R. Salvatore - Echoes of the Fourth Magic

“Take comfort, Billy Shank. I assure you that you are not dead. By the power of the Colonnae, you have passed through the dark realm and are healed. We could not permit your deaths, for this is a time long-awaited, and a great adventure lies before you. Your actions may well determine the destiny of a new world.”

They knew a moment later that their understandable doubts had been foreseen. Calae raised his scepter and permitted the men a glimpse of their recent past, an image that had been mercifully erased from their memories. Each alone in a form not quite corporeal, yet somewhat substantial and inescapable, they walked among black mounds, barrows of broken shale, under unknown stars, and looked upon the shadows of Death’s domain. A lonely journey, an endless trek, for not another being stirred in the never-ending plain, and every horizon promised nothing but continued blackness. Even Martin Reinheiser was stricken dumb, this episode being too far beyond any mortal experience to be believable. Sympathetic to their confused distress, Calae released them from recollections they could not comprehend. “Come,” he said, opening his arms as a father to his children. “Sit by me and I will tell you a marvelous tale that shall answer many of your questions and instill in you many more.”

Compelled by this superior will, the mortals could only comply. Barely conscious that they were moving, they approached and sat before Calae on the cool floor, and the fog in that area wafted away.

Calae closed his eyes and contemplated his tale. He didn’t want to overwhelm the fragile mortals any more than was necessary. The breeze came again. “Let me begin,” it whispered to them, “at what you may perceive to be the end, though it was in fact the beginning. You have been quite perceptive and have already guessed much.” Calae’s eyes softened in sympathy and sadness. “The war long feared by your race came, swift and terrible, a mere fifty years after you departed the sunlit world. Tiny enemies long thought eradicated were awakened once more as weapons and, in the escalation that soon followed, mankind’s terrible machines of destruction wreaked devastation across this beautiful world. Nothing could stand against the fury, the very stones screamed in agony! Nation after nation loosed their weapons in full knowledge that the poisonous wake would leave naught but a barren, unlivable earth.

“Yet they loosed their weapons!” howled a mighty wind. The men cringed as Calae grew suddenly tall and terrible before them.

But then Calae calmed again, a hint of tears rimming his eyes, and he continued, “For in the end it was the folly of man to put country before conscience, pride before pity, might before mercy. Your race was doomed by its own hands, and that was the tragedy.

“Yet know this, mortals, know it as I am the proof: There are powers in this universe far greater than man and far beyond man’s creations. And the beings that looked upon the ravaged earth were saddened, for, though evil dwells in man’s domain, it is not an inherent trait of the race. Even He who is supreme was moved to pity. Thus it was decreed that man be given another chance to survive, to evolve above this fatal flaw of pride. Amidst the devastation, Ynis Aielle, isle of hope, rose from the sea, shielded from the fires by a golden barrier that was His blessing. And He summoned the Colonnae.

“At the time of doom, great ships sailed these waters. Of the hundreds aboard them, only the children and four of the adults were spared. The others had been touched by the killing fire and, more importantly, had tasted of the mighty magic, technology, that had wrought the fire. This knowledge demanded their deaths if the world was truly to begin anew.

“Thus the Colonnae became the guardians of an orphaned people. We guided the ships to this land and set them upon a southern beach. And the four chosen adults came away with us to learn higher levels of consciousness, that they might one day return and help guide the new race of man down a truer path. Under our protection and with our blessings, the children flourished. Soon a large settlement, a city named Pallendara, had grown on Calva, the southern plains of Aielle. A beautiful city she was, a place of art and poetry and true brotherhood, a community untainted by greed and governed by philosophers who followed unerringly the will of the people. Learning stood as the common goal, knowledge gained only to be shared, and the Earth knew its greatest peace since before the Jericho of your history many thousands of years ago.

“The mercy of the One is without bounds, yet it is bestowed upon those who prove themselves worthy. Thus, in the seventh generation of Pallendara, a test was unveiled. Mutated children of irradiated and diseased heritage, the lingering curse of technology, were born unto the innocents.

“Yes,” answered Calae to the question in all of the men’s minds, “these were indeed the forefathers of the creatures you encountered on the beach.

“As the first cursed child breathed Aielle’s clear air into its tainted lungs, our time as guardians was ended. Thus, the Colonnae departed the shining halls of Pallendara. The trials of the One had begun, the time for your race to prove itself capable and worthy.” Calae looked into the fog beyond his audience and smiled fondly at the distant memories of the early days. Again the tears came to his eyes. “It was difficult to leave,” he explained to the men. “We had grown fond of your race, had come to love them as parents do children. Yet we knew they had grown beyond our care; it was time for them to stand on their own. The four we had instructed returned to their people, but we, ever curious, remained close by to observe.

“The curse lasted ten years. Every woman with child prayed to us for the health of her coming baby, but we could only watch helplessly. Cries of dismay in the night oft told neighbors that a new mutant had come among them. One hundred times during that decade of horror a new mother looked upon her child and despaired.

“Yet the Calvans loved and cared for the misshapen babes, for they knew naught but love. In their innocence, they could not perceive that these creatures were the perfect incarnation of all that is evil in your race, an embodied mirror of the darkest errors of man’s past.

“At first the mutants caused only minor problems, but as the years passed, they grew strong. They found each other and forged a brotherhood of evil, bonded together by a common purpose of destruction. They met in shadows, carefully plotting every attack. They were indeed devious, keeping their crimes within the borders of Calvan mercy. The people, ever trusting and forgiving, fell easy prey.

“The crimes worsened as the mutants gained confidence, soon openly roaming the streets at night, cutting a trail of destruction across the city. With great sorrow and disappointment, the Calvans were forced to admit that love and compassion offer no protection against true evil. Three of our students, the fourth having long since departed from the city and the ways of man, joined the Calvan lords at council in the Citadel of Justice to decide the fate of the mutants.

“An angry crowd gathered outside, promising violence if the lords offered no better solution. Inside the chambers raged a similar scene of frustration and rage, for, in truth, the gentle Calvans had no response to the evil that had befallen them. After hours of yelling and angry debate, one of our students, Thomas Morgan, who called himself Morgan Thalasi, offered a solution. ‘I shall lead these foul beasts away from our fair city,’ he said, ‘and far over the plains to a place where they will trouble Calva no more. And I, Thalasi, shall watch over them, that their evilness be contained.’

“He lied. It was our greatest fear that one of the four wizards we had trained would fall victim to the lust for power that had been the foulest bane in your history and had eventually led to the destruction of the original race. And it was to our ultimate distress that it was Morgan Thalasi, mightiest of the Four, who fell into evil ways. The Calvans believed him. They accepted his offer with great joy and praised him for his sacrifice.