noble seeking his own seat of power, became a war between decency and cruelty. The kingdom of Krona was born, with terror as its midwife. Skyreach Keep, built with such promise, was now in the hands of people who rained death down upon everyone within the grasp of their clawed, bloodied hands. The keep itself became a beacon of despair to all who saw its form on the horizon, or heard its name fearfully whispered.
Now, a thousand years later, sleeping on the throne of that terrible kingdom, images of the first Dark Lord lurked in the foggy depths of my dreams. In my mind, I watched the Dark Lord sit upon his throne, and issue orders that would sow fear and carnage across entire swaths of countryside. I listened to him laugh, and saw the deep emptiness in his eyes, which seemed bottomless pits of woe, with no soul to be found in their depths. Perhaps it was simply that his soul was too black to be seen, like a darkness which drew in the very light itself. I sensed a sickening twist of admiration and fear which gripped the people who flocked to his service. I saw their eyes, so filled with greed and hate, take in the terrible visage of their new ruler. All who looked upon him trembled with fear, and yet shook with excitement, dreaming of the power they sought in his service.
Oddly, though this same dream had found me every time I slept in the keep, I was always denied a proper view of the Dark Lord himself. I saw the hollow eyes, and the great height of the monster-king, but never the entire face, nor the body. It was as if my mind deemed the eyes enough to behold, the cruel laughter and barked orders enough to hear. Or was it my mind refusing to see his face? Did my soul fear to look at the full view of evil? When I spoke of my dreams to Jeannine, she insisted that it was the keep itself. She feared for my soul, though I paid little attention to her worries. And though I never again spoke of the dreams, I sometimes wondered about her fears. Was I wrong? Had I been wrong, all these years? Was the keep working its will upon me?
No, that was foolish. Certainly, the magic of this place ran deep. It seeped from the walls, and the plague storms which drew on that magic created fierce fire storms. That was all, though. Nothing more, certainly. The magic here was a tool for a darkness which no longer roamed the halls and dungeons of the keep. Magic was merely a tool, after all. Magic could be good or evil, and though such distinctions seemed rather childish, especially after the damage wrought by the magic plagues, it was a good rule of thumb. Still, good or evil, magic was not altogether different than a sword. A sword could be crafted artfully, or with cruel angles. Regardless, its use was entirely up to those who held it. A cruel-looking sword in the hands of a noble king was made noble. A sword wrought nobly, yet held in the hands of a creature of evil, was fouled by the uses found for it. So it was for magic, as well. The magic here, as horrid as its uses were, was nothing more than a weapon left upon a battlefield. It was only dangerous to those who did not respect such tools. I understood that, and I was cautious. Thus, I was safe.
At some point in the night, after I had let my heavy eyelids fall, the firestorm stopped. The wailing ceased. I awoke to the silence to which I was accustomed. The door had held, despite the single burst of flame at the outset. Rising from the throne, I stretched out my sore muscles. It was then that I noticed my hand. It was no longer blistered, merely red. I examined it, unsure of what I was looking at.
"Huh," I muttered to myself.
It seemed that my wounds were not what I had first thought. It was not the first time I had been deceived. The storms here were as much about fear as anything else. They played upon the mind. Obviously, my 'burns' had been another such ploy by the angry souls here, intended to sink me into a mire of despair, and then draw me in and drown me. Not today. I could not be driven to despair or madness by the sight of a few blisters and some scorched skin. I had seen far worse during the war.
Without looking back at the throne of the once-terrible kingdom of Krona, I took up my pack, and unbolted the door. Working a crick out of my neck, I started my journey home.
***
"Spent the night, did you?"
The voice called out from across the river. Erik waved at me as he crossed through the waist-deep, slow-moving river, his hands holding his massive sword above his head for balance.
"No choice," I called back, as I washed my hands in the cool water. "A storm hit while I was inside. I had to wait it out. I am not partial to being scorched down to the soles of my boots."
It was a joke, but I instinctively looked down to my hand. It was healthy and whole, of course, but the memory of the false burn of two nights past still sent pain shooting up my arm. The hallucination, for what else could it have been, was still very vivid in my mind. It had bothered me as I journeyed across the barren fields around the keep, and then through the empty fields beyond it, leading me to this small river.
Erik shook his head, his thinning mane of gray-tinted red hair waving back and forth over his face like a curtain in a breeze. He brushed it aside. "That's nonsense. You didn't have to be there to begin with."
"How would you know?" I asked.
"The package was intended for Meekwood," he retorted. "That is three walking days east of the keep."
"Your point, Erik?" I asked with a smirk.
"My point, dear boy," he replied as he reached my bank of the river, somewhat winded from the effort, "is that you wasted away that time on your little excursion."
I shrugged, shaking the water from my hands. "That is really my concern. It was a one-way delivery." I dried my hands on my pants. "I delivered it quickly. That's why they pay me."
"And how were we to know?" Erik huffed, his large, muscular form thumping down on the ground as he took some rest. "The wolves might have taken you, and Meekwood would have been without the medicine it asked for."
"I can outsmart wolves," I replied, pretending to concentrate on brushing the dust from my clothing.
"Those wolves are not just wolves, and you know it."
I nodded. "I was there when it happened."
"So you should know better," Erik said with annoyance.
Somewhere under my indifference, I agreed with Erik's point. The forests which separated Meekwood from the barrens around the keep were thick with the howls of angry beasts. The forests had always been home to wolves, massive predator packs, moving with impunity. Since the war, though, the wolves had changed. Whatever magic the locals had wrought upon those thickets did more than was intended. The rebellious villagers, seeing Kronan troops coming to crush their revolt, had sought to twist and turn the bodies of the Dark Lord's troops. They expected these troops to turn away from their intended invasion and flee, but they had not done so. The whips and claws of the Kronan officers were a far greater motivator than the magic set upon the trees. So the Kronan troops, a thousand of them in all, marched onward through the forest. At some point during their march, the wolves came upon them. Now the wolf packs and the Kronan horde were one in the same. Twisted Kronan wolves with terrible eyes, many still wearing some of the armor from their man-halves.
The stories from the Meekwood villagers were always the same. The Kronan soldiers, driven mad by the twisting magic, lived an existence scoured of memory. They wandered aimlessly, unsure of who they were or what their purpose was. That was, until the scent of life came to them. Then the changes came, and the flesh and teeth became fur and fangs. The howls echoed among the trees, and the Kronan army became a wolf pack. Such wolves as these did not relent until their prey was felled and consumed. I had seen it happen, and I knew enough to avoid that forest, or at least to cross at its narrowest point. Thankfully,
