Claim to Disclaim: I am not Garth Nix. If I was, my privates would be looking much different. I don't own the Abhorsen Trilogy. If I did, Orannis would be Sauron's half-brother by way of his mother's first husband.
Notes and Such: Prologue is evidently a little thing called foreshadowing. It takes place while the mêlée with the Destroyer is occurring near Forwin Mill. The first chapter will continue exactly where Abhorsen left off, with no sudden alterations, so bear with me folks.
Prologue
Three miles north of the small town of Ganel, and around two-hundred forty miles north of Forwin Mill, a small fire was roasting a particularly corpulent rabbit that had been caught quite recently. Around the fire sat four men, three of them merchants and one newly trained Charter mage who was five weeks shy of his twentieth birthday. Together, the four men had been traveling for more than two months, and were accustomed to spending nights outside in makeshift camps, often needing nothing more than a few blankets and pillows. However, tonight they all sat unusually quiet as they waited for the rabbit to cook, with their swords by their hands and their eyes constantly shifting this way and that, as their rigid legs waited, ready to jump at the first sign of danger. For a few days, there had been an alarming rise at the number of Dead who walked amongst the living, and seemingly, they weren't controlled by any necromancers. Still dangerous, yes, but highly uncoordinated, and they seemed to only seek life, and not any particular life. Everything from Dead and Shadow Hands to even Mordicants. The four men knew this well from past experiences, and because of this knowledge they remained at their most alert. Any of the shadows that danced around their camp could easily be one of the Dead, watching their prey, waiting for the perfect moment to fulfill their thirst for Life.
The Mage was the first to see it. A few feet to the left of the fire, something began flickering several feet off the ground. At first, it was like a golden thread, and then it began spreading, eating away at the darkness. Warning the others, he slowly stood up, sword firmly in his hand, and went to investigate. He peered at the gleaming, uneven hole as it still spread. Thinking his eyes deceived him, he rubbed them thoroughly before gazing into the hole again.
"Oh…Charter…" he whispered, barely audibly. The others stood a few feet back, their swords ready and their bodies alert.
What the Mage didn't know was that he had spoken the truth. What he was looking at was the charter. Or at least, an extremely small piece of it. Thousands of tiny Charter marks moved rapidly through the hole, each completely different from the next, and most completely foreign to the Mage. All of a sudden, a smaller dark hole appeared inside the shred of the Charter. It began eating consuming shining marks, until there was nothing left of the shred except at the very edges of the hole, creating a luminous border.
"What in the name of…"
"What? What's happening Teneris?" asked one of the merchants, as he came closer to the Mage to peer into the hole.
Teneris kept on gazing, as the darkness in the hole soon became lighter, until it reached a dim grey color. It seemed to be a window floating in the night, and inside the window, Teneris saw something that resembled a great, grey river, ending in a distant veil of mist in the horizon.
- - - - - - -
More than five-hundred and fifty miles south of Ganel, in the smog-filled Ancelstierrian city of Corvere, a young messenger to the Embassy had just delivered a simple three word message to one of the key politicians of the Our Country party, not expecting the effect of the words.
"COROLINI…IS…WHAT?!" bellowed a balding, grey-haired man who looked more like a grandfather than a brilliant, and often malicious, political strategist. His dark eyes now glinted with fury as he stared at the cowering messenger, who was the first visitor he had received in over two days, locked in his room while scrutinizing some of the most important political tactics he would probably ever compose. The abrupt entrance of the young messenger and the abysmal meaning of the message, put together with how bluntly the messenger had delivered it, had caught the grey-haired man in a moment of utter disbelief.
"D-d-dead, s-sir. I…was just sent here from the Embassy as soon as they found out. The only other thing they told me was," he nervously itched his neck, trying to remember. "Oh yes, they told me that they had found his body and that it was just an…empty husk. The only thing they could tell was that he was somehow burned inside-out. Assassination has already been mentioned, though no one's sure. That's…that's it I believe."
"You believe? You believe? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THIS MEANS TO THE NATIONALISTS?! Of course, I suppose you don't, spending all that time bootlicking! You haven't a clue what it took for us to get the Party as far as we've gotten!"—the messenger stared blankly—"GET OUT! JUST…GET OUT!" barked the grey-haired man, nearly shattering the glass-covered desk he banged on.
The young messenger didn't need another word, he quickly left and shut the door behind him, eager to get as far away as possible. Meanwhile, inside the room, the grey-haired man put his head in his hands, running his hands through his nearly non-existent hair over and over, until he had nearly turned his entire scalp red from rubbing.
Suddenly, the room went dark, and a wave of cold swept over the man, who was now absolutely devoid of any patience at all.
"What the hell is it--" he began, and his voice trailed off as the darkness gave way to a dim, eerie, shade of grey. Completely bewildered, he thought he had lost it. He looked around and realized he was standing knee-high in a dark river that seemed to go on forever on either side, only ending in a great veil of mist on the horizon, from which he heard a great roar of a waterfall. The river tugged and pulled at him, and he felt the cold eating away at his core. For what was only a few seconds, though it seemed like weeks to the man, he stared blankly at the river, in absolute uncertainty of what had happened.
"Where…in…" he blinked, not wanting to open his eyes again, until as rapidly as it had come, the cold subsided, and he slowly opened his eyes to see he was still in the exact same office, surrounded by the exact same papers.