Prologue

Kruliden

On a decimated, blackened world, the Darkness glares out of a sunlit portal to the hated land beyond. The inhabitants dwelling in the ecosphere before her have kept her trapped here for over two thousand long seasons. Its black, churning, misty form hovers a few inches above the golden-hued barrier that seals the portal. This barrier is stronger than all before it. It had once been able to touch the foul thing, but that was before the Bonding.

The Darkness witnessed the new Queen and her Protector being bound to one another and to the land they defend almost two years ago. Their painful light touched the barrier that day. Now the Darkness can no longer probe it without feeling pain.

As it watches the silver liquidity portal that the Darkness desperately needs to get to, Queen Jacklyn enters the courtyard in which it sits. The yard is in the center of the quartz palace that helps protect the Earth portal. Jacklyn’s auburn hair shines in the sun’s bathing rays. Her belly is ripe with new life. They have already given life to one child, a boy. The conception of the brand new life happened a few short months after the birth of their first son. There are several more weeks before this one would enter their world.

A growl escapes the Darkness at the sight of her. It had almost obtained Grandel Isle and Earth before the Bonding. If not for her Protector, Jacklyn would have lost her fight with the Darkness. These insignificant creatures made it feel genuine feelings. Most of the time, it felt indifferent to other beings, but they hurt it. Pain, like hunger, is something she is learning to push past. The Darkness received a gift with the pain. It created life for a short time.

The Darkness glances behind it. Four different creatures fill her prison. The only ones the Darkness did not give life to are the Enchained. It cannot believe it gave birth to such beautiful beasts. It can hear the leathery wings of one of its creations overhead. As the Viper shrieks, black venom drips from its fangs, and they expose two rows of jagged teeth. They stay in almost constant flight because their weak, ill-formed legs find it challenging to hold their weight.

In the distance, it can hear the howling of another of its children. The wolf-like creature. No fur covers the Bedlam’s taut, hard bodies. Covering their black skin are scars from fighting amongst themselves for power and food.

The Darkness’ third and final child is a shapeless oily black blob called the Nebulous. They have no eyes. They find their way with the feelers in their long, black, snake-like tongues. The tongue of the Nebulous is as hard as stone, and it burns whatever it touches from the clear acid oozing from it. Among her children are their children. The offspring grow at a high rate, making the Darkness’ army grow larger every day.

Sweet laughter reaches the Darkness. It looks back at the palace and sees the tasty child, the Queen’s son. He is nine months old. Its form shivers at the thought of the delectable negative energy it could make come from his soft, tiny body. The Darkness has never gone this long deprived of fresh food, the yearning for the morsel sitting before her grows. Lost in its hunger, it moves too close to the barrier, and it shrieks in pain. At the exact moment, the child turns its hateful eyes skyward and looks at the portal.

The sun shines down on his golden hair, and his deep blue eyes stare straight at the Darkness from his mother’s protective arms. It shrinks back from those eyes, and hatred grows deep inside it. The Darkness must extinguish this child’s life. It does not know why, but if this unimportant child lives, he will destroy it. 

“How can a child destroy all of my lovely misery?” it hisses.

It has lived for a countless amount of time and has purified an unknown number of worlds. The Darkness does not remember its beginning. It only recalls its purpose. The Darkness is to cleanse worlds of all parasites. Through its endless years, the classification of a parasite has changed. Now everything below the Darkness is one, and everything is below the Darkness. They are only cattle that destroy themselves and ravish their worlds to their ends.

It has always been the same. A world full of what the Darkness needs to survive pulls her to it. On each of these worlds, a handful of beings always welcomes it. These creatures help to make the Enchained. The Darkness gorges itself on the torment of others. When satisfied, it ends the suffering for all so the planet, the mother of all things, can heal and start anew.

The people of Majase have endured more suffering than any before them. With no other choice, the Darkness prolongs the torment of these people. For it to survive, they must continue to supply it with food. It has never encountered two more resilient and defiant creatures, like the ones on Grandel and the ones here on Majase.

The Darkness turns from the child and shifts into a new form. The mist is now a tall, pale female with long, wavy black hair. Covering her boney body is a long, ripped black dress. She walks to her altar made of the bones of her enemies, and a smile, showing her pointed teeth, spreads across her sharp-featured face. An exquisite plan forms in her mind, and she tears apart her altar.

