Prelude

Prelude
         It starts the same way every time. Yes, there are deviations each time, just enough to make one think that it's different this time, that things aren't the same as always. But the core never changes. It can't. In between Time and Distance, it's here and there and the pieces always fall into the same place.
         Always.
         It's a forest. It has to be. Dense with hint and subtlety, the shadows crossing at counterangles to each other, it sits in the place it always has been. The skittering of small animals, the echoing calls of the birds is all the sound that can be heard. And the wind, blowing peacefully most of the time but occassionally mustering enough force to rattle the trees to their bases.
         The undergrowth is made of dry leaves and buoyant moss, dead twigs and the nests of insects. The near silent shifting of sounds, boots breaking the backs of sticks and stamping down the moss, announces their arrival. As it always does.
         The forest goes quiet, awaiting the beginning of the last act. Or the first. It's never obvious where it begins.
         The footsteps step lightly and swiftly on, through the forest, leaving the aural trail behind them. The forest thins out eventually, inevitably and blends into a verdant meadow. The footstep change from cracklings and snappings to the gentle swishings of calves against tall grass. The steps never falter. There's no hurry. It all falls into place when it has to.
         Up ahead is a fairly large outcropping of rocks. They are arranged just so to indicate vaguely some sort of feature or shape, but the exact meaning always seems to elude the mind just when it can be grasped. Slippery. The outcropping itself is old, as rocks tend to be and could be either a cave, or just an entrance. It's one of the deviations. The rocks that are piled up against the front might have a hinge running down the middle, or perhaps they are just blocking the way. If there is a way.
         The footsteps stop.
         The guardian looks up, just as he always does. He is old and young and everything in between and he has prepared for this. Three shadows reflect against him, tall and long, even with the sun already at its peak in the sky. One seems slightly taller than the others.
         One or perhaps three blended voices are heard. "You know why we are here."
         The guardian sighs, getting up slowly from his crouched position. He doesn't cast a shadow at all, or perhaps the void his shadow would create is swallowed up by theirs. His eyes narrow and he focuses on the center figure.
         "Aye," he replies. The carefully rehearsed words. How will it feel this time? "I do."
         "Then you will stand out of our way and let us claim what we have come for." The inflection of the voices is subtle but laced with threat.
         The guardian turns to face the outcropping of rocks behind him and then back to the figures. His hand is on his weapon but even now he has no idea what good it will do. Against anything else, it would be sufficient. But against these? He has no idea. He has no idea what it would take to stop them.
         But without his gaze faltering he takes a deep breath and says in return, "If you truly know what is here, then you know who I am and that I cannot step aside."
         The shadows that lie across him seem to waver slightly, as if conferring amongst themselves. There is a short pause and then the voice returns again. "You are indeed the guardian of this place?"
         The question surprises him, but he finds no reason not to answer it truthfully. "Yes, sirs, I am he."
         "And you have been so for a long time, yes?"
         His mind wanders back to the countless centuries that he has been here, the times he has seen the sun make the same circular, inevitable path across the sky, the people who have come past, a little older each time, until it's their grandchildren that he's seeing and he didn't even realize it. The years feel heavy on him, and the path forward always endless. Taking a deep breath he closes his eyes but when he opens them again barely a second later, the resolve is still there, untainted.
         "As some reckon, it has been a long time. There are others who it has been but an eyeblink." He shrugs massive shoulders. "I can speak only for myself."
         "Very well. And you've guarded what lies behind you faithfully for all those years?"
         "That was my task and my duty."
         "And you've never failed in that task?"
         "To do so would mean my ultimate shame. The alternative is not even a possibility." His voice is steel. But theirs is the clinging wisps of shadows and mists. Where there is darkness they make it darker.
         "Perhaps. But perhaps not." The shadows seem to straighten up and take a step forward. The guardian does not budge. "You are to step aside now guardian, your task no longer applies here."
         "I do not believe that is so, sirs," he replies, feeling his heart quicken a bit. It has been long since battle has come to him in this manner and he does not welcome it. He stares at them and reaches deep inside himself for the stamina that first made him the only one who could do this task and finds it still there. But he doesn't know if it will be enough. "I was set to this task by a power higher than yourselves and only that power can relieve me of that duty." He takes a step forward and puts his hand on his weapon. "It can be no other way. Please depart."
