Athnas Mountains, 952 2nd Aeon
Azarel stood upon the threshold of an ancient mountain pass and waited. He kicked up dust with his robe and squinted off into the distance. He could see them there, on the side of the mountain, a gathering of wolves. They were larger than bears, yet smaller than dragons.
He gathered his voice to him and shouted to the mountain heights.
“Fenrheis!”
The largest of the wolves turned towards him and narrowed its eyes. That much he could see. With a howl it bounded towards him. He braced himself.
In a flurry of silver fur the beast leapt down the precipice towards him. When its feet hit the hard dirt of the pass it turned to gaze at him again, inspecting him. The wolf snorted as it ran at him, full speed, and leapt up into the air to pounce upon him. Dust rained down on his head.
The wolf disappeared mid-jump. Flying towards him, from the space the creature had just occupied, was a filthy, silver-haired woman. She hit the ground rolling, and stood before him, bare as the day she had been brought into the world. He sighed.
“My good Lord Az. How may I be of service to you to-day?” she drawled, grinning at him. “You must be pretty desperate to call upon my folk so early in this new age.”
Too polite for his own good, he looked away from her silvery flesh, and rested his cold eyes squarely on her face. “I am not like the others. I will not sit idly by whilst my time to protect this world passes by.”
“So they all say in the beginning. But all promises pass by. In the end it is only the sun in the sky and the moon at night that mankind can truly count on. Our kind weren’t meant to control them Az. Only watch. And wait.” Her face grew hard as she spoke to him, unsure of why the Lord of Life and Death had come to her to speak his case.
“I am not like the others Fen. I will not sit and watch as the Deceiver plays his hand again. The Black City rises again in the west, not yet an age has passed since the Lord of the Sea scattered its people into the waters of the ocean. Remember that it was I who first told the others of his plans. They would have been deceived by him as well. I saw through him. I see through him again. He will rise from the pit. I feel it.”
“And what do you want me to do?” she asked him candidly. “My children and I fought for you in the first war. If there is another we will fight again. Our loyalty to the eleven is not in question here. What do you seek from me?”
He smiled at her gusto. The Queen of Wolves was unwavering. She would not be shaken. “It is not a matter of loyalty Fenrheis. Rather, a matter of proximity.”
“I am afraid I don’t follow,” she said as she tilted her head at him.
“You don’t have to. Your loyalty to the three is unquestioned. It is another matter I have come to speak to you of entirely. The tribe of Golacee. You are familiar with them?”
“I don’t interfere with human matters, but I know them indeed. Between the Yecron and the Golacee we don’t have many people to pick from to socialize with.”
“Many centuries ago they settled in the Adan woods. As I look upon them now I live in great distress. A sickness has come from the west. Probably thought up by those fiendish wizards of Malenople. The entirety of the tribe will pass from this life if they do not leave the woods. They must flee from the west if their legacy is to survive. Their legacy must survive, if Els is to ever rise and be defeated again. That is where you come in.
“I want you to drive them from their homeland. Make them flee in terror. You have my permission. They must not make contact with the Black City. Many of them have already succumbed to the dark disease, but the survivors must start anew. No looking back, no care for the outside world. Instill in them such a terror of that place that centuries from now they will not know why they even left because no one will have told them.”
Fenrheis smiled at him. “You are a clever one Az. Just as they say. We will do as you ask. But where should we chase the fleeing humans?”
“North, towards the great lake. There is land there for them to live on. I have prepared a place. A place to nurture future generations, future bearers of the crown. It is the perfect place to raise up a daughter of Nohva, the first of her kind.”
She nodded at him. “Let it be as you have said my Lord Az.”
He nodded back at her. “My thanks Fenrheis. And please, from this point on, I would have you call me Azarel. It is the name I have chosen for the humans to call me by. In this new time they will know me by many names. I only hope that eventually they will once again call me friend, as they did in the beginning.”
“Those times are gone my Lord. There is only the future now. It is bright. I can almost see it on the horizon.”
“I pray you are right Fen.” With that he turned from her, and she from him, and they proceeded on their own ways.
