CHAPTER 1 – IOMELOTH
He was as old as time itself. And some days he felt every moment of his long, long life. Today was such a day. Iomeloth stood at the very top of his tower and peered out into the lands surrounding it. Lush vegetations and beautiful waterfalls and streams made his tower a paradise – but what good is paradise in the middle of hell?
Only his power – in the form of invisible barrier – kept the terror and desolation that was the real world from encroaching. Iomeloth sighed heavily and raised his staff. A silver and blue dragon flew to the parapet and landed gracefully, folding silver wings.
“You have need of me, my Lord?” came the dulcet voice of the Dragon, speaking only in the mage’s mind.
“Yes, Bryethamaru, take me aloft. I want to see the lands.”
“My Lord, nothing has changed since the last time you flew over them,” Bryethamaru assured his master.
“I know,” Iomeloth said wearily. “I know.”
Bryethamaru nodded and knelt down so that the mage could mount him. Once his precious passenger was safely behind his horned crest, the Dragon spread his wings and took to the sky.
They didn’t have to fly far for the beauty of the mage’s lands to end. Only a few miles in either direction from the tower, the barrier ended abruptly and the naked truth of reality was glaring.
The stench was the first thing the mage noticed. Sulfur and brimstone coming from volcanoes and burning forests. And then, just beneath that smell, was the blood. The copper-coin-in-your-mouth stink of blood. Iomeloth’s stomach heaved in protest, but he kept it in check. It would be very unseemly to throw up on the Dragon.
Even flying so high up, the mage could hear the screams and cries of the tortured. Humans. Those fragile creatures that were mere fodder for the stronger, crueler demon kind. Iomeloth shook his head. Poor creatures, he thought and Bryethamaru rumbled in agreement.
They looked very much like he did but they were not the same. He was neither human nor demon, but a species entirely different. The power of the universe itself could flow from his fingertips, but even he did not have enough power to save every living human. The only reason that they had not been eradicated already is that the demons kept the youngest females as breeders. The males were forced to impregnate the females, after which the males were used as food. Soon the females would produce a new generation of female’s breeders and male fodder. The humans knew nothing but despair – they had never even heard of hope.
For eons, Iomeloth and his fellow mages had accepted this is the natural way of things, until one day the mage and the Dragon were standing on the parapet and Bryethamaru suddenly jumped off, unfolding his wings and sailing to the edge of the barrier. He returned with a squirming young boy of about eight in his jaws. Byre released the boy with a small thud. The boy jumped to his feet and rushed to the edge of the parapet, as far away as he could from both the Dragon and the mage. He faced them bravely, although Iomeloth could see that his tiny fists were trembling with fear.
“What have we here?” Iomeloth approached the boy.
The boy was filthy and dressed in rags, but the heart of a lion shone out of those dark eyes.
“I saw him burrowing under the barrier. There is a hollow under a tree root that needs to be fixed,” came Brye’s voice in their minds.
The boy looked up at the Dragon in surprise. “He can talk?”
“Yes, Bryethamaru – or as I call him, Brye – is very intelligent. He talks inside your mind.”
“He’s not going to eat me?”
“No!! Not at all. Come, boy, let’s get you cleaned up.”
The boy looked at the mage and then asked plainly, “Do you have any food?”
Brye snorted in surprise at the boy’s forwardness, causing dark smoke to stream out of his nostrils. The boy moved quickly away.
“Watch your manners! We have a guest!” Iomeloth admonished.
“Guest!?! That ragamuffin?”
“Yes, the boy is our guest and you will treat him as such.”
Brye rumbled his discontent but gave an almost imperceptible nod of his huge blue head.
“Fine, fine. Now, let’s find you a bath….,” Iomeloth ushered the boy down the stairs.
“And some food?” the urchin asked again.
“Yes, yes! Plenty of food also!”
What courage that boy had!
In the days that followed, Iomeloth found himself intrigued by the boy and soon the boy had a home. Iomeloth was alone most of the time, except for Brye, and the boy was great company. He had a voracious appetite for knowledge and soon learned to read and write. And then, to the amazement of the old mage, he learned to do simple spells.
And through this one brave boy, Iomeloth realized that he had misjudged the human race. They were intelligent – not low animals to be used for food.
And after that, he became acutely aware of the suffering of the humans and a desire to help them began to burn inside of him. A tiny flame soon became a raging fire.
He would find a way to save them!
