Wizards and Neanders - Prologue

         The old wizard looked out the window of his tower and observed the angry mob of people milling about on the ground.  One of them had separated himself from the others and was plainly trying to incite the people to storm the tower.  He could hear their angry mutters from his high position.  The light outside was failing and the sky was very cloudy like it was going to start raining anytime.  He hoped that it would rain.  Maybe it would make these small grubbing peasants so uncomfortable and miserable that they would forget their revenge and go home.  He realized that was wishful thinking.  This rabble would never give up.  They had been bred to never give up.    They would stay down there until either everyone of them was dead or they had burned the tower to the ground and destroyed all the wizards.  He felt tired just looking at them.  They had pushed and pushed until they had finally got to this point.  Today would decide the fate of two civilizations.
He turned around and looked at the other wizards in the room.  This was the ruling council of Jarendell.  These were the seven most powerful men in the world.  Between them they controlled every wizard and all the power that those wizards possessed. Enough power to level every city in the world.  Each of the other six looked back at him with haunted looks in their eyes.  They knew that the end was approaching.  Every other tower of wizardry had been stormed and leveled at the hands of these uncontrollable mobs.  Tens of thousands of them had been killed in the attacks but they still continued to come.  Now they were down to a mob of about two thousand people.  All the people who remained in the struggle between the Neanders and the Wizards.
      "How many wizards do we have left in the tower with us?" the old wizard addressed the youngest one in the room.  His name was Jarden and he was one of the most powerful wizards to come to the tower in the last two hundred years.  He had been born a Neander, so he was bigger by at least his head then everyone in the room.  Two or three of them only came to his chest, but everything had changed when his converters had laid their hands upon his head and helped him feel his first magical power.  That was eighty years ago when he was only twenty eight years old.  He had worked his way up the wizard ranks faster then anyone in the history of the wizards.  In just fifty seven years he had gone from being an initiate to the ruling council.  A feat unprecedented in the wizard community, which he considered both a blessing and a curse.  All the friends he had when he first became an initiate in the wizards magic school were just graduating.  Consequently he was oftentimes held in contempt by the wizards above him and in awe by the wizards below him.  He always thought that they reason the wizards about him held him in contempt and teased and persecuted him was because they were jealous of his fasttrack to power.  Power was the one thing that was revered most highly by almost every wizard in the community and the higher he was raised the more power he received.  Today he was only surpassed in power by the old one and then not by much even though five hundred and thirty years separated them.  He had been put in charge of all the lower wizards excepting only the wizards in this room.  He reported directly to the old one
         "We still have eighty seven wizards in the tower,” he responded, “but about twenty of them are from the new class and their collective powers are very weak right now.  If they could learn to link their powers together and become one they would be fine, but they are too scared currently to be able to work together. They have all heard  the rumors of what happened at the other towers and those in the new class are almost paralyzed with fear.  If that mob down below gets past the front doors they are going to be a hindrance to us rather then any kind of weapon." 
The old wizard turned to another of the men in the room and said, "Janan, do they have the sword with them?"  Janan closed his eyes for a minute concentrating on the feel of the sword Jarn.  He had been blessed, or cursed as he would sometimes say, at his birth to always feel the presence of the sword.  His position on the council had been largely due to this fact often to the contempt and derision of some of the other members of the council.  He was the weakest wizard in the room and everyone knew it.  But he was invaluable to this group because of this one ability. 
He felt the sword in the back of his mind.  It had the same feel as it had yesterday.  It felt distant and what he could only describe as solid, meaning to him that it had been in the same place for more than four days.  He had come in contact with the sword one time and the presence in his head had overwhelmed him.  He had a hard time holding any other thought in his head.  He could only think about the sword and how he felt being that close to it. 
      "No, they don't have the sword.  It hasn't moved for the past four days at least and it is nowhere near here."
      "Well that is one thing that we can be thankful for.  If they had that sword with them we wouldn't stand a chance at all.  As it is we only have an even chance of surviving the next couple of days."
         Everyone in the room was familiar with the situation and to a man they were all grateful that the sword was not present.  No wizard could stand against the magical sword named Jarn.  The sword was considered anti magic and it was stronger then any wizard in existence.  Any time magic was used in the presence of the sword that magic was instantly snuffed with a backlash going back to the magic user giving them a bad headache for days.  The stronger the magic used the worse the backlash became.  If they were unable to get it in their possession and get it safely hidden the end of the wizards was a very forseeable thing.
