Introduction.
Many myths and legends surround the Garnet gemstone. It is believed that the Garnet is a stone of purity and truth as well as a symbol of love and compassion. The gemstones are often found along riverbanks after violent storms. It was anciently believed that they were created by the lightning of such storms, and held a spark of captured lightning within their depths.
Throughout history, these stones have embraced a deep symbolism for their wearers Legend tells that Noah used a Garnet lantern to help him steer the Ark through the darkness of the night. Greeks called the Garnet the Lamp Stone and it was said, if hung around the neck, to give the power of seeing in the dark.
It was popular as a Talisman and protective stone, as it was believed to light up the night and protect its bearer from evil and disaster; guarding him from all perils in travelling.
These myths and legends may well be true in part, or in all; but there is one Garnet that is the absolute antithesis of all of these beliefs. This Garnet is a large, seventy-carat, blood-red stone that has become known as “Der Rote Reiter”… "The Red Horseman.”
The first intimation of this malignant gem came from the pages of an ancient volume discovered in 1936, in the icy wastelands of Siberia. It was retrieved by a young German archaeologist; Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen, as a consequence of her deciphering the ancient script contained within the pages of the ancient volume.
The ancient volume told that the gem was said to have been mounted in the sword pommel of an unspeakably evil Entity who was called by name: “Baelar... Lord of The Underdark.” According to the ancient volume; the broken sword-hilt, complete with the “Red Horseman” still mounted in its setting, and still clutched in the claw-like severed hand of the Dark Lord, himself; had been sealed in a seamless block of metal inscribed with a monitory inscription which she had succeeded in deciphering. The inscription warned...
“Behold. Herein, is trammelled The Evil of all time.
Seek not its deliverance, for there is none.
Meddle not with this Abomination,
For it is The Destroyer of Worlds.”
The volume told, that, as the sword-maker had poured the last of the metal into the mould to encase this monstrosity; he had glimpsed, deep within the heart of the Garnet, the flare of a tiny, blood-red spark of light.
Resolved not to let this appalling artefact fall into Soviet hands; Doktor von Seringen had brought it back to Germany; having destroyed her translation notes to prevent the Nazi hierarchy... and ReichsFührer-SS Heinrich Himmler in particular, from ever discovering the secret of the metal block. Himmler, fascinated as he was, by mysticism, accepted that it was no more than an interesting Untermensch curiosity. He had not seen this type of metal before, and decided to have it analysed in order to establish if it might be useful as a weapons-grade material.
The block was dissected on the evening of Thursday, 31st August, 1939 in a Krupp’s machine-shop in Essen, Germany. As it was exposed by the cutting away of a section of the block; the Garnet flared again with a tiny blood-red spark of light deep within its heart.
At the very moment that the Garnet flared; the clock on the workshop wall in Essen struck eight o’clock. Five hundred kilometres away to the east, at 20.00 hrs precisely; the local audience was listening to ’Der Sender Gliwitz’... a German long-wave radio transmitter seven kilometres from the Polish border of the German-Polish frontier in the Szobiszowice district of Gliwice, Upper Silesia, Poland. The popular music programme was suddenly interrupted, and excited German voices announced that the town of Gliwitz had been invaded by Polish irregular formations who were marching towards the transmitting station. Then the station broadcast went dead. When the broadcast resumed, Polish was being spoken.
German army intelligence... the Abwehr; together with the SS, had put into action the first stage of “Unternehmen Himmler”... Operation Himmler; the first of twenty-one orchestrated incidents along the Germano-Polish border intended to give the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany.
All along the Polish border, units of the German Wehrmacht were taking their final positions for the launch of “Fall Weiss”... “Case White”... the German strategic plan for the Invasion of Poland, which would be the catalyst that unleashed The Second World War.
Thus, was the malignant influence of the terrible “Red Horseman” loosed upon humanity.
