Prologue/Chapter One

My idea here was to post a chapter or two a day, depending on length. So today you have the prologue, and chapter one! Yay!

Prologue

Atanax stood at the edge of the field, surveying the damage that had been done before her. Could she remember ever having seen so much death before her eyes? She had heard of such things, yes, had been told of these things countless times before, but to see them with her very own eyes, to have had taken part of them... was almost too horrible to bear.

The two armies had faced off before her, she could feel the fear from the Camriens as the Serrians yelled at them with such intensity. "Death before surrender," they chanted over and over again, clashing their swords onto their shields making such a scene that even she felt her heart go cold. How could they defeat such a ferocious enemy? And before she could answer, before she could rethink herself being on that field, the Serrians rushed forward. The Camriens could do nothing but charge as well.

Suddenly they had clashed, men and women fell around her and as much as she felt fear for them and for herself, she also felt rage and instinct. To only way for her to live, was for them to die. Was she merciless when she grabbed Serrian after Serrian, striking them down with her Elven power. Weren’t they merciless when they had murdered her people? Did that mean that she was just as terrible as they were?

No. These people had chosen to die. "Death before surrender," they had screamed, and their wishes had been granted. Those who fight for a wrong cause will die for it as well. These were not innocents being slaughtered, they were warriors being defeated. Warriors who fought for greed and out of foolishness.

It wouldn’t make the images go away, it wouldn’t make the feeling go away either, but still she stood there and looked upon the field reassuring herself that they would go away. She was here to protect her people. If Camsirtch fell, her people would fall with them. She was here for her daughters, she was here for her son... And she was here for him...

"Atanax?"

Atanax turned her head and came face to face with Zix, his face was still smeared with blood and dirt from the battle. She had kept an eye on him through the whole thing, how could she not? With the Crystal in his hands he was even more powerful than she was, and his enemies fell before him as though they were insects.

"I guess you want this back," she handed him the Crystal, its shine was dampened by the blood drying on it. He had given it to her almost directly after the battle, rushing to her side as fast as he could. "Take this," he had said. "That it and heal those who are beyond our help."

She had. As he went to his generals to talk about tracking down the remaining soldiers, she had walked through that field and looked for those beyond the help of doctors, she had found and healed as many Camriens as she could. She had done this, and all the while she had turned a deaf ear to the cries of the Serrians. They were not to be saved.

Death before surrender.

Zix took the Crystal in his hands and began to wipe off the blood with his tunic, though it was so blood-soaked that it did little to help.

"You must be tired."

She smiled grimly. "I’ll live."

"For today we will, and so will all the men whose lives you saved."

"Yes..." she closed her eyes, and all she could hear were the cries of the injured. "They will..."

"I thought..."

She looked over at him, he was looking down at the ground, looking nervous. She wasn’t used to him looking like that. She was used to him being strong and fearless.

"You thought what?"

"I thought you would be used to... this much death."

"Oh... because all my people were..."

Zix looked up. "Slaughtered?"

"I was going to say killed."

He looked into her eyes, and there was so much pity for her there, that she had to look away.

"We did fight you know... The Elves I mean. At first maybe it was a slaughtered... No, of course it was. We couldn’t believe that anybody was capable of such cruelty... We were in denial. While our mothers and father were being dragged away, we knew in our hearts that they’d come back. They never came back, and so we fought back... Magic against magic... And then it was too late," she looked back at him, expecting to find his eyes still staring her down, but he was looking towards the battlefield now.

"I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you."

"Neither can I, I was just a child. I suppose I still am..."

"Atanax," he was looking back at her now, though the pity was gone. Something else in its place, something she didn’t recognize. "Thank you for being here today, thank you for being here for my people... for me..."

Chapter One

"Atanax..."

Her eyes flickered open in the darkness, and she was alone.

"Atanax..."

She felt calm, almost sleepy, as though she had just woken up from a comfortable sleep. Her hurry, her anxiety, her guilt... all seemed little more than a memory. In this place she felt truly at peace. She didn’t ever want to leave this place. Yet that voice kept on calling her name. A strange voice too, sounding like it came from the back of it’s throat, like her people’s voice. It didn’t sound like a human mispronouncing her name, but an Elf calling out to her.

"Nagaem?" She looked around wildly trying to find the Elf, but there was no Elf to be found.

"I am the Orin." As far as Atanax could tell, there was no living creature in the darkness with her, but she was not completely alone. Before her stood a large bronze disc, maybe four feet in diameter. There was a line going from the top to the bottom. On one side was a human figure, with their arms outstretched, their hands disappearing into the line. On the other side was the mirror image. To Atanax, it reminded her of crossing through the mirror into here. Was that what it was meant to represent?

