Chapter 1 Scene 1:A scene of treachery revealed

As Vorin watches as a group of Dead Summoner druids summon a spirit to assassinate a fellow druid, he realizes it his mentor that will die.

 

     The night was dark like any other, but this night, above all nights meant more. For this night was the night refurred to by all those who worship the dead and had connection to and with the dead the "Night of the spiritual plane", and it was within this night that the barriers between the spiritual world and the world of man could be broken down from either side and both person andd spirit could pass back and forth from either plane of existance. And it is here, on this night and on this hour (the witching hour) that a young Vorin's eyes beholds a deed and act of betrayal. And as he continues to watch (from his concealed place amongst the forested area surrounding the place where this both foul and evil deed is being enacted) he learns to whom this foul deed will be placed on and to whom will have to die (and that person being none otherthan his mentor and the leader of all those of the druidic order of the "Order of light and wisdom) and that person was Valinore.

 

 

 

 As the young man stared on at the sight before him (concealed from view as he was from observation by the boughs' and branches' of the tree that he was in) the concealed young man watched as the flames of the campfire turned from a bright red in colour to a deep and imposing black. With the changing of its flame and light to black and darkness, Vorin knew without a shadow of a doubt that these five men (though with their large cloaks and iron masks he could not tell for certain is they were men or women) were Dead summoner Druids, their masks as giving as sure sign of just who they were.

    

     Vorin was a young boy of fourteen, and a junior scribe to the Order of light and wisdom (the only true order of Druidism as fare as he was concerned). Vorin well-knew that these so-called Dead summoners Druids (as both they themselves and those that knew of them called them) thought themselves as the only true Order of Druid, and as such thought they themselves should be the only ones to lead.

    

     These Druids (thought Vorin as he spat on the ground some ten feet below him in disgust) was not of the true order of Druids (or any other for that matter). They were imposters, not true Druids at all. For these imposters sought to rule with fear and slavery, to enslave all wills but their own and to remove all free-will from all the world (both the spiritual and the physical world of man). They sought to enslave the world through false power (for true Druids believed true power lay in the will of others to control themselves and not others) and they sought to rule with an iron fist, and where they brought death to those who opposed them and only pain and misery to those that followed.

    

     As Vorin spat for a second time on the forest floor just ten feet below him, Vorin thought to himself that he must be feeling the same hatred for those before him now and for their Order as they (the dead summoners) did for him and his Order. As he thought further on this subject he felt disgusted with himself then, for his reaction to those before him was rare, for amongst his culture and within his own belief system, Vorin believed in the show of mutual respect. For though the members of this other Order would show none of this mutual respect to either him and his Order in return, it lay upon Vorin's own conscious and very soul for him to show this respect regardless to whom it was shown and regardless if it was shown in return.

    

     Vorin well-knew that someone would die tonight, for the one thing that all Dead summoner Druids were known,hated, and feared above all else for was the summoning of the dead from the spirit world at which point they bound the dead to their will and always used them both as spiritual slaves and as a tool for political assassinations. He knew someone would die tonight, but what Vorin also well-knew was that as a junior scribe, he had not the power to stop those intent tonight with killing someone, he had only the concealment of the shadows to hide himself, and the awareness of mind to watch it all take place, to find out (if possible) who was to be killed, and then bring charges and testify for the Order of light and wisdom against those that would be held responsible for the murder that was to come.

    

     As the blackness from the flames of the campfire emitted its darkness to cast its eerie shadows across the masked faces of the evil-doers assembled (for the fire gave no light now, leaving only the lights from high in the night sky, such as the moon and stars to cast it's dim light and silent judgment against all those below assembled for the night's evil act) Vorin watched as one of the group's members stepped forward towards the campfire then. This member (Vorin knew) had to be the leader of the group, for though this person's cloak was still the same crimson red as were all the members cloaks of the group, what set this member apart from the rest was that his metal mask was made of silver and etched is the visage of a  human skull.

    

     The person stood before the darkened flames of the campfire a moment before the person's voice came suddenly forth. The voice was male and had a calm to it that belied the man's true intention and motives this night,this man's voice made Vorin think of the image of a rattlesnake that was blended so well into its surroundings that no one could see it, its rattle meant as a warning to all those to stupid or careless enough that would draw to near. And it was this man`s voice, his rattle, that Vorin could easily see draw those easily swayed by it into a false sense of security, before the fangs sank in and the venom was administered, the foolish then subsequently killed. But what disturbed Vorin the most about the voice of this unknown man, was that the voice was somehow familiar. Vorin knew he knew this man, but he could not place the voice with either a name or a face.

    

     As the man spoke, Vorin continued to watched (the fear of the known, yet unknown man and the person who was soon to die weighting heavily on his very soul). As the man called forth to what seemed to be the campfire he said,"I call to thee, nay summon forth the one to whom this fragment of cloth was part of thine robe." And as the man continued his call he produced a fragment of cloth. The cloth was of a pure white, marked by neither smear not stain, neither dulled by time nor ware. Vorin knew then that this fragment of cloth had been part of a robe of a member of his Order. It sickened him that the spirit of a member of his Order (though Vorin was still as of yet, not yet a full member of the Order as he was still to young being only the age of fourteen after all) would be enslaved and used as a political assassin, or at the very least have their soul enslaved for all time to those that had summon it.

