How
do you lift a weapon against someone you once loved?
Valarians
prepare for winter. Many died in summer, more will succumb to the cold. While
waiting for the opportune time to strike, Margus secretly begins a different
kind of campaign: soul snatching. Having lost his army, he now rebuilds it with
the souls of people in despair after the violence of summer’s confrontations.
Torrullin
steps blindly into Vannis’ final prophecy. It brings him a great gift; it also
leads to terrible betrayal. In the aftermath there is a change in the Valla Dragon’s
place of residence, and Saska abandons Torrullin, leaving him in need of
diversion. Belun of the Centuar is suspicious of the strange vanishings and it
drives Torrullin offworld to find a ward against soul snatching, to end Margus’
reign of terror. He enters the forges of flame, and the man who emerges is
reformed of fire to unleash annihilating heat.
Uninvited,
Torrullin enters the Dome of his Guardian father, Taranis, employing a darkened
doorway most Guardians believed inoperative, to become the harbinger of final
days…
The
Dragon Circle completes the forging of Torrullin Valla. The ambivalent Rayne’s
tale began in the shades and shadows of a prejudiced world and moved into flame
and fire, and now a new future unveils …
Chapter 1
Genius and
insanity are engraved together on the same face of a coin.
~ Awl
Valaris
HE NO LONGER possessed an army. His symbiotic Horde
succumbed to the Guardians’ symbiosis enchantment. It was a terrible
manipulation; a body received a soul and a soul suddenly possessed a body, a
melding they sought desperately to repudiate. More surrendered to summer’s
annihilating weather. The few who survived both symbiosis and weather died in
the Western Isles by the Enchanter’s hand.
He was now utterly alone in his quest.
Even his partner in wickedness, the dara-witch Infinity, surrendered her long
life to Guardian strength, leaving him without support. He was utterly alone,
yes, but he was not about to surrender his quest.
Victory, therefore, required something
incredibly special.
Then he found it. The perfect dungeon.
The absolute perfection of it inspired
a new path, the discovery of that something special.
Weeks of crawling through dank caves
and filthy tunnels to emerge bloodied and soiled finally offered up this
extraordinary gift.
Margus swiped mud-encrusted hands over
an even filthier tunic, eyes manic with anticipation. He had outdone himself;
this was unqualified genius. The cavernous space, buried deep, was impossible
to find, and utterly soundproof.
The perfect place to bind souls.
Poetic justice. The perfect revenge.
THE FIRST WAS a young woman. He found her curled up
for the sleep of oblivion in a hollow within the roots of an ancient tree.
Valaris of the present remained
drenched and was difficult to traverse. It separated Valarians not only in
circumstances, but also in geography. Many wandered alone across wastelands,
hoping to find others, searching for aid. Others simply abandoned presses of
people to wander off into isolation, the better to deal with grief, the loss of
hope.
A perfect set of factors for one
seeking anonymity. In these early stages of setting new plans in motion, he did
not desire to inadvertently trip over a sanctimonious Guardian or two.
The young woman was starving, near
death. On her own, she would not last a day more, and there was no one in the
vicinity to come to her aid, not that he cared whether she lived or died. It
was a matter of the simplicity inherent in her weakness, for he was out of
practice. The time since his previous reap until this, while not long, had
leeched from him the energy and focus required. She was therefore the perfect
first victim.
His little trial run.
She was also young; he had discovered
youth lent a torn soul certain strengths, such as the fires of despair igniting
swiftly to burn with intense heat, and that heat led to a terrible need to
unleash hate.
Margus knelt beside her and brushed her
fair hair from her cheek. So sweet. So perfect.
An instant later, she screamed.
Then she was eternally silent.
HE FOUND OTHERS. Many wandered in isolated places,
aimless and hungry; several had given up trying. For some hope was dead, never
to be resurrected. They were no more than walking dead. Most were alone,
although a few straggled together, their desperation making fools of their
efforts. They were men, for the most part, but he stumbled over a number of solitary
women also.
It was a truth he encountered few
children; either they were too weak to wander and died were they lay, or they
had succumbed in uncountable numbers in summer. Children, as souls, were
inefficient anyway, and he thus ignored them when he did find them.
He was selective with the men and
women. He tracked those alone, unmarked by others, and chose them young, and he
took them only when near death, injured, or wholly lost.
Thereafter he ferried each soul to his
perfect place, a matter of thought over distance, and immediately commenced their
training. For the most part this initially entailed keeping them trapped in the
abysmal lightless dark. He permitted them a mere hour of light per day. It
enraged them beyond the ability to measure.
Seven now, bound to his cause.
In a sense he returned to them purpose.
Useless and helpless before he came upon them, they now possessed something to
strive towards, a goal. One could call it hope, if one desired a label. How
their silent screeches sounded akin to music when he doused the single candle;
how entrancing that a soul screamed through the spaces of worlds.
He chose well. Not even a rumour of a
whisper escaped his dungeon. Once more soltakin would touch Valarians, but this
time death would come to them from their own. Poetic justice indeed. Something special, of a kind to set an enchanter
upon a path to darkness.
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