Behind the figures were rows and rows and writing she couldn’t read and the more she looked at it, the more she realized that she had never seen it before. Was it some sort of marker left here by the people who had traveled here before? Who had left it here? Why?

"Where are you Orin?" Atanax called out into the blackness.

"I am that which is before you." The Orin said calmly.

"Nothing is before me..."

"Nothing?"

She looked at the disc once more. It was still, dark, it was really only shadows in the darkness. Yet there was something else about this disc, something she could feel from it. It was like what she felt from the Crystal, that there was life in this object. There was more to this disc than met the eye, and she knew that she was indeed looking at the Orin.

"I expected..."

"A Human?"

"An Elf..."

The Orin laughed, and it was a sweet and melodic laugh.

"Where did you come from?"

"Do you know you are the first Elf I have ever met? Your race has never traveled through my plain. It is odd... you are returning home, and yet as far as I know, you left your home."

Atanax grinned. "Could have fooled myself too..."

"You are very curious creatures... I hope I see you one of your kind again. Now, I suppose you want to go back to your body."

She felt herself being pulled then, being pulled away from the Orin. Everything seemed to blur around her. She didn’t want to leave yet, there were questions she wanted to ask, and not just about the Orin itself, but where was she going? Where was the Crystal... Where was her body?

"ORIN!!! WAIT!!!"

She left the darkness then, the feeling she had of peace was suddenly ripped away from her and it was place by pain. It sheared through her, as though her body were being ripped apart... or maybe being put back together. Slowly her surroundings became clear to her, she was someplace small, she could barely breath, she felt dirt on her skin. She was underground, and still the pain tore through her.

She could hear herself screaming, feel herself clawing at the dirt above her. The Orin’s word’s echoed into her mind like a nightmare, "I suppose you want to go back to your body." This was her body... and this was her grave. She understood now. Her mind and left her body, had left it dead. She could only imagine what had been done to her lifeless body when the Serrians stormed into the cave and took Zix.

Zix... the thought of him only made her scream louder. Someone had to hear her, had to help her. Dirt fell into her mouth as she tried to dig her way out of this grave, she thought for sure that she’d suffocate. How much air did she have? Did she have any? She was going to die, she was going to die and with her Zix would die and her people would fail and everything she’d worked so hard to accomplish would fall to pieces.

Light. Light streamed through, she could see light through the dirt, and a shadow passing back and forth across it. She understood, and her screams of terror and pain turned into one of pelading. Someone was digging to her, someone was going to save her. She could feel herself breathing again, her heart calmed down. Everything was going to be alright, she was going to get out of here.

"HELP ME!!!" She screamed and tried grabbing the hands above her face, trying to pull herself out. There were other hands too, digging by her legs and her stomach, there was more than one person digging her out. She could barely feel the dirt on her anymore and then... The light blinded her as she felt hands pulling her out of her grave, she coughed, trying to get all the dirt out of her mouth and grabbed the nearest person and hugged them with all of her strength.

"Thank you, thank you." She heard breathing from the other person, but they said nothing. Slowly Atanax opened her eyes and looked at her rescuers and felt tears well in her eyes. Elves, a handful of young Elves. Her people had come for her. The people she was trying so hard to save had come to save her. "Thank you," she said, looking at each one. The pain she had felt before was nothing but a distant memory.

Atanax slowly pulled away from the young Elf she was hugging and looked at the young girl. She could have been no more than 11. She had light red hair and green eyes, green eyes opened wide in shock, tears falling down her cheeks. This face... this face seemed so familiar. It was almost like she was looking at herself when she was but a child.

"We’ve never seen an Elf die before," one of the boys said in awe. "And we’ve never seen one come back to life..."

She looked back at the young girl she was still holding. "You buried me?"

The young girl nodded.

Atanax nodded back. "It’s alright, I supposed I was dead..."

"...How...?" The young girl finally spoke.

"I..." she looked at the girl more closely. "I know you."

She nodded, there was pain in her eyes... but also... love.

"Why do I know you?"

The young girl started choking on her tears, she buried her head into Atanax’s shoulder and wept and wept. "Mehren," the girl sobbed, calling out to her. "I thought I’d lost you."

Suddenly Atanax understood who it was, and couldn’t find any words to say. ‘Mehren’ she called her, the only words of Elvish her people ever used. She could remember calling Nagaem that, and she could remember her children called her that. "Galma," Atanax whispered her daughter’s name and the young girl only sobbed harder.

This little girl Atanax was holding, was her youngest daughter.