dissolve. Wherever the light went, the shadows and mist fled, and ghostly shapes began to appear. The memory of the farm house that lingered in the stream began to take form. I always felt disconnected when I did this, it was like being in a movie where no one could see you.
It looked like I was standing in a partially developed photograph, everything was blurry and grainy, slightly transparent and I could hear some kind of static in the distance. There were shapes beginning to resolve themselves, and voices that began as tinny echoes grew clearer as I listened. They were having an argument, the emotion made the words clearer, more distinct.
"You can't do it Abel, that book is evil. It's been nothing but a curse since you got it," one voice said, a woman.
That was promising.
"It's shown me things, Judith. The things I could do with it, I could finally make that creature Devlin Desmond pay for what he did," the other voice, Abel, said.
Devlin? Devlin knew Abel Grannok?
The two figures came into view, a man and a woman. The man, Abel, was rough and angry, his shape distorted and sharpened by a pall of dark energy. Judith was a faded picture, washed out greys and whites, shrinking before Abel. She looked terrified of him. The whole scene rippled, shook, and Abel turned away from Judith to look directly at me. Not in my general direction, but right at my face. That shouldn't be possible, I was just an observer in a memory, but he was doing it.
And he walked right up to me.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Abel Grannok said.?
Chapter Eight
I was officially somewhere beyond freaked out.
There was simply no way that Grannok should be able to see me. I wasn't even there. He wasn't even there. I was just a temporary temporal observer, a passive onlooker at a moment in time. I was getting ready to sever all connection to the working and pull out when I was overtaken by one of the most peculiar sensations I've experienced in my entire life. I was made of smoke, a great hazy cloud of it dispersing into the ether and disappearing.
And just as it began, it stopped.
I stuttered and choked, my eyes watered, and I was staring directly at the back of a...at the back of a...a tragically deformed head.
"The time is here, it must be now. The stars scream between spaces at the God-Spear's approach," it said in a voice somewhere between a rattle and a croak.
I froze.
Grannok hadn't seen me after all; he'd seen the pasty morlock. That he wasn't on the verge of gibbering, like I was, spoke volumes for his character. The thing was all wrong, deformed from head to toe, like a careless child had tried to mold a man from putty and left it out to melt in the sun. It had the baked white eyes of a dead fish and was entirely naked except for a badly tanned loincloth.
"You said that wouldn't be a problem, you told me you'd take care of it," Grannok said.
He fairly towered over the misshapen newcomer, but the thing took a step forward with a growl. Poor Judith was pressed up against the kitchen wall looking like she was trying to sink into it.
Sensible lady.
"The God-Spear wields old power, and has allies. The ritual must be tonight," it said.
"I need more time, more bodies. The Libro Nihil says the deaths are the conduit," Grannok said.
"You have one more body, right there. I cannot delay the God-Spear any longer," it said, and had raised a hand to point a finger at the shrinking form of Judith Grannok.
The last thing I saw was Abel turning to Judith, before the whole scene evaporated and I was standing in ruins again. Something had broken the spiral, shattered the magic, but I had seen enough.
And that's when I got plowed into by some kind of gigantic feral pig.
It was one of the worst things I'd ever smelled, and weighed probably half a ton; it crushed all the air out of me and I heard Swift cry out my name as I went down.
I did not want to die today. I'd survived a beating by a bug-man, and an angry Hispanic warrior-woman, and I
It looked like I was standing in a partially developed photograph, everything was blurry and grainy, slightly transparent and I could hear some kind of static in the distance. There were shapes beginning to resolve themselves, and voices that began as tinny echoes grew clearer as I listened. They were having an argument, the emotion made the words clearer, more distinct.
"You can't do it Abel, that book is evil. It's been nothing but a curse since you got it," one voice said, a woman.
That was promising.
"It's shown me things, Judith. The things I could do with it, I could finally make that creature Devlin Desmond pay for what he did," the other voice, Abel, said.
Devlin? Devlin knew Abel Grannok?
The two figures came into view, a man and a woman. The man, Abel, was rough and angry, his shape distorted and sharpened by a pall of dark energy. Judith was a faded picture, washed out greys and whites, shrinking before Abel. She looked terrified of him. The whole scene rippled, shook, and Abel turned away from Judith to look directly at me. Not in my general direction, but right at my face. That shouldn't be possible, I was just an observer in a memory, but he was doing it.
And he walked right up to me.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Abel Grannok said.?
Chapter Eight
I was officially somewhere beyond freaked out.
There was simply no way that Grannok should be able to see me. I wasn't even there. He wasn't even there. I was just a temporary temporal observer, a passive onlooker at a moment in time. I was getting ready to sever all connection to the working and pull out when I was overtaken by one of the most peculiar sensations I've experienced in my entire life. I was made of smoke, a great hazy cloud of it dispersing into the ether and disappearing.
And just as it began, it stopped.
I stuttered and choked, my eyes watered, and I was staring directly at the back of a...at the back of a...a tragically deformed head.
"The time is here, it must be now. The stars scream between spaces at the God-Spear's approach," it said in a voice somewhere between a rattle and a croak.
I froze.
Grannok hadn't seen me after all; he'd seen the pasty morlock. That he wasn't on the verge of gibbering, like I was, spoke volumes for his character. The thing was all wrong, deformed from head to toe, like a careless child had tried to mold a man from putty and left it out to melt in the sun. It had the baked white eyes of a dead fish and was entirely naked except for a badly tanned loincloth.
"You said that wouldn't be a problem, you told me you'd take care of it," Grannok said.
He fairly towered over the misshapen newcomer, but the thing took a step forward with a growl. Poor Judith was pressed up against the kitchen wall looking like she was trying to sink into it.
Sensible lady.
"The God-Spear wields old power, and has allies. The ritual must be tonight," it said.
"I need more time, more bodies. The Libro Nihil says the deaths are the conduit," Grannok said.
"You have one more body, right there. I cannot delay the God-Spear any longer," it said, and had raised a hand to point a finger at the shrinking form of Judith Grannok.
The last thing I saw was Abel turning to Judith, before the whole scene evaporated and I was standing in ruins again. Something had broken the spiral, shattered the magic, but I had seen enough.
And that's when I got plowed into by some kind of gigantic feral pig.
It was one of the worst things I'd ever smelled, and weighed probably half a ton; it crushed all the air out of me and I heard Swift cry out my name as I went down.
I did not want to die today. I'd survived a beating by a bug-man, and an angry Hispanic warrior-woman, and I
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