Okay folks, this is going to be one of those things that gets published and sits around for a while. In fact, I'm not going to publish anything else for this until Tainted, Revolver and Pages Of Nightmare are all done. So this is your teaser. This is the beginning to an immense story about destiny, dimensions, demons and betrayal. Me and my friend Quin plan to write all of it, but for now all I have is the prologue. I'll give you an overview right now though.

Reality is many things. Some call it the spider's web. Others call it a building. It is both. The spider's web for the thousands upon millions of universes, all woven together and layered like the soft silk of a spider's home. This explains why some worlds become so parallel as to be called twin universes. Sometimes triplet universes. There are three that are known for certain in the world of Earth, but only by the most arcane and wizened of individuals. There is our universe. A world where magic is near it's disapearance, and hatred and science govern all. There is Terras, the world of magic, mystery and violence. A world where epics are found in one's own backyard.

And finally there is Gayana. A world unknown except for it's dark underground citadels, home to divine beings who have mastered the ability to travel between Earth and Terras. Demons. Grigori Inferni. Morta, Bayoga, Fardurin, Ezradah, Sammail, Ogourus and Azmodyis. These seven master the elements of darkness and plague. One for Chaos, one for Fear, one for Rage, one for Isolation, one for Agony, another for Torment, and the power of Infernality to govern them all. For millenias they have plagued Earth, being stopped only occasionally, and even then never killed. It is said nobody can kill them, except for their own kind. One of them is about to test this theory, and the others are going to make the biggest mistake of their eternal lives.

Stephen King claimed the Dark Tower saga was his masterpiece, his ultimate tale. This is mine, with the help of a friend whose advice and ideas, along with my own, helped shaped the foundations for this ultimate story of betrayal, revenge, and reality itself. We are nothing but nails in the great skyscraper of reality, the stick that holds the spiderweb together. And life is the hammer, to pound us into our place. It's up to us how strong our hold will be.

Hammer and Nail

An Epic by Stewart MacDonald and Quin Kupczyk

Forward By Azmodyis

So long ago, I spoke the words which would ring so true throughout the course of this existence. Well, I never actually spoke these words, not in this World, at least. But they were said nonetheless. The time is at hand, I said. In my ignorance and my hate, and my power. I did not comprehend these words, even at a thousand years of age, I was enveloped in the audacity of youth. Strange yes, and those who find this may be confused. Do not fret; so am I.

What follows is not my story, that I am sure. I don't know how, any more than I knew what those words , the time is at hand, really meant. Yet that is wrong, because I know now. I referred this sentence to myself, the great Spider who dwelled beneath the earth, the Seven-Headed Dragon from The Pit. I had been certain my children would set me loose to spread my infernal energy upon the orb I knew as Earth. Yet even then, had I known I would fail? Had I known the one known as Mikhael would come, that Deaketh would return again to aid him?

I fear I did. Maybe not the specifics, but one does not need those when the nagging emotion of foresight tugs at your mind. I was great, and I was terrible, but Gods in Worlds Beyond I was stupid. Maybe I still am, but I fear that does not matter anymore. For, dear listener, dear whoever finds these despicable words, the time truly is at hand now... I feel it in my very bones... My seven skulls and great wings... My time in this dimension I have been locked beneath is nearly over. Funny, how all call me Lord here, Great Grigori Inferni. But like them, I know nothing of what may lay beyond these great catacombs that I assume are beneath the surface of an unknown planet.

I would be a liar to say I was an expert in Worlds Beyond as well... I know of only as many as the most wizened mortals know of. This despicable cavern of Gayana, the world that has been tainted by science, greed and hatred; Earth, and the world that seems to be teetering on the edge of chaos, Terras. Yet there are more, I know it. I feel it. There has to be. For is not the universe a spiders web? And does a spiders web only have three strands? I think not. And I think what will happen next will involve every whispy yet strong strand of this great web.

Do not ask me what this something is. I don't know any more than you. I do know one thing though. My time is almost up. I was going to die naturally in a weeks time now, but I feel I don't even have that much time. Something has changed, for better or for worse, and I intend to see it through, and if it means my end, then so be it. I'm aware I have many sins to atone for. The carnage, the destruction... The evil. All that we've stood for is wrong, yet, it is right. To oppose good is not evil, it simply is. I wish to depart this. We did nothing wrong, only what we were meant to, and I have no regrets.

Forever we have prided ourselves with being eternal, unfeeling sentinels of fear and power. Immortals. I don't feel that way now. Though to see me you would undoubtedly lose your very sanity in a wave of fear and awe, I feel weak and frail. A seven-headed wyrm, easily what you humans would call sixty feet tall, and I am scared out of my very mind. I cannot depart this information with my brethren, they would not understand. They have been too comfortable for too long with their sinister specialties.

Morta with his dark chaos, Bayoga with her mastery fear, Furoka and his boundless rage, Sammail, the infernal master of pain... Ogourus, that fiend who knows the way of possesion... And Ezradah. But wait... Is not Ezradah different? Perhaps. Ezradah has always surprised me. He is called the djinn by the humans, but he is the Inferni of Solitude, and maybe that time alone, those countless years... Maybe he knows more about the world than the others. More than me, maybe. I feel that the demon has some part to play in the storm that looms in the distance, and not a destructive one.

They all will, I think, but Ezradah more so. His part will be for the better, I know this. I also know I must not tell him. He will make his own decisions when the time comes. As I must make mine. I speak these words in the dark, where they will lay unheard until you hear them. Make sense? Thought not. That's alright. My name is Azmodyis, I am called the Grand Infernus by my children, but what I really am is a drop of dew, caught in the spiders web. Some call me the demon king, but I am what I am, and nothing more. Soon I will be no more, but doesn't that happen to us all?

Human, demon... Dragon or God. We all die. We all waste away, and we are all born again. From steel to rust, day to night, flames to ashes.

For better, or for worse.

A- fucking-men.