    

     As Vorin watched on, he noticed a blue flame appear over the darkened flames of the campfire. As the spirit's (that was soon to come) light-blue flames took to their ethereal form, the upper skeletal form of a man appeared above its ethereal flames. The upper skeletal form of the spirit wore no armour at all save for a ethereal helmet and armguards. The skeletal bones that made up the spirit's upper half was light-blue and was almost completely transparent. The flames of its lower half shifted at times from a eerie light-blue to pure white flames. The ethereal armguards had large ethereal diamonds set within their ends guarding the wrists (the dimensions of said diamonds being the size of a man's fist). The wraith's helmet looked to have been in the wraith's life of quite exquisite craftsmanship and beauty that it would have easily marked this person as a person of some stature in life.

    

     The bones of the wraith had no ethereal flesh on them, and neither did the wraith's eye sockets hold any eyes within them.

    

     "Who calls?" asked the apparition as its ethereal skeletal jaw moved with its speech.

    

     "I summon you" said the man known yet unknown to Vorin.

    

     "I summon you and bind you to our will" bellowed the man as he held up the fragment of cloth for the wraith to see through its eyeless eye sockets.

    

     "Bind? You neither have the power now the strength of will to bind me Dead Summoner." stated the wraith with contempt and mocking in its voice (the contempt in its voice showing the hatred it had for what the Dead Summoner druid stood for, and the mocking in its voice showing that it believed not in the man having the power nor the strength in will for the man to enact what the man had intended to do, and that was the binding of the wraith's will).

    

     "With this I bind you, I use our emblem." with those words the man did produced an emblem of his order. The emblem was triangular in shape and had at its center the image of a black flame.

    

     This emblem Vorin knew of, for all who knew of this emblem knew that it was at the Dead Summoner's orders center of power and stood as its true and almost sole source of power. Though all also knew that this emblem was a mere shell of one, for it had no power other than to bind a soul and had not the ability to dispel a binding.
    
    

     With the emblem now in full view for the wraith to see, the wraith howled in fury and hatred for the one standing before it that would have it do evil acts for their biding.

    

     As the ethereal flames of the wraith's lower half turned from blue to black and the will of the binder supplanted the wraith's will with his own, the wraith lowered his head and said in a cold and menacing tone,"Though you may have taken from me my freewill for now, if ever I am freed by either my actions or that of others than I will seek my vengeance upon you and your cohorts of evil."

    

     "Watch your tongue, or lack thereof spirit." said the silver masked man, and while he had said those words there came a sense to all that the man now showed a cruel smirk upon his lips hidden well hidden by his silver mask that he wore. His cruelty apparent with the appearance of the smirk (if indeed he had one), for even just the belief of a smirk made all those present sense that the silver masked man knew well what he and the others intended for the wraith to do.
    

     The wraith only hissing his hatred and anger at the man for the lack of respect for the spirit and the sense of the level of cruelty that the man had for the life of others.

    

     "Now that you have been pacified spirit, I will say this that we know who you were once in life, man bound to and within the Order of light and wisdom by your own freewill, and now you are bound to ours against your will."

     

     "We command now of you to do our biding and that is to kill one of your order's members."said the man and as he said this again the wraith howled its rage and hatred for him and the rest of his party.

    

     "silence" boomed the man's voice as the wraith shrieked its extreme anger and hatred for the silver masked man and all that the man stood for.

    

     "Our will would bid you to assassinate one of your own. A man, I'm sure you knew well in your life before your passing. The man we mean for you to assassinate is Valinore." said the masked man, while the sense of another cruel smirk resonated with both the wraith and with Vorin alike in their mind's eye. For the man to whom the wraith was meant to kill was more than just a mere member of the Order of light and wisdom, he was the head of it, and had been for over two-thousand years now.

    

     Again the wraith howled with rage at the mention of who it was meant to assassinate.

    

     "I will kill you and the others if ever I get the chance. For I shall rip your very soul from your flesh and then bind your soul to damnation." said the wraith in a terrible shriek (one that sent a deep and penetrating shiver through the very soul of Vorin).

    

     Knowing now who the intended target for assassination was (his mentor Valinore) Vorin hopped down from the tree he was in, landing unfortunately with the heavy thud of a landing, as he made his landing the heavy thud he made echoed to the ears of those he did not want to have noticed him (and that was of the ears of the Dead Summoners).

    

     As he landed, the silver masked man turned his head in the direction of the sound that Vorin had produced and while pointing a right arm and first finger yelled,"Intruder, seize him."

    

     Knowing then that his cover was blown, Vorin then raced with all do haste north to his waiting companion beyond in the hopes of getting away, for both his life and that of his mentor Valinore's life depended on his escape.

Author's Note

Please review of comment, I'm eager to know what people think of this story.