conservation of the human thaumaturgic resource, casting their

spells in such a manner that they did not totally consume the life

energies of humans, but allowed them to recuperate. It was the

beginning of white magic.

Yet, white magic was a much slower and more careful process. In

order to accomplish the same results, it took more time and

concentration. And there were those among the Old Ones who did

not wish to give up the old ways of necromancy, which could

provide power far more quickly and which could enable them to

consume the life energies of humans in order to replenish their

own. They rebelled against the Council of the White and continued

to practice necromancy. They became known as the Dark Ones.

And their rebellion led to mage war.

The conflict between them survived in history as the legend of

the Ragnarok, the Gotterdammerung—the Twilight of the Gods.

The population of the Old Ones was decimated by then-war and at

the end the necromancers were defeated. To punish the surviving

Dark Ones, the Council of the White entombed them for all time in

a deep subterranean pit in the Euphrates Valley, giving up their

own lives to empower the incantation that would hold them.

The keys to the spell the mages of the Council cast were three

enchanted milestones, a ruby, a sapphire, and an emerald. Once the

spell was cast, the surviving members of the Council of the White

infused their own life energies into the stones, to hold the Dark

Ones entombed for all time. Only one of them was left alive, the

youngest of the mages—Gorlois. It was his duty to place the stones

inside a small chest above the pit and then seal up the chamber,

after which he cast off his sorcerer’s robes and went out into the

world to live among the humans, whom the war had left the

dominant race on earth.

And that new dominant race proceeded to take fierce vengeance

on those who had once ruled them. The surviving Old Ones were

hunted down relentlessly and killed. Those who escaped managed to

do so only by hiding their true nature. They interbred with humans,

as did Gorlois, and their descendants inherited some of their

abilities, though with each succeeding generation, their longevity

decreased and their abilities became diluted. But even long after