Umber

Terrlen Darkseeker woke with a strangled cry. This was not a new phenomenon: ever since the revelation of his were nature his dreams were often disturbed, but tonight a lingering horror pricked at his skin even after he sat up and, shivering but not with cold, pulled his blanket around his shoulders. This dream had been different; the usual teeth and claws rending the flesh of those he had sworn to protect were replaced with the smell of burning and an immense heat threatening to ignite his fur. And the odor didn’t fade as he came to full wakefulness – it was distant, yes, but not so distant as memory. Something was very wrong in the Seven Pillared Hall, or very soon to be. If it were only his own life at stake he might have lain there and let oblivion take him. Instead, throwing off his blanket, he went in search of Phaledra.

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“Then this Dragon and Avangion aren’t fictions,” Hanen sighed as he sipped at a sweet drink he and Klavicus called “port.” As before the beverage quickly made Mahlanda light-headed, but though he out drank her perhaps three glasses to one he merely seemed somewhat more relaxed than before. “What are they, then?”

Klavicus waved a hand at her. “Explain. I have something to attend to for a moment.” Then he rose and moved to the altars, displaying something she could not see or hear.

The bard received her recitation calmly enough; Mahlanda was astonished at the stabilizing influence Klavicus had on him. The very aspects of the Preserver’s personality – his arrogance, his coldness, his peremptory manner – that kept her feeling perpetually off-balance seemed a balm to Hanen’s fevered brain. Read the rest of this entry »