Prologue: July 1995

On a windswept mountain, high in the Himalayan mountain range of Tibet and Nepal, you wouldn't really expect to find anything much other than snow, ice, rock, more snow and maybe a Yeti if you're really unlucky. The very last thing you would expect to find would be a huge, majestic citadel, situated on the eastern face of K2 and constructed seemingly from the rock of the mountain itself.

Well, you wouldn't find it. Not unless you knew how to lift its protections against discovery at any rate and the vast majority of climbers don't know how to do that. The citadel was but one of many scattered throughout the world, all in similarly remote regions, forbidding to all but the most adventurous individuals: the depths of the Amazon Jungle, the heights of the Andes Mountains in South America, the middle of Death Valley in the USA – you get the point.

These great edifices of human ingenuity hold an awe-inspiring secret: they are known as the chapter houses of the Order of the Silver Flame, or at least they are to those aware of the Order's existence. Founded untold ages in the past, in the times when great magic was dominant in the world, the Order was comprised of the descendants of those humans who had dared to reach out inside themselves, to conquer the demons that stalked their dreams and nightmares – and in so doing, proved to the high powers their worth to wield great power, being granted the secrets of the magic of the Prime, the infinite wellspring from which all things arise and to which all things must, without exception, one day return. Mages without peer, sages beyond reproach, the Keepers, as they were known, had been set above the masses as teachers, leaders, and guardians.

The Keepers were the last line of defence against the beings of the Void and the Low Realms – those places that men only visit in the worst of nightmares, and then only for a fleeting moment. These realms are the birthing-place of the negative side of humanity: anger, fear, hatred, oppression, and the festering lairs of those … things that dwell on such emotions and engender demented schemes and power-hungry crazes in the hearts and minds of men. The Low Realms were the perfect antithesis to the High Realms – the heavens, that indefinable place where all thoughts and deeds are born; where the soul of every human being past, present and future is forged.

And it had been nearly fifty years since the worst such threat had manifested on Earth – as a threat to the safety of the High Realms themselves. Yet ironically, as such things often go, this threat had started as a mere human, born to the weaker forms of magic but also a man possessed of an iron will and unshakable determination to make a name for himself. He was also born with monumental hubris and arrogance, convinced that he was the centre of existence and that he alone was fit to rule, to bring his version of order to chaos. This human, of course, is the one called Tom Riddle, more commonly known as Lord Voldemort.

For years, the Order had fought and died in countless battles against the hordes of darkness that this demented mortal unleashed upon the world, but there were a number of Keepers – low-and high-ranking alike – aware of an obscure prophecy made centuries previously that said that 'though he set his nest among the stars, and mount on high as the eagle, the Serpent Lord shall be brought low by the power of a promise.'

On the 31st day of October, 1981, that prophecy was fulfilled by the actions of a young witch from England, when she gave her life in return for her son's. Her pleas for mercy for her son implied a promise to spare him – one which the Serpent Lord, in his arrogance, ignored, and as the prophecy had said, the Serpent Lord was indeed 'brought low by the power of a promise'.

The woman had been Lily Potter, and her son, Harry Potter. Naturally, the Serpent Lord had been Voldemort. He had completely underestimated the power of a mother's sacrifice, and that had made all the difference. The aegis of love that had surrounded Harry had been a truly mighty defence, and one that only the most powerfully evil of beings could have breached.

The metaphysical power of such a sacrifice reflected the deadly curse Voldemort had sent at the one-year-old back at the Dark wizard at almost full power, and had torn an astonished Voldemort's soul from his body, leaving him totally powerless and stranded somewhere between life and death, and breaking the stranglehold of fear and terror on the magical world.

However, in the citadels, enclaves and lodges across the world, the Keepers heard whisperings from the spirit worlds and from the High Realms themselves. A new prophecy had revealed itself through a ten-year-old Keeper from China in drawings and sketches that his parents had claimed he produced while in a 'trance-like state, almost as if possessed'. The drawings were taken to be analysed and translated, and after several months of work, the produced transliterations into written language went something like this:

"From bone, flesh and blood

The Serpent will rise;

Bone of the father,

Flesh of the servant,

Blood of the foe.

A shadow will fall

On the world behind the world;

Eyes and ears will be closed to truth.

Chaos will reign over all

And darkness will hold its sway.

Yet hope shall never die;

The old order will pass

And the new shall rise,

Headed by the one who knows truth.

They will teach him the path

And he will cast the Serpent to the flames

Forever."

In the year 1994, Keepers all over the world had dreams and visions of a deserted graveyard populated only by spirits of the vengeful dead. In the centre of this graveyard stood one grave, seemingly more important than the others, whose earth was broken and the skeleton within scattered and disordered. In the skies overhead, lightning flashed, but no thunder sounded, and a strange red rain fell – human blood. On the gravestone rested a gruesome artefact: a severed human hand. One sound pervaded the horrific scene, and it was a sound that Keepers all over the world knew.

It was a laugh, high and cold. Many Keepers were all too aware of what this meant.

The dark times had returned.

Voldemort was back, just as the prophecy had said, but as this dark revelation was made, some of the most insightful Keepers realised that if this first part of the prophecy had played out thus far … then so must the rest, and thus began the search for the one who 'knows truth' – the one whose power would forever cast the Serpent into darkness.