[Calaethis Dragonsbane]

Elsewhere, a robed figure stood over a burial mound; upon it lay a stone slab, a stone slab that carried a bloody carcass. Animal or man was unimportant; what was important was its lifeblood - lifeblood that ran in rivulets into the mound. Around the burial chamber stood a copse, scattered trees sprouting their leafy buds here and there. Their fragrance filled the air, mingling with the scent of fresh blood and the air's breath brought by rain. Life. Life was what was important; life that could only be bought from death. Death was a constant reminder of what it meant to have life, to live. Only fools would discard death's warning so causally. Those that lay here had not; but others? Yes, they were callous. It was their undoing, their folly. Damned by their own fate. Such was the doom of the ignorant.

Even as the rain fell, in this idyllic, serene place, spoilt only by blood, the figure chanted. There was no bitterness within it; those within the cities had all but forgotten the ancient lore, bar for a few. Warlock, druid; magi; the titles were meaningless. Man, woman; it did not matter. The coming storm did not care; nor did it await mankind's pleasure. Such distinctions mattered only on a base level; for reproduction, cycles, life. Variety, strength, weakness, characteristics; all these seemed muted before the passage of time, the passing of aeons stretching endlessly into the ether. What man, what woman, could stand before such and gaze into the depths? Who could stand and not be fogged, their vision clouded by the eternal mists? Who could portray the future, or comprehend the past? Only the twin constants remained: life, and death. Time marched on. But here, in this age, this time, would the currents of life ebb and flow? Would death grip the age, gorging on life before its time? There was no balance, not truly; perhaps in the most abstract sense, but never were the twin forces equal. Who could say if death had claimed more than life would spawn. 'Had' and 'would', past and future; it was the present that mattered. This present. This age. But for a glimpse; a glimpse of the past, the present, the future. What had come might come again; assuming another guise, another host. Would it be different, or something new entirely? When life met death, those with knowledge, knowledge lost to time, might know but a glimpse. Life and Death; neither were truly master, yet both ruled the world. Primordial forces, stronger than the sun itself. Life and Death, the truths of this world... if one was creator, the other was destroyer: both as destructive, as creative as the other. If there was a master greater than these, the figure had yet to know it. For what could be greater than these, these twin forces that drove all. Nothing could be greater, surely? If there was meaning to be had... it was found in blood: the river of life, contained; the channel of death, shed.

The blood flowed, soaking into the mound.