Chapter 1

A travelling jack made his way down the beaten road from Sutrium, the carts wheels cracking the dry earth. However, to passing travellers heading the opposite way to the large city, there seemed something out of place. Even though the jack was humming to himself and had his hat tilted across his head, the jack did not have the easy manner of one who spends his life on the road. In fact, the jack was sitting straight up, alert to any movement on the road, holding the reins in his hands, one quick flip and he would be hurtling along the road, away from any potential danger. Never would the travellers know that this was not a jack that had made a false deal and left the city quickly in the hopes of not getting caught, as they thought.

The jack stared out under his slanted hat, watching the travellers surreptitiously. A band of gypsies headed towards them. One young woman had long black hair, like the night had been divided into little strands, and those had been given to her to wear, a veil of black silk. The jack sat up quickly, had he seen a familiar face? But no, he settled back down again as they passed. It was not her.

The jack drove his cart into a turn-off from the main road. The trees enclosed the little track in a living tunnel, sunlight seeping through the cracks, lighting the ground in patches. It was a relief to be out of the sun and the jack took off his hat and jumped off the cart. Strangely, after checking his cart was locked up and all the wares had been placed inside, he left the horse to graze by the edge of the road and started walking off. He was comfortable in the knowledge that the horse would not run away as he made his way along a bare, sunny field to a small hill off the side of the track, where another man stood watching.

"Rushton," the man coldly greeted him as the jack entered the shade of the tree crowning the hill.

"Domick," the jack greeted the man in the same manner.

"It's not often the Master of Obernewtyn steps out of his way to see an old friend," Domick said indifferently.

"Ahh. But you would not reject seeing me now. I have travelled and searched around and in Sutrium quite a few days until I could get the message to you that I wished to meet you. Yet you never replied. I wonder why you would be avoiding me, old friend."

"I wish to distance myself from Obernewtyn! And the people in it!" Domick snapped.

"The same way you distanced yourself from Kella?"

Domick's hard eyes looked down. But only for a second. When they looked up again, they were filled with something else. Someone else.

Yet Rushton would not give up.

"You need Obernewtyn Domick. We can heal you. Stop you before you change completely into someone your not. Before you hurt someone else like Kella, who you love, who you respect."

"It's too late for that Rushton," Domick sneered, "You cannot take me. You cannot change me. I am powerful now. Domick was filled with emotion, hindered by it. I feel nothing now. Didn't you realise? I am Mika. I have power."

And with those words, Domick stood up, glaring into Rushton's eyes. Their eyes battled, a war of wills, until Domick could take it no more and fled towards the surrounding forest, on the other side of the hill from the track. The field held no salvation from the sun's rays and they illuminated his departing shape, an aura that contrasted wrongly with the atmosphere of their conversation.

Rushton's head dropped in defeat. Mika had overridden Domick until there was nothing remaining except cruelty, power and greed. The loss of a friend was a heavy weight on Rushton. Domick would not be able to emerge now. The boughs of the tree he sat under, once a deliverance of shade from the glaring world around him, was now an oppression, creating a barrier where his despair would never be able escape but would tumble over and over in his mind.

The low cry heard from the trees where Domick had disappeared, snapped Rushton's head up. That had been Domick's shout, not Mika's. He scrambled up, while trying to run at the same time down the hill. As he left the shade of the tree, the sun's full glare blinded Rushton temporarily. So he could not see the figures in robes, as they appeared out from the trees at full run.

When at last his vision cleared, Rushton saw the Herders appearing out of the dark columns of the trees, and a flash of a platinum blond hair of a man watching with a cruel delight in his eyes, hidden among them. Rushton prepared to fight them, the pale blond man driven out of his mind by his immediate problem, but there was too many. They converged around him, warrior Herders, their strange curved bladed weapons glistening, bewildering him as the sun reflected off them, into his eyes.

"Do not kill him," a high, pitiless voice drawled from behind the Herders, "I want him alive."

It was familiar. That voice and that pale blond hair. The Herders pushed Rushton to his knees and made a gap for the blond man to come through. Rushton looked up, searching that face for what he knew but did not want to acknowledge. It was framed as the sun shone behind it, creating a golden halo that lit upon his hair. The blue eyes, shards of ice, staring out of the perfection of his features, narrowed, a confirmation for Rushton's prediction.

"Rushton," he announced, "Remember me?"

Rushton did. He was staring into the face of a nightmare in his dreams.

"Ariel."

Hope you liked it. I'll keep going probably. If i have enough time...