Demon of the Black Gate
Prologue

Blackness.

A universe of nothing. A blackness so complete that time refuses to enter. It has no bearing, no power for there is nothing to measure against in this void. Yet the blackness exists, an expanse empty of life, color, sound. Not even a thought can emerge from the ink. But all it takes is a spark of light to shatter it. Create an existence. Begin a life.

Or renew one that should never have been.

The blackness is still. Nothing moves. There is nothing to move. And yet in this ocean of null, aeons old, or never born, something stirs. A mote of blackness vibrates slightly and it causes a small disturbance. A suggestion, where before there was naught. The oscillation becomes a confusion quickly, a deadness infused with vibration, and the blackness begins to swell, gathering intensity like a crushing weight.

Finally, the vibration replaces its voice, and a speck of light begins to swirl in the darkness, like a diamond crushed from the soul of coal. The light grows, unchecked by the formless void it has violated. The sound the light carried with its flickering pulse was a name. A name forgotten. A name from another time and place. A name from another universe. Another life.

The name bore into the darkness, a place with no name, no identity. The emptiness, transformed by the light, had to answer. The shattered blackness gathered itself, like a murder of crows invading a tree, fluttering and ragged, and began falling, or rising, into the brilliance, for there was no up or down. The void was broken, and a germ of existence began accelerating, drawn by the name, powerless to stop. As the remnants of existence began adding their shreds of color and memory, the tattered images burned like flames, each wavering, fiery tongue a different moment of lives past or yet unlived. Nothing made sense. Nothing mattered. The name called. And from the stark blackness, an intelligence awoke.