Wings of Light

PROLOGUE IT BEGINS with a BREEZE Emptiness. Nothingness. A vast space with no beginning or end, as bright as pitch and as dark as the burning sun. A chasm stretching as far as a human eye can see though taking up as little space as can fit in your hand. An abyss full of blinding light and smothering black between the worlds of Gods, men and beasts where no time and all time begins and ends. Silence exists like a howling roar as deafening as a screaming mute, talking of nothing and speaking no sound; as solid as air and thick like water and as impenetrable as stone. The Void stands lifeless. Something moves in the dark, cold empty light. A watcher. It is here within this pit, this rapturous hole that the whispers begin. Churning like a summer’s breeze and as cold as the mountains’ snow. A hush of voices softly screaming a warning. A warning of something that has stirred within the nothing, made into something that is still only emptiness. A breeze stirs from the Void, piecing the thin veil between worlds and shifting time. The wind blows and plunges through the thick nothing into the night of a sleeping world. Down across sweeping meadows, stirring not a single blade of grass, high into the night air touching the wings of seabirds without them feeling, and over the crystal ocean, disturbing none of the sails of a mighty armada as it passes them by. It blows across rolling waves, touching the spray from a shore-bound vessel, lifting back into the night sky to stare in wonder at a bright star shining in the east. Across flat green plains and fields of dancing flowers, it moves, searching. A village emerges from behind a hill, a small settlement of river-stone walls and thatched roofs, snuggled in the hills like eggs in a nest. The breeze sweeps low, grazing the grass covered hilltop as it spirals down into a small, high-walled garden. Mainiry Sykt peers into the lens of her microscope, an ingenious invention she had picked up from Chamblid on a visit there with her employers, and gasps. On the glass slide is a drop of Elvin blood. Clean Elvin blood. She grabs at a pile of hastily scribbled notes and rushes over to the chalk boards lining the side of her house. She rubs part of an equation away with her cuffs, taking little care for her finely cut silk dress which she had not removed after the late King’s birthday anniversary. Glancing at the hand-scrawled parchments, she fills in the blanks. She steps back from the chalkboard and surveys her findings. “Yes, it seems to fit,” she mutters to herself as she begins to recheck the work. An illness had swept across the Elvin nation so swiftly and with many of the sick dying within days of the first symptoms presenting themselves that a team of healers had been called to the Royal House of Karalgil. The first to fall ill were farmers and traders, spreading from the countryside into the towns and cities. On the first day it seemed no more than an epidemic of the common cold, only affecting the Elvin race. On the second day hundreds had died, and by the third this had risen into the thousands. Tests had shown that it was a poison of the blood which within the turning of three moons burned the internal organs of the victim as if it were acid. Mainiry had been head of the team, leading them with her vast knowledge of science and technology. They were all dead now, having succumbed to the sickness. She was the only human on the team, and that fact alone had just saved the remaining Elvin nations. She steadies herself on the workbench and lets out a shuddering breath, smiling as she does so. She had feared that this cure would not be found in time. “I better begin making more.” The door to the cottage creaks open and a cold draft flutters the papers on her desk. She rubs her arms as the brisk wind sweeps across her. For a brief moment she imagines hearing a woman’s voice float to her in the breeze. She hurries to the door to close it, but as she does something out in the dark garden catches her eye. She strains her eyes to see better and gasps when she realizes what she is looking at. A shadowy form melts from the darkness and lunges at her, bumping into her, but she shoves it back and slams the door, locking it. Mainiry staggers into the healing room and collapses, blood flowing like a river from a knife wound in her side. Though she glances around the room, she can only see darkness. She screams with terror and frustration, knowing she is about to lose the fight for her life. As her life drifts away from her she draws comfort from her surroundings. The medical center had been her greatest triumph in life and she is proud of everything she and her team had achieved over the many suns since she set it up. Healing had been her passion since she was a child. It started with helping a friend with a cut knee at the age of five and had developed into an infatuation for stopping blood. By the time she was eighteen she had her own medical practice in her village which grew with each passing sun until she was able to move it to the city where it is based today. Yet this isn't her medical center. She blinks away the memories and tries to concentrate but she cannot. Blood trickles from the corner of her mouth, she coughs, speckling her fingers. Why now? She drags her failing body across the dusty floor, leaving a pool of dark fluid behind. She desperately reaches a shaky hand up to the desk to grab a bottle of tonic that might slow her heart enough for her to contact her neighbors so that they can take the cure to the King. Alas! Her fingers only manage to grasp at the air. The window of her workroom shatters and a lantern is flung into the room. A blaze erupts as the glass breaks and oil sprays across her notes. All her work, the cure, the Elves. She stops breathing and slumps down in her own blood. The last thoughts passing through her mind are bitter ones. She was killed so that the Elves would die. The wind lifts from the small farmhouse in the hills, from the grassy meadows all the way into the city where the simple houses are replaced by stone giants and the dirt roads are paved and candles burn in lamps like thousands of fireflies. Across the rooftops and deep between the buildings, the dark allies and the bright streets it moves like a ghost soaring higher and higher into the night. The veil tears, and time shifts as the land drops away and the ocean replaces it. Angels swoop into the night sky. Their huge white wings taking them away from a tower which rises from the waves. One of them clutches a baby to his chest. He passes through the searching wind and glances back as if he could sense its presence. The wind dives into a window and down a long corridor. Sahwin Nu’Veli Strides down the long corridor leading from the courtyard into the main building of the palace. She had seen small lights in the sky and mountains off the shore to the west. They could be anything, but instinct tells her otherwise and she is heading to her chambers to prepare for a possible assault. She is also wary of a feeling deep within her heart, a feeling she recognizes yet somehow cannot remember. She has felt it before when she was in the company of her former partners; reason enough to feel this slight panic, for if they are close then those lights... She shakes her head with annoyance at herself. If they were close then her very thoughts could betray her and give them a weakness to exploit. She passes through a set of doors and slams them shut behind her, smiling at the incredible echo which rushes ahead of her. She quickens her pace slightly, her red gown embroidered with gold vines around the hem flowing behind her. Today is very important and deserves her finest dress.