I see an impossibly high tower, built of stone blocks, rising to very near the clouds, and a clear view of earthy colors far, far below. It is dusk on the ground but from this tower the last wedge of sun is still visible retreating below the curving world. The hall is enormous and empty, the ceiling high enough that a person changing out the candles in the chandelier would almost certainly die from the fall. Nobody is up there now. The candles are unlit.
They once expected riders on dragonback to enter through this window, which is sixty yards wide and half that in height. Something--most likely a warding spell engraved around the aperture--prevents the wind from whistling in with bone-chilling cold. The air drifts lazily in and out, warm and placid. There are no dragons in the sky, and nobody in the hall but me.
I watch the last blinding fragment of sun go down, then watch the clouds go through their emberlike phases--flaring, glowing, relinquishing fire, at last going dim, blue-gray, black with night. It's so quiet up here, yet I know a city bustles on the sprawling levels below. The pinprick brilliance of a candle's flame catches my attention. A robed and hooded figure enters one of the grand archways at the end of the room.
She walks to me slowly, setting the candle on the wide ledge, and I reach out to take down her hood. Melsali, who I have called by her official title of Mask these past nine days, throws her arms around my neck and sweeps me into a kiss. And I know by the passion in it that she has fulfilled her mission, the king is dead. I climb onto the ledge and reach down to help her up, and together we gaze out at the opening stars. We are moments away from the jump. I reach into my pocket and take out the small, golden pipe, carved into the shape of a dragonfly with wings folded. She smiles grimly and I blow a single, clear note into the darkness.
We count aloud in her native tongue, a language banned from this nation for generations. Her hand grips mine tighter. I wonder if she heard the slight chink of metal-upon-metal as I dropped the pipe back into my pocket. Now we fly.
Last Lovers
The hard face of the cold moon rose that evening, but as by a miracle it was set ablaze with salmon-colored light, a trick of our atmosphere gone suddenly romantic. And down here upon the surface, where the bayou swam with sentient sparks, you and I huddled close on a spongy log, shooting our tongues into the night. Packs of vampires prowled the reedy shore, but took no heed of us. The last money-minded men and women had taken a boat into the stars, so they were missing the red moon, the deadly fangs, and all the undulating swimmers hidden beneath the skin of nighttime's water. "Survival of the fittest" means being on the right raft in the right eon. We made the babies, but God knows they were just an excuse for orgasms.
The Story
And in the wake of the world's healing, as the Black Curtain was lifted from the world called Fall, and the Maelstrom was banished forever from the Gem of Worlds, it came to pass that a young woman by the name of Celeste Astor did something that had never happened, and which was thought to be impossible.
Under the stars of the Middle Lands, near the edge of the great desert of Gesh, she gave birth to not one, but two children at the same time--the first twins the world had ever known. She named them Darla and Darren, the "daughter and son of Darja." For Celeste did not know who their father could be, had no memory of love in her life at all...
Perhaps touched by the naming, or perhaps by something more provident, the goddess Darja parted the veil of stars to peer down upon the new family, and in the great capitol Mekeevis the rulers of the three nations--already in the midst of forging a new peace treaty, having only hours before witnessed the near-destruction of their world--saw the glint of Her divine eyes, and rode out to honor Her auspices.
On the 24th day of Wintermorn this occurred, and I cannot tell you any more. For once the story lies only ahead of me, a surprise every day.
Under the stars of the Middle Lands, near the edge of the great desert of Gesh, she gave birth to not one, but two children at the same time--the first twins the world had ever known. She named them Darla and Darren, the "daughter and son of Darja." For Celeste did not know who their father could be, had no memory of love in her life at all...
Perhaps touched by the naming, or perhaps by something more provident, the goddess Darja parted the veil of stars to peer down upon the new family, and in the great capitol Mekeevis the rulers of the three nations--already in the midst of forging a new peace treaty, having only hours before witnessed the near-destruction of their world--saw the glint of Her divine eyes, and rode out to honor Her auspices.
On the 24th day of Wintermorn this occurred, and I cannot tell you any more. For once the story lies only ahead of me, a surprise every day.
On The Field Of Tay-lom
By the time she had crossed two continents and returned to the monastery to fulfill her destiny, Endsong had so deeply mastered the demon's blade that she could lay down in the cool grass--or dance to her own inner music with the careless whimsy of a schoolgirl--all the while guiding the sword through the air in a flashing spiral of killing strokes that left whole battalions silently bleeding in its wake. The mages of the monastery, of course, had heard the tales of the young woman marching homeward, and had built up a significant defense, including the first artillery their world had ever known.
