North Mountain, Desmond.
Fifty miles away from Lady Morgana's flower shop.
Daniel Norton squinted through half-opened eyes. His mother, Lady Abrianna, travelled beside him as they descended onto the crystalline white waves of the northern mountain range, searching for the ancient vampire. Above him, the deep black sky, painted with a pulsating wave of ethereal but dull colour, stretched endlessly into the distance. Daniel knew where they were — in the peaks above the clouds. Before him, a lone ancient dark eerie temple of the supernatural rested upon the peaks like an island. The clouds were like waves of the ocean. The dark temple was crafted from white marble with dark stone magical trimming and inlaid with innumerable precious unknown jewels and others.
Around the magical temple hovered a myriad of dark shadows floating like demon mist, like phantasms of starlight that he could see, but not quite see. In the far distance, far beyond the stone bridge, he knew what the structure was—the temple of an ancient, and it was terrifyingly wondrous. How they came here was still a shock to him. A day after his father's funeral, he was approached by an old man who told him that his father had been killed by a vampire, and not just any vampire, but the oldest among the rest, the worst and most powerful, and yes, being as naive and dumb as he was, he believed the man and told his mother about it, and they sought to know more and here they were, on top of the world, and yes, his brother, Dimitri, didn't have any idea about
However, looking at the ghostly temple of the ancient vampire far behind the clouds of mist, Daniel sighed with disappointment. Another vision. He was approaching his adulthood year of life and these visions tired his young soul. His mother, Abrianna, hounded him like a ghost in his dreams.
She was known for being a righteous woman who walked with her husband with loyalty and kindness, but he never thought of her as a witch, and now that she told him she was indeed a witch, all respect and admiration he had for her vanished, but he couldn't just let her know that. He needed her right now, and he hated how she spoke of Dimitri with admiration. He despised his brother even more now. Daniel used to complain about his mother's "head over heels admiration for Dimitri" and how, despite being the youngest, he was only the second-best, until he discovered the terrifying truth that his mother's loyalty was unbearable to sinful human nature. It made him more sympathetic to the impact it had had on her, but he detested his brother to the core.
The ancient vampire, Ellon Achlys, as Abrianna called him, had contacted her and taken them up to this summit alive before they could experience the dismal universal experience that is death. Long before, he never believed in such demons as monsters of any kind. But after his mother had shown him her mundane magic as a witch, he came to the conclusion that there was no point in denying the supernatural world existed, so he believed them and he would do anything to be as powerful as they were. No aching joints, no wavering eyesight, no difficulty in peeing as the years would wind him down to the grave.
From all this, both mother and son were spared, and, of course, he would do everything to gain Ellon Achlys' trust and be a dutiful servant for the rest of his immortal life. His mother's punishment could wait; he would punish her for loving his eldest son so much that it made him hate his own brother to death.
It's not fair, thought Daniel. But alas, Ellon Achlys, the creator of all vampires and demons, turned into rogues and ferals, surely has the right to do as he pleases, no matter how strange or incomprehensible those actions may be to us mortals made of clay and nephesh, the ancient vampire's own breath. Daniel took the lesson hard. One day soon, this magical temple will be his permanent home. But not today. He resigned himself and took in the fearful symmetry of a terrifying yet wondrous cosmos through which Abrianna escorted him on the wings of the wind. She told him about how powerful the ancient vampire was. Ellon was nothing but a fearsome monster of the dark and a blood-sucking bastard, but of course, he had to kiss his feet to conserve his life, not that killing his beloved father was any better.
Despite his sense of helplessness, Daniel considered that maybe his plans were worth the irritation after all. Who else was allowed to see such awesome marvels before their time? Maybe Ellon Achlys may yet take him, as he did Abrianna, but his mother was a witch, and he? Well, he was an ordinary human, full of ambition and power-hungry, whose heart hardened in time.
