Elduran

Elduran.

Elduran sat alone in his chamber, looking outwards at infinity. There
he saw the future, the past and the present, mixing unashamedly
in a swirl of images, snippets of sound and bursts of sudden light, a
light not entirely to the world but instead the muted half-light of the
mind, the light that illuminated the imagination and stirred the soul.
Elduran knew all this, and more besides. Long had he watched the
conglomeration of events and possibilities loosely termed time, the
universe
of chance and opportunity. Today, as many would call it, Elduran had
need for a respite from the real world's troubles. But what he saw in
the Sea of Probabilities often reflected the real world...

In the mists were the shapes, and it was the shapes that were the
future that could be. Elduran plunges through the barrier of shadow,
and emerges into the world of light. There, he would be alone...
Elduran finds himself seeing many has beens, many nows, many to bes.
He chooses one from among the many, and dives his consciousness through
the borders of reality to the cool waters of the distant future. There,
he thinks, there at last he will find solitude...

Elduran would look about him. All would be dark. Something would
happen here, something that was beyond even his foresight. Something
that would destroy his world and all that existed around it. There
would be darkness...

Elduran had seen the future now, and he did not like what he saw. He
thought of the dark and the emptiness, and he decides that this was not
to be. He selects another future, a closer one, and dives again into
the realm of shadows...

Elduran would look out again, and see the dark plains of reality. This
place was known to the dark watcher, it was in his own land. But here,
now, then, it would be darker and deserted. No young would play there
and enjoy the sunlight. Indeed, there would be no sunlight. There would
be little more than dark, brooding shadows and distant sounds.
And Elduran would see the distance, and in that distance he would see
the light. A light so pure and bright that it would outshine the sun
and bury the shadows, a light so intense that it would destroy all that
looked upon it.
And after the light, there would be only darkness...

Elduran leaves the mists again, and cries his frustration to the
heavens. The cry reverberates around the cosmos, striking all that
could hear it with tremendous force. Realising the futility of his
efforts, Elduran leaves the space between the real and the possible and
plunges back towards the pinpoint of Time through which one becomes the
other...

Elduran opened his eyes. All about him was his familiar surroundings,
the chamber underneath his abode that served as a place of
meditation and contemplation. The walls were angled and shaped so that
he could focus with absolute clarity on the future. He had been unable
to ascertain from the shrouds of time what had caused this disaster to
become so close, so near to the stream of probabilities that was the
near future. But it was imperative that he found out what it had been
that had caused the catastrophic damage, and when. If he could prevent
the potential timeline from merging with the one in which he resided,
then the disaster would not occur. Otherwise, there was little hope,
little light to
dispel the shadows and protect the future...
Elduran had no choice but to re-enter the nexus of realities and pass
through the shadows again. If he could not discover the cause and
nature of this problem, then there was no way he could know how to
prevent it. With this in mind, Elduran prepared himself for the arduous
journey necessary to view the possible quantum futurettes that were the
realm that seers were privy to. There were a few seconds of
vulnerability, a few seconds where the mind's natural defences were
let
down and the soul itself could become prey to the creatures of the
Interrim that lay between the twisting, ever-changing future and the
pinned down, immutable past. They were entities that were the last
remnant of an ancient race that had become so totally absorbed in the
viewing of the future that they had become permanently stuck there,
unable to return. Many of the things were so totally absorbed in the
Interrim that they thought of any intruder as a threat, and woe betide
the careless diver in the waters of the mind, for it was they that
risked the ravages of the dark...

Elduran slips past the attentions of the creatures of dark and
surfaces once more in the fields of probability. Even he can see only
those threads of time closest to the central, most likely occurrences.
The distant, improbable futures can only be glimpsed by those of
supreme power briefly, and Elduran can not see that far. But he can see
the nearer, more immediate futures and it is now that this aids him in
his search. He looks again for the line of happenstance that causes the
destruction of his world, ever mindful of the attempts of the dark
dwellers to break his mind open and feast upon his soul. To find a
single reality amongst the multitude is the most impossible of tasks,
and Elduran is not the most skilled of lookers. But today, or
tomorrow, or yesterday, is was and will be his lucky day. He locates
the twisting thread again, and realises with shock how close it is to
the line of occurrence, the most likely future. There is only a split
seconds' judgement between them, some small choice
to be made by a single individual at a point in the near future.
Elduran tries desperately to pinpoint the moment of divergence, and as
he does so he enters again the plains of the unsure...

Elduran would look about him again, and around him would be the
stretch of land that he would see before. But the light would not come
here yet, it would remain as yet unborn. The visage of shimmering light
that
would be Elduran would float over the landscape of flowing lights and
brooding shades that would represent the world to be. He would head
towards the spot which would, later still, become the source of the
all-destructive light. He would need to be fleet, if he should want to
see the cause of the destruction.
Elduran would be closing on the origin of the light when the twisted
lands of the future would slow to a syrupy pace below him and, in the
hills that would still be distant, the light of death again would
blossom and flood the world with white so pure that it would be almost
unnoticeable. With a booming silence that would be so loud as to be
unheard, it would sweep away all that Elduran knew.
And after the light, there would be only darkness...

Elduran is thrown almost physically out into the ether and,
suddenly...

...he was awash with pain and anger. Elduran had been attacked
near-fatally by a dark shadow that was almost unmistakably a remnant of
the ancient, lost race of seers. The wounds that he had sustained
mentally
manifested themselves physically, and Elduran found himself coughing up
blood and bile in a burning torrent of agony. He was wracked with
violent convulsions as the last traces of whatever had assaulted him
died
away. Laying on his meditationary room floor, Elduran looked up at the
decorative light that hung from the ceiling and knew that all was lost.
If he could not discover the cause of the world-ending, he could not
know how to ward it away. And, judging from the way he had been
attacked so violently by the dark ones, they would be exercising every
iota of their phenomenal power to ensure that it came to pass. such was
their hatred of
those free to return to the present.
Dogged and exhausted though he was, Elduran had little choice but to
try once more to find the point of divergence. He scrambled to his
knees and then shakily stood, brushing the dust from his robes. He sat
once again in the hub of the wheel, and attempted to focus on the
future once more. Slowly, he became more composed, and slowly...

...Elduran breaks free once more into the twilight of worlds, and
views for the third time the backdrop of stars that have never existed
and never will. Below him is the twisting path of the future, and
behind him the leaden line of the past. Moving from the pinch of the
now, he finds the destructive future once more. Now it is closer than
ever to the central future, only minutes away from happening. Knowing
that he must work with all haste, Elduran targets the point of
divergence and dives once more...

...into the future. Elduran would look about him, and would see a
place that would be all too familiar to him. He would feel the icy cold
sliver of recognition, the dagger of realisation, slide between his
shoulder blades to chill his bones and freeze his blood with fear.
Infused with terror, he would scream upwards, outwards...

...through the Intterrim, ever faster, towards the surface at speed
but still...

...too late. With a last cry of defiance, Elduran Nel Horaash was, is,
will be caught by the dwellers of dark. They would feast upon his
consciousness and will devour his soul, and by this they are releasing
his ability, his gift to transfer his self between times. One of them
will consume with a mighty avarice this small part of him, and with
that he would see the light, the light of the present and the light of
the living now. He would follow the light, the slithering trail of
brightness, into the present.
There he releases the light, the future and past combined in the
present, and destroys all about him with an absolute light. And after
the light, there was only darkness...