Believe it or not, I actually ended up writing something! This is the prologue to a potential fantasy novel idea I have. I'm very happy I finally started, as this concept/world is one I've been developing for a long time.

PROLOGUE

 

There are a number of ways to start a fire.

 

With flint and steel to make a spark, with oil or wood as fuel, with a certain type of lens to manipulate the rays of the sun, among many others, the sentient species of the world have known fire as a friend and a tool since the beginnings of their civilization.

 

But it is not normal to start a fire from merely one stone.

 

The man, despite the heavy age that showed in his angular, sunken cheekbones, wrinkles about his impenetrably dark eyes, and long silvery hair, stood without a stoop. His posture was proud and strong, the stance of one who possessed both authority and power. He wore a robe of some deep black gauzy material that fell in a billowing cascade to the ground around him, fluttering in his wake as he paced the room.

 

In one spidery and pale hand was clasped a scythe, a wooden-shafted weapon with a wickedly sharp and curving blade affixed to its top. He walked with it like a staff, held so that the butt of the handle rested on the ground.

 

Held in the bony fingers of his other hand was a rough, uncut stone. It was of a strange hue and consistency – a deep green, but with the occasional flare of sickly light that made the crystal glow. A weird black smoke that warped the air was emitted by the palm-sized rock, and it fell to the ground like a layer of dark, alien fog.

 

After a few paces about the tower chamber, a hexagonal room with six arching windows to make its walls, the dark-clad figure stepped towards a small round table affixed to the ground at the room’s center. Once there, he reverently set the odd stone down upon it, then drew back away from it, retreating to a corner of the room, and set his scythe down on the floor.

 

The man slowly raised both his arms into the air, palms up and above his head. He was chanting something in a guttural language as he did so, an incantation that spilled out of his lips. His voice began to crescendo, rising in volume and intensity. He spat out each inhuman syllable with relish, and his face evolved into a crazed grimace of terrible joy, his dark eyes wide and teeth bared.

 

For he saw that his chant was working.

 

As he was speaking, the stone on the circular podium in the middle of the room began to react. At first, it merely smoked more violently, but then began to rise slowly into the air, spinning slowly as it ascended.

 

“Gyruag kl’mun, lorku, ashna’at thurl suish-ka, flarod hezba’nach! Huralok… Wraithra!”

 

The elderly man’s voice had reached its peak, a booming shout that echoed through the whole room deafeningly. His hands clenched into fists as he felt electrical energies racing through his body.

With his final verse, the rock dissolved, melting into an inky substance that bubbled and hissed like hot tar as it hung in midair. Before the eyes of the cloaked man, this mass of solid darkness began to take shape and expand. As he looked on, it grew grotesquely shapeless limbs and an unrefined head.

 

But the hovering mass quickly defined its shape - it warped and writhed to appear like a man made of some pitch-black clay that was as much fluid as it was gaseous. The face remained without features.

 

Then, all of a sudden, the form burst into fire, dancing green flames that encompassed its whole body. The infernos licked and burned brightly and constantly over the shadowy substances of its core, illuminating the tower room with verdant phosphorescence.

 

The inky, heavier-than-air smoke created by the crystal before its transformation still lay on the ground of the chamber. Now, it sprang into motion as if being summoned to the flaming being’s new body, moving with purpose and speed.

 

As it reached the newly-born creature, the smoke took on more substance, becoming a charcoal-grey cloak woven of dark fog. The being was soon draped entirely in this mantle of swirling gas, a heavy robe that covered its body and smothered the green flames below. The only places from which its sickly fires could seep now where out the long sleeves and from under the shadowy hood.

 

Now fully formed, the dark figure lowered slowly to stand upon the ground below it. It turned its hooded head, the face a void of whirling darkness, at the old man. The elderly conjurer was still smiling coldly, his mouth forming a wolfish grin.

 

“I am he who has summoned you, mightiest of the sons of Death,” The man said, speaking to his new servant. “I am your master. Bow before me.”

 

Without words, the shadowy creature fell to a knee, graceful and silent in the motion. It lowered its cowl-covered head in a respectful nod.

 

The old man thrust out his arms and thrust out his chest with unrestrained pride. A hacking, dry laugh burst out from his throat as he threw back his hollowed face. He cackled in self-exultance, the sounds of his malicious mirth echoing through the tower room and the sky around.

 

Scallow of Uthras, wielder of the twilit scythe, most powerful Necromancer alive, had just summoned to his will one of the deadliest demons in existence, a tendril of the essence of the Gods of Death, a living nightmare.

 

Scallow had summoned one of the Wraithra.

 

Now, none would be able to oppose him.