Strange, however, that although they took the stories of the dancing blade seriously (as if it were commonplace to witness a sword flying through the air of its own accord) the mages completely disregarded the rumors of ghostly wolves as the hallucinations of superstitious, terrified survivors.
Endsong... with her long, brown hair flowing in untameable ringlets... with her seal-brown eyes... with her white swordswoman's shirt and blue tunic... with her wide grin and penetrating gaze, a little mad, a little feral... she stood upon the green, in a full blaze of sun, and drew the silver sword. The distant walls ran with shapes that scurried, and shouts carried on the wind, informing her of their plans to unleash death in her direction.
Ceres, the lone wolf, the king and last survivor of a great pack, walked beside her, the top of his wide head coming near to her shoulder.
"Years you have dreamt of this afternoon, my love," said Ceres at length, the sound coming to Endsong's ears as though he were simply a man standing beside her. The great jaws of the wolf, however, remained closed and unmoving.
"Years I have prepared for it," she replied, and touched him lightly behind the ears. "Today I do what none of them expected, when they dropped me alone into your wilderness. I finish my training. I take them by storm, and leave no soul behind to write my story."
"And after?" he asked. Endsong bent to kiss his ear.
"We find another world to win," she whispered.
Strange, however, that although they took the stories of the dancing blade seriously (as if it were commonplace to witness a sword flying through the air of its own accord) the mages completely disregarded the rumors of ghostly wolves as the hallucinations of superstitious, terrified survivors.
Endsong... with her long, brown hair flowing in untameable ringlets... with her seal-brown eyes... with her white swordswoman's shirt and blue tunic... with her wide grin and penetrating gaze, a little mad, a little feral... she stood upon the green, in a full blaze of sun, and drew the silver sword. The distant walls ran with shapes that scurried, and shouts carried on the wind, informing her of their plans to unleash death in her direction.
Ceres, the lone wolf, the king and last survivor of a great pack, walked beside her, the top of his wide head coming near to her shoulder.
"Years you have dreamt of this afternoon, my love," said Ceres at length, the sound coming to Endsong's ears as though he were simply a man standing beside her. The great jaws of the wolf, however, remained closed and unmoving.
"Years I have prepared for it," she replied, and touched him lightly behind the ears. "Today I do what none of them expected, when they dropped me alone into your wilderness. I finish my training. I take them by storm, and leave no soul behind to write my story."
"And after?" he asked. Endsong bent to kiss his ear.
"We find another world to win," she whispered.
The PMMORPG
I moved through a photorealistic massive multiplayer online roleplaying game. And I discovered, with considerable wonder and exultation, that I could levitate myself high into the air, pulling my way up, as if climbing the gaseous atmosphere itself. A woman I found down there on the ground had--it turned out--been studying the identical phenomenon, though she was not able to fly. My sad duty came to pass, that I had to tell her the hidden truth, that I was a designer trying to become a game, and she was in essence a pixel wisp, something others had programmed to exist. Yet she had answers for me, pointing out with scientific zeal the barely perceptible motes in the air, some soft polygons and organic bubbles, but others squared, rectangular, geometric in nature. It was these angular scales, reminiscent of salt crystals on a table (but in the air, and hardly there) which my seeking hands pushed into invisible stacks, building the tower that took me into the sky. I... woke up before I could thank her, but not before I reached the edge of that world, and had to turn back.
36 Hours After Contraction
She came out of a fever dream, into a house that seemed too dark, and burning. The walls warbled in the blear of newly-opened eyes, crackled with a red-orange glow, and blackened with strange baroque patterns. Halcifer had shot her up with a full vial, she remembered suddenly, and the instructions came back to her in fits and starts. The words of warning, the godly rules, had been chanting through her sleeping visions in loops and cycles. Avoid mirrors. Don't eat the food. Look at Them only with purity of thought. Remember gravity. Remember gravity.
She crawled from the bed, flopping the last few inches to the floor, landing lightly upon carpeting that puffed away like ash. The phantom fire roared slowly overhead, spiraling tentacles of flame passing by like drowsy eels. Her purpose for accepting the injection returned to her, the glint of thread-thin, golden lines beginning to trace away from her fingertips, guiding her, singing their soft little songs under the constant snaps and pops of the false burning. She made her way down the hall, down the staircase, moving like a salamander, close to weightless. Remember gravity, she thought again. Remember gravity.
