PROLOGUE

 

 

Situated in the embrace of your imagination, allow my words to weave a spellbinding tapestry across the awaiting pages. Lean in, for as you venture forth, the enchanting realm of Pangerath shall unfurl its magical mysteries in response to each eager turn of the page. But, dear reader, our journey demands a step back in time, an essential odyssey into the past that shall illuminate the very heart of the present narrative.

The true origins of Pangerath began thousands of years ago in Upper Egypt, but that is a different story, for another time. The story I am to impart upon you takes place thousands of years after its creation and compelled retreat from the motherland.

It is an inspirational story of how the love of true friends, faced with unimaginable tragedy and overwhelming odds, try to persevere through the darkest of times.

Do the daily choices we make determine our path, or is fate universally unavoidable, written in stone by the hand of destiny?

This…is their story, their choices…their destiny. A time of tested friendships and loyalties. An age of good and evil, of Goblins, Wizards and Witches, Orcs, Dragons, and Heroic knights, as well as various other strange and magical creations that walk this land.

 

If ever a place existed that embodied nature's stunning beauty, tranquillity, peace, and innocence, as well as myth, Pangerath would be named such. For no place on Earth could compare to this strange and curious land hidden in the oceans of the world, untouched by the technologies of modern man.

Since the time of the great pharaohs, magical forces have preserved the lands, protecting, and hiding its secrets from the outside world while keeping those that live there from leaving its mystical borders.

Tales and stories of its existence have circulated for millennia. Some who have caught a glimpse of this mysterious land mistakenly called it Atlantis or the lost lands of Lemuria in the Indian oceans, or the submerged continent of Zealandia. Others who were in its proximity have mysteriously disappeared, leading to notions of the enigmatic Bermuda triangle

All can be true of Pangerath. Its beauty rivals Plato’s accounts of Atlantis, its secrets more perplexing than that of the Bermuda triangle, but make no mistake, there is only one Pangerath, a magical world, an anachronism within a world of modern man.

The inhabitants of Pangerath believe that their land is the only land in the whole of the world, which includes an archipelago of islands that surround Pangerath.

Evolving at a much slower pace than that of modern man, who at the time of this story was at the dawn of the twenty-first century and living across the great waters to the south. Pangerath’s evolution is what modern man would call, the middle ages. I would call it the dark ages, however, without dark there can be no light.

Rolling hills with harmoniously flowing bright green grass lay paths through strong and sturdy oaks as well as giant redwoods. There, hidden amongst the mighty trees was the magical forest that ran along the southwest side of the island all the way up to the north where it vanished into Lake Tyrn.

Lake Tyrn, separated by the valley of twin lakes, emptied through tributaries into the grand oceans to its east and west. While ice-cold, pure drinking waters from Hellwyn Mountains supplied Lake Tyrn’s western repository by way of two massive and beautiful waterfalls that free fell into Lake Tyrn’s mouth that rested at its base, distributing its life-giving waters as it slowly drained west and south into a medley of slow-moving streams that ran through not only the magical forest in the west but also villages and towns throughout the south until finally reaching the southwestern cliffs of Pangerath where it dove a hundred feet or so into the great ocean.

Lake Tyrn’s eastern bay, which rested upon a hilltop, also accepts a waterfall from Hellwyn but on a less grandiose scale. This eastern bay had a small waterfall that drained down into the Great Lake Windemere.

Lake Windemere was the receiver and the giver of life-sustaining waters for the rest of Pangerath. Its spidery network of converging streams, rivers and wetlands ran from its position in the northeast to the west where it converged with its sister and her slow-moving stream that flowed southward until it finally flushes into the great ocean off the southwestern cliff, mirroring its sister in the east.

These waters helped supply relief to all of Pangerath, its crops, and vegetation, livestock, and grasslands, as well as Pangerath's marvellously magical and diverse population.

The lands were divided into Three Kingdoms, each with their respective boundaries proclaimed by heraldic flags displaying their standards mounted on poles at various border locations throughout their lands.

There was Bubastis in the southern hemisphere with its Golden banners and open winged black falcon as its emblem.

Then there was the hub and centre for all activities and trade, Tanis, in middle Pangerath and its banner of red with a coiled black serpent drawing its fangs at its median.

Finally, in the North, was the tranquil more advanced Kingdom of Piramesses and its triangular white banner trimmed in gold, the magnificent Egyptian blue eye of Horus adorned its centre.

