Chapter 1

The Dragon and the Griffin

Evil once again bestrode the Land
And conflict was high upon the air
As the birth of a lone child
In the far northeast of Europe did begin.

All Immortals did feel this babe's first breath
As he set loose a mighty wail
And the prophecy of the Fates did unfold
In a small hamlet upon an insignificant lake.

Now the Dark Lords of Niflheim
Forebear to let the child live,
Live to despoil their schemes
And to kill the very Gods.

A vampire, a man close to the Dark deities,
Was given the singular gift...
To become the fabled Griffin
And destroy the future theocide.

With his eagle's eyes
And his lion's bloodlust,
This Archpriest did go forth
From the peaked land of the Romans.

The Sun Gods of Asgard, upon hearing of this,
Did send Alanna to Her Elven followers
To bid a mighty sorceress fly
In the form of a Dragon in offense to the terrible Griffin.

As a great Dragon, silver of scale,
Did fly from the Lands of the Faery,
The Child of Conflict came closer to the world,
His mother heaving mightily at the life within.

Searching all of the homeland of the Empire of Eire,
The screeching Griffin saw not of the nefarious child
Who would become the bane of his Immortal Masters
And despaired as the thought of failure did creep into his mind.

In desperation, the powerful priest did widen his search,
To encompass the entirety of that great nation
Which did grow from the Emerald Isle,
And soon came upon the pulse of the new-born babe

The great silver dragon
Did also feel
The throbbing of the heart
Of the endangered infant.

Beating her great, sail-like wings
Toward the frozen wastes
Of the winter-locked Ukraine,
Fenia the Dragonmage did fly.

O'er the icy Kola Peninsula
Flew the hunting Griffin,
Lusting for the blood of innocence
Hot upon his questing tongue.

But unmindful was the priest
Of the quest of the Dragonmage
And surprise was her ally
When her talons did sink into the feathered back.

A mighty screech resounded 'bout the world
As the Griffin felt the claws of the powerful elf did dig
Deep into the back of the nigh invincible Griffin.
Writhing in pain, the priest did wrench free.

Unconcerned and miles away,
The mother and father of the boy,
The new-born Babe of Kismet,
Doted upon their only son and legacy.

While far to the North battled
The Griffin of Evil and Dragonmage of Good.
Twisting and writhing in each other's claws,
Blood of monsters spattering the snow and ice crimson.

For hours, perchance even days, did they fight,
Their strength bolstered by their Gods and their faith,
Even as their bodies were sliced apart
By their barbed talons of hatred.

When at last the Griffin's eyes were gauged out,
His face a tracery of scarlet slashes,
And his wings ruined beyond his ability to heal or fly,
The priest did plummet toward the earth as a falling star from the heavens.

But the Dragonmage faired no better, mayhap even worse.
For her own hide was crossed and recrossed with the clawings of the Griffin,
One of her eyes did hang from its socket, a bloody mess,
And her leathery wings of silver splashed with blood, and rent.

Together, in an embrace of malice and death,
The Dragon and the Griffin plunged from the blazing sky
Turned blood red, from skirmish or sunset,
It matters not.

Across the lands of Russia and Ireland
The death-locked couple fell
Into the cold embrace of the Gulf of the Finns
Splashing into the ice-covered depths.

With the sacrifice of these two bitter enemies
Lived the boy who would become key
To the Fate and Future of the World
In a Time of Heroes and Magik!