Confrontation/Chapter 4

I hid in the center court of the temple complex until the dimness of twilight had long since faded into the purple inky blackness of night. The smell of the smouldering ruins penetrated even this hallowed space in thick choking billows. In the far distance, a war horn sounded. I knew that parley had not gone well. Feldar would not be dissuaded by anything less than complete surrender of the Derenian people to Vandarian rule. Feldar, or Darin, I could not really be sure. By this time tomorrow, the beach would be as red with spilled blood as the city had been before the torch had been taken to it.

As I moved out of the temple complex, I became aware of the workers rebuilding actively around me. The Vandarians were seeking to fortify their position now and were moving from the tent town by the bay and into the remains of the city itself. Already, the center square of the temple and market districts were cleaned and, to my astonishment, it looked as if the market was open for business.

I realized with a sinking sensation that this boded ill for the Derenian contingent that had landed. If the Vandarians felt that they could spare the manpower to rebuild on the eve of what was undoubtedly going to be an outbreak of new hostilities, this meant they had forces which outranked the Derenian guard for certain. While the Vandarian leadership was smug about the superiority of their ideaology, they were not so smug about their inherent superiority of military force. They would not be given to idle threats and empty promises, nor would they enter battle willy-nilly and without thought.

Still, I knew of the power of the Derenian special forces; I had seen Commander Delnar lead the Royal Guard some years prior at the battle of Casomar which spelled the end of the conflict between our two nations. He had with him at that time a squadron of Frogzard Knights, and the damage that they could do was tremendous. I was not sure why I wanted Deren to end this conflict here so badly, what difference that made, though I suppose in some way I expected that it was that I wanted some sort of symbolic victory.

Lacking any place to go, I returned again to the temple square and sought entry into the Temple of Light. Knowing that their deity obligated them to the care of those downtrodden, I hoped to find solace there, but I found the door strangely barred. A sign proclaimed that the temple was under repair and directed those seeking succor to a nearby inn...

I considered this option for a moment and it did not appeal. An inn was a social structure; there was no way I could continue to keep a low profile amongst the Vandarian soldiers in that inn, and if I were spotted there and recognized as being of eligible age, I would be pressed into the Vandarian army. Instead, I moved deeper into the temple quad, debating which of the other High Priests might be persuaded into helping me when a slightly ajar door caught my eye. The door itself was rather plain, carved of the same field stone as was used for most of the others in the public quarter and which had so faithfully served the masons' guild of Neld all these many years. What was odd about this door was nothing about its appearance, nay, it was its feel: I had been past this stretch of wall no less than 300 times in the past year and yet I had never noticed this door. I had indeed been through this temple quad twice already this day and numerous times in the days leading up to the burning of the city, and I had never in all of that time seen this door. I would have, in fact, sworn with some degree of risk that this wall had been entirely smooth. Worse, the door seemed to emanate a power from within. I tried to place where this door would take me in relation to the other spaces of the temple and realized by the other buildings around the exterior that it could not take me anywhere in the private quarters and it could only be that it would lead back into the center square again near the far side. Considering this briefly and welcoming a shortcut that would not require me to circumnavigate the quad again before continuing to the inn, something that I had come to realize I had no choice about, I entered the door and was startled by the complete darkness inside. I stood in a narrow corridor carved INTO the temple square wall. The space was narrow and dim, but intrigued now about what this space could be and indeed what purpose it could serve, I descended into ....

Into what? I cannot describe it. One might say I descended into darkness, but it was in fact not Darkness that I found... What I found was not an elemental force at all...