PROLOGUE to the fantasy book Judgment Rising: The Rys Chronicles Book III

The genocide of ancient Nufal was incomplete...

Life stirred in a forgotten bunker. Locked in hibernation seemingly without end, it had taken refuge in cold stone to escape a freeze beyond the scope of mere winter. After the thaws of five springs unblighted by Onja’s magic, cells began the sluggish return to life.

The dark rock of the Tabren Mountains soaked up the warmth of the sun, and the elder slopes recalled their children who had once played at civilization on the knees of the world. At first, only a few grains of granite came loose from the mountainside. It was a minor loss to the mountain, yet it was different than erosion.

Then, with the sun at its zenith, smoke curled from where the grains had fallen. The rock began to glow red like the iron in the forge until a circular patch burned away. In the small hollow appeared two rows of teeth. Air hissed into the mouth as the life took its first greedy gasp after long centuries of deprivation.

For days nothing happened except the occasional rasping of air across the dry teeth. The spring advanced and the sun stayed longer with each passing until the snows dripped all day and a tiny stream channeled into the mouth. Then rain came and filled the imprisoned vessel to overflowing.

On the next morning, the rock had swollen and an organic form bulged forth from the secluded mountainside. As the day continued, heat radiated from the bulging shape until its outer shell evaporated in a thick steam. What was revealed had the same steel gray color as the remote mountain.

The body was perfect with broad shoulders and sculpted pectorals above a well-defined abdomen. A bald head with a slack face stared vacantly from the high lonely place. This statue carved from the mountain was male and he reclined against the Tabren like a young God from the beginning of the world.

When night came and the constellations wheeled across the sky, his eyes began to sparkle. The lights in the heavens, after crossing space for eons, on this night discovered a purpose and re-ignited the soul in that forsaken body. Gradually, his eyes gathered the white light until their glow illuminated his naked body. He lifted his hands and looked at them.

The fingers, with their sensitive tips, told him that he possessed a physical body. He could feel the blood pulsing inside the flesh, but then, as he continued to stare at his hands, he began to scream. The scream lashed out at the night and filled the chasm that separated him from the next mountain. After the wretched sound reached a peak of volume, the wailing faded and he was left with pain in his throat.

Pain?

It was a thought and it made him realize he had a mind. But more thoughts were not forthcoming. He experienced only the animal desires of an animal existence. Hunger, pain, fear. Perhaps without hunger, there would be no pain. And perhaps without pain, there would be no fear. And when that was gone, maybe there could be other things. Like memory. Like language.

But until then, there was only flesh that needed to be fed.

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