Two of Them came around a corner, nonplussed at her presence, Their limbs swinging in slow motion, and the eels of flame split and passed around Their heads serenely. They spoke down to her in a nonsensical language, emotive but meaningless, and tapped her curiously with red claws. She looked up from the golden tracery then, saw their beautiful unfettered forms, smiled and pushed away desire. They seemed taken aback at the sudden acknowledgment, and staggered away with a motion that was too fast, inhuman--all the while clutching at Their throats, Their lovely mouths bent impossibly with horror.
She returned to the golden lines, pulling herself along as a swimmer at the bottom of a lake, through a final hallway ending in a door. A mirror hummed in the foyer to her right--an oval like an empty socket--and its pull began to draw her sideways, lighting up the history of needle wounds along her arm. The oldest, long-healed punctures emitted a faint light, but the fresher tracks shone like ingots in the dark, and she noticed with some surprise that they made a familiar pattern. The mirror hummed louder and she doubled her efforts against it, finally dragging her way up to the doorknob ahead. She turned its icy handle and split the darkness with daylight.
He stood there, black against the electric blue of an impossible world, three long white horns curving up from his head. And she felt it was expected, designed to happen that way. The golden lines escaped the threshold and exploded into a hopeless expanding web, covering every Thing in the outside world. The house, with its haloed denizens and endless cupboards stuffed with ambrosia, began to crumble and burn in earnest, and when she reached high for his tentative hand she forgot the words of warning in their entirety. Up, and up, and up she flew, outpacing even her prayers for escape.
She crawled from the bed, flopping the last few inches to the floor, landing lightly upon carpeting that puffed away like ash. The phantom fire roared slowly overhead, spiraling tentacles of flame passing by like drowsy eels. Her purpose for accepting the injection returned to her, the glint of thread-thin, golden lines beginning to trace away from her fingertips, guiding her, singing their soft little songs under the constant snaps and pops of the false burning. She made her way down the hall, down the staircase, moving like a salamander, close to weightless. Remember gravity, she thought again. Remember gravity.
Two of Them came around a corner, nonplussed at her presence, Their limbs swinging in slow motion, and the eels of flame split and passed around Their heads serenely. They spoke down to her in a nonsensical language, emotive but meaningless, and tapped her curiously with red claws. She looked up from the golden tracery then, saw their beautiful unfettered forms, smiled and pushed away desire. They seemed taken aback at the sudden acknowledgment, and staggered away with a motion that was too fast, inhuman--all the while clutching at Their throats, Their lovely mouths bent impossibly with horror.
She returned to the golden lines, pulling herself along as a swimmer at the bottom of a lake, through a final hallway ending in a door. A mirror hummed in the foyer to her right--an oval like an empty socket--and its pull began to draw her sideways, lighting up the history of needle wounds along her arm. The oldest, long-healed punctures emitted a faint light, but the fresher tracks shone like ingots in the dark, and she noticed with some surprise that they made a familiar pattern. The mirror hummed louder and she doubled her efforts against it, finally dragging her way up to the doorknob ahead. She turned its icy handle and split the darkness with daylight.
He stood there, black against the electric blue of an impossible world, three long white horns curving up from his head. And she felt it was expected, designed to happen that way. The golden lines escaped the threshold and exploded into a hopeless expanding web, covering every Thing in the outside world. The house, with its haloed denizens and endless cupboards stuffed with ambrosia, began to crumble and burn in earnest, and when she reached high for his tentative hand she forgot the words of warning in their entirety. Up, and up, and up she flew, outpacing even her prayers for escape.
The Psychic's Disappointment
I looked into his mind, and saw a calm sea dotted with scores of ghost ships. The unmanned derelicts rocked or spun languidly in the utter, windless silence. They had not been broken by whatever apocalypse had emptied the world; the weathered planks and tattered sails had reached their state of distress in a preceding age. All the stranger, they had not been abandoned long ago, no--smoking cigars and dropped straights and flushes all indicated the exodus was new, swift, and merciless in efficiency. They were a child's toys left to bob in the dusk after a mother has called him home. They were New Year's corks slowly bloating in the sink. I had not even the will to ask why. And did not foresee his alien knife, trained for my moment of deepest meditation.
Last Wish
The young man contemplated for a moment, and then looked up at the djinn with a smirk.
"To live until I'm a ripe old ape, then die in a swift and spectacular fashion."
