Knight: Tracks of Darkness Page 9

fascinating things I found would take away from the sense of urgency I am trying to exude in this essay.

  After evading my enemies, I found the ruins of Omeneir’s grand library, where I discovered that many scrolls and books were still magically intact. I dispelled and copied many of these writings onto Chef Woe’s famous edible scrolls. Some were dated as far back as the first era. We all know that anything we write on an edible scroll can be ingested and instantly etched to the part of the brain that processes and stores memory. I could not contain my excitement in there, and it nearly cost my life. Again, I was attacked and waylaid by sentinels of stone who were built into the architecture and instructed to attack any intruders. After thousands of years, it appeared they were still obedient to the tasks handed to them by long dead curators. And they were still quite capable and well versed in war and military tactics.

  Back here at the university, I sat and poured through my findings from Omeneir’s grand library. The scrolls revealed, among other long forgotten things, that the original copy of Knight: Tracks of Darkness was entrusted into the library’s care, where it was exalted above every other book, and the book was taken down every year for its story to be told during the festival of Manzil, a celebration that lasted twenty-eight days.

  Then, on the thirty fifth year of the first era (35 1E), the wizards gathered together and took their leave of Omeneir forever. They scouted several pieces of land that were highly prized and magical and with the help of the dwarves, they carved them out of the ground, fitted them with deep magic and dwarf tech, and crafted them into moving islands.

  There were six islands for each discipline of magic: the hallowed isle of Azurea for healers, the desert isle of Aredea for illusionists, the falls of Evendara for mystics, volcanic Valeon for war mages, the misty isle of Engodde for conjurors, and the garden isle of Waylake for alchemists. One central island called Aegea kept the other isles together as they revolved around her.

  In 36 1E, shortly after the wizards parted, Omeneir was left to her own devices, and she was destroyed by the meteor. Nothing in the scrolls indicated a culprit, a motive, or a conspiracy, but all throughout my findings, the number twenty-eight scrawled in red continued to appear. Omeneir became the seventh isle of necromancy, though the isle was never recognized by Aegea, and it drifted along on its own power. The isles fought Omeneir intermittently for many decades.

  According to the Chronicles of the Wizardly Wars, Dead Tree, the father of necromancy, sought the original book desperately. Indeed, it was believed that his wars against the Aegean Isles were solely motivated by attaining that great prize. There is no telling what Dead Tree could have done with such a book. Its ancient magic and the oaths that were sealed into its make—and even the materials used to create it—could have given Dead Tree the advantage he needed in the wars. But the book was hidden so well that it was lost by both sides.

  The book resurfaced again on the isle of Azurea in 68 1E. It was presented as a wedding gift by the mystics of Evendara to Princess Galen Savoi of Azurea. Her marriage to Heth Lark of Aredea was frowned upon by the Wizard King and many of the other isles. It had only recently been discovered that those who were gifted with the powers of the Illusionists would eventually go mad. They were able to craft illusions so believable that the caster himself accepted them as reality.

  For this reason, the wedding had to be stopped; the blood of Illusionists and Healers could not be mixed, and the Aegean Civil War dragged on from 68 1E to 98 1E, a thirty year war. The war was fought between a ) those who believed that a wizard should marry any wizard, regardless of his or her school and b) those who felt vehemently that the blood of one school should not be mixed with the blood of another.

  It was after the end of this long war that Queen Margaux summoned the greatest Aegeans together and established the esoteric law, a magical canon that Queen Margaux approved and, with her awesome power, she mixed it with the blood of all Wizard Kind.

  Esoteric law was established for one sole purpose: to protect the wizard from himself.

  None who live today know how the law was made and passed through each generation. Nobody knows the exact laws that were established. We do know that soon after the esoteric law was established, there was peace among the Aegean Isles, ambassadors were sent out to the nations of the world, and their only qualm was with Dead Tree, his necromancers, and the seventh dreaded isle of Omeneir.