         The room they were all gathered in suddenly shook accompanied by a loud thump.  They all sat and listened knowing what would follow next.  There were a lot of loud screams outside as a spell set to ward the doors was activated.  When the door was touched by anything a ring of flame was thrown up that was fifteen feet wide all around the tower.  It sounded like a lot of people had been caught in that ring of flame, but the wizards knew that these people wouldn't be stopped just because a few of them had died or were wounded.  They had put their most powerful spells on the door and the walls surrounding it and they were hoping that their spells held out longer then the people outside the walls held out. 
      The old wizard turned once again to Jarden and said "Jar, I have an assignment for you.  You must leave here without getting caught by that mob outside and find the sword and gain possesion of it.  Once you have gained possession of it I want you to bring it back here so we can hide it in our deepest vault.  This will be especially hard on you because once you come within ten feet of it you will no longer have any magic.  You will have to rely on your wits and your strength to get you back here.  I have chosen you because you are the youngest and are in the best shape of all of us.  Normally with us physical shape doesn't count for much, but in this case it counts for everything."  He paused for a moment and tilted his head as if listening to something then continued, "I don't have to tell you that out whole future rides on this mission.  Take as much money as you think you will need and whatever else you might need.  Leave as soon as you can assemble your stuff.  We will be thinking of you the whole
time you are gone.” 
      Jarden felt honored to be given such an important mission.  He said, "Don't worry I will bring back the sword.  You are my family and I will do everything in my power to preserve my family."  He stood and bowed to each of them and then walked out of the room.  As he was walking out the door Janan followed him. 
      "Jar, I would volunteer to come with you since I can feel the sword, but I am an old man now and would only slow you up, however I do have one thing that I can give you that will help you greatly on your mission."  He reached into an inner pocket of his robe and pulled what looked to be an exact replica of the sword that was about two inches long.  "This was made at the same time as the sword.  It is a talisman that will lead you
directly to the sword.  Only two people know about this talisman, myself and the old wizard, and now you.  Please don't lose it or let it fall in the wrong hands.  If you want to use it, place it in the palm of your hand and chant the name of the sword three times and it will point in the direction of the sword.  I hope for all our sakes that you are
successful."  He placed the talisman in the hand of the younger wizard and then gave him a hug and walked back into the council room. 
The old wizard was once again standing looking out the window when Janan came back into the room.  The others in the room were sitting at the council table quietly talking among themselves.  Janan sat down by himself away from the others purposely distancing himself from the others.  He had known all of them for a very long time and they had all done as much as possible to put him down.  They never let a chance go by to remind him that he was not as powerful as them.  Up to this point he had taken it all patiently, but now that the end was near he decided he wasn’t going to take it anymore.  He despised them all, except the old one.  He had his true feelings for so long that when he turned his glare on each of them they all looked at him as if a little kitten had suddenly turned into a tiger.  He turned his attention to the old one, ignoring the rest of them.  The all looked to the old one as well.  They were all waiting for the final decision from the old wizard. 
Finally he turned back to them and said “While Jarden’s mission is vital to our success we have a long wait before he will be back.  In the meantime we have to do everything possible to protect ourselves from this mob.  We will go down to the other wizards and each of you will take ten wizards and link with them and when the front door finally comes down we will do our best to hold our ten together.  I pray that each of you will survive to see another day.”  He turned and headed towards the door and one by one the other wizards stood and followed him.  The last one out of the room was Janan.  He stood and looked around the room one more time.  He couldn’t help but feel that this was the last time he would see it.  He walked out of the room shutting the door behind him. 


When Jarden reached the top of the hill he was staggering with exhaustion.  He paused and looked out over the valley that spread before him.  He saw the tower of Jarendell rising before him from the top of the next hill.  He sighed with relief to see that it was still standing.  He had feared that he would be too late.  He sat down right where he was in the middle of the road and just enjoyed the feeling of stopping.  It had been a full three months since he had left the tower on his mission to find the sword and bring it back.  He had faced so many obstacles on his quest that he had stopped counting after a while.  Now he was back and the tower was still standing.  He would be very happy to be rid of this burden.  It was not only physically taxing but mentally as well since he was unable to use his magic around it.  He had been using his magic for eighty years and it was an adjustment for him to do anything without it.  He kept catching himself ready to cast a spell.  He had learned the hard way about using magic around the sword.  He was punished severely by the sword every time that he had tried. 
