Lingua Aeterna

Prologue

    Thirty years ago, the people and lands of Clouri had enjoyed what they thought was absolute peace for so many generations that not a single elder had any tales of woe, not a trace of fear to pass on, no wise adages with which they would warn their grandchildren of coming evils. The ruling class was benevolent, granted its people more liberties than restrictions, and outside of local disagreements, there was never a hint of any violence or struggle. The Guardian, the highest master in the ruling class, was often seen among the people in both the capital city and the outlying villages, offering wealth and distributing Light and other spells where needed. Grievances, if there ever were any, were heard and resolved quickly and with care by the local Council of Elders with the Guardian's oversight.
    The land itself was practically magic, but Clourians used their own gifts to make the lands prosperous. There were clearly separations between the more gifted Clourians and those with little to no magic but even the most gifted Clourian ensured that their neighbors would not go hungry or grow cold in winter. Magic was shared but still revered.
The overtaking had, at first, come slowly. Some of the outlands that were far from the capital city had burned over the course of the summer and the smoke had drifted toward the markets and busy shops. To the meat-sellers or to the potters hoping to sell their remaining stock before closing up for the autumn move back to the forest village, the smoke was nothing more than an oddity. To the apothecaries, the dozen or more magic-sellers who were constant, bitter rivals to one another, it meant far more. Their magic was learned, not given at birth, and each apothecary believed his or her magic was superior to the next. So when the smoke began appearing and the apothecaries began joining together, dissolving their differences, the Clourians who took notice began to feel the fear. The smoke meant that a darkness more deadly than the smoldering cinders that produced it was coming from the north.
    When word traveled to the capital of burned villages, the Council of Elders did their best to quell the rising unease. Notices were released and posted at every major thoroughfare. The first notice advised Clourians to remain calm and to go about their normal business. The next warned that while Clouri and its ruling class had done nothing to provoke attack, there was an entity, unknown to the Elders, that was committing atrocities in the outlands. The last before the first attack on the capital suddenly begged Clourians within the city walls to find shelter or flee the city for the forest villages. Once the northern wall was breached, the Council sent no further notices. Those of the Council that had remained met the same fate as any Clourian who had already resisted and not one capital city Clourian ever heard from the original Council of Elders again.
    In just a matter of days in the last warm month of the summer, Clouri was overtaken entirely by what the villagers described as the Dark Army. They spoke in a strange and garbled language among themselves as they traveled the length of Clouri, overheard by only the small and therefore hardly noticed fairy-folk of the forest villages. That language became frighteningly haunting as orders were shouted at the villagers and city-dwellers as the Dark Army invaded each place. The soldiers had heavy weapons that were stained with black oil to match the leather and iron armor they wore. Each soldier was massive: not only impossibly tall but almost grotesquely bulky with muscles. It was possible that there were both men and women among their ranks, but not an inch of their skin or hair was visible as the armor covered them entirely.
    Mercilessly, the leader of the invading group of soldiers would cut down any Clourian they met, man, woman, or child, and the corpse was often further trampled by the rest of the Dark Army as they marched. Any others attempting to flee were captured and held in the forum. No respect was given to those in fear and only complete submission was accepted. With the promise that no magic would be used against the army in return for the safety of all remaining Clourians, the Guardian surrendered and removed the magical barriers she had cast over the Guardian's Seat.
Without any obvious reason or provocation, the Dark Army became the rulers of Clouri and cemented their power by mounting the Guardian's severed head on a spike above the Guardian's Seat for all to see. Only then did the leader of the Dark Army make himself known to the subjugated people of Clouri. He called himself Lord Xal and dressed in the same manner as his Dark Army, but in the only contrast, his pale, stretched face was visible and to look upon it, Clourians would say later, brought nearly as much pain and suffering as any one of the blades his soldiers carried.
The true pain of the takeover came shortly after this brutal invasion. The Clourians had lost loved ones, even entire families simply because they dared to exist in a place that Lord Xal wanted. But even after the invasion and in the beginning of Lord Xal's rule, the Clourians still had their lives. They still had their freedoms. They could still work and live nearly as they had before, save for the fact that a majority of their earnings and food went to the Dark Army and Lord Xal's reserves. Ultimately, Lord Xal couldn't let this stand and he began what became known as his most ruthless campaign in the spring months after the takeover.
    The lands of Clouri had begrudgingly rebounded after being burned and trampled by the Dark Army, but none of the produce, grains, or even game from the forests seemed to have the same life to it as it had before. The magic that was imbued in the soil simply wasn't there anymore and those that could cast the spells had been largely eradicated. In a fury, Lord Xal began collecting all of the apothecaries, spell-binders, witches, mages, fairy-folk, and any other skilled in magic, stripping the cities and villages of both defenders and providers. Enraged that the magic he'd craved could only be controlled by one who spoke with the Clourian tongue, Lord Xal revealed his own collection of magic-bringers.
    The same magic that had allowed the Dark Army to progress from the north and overtake Clouri in such a short amount of time began ripping away the remaining aspects of the Clouri former existence. The language, ceremonies, traditions, songs and even dances of the Clouri were outlawed, with most punishments for infractions being death by hanging. When the culture wasn't dying away fast enough, Lord Xal enacted one final blow against the Clourians and had to draw from intensely dark magic to ensure his edict was maintained. Almost exactly one year after the invasion, when the people of Clouri would have normally been singing and dancing in ceremonies celebrating summer harvests and prosperity, they instead found themselves tortured for even uttering a simple greeting to a neighbor.
    The darkest magic peeled away the very language of the Clouri with an abhorrent spell. One word, even the tiniest of curses over a splinter stuck in a finger, or a cry of surprise when finding a Dark Army soldier in the path ahead, would burn the tongue. Soon, the young boys who called after their intended at the market found their tastebuds and sense of smell ripped away from them for weeks. One shepherdess who commanded her dog to retrieve a wayward ewe screamed for days as the blood oozed from a sore that refused to heal. And those who refused to comply entirely, quoting their favorite lines of Clourian poetry or shouting insults at the Dark Army soldiers who enforced Lord Xal's edicts - those who survived the presence of the army found themselves unable to continue their protests much longer as the wagging tongue in their head was burned away by the dark magic. To the generation that followed the overtaking, these poor souls became known as the Voiceless.