Tag: Death

The Strange Radiant Death

“How does the rain affect your…thing that you do?”

The new potential client, Sadie, turned around, rubbing the knuckles of one hand as if she were applying lotion.

Veronica smiled. “Sometimes it amplifies things. Sometimes dampens. It depends on what I’m looking at and looking for.” Her answer, both vague and accurate at the same time, didn’t seem to register with the woman.

Sadie paced toward the chair she’d been offered, leaving behind the afterimage of jittering yellow waves in the space she moved through. Not a bright happy yellow. But the sickly yellow of anxiety.

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The Lamplight Apparition

To see her return in this way. Is it any worse than losing her altogether? I don’t know.

My hands are shaking. I can barely…

The more she lingers, the more I wonder if this is really her.

The bright blue eyes are watching, always watching.

They are her eyes.

But she’s not in them.

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Silent Serpent Under Sea

“Some of the tunnels in other regions have been closed. Some even filled in. We’re lucky that the ones in our region have not.”

“The magic shoring up these walls is ancient, Gramps. Are you sure it’s safe for us to be down here?”

“You’re the one who wanted me to bring you,” my grandfather said. “Anyway, I thought young eyes would be sharper.” My grandfather banged his fist against a seam of enchantment. It glowed a bright turquoise in response. New magic. The afterglow softened to a whisper of pink that signified the ancient magic that I had just doubted.

My young eyes traveled up to the low arched ceiling of the tunnel, the transparent ceiling past which I saw nothing but darkness, and the occasional shadow flitting by, belonging to the strange and hardy creatures that somehow lived at the bottom of the deepest ocean.

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A Dream Unto Death

13 September
“I’ve been summoned to your side,” I said, taking a seat in the chair beside her bed. “In the hopes that I can help guide you back to the world of the living.”

She coughed, cleared her throat, smiled at me, and said, “I have been waiting for you.”

The waking dreamer was lucid on the day that I met her. Though she was lying propped in her bed, she didn’t even appear weak or pale. I was quite surprised. But then I looked into her dark eyes and perceived in their depths a hidden truth, a weary soul, and a cautious calm. She was indeed haunted by the journeys that her mind and even her body had made in the weeks prior.

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Panofus

Panofus spoke the last words of the spell and flicked his raised fingers in the proper precise configurations.  As he did, another sudden quake struck the tower.  And the room filled with gasps and cries of fear.

One of the children in the group of unpracticed mages standing before Panofus pulled away from the old woman who was holding him.

“What about you?” the child asked just as he began to fade from view.

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Death and The Healer

Once, long ago in an almost forgotten age, there lived a healer of great skill and great compassion. Her name was Gwenmir, but she was known as the healer Wen. The healer Wen became well-loved in her village for her skill at easing pain and healing wounds so severe that it seemed she would snatch people from the clutches of death at the last moment. She stitched up flesh with the skill of a fine tailor. She cooled fevers with herbs and special tinctures. She mended broken and even shattered bones with potions from the inside and splints from outside. News of her arrival raised hopes and lifted spirits. The sight of her face was said to be like the sight of sunlight after a dark and fearful night.

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