Next week I'll have a new flash piece and worldbuilding from Airthai's Southern Lands and a new map.
The Wizard and Shadows
One will come who will not carry a shadow. One will come that will walk always in the sun. One will come to free the north.
--Prophecy of the Sage Sha’alga’ar, the year 1985 (Translation into the common tongue completed in 3042)
Refugees had started arriving in the valley even before Winter began. They came from the north, fleeing to the southern plains and valleys to get away from the war between the Elves and Dwarfs that consumed the lands north of the Firewater Mountains. The Môrevallei Valley had always been a quiet place, keeping its own to its own, wary of travellers and even more wary of the strangers that arrived daily and even sometimes slept in the muddy streets.
She’ne’ar, wizard of the seventh order, arrived in town on the first Wednesday of the fifth month. He was following a small band of ragged people. His own scarlet robe was tattered. His dark, pointy hat had long since lost its shape in the daily rainstorms that plagued these lowlands. But he still had his staff of magical goldwood – and that counted for a lot in the world of wizards. He strode to the inn’s common room where room was at once made for him by the fire. He sat down and lit his pipe while he waited for his tankard of spiced ale to arrive. Though he stared into the fire, his ears did not miss one word of the conversations around him. It was not only humans that fled the war in the north. Talk among the locals and refugees were of people dying strangely in the night. Not the doing of nature, the poor folk seemed to have fought some kind of demon that only they could see. Something wrought by the Dark Lord of old, no doubt, sent south to place the free peoples in bondage. She’ne’ar sighed. He knew the beings’ true nature. He had found the shadows.
To lighten the mood one of the less sober gents began a rendition of Bring me another partridge or I’ll drink all your beer. It was after the fourth chorus that the wizard slipped away to the dark streets. It was nearing twelve o’clock. He took a small object from one of the pockets sown into his robe. One could call it a compass, though it did not show direction, but where the shadows lay. He wiped a strand of grey hair from his eyes and brushed against the burn scar he had sustained after his first clash with a skadu’sding – a shadow being.
The roads were dimly lit by moonlight and everywhere he could see figures moving stealthily or lying in a bundle under an eave. Here and there a fire had been lit and the faces crowding around the flames looked out at the dark with fear. Most seemed to scared to sleep. This had to be the village. The shadow beings were close; he could feel their taint. The Dark Lord had found a way to make them, and used them as agents in his armies. He never counted on being utterly defeated by the armies of his enemies. Those that had fought him never counted on his twisted creations still attacking them from the dark three hundred years later.
“Wys julself!” he said under his breath in the old tongue, hoping to lure them forth. But they must have found their prey. He felt a pulling sensation to his left and his old wound throbbed. He followed his heightened senses, making his way through the silver-lit dirt streets to the shanty houses of the poor. His aged hand clenched and unclenched around his goldwood staff. “Kom uit en wys julself!” he repeated and waited for their presence to call to him. To try and lure him to their darkness. He came to a small shack of a house.
The pain in his head flared and then died down as the skadu’sdinge found their target. More and more came to the house, leaving any other unwary person they had found to torture. They moved soundlessly, swiftly and no wall could keep them from entering where they had found prey. The wizard took up his staff and rent the old wooden door asunder. Splinters of wood billowed in a cloud of grey dust that covered the wizard in a thin film of dust.
He didn’t need to be able to see the creatures to see the dark magic reflections of the skadu’sdinge hovering above a golden haired boy barely fifteen years old. The boy was thrashing on the floor, his mouth opened to a scream that could not leave his throat. The rest of the family were left paralysed by the beings. Unable to move, barely able to breathe. All they could do was watch helplessly. The wizard strode into the room and stretched out his hands, his staff glowing in the darkness.
“Wyk! Wyk!” he shouted and light flared around him in a halo. “Ek beveel julle om te gaan van hierdie huis en hierdie seun! Gaan nou!” The skadu’sdinge stopped and turned to the wizard. Their leader took on the shape of a grey man and floated towards the wizard. He seemed to grin. At the same moment the skadu’sding stretched out his hand the wizard sent out a blast of magic and even as he felt the life ebbing from him, he heard the dying screams of the shadow’s spawn.
She’ne’ar fell to the floor utterly spent. His staff was broken and his head was throbbing. He motioned for the boy to come to him. In the moonlight from the road he could see the boy’s strong face and the wisdom and kindness his eyes contained. He took the signet ring from his right hand. At last he had found the One. The one that would fulfil the prophecy. He smiled through the pain and repeated the old words of the prophecy: “Een sal kom wat nie ‘n skadu dra nie. Een sal kom wat altyd in die son sal loop. Een sal kom wat die noorde sal bevry.”
The boy frowned and asked him what he was saying. It was difficult to concentrate on the boy’s voice. The boy pressed a cold cloth against his brow and it numbed some of the pain.
“You’re the One,” he said and gasped for his next breath. The shadows had at last been too much even for a wizard as strong as him to fight. “You’re the one that’s going to save the north.”
How strange, She’ne’ar thought. The moonlight seemed to fade from his sight, but the boy’s face seemed lit by the sun as he looked down at him. He felt the boy’s hand on his brow and heard him saying: “Rus in vrede, my vriend. Hê rus op jou nuwe pad.” Then the darkness came for a moment before being replaced by a blinding white light. He had done what he set out to do so many years ago. And now, at last, he could rest.
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