A/N : Anyway before you continue to read, all characters, places, creatures and monsters all belong to me, because they are created from a wierd little world in my imagination!

Enjoy reading, and tell me what you think!

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Prologue: A Long Time Coming

The man cowered in the darkened corner as he saw his former custodians being consumed by the result of their lust for power. He had warned them. Oh, how he had warned them! But the fools had meddled with a greater authority and got their just reward. The heat of the tower seared him and sweat poured off him in waves. His once grandiose clothes with their gilded linings were stained in hues of brown oil and were ripped in multiple places, showing the purple bruises and red cuts he had sustained in his damned work.

Around him, the bloody red light spread through the air as if it was some kind of living disease cloud, for it did not look wholesome to him at all. It looked as if the full moon had usurped the place of the sun, luminously glowing as the dark radiance extended across its face. But only a fool would think that was good.

It was ironically peaceful, illuminating the sky as if a new dawn had come in the middle of the night, if not for the sounds of battle outside and the echoing screams of the men who had been consumed by the creatures beyond the gateway. Looking up, he could see the grey colours of the arched roof starting to wash red as the light touched it, parts of it cracking under some unseen strain.

A support column fell, barely crushing him, as the central tower started to fall apart around him, the influence of the uncontrollable gateway too strong for the meagre building. He gasped in pain as a chip of flying stone embedded into his arm, as the plummeting pillar splintered as it hit the wall, showering large chunks of stone over his head. But the stones did not fall on him as intended, instead curving towards the darkened surface of the Gateway looming in front of him.

He had edged away from it as fast as he could when it had been unaffected by his control mechanisms. The Councillors had been the ones controlling it, before they all foolishly stepped through the gateway to their probable deaths, while they doomed the rest of the world to its power. That woman, Liaane, had been right; he should have just destroyed the papers of the Last Cartographer before they had been captured, but he had been too foolish, too weak to allow himself to pass the knowledge into the sands of time. And now he would pay for it with his life.

Equipment, plans and the general debris of the tower flew passed him to be engulfed by the expanding monster, he himself feeling the gradually strengthening pull. He knew what would happen if it went unabated and if he didn't do something then he was as good as dead, as well as the whole world if the theories were right.

The door opposite him flew open as four guards entered with sword blades forward, only to be surprised by an invisible pull, their swords wrenched from their hands. All four slipped on the stone and hit the ground in their heavy Dragon armour, trying to claw their way back to the door. In any other situation this would have looked comical, but the man shuddered in dread and sorrow for the guards. The poor fools were too close to Gate, and one by one, each was taken to their waiting graves beyond, their screams as horrific as those who had gone before them. And he knew that now only he could stop the people of the world from sharing the same fate, before the barrier between the worlds tore enough for the things on the other side to be let out. Nobody was coming to help.

He stood up shakily, only to trip on one of his stabilising ropes and be sucked towards the Gateway. He screamed and flailed his arms wildly into the air, and was lucky enough to get caught onto one of the massive containment devices he had brought with him for the induction. He jerked in pain as his arm was nearly ripped out of its socket, but he still managed to hold on, his muscles protesting against the pressure.

He looked into the gateway just metres behind him. The dark murky creatures, just inside the gateway's liquid transparent black and blue surface, beckoned to him with their strange blurred limbs, to let go of his troubles and peacefully slide into their warm embrace where he could be at peace forever.

But he had seen how they had ripped the Council to shreds; he had heard their haunting screams of horror. He would not be so easily enticed like they were. He held on as he tried to think of plan, his situation making his mind panicky and flighty. His thoughts drifted to the section of his mind which reasoned that it was hopeless just to continue to prolong this pain. As far as he was concerned, he was dead already, so why not just let go? He longed to let go, and join his soul with those beyond…

But he brutally wrenched himself out of those thoughts with the parts of his mind he still controlled. He didn't want to die, least of all in that place.

Pain lanced up his leg joints as the already vicious pull gradually became a tug of war. He struggled to keep himself on the metallic machine, but saw that the mechanism itself was slowly being pulled in. He finally realised that there was nothing he could do to save himself.

