A thick layer of dust blanketed ancient stone carvings covering the walls. Faint light from small, high windows sealed with intricate iron lattices filtered down through the tall pillared halls. Every long while, dust played through the soft shafts of light spilling down from above. Thick wooden doors covered in handcrafted hammered brass stencils sealed the some thousand chambers of this place.

A tomb of many things.

Most were forbidden entry into this place, as the carvings of the long-forgotten Goddess of Magic covered every wall, floor, and fresco. Interpretive paintings of magical runes covered the hundreds of decorative friezes and banners in the rooms and halls of this ancient temple. That is, if one knew what these things meant.

He knew what they meant.

He had worked up a sweat, and hung his long black coat over the back of a nearby chair. His rolled sleeves bunched around his forearms, he lost himself in his work, and he had lost track of time. He must have been digging and searching these piles of arcane tomes for at least a week, but sleep for him was unnecessary. His magic and drive sustained him now. He was so close to what he wanted, he could taste it.

It was a tomb of memories, of knowledge, of history, and as his lot would have it – a tomb of his fate. He knew this long-sealed temple to the Goddess Shi'r held the one book he needed to open. This lost book of prophecy could confirm his deepest fears, or hold the answer to the question burning on his mind so fiercely the drive to answer it consumed him.

So many things to do and so little time.

He glanced at the next book, a well-worn copy of The Tales of Mystic Nights, a once-popular book among young mages recounting the 'adventures' of a mage-born boy and his friends. Its primary purpose was to dispel any heroic delusions from its young audience, such as saving the world or slaying dracwurms. The allegorical tales within were also meant to direct the reader's interest into the advanced study of varying fields of magic, after all, who wouldn't want to be like the book's protagonist, Billy Weaver?

Blutcher always felt it was a waste of time to immerse mage-born children in such fantasy-disguised-as-teaching, as he respected the power of a young mind to synthesize raw information which would bewilder a halfway competent adult. If Blutcher could, he would start mage-born children into the toughest subjects at an early age, to weed out the gifted from the magically crippled.

He thought back over his past couple days, as they had been difficult also. A long week passed since his near-death at the hands of Shand'ara's Chosen One, and he cursed himself for letting himself get so close to her weaving. Through this boy did Her fates flow, and through this boy her will manifested itself upon the face on Sho're. Her will wanted those like himself dead, and he vowed never to make the error again. Too much was at stake to be wrong now.

And he was wrong, so wrong. His life's work, a grand stroke of Orcus military might and magic into the lands of the Realm, the center of worship of Shand'ara and the largest Humanis kingdom in the world, lay in tatters. Because of this boy, and of the Son of Darkness Edward Domon, his plan had never even started. The two of them managed to stop his dream, and his ego dripped resentment. But as fate would have it, if his plan would have succeeded, he would have been dead by now.

Once he seen the two of them, the two sides of good and evil locked in their eternal war, he knew everything he knew was wrong. He never expected the prophecies to have flow into a state such as this, a state so simple, so obvious even he dismissed it as no more likely than a child's fantasy. The truth was, this fantasy was deadly reality, a twisted and dark version of reality so simply terrifying in its outcome he wondered if its ultimate end was inevitable.

He wiped ages of dust off the cover of the next tome in front of him, checking the title carefully. He had not seen this book for a while, The Prayers of the Moon. This book contained a series of harvest prayers to Shand'ara for blessings such as short winters, better crops, and healthy children. He chuckled, noting how out-of-place such a book was in a collection like this, but the Orcus Architects were notorious scavengers of books, and so this particular specimen was probably taken from Humanus lands during the war and kept here for study. Curiously, he flipped through the prayers looking for any notes which might be stuck between pages, noting the simple, almost peasant-level of writing of the devotions, as he wondered about his own fate.

I pray my fate not inevitable.

He smiled at the irony, who should he pray to? Certainly not the Dark One, not anymore. The irony of his abandonment of the very god who gave him his power after all these years struck him as somewhat odd, and a difficult position for him to be in. He could still wield the Dark One's magic, as well as the arcane powers of the Goddess Shi'r; this was normal when a mage was corrupted with the powers of darkness and hate. However, the goals of the Dark One manifested themselves through Edward Domon, the Dark One's chosen, or the Son of Darkness as prophecies would name the man.

“Oh sweet irony,” He spoke to himself in the large, dark chamber, lit by his own iron candelabra and the shafts of light from above, “How thy presence tortures me.”