Shadow's Rising - Prologue

Shadow's Rising

Arancaytar Ilyaran

Prologue

Silence. Nothing but complete, soundless silence. Totally unbroken, seeming almost unbreakable, the silence hovered over the tall stone obelisk like a vulture circling over a fated traveler in the far-off desert of Kiret to the East. Not even nature herself dared to make a single noise around here; it was a calm, clear night almost completely devoid of clouds in spite of the late, cold season, and barely a breeze stirred the long grass stalks, as was usual in these parts. Unobstructed by the clear night air, the two moons shone brightly down upon the flat plains of grass; the huge yellow disk of Rinjo in the very zenith of the sky, every crater visible in the dim glow of its surface, and the small, fiercely burning silver sickle of Lyrissia, hovering at the edge of the sky its lower tip still touching the hills in the northwest: Lyrissia, the errant vagabond, who in the cold months of winter would reverse her path to rise not in the East, over the mountains seen from here, as was common for the other moons, but in the Northwest. The stars shone as clearly, but were faint next to the light of the moons. Almost obscured by Rinjo's soft glow, the Mariner's faint stars were barely visible further on in his orbit. Only his brow, composed of the three brightest stars of the night sky, was clearly discernible. Between Rinjo and Lyrissia stood the Unicorn, her fore hoofs upright in the air, her horn almost as bright as the Mariner's brow, but well nigh obscured between the two bright moons. Soon, the Hunter, with his bow and blood-tipped arrow cocked, would rise above the horizon, later followed by Red Blethar, the Bloody moon that always glowed with a dark, ominously red color: Blethar, the bloodhound of the Hunter. This, unbeknownst to most, was an event that had not come to pass in the sky of Kerran for a full millennium, nor would it again for another thousand years. The light illuminated the surrounding prairie and the coal black stone almost as bright as day, but the otherwise dark, star-sprinkled sky was unmistakably that of a clear Autumn midnight, the weather already trapped in the cold season: Too cold for snow, and too dry for rain.
For most of the beasts of the southern continent of Atharellia, the time of hibernation had yet to start, and even on such a cold night the surrounding plains might have been alive with night-hunting predators fattening themselves up for the long sleep. But no living thing could be seen or heard within miles. No one ever went here. Even animals seemed to avoid the dark, ominous spike that the ground thrust into the glittering star-filled sky here like a forewarning forefinger spelling doom. The humans had their superstitions, but the animals had their instincts to warn them. Even in the bright moonshine, the black stone seemed to swallow the light totally, only sparse glistening sheen reflecting from its jagged, irregular edges, the cold reflected moonlight giving the obelisk and its surroundings a ghostly and unsettling atmosphere.

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