Ferrian's Winter

Chapter Two

Revelation, confrontation

Tragedy from elevation

The valley gleamed like new-forged gold in the early morning sunlight: a polished nugget nestled in a ring of featureless grey stone. High above, a wistful summer daydream, distant peaks speckled with white snow faded into the glorious blue sky. To the north, a long waterfall dropped like a crystal lance from the cliffs before winding along the valley's bottom, etching out the contours of the reed-beds with its gurgling song.

On either side of the glittering river, perched on ledges in the cliff face like sentinels facing each other down, were two castles.

The one to the east was white, its high towers and parapets rising to the sky like ivory arms seeking to embrace the heavens. Window frames and doorways were decorated with delicate silver and gold scrollwork. Not yet embraced by the shining orb rising behind it, its walls nevertheless seemed to emit a cool, unearthly radiance, as though some remnant of starlight from the vanquished night had become trapped in the stone.

The one to the west was its brother, a shadow even in the sunlight, a twisted and corrupted doppelganger. Its towers were black and spindly. Like a basket full of burnt fingers, they clustered together among the battlemented walls. Upon the steeply sloping rooftops, spires like razor sharp nails raked the air. Crouching and leering in the gloom of doorways and eaves were numerous black stone gargoyles, carved into hideous forms. The dusty breeze that flurried through the narrow open windows blew out again whispering of malevolence.

In the latter of the two castles, Lord Arzath stood at one of these windows, facing the morning sun as it climbed over the ragged peaks and matching it glare for glare. Warm fingers of air twitched the black hair about his shoulders and quickly pulled away again.

Directly opposite him, the white castle sat in the shadow of the mountains, cool and serene and silent, unfazed by his latest attempt to smash it into a pile of majestic rubble.

How he despised that castle.

The latest assault hadn't gone well.

The extremely annoying thing about lightning magic, he reflected, seething, was that it never hit the same spot twice. By its very nature, it was unpredictable, all but uncontrollable, even for an accomplished sorcerer such as himself. While devastating in close quarters, focusing such erratic energy on a large target at a distance with any sort of accuracy was nothing short of laughable. All of his strikes had gone wildly astray-- either grounding themselves on nearby pine trees or simply bouncing off the impenetrable shield of magic that his brother had constructed to protect his castle from exactly this sort of attack.

It was like trying to kill someone with a thousand needle pricks, each one on a different part of their body.

But even needle pricks could hurt, if there were enough of them. His strategy had been to bombard the shield with such a massive amount of magic that Requar's mind would not be able to endure the pain. The shield was an extension of his consciousness-- in essence, a barrier composed of sheer will.

Yet, it had refused to break, or even to weaken. In a fit of rage, Arzath had launched a bolt with such violence that it had rebounded off the shield, cracked across the entire valley and struck his own castle, penetrated his own shield, and shattered one of the towers. Fortunately, it had only contained servant's quarters, but the pile of black rubble littering the bluff below made him burn every time he glanced at it.

He had ceased the attack, after that.

At least, dear Requar should be nursing an interesting migraine...