Dreams of Futures Yet To Be

There were no demons in Sylant. Not anymore, anyway. For hundreds of years there had been a great and holy war waged between the denizens of Pandemonium and the Order of the Silver Shield, the Paladins who guarded and protected Sylant. They had suffered defeats and victories in equal number, and much of the history of the so-called Kingdom of Light was a result of the struggle between the two great forces.

For hundreds of years, the paladins had marshalled great armies, leading gleaming ranks of armour-clad knights and tough footmen against the hordes of demonic forces which had poured forth from the great rift known as the Gate of Shadow. For hundreds of years, the land of Sylant had rung with the names of heroes and villains, blazed with the deeds of heroes, and resonated with the footsteps of the occult. Magic and miracles were common in Sylant, for it was where the light and the darkness met. It became known as the Contested Kingdom, where demons and knights duelled forever over a land that never could know peace.

And yet, only one hundred years ago, that eternal war had finally ended.

It had ended suddenly, with no warning. There was no great victory, nor crushing defeat. Simply one day the demons withdrew back to their portal which was slammed closed behind them. The stone gateway which housed it became a fortified position in case they ever returned and the Order of the Silver Shield proclaimed victory and glory. Tired of battles and killing, Sylant rejoiced that at last their trial was over. The king of the time - a wily and cynical man - waited for the portal to reopen for the rest of his life.

But it never did.

Two hundred years past and the demons became history and legend. None forgot what they had done, but in spite of the dire warnings and deeply held fears, they never came back. Each year, the ancient history seemed to recede further and further into the past and people looked more and more to the future.

The thing was, only a few people bothered to ask the important question.

Why had the demons gone? What had caused them to suddenly vanish? Why would they give up everything that they had fought and bled and killed for? No one had any answers, for who could know the mind of a demon? They were a strange and alien people, and the paladins simply put it that there was no way to tell what they might have been thinking. So it was better to focus on the present and try to ensure that such times never came again.

And so, the common wisdom came to be that there were no more demons in Sylant. They had been destroyed, driven out. Pushed back to their own realm. Whatever had caused them to retreat, there were none of them left here now. Sylant was pure.

And usually, this would be true.

But not today.

Because today there was a demon in Sylant.

And she had been falling for a very long time.