Legends turn to Myth

  The key to predicting the future that shall come to pass lies in
  understanding the past. In times of crisis it is important to remember
  what has come before. I belive that some of our oldest myth of the age
  before the Age of Legends hold important lessons that we would be
  well served to learn in the face of coming events.

  Little is know for sure about that age and the heroes it was named
  after. Legends have become corrupted over time and even our oldest
  sources on them often contradict each other where they are not totally
  incomprehensible to our modern understanding. This has prompted many
  to doubt the accuracy of these tales from the Age of Heroes and made
  them banish for example the entire Silvermoon Cycle about the rise and
  reign of the Bunny Queen Serena Moonfield into the realm of myth and to
  consider characters like Ran'ma, the two-faced shifter to have been
  wholly fictitious.

  They are wrong. The Heroes of the first age truly existed. Their
  adventures really happened and it would be a great mistake of us to
  dismiss our accounts of their deeds. Tales of heroes like Shinji
  Godslayer might not be entirely accurate in all minor details, but
  their core is true and there is much wisdom to be gained in studying
  what they tell us about the heroe's fight against evil.

                   (From the introduction of Laufeyjarson's treatise
                    "On the legends of the Age of Heroes",
                    written shortly before the end of the third age)



            Part 1:  The Cursed Blade in the Stone



The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that
become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is almost forgotten
when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Age
of heroes by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose over
the bay that held the ruins of the sunken eastern capital. The wind was
not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning
of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

Inland it blew to the long plain where the human survivors of the great
cataclysm had rebuilt their city calling it the new eastern capital. Past
the dwellings of rulers and courtiers it blew on and on. Finally it
reached the unfinished building site that was already hailed as the city
that would replace the new capital. Past furnaces and barracks it blew to
the entrance of the great pit that the city had grown around. Past
scholars who had come to study its secrets and mercenaries paid to defend
them. It rustled artisans and traders, lords and beggars and all the
people who had followed to partake in the fortunes that were made at the
pit. It dragged at the uniforms of soldiers gathered around the central
plaza where a curious sword hilt was peeking out of an unhewn stone. 

Unmoved by either the sword or the wind stood a bearded man with a bearing
of authority.

"Take the sword," he ordered while pushing up his glasses with one gloved
hand.

"I don't understand father why should I take this sword. Is this some kind
of test? You know that I know nothing of swordsmanship," the boy he had
spoken to answered.

The boy was young and his bearing was full of insecurity and doubt, but
even without him calling the older man father the family resemblance would
have been obvious to any observer who had not known of their relationship
before.

"This is not a test. I already know that you can pull the sword from the
stone and wield it, all you have to do is do it." The man stated
impassively.

"Why?" The boy demanded defiantly. "Is this all that you have called me
here for, to wield one of the artifacts you and your alchemists have
recreated here with the lore gained from this evil place? Hasn't our
family suffered enough from this already. Why me, when you know how I
feel about anything that comes from this cursed place? Why not let one
of your loyal henchmen use it?"

"Because you are the only one who can wield the blade. Yui will not just
serve any master," the older man revealed.

"Yui?" the boy asked enraged. "How dare you name this thing that? How dare
you father!"

When no answer was forthcoming the boy turned his back to the stone and
the assembled persons and left.


                             * **  ***  ** *


A little while later Shinji felt foolish about just walking away like
that. He had no horse, no provisions, no gold and few skills to acquire
any of it.

His only possession of any worth was his fiddle. He could always try to
pay for his way as a gleeman or traveling bard, but he doubted that his
talents were up to the task of keeping him fed. Especially not in a city
as large as the Third Capital where there were many competent and
experienced entertainers vying for work.

Sooner or later he would be reduced to begging. His only choice was if he
wanted to beg in the streets for alms or return to his father to ask him
for enough gold to leave this place. The street sounded more inviting he
would only get spat at occasionally and perhaps a bit beaten by the other
beggars who would resent the unwelcome competition.

The worst part was that his father would undoubtedly give him what he
needed without hesitation or blinking an eye. The humiliation would be
all inside Shinji's own head.

Maybe he could get what he needed without having to talk to his father
directly. Katsuragi the woman-soldier had seemed sympathetic to him and
the old man at his fathers side had looked at him kindly.

As he made his way back to the plaza suddenly bells started to ring. First
a distant bell to the east and then more and more bells in towers all over
the town took up the chime. People in the streets turned around and
started in other directions then they had been walking before. Peddlers
were packing in their wares and mothers began herding their children
along in haste. As he continued on his way the streets quickly emptied
and the few people that remained on them were running with determination.

The bells must be a signal and obviously everyone here knew what it stood
for and what to do when it came. Shinji did not. Was it a warning of
danger or a call to arms? What danger could threaten such a city like this
and which enemy would dare to attack a place that was filled with so many
armed men.

