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 »

Klavicus was already snarling at Mahlanda as he emerged from the portal to his home. “Urgent matter? I don’t have time for this right now.” When he saw her flinch, he softened his scowl to a mere frown. “Why did you bring a raving madman here, and what am I supposed to do about him?”

Mahlanda’s head had been shaved completely bald when he first met her, but now loose brown curls fell along the nape of her neck. It made her softer, more waiflike. He wasn’t sure he liked it, especially when, as now, she looked frightened. She took an involuntary backward step, shaking her head slowly. “I sent no message – I wouldn’t have known where to send it. And there is a madman here, but I certainly didn’t bring him. I only let him remain because said he knew you, and invoked the name of Skarp –” Read the rest of this entry »

“Prepare another guest room,” Klavicus called to Desverendi. “The Avangion is sending a gift your way.” The druid paused his claw cactus trimming and in the fire Klavicus had kindled some time ago saw the wings of the Avangion enfolding the ancient kobold beggar of the Seven Pillared Halls.

Desverendi studied the prone form. “It does not appear that he’ll require much sustenance. Why is he – ”

Before he could finish his sentence the Dragonborn temple guardian burst into the room where the adventurers stood. “Murderers! Treachery from the overworlders!” Read the rest of this entry »

Hanen cradled a glass of strange, musky wine as he watched the progress of Klavicus’ seven saviors. Opa Skarp had departed shortly after they had seen the old balor revived and on the road to recovery. Hanen’s ability to spy on the demon had failed shortly after; no doubt Klavicus had grown well enough to realize he was being watched. Skarp assumed that the daimon, as he insisted on calling him, would be returning shortly, but he assumed incorrectly; days dragged on and Hanen was left alone anxious and, over time, a little bored. Read the rest of this entry »

It had been nearly a week since the storm tore through the Vale, and Desverendi and Klavicus had only just finished clearing away the worst of it. Though while it raged the two of them had managed to stave off the total devastation that might otherwise have occurred, there was still considerable damage. The elemental druid moved through the Vale at a glacier’s pace, absorbing every out of place pebble and boulder and discharging it again into the deep places of the earth. Klavicus followed in his wake, occasionally pausing to straighten a bent but unbroken shrub or sapling or to coax a frightened animal from some hidden den but more often conferring healing and revitalization merely in his slow passing.

Exhausted from their labors, they sat at an edge of the Vale on the evening of the sixth day watching the sun sink below the horizon. Not all of the dust and sand had settled from the atmosphere, and the sky was streaked with fiery oranges and reds. “Will something like this happen every time a new piece of the Seed is mated?” Desverendi asked. Read the rest of this entry »

Sugar Primrose was picking her way through rubble in the company of Desverendi when the rumble of falling rocks started again. Klavicus was pulverizing a few more boulders. “Why does he keep doing that?” she asked the druid.

The old elemental sighed. “I expect to convince himself that he still can.”

A cloud of dust drifted toward them from further up the vale, and Sugar Primrose hastily covered her hair with a scarf. “Can’t you ask him to stop?”

“I could,” Desverendi nodded, “but I won’t. Nevertheless, I hope the Great One,” there was perhaps only a hint of sarcasm in his gravelly voice, “decides to go home soon.” Read the rest of this entry »

It was the largest room in Urik’s most opulent inn, and Klavicus still felt confined and out of sorts. However quietly he began his preparations, word had spread among the Veiled Alliance that the Preserver was arrived in Urik, and rather than risk discovery he instructed Mahlanda to disseminate the rumor that he was gone again and abandoned the city for the desert. He would not permit her to accompany him. Since their leader Morlac’s disappearance the Veiled Alliance had devolved into political wrangling worthy of Tyr’s merchant houses, and Klavicus’ own arrival in Urik had been like a stick stirred in an anthill: he didn’t want the mage coming to anyone’s attention and being used as a pawn. Read the rest of this entry »

Day after day the Preserver bent over the books he’d retrieved from Urik, cataloging the nature and extent of damage and the time required for each repair. Absorbed in private thoughts the Avangion hovered tirelessly nearby, providing light more steady than any lantern’s, speaking only to remind the Preserver to eat and to sleep. The work went slowly, for the Preserver was often distracted by a phrase here or a paragraph there, until a tome of ancient history diverted him so completely that he gave up the reconstruction effort and retreated with the volume to a more comfortable chair. Read the rest of this entry »

It was twilight in the desert and the bloated red sun sagged low in the sky when a massive, hooded and heavily laden figure appeared at the top of a rocky outcropping. His cloak was dusty and worn, his thick boots showed signs of much patching. Someone watching would have thought him a fool as he crested the rise and stepped carelessly onto the scree below. Someone who thought carelessness its own reward would have laughed as the rocks gave way beneath him: a shout, a flail of his arms, and the man vanished in the avalanche. Someone who approached thinking to pick through the rubble in search of the dead man’s lost spoils would think again as the slope’s inherent instability became plain to even casual inspection. Perhaps he would uncap his waterskin and take a sip against the dryness of the settling dust. Then he would shake his head at the never-ending folly of men and look for a different victim to relieve of his water, his valuables, perhaps his life if the desert hadn’t done it for him.

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