Blancslieth: Prologue to The Demise of Mourndream

The Ebony Sea

The morning was bitterly cold. So it always was, there in the northernmost reaches of Bāranok. Such were the mornings, and the afternoons, and the evenings, all discernible from the last only by the gradual crawl of the watery sun across the wretched sky. The blue was always as pristine as the hue of a robin's egg, at least when distanced from the northern arm of the Mountains of Dusk. When the eye meandered to the heavens above the towering, forbidding mountains, there first arose a chilling white. Not the white of a snow-swathed peak bathed in the starlight of a glimmering moon, but rather the pallor of an old man struck suddenly with the unforgiving talons of Death.

And then, above this white that layered the mountains' glimmering faces, there descended a silver gloom, the gloom that one might encounter when dangling above a raging inferno of crimson and gold; the fire atop the Mountains of Dusk, however, was instead lingering above the smoke. There, the clouds charred and blackened until they were utterly unrecognizable as such. One might mistake these beastly ghouls for a writhing tumult of the notoriously black dragon's blood, entangling itself in its own coils and then continuously roaring out its frustration in belligerent veins of white light that periodically lacerated the mass.

Durven's mind dwellt bleakly on such comparisons as he studied the thunderheads. They seem angrier today, he mused, resting a hand on his stubbly chin in thought, as though those blasted Witch Folk have angered the very elements themselves.

His breath clouded before him, finalizing its life in the death throes that erupted when he shook his head. Around him spread a barren landscape of all differentiations of the colors red, green, and gold. Scraggly bushes of purple and black protruded as jagged scars all across the landscape, interrupted frequently by glimmering gray stones. It was vibrant, demanding, an orchestra of color and hues, though one would be unable to tell in the wintertime, when a layer of snow often ten feet thick draped itself across the flatland. And then the tundra would fall into a deathlike trance of hibernation until the late reaches of spring awoke it once more. And thus it would be muddy and untraversable for another couple months, and then it would become as dry as a desert for the last month before the snows began to fall again.

It was good that they had arrived just before the last of the ground de-liquefied, or else poor Maffe would have sunken up to his beard in the muck. Durven's mouth turned upward at the thought of his companion's disgust. It was not often that one met a fastidious dwarf, but if ever there was one, it was Maffe. Maffe, who was so proficient with his battle-axe, cleanly decapitating anyone who dared to oppose his King. Or any King, for that matter, apart from the dark one. The Witch-King.

Durven shook his head again, glancing once more at the roiling cauldron of shadow and precipitation that hovered ominously above the pale faces of the Mountains of Dusk, then turned and started down the gentle face of the hill that he had mounted to examine the day's ride. Grimly, he thought, It's good that we aren't inclined to delve any deeper into that mess. Of course, I'd take that never-ending storm over Jovandur any day.

The hill was the only one to be seen for miles, and would offer at least some protection against the howling wind that plagued the plains at night. Durven had once asked one of his tutors, back in Ordrobis, what caused the skeletal land of Bāranok to be so windy after the sun sank below the horizon, and his tutor had answered vaguely about wind currents and cooling air, and said that he would learn more of it when he was older. On the condition that he continued an interest in science, of course, which he hadn't. Not only was it illogical, for no one could make a living out of science, but it was also somewhat dull. Of course there had been the initial surge of curiosity and excitement with every discovery, but eventually it had faded into a longing for sustenance not only for the mind, but also for the body. Thus, Durven had enlisted in High King Ordromil's ranks. Due to his lack of physical capacity, however, he was quickly dispatched as a messenger and spy. This suited him fine, especially when he was paired with Maffe, who (despite his complaints) was really quite capable of handling anything dangerous that came at them.