Todo
Need to figure out how to specify locations and timelines. I can use location codes and maintain a database of these. But the way I define characters, locations and significant times should be definable within the structure of the book, so that the code can be run without any prerequisites. For the most part, I need to build some kind of parser and, in the future, a highlighter for this structure. For Vim at least?
Prologue: The Crown and the Sceptre¶
The Wizards were going to lose.
After all, they had placed their hope in a fool who lay on the ground, nearly dead. Yagnik, the Overlord, kicked his half-brother Krono-Kroman’s body and sent it flying. He used the Energy to strengthen his kicks.
Kroman’s body slumped against the wall, lifeless.
It had always meant to come down to this. There was once a time when Wizards were considered more powerful than Warlocks but that time was long past.
The devastating mess that had once served as a throne room was flickering as the dome around the Wizards blinked from red to yellow and to red again. Heat filled the hemisphere, and lightning touched them, a bare reminder of the possible ways that they could die. A lie of course, their deaths would be slow.
The others in the throne room were what remained of the Warlocks. They laughed mockingly as Yagnik gestured at Kroman’s body.
“What did you think would happen, dear brother?” Yagnik stepped towards him. “Did you think that their lie would help you? Did you think you were one of them? A Wizard?”
Kroman’s body did not move. “So what if you are? Do you think it matters when I wear this?”
He touched the crown on his head, the source of his power. It was an artefact of legend, once barely a myth but it rested there, more real than life itself. It drew the Energy of the Three Worlds and filled him with it, amplifying his control over it. With it, no mere Wizard could surpass him. With the Crown of Incantations, Yagnik would rule the world.
He had savoured every moment that it took to break the fool, and it had taken a lot. Despite his shortcomings in loyalty, Kroman still had the blood of Overlords in him.
He descended the wide stairs that led from the podium on which his throne stood. It was a sight that filled him with glee. With this fool, this so-called redeemer, his half-brother dead, there would be no one to oppose him.
The throne room was silent, except for the silent sobs of one of the Wizards.
Barely satisfied, the Overlord turned to consider the others trapped inside the dome, their bleak hopes shattered by the might of the Crown of Incantations. He was going to make an example of them; this is what would happen to whoever challenged the power of an Overlord.
Conquerors had the right to rewrite history. The conquered were always the villains.
He walked towards the dome, thinking about how to make their last moments their worst when he almost stepped over a golden sceptre.
Now this, this was something impossible. He’d heard stories about the sceptre, how it was the focal point of tales of hope among those who remembered the past. Within it rested the hopes of the rebellion. The last person to wield it had walked through these halls like an unstoppable force. Sixty years ago, a Wizard had led the very fools now trapped inside the dome to challenge Yagnik’s father. No, not a Wizard. The Overlord reminded himself. Almost a god.
But now, the power would be his for the taking. The triumph made him drunk with pride.
His hand moved instinctively over the sceptre and he tried to use the Energy to lift it.
It didn’t budge. Strange. Embarassed, Yagnik bent down to reach for it.
As he was about to touch it, the emerald gem embedded on the top of the sceptre lit up, black lightning surged through the sparkling metal, making him jump back in alarm. The bottom end of the sceptre was crafted in the form of a hawk’s talon grasping an emerald snake. Yagnik was spellbound as the snake appeared to writhe in the grasp for a long instant before the sceptre shot towards Kroman’s body.
Krono-Kroman’s right hand rose up in reflex, the lightning ran through him and into the ground. The throne room began to tremble as a purple dome flashed into existence around Kroman’s body, hiding him from view.
A growl escaped Yagnik’s clenched jaw. After all his efforts, the wretch was still alive?
Gathering the Energy, Yagnik formed a protective shield around him. Even in his rage, he kept touching the crown on his head, reassuring himself that it was still there.
The purple dome flashed several times, each time hinting at what was happening inside. Krono-Kroman was on his feet, a majestic frame with the lightning pulsing through him. His clothes flapped as a blue fire surrounded him. Yagnik watching with growing horror and strange fascination as his half-brother’s auburn hair turned white and the sceptre in his hand flashed brighter than the sun.
Yagnik shielded himself with his hands, surprised that he couldn’t breathe properly, much less grasp the Energy which was flowing towards his half-brother now. What was going on? What was the fool doing? The light was blinding and he had to cover his face and watch through the gaps between his fingers.
Krono-Kroman threw his head back, his hair danced wildly behind him as he roared. The sceptre flickered one last time, and vanished. All that remained in that dome was something Yagnik had been taught to fear and cower in front of from childhood.
He lashed out, somewhat surprised that he was again in control of the Energy.
The whip-like lashing of fire and air struck the dome and somehow coalesced with it, the dome took in all the Energy he’d thrown into the attack. It did nothing. I must have forgotten to use the Crown.
Yagnik concentrated the Energy into a skin-tight layer around him, there was no need for a buffer that other Warlocks needed because of the Crown. It was far better than how the Wizards claimed to do so, after all, it was the legendary Warlords that had made this Crown.
The dome around Kroman converged inwards, the room was glowing, the gold and green tapestries turned purple, the white marble pillars splintered and cracked. The dome burst outwards, pushing away the other Warlocks around them and the Overlord wondered if it had spared him only because his half-brother had something much more humiliating in mind.
Lightning surged through the ground under Kroman’s feet as the purple glow died down. His skin now pulsated a deep blue, and his eyes – his eyes had no pupils, they were empty pools of black hatred staring right at him. A dozen tiny dots shone from inside his eyes, like stars. They no longer had any of the mercy that Kroman was famous for. Murderous eyes – brimming with power and hate staring right at the Overlord.
Underestimate me, will he?
Yagnik knew that the Crown was now useless; all hope of surviving this encounter had vanished.
The Overlord threw his hands forward, bringing down the roof and the Energy around Kroman warped, sending a pillar of light upwards. The light reduced the rubble to dust before it the ground. Not one speck of it touched the being at the epicenter of the chaos.
The Energy warped once agin and the pillars broke apart, yet the upper floor of the palace hovered in the air defying gravity.
This was the same power that had rattled the empire sixty years before. The same sight that had brought shivers to his father and grandfather. Before he became an Overlord, Yagnik grew up listened to stores of the Sorcerer and the legendary strength he possessed.
And now, one stood before him.
The Sorcerer began walking forwards and Yagnik, in panic, threw all the Energy the Crown granted him, although he felt like he was spitting on a forest-fire.
The raging chaos around the Sorcerer calmed down for an eternal moment before he raised his head, his eyes shimmering for another eternity before thin strings of blue flames shot out at Yagnik, taking the Crown from his head.
The Sorcerer raised his hand to catch the Crown and as soon as it was in his hand, the Energy warped once more and the Crown of Incantations vanished in a burst of light.
Kroman glowered at Yagnik and thrusted his right hand forth, and the Energy exploded.
The dust of days is thickest at dawn,
Rent by horizons west and east,
It mars the way to the Sun.
The Laughing God walks in the form of sin.
The Drunken Bard plays the Song Holy at dusk.
The Blue Man walks the waters of the Sea searching.
The Mother of All has abandoned our Father.
Lost in the caress of His desolation,
The Lightbringer cries and the World ends.
From the brink of despair shine three beacons,
For their coming the Worlds must prepare.
In their midst, Gods are dying.
For in their after there is another change.
The Overseer watches, his days numbered.
The Gatekeeper waits, his way blocked.
The Scribe writes, his inkpot empty.
The Tale of Many Tellings thus begins,
Sung silently on the precipice of a dream.
—Author unknown