evomere's final assault. Two Fallen emerged in their midst, and slowly asserted themselves to the front past wounded bodies and tormented souls. Belguerrin heard their thoughts.
And their lies.
“We knew this day would come,” Denari spoke with a somber yet confident voice. He paced around the room, pierced the eyes of all men and women present there. Their armor was ruined, and their spears and swords blunt.
“But we remain here in defiance nonetheless. Kraan and his army trample all we stand for,” Denari finished pensively. Rahmozi, another of the Wirhad leaders of the Fallen, stood up and cleared his throat.
“Kraan's ambition,” Rahmozi's voice was deep and had a tinge of anger, “has poisoned the hearts of our kind. The lies, the murders, the usurping... has left us all scarred. Yet not without resolve. We stand together, in our final hours, fighting for peace. Fighting for freedom. And fighting for love.”
“One day justice will befall Kraan. The Maker has not abandoned us,” Denari chimed in. Whispers and murmurs of dissent rose among the Fallen after Denari's pointed address.
“It seems all hope is lost, but fear not. The present is grim, but the future is decided. One day, Fallen will march triumphant in Caeldemar! On that day, we will take the fight to Kraan himself! On that day, we will rise again!” Rahmozi’s voice boomed through the room, shaking its foundation.
“And it is your brothers, and sister, in whom we now place our hope!” he turned to the three soldiers only meters away from the Havenkey, a long oval doorway which beheld a swirling and reckless black mist. Belguerrin heard Sabira hold her breath.
“Let the journeys they undertake be fruitful and just. Let them return to this world, to our world, and take with them our souls and our blood. The battle at hand is lost, but this war will be won in the Last Age to come!”
Shouts of acclamation reverberated, trembled the walls and ceiling of the room. Soon a chant arose from the Fallen, and it unnerved the Evomere attempting to break down the final door.
“For Justice! For Love! For the Maker! For Justice! For Love! For the One!”
As the Evomere ferociously broke down the final door, and the three messengers evaporated within the black mist, the remaining Fallen stood their ground, and used their courage to guide them into the fray. The speeches of Denaar and Rahmozi filled the room with hope.
Hope is the greatest of their lies, Kraan calmed his frantic mind.
Despite their broken bodies, the Fallen summoned a will to fight valiantly. The mist before them vanished, eclipsed in a stark and crisp display of white and blue. They charged headlong into the fray, bled and died with their hearts, not their spears or swords, as their boldest weapons. The Fallen may have been defeated, but their legacy endured. Forever.
“My brother, my Prince,” Aphoric stood next to Kraan , scanned the oval structure intently. The mist was gone. Before them, a long oval encased nothing but the obsidian frame.
“The Havenkey is sealed.”
Sabira
Before Sabira’s eyes, nothing, nothing but the cold, dark limitless black she had roamed about since life began eons ago. She looked for her friends, and found them as they floated adrift, lost in total shock and amazement at the sheer scope of the blankness before them.
“So here we fall. One last time.”