The Road to Prester John

In the year 1200 everything was going wrong, all at once, around the world. Once-mighty empires were on the verge of ruin, crops were failing, previously-legendary monsters were suddenly commonplace. In the West, some of the mighty remembered the letter they had received, thirty-five years ago, from "Prester John," a mighty emperor in the far East. In the letter Prester John had claimed to rule 72 kingdoms, many magical, and have over a million men under arms. Naturally, those in the West believed that Prester John could aid them and stave off the dark forces threatening them. Even the Muslims of Sultan Al Adil I in Damascus came to believe that Prester John could be the source of salvation for the Faithful. So the Sultan called a great conclave, inviting the great empires of the West to send representatives, all with the purpose of choosing envoys to go to Prester John. Those representatives came, but so did many other men and women, from empires in the East, in Africa, and in the Americas, men and women drawn to Damascus by their gods' messages or by dreams or omens. The conclave, when it finally came, had men and women and others from all the major powers of the Earth, and all agreed that an embassy to Prester John would be the best way to bring help to the beleaguered kingdoms of the world. But no one, not even the wisest of the attendees, could have anticipated what happened next, nor the many obstacles and unpleasant surprises which lay in wait from the on the road to Prester John.