Naaros Rising (cont')

Two days later, the Guild members arrived at the Monastery gates in a wagon carrying within its wood-and-canvas body the fevered form of Banedon. The Guildmaster raved even then; and the sentries blanched at what words they caught as they nodded the driver in through the open arch.

News of the arrival finally brought Lone Wolf down from his eyrie; a melancholy shadow clad in woodland green that watched with reddened eyes the bearing of his friend into the Healers' Ward. He almost made to move when he noticed the plain circlet that adorned Banedon's head, the coronet with the blazing ruby of hellish red. But he withdrew his reaching hand, withdrew back into himself, and followed mutely after the Healers. Their worry for their charge and the Lord of the Monastery was evident in their faces.

"The Fallen Stones shall rise again," the mage murmured, his eyes wide, dry and unfocused. "Tier upon tier, the heavens to dominate. . . The walls of death shall have no dominion; the drowned from the sea shall break the waves. . ."

The deluge continued even after the Healers had sedated the mage with potent herbs of sleep. As the physicians went about their meticulous work, the Supreme Master sat down in a chair by the corner, looking across the room to his old friend's drawn face.

"Somebody should write that down," he said absently, not then realising the importance of the statement. A Healer glanced up in surprise--to hear him speak after so long!--and quickly sent for a scribe.

". . .and in his wake will He leave a trail of weeping souls; for He is ember and flame, shadow and disease, the shade that contaminates. He comes to set His feet down upon Magnamund, and none may stand before him. . ."

On and on, into the night. 

More coming next issue. . .