cosmicwind

Two hundred years later The road northeast was a ribbon of black rain wandering through a darker forest and streetlights made golden spheres in the driving rain. Thin, minty light from a shaved quarter moon at play with the clouds shone off the glossy, gunmetal-grey vinyl raincoats of the three people who stepped out of the parked vehicle, just where the narrow side street took a bend. A rusty gate hung on one hinge, the second gate laid invisible among the weeds on where once there had been a driveway. Hoods up against the precipitation, the trio left the road and began making their way among the dark topiary, overgrown and monstrous, in this abandoned ornamental garden sprawling out ahead of the ruins of a once impressive mansion. Turrets fallen to a scree of brick and warped spines of collapsing battlement lay abject and senescent in the lunar sickle's cool, diluted silvering, so that even the man in the head caught his breath. He hadn't though the place to be so changed since

The sky was the palest blue. Through open casements, golden sunlight slanted and in the long wide room Lorania saw the trees disintegrate, shiver and break before her eyes, transmuting into a strange green dust that sparkled and drifted in the early light before it dispersed completely and left only a strange, languorous tang of disrememberance behind. Talnira bequeathed Inael the lightest of kisses. Then she went to Avain, stood on tiptoe and whispered something in his ear. His pale skin flushed and his smile was wilting. *** It was solstice and Chervin had never known one so hot. He came down at noon after a long delicious sleep, wearing light trousers and an old loose shirt with the sleeves torn off. In the kitchen, Verina was humming cheerfully over the range, where a whole raft of pans and pots were bubbling. Chervin paused and inhaled the glorious smells. "Universes, Verina. You're cooking up some feast!" "A banquet of celebration and delight," she grinned, balancing a row of

Nilanea lifted her head, squeezing against a needle-thin ray of sunlight. Awake, she listened but didn't rise immediately. Outside, beyond the verdant canopy of trees, she saw the light of dawn. Everywhere on turrets and branches and boughs, the birds burst into song. The short summer night was coming to its dénouement, the orange sun rising, hurling rays through the mist. She turned over in the sofa where she'd fallen asleep just hours ago, too tired to go up and locate her assigned guest room on the labyrinthine floors upstairs. She didn't even remember which floor she was on. The vertigo when she almost fell off caught her breath, and then she heard a rustling sound of textile, Cordnian turned to watch her from his place in a window niche. "Why, good morning young lady, hope you had a somewhat comfortable sleep on that item." "Thanks for the blanket," she responded as she watched the chequered fabric fall to the floor with her movement. Then she regarded the plant-infested room

Inael's dream was the last of all dreams and what else but a dream could it be? With his body's visceral terror tingling to a new alertness, he dodged the giant paw and leaped back, only to find his enemy standing stiff, frozen as a sudden, ineffable silence reigned around him, yet with the din still ringing in his ears. Time had paused, that was Inael's first thought. Time had somehow stopped and the monster was held in stasis and all the crowd with it. In this eerie silence, he regarded the mob frozen in an instant of boiling blood-lust and fury, a terrible sight lit with sunlight diffused through thin clouds. Their faces were contorted, their fists clenched. A woman's mouth was wide in mid-scream, a man was leaping up, both feet off the ground. Birds hung in flight. Rigid rodents lingered by iron bars at the perimeter of the arena. There was Lorania, her face caught in terror, her arm flung out toward him. Beyond, half lost in the still people, he could see Chervin's sister Berine

While clinging desperately to a barren promontory, Pentius was dully listening to the drumbeat rhythm of the pulse in his temples. Above him, Villa Elauria soared above like a gothic nightmare. Bats showered from it - the large moon balanced on its topmost turret. The edifice was as black and smooth as the Portal itself. He could never climb up there. He gave the behest, but his body declined to obey. Instead it clung obstinate and shivering to the bank. Gathering his willpower, he reached out, grabbed a rock and hauled himself up onto it, then set out climbing a steep and narrow path, up a warren of long and steeply wending passages, hands and feet splayed against the edgy rock face. The task was back breaking, but fortitude and insistence drove the young man upward in spite of the treacherous surface being dry and crumbly in places and in others clotted with great cushions of plump emerald moss and it was challenging to know which was which and parry for that. He was halfway up

Cordnian eased himself down on the floor of the tiny boat, his back resting against the wooden railing and his sinewy legs leaning against the whirring outboard engine. It was hot, almost too hot to move, and the sweat had begun to trickle down his face. The sun had burned through the morning haze and was bearing down relentlessly, reflecting blindingly off the cliff face in front of him, the limestone scarred and worn like the tombs and temples on the rocky headland beyond. Jagged rocks spiked out of the water at irregular intervals, casting smooth shadows along the water. He felt as if he was dreamwalking, the way the shamans here did it, as if the air had fragmented into a myriad pixels that immobilized all thought and action into this one moment. Pushing his hands through his thick hair, he felt the heat on his scalp, and in one graceful movement he went on to stretch out his long arms to either side. Eyes shut, he drew a deep breath, took in the utter stillness, the smell of water