Prologue – Act 1, Childhood's Hour
They filled his dreams like so many rats, skittering about, tiny clawed hands digging relentlessly at the dirt, hitting stones with the heels of their palms until their bones broke and shattered wrinkled, pus covered, and clammy skin. For an age they dug and dug, shouting and screaming with desperation to reach that beautiful music, to feel the soft hands of the gods caressing their skin and blessing them, heralding them as the lords of Thedas and the Beyond.
From his sleep, the pulse beat in his neck twitched and thrummed. Slowly, it began to pick up, increasing from a single beat per fortnight to several in mere minutes. Something was very, very wrong, and he could not be left sleeping with such a danger rousing itself. It was not the first time he had had this dream, but those centuries ago, still mired within the deepest stages of his Uthenera, there was so little that he could do.
He could help, now. He could set it right, he could awaken from his long sleep and guide The People.
They were growing so close, he could see them deep beneath the earth, covered in mud as they shoveled handfuls of muck out of their way, endlessly searching for the voice that would make everything right with their corrupted, misshapen existence.
It had to be stopped. Something had to be done.
Stirring restlessly in his sleep, a thin hand twitched against the platform his body rested upon. Souls glittered like stars behind his eyelids, so many faces staring back at him from beyond the haze that filled his mind like a heavy fog. They would each have a part to play, he knew it, and when all was said and done, Thedas would be whole once more.
In the darkness, almond-shaped eyes shifted behind closed lids.
It wouldn't be long in coming, now.