Time Piece of the Gods
When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by the stories of the ancient days, when the gods battled demons, an age when heroes were forged in times of need. I never thought way back then, that I would live in a time where such thing again became as common as rodents scurrying or flies buzzing round ones ear.
But that is the time I was born to, the era of the Wraith-war, and maybe in my hubris I thought I alone could shift the course of time, all because of a story from when I was younger stuck in my mind until as an adult it took root in a mad attempt to change the world. Instead I would find it would be me that it changed.
There was a story in my childhood I loved more than all the others, the story of the first mage in all of history and his defiance of the deities that held mankind down. In this story the mage attempted to garner power above even the gods, by using a device known as the Timepiece of the gods. Though every race has its own name for it, to the beastlanders its known as Deus'Tempus, and the elves in their legends called it correctly for what it was, the elven word for it translates simply to, Gate of time. How do I know this, is simple, I loved this legend so much that with all my spare energy, and all my traveling I studied every scrap of parchment, and spoke to every venerable sage who knew even the inkling of its truth.
Being a young mage had its perks, institutes of learning and knowledge often opened their door for you with out a second glance. And you could ask about anything thing and simply reply its for the war, and be believed. In my arrogance I should have heeded the other name those elves had in place for this legendary site, though the mage in the legend in some ways succeeded in his task, he brought woe unto his land and people, for this reason the very first name it was called was simply, The Fools Gateway.
But I couldn't be persuaded then, maybe that's the folly of youth, to believe in yourself to a point of utter insipid stupidity.
I will never reveal to anyone the location of the Timepiece, not out of a desire to keep it to myself, in fact I wish I had never laid eyes upon the ruins that it now was. I simply know now that it was lost to time for a reason, and if not for a stroke of luck , or perhaps fate I myself would not have happened upon that long lost site myself. In the end though I know that if I should find it again my desire would not be to use it but to destroy it, for it is a ruinous thing meant for an eldritch time long before man or untamed or even elvenkin walked the face of our world. That does not change the fact that I , a girl who believed herself to be a simple hedge wizard did arrogantly set the clock ablaze. And I will be paying for it for the length of a lifetime.
I had only been lost for a few hours that morning, one of many of my so called "scouting expiditions" , as I reported them officially to General Summer , though in reality they were simply flights of fancy paid for on my military salary, I simply stated I was searching for as yet for to unknown wraith encampments. In the middle of places that had no right or way of being in this war, but who was to say there was none to be found unless I searched/
Being on foot that morning in the twisting canyons had resulted in my losing my way, but by that time I no longer was concerned, having found a nice patch of forest as the rocky land gave way to lovely and beautiful forests hidden in the deep reaches of this canyons heart. In all truth if not for my annoying habit of having to catalogue every plant and herb I found perhaps life would have been different for me. But it wasn't, because while uprooting a sample for my own 'personal' use , underneath it was stone, oh so long forgotten and worn that drew me inward to a path I would have surely missed.
And all along this path there dotted stones of some ancient city or temple from a time I cant even imagine, all of it leading me to something that when I walked into it, simply made me kneel and weep in reverence.
For sitting in a circle surrounded by moss and vine covered statues, whose faces and names were obscured by the ages, on a dais that somehow fought the encroaching jungle life enough to keep its form and purpose alive, were the markings long engraved in my mind sitting now engrave in real life stone. The fluidly carved symbols and designs etched by some power beyond reckoning still held in them the feel of godly hands that once crafted them.
How did I know what it would look like you might ask, and rightly so, for only in one place did I find an ancient depiction of this sacred device. Shockingly it was the beast-landers whose native and primeval lands held this secret, Upon a cave in their lands was something that I doubt even they are aware of, a painting on a wall in a cave , depicting the keepers of the gates and the gateway itself. In fact if not for those paintings I may very well not have known the sacred dance that the priestesses of the sacred elements performed here for the gods. Yet that was exactly the case. I knew it step for step, beat for beat, the eldritch songs and notes stored away in elven folk tunes , the second key to the timepiece. And I laugh now for it was only that most random of chances that I was a mage, obsessed with this very obscure legend , that I knew how to power it. Yes the five elements were the final key, and though we humans only has mastered three, a resourceful mage I was, had ways of faking the other two.
Maybe you think me foolish for what I did next, but some part of me felt the need to clean the dais of the millennia of moss and debris that had amazingly not totally conquered the ancient site. Perhaps I felt a bit like I was one of those priestesses of yore, and partly I did for I was standing where they stood, ancient and powerful, spirits of the elements given life and soul whose heart still beats on in the magics of the many races. I knelt and prayed, the dais still humming as if some unseen power still waited deep within after all these years had been awakened by my touch.
After all this, I began my ritual, setting the five points alight with their elements, and taking my place in the position that marked the start of the dance. I knew the dance of the ages, I knew the song of time, both had been keyed in my heart since I was a girl , before I studied them in books and lore as an adult, I knew them deep inside myself the way one knows the dark holds things that are scary and evil as a child. My voice soft and resonate against the hum of the dais, I followed the steps, my skirt waving over the pure white alabaster skin of my legs as I matched each movement in time. Slowly I became lost in the twirling and spinning ritual, feeling as if the dais itself was alive and moving with me, as the etchings on the face of the stone began glow and light the dimming evening sky. I cried and laughed as the dance took me over, something inside me felt like for one night , here and now, those old spirits were watching me, I thought how great it would be, to go back , and warn the world of the impending Wraith war, this time all the races would be ready, this time we would win easily .
The dance was a spiral that slowly made its way into the center where the stone sat still dark, my laughter filled the entire sacred space, as my final footsteps clicked hollowly into the night sky , stepping ever closer to the sacred center, the priestesses would kneel and so did I , pressing my hands down on that center stone. The blue-white light surrounded me, the night sky must have been filled that night because the light blinded me. Then I felt like the world had been pulled out from under me, everything began spinning, and the hum suddenly was no longer a soft whisper but a pounding explosion that caused me to grasp my head as the sound smashed my body , almost in pain I doubled over and hoped it would pass, and it did, as soon as I myself felt my consciousness slip. The torrent feeling of spinning and the sound was too much for anyone, I wonder if that mage from the legend had felt this same way, but that wasn't my last thought as I blacked out, no my thought was simple, "I just have to hold on a little longer.", I didn't though, my mind gave way to forces beyond mortal stamina, and I fell forward onto the dais and the world I knew slipped away forever.