The djinn's scowl broke into as genuine a smile as had ever crossed it.
"Done. Now get busy."
"To live until I'm a ripe old ape, then die in a swift and spectacular fashion."
The djinn's scowl broke into as genuine a smile as had ever crossed it.
"Done. Now get busy."
Here, There, And Everywhen
He bolts up in the little rowboat, causing it to wobble precariously, forcing him to grab the oars for balance, crushing the small moth that had landed, suddenly, upon the oar a few moments before. It is night, and the star field overhead is positively diminishing him, making him less than a speck upon the sea. He feels something on his hand and turns it over sadly, sees the moth dust, and apologizes in a voice that doesn't carry past his wrist.
He was dreaming of the crown, or the amethyst, rather. The most perfect amethyst ever cut, flawless and richly colored, evenly translucent, a mathematical marvel, really. Everyone knew the story, how a greedy king had forced his royal wizard to find a way to duplicate it. And a copy was made, but not a replica, no, a precise duplication of the stone itself, as if two had always existed. It was, in fact, the same amethyst, existing in two places at the same time. By comparison, the two crowns fashioned to hold the gems (crafted from raw metals by human hands) were as different as night and day, but their dissimilarities were of no consequence.
When the second crown was placed on the head of an unwilling servant, the poor soul was banished from its body, and the king's came to occupy it fully. In this way he could rule from two cities at once, could see across thousands of miles, and hold his domain like none before him.
It was unnatural. And the world (along with whatever spirits maintained it) recognized the abomination of the amethyst crowns. How else, the story went, could fate be so coordinated as to drop a falling star upon both royal cities within moments of each other? Neither city now stood, but in the centuries that followed the treasure seekers of the world had sifted its cratered ruins for any chance at reclaiming the legendary crowns.
In the rowboat, the man in tattered clothing leans back again, spying the moon, and raises his arm above his head. Pinched between thumb and forefinger the amethyst gleams like a damsel's eye, and beside a fire in another world the man in velvet robes takes another sip of wine.
He was dreaming of the crown, or the amethyst, rather. The most perfect amethyst ever cut, flawless and richly colored, evenly translucent, a mathematical marvel, really. Everyone knew the story, how a greedy king had forced his royal wizard to find a way to duplicate it. And a copy was made, but not a replica, no, a precise duplication of the stone itself, as if two had always existed. It was, in fact, the same amethyst, existing in two places at the same time. By comparison, the two crowns fashioned to hold the gems (crafted from raw metals by human hands) were as different as night and day, but their dissimilarities were of no consequence.
When the second crown was placed on the head of an unwilling servant, the poor soul was banished from its body, and the king's came to occupy it fully. In this way he could rule from two cities at once, could see across thousands of miles, and hold his domain like none before him.
It was unnatural. And the world (along with whatever spirits maintained it) recognized the abomination of the amethyst crowns. How else, the story went, could fate be so coordinated as to drop a falling star upon both royal cities within moments of each other? Neither city now stood, but in the centuries that followed the treasure seekers of the world had sifted its cratered ruins for any chance at reclaiming the legendary crowns.
In the rowboat, the man in tattered clothing leans back again, spying the moon, and raises his arm above his head. Pinched between thumb and forefinger the amethyst gleams like a damsel's eye, and beside a fire in another world the man in velvet robes takes another sip of wine.
Revolution
He was but a young monkey, a scrawny boy with a broken hat and a record of petty theft. Yet they heard him speak the words of philosophy, and saw that he saw with insight, dug at the heart of things. Beneath a cloak three sizes too large for his frame he hid a single feathered wing, the curse of a warlock, and a book of fenric verse that could send a crowd into hysterics, or lull them into peaceful sleep. So many hands were reaching for him, thrusting him up to the podium. So many blinding bright towers spiked the sky overhead. When he coughed at the mic it reverberated for a full minute, each block sending back a little chuff of sound softer than the last. They wanted him to say something, to change the nature of their narrative lives.
"Hoodoo," he whispered, and a demoniac grin lit his small face. "Hoodoo!" he snarled, and broke open the book, and began to read the first beautiful words his eyes fell upon. The throng erupted into passionate gyres of jubilation, as squadrons in formation flickered rapidly by overhead, dropping indiscernible packages that glinted with some kind of promise.
"Hoodoo," he whispered, and a demoniac grin lit his small face. "Hoodoo!" he snarled, and broke open the book, and began to read the first beautiful words his eyes fell upon. The throng erupted into passionate gyres of jubilation, as squadrons in formation flickered rapidly by overhead, dropping indiscernible packages that glinted with some kind of promise.
