Lord of the Silent Kingdom

The ice advances every winter. The world grows colder. The seas grow shallower. In northernmost Andoray the reindeer herds and mystic Seatts have disappeared. The farms and pastures, hills and fjords that supported the warlike Andorayans, two centuries gone, are entombed under ice so thick the wild, tall mountains are lost. Across the world – though less so amongst the Wells of Ihrian – the wells of power are weakening.

Till recently dramatic change has been confined to the far rims of civilization. Lately, though, they have begun to have a real impact round the Mother Sea. A flood of refugees has made it possible to raise armies at bargain prices. Just when the Episcopal Church is ruled by an obsessed Patriarch confident that he is the divine instrument meant to expunge heresy and crush unbelievers so all mankind can enjoy God's grace and salvation. As others have done, overlooking the fact that an omnipotent God can handle those sorts without mortal assistance.

The influx of the displaced causes instability everywhere. No one is concerned about the problem. No one sees the problem – except at the local level, where folks grumble about the increase in crime and violence, compared to the good old days. Their response to theft or violence is often ferociously violent itself.

Wars are being fought every day, even where armies are not on the march. And wars within wars. And wars behind wars.

There is the endless struggle on behalf of God, the war for heaven fought on earth. It is the war that never ends because the divine touches no two minds the same and few men credit any revelation but their own.

There is the war for daily survival in a world with neither the means nor any philosophical inclination to make abundant resources commonly available.

And there is the incessant, silent war against the Tyranny of the Night. This most deadly and most vile of wars is the struggle least well known. Not one man in five hundred becomes aware of the conflict, yet to be born is to become a conscript in the struggle with the Instrumentalities of the Night. On one side or the other.