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The Mages and The Scepter of Zegwar: Prologue |
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Zegwar used to be a magical world with all the trimmings that came with it like creatures such elves and dragons not to mention mages. There was magic everywhere for those who wanted it. But of course with good things come the bad. The humans warred with all the other creatures using the magic that they found and they even fought against each other. These were the Magical Wars and they lasted a long time and were a very dark part of Zegwar’s history. Near the end of the Magical Wars there was a very talented but very wizard named Lintu. When he came into power the humans and creatures stopped fighting in order to put a stop him. He dedicated himself to the study of dark and arcane magic and forged himself a weapon of unimaginable power. It was a magical Scepter and the most power device on the planet called the Scepter of Zegwar.
It was made out of the golden wood of Nenzia in the great and eternal tree that vanished the day he cut from it. The was wrapped around three glass spheres. The first and largest was filled with dirt from sacred land The second sphere was full of water from an enchanted lake. He later destroyed both the lake and the land but purging them of their magical properties so no one could use its power again. The last and smallest sphere held, within its magical glass, the blood of an elder unicorn. It was the most powerful object in existence but it is useless without the Key, a magical artifact embedded in the wood composed of pure magical energy trapped in a small piece of metal, the kind that could not logically exist but did in the shape of an inverted triangle.
He used this Scepter for incredible evil and killed many people. And as long as he had it he could not be stopped. Until a powerful force known as the Powers That Be, strange ascended beings that watch over Zegwar, could stand by no longer and took matters into their own hands, not that that actually had hands because as they were ascended onto a higher plane of existence they had no bodies and therefore no hands. But they were going to stop him. So they endowed seven humans, children, with special powers beyond those of any mage and gave them powerful guardians called Kinwas with which to fight Lintu. Each of these seven were held under the domain of one of the Zegwarian Spirits: Earth, Water, Wind, Thunder, Flame, Light and Darkness.
Together they were able to separate Lintu from his awful weapon and used it to banish him from Zegwar to a dark dimension known as the Shadow Realm. However they were not able to kill him or destroy the Scepter. So they took it and hid it away for ever. And once they had done that the Magical Wars were over at least for a very long time. They had hoped it would be forever but that was not to be although the peace did last long after they were gone.
It took millennia for the Wars to come back. The next Magical War started with the King of Zegwar. A horrible ruler called Calis Karen. His mother had named Caliso but he himself had dropped the “o” preferring the crude pun that aptly described the manner with which he ruled over his kingdom. He was horrid tyrant and his people hated them. They tried to rebel quite often but they always failed. He was very adept at controlling them through fear. His reign was strong and absolute and he had used his power to send all of the magical creatures on Zegwar fleeing for safety. They had been in hiding for decades before the story of the Great Zegwarian Mages began. No one had seen as pixie for some twenty odd years. He had also outlawed magic for any who were not his closest followers. He burned magical books and killed any human who showed signs of being able to control the supernatural.
Thus Calis was able to control without any true worries. He was careful since the beginning and this made confident. He was positive that there were none who could oppose him now. And in this he was wrong for there was one that he did not fear all and should have. But he was overly confident and one night several years before the story began he sat in his grand library with a girl on his lap and he was talking to her.
“One day, you shall rule this land just like I do,” said Calis. There was terribly wrong with his voice and the way that he chose to speak to her. It was as if it was intended to be casual but there was maliciousness there hidden under his thick, fake smile. But the girl did not seem to notice. She was preoccupied with spinning the large ceramic globe standing next to her.
“Yes, Daddy, just like you do,” said the girl, her finger tips lightly dancing over the surface of the globe as it spun around unnaturally. Her eyes had a slightly glazed over appearance to them and she was staring fixedly at nothing, an effect that made her seem dead inside. She was sitting stiffly on his lap as if it were an unpadded chair. She was dressed in an extravagant red, laced gown that draped all over her. She could not have been anymore than ten years old and with long dark brown hair done up in pigtails she looked like a doll with large glass eyes.