The Gloaming
Mid-December, a harvested field set into stillness by last week's snow, in the world called the Gloaming. The artifacts of humanity--farmhouses, power towers, gritty roads lined with mailboxes--stand silent in the light of a sun that never rises, never sets. This world is eternal, neither coming nor going, but ever-waiting, its pines always dusted with white, its harvest remainders poking through the snowcrust, missed wheat, one stalk bent at the middle, hanging its head. Mice flit through secret tunnels, glowing white. A crow surveys the land, head cocked, swiveling, cocked, voiceless until it becomes the Voice, a caw across the air. Old bootprints still mark the snow where someone once walked to grab a hunk of aged apple from the woodpile. Is it getting dimmer? No, no, that's only this iris growing drowsy. The sun, golden-orange, remains at the same angle as before. White snow I view at ground level stretches outward into the beds of the woodlots, another crow flies across the sky's gradient beauty, and the Gloaming stays the way I found it, waiting for the next time I need to escape the madness of a rushing world.
The Success Of The Mission
"Blue rings," she whispered. When her fingers uncurled they lay there, softly glowing on her palm. He reached half-heartedly and she snatched them away, cradling her hand as if wounded.
"Blue rings," she said, more sternly. Then, looking from where his fingers had pulled up short to his confused expression: "Black thoughts!"
Major Albarnard grinned, looking back at his platoon.
"Take her--" was all he had time to say before she tore out his throat. The jungle fell apart with booming voices and whirling blades. No shots were fired, and back on the satellite, no report.
"Blue rings," she said, more sternly. Then, looking from where his fingers had pulled up short to his confused expression: "Black thoughts!"
Major Albarnard grinned, looking back at his platoon.
"Take her--" was all he had time to say before she tore out his throat. The jungle fell apart with booming voices and whirling blades. No shots were fired, and back on the satellite, no report.
Dream Of A Roofless Mortuary
Jeremy looked up to the billions of stars, and thought the word "billions" and "stars" one after the other. The first was an unimaginable number, unless he thought of a dune in the Sahara, with each grain of sand counted in succession. And he pictured someone with very fine tweezers picking up each grain and launching it into the sky after its companions.
Then he thought of the idea of "stars", of which his own Sun was supposedly a member. Not something solid, exactly, but simply a burning globe, a locus of flame in the sky, so massive and roaring with infernal power that it dictated the very evolution and rhythm of all existence on his planet. Supposedly it had all spun out from the same essential source, more years ago than the number of grains in the Saharan dune still flinging itself heavenward in his mind's eye.
Then Jeremy's eyes came back down to the girl nestled in his arms, her face buried against his chest. She noticed him noticing her, and two blue eyes flew open in the night, staring with happy longing into the young man's own seal-brown gaze. And he thought of the word "lover" (or possibly "love her") and tried to comprehend a soul: a single mind occupying a unique time and place, that could peer into him and recognize his own working mind.
Not just recognize--but desire to know, desire to please, as he also wanted to please her. And even then he thought of "death", the only truly impossible thing to see. With her arms snaked around him, holding on tight, he thought he could stand to look at its face. He thought, perhaps, it had already come and gone.
The folded-up note in his pocket read: What does it matter? This happened. She was real. Now or later, it gets no less so.
Then he thought of the idea of "stars", of which his own Sun was supposedly a member. Not something solid, exactly, but simply a burning globe, a locus of flame in the sky, so massive and roaring with infernal power that it dictated the very evolution and rhythm of all existence on his planet. Supposedly it had all spun out from the same essential source, more years ago than the number of grains in the Saharan dune still flinging itself heavenward in his mind's eye.
Then Jeremy's eyes came back down to the girl nestled in his arms, her face buried against his chest. She noticed him noticing her, and two blue eyes flew open in the night, staring with happy longing into the young man's own seal-brown gaze. And he thought of the word "lover" (or possibly "love her") and tried to comprehend a soul: a single mind occupying a unique time and place, that could peer into him and recognize his own working mind.
Not just recognize--but desire to know, desire to please, as he also wanted to please her. And even then he thought of "death", the only truly impossible thing to see. With her arms snaked around him, holding on tight, he thought he could stand to look at its face. He thought, perhaps, it had already come and gone.
The folded-up note in his pocket read: What does it matter? This happened. She was real. Now or later, it gets no less so.