Shinji quickened his stride not so much out of a real sense of urgency but
more to fit in with everyone else. He noticed trends and patterns. People
were abandoning some places and gathering in others. Windows and gates
were barred and drawbridges that crossed the many canals of the city were
raised while in other places barges were moored to create new walkways.
Wooden walls moved into gaps blocking alleys and boards were lifted on
roofs forming walkways that connected buildings. In front of his eyes the
city turned into a fortress.

The worst thing about this strange transformation was that Shinji could
not tell whether he was on the guarded inside of this fortress or outside
of it. Hopefully somebody at the central plaza would be able to tell him
what was going on and where to go.

As he neared his goal Shinji realized that getting to the plaza might be
more difficult than he had thought. The streets and the buildings were
still mostly as they had been, but everything else seemed to have shifted.
He had to make different paths over bridges that had moved and stairs that
he did not remember taking before. He had walked by a row of buildings
that seemed to have sunken into the ground since he had seen them last,
before he finally realized that he was no longer walking not on the ground
but wooden boards that covered the street at second story height. He had
seen the strange balconies and masts on the buildings when he had come
this way before, but only now did he realize their purpose. He still did
not know what the purpose of covering the street like this was, though.
Were they protecting the street below from an attack from above or did
they fear flooding of the lower levels or something burrowing through the
ground?

Shinji wished that he could ask somebody but the only people near him were
standing guard on towers looking down at him or staring at him through
embrasures in the walls or gullies in the ground. It became increasingly
clear that wherever 'inside' was in this strange fortress Shinji was not
in it.

He reached the place where the open plaza with the sword in the stone
should have been, but found that in his short absence a roof had sprung
up over it. He peered through an embrasure, a small hole meant for
shooting out arrows to see if he could get anyone to let him inside.

Father and his people were still there and arguing very agitatedly in the
shadows below.

"... coming at us from the east. But there are no reports from the south
and southwest either and we fear that they might have overrun our forward
bases before they could get of a warning." A man reported.

"We can withstand any conventional attack, but without the child to wield
the sword we are doomed in the face of this enemy." another moaned.

"We will defeat the armies and we will have a warrior take up the Yui in
our defense," Shinji's father stated confidently.

"But Shinji ran away," the Katsuragi women objected," I have already sent
out messengers to the shelters, but I fear we might not find him in this
chaos."

"Shinji has made his decision." His father declared, "Rei will wield the
sword for us."

As if on cue a young blue haired girl Shinji's age was carried into the
gathering on a litter. She looked pale and sickly it was hard to imagine
that she would be able to add anything to the city's defense.

"I must register my protest," A fair-haired woman accompanying the
litter-bearers declared. "Rei is in no condition to fight. And even if
she was I would recommend against it; holding that cursed blade had almost
killed her the last time Rei attempted to use it."

While the people on the inside were arguing the weather seemed to have
taken a turn for the worse outside. Dark clouds occluded the sun and it
the distance noises could be heard that Shinji knew by now must be the
sound of approaching armies.

"You protest is duly noted. Unfortunately it seems that we have no other
options," The older man who seemed to be his father's second in command
said.

"This is madness. The swords hates her hates all of us. The stone is the
only thing that keeps it contained. If Rei manages to draw without getting
killed it will be as much danger to us as the attack," Katsuragi objected.

She was ignored. His father meanwhile had approached the girl on the
stretchers.

"Rei, you will draw Yui for us." He half asked/half stated with unnatural
kindness.

"Yes." the girl replied weakly.

The litter-bearers now looking more like pail-bearers to Shinji as they
carried the girl to the stone. The other people below had already moved
away from the stone to what must have seemed to be a safer distance to
them.

The ground shook beneath Shinji and he tumbled away from his peeping hole.
An earthquake or had the attack already started?

Shirking and screaming and clashing of steel could be heard to the east.
The sky was so overcast as to render the day almost night. In the darkness
overhead shapes could be seen. They were hurling projectiles and boulders
at them? Lightning illuminated the scenes striking a metal tower roof and
for a moment Shinji could have sworn that some of the shapes overhead had
wings.

He tried to get to his feet, but before he knew it there was great crash
and Shinji found the ground tilting under him. The roof he was standing
on collapsed and he fell.

He landed and tried to rise again as the shirking came nearer.

He looked around the roof over the plaza was half collapsed and he was in
the section alone with the girl cut of from the others. Her litter lay on
the ground next to the stone as he moved towards her he saw that on of the
stretcher carriers had been killed by fragments of the fallen roof. The
others must have fled.

"Are you all right?" he asked dumbly knowing that she most certainly was
not all right and had not even been all right before the roof almost
squashed her.

But Rei only nodded weakly, feebly trying to reach for the sword when
she was barely able to lift her arm.

Before he had time to react to this a loud crash made him turn. Before
him stood a monster half animal half man it was folding its leathery
wings behind its back and made to advance on Shinji and Rei.

Shinji had to do something. He had to defend himself! He had to protect
the girl!

While staring at the intruder in horror his hand reached behind him and
unthinkingly grasped the only weapon within reach.

                                                              )  )" <
                                                             tsu zu ku

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