Prologue – The Beginning Of The End
Endless sands stretched out into the horizon. A man, as if paying obeisance, falls on a knee, with his hands pressed together, he raises them with great heaviness and then follows with his head, slowly looking up at the sky. Anyone would have thought him to be making a prayer to the gods, perhaps he was, if not for the state of utter massacre around him.
For a thousand miles, nothing living could be seen. Dead bodies littered the ground father than the eye could see. Like black dye bountifully applied, many of the bodies seemed scorched from the inside out. Every one of these corpse were at least some hundred meters afar of, as though they tried to advance on him but were punished by the wrath of the Sun. Looking at the lone, living man more carefully, he knelt on a mixture of sand and ash, ash, the remnants of some who got too close to him.
Close up, his face could be seen with a deep gash from the right eyebrow, over his eye running down to the corner of his lips and ending at his thick white beard on chin, making all other cuts and bruises insignificant in retrospect.
The man had long fine silver hair that seemed full of wisdom, he donned robe that were as white as as purity. It seemed to repel all the blood and ash. He was missing the sleeves of his left arm, all up to his shoulder, instead what replaced it were different battle scars of various length and gashes that seemed to have run out of blood. A third of his white robe had torn, and his cassock underneath were not spared either and his muscular torso were visible.
Just in front of him, a broken staff lay, two-third of it standing straight, the other piece, on the ground, a few paces away. Behind him, where another relic should have been a few paces off, nothing…nothing guarded his back.
On his left, three pieces of his battered gauntlet lay. A few meters to his right, two unequal parts of a White staff lay. The longer half was buried in the ground and the other broken part, a few paces of.
To his right, a few paces behind him, speck of light unsteadily rose and moved to gather in his palms, a brilliantly shining small ball of light emerged. Brilliant as the light was, it did not illuminate anything, flickering in and out of existence as though it could not sustain its existence. He muttered inaudible words and It unsteadily rose up and finally blinked out of existence.
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Slowly, life's essence seeped out of him. Numerous weapons were embedded in him. Breathing his last, no one could survive this, after all, a multitude of weapons were stabbed into him. Spears, swords, daggers, arrows were buried deep into his back, all vying to cover every inch. They pierced his lung, severed his spinal cord, a long black sword was buried deeply between the fold of his back and shattered spine, it was lodged in his heart, almost supernaturally, his wounds tried stitching back but all to no avail, It gave up under the weight of the expectations.
He knelt there awaiting the cold embrace of nothingness. For all the time lived and knowledge gained, what awaited him, was unknown, what would be the judgement of a judge…
As the morning sun rose and the first warm ray of the sun hit his face, he thought ‘no matter where light travels , it always meets darkness awaiting it, darkness is everywhere light has never reached and it is always there after the light has gone…order emerged from chaos and now it returns into it’.
Today, fate had come calling. It had come at a time and fashion he had not foreseen. All his life, where he tread the world itself had trembled. Now it was over.
His mind wandered back to the beginning of it all. He remembered the last of them. That boy, full of hope and an indomitable spirit. Defying the gods and fates. He remembered his last words to the boy “the sky takes on shades of orange during sunrise and sunset, you know why? Its because that's the colour that gives you hope, hope that the sun will only set to rise again”
Then he felt it. A twinkle , a spark and then the fire. The flames of hope melted the cold embrace of despair. He made a decision. Sharp Pain racked his neck and he struggled with consciousness as he turned his head to look at the longer part of the staff. He summoned the last remnant of power from within and the staff took flight towards the heavens.
“He will know what to do.” he thought, with rising hope.
His single eye gleamed with power, and everywhere around him glowed with a golden radiance. The heavens must have heard him, for the the entire world lit up with a majestic light.
And just as the world lit abruptly, it also started to fade away. As the radiance waned and so also the man too. Slowly ceasing to exist. A single tear ran down his face and he smiled.
He was no more.