  Dead Tree attacked and gained possession of the book after Esoteric law was established. The Necromancer War of 70 1E was a push by the isles to regain the book. It was a long war with no clear victor. Every Aegean man and woman who fell in that war were re-animated and pressed into the necromancer’s service, and those who were captured by Dead Tree were enthralled. He became more powerful even than the Wizard King. Eventually, Aegea made an uneasy alliance with the dwarves, who were no strangers to battling the undead in their deep mines, and Dead Tree suffered one crushing loss after another until the war was over.

  According to the scrolls, the Aegeans learned that Princess Galen Savoi was among those who were captured and enthralled by Dead Tree. Her husband Heth Lark infiltrated Omeneir alone and rescued her, only to discover that she was half dead by the necromancer’s fell art.

  Seeking vengeance for what was done to his wife, Master Lark went alone into Omeneir with his illusion skill and made all the necromancers believe that they were alive again. For centuries, Dead Tree and the necromancers thrived peacefully as though they were living, breathing men and women of old Omeneir. They had festivals and holidays. They elected senators and ministers of state. They were so entranced with the illusion, that they even established trade with the elves for artifacts of power that were lost when the meteor hit.

  Heth Lark fled with Princess Galen Savoi to the falls of Evendara and they took the original copy of Knight: Tracks of Darkness with them. They hoped to deliver it back to the mystic children who lived under the falls, where many wizards believed it rightfully belonged. But the couple was attacked on the way and forced to flee to Aredea, island of illusion. The attackers were masters in every school of magic, and the number twenty-eight was stitched in red on the shoulder of their dark, hooded robes.

  Princess Galen Savoi took the book from Heth Lark’s hands and opened it in the middle of Aredea, where the source of illusion magic was exceedingly powerful. The book’s pages came to life. Heth Lark and the Princess were forced to relive every moment of Knight: Tracks of Darkness. They lost the mysterious group that pursued them, but sadly, they did not survive the ordeal.

  The book remained wide open in the land of Aredea, and for centuries there was nobody powerful enough to go near it. Strangely, I found a parallel to this story in the Loreshare of the Onda Tribes, in the dissident scriptures. It mentions a mysterious book of immense power suspended in mid-air over a mystical place called the Alam [uh-LOM]. The book is guarded by a ferocious sentinel who stalks the Alam like a fearsome lion. I could not help thinking this fearsome lion could be none other than our friend, Jurel Forlorn. Is he here among us? In the waking world? Is he guarding the original copy of Knight: Tracks of Darkness? The story itself suggested as much.

  But the Loreshare is sacred scripture with no historical reliability whatsoever. And the dissident scriptures are condemned even among the faithful.

  The scrolls did not yield any more information concerning the book’s whereabouts after it was lost in Aredea. For some reason, the Lucient Empire worked tirelessly to make sure we didn’t remember anything that happened during the first era.

  But the scrolls did mention that there was a mass exodus of wizards enthralled by Dead Tree who fled his terror and escaped to Zambaur, that wondrous city built by the dwarves. This bit of a would have been meaningless if there wasn’t an attempt to blot it out on the scroll with the same blood used to write the number twenty-eight on other pages.

  There was no better place, in my mind, to hide such a powerful artifact. The dwarves learned how to negate
the magic of the elves, a discovery that cost them greatly. I had to visit the Prison Kingdom of Zambaur, even if it meant defying Shin-do, the Warden King.

  Setbacks with chasing a proverbial dream.

  King Josef Saroufim wrote a letter on my behalf to the Warden King, to grant me passage therein, and with the letter in hand I made the long trip to Zambaur, I was permitted by the Warden King to enter but I had some trouble leaving. His heavy Minotaur guard escorted me straightaway to Zambaur’s central spire where I foolishly allowed myself to be clasped in heavy chains. I was brought before Shin-do himself, where he read the contents of King Saroufim’s letter to me. It turned out the Wine King of Saroufim betrayed me; the letter was a list of charges against me. Among these ridiculous charges were, openly aiding the poor and disinherited, falsifying ancient history, seducing the Wine King for a simple letter and curiosity about the dealings of men unbefitting of a woman. After spitting on my charges and claiming that I had nothing but contempt for Shin-do’s court, I was beaten and cast away into Zambaur’s deepest dungeons. Apparently, other charges were added: a willingness to be clasped in chains (signifying guilt in an