The Darkness places the bones together to construct the shape of one of the disgusting men who had eluded her by leaving their empty shells behind. She calls one of her flying creations to her. She takes a red-stained bowl and gathers some of its venom. Then she walks over to one of the Nebulous, and with her hard black claws, she rips out a chunk of its acidy tongue. She puts this in the bowl with what she collected from the Viper. The mixture of venom and acid melts the piece of hard flesh.

When she had held the Queen for a short time, she had taken a speck of Jacklyn’s shielding light. The Darkness’ black tongue slides out of her open mouth, and sitting on the end is the painful speck. Her tongue sizzles and smokes as she places it in the bowl, and with her claws, she stirs her mixture. As she does this, the last of her life-giving white mist, the Protector’s mist, the Protector’s gift, leaks from her claws. It combines with what is in the bowl to create a potion.

She pours it over the old bones she had placed on the dirty ground. A light burst from the bones, touching two of her Enchained. They drag their undernourished bodies away from the burning glow in delectable pain. The Darkness shifts back into her vaporous form and engulfs them both.

It feeds on their stale, tasteless negative energy. The Enchained have lost who they once were. The only thing left is the hardened husks of the humans who once thrived on this world. Unsatisfied, it turns back into its female form and turns her back on the black, leathery bound servants in disgust. As their hollow eyes stare at a nearby fire, their flesh melts. For these two, the suffering is over.

The light flickers and dies, and in place of the bones is a beautifully monstrous creature. Stretched gray skin now covers the frame. The ill-aligned bones and the lack of muscle structure have made its body highly misshaped. The bones in its fingers continue past the ends of its digits. They look sharp and deadly. Its face is missing ears, lips, eyelids, and a nose. Gaping holes sit where the absent nose and ears should be. The eye sockets are oversized and filled with cloudy, yellow-infected weeping eyes. The exposed teeth are pearly white and pointed. Three teeth on each side protrude from the top row. The one in the center of the set is longer than the other two, and black venom stains the elongated teeth.

“Come, my lovely child,” the Darkness says in a motherly voice. She takes it by the hand and helps it to its unsteady feet.

One of the Enchained brings a robe and gives it to the Darkness with its shaky hands. The Darkness snatches the gown from the slave and growls softly. Her creation hisses and opens its mouth. It makes a gagging sound; then, a black ball shoots from its mouth. It hits the bound servant in the face, and the substance spreads. Slowly, as the Enchained fights to get it off, the black slime reaches for its ears, eyes, mouth, and nose. Choking sounds come from the doomed servant as his throat expands. Soon, the entire ball settles in his throat.

The Darkness pulls the robe over her creation’s patchy, long, black, oily hair as the slave dissolves. She takes a step back and looks at the beautiful thing she has created. He is nothing like any of the material that created him, yet she can see the father, the bone giver, in him here and there. Will the people of Grandel see it? Will they figure out what helped bring him to life? The Darkness touches his face. She hopes they will, and this will help. The Darkness traces the golden picture on the front of the robe. Four staves with oblong, sideways hexagon tops make an X inside a golden circle. Red jewels sit at the tips of these long wands. Bands extended out from each point to hold the gems in place. In three of the spaces between the staves are golden lightning bolts, all strike the center. The last empty area at the bottom is a pair of cat’s eyes. She glances at the statue in the distance, which is almost a duplicate of the picture on the robe.

“I will call you Kruliden after your father. Come and see your new home,” she says in a tender voice.

Together, they stroll through the portal. Kruliden has grown steadier on his feet and no longer needs his mother’s support. When they step into the sunlight leaking through the gateway, Kruliden howls in pain and pulls back. His mother looks at his exposed hand, where blisters are forming. The Darkness takes him into her arms and cradles him like a small child. She strokes his thin hair.

“My poor baby, I am sorry. Mother did not know.” As she says this, she drinks in his pain.

The Darkness guides him back to the portal, taking care not to put him in the direct sunlight. She searches the courtyard for the hateful infant son. To her surprise, she finds Kruliden’s father in the corner of the yard.

“My sweet look, do you see the child?” She only gets a nod in response. “He wants to hurt me. I need you to destroy him.”

Again, a nod.

“The figure in the corner is your father.” A growl comes from deep inside Kruliden. The Darkness says with a smile, “Tonight you leave, and the first thing you must do is eat.”

As they watch, Brandon emerges from the palace. Kruliden lets out an angry hiss and takes a step back. The Darkness knows if anyone can kill her son, it’s this monstrous Protector, and she feels her son knows this as well.