Two hundred years passed and Iomeloth still had not found the answer. The boy grew up, matured, and grew old. When he died of old age, the boy left an irreparable hole in the old mage’s heart. And he sadly realized that he had never even given the boy a name. He was just “boy” all his life.
“I have done you an injustice. I will name you so that it can be carved on your tombstone and through the ages you will be remembered,” the old man promised. And he kept his word. A black obelisk was erected at the foot of his tower and carved into it was: “Baratha, the First Human Mage.”
* * *
A hundred more years passed and finally Iomeloth thought of a way to help the humans. Helping a few of them was easy, but he wanted to help them all. Every one of them! But he would need the help of his fellow mages – of the First.
The First were five beings who had first learned how to tame the primal energies of creation itself. They were the most powerful beings to ever walk the lands, even more powerful that the Evil Ones, beings so ancient that they had no form, rolling across the lands as a black mist, causing havoc and chaos wherever they went. They were the first evil and the five mages had defeated – and destroyed – nearly all of them. The first Mages had conquered the first Evil. And since then the mages were known as the First.
Iomeloth was the oldest and took the form of an old man, always wearing long rustling robes. He liked to think of himself as a purveyor of ancient knowledge and thought his white bearded countenance fitted that role nicely.
Tarquin Xi was the next oldest and took his cue from his mentor, also giving himself the appearance of an old, old man.
The next oldest was a female, the only female of the five, a beautiful dark hair woman named Jayetha. She loved being the only female and had dallied with them all. Her form was that of a beautiful seductress and she loved enticing the other mages to her bed. Although truth be told, she could have looked like an old hag and they would have still happily bedded her. After all, she was the only female of the group…
Yama Qu looked like a seasoned man with a beard and a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. He had noticed them on a distant planet and loved the look and had worn them ever since, even though he had no need for them at all.
The rest of the First teased him unmercifully for that one vanity and he would have discarded them, except that Jayetha once told him that she liked them. Now, centuries later, he still wore them.
The youngest of the First took the form of a young, beautiful man. Ryoku-Ashi could not understand why Iomeloth and Tarquin Xi wanted to look like old men when they could have looked as young as he did. Of course, he was the current paramour of Jayetha so that probably had something to do with his appearance. He was a strange combination of vanity and coldness. He loved himself but nothing else. Neither Jayetha nor Ryoku-Ashi loved each other – he was merely her latest lover and she was the grand prize to show off to the other mages. She fawned over him in front of the others and he preened like a peacock.
None of the other mages particularly liked him, but they had no choice in the matter. He was one of them.
Four of them lived separated from each other like spokes of a wheel, almost an equal distance from the other; all except one. Jayetha was the hub, the center, and her tower was pure white, a gleaming symbol of purity in a dark world.
It had been many years – hundreds – since the First had been all together and when Iomeloth’s request for a meeting came, they all jumped at the chance to catch up. Of course, Ryoku-Ashi jumped more at the chance to flaunt his love affair with Jayetha more than anything; he wasn’t really interested in what his fellow mages did.
Tarquin Xi and Yama Qu were the first to arrive, perched on the backs of their Dragons. Each of the mages had long ago tamed the Great Dragons and now the huge beasts were their allies and friends.
“Greetings, brother!” Tarquin Xi said and Yama Qu nodded with a smile. “It has been a long time since we’ve seen one another.”
“Too long!” Iomeloth agreed.
“We are curious about this meeting…the reason for your call,” Yama Qu added.
“As soon as Jayetha and Ryoku-Ashi arrive, I will explain it all.”
“So, it is true? She has taken him to bed?” Tarquin Xi asked with a smile.
“Now, she has completed the circle and has been the lover of all of the First.”
“Can you blame her? She is the only female – what else can she choose? A demon? We are all that she has….” Iomeloth countered.
“Oh, I’m not blaming her at all! You misunderstand! I only meant that now that she has completed the circle, she might start at the beginning. And I was the first,” Yama Qu laughed.
Just then two more Dragons, one pure white and the other a deep green, landed with a loud thud and the mages turned to the parapet. Jayetha dismounted with the help of Ryoku-Ashi.
Iomeloth wasted no time telling his fellow mages of his problem and asking for their help.
“You want us to help humans?” Ryoku-Ashi asked. “They are nothing…”
“I used to think the same, but then I got to know one of them and he even learned simple spells. They are intelligent. And they have good hearts. I have been studying them for centuries now. Even with the terror that is their life, they find time to love their children and sometimes to love each other.”
