21). The Gateway from Dol-Kahn - Inspiring Illustrations - Fantasy Art

21). The Gateway from Dol-Kahn

The demon army of Slent-Moran was lost; Eaten by the clocks of time. Slent-Moran himself, great wizard though he be, could not escape the fate which had taken his legion of soulless men. The cavern he found himself in bled tears of fire, drank magic and offered no escape.

He set his army to carving away the stone, dredging the sea of blood at the center of this realm, climbing toward the vaulting sky which danced with colors he could not see but numbed his eyes and froze the corners of his mind till each thought was hidden in a blizzard of sparking white.

For a time that he could not measure but seemed longer than all the lives he had stolen, he endured. Then in the depth of the blood sea his demons dragged forth the crystal. In its depth Slent-Moran found a way to unfreeze his mind and work a fraction of the vast power he once commanded with ease. The crystal showed him the cursed realm he now inhabited, Dol-Kahn The Chamber in the Void. He saw the league of mortals and demons who had joined together to cast him into this prison and the gods who had formed this place from the torn viscera of a beast strong enough to threaten even them. Its heart had been the crystal and its vast power lingered in its depths.

Slent-Moran lost himself in the wonder of the crystal for an instant or an age; Time did not linger in this prison realm and found that he was not alone. The beast that was the crystal lived within its shifting depth and Slent-Moran thought he had found an allie but in truth the beast had found a slave.