A New Beginning

A New Beginning


The Unrest

The Amphitheater was empty but of one lonely soul usually so bright of character and constitution that radiance spilled off of him like gossamer strands of comfort, though now dimmed to normality. His white robes and platinum hair swayed in the ignorant gentle breeze. Standing in the middle of ornate pillars and stone step-work seating of the structure all around him, his gaze rose aloft to the red sunset acting as the prophet; painting the picture of the blood red future that awaited all in Vaeduurn and those scattered beyond. What has occurred shook the foundations of what these peoples therein have stood for for a thousand years. The simple years are at their end.

"Where have I gone wrong? Seajun... forefathers... I ask for your words of wisdom..." he pleaded quietly.

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"Why do you not understand, Aendara? Is it that you have fallen behind? That you cling to old understanding of the way it is and shall always be? Seajun has lied to us! There is more than this!" The crowd stirred and whispered their objections or agreement among themselves. Aendara himself awkwardly shifted his weight at the accusation. "Can you not imagine the future for yourself? You must have it told to you?!"

The silent Aendara opened his mouth slightly then hesitated as he looked around at the many faces awaiting his response. "I imagine a world in which my children can live the life I have lived with all the joys I have partaken of. I wish for no desire or pleasure to be out of their reach." Aendara's composure softened as he was confident in his answer. "And you, aside from ignoring my authority, what do you imagine Durden?"

Durden's cheek twitched in repulsion and his voice came to a bitter snarl, "I? I imagine a world where that dream of yours is accessible to all. While you live in opulence, there are those who must support themselves on the edge of a wire daily. Do you call that fair? Is that how you propose to run the land 'given to you by Seajun?'" he turned to the crowds looking on, the older men of the cities and towns.

"Do you not see it yourselves, fellow leaders? Do you not look on and pity Aendara for his selfishly indulgent fantasies? Do you see how his heart works for himself and not his fellow man?" He looked at Aendara now and grinned in victory. Many were shouting out their agreement with Durden while he walked around Aendara as a wild animal.

Aendara raised his hand to silence the split and argumentative crowd. Slowly it came to a quiet. "Long we have lived on this land as it was told to us to live upon it. I fear if we fail to live as Seajun instructed us in the beginning, things will go terribly wrong as he had spoken to us. Please, stay another day and tomorrow we will speak again. Already we have been in counsel most of the day and must eat and rest."

"We do not need another day, Aendara. I and those with me are sure. We will depart and you will see us here never again," he said loud enough for all to hear. Then he whispered, "Except when you are turned away from your leadership and look back at us, managing our people the way they should always have been managed."

Minutes later the theater was emptied, as many as half leaving Vaedus with Durden, and their men with them.

The dying sun cast a warm glow across the valley as it dipped behind the distant ranges that marked the edge of the plains. Down below, seated firmly in the centre of the plains rested the magnificient city of Vaedus, the ornate white stone buildings catching the last rays and the whole city seemed to burn with an unnatural, almost haunting beauty. It was the center of the known world...atleast the center of his known world, a rather depressing thought it seemed.

The young man sighed, the bleating of his flock and the gentle evening breeze now bearing the first hint of coming winter bought him back to the present. A chill run down his spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge and he gathered his tattered cloak around him just a little tighter to ward off the coming night.

The flock seemed restless, gathering closer together, herding the young to the center and watching the growing shadows with unease. He run both his hands, toughened like leather from years of work, through his dark hair pulling it back away from his face and rubbed his eyes, willing them to focus on the shadows, a task made all the more difficult from the time spent staring at the brilliance of the sunset.

He shifted his weight slightly from one foot to the other, relying on his crook to lessen the burden. He felt slightly uneasy bringing the flock his far into the uplands. The vegetation grew thicker then in the lowlands and predators were more numerous. He did not fear the wolves themselves as much as the scolding he would recieve from old Ambrosus if he lost another lamb, "You damned fool Helos!", how many times had he heard that?

Once again he sighed and turned his attention back to the city. It seemed a world away, never in his life had he been to the city. It was so close yet so very distant. Every year his father would bundle up the fleeces and head in and every year Helos would plead with him to let him go. And each year he would get the same response "But who would watch the flock?"

Helos was sure the old man was just bitter because he had never asipred to anything greater than an shepard and because of that his son should be content with his lot in life aswell. Tomorrow he would return home, and maybe there would be more news, with nothing in his own life of interest Helos was content to hear third and fourth hand accounts of the happenings of the city and right now the whole valley was a buzz with rumours of dissension and rebellion. Though he may aswell have been listening to a recount of one of the famous poets, for the world they spoke of was as distant as the one the traders spoke of it seemed.

For now the young man was content to dream.

The evening brought it's own woes as Aendara withdrew to his home. His troubled thoughts passed with him through the pillars of his palace and into it's courtyard. Strolling around the open-air home, he looked upon the rest of the city in the emerging full moon with a sense of melancholy longing. The lamps were lit and people were having a good time as they always did, enjoying each other.

Aendara himself had always been content with one assistant living with him for whatever duties he could not spare the time to accomplish himself. Now, though, with the times ahead, the whitewashed buildings on the side of a gently sloped hill that made up the city of Vaedus were no longer the silent companion that he knew. In his heart he kept wondering how many were going to leave him and the old ways.

Aendara was seeing the result of a physical separation of his peoples. The newer cities on the Eastern side of the mountain range, and that of Old Vaeduurn on the West. Aendara remembered his father saying to him before he died that his own father made a grave mistake by giving them the land by the Great Lake for farming and foresting.

(Three weeks of family, and now a storm. Can I have my life back?)

