The Gods Have Mercy (cont.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[158] Nymaya: The Gods Have Mercy (cont.)
Wed Mar 31 16:35:10 2010
To: Reklah Crelius
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The path to Storm Keep was well traveled and even though the hour was late when she approached, she was met by no less than a three man guard.

The towering, glossy black Keep was as imposing as ever and flanked by the armored men, she probably should have felt a certain degree of trepidation but she could not. Blood still adorned her throat, having dried and crusted and she could feel it upon her left arm. That was all the incentive she really needed to bypass any feeble emotional hindering.

A bitter desert night wind snapped the pennants of the Keep, blew fine grains of sand against unprotected flesh and whipped at the torch fire that dotted the battlements.

She was here to see the Lord Atennim and when the guards did not turn her away, she presumed he was indeed within.

Time passed strangely for her as she waited, feeling caught between the dream and the depth of what she was about to do. She had been committed for a long time though, knowing only that it felt correct. The proper direction. If indeed the dream was as real as it felt and the oily, tainted sense that was still lingering told the true tale of this new directive, then she'd been right all along.

She was certain that the man she currently awaited could tell her true.

The minutes ticked by and the world grew darker about her sight. She never knew she swayed and nearly fell, or that her head arched back as the same image the demon set upon her in the dream re-assaulted her already taxed senses.

She was panting through the residual ache when the world returned, aware abruptly that one of the soldiers who had been flanking her had a gauntleted hand wrapped around her upper arm to keep her steady. She was able to note the odd looks each man gave her before another caught her attention.

Crelius was there suddenly, as if he'd bled from the very shadows, and after a breathless moment of silent staring he beckoned her with a turn of his head.

The hand grasping her arm released and then she was moving, feeling contained still within the dream but knowing without that it was so very much more.