The fading splash cleared, revealing forces locked in combat across land and sea. Mornington saw two cruisers come past, cutting through the waves with majestic authority at flank speed, loosing a six-inch salvo at a target lost in smoke and distance. Fur…

In complete silence they walked ahead to a watertight door a short distance ahead, of the type commonly seen on ships. It was worn, textured, maintained - solid graspable reality in stark contrast to every other thing in that unreal world.

Silvertown twi…

Silvertown, keeping a firm grip on her medallion, stepped up to the door and pulled on a handle that wasn't there. Except that it was, and it wasn't - when looked at directly it was there as if unnoticed until then.

Most disconcerting.

She swung the …

It was enough. Beckton knew what to do and how to get there - or rather, he had a feeling that he would know when it mattered. For now, he needed a door that matched a certain set of parameters.

There was a delicate clink, from somewhere close by, as if …

Beckton thought about it for a moment, but the Commandant had been very clear about the importance of the Newkirk mission. It wasn't like there were any alternatives - he found himself nodding solemnly, even as he wondered whether there was any point nego…

I'm trying to care less about what other people think of me: trying not to perpetually perform for an imagined audience, trying to forget all the invisible eyes on me.

4am in the dark lair of my study, two locked doors between my face and the world...

…

To dream such dreams,

to banish despair with the conjured light of face and form,

drawn perfectly from decades ago--

such is the magic of faerie wings and moon beams.

In that twisting and infinite moment,

perhaps a reflection of what was in another time …

Malika looked to the holy man.

"What say you, Reliath?" she asked. "Why didn't the greater dead destroy us, as Morduth suggests?"

Orthael thought for several long moments. "I cannot say for sure," he replied. "But perhaps, while the creature is more g…

The name given to the ship of Gwen and Bass is The Sound of Silence. In drawing the picture, I took inspiration from the Simon and Garfunkel song, and from the story of Sleepless Domain

The Inner Barrier is from the night that Alchemical met the ele…

Malika barked a derisive laugh. "If by 'grounded' you mean, did it feel more real than the lesser deathless we cut down? Then yes. Yes, it did." She reached up and pointedly rubbed at her shoulder again, even though the ache was barely there. "I don't kno…

As was his custom, Orthael watched the life of Trien go about before him while he thought about Malika's questions. The baker haggled with a farmer for a box of vegetables, a thatcher pushed a cart of straw and ladders past them, and at the edge of his vi…

Malika nodded slowly. "Very well." Her voice hardened. "What be next... Reliath?" She stumbled over the holy man's name, unaccustomed to addressing one of the clergy so casually.

"That... what did you call it? Malylech? That Malylech. Why were we unable …

Orthael breathed out evenly, nodding. He had known, rationally, the moment that Varreniel's Candle had snuffed out. But it was another thing entirely to hear that it confirmed, that all the wards and defenses of a cathedral of the Flame had failed against…

Malika was silent for a time, regathering her composure. She was embarrassed by her reaction, especially in front of this man. Finally, she nodded solemnly.

"The Archbishop is gone, as you presume, holy man," she said, "as is everyone else I ever knew. T…

After the service was over, Orthael sat next to the swordmaiden on the grass and looked out into an overcast morn. He waited a while in silence, but in the end he broke it with a sigh.

"Varenniel's Candle should be lit, swordmaiden, but it sputtered when…

She reappeared in another part of the library, a dank room smelling of moldering wood and fungus. The furniture here was in disrepair, rotten through and falling apart. She loved it.

She settled onto a pile of termite-eaten wood that may once have been a…

Malika did not bow her head. So far as she was concerned, faith had failed her. Her eyes had been on the holy man, his vestments - tattered as they were - and on the implements of his office. And so she saw the candle of Varenniel puff out of its own ac…

Orthael was pleased by the turnout. A few parishioners had come to introduce themselves and give their requests before the start, which he had made careful note of. Herrin had done well with the reading, and then he asked the collected faithful to bow the…

A bell rang in the distance, and Malika rose from her cot, plucking Morduth up from where it lay beside her. She knew the sound of that bell because she had heard it regularly most of her life. This was not quite like the bell in her village, though. The …

Orthael gave her a smile and lifted a conspiratorial finger to his lips, then indicated the smouldering taper with one hand and the unlit candles with the other. Sparks flew, smoke rose and embers flared - the taper crumbled to ash, the candles flamed. He…

The church in Trien was a handsome stone edifice, built sturdily in decades past and carefully maintained since; the tall arches lifted Orthael's spirits by their apparent timelessness. There was a flicker of candlelight visible through the windows, and t…

The air was crisp and the dew barely settled on the grass when Orthael left the house. He closed the door behind him with just the clink of his chain shirt and took the stairs up onto the wall two at a time - relishing the lightness of foot and freedom of…

Malika reflected back on her battle with the deathless. The lesser of the creatures she was able to cut a wide swath of destruction through, banishing them back to Ashmar with ease. The greater deathless - a Gorgon, according to Morduth - that one still t…

Anger flared inside Malika, and she failed to noticed the light aura of flame that momentarily erupted around her hand, even as Morduth lay by her side, untouched.

He is right, Mistress, the sword declared. There is much about my own history that even…

Before she could challenge him, he spoke. Quietly, but firmly.

"Take care with your weapon, swordmaiden. It is more than you know, and less. Much has been forgotten about those that drew it and its kin from the forges, but what survives is enough to trou…