Prologue: Opening Salvo
And Kali said to them:
‘By chaos be reborn.’
It was the perfect night for a massacre.
Moonlight descended on the desert, and stars marched out in force to support their celestial Queen. They were many, but they were silent. So silent that Gideon could hear how the sands swallowed the click of his sandals.
His black eyes swept over the city in the distance after he found a rock to sit on.
“What a sight.”
Titanic spikes jutted out of the earth surrounding Dagon, forming a dome. Between them ran a veil of mana so luminant that the shield’s lighting devoured that of the soldiers in the sky. Behind the barrier and stretched along the walls were guard towers. And when Gideon breathed in, he could smell their work: the carcasses of hundreds of inferior Shuras rotting in the decaying heat.
The defences reminded Gideon of his mother. Of how she used to cover him in a thick blanket of silk, wishing him the good night’s rest he needed after a hard day of playing in the garden.
Sleep well, my King, she whispered as she closed the doors too quickly for him to warn her. Yet this time, when the metal contraption clicked shut, it wasn’t a sorcerer who crept out of the shadows but Gideon.
They should’ve checked under the bed. He grinned.
“What a waste,” the voice came from behind.
A crease formed between Gideon’s eyebrows. The squeaking of Lennox’s tight leather pants reached his ears before he even turned. When he shifted his gaze towards his companion, he was greeted with the honey-skinned man stroking the pink feathers of his coat.
Gideon shook his head.
“Couldn’t you have worn something less eye-catching?”
Though the two were a significant distance from the towers, the possibility for discovery remained. Covert action would go a long way.
Lennox stuck out his tongue.
“I paid an enchanter two Shurapi for the occasion.”
Gideon sighed when he noticed the fluctuations of energy the clothes emanated. Two Shuraian Pieces for a cloaking spell…excessive indecency truly was the enemy.
“Agreed,” Gideon finally responded to the original remark.
The fortifications were a sight to behold. But Priestess Hera—who managed them—was using them inefficiently. The thorns poking out of the earth near the city had a single purpose: act as a medium for the barrier. Leylines ran through them. And when enough mana was pushed across the veins, the shield would activate. How the Priestess did that currently was akin to dropping an entire sea on a bathtub, hoping some water would stick. Did it work? Yes. But it was wasteful. If Gideon hadn’t known beforehand that this was her work, he would’ve thought it the product of an amateur.
Why the Primals saw fit to bless these monkeys is beyond me.
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Lennox pressed the tip of his foot into the ground and pirouetted.
“So, why did I pay this much to follow you out here?”
Disregarding the behaviour with practised ease, Gideon focused on the artefact nestled in his hand. It was a small, palm-sized sphere, almost ordinary in its simplicity, except for the intricate seal etched onto its surface.
“To create some excitement for the young Balancers. That’s all.”
Stopping his circus act, Lennox moved closer to inspect.
“With this little thing?”
“This little thing,” Gideon rolled the circle between the grooves of his palm, “is a piece of Shura Sorcery.”
Lennox stroked his chin with his index finger.
“I thought that brand of magic was long dead?”
“Oh, the Conversion made sure of that.” The drum in Gideon’s voice deepened as he looked at the orb. “Not a single pureblood still uses it, but vestiges of that golden age remain.”
“Golden age—,” Lennox chuckled and waggled his finger, “—your patriotism is showing, Gideon.”
The man in question laughed. “My apologies. But look closely, my friend. Don’t you feel anything?”
He raised the piece of lost magic up in the sky so the light would hit it at a different angle. Lennox scrutinised the sphere. The whites inside his eyes spread as the seconds passed.
Lennox drew his head back.
“Don’t tell me…”
Gideon slapped his knee.
“Ashura spell craft.”
His voice was a whisper, yet there was a drum to it. A power. As if saying the name alone was enough for a Primal to descend and strike down whoever dared to utter it. Gideon bared his teeth. To borrow power from a Shura and use their abilities was one thing. But to draw on an Ashura, who were to the rest of their race what a king was to a peasant—
He couldn’t help the cackle that escaped his throat.
“—What do you think it will do?!”
Pebbles crunched underneath Lennox’s feet as he took a step back.
“Gideon, this is lunacy even for you. There’s a reason they banned it.”
Despite her flaws, the universe was fair. There was no such thing as a free lunch. No such thing as using a power outside your control and walking away without earning retribution. But Gideon’s eyes remained fixed on the item.
“You don’t have to be here.”
His lips curved upwards at the sight of his only friend.
“This burden is mine and mine alone to carry.”
Lennox’s muscles contracted out of reflex, but he forced himself not to move.
“And let you steal all the glory?” His lower lip trembled as he spoke the words. “No way.”
Gideon placed a hand over his heart.
“Always knew I could count on you.”
His companion scoffed.
“At least tell me which deity it is from,” he demanded.
There was a pause where Gideon took a deep breath.
“She who is both discord and tumult.”
The hairs on Lennox’s bare chest stood up as the seal on the artefact dissolved, vanishing into white clouds that billowed and dissipated.
“A cyclone of havoc in the cosmos—”
A humming shattered the silence that followed, steadily growing in intensity.
“—in the pit of her chaos perpetuates a battle older than the universe.”
A beam of purplish light erupted from the sphere, piercing the night. The sky cracked. Lines in the form of lightning spread across the atmosphere, which pulsated with an energy that had never been meant to enter this realm.
Gideon fell to his knees.
Then, with a sound like the ripping of a massive fabric, the heavens tore open as if someone had taken a giant fist and slammed it through the expanse. The edges of the hole shimmered with a kaleidoscope of colours, strange and unnatural.
“What in the name—”
An enormous eyeball peered through the wound in the universe.
Within an instant, the barriers surrounding Dagon crumbled apart, and a shriek with the city at its centre howled across the lands.
Gideon’s nails dug into his forehead. Blood poured out of all his orifices, yet his laughter rumbled through the dunes, even as a voice burned itself into the mind of both men.
Eshtalyn, the Watcher, gazes upon the realm of Men.
His command is: FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!
…
In a vacuum so far removed from all life and light, that existence itself was a mere concept, a being stirred. Its finger twitched, hovering on the precipice of a decision. It shouldn’t. It knew it shouldn’t. But though the environment was the deepest of black, the images in their mind were vivid in colour.
Not a second later, a portal opened.
There was a shift in the void as something stepped through.
Then, the portal closed.
In the profound silence that followed, a most dreadful voice cascaded through the cosmos, causing creation itself to vibrate.
“Feelings. Always. Win.”
The being scoffed, making the waves disappear as quickly as they had risen, and inexistence once more claimed its dominion on the abyss as it returned to its tranquil slumber.