“I too have watched them,” Jayetha began. “And I agree with Iomeloth. I have extended my barrier around a small village to protect them and they have flourished under my care. They are loving and kind – and very intelligent. I will help you in any way that I can.”
Tarquin Xi and Yama Qu agreed to help also and Ryoku-Ashi shrugged. “I will do whatever you want.”
“So exactly how are we going to save them?” Yama Qu asked.
“We are going to give them a world of their own.”
“What!?” Tarquin Xi exclaimed.
“I propose that we split off a part of this world and separate it with a magical barrier. Demons will not be able to see the new world, and visa versa. Over time, what they have seen on this world will become only myth, and demons and dragons will be only fantasy.”
“That might very well work,” Yama Qu mused. “What part shall we give them? And how do we put them in the new world?”
“I was thinking about the southern part of the world, near your tower. It is the most desolate. After we split it, we remove any demons that are still there and open several temporary portals for the humans to use to go to their new home. We can watch over them for a while – only a few centuries or so – until they have established themselves.”
All were in agreement and a few days later, the five mages stood on Yama Qu’s tower. They began to call on the world’s primal energies. The sky turned ink black and lightning streaked across the sky. The mages poured more power into their spell and the ground itself began to crack. The crack widened and lengthened until it formed a rough square around the southern quarter of the world. Then suddenly with a resounding roar, the land separated itself from the rest. The world stood apart, land and sky were separately by a black void of nothingness.
The five mages began to chant as they sealed the world, erecting a magical barrier all around it. Finally, their work done, they crumbled to the tower floor in exhaustion.
“It worked!” Iomeloth said, his voice weary, but his eyes bright. “We need to tell the people that are on that world what happened. And also create a portal for the demons.”
“Give me a little time to rest!” Jayetha exclaimed, leaning heavily on Ryoku-Ashi.
Demon servants brought drink and food to the mages and soon they recovered enough of their strength to make their way downstairs. “I need to sleep. My servants will take you to rooms,” Yama Qu said on the way down. Soon each of them was sound asleep in comfortable beds.
And the First slept for forty days and forty nights.
He was as old as time itself. And some days he felt every moment of his long, long life. Today was such a day. Iomeloth stood at the very top of his tower and peered out into the lands surrounding it. Lush vegetations and beautiful waterfalls and streams made his tower a paradise – but what good is paradise in the middle of hell?
Only his power – in the form of invisible barrier – kept the terror and desolation that was the real world from encroaching. Iomeloth sighed heavily and raised his staff. A silver and blue dragon flew to the parapet and landed gracefully, folding silver wings.
“You have need of me, my Lord?” came the dulcet voice of the Dragon, speaking only in the mage’s mind.
“Yes, Bryethamaru, take me aloft. I want to see the lands.”
“My Lord, nothing has changed since the last time you flew over them,” Bryethamaru assured his master.
“I know,” Iomeloth said wearily. “I know.”
Bryethamaru nodded and knelt down so that the mage could mount him. Once his precious passenger was safely behind his horned crest, the Dragon spread his wings and took to the sky.
They didn’t have to fly far for the beauty of the mage’s lands to end. Only a few miles in either direction from the tower, the barrier ended abruptly and the naked truth of reality was glaring.
The stench was the first thing the mage noticed. Sulfur and brimstone coming from volcanoes and burning forests. And then, just beneath that smell, was the blood. The copper-coin-in-your-mouth stink of blood. Iomeloth’s stomach heaved in protest, but he kept it in check. It would be very unseemly to throw up on the Dragon.
Even flying so high up, the mage could hear the screams and cries of the tortured. Humans. Those fragile creatures that were mere fodder for the stronger, crueler demon kind. Iomeloth shook his head. Poor creatures, he thought and Bryethamaru rumbled in agreement.
They looked very much like he did but they were not the same. He was neither human nor demon, but a species entirely different. The power of the universe itself could flow from his fingertips, but even he did not have enough power to save every living human. The only reason that they had not been eradicated already is that the demons kept the youngest females as breeders. The males were forced to impregnate the females, after which the males were used as food. Soon the females would produce a new generation of female’s breeders and male fodder. The humans knew nothing but despair – they had never even heard of hope.
