Within an ancient chamber of elegant yet austere furnishing, two figures sat, surrounded by shelves containing tomes and scrolls of ancient knowledge. Between the two was a board, a game board to be precise, covered in the ancient runes that had once belonged to the ancients, the travelers from beyond. The board represented the great game that was being played, a game like many others which touched the strands of fate.
Once, in another time and another life, the two who now played the game had once been mighty lords, leaders who guided their people through wisdom and the clever application of the arcane arts. Now they were here, within this place, between realities, a place within the depths of the Aethyr, a place where only the gods and certain mortals of great power may tread. It was also a place for the dead that did not truly rest, a place for the living in their dreaming, a place where those who were not fully either could find a temporary respite.
Of the two figures, one was a tall, skeletally thin being dressed in ragged robes of white and crimson with a balding head, translucent flesh and eyes that were now as black as coals. In a past age, he had once been a regal, broad shouldered figure, a king whose wisdom had guided his people, whose words were respected by all, even by another, great lord whom he had once called a friend. Now, all that was left of this once great figure was his work, his duty to preserve the world that he and so many had sacrificed themselves for and one that so many more will.
The other figure was dressed in robes of black and bone, his features were also similar to that of the first, albeit, one who had not long ago passed from the mortal plane. Unlike the other, black robed individual who enjoyed playing the great game, this one did not wear the same spider-silk garments, the ivory mask or the black sword amulet which the other so often wore. Red gems adorned the accouterments of this second figure; each one representing the pieces of who he was that still remained, safe from the clutches of the darkness.
Both were observers and players to the game where they themselves had once been pawns of but now were free to alter the course of as they saw fit, for good or ill. The pieces on the board moved on their own, guided by the wills of competing beings greater than they, entities whose spheres of influence encompassed much of what they had once been. Plots within plots, stratagems and plans which no mortal mind could comprehend were laid out before the two observers.
A game played between the Crone and the Raven, a game that caught the eyes of gods and other powerful mortals alike, a game that transcended reality itself. The game of Fate and of Change was being played, a game that would alter the destinies of all those who would be involved. It was a game they watched with deep interest for its end would lead to either annihilation or the hindering of that which was merely, the inevitable.
For a brief moment, their gazes fell upon the Wolf and the Hart, surrounded by an encroaching darkness their paths would soon cross with two others whose fates would be intertwined with their own along with so many others. Paths that would bring them to the next of the chosen, where one represented the deities of snow and the other of mists, the next two would represent those whose spheres encompassed that of life and death.
Several weeks later…
Another miserable sight was all that greeted Markor as he gazed upon yet another band of refugees. With arms crossed across his barreled chest, he watched from the window of his home, built upon great stilts over a marsh as more fellow Chasind from other clans arrived via the wooden bridges which the rest of the village was built upon. They were a sorry lot in his eyes, like all the others, all bringing tales from the south of a Darkspawn horde rampaging about and some even spoke of a mighty dragon which flew with the beasts.
With a sigh, he stepped away from the window and he went towards a nearby shelf where several herbal medicines rested. He gathered up as many as he could and he carefully placed them within a sack made from tanned animal hide for their clan's Thane had been explicit about helping out those in need. He then stepped out of his home with the container carried over his shoulder, his clansmen did likewise emerge from their huts, each holding different items which they could spare and even from inside his home, he knew that he would not be giving much.
Of the first thing Markor noticed of these refugees was the lack of children among their number for most of them were composed of scarred men and women, their faces carrying a haunted quality about it. Mentally counting and finding that there were perhaps twenty three of them in total, he quickly noted with some surprise that six of them had the look of foreigners. One was a fearsome, wolf-skulled warrior wearing a fur pelt cloak while another was clearly like one of the northern knights but had a set of great antlers rising from his helmets and the last ones were a group of cloaked leather armored men and a woman who all carried a pair of blades.
Leading the refugees was a big man wearing the helmet of a Thane with a heavy maul upon his back, a man and a young girl armed with bows stood close by, their eyes alert for any possible dangers. Thane Vorstag of Markor's clan was already there to greet the strangers and words were exchanged between the two clan leaders. He then noticed the fierce gaze of the skull masked warrior directly upon him and he heard a familiar, yet unnerving whisper from behind him and speaking in a foreign tongue.
Quickly turning around, he was slightly startled by the sudden appearance of the witch who had so recently made the acquaintance of their clan and had been instrumental in helping their clan in dealing with some recent troubles regarding altered animals with spines growing out of their backs. While the witch's presence was unnerving, especially because none of Markor's fellow clansmen knew if whether the woman The Witches of the Wild, her sorcery alone was more than enough to set many of them ill at ease. Not far from the witch was another woman who was also quite clearly from one of the foreign lands of the north.
As different from each other as night and day, Markor heard the different foreign speeches spoken between the two men and the two armored warriors which travelled with the small band of refugees. Little would he know of the meeting that took placed between the Paladin, Lothaire Du Gisoreux and Warrior Priest Albrecht Krieger, respectively of the lands of Bretonnia and The Empire, far away homelands which the women, Annette de Courone, of the Shallyan Sisterhood and Rosalind Amsel of the Amethyst Order had also hailed from. Little would he know of the fates that would bind these strange, otherworldly individuals with that of his own along with the countless others who had felt or would soon know the ruin which followed the Darkspawn horde that marched ever onwards to the north, to Ferelden and the rest of Thedas.
To be continued…