Second Incarnation
His bones awoke in the dimness of the crypt with a newborn's fragile weakness. Thickly dusted cobwebs mired his limbs as sure as steel cables. But the red light of an unasked-for resurrection soon entered into his old, hollow skull.
The cobwebs stretched and snapped with his rising, and in his new vigor he shoved back the lid.
Ellsgraven rose in the shreds of his burial, hearing in wonder the clack of a fleshless form. No beating heart to keep him warm, no breath, no restless tongue. He remembered vaguely his life before, the thirst for new magics, the fresh taste of power. A warlock's name, that was where he had been heading--a dabbler in evil. But a tailor by trade. Yes, a tailor once ago.
He rushed out, like a child from the house on a summer's day: the same impervious grin, the same folly for war, and yes, the same mad dream of conquering the world.
The cobwebs stretched and snapped with his rising, and in his new vigor he shoved back the lid.
Ellsgraven rose in the shreds of his burial, hearing in wonder the clack of a fleshless form. No beating heart to keep him warm, no breath, no restless tongue. He remembered vaguely his life before, the thirst for new magics, the fresh taste of power. A warlock's name, that was where he had been heading--a dabbler in evil. But a tailor by trade. Yes, a tailor once ago.
He rushed out, like a child from the house on a summer's day: the same impervious grin, the same folly for war, and yes, the same mad dream of conquering the world.
Quitting Time
In the distance, a bell bongs hollow from the top of the tower. The reverberations carry across the prairie places, get muddy in the woodlots, pick up speed over bodies of calmly lapping water. As if to assert its seriousness the bell sounds once more, and the huntress lowers her bow, and the red deer walks calmly back into the gloom. "Tomorrow," she says under her breath. "And tomorrow," it echoes back.
Don't Fear The Reaper
A brilliant, golden glow rose up from below the level of the counter, and the ceiling above quickly warmed into hues of pink and tangerine. The restless light became more intense by the second, when suddenly there came a muffled cough from the vicinity of the floor. Adjusting my bowtie and straightening my hat, I slowly leaned forward, arching my torso above the patient cash register, peering with outstretched neck, right over the edge. Barely two feet tall, there stood a little sun, its arms and legs and three-fingered hands simple and cartoonish, with dark, dark eyes and a small, worried mouth. It had no money, no friends, and no home. And I knew instinctively it had come for my soul.
First Incarnation
He began his existence as a lumberjack, in the foothills of the Jarnegog Mountains. There was a terrible accident, a landslide or a great pile of logs bursting free of their chains, and his body was horribly mangled, yet death would not claim him. The other men knew the witch at the foot of the mountain, had seen the smoke from her chimney many times, and bore him to her. "Save him," they pleaded, and she ordered them to lay him upon her stone table, around which the house must have been purposefully built. Then she locked the men out, and set to work. The wounded man, whose name was Ellsgraven, could be heard to moan and shriek for many hours, but by dusk the witch's door reopened, and the man stepped forward, intact and unblemished. In the days that followed he began to dream of a darkness, one that could speak and told him he could no longer die, that the witch's touch had woven a rare and powerful magic into his tissues. He became sleepless with terror, and dug himself a deep ditch, demanding that the other lumberjacks bury him with heavy shovelfuls of soil. When they resisted he lashed out, attacking them, showing his madness; and, fearful and angry, the men on the mountain finally bound Ellsgraven with ropes and carried out his insane request. Days passed, then weeks, and at the season's end the loggers moved on, the story of Ellsgraven fading into a campfire tale. Winter took over the mountain, locked the land in frost, and the sun became scarce. But the following spring when the air warmed once more, and the streams began to flow, so did the soil of Ellsgraven's tomb begin to move. And even as the first spring shoots appeared, the hand of Ellsgraven reached up into the living world, shreds of rotted rope falling free of his gaunt fingers. What happened after that is well-known to those who survived the war: how Ellsgraven the Earth-Eaten began his cult of the Arrachs, tearing the mortal hearts from willing converts and using his magic to rebuild them anew, until at last his deathless circle united to summon forth an apocalypse incarnate.
New Quarry
The great, black panther separated himself from the hard earth with a thundercrack. Bits of cold carbon rained down as he shrugged his shoulders and surveyed the unbroken night-plain expanding in all directions. A brilliant gazelle of an Idea stood out there, lazily looking back in his direction. Von, the panther, split his jaws into a lolling grin. Bent his long limbs. Gave chase.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)