Each location had its own fortified guard towers stretched across their borders that rang out upon sighting advancing danger. They were…at peace.

The royalty wrote the laws by which the villagers residing inside their borders must abide. Garrisons of knights protected these borders and the villages and towns inside them as they upheld these laws.

All three monarchs were content to rule their respective lands peacefully, with only minor skirmishes and border disputes that were usually resolved without bloodshed.

How long they could hold onto their land, was about to be challenged after so many years of peace.

The breath of free air entitled to all was about to be suppressed by the foul stench of submission. Unopposed; one cruel, immoral, and malevolent wizard who revelled in the fear he inspired in others will alone try to bring death and destruction to them all.

In the past few years’ rumours abound throughout the villages of Bubastis and Tanis, of children going missing, with no clues, nor reason. Many believed this wizard was a primary suspect.

No longer, content to remain isolated in his small area to the far south. He has long awaited his opportunity. Building his beastly armies in the south and hiding them in the deep carved-out caves of the underworld.

Now, with his vast army fully stocked he felt it time. Time for his rule of Pangerath, to enforce his will, to take what he wanted and not abide by the meanderings of silver-spooned Kings that he deemed not his equal.

Confined by his ego and by what he believed his destiny, his right to rule above supposed rulers, their lands and peoples, the engine of war stood ready, fuelled by his dark obsession. His name was Malus.

A maleficent, dead-eyed looking man of forty or so years, with a clean complexion, save for a small but thick scar at the top corner of his left eye, delivered there by the ring of his father when he was but seven years old.

Standing six feet or so with shoulder-length black wavy hair frosted above the ears in grey and pulled tightly back to a widow’s peak. His strong high cheek-boned face gave way to sunken deep-set eyes of cold black. His normally tightly pursed lips seem to have never produced a smile.

Wearing a black leather shirt with pants tucked inside black leather boots and black leather forearm bands that stretch from the elbow down and over his knuckles and are held in place by metal-framed finger holes. A black hooded cloak that nearly touches the ground hung about his neck, supported by way of serpent-shaped red pinning gems below each shoulder.

His inclination to go to war stemmed from his upbringing in the deep south of Pangerath and of not to ever again bow to the demands of another. To rather take what he wanted when he so desired, with no regard for life, nor rules, nor of the consequences of his actions.

Raised by a hard, iron-fisted, and disciplined father who taught him the art of magic at an early age; who was himself taught by his father, passed down through the generations. His mother, having died upon his birth, gave rise to a restricted tempestuous love from his father.

Not an onerous young lad was he, but a censured un-loving upbringing by his dominant father aided in corrupting the innocence of the malleable young boy into his current demeanour and non-compliance to another’s rule.

Malus’s only desire as a child was the approval of his father and so he absorbed the abuse at his hand, owing to it his own insubordination and death of his mother upon his birth.

At the tender age of seven or so, Malus had started to notice his father's absence from their home on many a night. Even though his father afflicted him, he still yearned for his father’s attention and craved for his company, even if it produced a beating, at least he wasn’t ignored. He was the only family he had.

One chilly night he covertly followed his father on one of his outings. Hiding in the nearby woods of the magical forest he spied his father and a woman, a white witch in fact.

His heart torn that his father’s love can so easily be given to another, yet not him, he ran home, shaken, and teary-eyed. No beating could have hurt him more. His blood boiled with rage as he waited for his father’s return to confront him when he arrived.

Not one to be questioned, least of all by a child, his father flew into a rage once again, this time striking Malus in the face with his right hand, a hand that supported a black and red stoned golden ring that tore the flesh from the top corner of his left eye, it was to be his father’s final mistreatment of the boy. A permanent scar to this day remains, and the ring used in this deformity now rested on the hand of the abused, a memento that no man shall ever strike him again.

This was the start of Malus’s unwavering fortitude, to take what he wanted when he wanted it. To never succumb to fear, and never again be abused by another. This was also when his overwhelming, absolute, pure hatred of the white witches began, whom he considered the destroyer of his family and the love he so hankered for yet was given so easily to one of them.

He stood a sorcerer of sorcerers, claiming himself omnipotent, for his knowledge of the arcane arts was unequalled. Many who have tested his power were no longer. He, like his father, had become the abuser.