What neither of them knew was until the point were the girl had spoke they had were being watch by another girl. This girl appeared to be of the same age as the girl in the room but other than in that they were utterly different. They looked similar but it was in the eyes that held nothing of the same attributes. Unlike the dead, glass gaze of the girl sitting with Calis this girl had sharp intense eyes that seemed to absorb all of the tiniest details around. When looking in her eyes anyone could see her process all of these small details of surrounds in an instant. She was smart. They were also dressed differently. In contrast to the elegance of the other girls red gown this one was clothed in a simple brown servant girl’s dress.
After the girl spoke to Calis the one who had been watching left in disgust, hurrying down the hall. She knew she hadn’t been seen by them, she was rarely seen as she skulked about the halls of Calis’s castle. She had a talent for staying in the shadows that seemed to ooze out of the walls and the floor due to the evil man who owned and the utter lack of true light about the place that this girl abhorred very deep with in her soul. She heard footsteps from behind her and hide in one of the small niches that occurred naturally in the maze like design of the castle’s halls.
A woman walked past her. She was only in her early forties but already her hair had been striped of its color as had her face. The straw-like grey strands were pulled back into a tight bun that reveal her think and ghostly face. She was also wearing servant’s clothing and she was holding a candlestick as she prowled through the halls, obviously also in secret. When the girl saw her she let out a sigh and stepped out. The woman let out a gasp when she appeared seemingly out of thin air.
“Child, you gave me a fright,” said the woman, “You shouldn’t stalk about this place like and sneak up on people. Not here.”
“I gave you a fright?” asked the girl, “Salin, you nearly scared me out of my skin. I thought you were him.”
“He’s still in the library as is she.”
“Why is he in there? It’s not like he reads. I doubt he even knows how.”
“Why do you think he is in there?” asked Salin, keenly looking at the girl. She clearly wanted to know what she actually thought about King Calis. The girl looked back down the hall toward the library.
“I think he’s in there too keep me out.”
“Oh?”
“He knows I can’t do my work if he’s there, too risky. And he doesn’t want me to learn anymore than I already have.”
“How much have you learned, child?”
“I’m getting closer, Salin, I know it. That’s why he’s doing so much to keep her away from me, where I can’t protect her.”
“Do you really think you can stop him?”
“Not yet. I can’t figure it out all the way yet.”
“Figure out what?”
“Everything he does he does for a reason.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t know why he killed my mother yet.”
“He didn’t kill your mother. He couldn’t have.”
“I know what I saw, Salin, and more puzzling is that he let me see it. I know that he knew that I was there that day. By now he must know that I watch almost everything that he does within these castle walls.” Salin glanced down the hall too.
“How much longer do you think that you can keep this up?”
“As long as I need to, for her I will. To protect her as I was meant to. One day I will stop him that’s a promise, Salin. For all of Zegwar, everyone needs me, now more than ever. I must protect the world at all costs. Protecting her is the beginning of that.”
“And if she gets in the way?” That stopped her.
“I’ll deal with that bridge when I get to it.”
“What’ll you do?”
“I’ll save the world.” She walked away and Salin watched her.
“For Zegwar’s sake I hope so.” She walked by the door.
“The world is dirty,” said the girl in the room and Salin shivered. Such evil, how could such a man be stopped? And surely the girl on his lap was just as evil. She looked back at the girl who’d left, it was up to that one now. No one else was in the position to do the good that she could.
“And what about her?” asked Calis.
“She’s dirty too.”
“Yes, we’ll have to cleanse her.” Salin shivered. She knew all to well what that meant. She could not fathom why her little charge stayed in the place. She wanted to save the girl, Salin was not sure if that was even possible anymore. Calis was horrible and if his precious doll woke up and saw that, well, it could be worse. He’d completely brainwashed her, if she saw her father as dirty as he really was, well that would be the end of him and perhaps the end of the world. They could control Calis a little, trick him so easily for he was an idiot. But that girl, in her way she was intelligent. Smart and evil, a bad combination and brainwashed to top it all off. All the hope of Zegwar rested on Salin’s young charge.
 Zegwarian310 · Sat Jan 26, 2008 @ 04:58pm · 2 Comments |
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