The Sundering
Chapter one-Iomeloth
He was as old as time itself. And some days he felt every moment of his long, long life. Today was such a day. Iomeloth stood at the very top of his tower and peered out into the lands surrounding it. Lush vegetations and beautiful waterfalls and streams made his tower paradise—but what good is paradise in the middle of hell?
Only his power—in the form of an invisible barrier—kept the terror and desolation that was the real world from encroaching. Iomeloth sighed heavily and raised his staff. A sliver and blue dragon flew to the parapet and landed gracefully, folding its silver wings.
“You have need of me, my lord?” came the dulcet voice of the Dragon, speaking only in the mage’s mind.
“Yes, Bryethamaru, take me aloft I want to see the lands.”
“My lord, nothing has changed since the last time you flew over them,” Bryethamaru assured him.
“I know,” said Iomeloth wearily,”I know.”
Bryethamaru nodded and knelt down so that the mage could mount him.
Once his precious passenger was safely behind his horned crest, the Dragon spread his wings and took to the sky.
They didn’t have to fly far the beauty of the mages land to come to an end. Only a few miles in either direction from the tower, the barrier ended abruptly and the naked truth of reality was glaring.
The stench was the first thing that the mage noticed, sulfur and brimstone coming from the volcanoes and burning forests. And then, just beneath the smell was the blood. The copper-coin-in-your-mouth stink of blood. Iomeloth stomach heaved in protest, but he kept it in check. It would be very unseemly to throw up on the Dragon.
Even flying so high up the mage could hear the screams and cries of the tortured. Humans. Those fragile creatures who were mere fodder for the stronger, crueler demonkind. Iomeloth shook his head and thought poor creatures! And Bryethamaru rumbled in agreement.
They look very much like he did, but they were not the same. He was neither human nor demon but a species entirely different. The power of the universe itself could flow from his fingertips, but even he did not have enough power to save every living human. The only reason that they had not been eradicated already is because that the demons kept the youngest females as breeders. The males were forced to impregnate the females after which the males were used as food. Soon the females would produce a new generation of female breeders and male fodder. The humans knew nothing but despair—they had never even heard of hope.
For eons, Iomeloth and his fellow mages had accepted this as the natural way of things, until one day the mage and the Dragon were standing on the parapet and Bryethamaru suddenly jumped off, unfolding his wings and sailing to the edge of the barrier. He returned with a squirming young boy of about eight in his jaws. Byre released the boy with a small thud. The boy jumped to his feet and rushed to the edge of the parapet, as far away as he could from both the mage and the Dragon and the mage. He faced them bravely, although Iomeloth could see his tiny fist trembling with fear.
“What have we here?” Iomeloth approached the boy.
The boy was filthy and dressed in rags, but the heart of a lion shown out of those dark eyes.
“I saw him burrowing under the barrier. There’s a hollow under a tree root that needs to be fixed,” came Bryes voice in their minds.
The boy looked up at the Dragon in surprise, “he can talk?”
“Yes, Bryethamaru—or as I call him, Brye—is very intelligent. He talks inside your mind.”
“He’s not going to eat me?”
“No!! Not at all. Come boy let’s get you cleaned up.”
Brye snorted in surprise at the boy’s forwardness, causing dark smoke to stream out of his nostrils. The boy moved away quickly.
“Watch you manners! We have a guest!” Iomeloth admonished.
“Guest!?! That ragamuffin?”
“Yes this boy I our guest and you will treat him as such.”
Brye rumbled his discontent but gave an almost imperceptible nod of his huge blue head.
“Fine, fine. Now let’s find you a bath….” Iomeloth ushered the boy down the stairs.
“And some food?” the urchin asked again.
“Yes, yes! Plenty of food also!”
What courage that boy had.

In the days that followed, Iomeloth found himself intrigued by the boy and soon the boy had a home. Iomeloth was alone most of the time, expect for Brye, and the boy was great company. He had a voracious appetite for knowledge and soon learned to read and write. And then, to the amazement of the old mage, he learned to do simple spells.
And through this brave boy, Iomeloth realized that he had misjudged the human race. They were intelligent—not low animals used for food.
And after that, he became acutely aware of the suffering of the humans and a desire to help them began to help them began to burn inside of him. A tiny flame soon became a raging fire.
He would find a way to save them!
Two hundred years passed and Iomeloth still had not found an answer. The boy grew up, matured, and grew old. When he died of old age, the boy left an irreparable hole in the old mage’s heart. And sadly he realized that he had never even given the boy a name he had just been “boy” all his life.
“I have done you an injustice. I will name you so that it can be carved on your tombstone and through the ages you will be remembered.” The old man promised. And he kept his word. A black obelisk was erected at the foot of his tower and carved into it was: “Baratha, the First Human Mage.”
A hundred more years passed and finally Iomeloth thought of a way to help the humans. Helping a few of them was easy, but he wanted to help them all. Every one of them! But he would need the help of his fellow mages—of the first.
The first were five beings who had first learned how to tame the primal energies of creation itself. They were the most powerful beings to ever walk the lands, even more powerful than the Evil Ones, being so ancient that they had no form, rolling across the land as a black mist, causing havoc and chaos where ever they went. They were the first evil and the five mages had defeated and destroyed nearly all of them. The first mages had conquered the first evil. And since then the mages were known as the first.
Iomeloth was the oldest and took the form of an old man, always wearing long rustling robes; he liked to think of himself as the purveyor of ancient knowledge and thought his white bearded countenance fitted the role nicely.
Tarquin Xi was the next oldest and took his cue from his mentor, also giving himself the appearance of an old, old man.
The next oldest was a female, the only female of the five, a beautiful dark haired woman named Jayetha.
She loved being the only female and had dallied with them all. Her form was that of a beautiful seductress and she loved enticing the other mages to her bed. Although truth be told she could have looked like an old hag and they would have still happily bedded her. After all, she was the only female in the group…
Yama Qu looked like a seasoned man with a beard and a pair spectacles perched on his nose. He had noticed them on a distant planet and loved the look and had worn them ever since, even though he had no need for them at all.
The rest of the first teased him for that one vanity and he would have discarded them, except that Jayetha once told him she liked them. Now, centuries later, he still wore them.
The youngest of the first took on the form of a young beautiful man. Ryoku-Ashi could not understand why Iomeloth and Tarquin Xi wanted to look like old men when they could have looked as young as he did. Of course he was the current paramour of Jayetha so that probably had something to do with his appearance. He was a strange combination of vanity and coldness. He loved himself and nothing else. Neither Jayetha nor Ryoku-Ashi loved each other—he was merely her latest lover and she was the grand prize to show off to the other mages. She fawned over him in

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 03.11.2010

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