PROLOGUE
The girl sat silently in the tiny stone cell carved deep in the bowels of the Fortress of the Light. The only light in the room was a thin orange-gray strip from the tiny slit-like window facing the hallway. She raised her face expectantly to the sound of the heavy door unlocking and sliding open.
"They are waiting for you." The shadow in the doorway resolved into the ominous figure of a Hand of Light.
The girl stood up, swaying slightly, the rough cotton gray shift falling over her pale legs that have not seen the sun in weeks. She held her bruised arms up, palms up. She wore two manacles encircling her slim wrists. These manacles were made of thick black sweat-stained leather, not the heavy iron of a common prisoner, but manacles nonetheless.
The Hand of Light entered the darkness of the room, locked the two manacles together, and the two walked into the hallway without another word. The hall was of austere graystone walls and floor, lined with hundreds of doors for similar guests of the Fortress. The majority of doors they passed were identical solid iron with heavy locks. Several doors were covered in gilded paper tags. A few rare doors were completely bricked up, sealing their occupants forever.
Crackling flames from sconces carved deep in the wall cast deep shadows behind the pair as they walked down the long hallway until they finally arrived at the end - a nondescript steel door. A Child of Light stood guard here, his burnished breastplate and conical helmet scattering the red flickering light of the nearby torch. The guard opened the door for the two and they entered without ceremony.
They entered another plain windowless stone room. The girl felt the oppressive air in the room as if the low ceiling and walls were pressing heavily down upon her.
Three Inquisitors of the Light cloaked in white sat at the opposite wall, on heavy blackwood chairs almost like thrones. They sat nearly shrouded in shadow, but their practiced eyes watched the pair enter, studying, probing, never missing a single detail or movement.
There was a single chair facing the Inquisitors, lit by the only torch in the room, and this was the chair to which she was directed. Her escort locked her manacle to a chain connected to a cinder block in the ground, shuffled away, the door behind them with finality.
She looked to the left and right, but there was no table of instruments and questioning today, just the chairs and the Inquisitors.
Before she sat on the lonely chair, she gave a stiff bow to her audience, her joints groaning with dull ache. For a second, a ghost of a smile appeared on the face of the lead Inquisitor who gave a small incline of his head.
As the girl sat, the lead Inquisitor spoke, "It is about time that we met. Your interviewers have confirmed your veracity, and have found no obvious corruption of the Shadow. I apologize for the necessity of our methods, but you will not doubt that in these current times and of the events you have witnessed, mandatory."
Without waiting for a reply, he continued, "The stories of what happened in Illian have now spread wide and far, versions after versions, burning through the world like wildfire. Some of the most blasphemous accounts I have ever heard, but there is no doubt of the vast devastation and loss of life in Illian. Of the utter horror, depravity, and corruption that I still doubt words can do justice.
So it is time. Let us hear your final account and we shall make our judgement. Tell us, child. Tell us of Illian and of the Halfhand."
The girl wet her cracked, dried lips and spoke.
