The Nemesis, The Wizard and The Waterfall. Book One.

The Commentaries of Asher the Dwarf, Trusted Slave of Alar Barton-Abercrombie.

  Then came the millions of voices.

  And my performance suffered accordingly.

  But one thing than redeemed me in the eyes of Alar Barton-Abercrombie was my ability to point the finger at miscreants, to warn him of shortages, of late deliveries to the Wizards, and especially Zanatos.

  But firstly, the gods.

  They came to our planet from another millions of years ago. They are powerful, and our planet contains large amounts of natural magic. From what I’ve been able to ascertain they were defeated by a Nemesis, and fled to escape retribution.

  There are thousand of gods, supernatural beings that exist forever, and the most powerful is Bagarnack.

  Many rumours and myths exist about the gods, but one thing that is apparent is their desire to interfere and control the lives of ordinary humans. There are numerous incidents of gods in different disguises, sometimes as animals, sometimes as their true selves, appearing to workers in a field and strolling through the corn, commanding them to go to temples and worship them. Of gods giving humans help, telling them how to make wine, where to cast their nets, to built temples in their honour, and perhaps the most telling of all, how to make the best weapons.

  I could sense the presence of the gods, they seemed to flash by at the speed of lightning, but I couldn’t read their minds, but I could read the minds of humans and many have had contact with the gods. It seems that there are two sets of gods, the Titans and the Olympians. The Titans encourage conflict, because only by conflict, they believe, could humans advance. And the Olympians, that only through education, help and assistance could humans advance. These two sets of gods, it seems, chose champions and put them in situations where they fought the champions of other gods about the best way to progress.

  Into this mix was the Creator, the Voice, the Supreme One, which the gods denied, or, because they knew this Supreme Being would not interfere directly.

  A lot could be written about the gods, indeed, much has been written about them already.

  But I want to concentrate on the human side of my commentaries.

  Two hundred years ago the wizard called Worlyn the Wonderful ruled our planet. Worlyn allowed free speech, there were no slaves, everyone was paid their true worth, happiness was a commodity in abundance. But every one hundred years was the Centuria Tournament, when every wizard who wanted could travel to Dragoylia and enter, the eventual winner would rule the planet for the next hundred years. No one knows who or what instituted this convention, its history is lost in the smog of time, but the common belief is the gods created it.

  The tournament was simple, wizards were allocated ivory balls with numbers engraved into them, these were put into a large container and the balls were drawn in twos, these wizards faced one another in a magical duel, the winner’s ball would go into the next bin, and so on, until two were left. It wasn’t a tournament to the death.

  Two hundred years ago Worlyn beat the much younger Zanatos in the final and continued his reign as Wizard Supreme.

  Then nearly one hundred years ago at the last tournament Zanatos not only beat Worlyn, but crushed and humiliated him. Worlyn was only saved from certain death by his ability to open up the earth and vanish down the hole. Worlyn was never seen again.

  Rumour has it that Bagarnack had helped Zanatos, giving him godly magic, but it’s something I never been able to prove or disprove because Zanatos’ mind is closed to me, surrounded by an almost tangible wall of magic.

  Almost immediately Zanatos began his worldwide campaign of terror. Records were checked and families with slave ancestors before Worlyn freed everyone were enslaved, no matter what their present status. Millions fled, but millions were also caught and punished harshly. Fear spread throughout the planet. Zanatos’ wizards were everywhere.

  Of course there were uprisings, slave armies that sought to take back control of their lives. Zanatos and his wizards quickly crushed them. No army, no matter how numerous, how well trained, can hope to match the power of the wizards. Zanatos and his wizards killed hundreds of thousands. The oppression began.

  Of course the merchants backed Zanatos, they would, they were making stacks and stacks of gold, they had to construct special buildings to house it all. There was only two ways a slave could be granted freedom, by the will of a leading wizard, or joining the rapidly growing army of Zanatos’ warriors and proving themselves loyal and brave in battle. There was no lack of volunteers.