Gideon's Dawn

Then everyone-from the Lords of Wordhaven to the lowliest soundenor-would be forced to acknowledge what Gideon had come to realize for himself, that the Pearl was not their deliverer as it claimed...but rather their keeper.

The High Lord raised the staff high overhead and thrust it deep within the plain. The huge Pearl crowned at its end continued to glow, still as eerily silent as it had been all day, and seemingly oblivious to Gideon's malice. Perhaps it is not so all-knowing after all, he mused smugly. Still, as he backed away some twenty paces, he was careful to keep his gaze averted from its glow.

"Now, lend me your mind," the voice hissed in the wind. "Just as before-quickly."

Obediently, Gideon closed his eyes and faced the thickening blanket of clouds overhead. Around his feet, dark shadows began to swirl. They slowly writhed their way up his legs and torso, filling his body and thoughts with an overwhelming oppression of dread mixed with ecstasy. His body trembled under the tingly flow of the rich darkness around him. The shadows slowly coiled around his neck like a snake, hesitating ever so slightly before slithering into his ears.

Instantly, his eyes flew open in horror, like the eyes of a child awakening from a nightmare, or the eyes of a man beholding the darkness of his own soul for the first time. He realized he had forgotten to breathe, and wondered for a moment whether he should, whether in releasing his breath he would uncontrollably utter the horrid Words that now spun raging in his mind. Cautiously he allowed his breath to escape, holding his lips tight to keep from speaking, and then quickly took in another. His robes now reeked with the fetor of death-the inevitable result of the formless one's touch.

But the stench didn't bother him now. Nothing mattered now...now that he had the power of life and death in his thoughts. Now that he could destroy the world if he chose. The Words ripped through his mind, tearing slivers of his sanity, cursing the good within him wherever it hid. He felt himself severing inside, cleaving apart, as though the Words were blades and his soul a shroud of thin-spun cloth. He was overcome by the dominion of the Words, losing himself in the magnificent insanity of its pure malevolence. It no longer occurred to him to be afraid.

"High Lord Gideon, hail there!" A deep voice called from behind him as the singing suddenly ceased. "Stop where you are. You have taken the Staff of Dei'lo from its proper chambers. We know not your intentions in this matter, but many suspect them to be foul. In either case, the Pearl must be restored to Wordhaven. We come in force, High Lord. Turn and do not speak, and no harm will befall you. Return now, Batai, or the storm will consume you where you stand."

"Never!" The High Lord turned on the Guardians, numbering in the hundreds before him, his eyes ablaze with an unearthly fury not fully his own. "You think me so easily moved by your petty storm. I shall soon show you who will be consumed! Damonoi shalon nietan richt!" At Gideon's Words, the storm cloud began to mutate. The lightning stopped, the wind subsided, and from its dark center a rain of acid began to fall.

Without hesitation, as though linked in heart and mind, the Guardians began to sing again. This time their song was different. It bore in its melodies a holy vengeance, like the rage of a son avenging the murder of his beloved father. The dark cloud churned and shifted once again, and coalesced into a tornado towering more than three hundred feet into the air.