Of Shadows and Darkness

© 1998 M.S. Raper
All rights reserved.

Deep within the forest of Mourngloom, where even veteran Pathfinders fear to go, stood a fallen city. It was once named Elvyn-Solacia, the city of the everlasting sun. Now the sun can not even find its way through the vine-tangled canopy that clung to the ruined towers of this once proud city. It was sacked some fourteen hundred years ago by a succession of human armies. To other races that happened upon the sundered city, it was nothing more then a ruin to loot. To elves it was a forever-silent testament to the true nature of the beast called human.

Among the ruins near the center of the once-thriving metropolis stood a single tower untouched by the destruction that sundered the city around it. Moss and vines cover the five-story structure, forming a living camouflage and making it hard to see even at close range. Upon the fifth floor a light spilled through the shutter, bringing luminance to this perpetually shadowed place.

Within the room, which was obviously the sanctum of a wizard, a woman sat at a table diligently working upon a three-foot rod of silvery metal. The light came from the rod and it flickered each time she touched the device with the blackened metal etching stylus she wielded in her right hand.

A long chain of glyphs covered one side of the rod, and it was upon these the woman worked. As a steady hand etched the final glyph, the stylus suddenly broke. A bright flash of light strobed outward from the glyph, and when it passed the rod was covered with spider-webbed cracks.

The glow slowly but steadily faded, leaving only the single lantern as illumination. She hurled the useless stylus across the room, pushed back from the table and disgustedly left the scene.

Under the billowy dark green robe, her golden skin could be seen. The slender frame underneath was curvaceous and lithe. A thick mane of silver hair filled the hood and framed a breathtakingly beautiful elven face. Eyes the color of bright amber easily saw through the gloom of the tower's passageways and guided their owner to the walkway around the conical roof. She was a dawn elf; perhaps one of the very few purebloods remaining—and what blood it was. She dug her nails into the decaying railing as anger gave way to grief.

"I've failed, Sweet Soriya, I've failed," she whispered in a broken voice. Tears began to well in her eyes and stream down her cheeks. She knew Soriya, the Elven mother-goddess, would not answer her. The Lyonese Spellgraves had seen to her destruction as well as to the rape and pillage of her children's lands. She knew that Soriya, like the Lhanin and Everdawn, was dead.

As misery claimed her, she threw back her head and howled like a soul broken upon the rack. It echoed through the Mourngloom, frightening man and beast alike. Somewhere under the deepest shadow in the darkest corner of the coldest night, someone, something heard.

As she crumpled upon the walkway consumed by her grief, a portion of darkness darker then the gloom that surrounded the tower appeared beside her. It quickly formed into a robed, humanoid figure. A pair of eyes, glowing a deep blue, appeared within the hood. She suddenly became aware of it. This darkness she knew. It was Nethirdel, the king of scavengers, the demon lord of treachery and the god of darkness.

"Come to watch me die, StormCrow?" she asked, using the insulting name of the Holtlandish harbinger of ill-tidings. "You want first choice from my carcass before the other scavengers arrive, I suppose."

"My dear Alyndriel! You cut me to the quick!" The robed figure said. "I heard your despairing cry and thought you might take me up on my offer."

"I've not succumbed to your poisonous caress in nearly nineteen hundred years. Why in the name of the Dawnful gods would I do so now?"

"Because now you have only two choices: the death of you and your cause, or service to me."

"I'd rather die!"

"Very well, but know this—with your passing, so pass the Elves of Dawn. No one among the Witherin will pick up your banner, and all that was yours will be forgotten."

"The Witherin will not forget!"

"What will remind them? You will be gone. No more will the Rider of Death mete out her vicious brand of Elven vengeance. No more will she sing the history of her people on the anniversary of the fall. Even your paltry Glyphmagick will be nothing more than an oddity for some human archivist. With your passing, so too will pass any hope of Everdawn's rebirth!"

Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. His words were the bitter truth, and she knew it. Her heart cracked at the thought that with her passed the history of her people. It was a proud history. Too proud to die, too proud to be killed even by the likes of King Ayrn Longarms and all of the Lyonese; but it was the thought of that very pride that fueled her retort.

"I have too much dignity to stoop to your level, Scavenger! Begone!"

"Was it dignified to loot the tombs of your own people for that rod and stylus? Was it pride that drove you to defile sights untouched by humans with your rooting through bones? Face the fact that you serve me in every way except name."

"No! I did what I thought I had to do, even though it proved futile! I will never serve any thing as evil as you!"

"You claim to be less evil then me? You who killed anything and everything that stood in your path? You have the blood of women and children on your hands. Even the armies of Lyoness balked at such deeds! Do you not Remember Ayrn's Speech? 'We do not make war upon children?' he said but you did. We are of the same darkness. Join with me and the rise of Everdawn can begin this very moment!"

He held out his black, bony hand to her. She could see in his cowl the scenes of the glorious rebirth he promised, the legions that would sweep the humans into the sea, and the breathtaking sight of renewed forestland. Her fondest dreams made manifest. She knew that if she took his hand it would all happen. In her crusade against the humans she had used any means necessary to achieve her goals. A part of her argued that accepting his offer was no different. She would use his patronage as a tool and discard it when it became no longer useful. It would be that easy.

She reached towards his hand. Tears of grief and pain long unshed glistened upon her face. Finally her suffering would be over. From his darkness Everdawn would rise again.

Inches from his fingertips she hesitated. The words her grandmother spoke to her centuries ago, when the Lyonese razed the lower forests, filtered back to her.

"There is not just good and evil in this world, Little One, as there is not just light and darkness. Shadow stands between the darkness and the light as our kings stand between the good of our people and the wickedness of the humans. He will do what must be done to protect us, even things we would not do, for in shadow lies both a piece of darkness and a piece of light. This is a battle of shadows and darkness, not good and evil."

These words rang through her mind and an ember of hope bloomed in the ash-black pit of despair that was her soul. She pulled her hand back and sneered.

"Shadowed my soul may be, but I will never sell it to darkness!" She stepped back and began to weave her hands to call upon what magick that would come.

The railing, weakened by time and the elements, gave way. She did not scream as she plummeted the seventy-five feet to the rocks below. Her own life did not matter anymore, but she would see that this tower, this last hallowed Lhanin hold, would never be defiled again.

In her plummet she bound the last of her magick to the tower, sealing it with the energy her death would bring. Nethirdel would be denied any plunder from here as would all that ever find this place.

A single burst of light, and then her world slowly faded from her.

"I'm coming, grandmother," she whispered as death took her.

Nethirdel looked at the broken body and sighed. He suspected the eventual outcome, but it was his right to try. There would be another night for his darkness, and perhaps the next time he would claim another shadow before it could return to the light.

She never saw the stones that killed her. Before she hit, a warm light infused her and took her to the bosom of serenity she needed. She saw that like a great wheel, time and life would pass through the darkness to the shadows of twilight and finally to rise upon a new dawn. In this cycle, punishment for her deeds would be meted out, but as with all things, she, too, would come to that new dawn.

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