For eons, Iomeloth and his fellow mages had accepted this is the natural way of things, until one day the mage and the Dragon were standing on the parapet and Bryethamaru suddenly jumped off, unfolding his wings and sailing to the edge of the barrier. He returned with a squirming young boy of about eight in his jaws. Byre released the boy with a small thud. The boy jumped to his feet and rushed to the edge of the parapet, as far away as he could from both the Dragon and the mage. He faced them bravely, although Iomeloth could see that his tiny fists were trembling with fear.
“What have we here?” Iomeloth approached the boy.
The boy was filthy and dressed in rags, but the heart of a lion shone out of those dark eyes.
“I saw him burrowing under the barrier. There is a hollow under a tree root that needs to be fixed,” came Brye’s voice in their minds.
The boy looked up at the Dragon in surprise. “He can talk?”
“Yes, Bryethamaru – or as I call him, Brye – is very intelligent. He talks inside your mind.”
“He’s not going to eat me?”
“No!! Not at all. Come, boy, let’s get you cleaned up.”
The boy looked at the mage and then asked plainly, “Do you have any food?”
Brye snorted in surprise at the boy’s forwardness, causing dark smoke to stream out of his nostrils. The boy moved quickly away.
“Watch your manners! We have a guest!” Iomeloth admonished.
“Guest!?! That ragamuffin?”
“Yes, the boy is our guest and you will treat him as such.”
Brye rumbled his discontent but gave an almost imperceptible nod of his huge blue head.
“Fine, fine. Now, let’s find you a bath….,” Iomeloth ushered the boy down the stairs.
“And some food?” the urchin asked again.
“Yes, yes! Plenty of food also!”
What courage that boy had!
In the days that followed, Iomeloth found himself intrigued by the boy and soon the boy had a home. Iomeloth was alone most of the time, except for Brye, and the boy was great company. He had a voracious appetite for knowledge and soon learned to read and write. And then, to the amazement of the old mage, he learned to do simple spells.
And through this one brave boy, Iomeloth realized that he had misjudged the human race. They were intelligent – not low animals to be used for food.
And after that, he became acutely aware of the suffering of the humans and a desire to help them began to burn inside of him. A tiny flame soon became a raging fire.
He would find a way to save them!
Two hundred years passed and Iomeloth still had not found the answer. The boy grew up, matured, and grew old. When he died of old age, the boy left an irreparable hole in the old mage’s heart. And he sadly realized that he had never even given the boy a name. He was just “boy” all his life.
“I have done you an injustice. I will name you so that it can be carved on your tombstone and through the ages you will be remembered,” the old man promised. And he kept his word. A black obelisk was erected at the foot of his tower and carved into it was: “Baratha, the First Human Mage.”
* * *
A hundred more years passed and finally Iomeloth thought of a way to help the humans. Helping a few of them was easy, but he wanted to help them all. Every one of them! But he would need the help of his fellow mages – of the First.
The First were five beings who had first learned how to tame the primal energies of creation itself. They were the most powerful beings to ever walk the lands, even more powerful that the Evil Ones, beings so ancient that they had no form, rolling across the lands as a black mist, causing havoc and chaos wherever they went. They were the first evil and the five mages had defeated – and destroyed – nearly all of them. The first Mages had conquered the first Evil. And since then the mages were known as the First.
Iomeloth was the oldest and took the form of an old man, always wearing long rustling robes. He liked to think of himself as a purveyor of ancient knowledge and thought his white bearded countenance fitted that role nicely.
Tarquin Xi was the next oldest and took his cue from his mentor, also giving himself the appearance of an old, old man.
The next oldest was a female, the only female of the five, a beautiful dark hair woman named Jayetha. She loved being the only female and had dallied with them all. Her form was that of a beautiful seductress and she loved enticing the other mages to her bed. Although truth be told, she could have looked like an old hag and they would have still happily bedded her. After all, she was the only female of the group…
Yama Qu looked like a seasoned man with a beard and a pair of spectacles perched on his nose. He had noticed them on a distant planet and loved the look and had worn them ever since, even though he had no need for them at all.
The rest of the First teased him unmercifully for that one vanity and he would have discarded them, except that Jayetha once told him that she liked them. Now, centuries later, he still wore them.
