Short Little Stories

“Your weapon awakes.”

Stanley recognized the voice, though he knew it was not the one he had come to associate with it. Rowen – or the being that now possessed her – had him slung over one shoulder, and was carrying him along with apparently no concern.

He tried to speak, but his throat was parched and dry. He tried to swing an arm to free himself, but all he did was twitch.

Rowen stopped, and dropped him unceremoniously onto the ground. The pain of the drop was sudden and jarring – but also enough to bring him fully back into the present, and he felt his body return to its normal state. Standing – unsteadily – he noted that their group remained intact, though Aubrick glared at him with unhidden fury. He was not surprised by this, but he was disappointed that an equally dark look dwelled within the spellweaver’s gaze.

Such thoughts, however, were swept from his mind when he saw the weave of magic, lying still upon the air. Turning in a circle, his breath frozen in his chest, he saw the strands of power that tied this world together – a web of energy that had long since faded on his own world.

It was not a word that one would expect of Stanley Miller, but nonetheless – he found it beautiful.

“Horrible, isn’t it?”

Tailos’s words broke the momentary reverie that had siezed him – and he saw what lay beneath the web. Magic might still remain upon this world – but life, apparently, was a different story.

As far as he could see, stretching to the horizon in all directions, lay cracked and broken wasteland. No birds, no plants, no water. Not even swamp or flame or dark beasts.

Nothing save dust and wind and emptiness.