         "We will do no such thing. We intend to cover anything, from the boundless sea to the endless desert and we will not be stopped. Stand aside and let us through." The words hint at anger but the tone never wavers from its coat of darkness. You could go blind listening to the voice, surrounded by the void.
         "You already know my answer," he replies coldly. And the hiss of a blade drawn is the rest of his answer. Two of the shadows, one on each side, detach themselves from the third and step closer to him. There is sweat on his brow but he does not stand down.
         The third, taller one, whose shadow falls right across the face of the guardian is the only one to speak. Or maybe he was speaking the entire time. "We will have this land and we will have what you guard. Whether you live or die makes no difference. But we will prevail. You know that and you know that fighting back is futile."
         The first one has reached him and he hears nothing more of what the dark one is saying, he only hears his blade whirling, his senses being battered by a collision of different stimuli, his vision laced with the threat of constant darkness. His arms move of their own volition and he feels his blade bite into something, something that is cold and chills his body to the bone, time and again.
         When everything clears and the world stops moving, he is first aware of the grevious wounds that have been done to his body. He looks down to see his own blood pooling at his feet, but instead he feels cold and numb. The blood that coats him hands and arms feels like ice. His breathing is coming heavier and more rapid, and he makes an effort to slow it down. He cannot.
         But he is standing alone with the tall shadow. Two dark bodies lie at his feet and already he can see the air growing dim and dark. He can feel eyes regarding him impassively and cruelly.
         "It would be pitifully easy to finish this here," the shadow is saying. He has taken a step forward. The guardian takes a step back, feeling the comforting solidity of the stone behind him. What lies behind there is what he fights for, is what he will give his life for. But even now, with evil staring him in the face, he feels doubt. And he knows there is nothing he can do about it.
         "By all the rules, I have to leave now, having had my squires bested in combat, I must retreat from the battlefield to lick my wounds, muse on my losses and then return to attempt again. The old cycle, continually renewed and revisited. By you, by me, by others like us."
         "It is the way the world is," the guardian gasps out. He is in great pain but he knows that given time his wounds will heal. The main battle is over now, the dark one will give a speech and then depart and he can return to his solitary contemplation.
         "It was," the dark one notes calmly and he draws his weapon. The guardian's eyes widen when he sees the glow fall across his face and something inside of him sinks. It cannot be true. "But we find the old rules a bit unaccomodating and we have come to unbind them and make them anew." Another step forward and the guardian has raised his weapon to block the oncoming attack.
         The dark one just laughs. "You think you know who I am, don't you, guardian."
         Fear flooding his every pore, the guardian can only nod, his eyes never leaving the weapon. It seems to call for his blood and he knows deep down inside that another sunrise may not be his to see.
         "You think you know who I am," the dark one says again, "but you don't. We've never met before, I'm afraid. But you know what I hold, don't you?"
         "I do," the guardian says softly, never taking his eyes off of it.
         "And you know what it can do to you."
         The resigned nod. He does not want to believe that the cycle has been broken, that a correction will come that will set things back to the old way, the old times.
         "Then one last time, guardian, step aside."
         "Again, sir, you know my answer . . ." and with the last word he lunges forward, stabbing at the dark one even as he knows that it may not be enough.
         "Then you know the outcome," is all the dark one says, and with motion more fluid than anything the guardian could have ever managed, he brings his weapon up and across in a blur of light. The top half of the guardian's blade clatters to the hard ground, leaving the guardian staring at his broken weapon.
         "This is wrong," is all the guardian can say.
         "No. It was, and now it's being made right. You think you've done this before, that we've danced on the head of our pin for eternity but . . ." and he brings the weapon down now and straight, stabbing forward in the same motion that the guardian meant to do before but perfectly this time. The guardian can only make a half hearted attempt at a parry before the weapon pierces him to the very heart. Something cold fills him and he staggers, agony tearing at his lips. He screams, for lack of anything else.
         ". . . this is our first battle. And our last," the dark one finishes over the screaming. His weapon, pristine as always, hovers in the air as he raises it above his head. "We've broken the cycle, guardian, and tipped the balance. You're only the first."
         And he brings the weapon down, without hesitation, smoothly and brutally.
         Silence is brought on abruptly and takes up permanent residence, reigning over the field. The shadow falls over the spent body of the guardian, not saying anything for a long time.
         And then. "It's different this time," he hisses, "everything will be different."
         And then it is quiet again.