The youngest of the First took the form of a young, beautiful man. Ryoku-Ashi could not understand why Iomeloth and Tarquin Xi wanted to look like old men when they could have looked as young as he did. Of course, he was the current paramour of Jayetha so that probably had something to do with his appearance. He was a strange combination of vanity and coldness. He loved himself but nothing else. Neither Jayetha nor Ryoku-Ashi loved each other – he was merely her latest lover and she was the grand prize to show off to the other mages. She fawned over him in front of the others and he preened like a peacock.
None of the other mages particularly liked him, but they had no choice in the matter. He was one of them.
Four of them lived separated from each other like spokes of a wheel, almost an equal distance from the other; all except one. Jayetha was the hub, the center, and her tower was pure white, a gleaming symbol of purity in a dark world.
It had been many years – hundreds – since the First had been all together and when Iomeloth’s request for a meeting came, they all jumped at the chance to catch up. Of course, Ryoku-Ashi jumped more at the chance to flaunt his love affair with Jayetha more than anything; he wasn’t really interested in what his fellow mages did.
Tarquin Xi and Yama Qu were the first to arrive, perched on the backs of their Dragons. Each of the mages had long ago tamed the Great Dragons and now the huge beasts were their allies and friends.
“Greetings, brother!” Tarquin Xi said and Yama Qu nodded with a smile. “It has been a long time since we’ve seen one another.”
“Too long!” Iomeloth agreed.
“We are curious about this meeting…the reason for your call,” Yama Qu added.
“As soon as Jayetha and Ryoku-Ashi arrive, I will explain it all.”
“So, it is true? She has taken him to bed?” Tarquin Xi asked with a smile.
“Now, she has completed the circle and has been the lover of all of the First.”
“Can you blame her? She is the only female – what else can she choose? A demon? We are all that she has….” Iomeloth countered.
“Oh, I’m not blaming her at all! You misunderstand! I only meant that now that she has completed the circle, she might start at the beginning. And I was the first,” Yama Qu laughed.
Just then two more Dragons, one pure white and the other a deep green, landed with a loud thud and the mages turned to the parapet. Jayetha dismounted with the help of Ryoku-Ashi.
Iomeloth wasted no time telling his fellow mages of his problem and asking for their help.
“You want us to help humans?” Ryoku-Ashi asked. “They are nothing…”
“I used to think the same, but then I got to know one of them and he even learned simple spells. They are intelligent. And they have good hearts. I have been studying them for centuries now. Even with the terror that is their life, they find time to love their children and sometimes to love each other.”
“I too have watched them,” Jayetha began. “And I agree with Iomeloth. I have extended my barrier around a small village to protect them and they have flourished under my care. They are loving and kind – and very intelligent. I will help you in any way that I can.”
Tarquin Xi and Yama Qu agreed to help also and Ryoku-Ashi shrugged. “I will do whatever you want.”
“So exactly how are we going to save them?” Yama Qu asked.
“We are going to give them a world of their own.”
“What!?” Tarquin Xi exclaimed.
“I propose that we split off a part of this world and separate it with a magical barrier. Demons will not be able to see the new world, and visa versa. Over time, what they have seen on this world will become only myth, and demons and dragons will be only fantasy.”
“That might very well work,” Yama Qu mused. “What part shall we give them? And how do we put them in the new world?”
“I was thinking about the southern part of the world, near your tower. It is the most desolate. After we split it, we remove any demons that are still there and open several temporary portals for the humans to use to go to their new home. We can watch over them for a while – only a few centuries or so – until they have established themselves.”
All were in agreement and a few days later, the five mages stood on Yama Qu’s tower. They began to call on the world’s primal energies. The sky turned ink black and lightning streaked across the sky. The mages poured more power into their spell and the ground itself began to crack. The crack widened and lengthened until it formed a rough square around the southern quarter of the world. Then suddenly with a resounding roar, the land separated itself from the rest. The world stood apart, land and sky were separately by a black void of nothingness.
The five mages began to chant as they sealed the world, erecting a magical barrier all around it. Finally, their work done, they crumbled to the tower floor in exhaustion.
“It worked!” Iomeloth said, his voice weary, but his eyes bright. “We need to tell the people that are on that world what happened. And also create a portal for the demons.”
“Give me a little time to rest!” Jayetha exclaimed, leaning heavily on Ryoku-Ashi.
Demon servants brought drink and food to the mages and soon they recovered enough of their strength to make their way downstairs. “I need to sleep. My servants will take you to rooms,” Yama Qu said on the way down. Soon each of them was sound asleep in comfortable beds.
And the First slept for forty days and forty nights.