Frostfell_ The Wizards - Mark Sehestedt [69]
Amira reached out, some part of her registering that her hand trembled not out of weakness or fear, but eagerness. She grabbed the heart, brought it to her open mouth, and bit down. The flesh was tough, resisting, and so she bit harder and harder until her teeth tore through. She grabbed the heart with both hands and shook her head like an animal, rending the flesh and finding herself enjoying it. Against her will, a low growl began to build deep in her throat. The part of her mind that still remembered Amira of House Hiloar, War Wizard of Cormyr, daughter of the royal courts, battered at her mind, screaming-What's happening to me?
The portion of the heart tore loose in her mouth. She swallowed it whole, looked up into the eyes of the oracle-and fell in.
* * * * *
Darkness took her, but it was warm and wet, and when it began to break away, part of her cried out and tried to cling to it.
It will be your death, said a voice.
Whose? She could put no name to it, but she remembered eyes pale as the dust of the moon and the scent of spring blossoms.
She let go. Light returned. Color. And cold. Not the deep cold of the winter or the nameless horror that stalked her memories, cloaked in ashes, but the crisp, clean coolness of the open air. The high, thin clouds of autumn, tattered and torn like rent tapestries, rode across a morning blue sky that stretched from horizon to horizon in every direction except one. Before her, breaking the perfect dome of the sky, rose a high mound, flat and broken on top and bleeding greenery into the grasslands below. She knew it, had seen it from just this view, but she could put no name to it. The name was in her memory; she knew it as she knew breath and blood, but it was closed to her.
Something was moving near the crest of the hill. As if spurred by the thought, her vision flew toward it, coming closer and closer until she could make out the form of a man. Clothes of leather and cloth and robes of animal hides covered his lean frame. His hair was raven black, the top and sides pulled back into a thick braid that fell well below his waist. He walked with a staff that seemed to have been made from three woods, each of a different shade, twisted together and bound with leather and silver. Tassels made from bits of bone, stone, and sprigs of herbs dangled from the top of the staff.
Arantar, said the voice.
The man made his way through the woods. He stopped before a great fang of rock that broke through the surface of the hill. Again she felt as if she should know this place. The rock almost looked familiar, though taller and sharper than she knew it to be.
The man stood before an opening in the rock, the autumn wind sending the loose bits of his hair waving before his face like tendrils of seaweed tossed by the tide. For the first time, she saw his face. His weather-worn skin was dark, the color of newly tilled soil, and his face was shaven. But his eyes… she didn't see them so much as she felt struck by them. They were golden, and even in the shadow cast by the fang of rock they shone with a light all their own.
She had seen those eyes before-or ones very like them. Not quite so intense perhaps, their majesty weakened by the ages, but still she knew them, and for the first time her memory did not fail her. A name came to her.
Jalan.
Those were Jalan's eyes.
Arantar stepped into the darkness within the rock.
Again the darkness took her.
* * * * *
This darkness was different. Not warm but hot and foul. Choking. She fled this darkness, clawing for clean air and light.
And so she came out of the great column of smoke, and beneath her was a field of battle, men and women dying amid steel, flame, and spell. Though death filled the valley, it was near the