Murtagh

The weighted presence Murtagh had felt in the village was even stronger in the caves. It pressed in around him like old honey, and he had an unaccountable urge to crouch and hide or else to flee far, far away. There was nothing concrete to which he could attribute the feeling, but it was as inescapable as the stifling air.

His attention began to wander, and his vision too. Focusing on any one thing for more than a few seconds seemed…not impossible, but his gaze kept slipping, and a few steps later, he would find himself wondering what he had been looking at and what he had been thinking about.

Strange…

He shook his head to clear his mind. The motion was a mistake. The world tilted around him, and he fell to one knee, planting his shield against the ground for balance.

After a moment, he felt stable enough to stand.

Could there be drink in the air? Mead or strong spirits sprayed in a fine mist? He tasted the air: brimstone and nothing more. Nevertheless, he cast another ward to purify the air around himself.

It didn’t help.

Concerned, he staggered onward.

Phantasms began to plague him: flashes of shimmering rainbow colors, dolorous moans that snaked through the tunnels, and—rare at first, but then with increasing frequency—visions that appeared before his eyes and that, for those timeless moments, seemed as real as the rocks.

He saw Tornac standing before him, wooden waster in hand. The swordmaster had just been assigned to Murtagh, and they were about to spar…. The clash, when it came, was quick, and the outcome was Murtagh on his backside with a bruise forming across his left ribs. He expected scorn and derision from Tornac. Such had always been his lot at court. But no ridicule was forthcoming. Instead, Tornac walked over to him, offered a hand, and in a matter-of-fact tone said, “It’s a start.”

The lack of rancor opened Murtagh’s heart. He was slow to admit it to himself, but at that moment, he learned to trust, and he clung to Tornac’s instruction—no, his leadership—as the only steady rock in a storm-tossed life.

Murtagh blinked, disoriented. Whatever strangeness was affecting him, he wasn’t about to turn back. “Is this what you count on protecting you, Bachel?” he asked, his voice small in the vastness of the cave. “Well, it won’t. This I swear.”

With dogged steps, he continued.

—black-sun plain scoured by a howling wind that chilled flesh to bone…A man lay hunched in the barren dirt, arms wrapped around his head as he rocked back and forth, screaming in a high, broken tone—

The tunnel Murtagh was following angled steeply downward. His steps quickened as, relieved, he allowed himself to be pulled along by the descent. He kept his gaze fixed forward, hoping to see the tunnel’s end, for it ought to lead him close to where Bachel was waiting, if not the very location.

—a thunder of dragons flew past, so numerous that they blotted out the sky. Their scales flashed with every conceivable color, a profusion of terrifying beauty, and the air beat like a drum from the force of their mighty wings—

Murtagh broke into a trot. He tried to block out the visions by reciting a scrap of verse. It helped for a time, but then his attention wandered for an instant and—