Prologue Part 2

Or was it?

A slight rustle could be heard in the grass, and the soft rhythm of hoof-steps – definitely of a quadruped – in long grass, sounding loud against the silence. The silence was broken but for a moment. Little did it know that it would be broken even more savagely tonight, little did it know that after tonight, it would never be the same again, here or anywhere. The hoof steps stopped. A sound of cloth sliding on leather, followed by the wed thud of something heavy landing on the ground. A soft whicker from a horse. A moment of silence. Another whicker. Then footsteps. It was unbelievable how well the sound carried in this place; the total lack of background noises made audible even the most minute of sounds over a long distance. The non-existent ears of the equally non-existent observer, sharpened by the silence, can hear the footsteps coming slowly nearer. Where did the footsteps come from? The non-existent eyes cast around, searching. Footsteps have a visible source, no matter how eerie the atmosphere. The eyes move over the moonlit expanse of meadow, colorless in spite of the light. There! A dark shape, trudging nimbly – how do you trudge nimbly? – trudging nimbly and determinedly towards the stone. As the figure drew nearer, it turned out to be wearing robes that glistened in the moonlight, a sort of glossy, unadorned black. The figure itself was of average height and slender frame. It wore some kind of a black leather bag on its bag that weighed it down somewhat.
After a few minutes spent walking in silence, the figure arrived at the hill, walking for a moment beneath the darker, longer of the two shadows, the one cast by Lyrissia's brilliant radiance, then moving on. Up close, a female mage was recognizable, raven-black hair tumbling down her back in an untidy, sweaty mane, some of it falling on her face, giving a stark contrast of color: Her face itself was as drawn and white as chalk, her dark eyes – their color unrecognizable in the gloom – her eyes wide open, if with excitement and eagerness or with terror at what she was about to do was not clear. Her nose short, but incredibly narrow to the point of looking like a beak, yet not crooked. The skin, covering a sharp chin that looked as if it could stab someone, high cheekbones and a tall, narrow forehead, strained with an expression of both exultation and utter horror. Not wrinkled or creased, but smooth. A young face. Assuming she was a human – and there were hardly any elves in Atharellia any more –, one would have estimated her age to be less than thirty. Of course, the mages – and she was one; everything about her appearance screamed "Witch!" – had their ways of disguising their age, but she did not look a day beyond twenty five.
She was extremely nervous, and yet there was an air of dark determination and resolution about her. Her lips, narrow as a blade, curved upwards in an expectant, sinister smile. This woman meant business, that much was clear. What business exactly she meant was not. But it would soon be. Someone had written down what the stone did, what power it contained and what foolish and wicked things you could do with it once a thousand years had passed. The thousand years had nearly passed, the account had fallen into the wrong hands, someone had read the account, and someone was about to do something extremely wicked with the stone. It would yet have to be seen if it was foolish, and it was also a matter of where you stood. From her point of view, it was brilliant. She was about to embark on a career of tremendous power. The world was about to embark onto a nightmarish trip of oppression and darkness, darkness the like of which it had not seen for nearly a thousand years. Brilliant.
The mage, having reached the top of the hill, walked up to the stone at once, walked up to its jagged, yet mirror smooth dark, polished surface. Examining it carefully, almost reverently, gazing into its black, opaque depths, the mage reached out with one pale hand with slender, narrow fingers, and brushed the stone, hesitatingly, respectfully and longingly at once, but also seductively, persuasively; the touch had the hint of a promise. Under her breath, she murmured words.
"I have come for thee, Mordaures. A full thousand years thou hast waited, how does that feel to one of thy kind? A L'zothgwaur, one of the three arch-daemons, second in command on the infernal plane only to the Unnamed One himself, bound inside a stone on a silent prairie for a whole millennium. How boring. I shall offer thee something better, shouldst thou grant me thy power. Tonight, the sign of the Ravager is upon us once more, and I have come to set thee free. I have come to set free him that they call Shadow."