With the rising fury of a madman, he cursed the Council for bringing him to his death along with them. He had been forced to make the most dangerous object known to man for them and now the world would pay for his folly. He should have killed himself when he had had the chance. But even then, he would have been denied the pleasure of foiling them. They would have just found another, and though it would have been a waste of considerable time, they had gained all the time in the world after bringing the peoples of the whole continent to heel. Inside, he still wept for his homeland and his family, and in joy that he would soon join them in death.

As he prepared to let go of the machine and resign himself to the inevitable, he heard a hard clang.

Just beyond his reach and stuck to one of the containment device's highly electromagnetic generators, was his failsafe controller. In a world of magic, nobody had ever thought that his inventions would one day save the humankind. His electric and radio inventions had always been looked upon as eccentric but otherwise useless to modern life. He now took pride that they had actually made a difference.

He would not be able to save himself, he reasoned, but if he had a chance to save the world, why not take it? He would be remembered forever in history as the man who saved the world from the evil experiment of the Council, even though he was the one who created the damned portal in the first place. Maybe this deed would eclipse the other, would make up for the pain he had caused.

He reached up and was nearly pulled off the device when he lost leverage with his right hand. He would have to be more careful. But, he thought as he looked back at the gateway, now just a metre behind his dangerously dangling feet, time is precious and I don't have much left to afford being careful.

His muscles ached as his right hand again left its handhold on the cold metal chassis. He slowly reached up and secured his hand onto the base of the controller. Relieved that his hard work had not been in vain, he pulled on the controller to take it off.

He discovered it was stuck fast, as if it had been glued to the generator. Neither could he reach the failsafe button. He cursed his luck and pulled harder. The contraption did not budge.

In desperation, he shifted himself so that his weight was centred on his right hand and pulled with the last ounce of his strength. The controller was successfully wrenched off the machine, but the resulting disorientation of his action slid him a few more precious inches to the portal. To his eyes looking back over his shoulder, it seemed to try to reach out to the soles of his shoes, though of course that was impossible. But who knew what was possible in this world?

He prayed to the Gods above, if there even was a Creator, that he would succeed, for the sake of the world if not himself. He pushed a red button on the controller to engage the failsafe procedure, fixed it onto the machine chassis and with relief let go of the containment mechanism.

In the spaces between time and thought, something appeared to him for only a heartbeat before dissipating into the darkness of the tower. The form of a man took shape to his eyes, though at best it could have been described as a black creature. Folds of darkness seemed to gather around the indiscernible figure, permeating the shape, as two folds opened at where its face should have been to show dark yellow jaundiced eyes with black pupils. Slowly, what looked like hands developed, but they weren't really hands. They were claws, long and curved claws. Its lips seemed to form a word, and though it was but a whisper, the word and the message echoed into his mind. Stark terror flowed through him as he slowly seemed to tumble into the Gateway, trying to speed up to escape the greater of two evils. As his mind jolted around in his fright, a calm centre in his consciousness knew that it was the end of him. Forgive me and may my sacrifice not be in vain.

As he was sucked into the portal's depths, the failsafe device activated. The portal started to flicker, and in a few seconds quietly dissipated along with the near-solid darkness that had been formed in the middle of the tower. A few more columns collapsed at the sudden change in gravity. The air remained still as if the momentous event had never occurred.

But the power, the strength of the properties that had been imbued to open the portal then lost its stability and in a flash of light, the tower, the castle and whatever remained of the battling armies outside were obliterated, leaving only a crater as testament of the powers that had been unleashed.

---

Reality itself folded and the Watcher sneered as the man flew into the gateway, just as the failsafe device activated. He could not interfere, not in this place where his powers grew weak. Here, even a human without the Ability could overpower him if he knew what to do. The Watcher could only watch, while the plans of the Master went awry. He would surely be blamed for this failure, no matter how it occurred. But even so, he planned to make this man pay, for the rest of his life and beyond, for this offence. And plans could always be reconstructed and revived again.

One of the Master's greatest virtues was patience; time meant nothing to him when he was in a place where it did not exist, only primal haste. He would be infuriated, though, when the goal that had practically been in his grasp again slipped through his fingers. Reality started to shift slowly, and even the power of the Watcher could not hold time forever. Now, it was his time to go. In the place between thoughts and the fabric of universe itself, he entered the portal after the man, into the place which his prisoner would be punished for the duration of his existence.