Winter had come early to the south region of Vaeduurn’s most northern village of Nothliun, and on this night old Vayden could feel the years of hunting and fighting not to mention marching catch up to him, his mind was still sharp, his muscles still as hard as iron but something on this night had changed.
Vayden had taken over Nothlium’s town guard five years past now and the constant training, watch and patrols over those past five years had turned his heart to stone. No longer did he have patience to play with the village children on his time off of duty, no longer did he feel the need to visit family and friends as he had always done in the past. Vayden had heard of the rumors from traders visiting Nothliun, of how discord and discontent had virtually split Vaedus in two. The only thing on his mind now, what that ‘split’ would mean to his beloved village Nothliun.
Vayden knew and understood he would soon be caught up in a choice of life and death for his family his friends and his future.


‘VAYDEN’ yelled Kullth .”A messenger approaches the village gates”.Vayden answered with the vile contempt that he knew what this message would entail. ON MY WAY! said Vayden.


Durden’s messenger was as pomp and flashy as was Durden himself.
At least something on this night made Vayden smile.

(Continued from before.)

Indeed, mistakes had been made and Seajun had been counted for nothing. His father was a good and kind ruler, the whole of Vaeduurn had been blessed with plenty during his time overseeing it. Now, almost fifty years since the founding of the Eastlands, some wish to take that which Vaedus has a less firm grip upon.

Aendara's gaze swept from the sea, then north and eventually across, past the mountains to the east, and finally to the relatively untouched southern forests. A chill air swept from the Northeast, an early and abrupt Winter. There would be no rebellion this season, if Durden was as smart as Aendara knew he could be. Instead, there would be emissaries to various cities and towns. A rebellion of a less physical nature. A war fought with tongues.

"There has never been a large conflict in Vaeduurn," Aendara mumbled. "Often a grudge, but rarely a battle in a thousand years. I suppose it must be, then, that the prophecy of 'War' comes true. A time when all lose sense of things and fight brothers. Inconceivable, but true." Aendara looked East once more and took in an anger filled breath. Durden was the harbinger of the end of peace and the beginning of chaos.


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Aendara looked across his table of advisers and all were silent, looking back at him. New territory; decidedly not business as usual. "So, is it the time that War spoke of, a thousand years ago at the founding of Vaeduurn? The time when we would lose all sense and kill our friends and brothers for no other reason than greed?"

"Not yet, my young friend." A voice from the opposite end of the table said. Soft as a modest breeze, the words left the old lips of his father's best of friends.

Another voice rose up, "Not yet, Melcous, though you believe soon."

A moment or two of sadness came across his aged face before he spoke. "It looks that way, yes," He replied. "I have never seen or heard such men or dire threats as I see in Durden. He brings into the room the air of Chorei, Seajun's brother of shadow."

"Chorei was banished far away, Melcous. He would not dare return, lest Seajun's radiance blot him out," Arelus, a middle-aged man vibrant in health and in belief of Seajun. He was once an accomplished Acolyte of the Sun, possibly even prophet, until Aendara asked him to bring Seajun's words to his table. Arelus forsook his own path for the betterment of his people.

"Yet, Arelus, there is a shadow over the Eastlands these days which is undeniable," the old man said, finger raised as if pointing to the fact as it hovered above his head.

Aendara stood slowly and began to stroll slowly around his table, still in silent serious thought. "I decided last night to send emissaries to the North. We will need their... robust nature... if we want to hold onto the influence of some of the Eastern most cities before the mountains. If you are right about Chorei, Melcous, then we are in trouble. Seajun has not been seen in this land for eight hundred years. Our God protects us from afar. Protects us from ourselves. He told us of the time of chaos before the founding of Vaeduurn, and the limits of our boundaries for good reason. This reason. So we would not get greedy and keep expanding our cities, our fields, our pasturages. It is nature that when we get more, we want more. For now, we need to hold on to what we have so we can revert to a state in which Seajun would approve. We have discounted his instruction for too long now."

"Boy," Melcous said softly, with an almost grim smile, "We are too far gone. Seajun has given us strict guidelines and we have not followed them for many decades. His favor is not upon us. For now... We are alone. Yes, we should take heed to his council of old, but this is a new and different time. Seajun's prophet told us what would happen until the end of the days of peace. He didn't tell us how to cope through the days of War."

Nothliun has never know war and the only reason the village Guard was kept intact was to protect the coast from raiders and the Shadow Wolves.

Vayden had been hunting and killing Shadow Wolves well before his trials of the Guard ,he simply referred to them as *spawn*.The beast that came from the Eastwall mountain ridge in his opinion were unnatural ,foaming at the jowls with eyes not of life but of death and much harder to kill than a whole pack of northern grey wolves.

Beyond the main gate patchy frost glittered in shadowed hollows, but clear morning sunlight touched the village’s stone walls to warm the soul. The road sloped steadily down to the village’s colorful roofs, the Serem River swept around its western flank in a dark blue bow, gilded with silver sun-flash, and the final line of rapids and cataracts foamed white less than a league above the docks. The sails of small craft dotted the Serem's broader reaches below the into the Northern sea, lush farmland stretched away from the river in both directions, and the mighty, snowcapped peaks of the Eastwall Mountains towered far beyond it.

Erasmus,Nothlium’s elder had returned from his hunt and Vayden had grave news for him.

“Erasmus welcome back old friend.” said Vayden. Erasmus waved to Vayden and signaled his escort to continue on inside the gate.
“Vayden my dear friend is all well? “asked Erasmus. “I should be asking you first elder”The Hunt?
Erasmus smiled from ear to ear. “Four doe, two buck and a Spawn!” “not bad for a weeks hunt ey Vayden.” said Erasmus. Vayden laughed and patted the elder on the shoulder ,as he met the elders gaze with his own he whispered in a venomous voice “We have word from Durden,
and your not going to like it.”