The Elemental.
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It was a different time… an age when the maps of today would not have served the traveller at all.
The Sand Magi, nine wise men, opened a door between dimensions. They had hoped to discover beings of beauty and higher wisdom. But in their folly they released an Elemental into our world. The Elemental was pure destructive fury! Only by stretching their powers to the fullest could the Sand Magi restrain it.
While the Elemental was still weak from the transition the Sand Magi devised a means of imprisonment. None dared open that unearthly door a second time. Instead they fractured the Elemental, and dispersed its energies into a mystical pattern of stones. When the ceremony was complete and the Elemental bound each magus grabbed stones at random and hurried away to scatter them across distant lands. Sailing the ocean deeps, climbing mountains, meeting creatures that were not quite men, the Sand Magi spread the curse of the Elemental far and wide.
All were sworn to secrecy. Knowing the horror that their incaution had brought into the world, the Sand Magi feared that it could be unleashed again by the reckless and unwary. But not even a wise man can watch his every word… and the stones themselves did not lie quiet. Hundreds, thousands of years passed. The stones worked themselves into the minds of men. In dreams and legends they planted the seed of restoration. Using the tides and winds that had separated them, the stones that held the Elemental captive exploited the greed and lust of a few powerful men.
One emerged from among this band, one utterly given to possessing the stones. A man empty of principles, he was ready to pay for blade or poison to have his dream fulfilled. At last, under a black moon, a hooded figure delivered the bag that held the final missing pieces of the pattern. The hollow lord made haste to his secret cellar and spilled his last treasures across the table.
They bounced unerringly into their proper places in the pattern. The other stones had already drawn themselves into the correct alignment!
The foolish lord stared dumbfounded as a strange light, painful to his eyes, began to play over the stones. A low howling arose, then suddenly flew to a shriek that blasted the lord to ashes.
Chaos swept every land into nothingness.
The curse laid countless generations earlier was fulfilled.
The Elemental, whole once again, exacted vengeance.
Adriana Glackin
A little scary – especially at this time of night. Great imagery, though.
SuliHawk
Nicely told from hope to despair.