---

Zaor put his spyglass down, and looked over the field of fighting men with the normal sight of his eyes. The fighting had intensified in the middle of the chaos, but the commander of the opposing army was as smart as General Dariol who stood beside him, looking through his own small silver spyglass. If this man was as good as a great Marshall General, then it was probable that the Council had found another Marshall to command their own armies.

Even now, he could barely see the subtle strategy that the enemy commander was employing amidst the tight knot of fighting men. But that was hardly as important as what was happening in the tower beyond, situated in the middle of the great fortress that was known to men as Daornost. There, the fate of the world would be decided. But Zaor would not be there to influence it; the combined Council would overpower him quickly enough, though he was more than exceedingly powerful against four members together.

He brought up his spyglass back to his eye, sweeping it over the dark walls of the fortress a second time. Then, the discrepancy that had so nagged at his mind finally revealed itself. There were no men whatsoever manning the walls! That would have given them a very good advantage, but why hadn't they exploited it? Puzzled, he brought the spyglass back down and fastened it onto his belt. Suddenly, the moon started to shine, but not of the normal shade that Zaor had seen it to be in this world. The fighting nearly stopped, as everyone looked at the source of the light. That was to be expected. Even Zaor was struck with unnatural fear.

In mere moments, the blood red pigment that had tinged the colour of the moon suddenly shone brightly on the surface, as if a veil had been abruptly removed. And the light started to shine among the men of the battlefield. As abruptly as it had stopped, the fighting began again in full force. Zaor heard a bone shattering roar pierce the sky and looked above, as did his retinue of soldiers and officers. In the distance behind the shape of the fortress, dozens of creatures flew through the red that was the air toward the conflict, and rain started to fall among the field.

As an explosion that seemed to come from nowhere shook the deeper battlelines, Zaor knew instantly where it had come from. Glancing over the wall's battlements again, he barely glimpsed a figure flanked by two others, a woman it seemed, with dark hair, wearing black robes with the colours of her Master's empire ribboning down the left shoulder. As the ferocious shaking reached his quadrant and the ground itself started to lift, he barely managed to shout a warning.

'Get down, all of you!'

As his entourage followed his instructions, he paused for a second to take a last glance at the woman he had once known, before diving into the rain soaked mud, dreading the dark future which now seemed inevitable.

---

The murky towers of the Daornost fortress flashed as it was bathed in a white-hot light before returning to the red shade which did not seem to have a source. The stone itself was glowing red, as the spell intensified and the experiment reached its zenith. The fighting had escalated between the armies which contested just outside the walls, men in polished dark armour and black-polished steel helmets, which made them look akin to ferocious black beetles, fighting against a ragged group of veteran and hard-eyed soldiers, men of varying nationalities from Tiiarian, Delagorian, Yarian, even some of the remaining Taron.

It could be distinguished from the armour they were wearing; some donning the armour of the Silver Gauntlet from the Tiiarian army, some with the Delagorian burnished blue and green armour with the conical helmets and a handful of men even wearing the purple armour of Marines in the Yarian Navy. And the Taron were in their ancestral armour, the scintillating white colour of their impenetrable hardened suits with the strange hawklike helmets.

But, in the darkness, Liaane could not tell much about the battle, except that the Rebels were outnumbered two to one by the Supreme Conquering Army. It was not good odds for the Rebels, and they, in their desperate attempt to divert attention from the Experiment, knew that too. Perhaps that was why they attacked in the night too, though that was a disadvantage for them as well as the Supreme Army. The pounding rain did not help things either, creating a makeshift red curtain in the air as the light shone through it. But how could they still hope to stand against the full five battalions of the Conquering Army?

A grey leathery animal flashed passed the moon, drawing her eyes as it swerved back to the battle below. Other flying Daes'Curand hung in the air with riders on the backs, the shining black beetle armour of the pilots distinguishable from even that great distance. They were feared by everyone who thought rebellion and were instrumental for negotiating bloodless surrenders, though the conquerors weren't so forgiving afterwards. The creatures' long talons, scaly lizard bodies, razor-toothed jaws, wings and overall largeness made them an impressive, and fearsome, sight.

