Prologue

 For a thousand centuries the sound of the wind rushing through the trees had gone unheard for there were no ears to hear its passage.
 For a thousand centuries the sun and moon had chased each other across the skies unseen for there were no eyes to witness their splendour.

 But now there is an excitement in the dance of the wind about the land. Frantic eddy's collide and whisper secrets back and forth. Trees lean eagerly closer to eavesdrop.
 The sun is brighter on this day and spring flowers bloom with the vibrant colours of youth, blue and violet, vivid green stems crossed  with bold sashes of crimson red.
 The world trembles with contagious expectation, spreading over the surface of the continents with the rising sun, eagerly awaiting the momentous message of the seeking wind.
 A greying of cloud on a distant horizon, sensing the growing excitement, seethes with uncontrollable rage. Within minutes it has spread, unfurling with tremendous speed to the encircling horizon and beyond, hurtling toward the ancient forest. Dark forces snatch the wind and hurl it around the land with unremitting violence, uprooting saplings and throwing them against the older more steadfast giants of the forest, snapping off branches as they hit and twist away only to hit again and again until nothing remains but white shards weeping amber sap.
 An ancient giant finally lets go its weakening hold in the soft forest earth and begins its majestic death plunge under the overwhelming onslaught of the hurricane winds. Trembling with pent up forces it teeters precariously at the limit of its thousand year old boundary in the high forest canopy. A mighty crash splits the air asunder, drowning out even the deafening roar of the screeching wind for a moment as the heart of the regal giant finally breaks deep within its soaring boughs. Gathering speed, it collides with its adolescent neighbour, stripping the uppermost branches clean away until the stronger lower branches begin to break its fall. The young tree quivers with the strain for many seconds but its roots are already exposed. The momentum of the huge ancient carries it forward to the ground taking the slender reachling with it.
 Lightning begins to strike all around and fires begin to feed like ravenous demons on the scrub at the edges of the forest, tongues of hungry flame reach eagerly for the food of fires' short life, the flesh of the forest trees. Great blackened tracts mark the merciless advance of the raging fires through the forest before the rains finally start. Weeks of battle exhaust both sides before the fires reluctantly recede to smouldering piles of heaped undergrowth. A third of the forest is laid waste, charred and blackened by the raging fire before the rains subside and the sun once again begins to filter through the grey clouds to touch the smouldering ruins of the forest and begin the long process of rebirth.

 On a bright sun filled morning, long after the rage, a gentle breeze momentarily brushes aside a still green fond of living fern on the extreme edge of the scorched earth. Here, where the fire had eventually succumbed to the valiant onslaught of the rains, a small vole-like creature rests for moment. Startled by the sudden departure of its covering canopy, and the sight of the blackened openness stretching away forever, it turns to flee, leaving the tormented, rage torn ground for the safety of the covering of rotting leaves deeper in the undergrowth. Here, the dank musky smells and dim light embrace the returning mite in the familiar, comforting cocoon of its own world halfway between earth and above. It cares nothing for the dynamic forces which loom beyond the horizon, waiting.

Chapter 1 >>