Red Blood and  Black
                        Steel
                     - Jeff Long
                       Prologue
                           
                              The stench of death still hung about the ancient chamber, and
          the dust of decayed bones  still littered the floor.  The light of the
          single torch set into a bracket in the wall seemed to be an intrusion
          here, as the heavy dust that hung in the air seemed to devour the
          majority of the brightness given off by the flames.  This room had seen
          neither light nor life for centuries untold.  The walls and ceiling of the
          room were cracked and scarred by whatever calamity had buried the
          chamber so many years ago.  But in the centre of the room, a black
          marble altar still stood intact.  On that altar lay a thick book bound in
          red and black leather binding.  Despite its age, the pages of the book
          were still crisp and fresh, showing none of the discoloration common
          to ancient tomes of knowledge.  No one had laid eyes upon this book
          for many years before the ancient chamber was even buried.  No one,
          that is, except for the man who stood before the altar, feverishly
          turning the pages, searching for something.
               The man was shrouded in black robes, with the hood pulled
          away from his face.  He was neither short nor tall, and his face was
          neither ugly nor handsome.  His nose was perhaps a trifle like that of
          a hawk, and his skin was quite pale, but not unnaturally so.  His
          cheeks were a little gaunt and his lips thin and pale.  The man's
          shoulder-length hair was for the most part jet-black, but was streaked
          with a few wisps of silver.  This was perhaps a bit strange, for judging
          from his face, the man could be no older than forty summers.  Yet the
          man's only truly striking feature was his eyes.  Dark and smoldering,
          they seemed to literally burn in their sockets.  The fire in the man's
          eyes almost matched the burning of his blood as he searched eagerly
          and desperately through the ancient tome.
               His thin arm trembled slightly each type he flipped a page, but
          so far he had discovered nothing that was new to him.  Yet he kept
          on, knowing that if there was but one page that was new to him, it
          would be more than enough.  The torch slowly burned down as he
          searched, but the black-robed man hardly seemed to notice.  The man
          turned another page, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat.  Etched
          into the page was a Rune, a Rune of which neither it nor its effects
          had been seen for a thousand years.  To the untrained eye, the symbol
          would look little different than any of the hundreds of other Runes in
          the ancient book.  But to the man who stood before the altar, the page
          glowed with a burning intensity that almost matched the burning of his
          eyes.  
               Triumphant, the man raised his arms to the unseen sky.  His
          eyes widened to an unnatural extent, allowing the glowing light of the
          Rune to pour into his mind.  The man trembled violently as searing
          pain raced through him.  He could almost feel the Rune burning itself
          onto his brain.  Fog seemed to enclose his vision, until he saw nothing
          but the Rune.  There was a brief flash of brilliant red light, and
          abruptly, it was over.  Slowly, the man lowered his still-trembling
          arms.  The page of the book now looked to him no different than any
          other, but he could feel the power of the Rune firmly grafted into his
          psyche.  Softly, the man began to laugh to himself.  The eerie laughter
          echoed through the ancient chamber, cutting a swath through the
          centuries-old silence.  Still chuckling, the man in black turned to leave
          the room.  If it were possible, it seemed that his burning eyes glowed
          just that much more brightly . . .