When he finally had enough energy to get up and stagger on he worked his way down the road towards the tower with the sword tied behind his back in a make shift scabbard for it.  It wasn’t until he was halfway to the tower that he finally detected what he had been seeing subconsciously for some time now.  The tower was still.  There was no life showing around it or in the windows.  There was an aura emanating from it that felt like emptiness.  He developed a weight in the pit of his stomach and started to get an uneasy feeling.  The tower always had lookouts posted to see who was coming down this road.  They would have come out to greet him already, unless they weren’t able to. 
Despite his great weariness and the intolerable weight on his back, Jarden started walking faster as he got closer to the tower.  As he started getting closer the first thing to hit him was the smell.  It hit him almost like a physical thing.  It was putrid and instantly turned his stomach, making him want to vomit.  As he topped the hill that the tower was sitting on it looked like a great battlefield stretching away before him.  There were mounds of dead people everywhere.  There were also scavenger birds in great numbers feasting on their grisly meals.  Several of them flew off a little ways when he got too close. 
Jarden was starting to realize the grim truth.  The final battle had been here and it had lasted a long time.  The mob that was here must have been joined by all the other mobs in order to have this many people attacking the tower.  He tried to imagine the hate in the minds and hearts of these people that they would just throw away their lives so needlessly.  The greatest concentration of dead bodies was near the front door.  He stopped to tie a cloth around his face to keep a little of the smell out.  When Jarden got close to the tower he had to step over bodies in order to get to the door.  There was no clear path through the press.  The stench was almost overpowering to him and he could barely breathe. 
When he got near the front door he discovered that the mob had gotten through the it.  There was a trail of dead bodies leading through the whole tower as if the mob was determined to keep fighting until the very last wizard was dead and the wizards had kept fighting valiantly up until the last of them had died.  Someone had set a fire inside the tower and everything was black from soot and smoke.  Jarden walked around in a state of despair.  His whole quest to get the sword had been for nothing.  He felt lost and directionless for a little while.  Gradually he pulled him mind back to the present and determined that he was going to finish his mission anyway.  It was the last thing that the Old wizard had requested of him and even though he was dead he was going to finish it. 
Jarden made his way into the kitchen and found the food pantry.  He pulled out a shelf that was sitting on the back wall and ran his fingers over the surface of the rock.  As he came to the center of the wall his sensitive fingers found three small indentations.  He trailed his hand straight up from there and near the top of the wall until he found three more similar indentations.  He pushed on the wall and it went back with the bottom coming up.  It was balanced so well that the tiniest bit of pressure in just the right place would open this huge slab of stone to reveal an opening behind it. 
He walked into the opening and a light went on automatically from the torch on the wall and then went off again very quickly.  He was standing in blackness.  He cursed the sword for the thousandth time and took the torch from the wall.  He backed out of the opening into the pantry so he could see to light the torch.  He couldn’t use magic around the sword so he had to light the torch by hand.  When he finally got it lighted he stepped into the opening once more and this time he could see that he was on a big level platform with stairs at the end of it.  Without hesitating he walked over to the stairs and started descending.    He counted the stairs as he went down and when he got to six hundred and sixty one he stopped and once again ran his hand over the wall.  This time instead of three small indentations that were barely noticeable he sought three projections instead and when he found them he pushed on the right and left one while leaving the middle one untouched.  This time a stone door opened inward revealing another room.  The room looked blank upon inspection, but right in the middle was a trap door which Jarden crossed and opened.  He climbed down a ladder that had been built right into the wall.  When he got to the bottom he was in what looked like a foyer opening up onto three rooms all with closed doors.  He went to the middle one and turned the knob.  It was not locked and opened right up for him.  The room he entered was empty except for a kind of alter carved out of the rock wall.  It took up a whole wall and came up to Jarden’s waist.  He walked over to it and grabbed the top shelf on the alter and lifted.  The lid was once again balanced so nicely that only a little effort was required to lift the seven hundred pound lid.  When the lid was lifted he found a hollowed out spot with silk lining in the shape of a sword.  He took the sword off of his back and unwrapped it from the blanket that he had carried it in.  It was almost too heavy for him to lift with one hand.  Even with two hands on the hilt of the sword it looked like there was room for four more.  He wondered at the size and strength of the man that this sword had been made for.  Jarden, anxious to get this done with, placed the sword in the silk linings in the alter.  He noted without surprise that the sword fit perfectly into the place made for it.  He shut the lid of the alter and for the first time in a great while he took a great breath and felt that an immense burden had been lifted from his shoulders.  He spread his blanket on the alter and laid down on it and went to sleep.