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He wore a loose fitting, dark uniform without symbol or badge from head to foot.  It helped conceal his movements and allowed him to respond quickly.  The only device on his uniform beside the broadsword strapped to his side was a gold band around his left arm just above his elbow.  When activated, this band acted with opposite effect of the rod.  It repelled chronomic waves, making him invisible to the POD and its occupant and since all the Shadow Knights wore the same band, the occupant of the POD would think he was alone.

Lenesco snapped back the two wings on the rod so that they lay flush and extinguished the light.  He glanced toward his commander and nodded.  With a swift and practiced hand signal, Consus motioned to the others several paces behind him.  Without a word, they activated the gold bands and dispersed, hiding among the fallen ruins to wait for their victim.

i    i

Years ago these sleepy ruins were the central structures of Cah Bel, the military academe of Arcathia, a highly advanced civilization long since fallen.  They built Cah Bel on a low mountain in the middle of a great uninhabited valley.  Crumbled towers stretched out away from this central lone mountain across the plane as far as the eye could see.  Now abandoned, both capital and civilization had succumbed to the ravages of time and slipped into forgetfulness.  Few now remembered their names or could even read their writings.

At the summit of the mountain, stood the dominant edifice, a fortress in the shape of an eight-pointed star.  The Arcathians called it Zhongjian, which meant “The Center” in their tongue but the locals now called it the Old Fortress.  Here thousands of would-be soldiers once trained and defended the Arcathian civilization, but Consus and the Shadow Knights had scanned for the POD, not in the Old Fortress, but the large amphitheater upon a lower foothill.  Those who forgot its real name called it the “Old Arena.”  It was designed so well 

Scroll 1: History's Mirror                                                                                    Chapter 1: Treasures from the Past