Visions (Prologue 2/2)

1095th Year of the Great Emrosian Empire
Night of the Moon of the Great Hunt (Late Summer)

The Ebon Peaks

The black, stone tower pierced the thick clouds that hung about the Ebon Peaks. Atop the tower’s flat roof, a hatch door flung open. The gaunt, dark-robed man crawled out into the bright moonlight. The moons were full, hanging low in the dark sky. The bright crimson of the Hunter shone around the edges of the Prey’s deep cerulean. The man closed the door beneath him, his white beard fluttering from his cowl in the brisk midnight breeze. He looked to the eclipsing moons, the Moon of the Great Hunt, a rare occurrence indeed. He stood at the center of the tower’s roof, staring toward the moons, arms outstretched, spectral moonlight beaming onto his pale, withered face.

He mumbled to himself, head raised to the sky, as the winds began to swirl. Faster, they continued to gain speed. Faster, swirling about the man. Faster, as they began to form a cyclone. Faster, and the man was lifted from the platform, spinning within the whirlwinds. He closed his eyes, and the visions began, flashing in rapid succession through his mind.

To the northwest, a man on his deathbed. He spun within the winds. Northeast, a boy surviving alone in the forest. His spiraling continued within the storm. Southeast, rebellion. Southwest, death, regrets, revenge, and plotting. The surge of images began to batter his mind more and more rapidly, glimpses of events from anywhere in the world, past, present, and future. Betrayal. An exodus. An old world made anew. A civilization brought to ruin. The scenes were too many, too scattered, too fast to make sense of. The seer’s head began to pound, as if he were drowning in a sea of overwhelming, incomplete bits of information. Not yet, there must be more, I must find a connection, I must make sense of this, any of this. Soldiers, flames, uprisings, a world torn asunder. Blood began to trickle from the man’s clenched eyelids, as his teeth ground at the immense pressure that weighed down on him. Where? A throne, its occupant but a silhouette. A man, crippled in torturous pain, light flowing from his body. Powers the world could neither understand nor handle, seeping away.

The seer came to a sudden halt facing westward. Slowly, the winds dissipated, the man gently lowered back to the stone platform. Eyes still held tightly shut. Tears of blood ran down his ghostly face. The visions slowed now, more concentrated. Glimpses of the past, hints at the future. There was something important in all of this. Ah, but what is it? And what is the link?

Opening his eyes, he clutched his dark, grey robes and slowly stepped forward toward the western edge of the tower. He concentrated, envisioning a dark room. Within, a round wooden table surrounded by eleven high-backed chairs. A moment’s hesitation and the old man stepped forward off the edge of the tower, plummeting into the mass of clouds towards the rugged mountain below. The black clouds engulfed him.