The Four: Prologue

Prologue: The Exiled Heroes

“It was the way of things, back then. If you are willing, it could be again.”

“Regicide? You want me to bring back regicide?”

Alkimika to Babel, three days before the assassination of King Lloyel, King of Contraria, Lord of the Thirteen Deserts.

---

“ROAR.”

“ROARRRRRRR.”

“R-O-A-R.”

“You can’t just say ‘roar’ and expect the thing to understand you, that’s not how inter-species communication works.” Babel spoke slowly, attempting to keep his tone even. Despite his effort, there was a hitch in his voice that betrayed his frustration.

“Prove it –” Pausing to take a deep breath, Sierre used every bit of strength she could to, well, attempt to roar, “ROAR.”

“Literally, you are proving my point. The thing has not responded a single time.” While not surprised, Babel was ever more exhausted by Sierre.

Babel gestured over to the thing in question, perched on a rock protruding from the river’s edge. The longer Babel looked at it the more he hated it. The thing was an abomination. With the hind legs of some kind of hoofed animal, Babel could not tell when the fur truly transitioned but it ended with the front paws and head of a hunting dog. His true distaste, though, lied in the fact that it had a pair of deep blue feathered wings. The damn thing better not be able to fly. Babel swore again, the thought of the creature defying gravity with a body that large caused him to grit his teeth.

“Excuse you, I am no ‘thing’.”

Babel stood there. He blinked. Then he promptly turned to Sierre, a deepening scowl on his face, “You absolute moron, it can speak.”

Sierre grinned, “It was the last roar that did it, wasn’t it? That’s what endeared us to you, I know it.”

Sierre had been shouting roars as she attempted to scale the rock, while Babel had stayed much further back -wishing very much to be on the opposite side of the river. But even from a distance, Babel was pretty sure the amalgamation wasn’t pleased -noting that the flews of its snout were raised to bare monstrous teeth.

“As a matter of fact, human, yes. It was on my last nerve and your roar caused it to snap.” The voice was raspy, and, to Babel’s surprise, only mildly aggressive.

Babel leaned down and picked up a rock, took a heartbeat to aim, and threw it at Sierre’s back. After meeting her glare he gestured with both arms up to the monster, “Go on, this was your bright idea.”

Sierre looked up the rock as the dog headed beast peered down at her, “Well, my darling beasty, do you mind if I finish the climb for a proper chat?”

“If I permit you to do so, you may not utter the word ‘beasty’ once more. And the other disrespectful one –” the beast gestured with its tail towards Babel, “may say no more. Lest I make it into an aberration itself.”

Babel took a light step back, ever further from the beast was his goal, but he could not just leave Sierre alone -and out of earshot. She often left out key details. For example, not letting him know the ‘Wise Sage’ they were going to see was the ugly cousin of a griffin. I bet she knew it could speak, Babel knew Sierre well enough by now to know when he’d been had.

“You have my solemn vow that I will not utter the phrase ‘beasty’ once I am before you.” Sierre’s voice often made Babel think of silk -not that it was soft, her voice was definitively harsh, and high pitched enough that once, after a night of drinking, Babel had asked if dogs barked when Sierra spoke. But Sierre is persuasive. Whether that comes from her innate ability with magic or due to her personality, Babel still had not decided.

Whipping its tail down, the amalgamation wrapped it around Sierre’s wrist and hoisted her up -a little less than gently putting her down at the top edge of the rock. Briefly, Babel half-hoped that it had dislocated her shoulder.

“Speak human. And address me as Ralleh, the Lord of Low Winds.”

Sierre took a deep breath, forcibly flattened her smile, and met the eyes of Ralleh. Stiffly she placed one fist over her heart and knelt, “Ralleh, Lord of Low Winds, I require your aid to find that which I have lost.”

Ralleh tilted his head and Babel could not help but notice how his ears hung loosely, his eyes doe eyed -just like a his own Labrador back home. Godsdamnit Babel, you will not call this affront to the world cute.

