The End of Heroes

Nearly exhausted, Rakeen Duvay squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out both the candlelight and the ice-blue runes he’d spent several hours studying for yet another night. He thrust a pale hand through thick silver hair scattered with black, remnants of his younger days. He closed the thick tome with a sigh, then ran his hands delicately over the black velvet cover, tracing its blood-red inscription. According to legend, only one original and two copies of this literary treasure ever existed. One of the copies had been lost many centuries before, about the time the Seven Evils were frozen at sea. Though Rakeen suspected he owned only the second copy, not the original, it nevertheless had required no small effort to obtain. In fact, he still ached from the numerous injuries sustained in taking ownership of the volume. Prophecies, it seemed, had their price.

Rakeen stretched his throbbing back, then rolled his head in circles to remove cramps earned from sitting still too long. His wooden chair’s legs scraped against the stone floor as he moved to stand, but he paid no attention, his mind bent completely upon the passage he’d just read. Though unspeakably valuable, he left the book out on the desk—no one would disturb it here.

He put up a black hood, his head and face receding into the shadows of the cowl. Striding methodically past a line of bookshelves, he slid open a floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door with a mere thought—his hand not coming close to touching the latch. Out onto a balcony he stepped, not noticing the bitter cold or the brisk wind that whipped at his jet-black robes. He glanced up; the clear night sky nearly burst with stars.

"Blast her," he swore bitterly, grasping the well-worn wooden railing with a grip of iron. "I should have known Zoral would get in my way." He sighed as his gaze lowered from the stars above to the jagged mountains far away to the south. At length, his steel-gray eyes came to rest upon the frozen plains below. "But the Stone is long lost, and those few that know of its existence will soon wish they never possessed such knowledge."

He smiled wickedly, an expression unseen even by the stars, covered as it was under the black hood. "And Stone or no Stone, my preparations are nearly complete. That stooge Arxis stands in for me at Drayden Tower; even Maldamar cannot anticipate my true power. No heroes indeed. It is time…"