Out of the myriad of flying lantern-like fireflies that float all around the mountain, some fell from the sky and plunged into the sleet below pulled beneath the snow. Daniel watched their descent. The murky depths deadened their shining.
As he continued descending into the deep, he felt a shiver run down his spine as he passed massive dark oak trees on his way to the stone bridge. This was a nightmare, but he knew it was real. Something or someone forced him to commit suicide to go deeper into the sleet, and he wished he could protest, but couldn't. "Mother? Is this the right place?" He asked.
"Yes, dear, just don't look back and keep walking. Never look back."
He wanted to, but he stopped himself. There was no time for second thoughts.
Then he saw the reason for his chill. The spiny, dark, snake-like armoured back of a long serpentine creature swerved just below him and disappeared into the darkness. Gigantic, the creature measured maybe thirty feet long, a shadowy impression of its full fearful presence in the murky blackness. This was something he had never seen before; a two-headed snake, as per his mother's whisper, was the guardian of the mountain. Few had ever seen it, and fewer still had lived to tell about it. The only thing more terrifying than the gigantic snake was its mother, who waited at the side of the temple.
Daniel and Abrianna landed in the midst of the hellish mountain and began to move through a solid crystalline bridge that connected the ravine and the temple, which looked almost like it was floating in the clouds, the firmament of the north mountain. Below this stone bridge pathway was a never-ending depth of chaos, dark and eerie.
As Daniel and Abrianna watched, the luminaries passed through the clouds and approached the remarkable temple, walking slowly, the earth disc surrounded by the waters, under which were like the pillars of the earth, and below that, Sheol, the underworld. Watching them, she knew they were like the dreadful place of Sheol. In the northwest, the dark shadows that seemed to be moving around the temple, hundreds of them landed in succession on the entrance dark iron gate of the temple. She was like watching many years of the past moving before her eyes. Those shadows screamed in her nightmare, and now that she didn't have a husband to share her unrelenting doom, it was as if she was lost watching the shadow creeping on the four niches of the temple. "Sheol is more dreadful than that darkness, the curse of mankind," said Abrianna. "For every intent of thought in his heart is only evil all the time.
And behold, the lord of darkness will come with hundreds of his servants to execute havoc on all and to destroy humans forever. But I saw a vision of a Dark Luna, a powerful vampire and werewolf hybrid with an ancient power that was far greater than the ancient one, who would bring an end to the reign of the vampires, werewolves, and all supernatural beings and bring rest from the curse of the land.
Ellon Achlys promised in the death of this Dark Luna that the seed of this woman would be at war with the seed of the moon. But through this chosen seedline, which comes from an unknown time, she will crush the head of the ancient, kill the last vampire on earth, the seed of the curse, and the seed of the moon, and their abominations in the land."
"Mother, what the hell are you talking about?"
"Just listen to whatever it was, because when we exit this mountain, I won't have any recollection of it." His mother added, with mild irritation, that he had never seen her. He nodded his head and tried to remember her words as they kept on walking to their impending doom.
However, hundreds of miles southeast from the North Mountain directly below Daniel's feet sat Desmond, the centre city of supernatural beings, on the land between the rivers, lakes, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Irish Sea.
Ten minutes later, Daniel and his mother descended to the farthest part of the stone bridge near the iron gate into the unfertile land of the temple as his mind was fogged with a dark vision, as if someone was inside his mind, penetrating its deepest thoughts. Suddenly, he was being taken home to the great cedar forest, where the dark shadows hid that bordered the dark depths below. He felt the vision fading to its end.
"Little boy, I can see how dark your heart is." "My lord, I'm hurting," Daniel complained, "How did you come into my mind and why do you keep troubling me with these visions?"
Because," the voice in his head replied, "you will be my servant, boy. You are a descendant of my maker, and I can see it in your veins. You, Lord Damascus's son, are my servant. You will be my servant."
Daniel knew who the man was talking about. He was never chosen for any greater cause. It was always Dimitri. He smiled, "It will be my honour, my lord."