“What is it that you seek?”

Babel could not really see her face, but the vicious amusement in Sierre’s voice resounded within him.

“Your assistance, you see- “Sierre paused, briefly, as she brought up both her hands, “I’d ask you to make sure your blood doesn’t stain.”

Before Ralleh could rear on his hind legs, Sierre released a volley of spells from her fingertips. silver vines ripped through the rock, wrapping around the aberration. Green fire slid across the rock and up one of Ralleh’s front paws -whereas the other was encased in solid ice. Ralleh would be unable to even flinch without risking shattering his leg whole. Yet still, there was more. Crows made of water descended from the sky -aiming for Ralleh’s eyes. While a wing batted one into nonexistence, the other made quick work of ripping out his right eye. Evermore, the vines squeezed Ralleh’s body. Now, daggers of lightning were circling the beast. Ralleh screamed, fear and pain mixing together in its voice. Still Sierre sent more to him. Where the lightning cut, Sierre sent fish made of stone to burrow under Ralleh’s skin to shred any vein they could worm their way in to. Into Ralleh’s eye socket Sierre sent arrows made of pure mana. There was no reprieve from pain. No possibility of counterattack.

Babel loved the sheer cruelty of Sierre. There was no such thing as overkill. In less than ten heartbeats she had ended the existence of a centuries old guardian. Meanwhile, Sierre was already back on her feet brushing dust from her shins.

“I thought the goal was to talk to the thing?” Babel shouted over to her as he lightly trotted up to the side of the rock and held out his hands.

Briefly, Babel could hear Sierre trotting around. Moments late she jumped down to him. Smiling, Sierre held up a green orb that matched the deep forest green of her cloak.

“Oh, darling, who wants one answer when I could very well have hundreds of years of pure knowledge at my beck and call.”

Babel put her down, briefly contemplating dropping her entirely -but decided that would ruin the sentiment of catching her at all, “I’m just saying, you could have told me that was the goal.”

“But keeping things from you is half the fun -the other half is watching you squirm when what you do know is oh so very wrong.” Vicious amusement. Babel briefly regretted not dropping her.

Cruel, Babel thought, not unkindly, as she always is.

“Now that you’ve taken it upon yourself to mock me, care to tell me what the hell that thing is?”

“I overheard some dude talking about chimera’s and how -since a god has to hand make them, they have an orb instead of a brain.”

Babel arched his eyebrow, “Care to elaborate on ‘some dude’?”

Sierre huffed, “It was Charlen Effrey.”

Babel dropped all expression from his face, “Sierre, please -and I do mean please, tell me you did not just refer to the High Mage of Balad as ‘some dude’.”

“Well, it’s only kind of reliable –” Sierre started, tone defensive, “I mean, if you ignore all the red flags in his general knowledge base.”

“That is not my issue with what you just said, and you know it!”

“Okay, well, he isn’t here, is he? What does it matter?”

“Sierre!” Babel put his hands over and face and groaned, “This is why I can never send you anywhere.”

Sierre grinned and tucked the orb away into her enchanted robe. Despite the display earlier, Sierre is only able to use a limited number of spells freely. One of which is the spatial manipulation spell required to store new objects into her coat. There are a few other common place spells she is able to use, but Sierre already knew the volley she unleashed earlier was going to cost her. Likely, once they returned to the kingdom, she would not be able to leave her quarters for upwards of a week. Babel may even have to carry her the rest of the journey back if they doddle too long. While Babel knew she paid a price, he could not truly understand the cost of miracles -and he was much too interested in assigning a physical value to such things anyway.

A few years back, Sierre drank one too many bottles of wine and made the mistake of summoning a fairy in front of the whole tavern -and Babel had insisted Sierre explore summoning fairy armies for freelance work. Rude.