Before she could blink, one of the seemingly lumbering beasts struck lightning fast at a knot of heavy fighting in the centre of the field, throwing the shapes of men sprawling into the air. But before she could take another blink, a fireball erupted out of nowhere and hit the beast with a white blast, spraying what seemed to be living fire onto it. Wherever that fire hit, it started to spread, and quite a number of men fell to the ground, blackening as the flames fed on them. She had seen such displays and manipulations of the Great Fount before, but she could not pin down the person who wove it before a distraction intervened.

Suddenly, she heard the sounds of crumbling stone from inside the tower and before she could look, the Master came out from the beleaguered tower in haste, hooded in the dark robes of a Daes Tarsad. She thought it was strange for him to be wearing that; those who had originally donned those robes were long since extinct. Her Firebreather guards tensed in attention before being dismissed by the Master, the sounds of their creaking armour disappearing into the red darkness.

Motioning her to follow him, they set out from the tower up to the stairs leading to the ramparts of the fortress, which were completely unmanned, a severe tactical disadvantage. Why the Master had required it to be so, when he knew the risk, she could not fathom and neither had he deigned to answer. As they reached the outer wall, he started talking in a hurried voice unused to his constant demeanour of confidence.

'Liaane, we are leaving. It seems that I have miscalculated. This whole place will be turned to dust in a few minutes. Curse those fateful fools fighting down there! I was so close!'

For a moment, he stood at the edge of the battlement, looking down upon the glorious army he had amassed, and the rebels he had so underestimated. They had done something remarkable; made even the great Council hurry its steps to complete the Experiment by the sheer force of their suicidal motivation, resulting in the final cataclysm which was yet to swallow this place.

'The portal seems to be growing and there is nothing I can do to stop it' he continued in a resigned voice.

'We will have to abandon the army and this whole continent, go into hiding until we can find a way to quell it.'

Listening calmly, she replied in a smooth voice she had grown used to using. 'Does this mean Zaor has won, Master? If we leave, without the Councillors, then you will not have the strength to be able to face these… Rebels… for some time.'

The Master snarled at her angrily, his dark eyes ignited in dark anger. 'The Councillors are already dead! Killed by their own damned ambitions! I will not make the same mistake they did. I will bide my time until the next moment that Ioradas is at its weakest, like the Watcher who had so manipulated my plans.'

His face abruptly split into a malevolent smile, and he bared his teeth in the fashion of a predator with its prey trapped in a corner, waiting to be taken on his whim. 'Zaor made a mistake coming here with the last of the Taron. He and his friends will die in the portal, before he knows that I've at least partially succeeded in creating it. Besides, he will never leave his own men.'

As he finished, the Master quickly wove a Skip in time and space, and a hole formed in front of them, a clearing in a forest immediately on the other side. 'Lets leave this place. We have much work to do,' he said, smoothly stepping through.

But Liaane faltered for a moment, and looked out at the battle. The corpses of those who had fallen were trampled by the tens of thousands that fought on the Plain of Delaoran. On the other side of the field, the banner of the Taron stood, flowing against the cold wind. The Crescent Moon and the Fireball. But she looked to the side of that banner, where the Commander of the Ioradas Coalition stood, arrayed in the armours of the Taron. His dark hair, his towering height and aura of command marked him clearly.

Zaor would die, along with the rebellion he had helped to orchestrate. And so, the age of the Taron would be ended when his kin went along with him. The prophecy would be fulfilled, and a new power would rise again, one as great as the one who lead the Coalition. But it would destroy half the world as Draemor and Zaor destroyed the continent in their conquests. And at the same time, it would save it.

She looked back at the tower. It was starting to collapse under the strain of an invisible force, the dark stone crumbling every second she stood on the wall. She had dallied too long. Stepping through the portal, she knew that the signs were clear and the next stage of Taletron Codex was already in motion. Behind the closing Skip portal, the world shook and the fortress disappeared from existence. But she barely noticed even that. The Sid'raniel was coming, that was certain. The Creator help the world for it, but he, or it, was coming.