Mounting Simmons and Barley, noble steeds that they were, Sierre and Babel made quick work of getting through the countryside. The Lord of Low Winds had been deep within the Forest of Dominion, not particularly difficult to get to but still, it was quite a distance from the nearest town. It had taken the better part of a day’s riding to get to a small town, where the two quickly restocked provisions and Sierre cast one more spell to refresh and hasten their horses. Digging deep into her well of magic, she traded what was left of her mana for the ability to stay awake a few hours longer. This should get us back to the castle. Hopefully. Sierra sighed, pretending Babel wasn’t scowling at her final casting.

However, as they took off riding once again, neither seemed to notice the darkness. Had they glanced back sooner, they would have noticed that it was different than the darkness of night, or the blackness of shadow. The darkness had started on the horizon -where the setting sun would meet the earth, there was a thick black line. Over the next hour of riding, the last light sliding away, Sierre and Babel never looked back. They couldn’t see the blackness inching ever closer. Unseeing that the blackness covered all that it came across -white swans disappeared behind the wall, rocks melded into trees, indiscernible in the darkness. Soon, Babel and Sierre’s horses were having trouble staying ahead of the darkness. And a second later, Babel and Sierre finally looked over their shoulders.

Just in time to be consumed.

By the darkness that they themselves had sealed all those years ago.

Moments after consumption, a small blue bird shot out of the blackness. Leagues faster than the spreading wall, it flew all the way to the King of Gallows, Markam Palesse. Soaring over towns, fields, cities, the bird never slowed -never stopped.

Until it flew through the massive stained glass behind the ballroom. Beelining straight for a towering man in a thick red cape, the bird landed in the King’s hands at last. As the bird dissolved, air filled with Babel’s gasping voice, “Find the compass.”

Understanding bloomed on the man’s face and, shaking, the King turned to his court, who had born witness to Babel’s message.

“Lords and Ladies of Contraria, let us prepare the kingdom for the Doom.”

Slowly the King of Gallows walked through the massive hall, where the First Princess was to receive her Medal of Acclaim, crossing the threshold to where two thrones sat. Both were equal in their extravagance. Deep purple velvet lined the back, arm rests, and cushion, and rather than wood, vines of gold and silver intertwined to support and line the thrones. As he made his way ever closer to the thrones, those before him parted. Dukes and Marquesses, Counts, Viscounts, men and woman, they all knew what he was to do. None would dare to stop him, even though the very thought grieved them. The King approached the imperial family portrait that hung, centered on the wall behind their thrones. In it was displayed his sons, Ire and Crow, his daughters, Mara, Dove, and Illera, and his beautiful wife, Lilliana. And then there was him. Within the portrait he was adorned with a pocket watch made of diamond. A display of Imperial honor passed down from one king to the next as a sign of legitimate succession. In reality, a mage had crafted it to merely look like a pocket watch. Should one open the diamond case, they would find a stunning ruby arrow -always pointing due North. Illustra, it had been called by his predecessors. In olden days it meant “The Illusion of the Lost”.

Markam, King of Gallows, reached into the painting, going so far as pushing his elbow in. As his arm was absorbed, he reached around searching. Moments passed before he found what he was looking for. And though he could not see it, he felt the coldness of stone and pulled.

Grasping Illustra in his hand, Markam turned towards his people, opened the glittering case, and sighed.

“May the Kingdom of Contraria return to Existence in our lifetime, my Lords and Ladies. Forgive me.”

Closing his eyes, Markam squeezed the compass with all his might. Shattering it into dust. A great wind passed through the hall, shattering the magnificent stained glass windows. Some of the men and women within the hall were forced to the ground, while other clung to whatever they could to remain standing. As the final gusts of wind forced their way through, the air of the hall glimmered. And the King, who had focused his eyes on the horizon past the shattered windows, knew this glimmer was present in every inch of his domain. His heart ached for that which he was forced to do.

As the glimmer settled over each person, each building, every road, every tree or horse or carriage, they turned to stone. And again, a great wind passed through every corner of the kingdom. And so, the Kingdom of Contraria, made of four kingdoms and one, disappeared with the wind.

And the darkness overcame the empty terrain that was left behind.

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