This 'chapter' is, as previously noted, very rough, very short, and very tentative (though I'd like to open the chapter with something similar, if not with this thing itself). Again, all questions/comments/suggestions as to where to lead the story are welcome. {Chapter the Fourth} -==- _The orcs are charging hard, and even before he feels the first shaft streak past his head, he realizes he isn't going to be able to outrun them_. _He spurs his horse on down a side alley anyway. They went their separate ways, he and Argoth and Darius, and the young priest's only hope as he desperately tries to outrace the doom galloping down upon him is that his friends are faring better than he is_. _He passes a familiar row of houses for what seems like the third time. He hears the orcs shouting, closer now, closing in, but he pays them no mind. Another arrow whizzes by, but he doesn't care. His attention is on the buildings, the windows, the *faces* in the windows. Tens, hundreds, thousands...all blank, all faceless, all motionless. Their mouths do not move, no sound cuts the air, but he can hear the voices anyway. They break into the cell of his mind, a dissonant cacophony of accusation calling to him_. You killed her...your fault...your fault... _He buries his head in his hands to escape the noise, the pain, but it is of no use. The din grows louder, consumes, becomes everything, *is* everything, until he is no longer conscious of his hands, his steed, the town, the faces, the orcs that are barreling down, almost upon him_... _And suddenly, all is quiet. He isn't conscious of moving his hands away from his eyes, but when he opens them, the town is gone. He is standing in the middle of a barren, desolate wasteland. Alone. His steed is gone. The orcs are gone. Even the population of slack-eyed demons have vanished_... _Alone. And yet not alone. Because something else is in the air. Something evil, watching. Waiting_. _And that something is laughing_... {X X X} Amel Talic crawled out of his tent and stared across the vast emptiness of the Great Southern Desert. There was no need to stretch, but he did so anyway - more force of habit than anything else. His eyes felt as if they were caked with dirt. Coated with grime. Kept open simply because closing them would require too much effort. He was tired. The dreams kept coming back, each night more violent and more vicious than the last. The nightmares wouldn't end. By his estimate, the three outlaws had traveled more than four hundred miles from Torin. But he had a feeling it would never be far enough. The dreams were still there, that laughter still echoing through the empty caverns of his sleep-starved mind, and that vague uneasiness sat upon him still, a remote tingling still pattering in the fog on the edge of his spine. Which meant the orcs were still following them. Talic's eyes passed over the vast plains of sifting sands and scattered storms. It was definitely out there. He could sense it - a *presence*, roaming the desert sky. Searching. Hungering. He had felt the touch as they were departing Torin. The three had retrieved their horses and split up, each taking a separate path out of the sprawling desert city. They had left the horses in the slums, where pursuit was easily lost in the twisting labyrinth of wooden catwalks and abandoned buildings. But the pursuit had proven more difficult to lose than one's shadow beneath the desert sun. Talic had hoped to draw most of the attention himself. He hadn't been disappointed. What he had been, though, was touched - tainted. He had felt the searching, invisible eyes the moment he had left Dorn's hovel. Her magic had obviously been efficient in screening most magical seers. But not this one. The eyes had locked on him shortly after the three had retrieved their horses. The young man had been aware of the viperous hands sliding through the desert sands, sifting through the dunes, until they had finally brushed against him. The touch had been almost accidental, like that of a shy lover. A spider, blind but for the vibrations of the web, that suddenly rears up on its hind legs, having found its prey underfoot. A gentle caress of slender fingers one after another after another... Then the hand had tightened. The fist had clenched, and for the briefest moment in time the world had stopped turning and started spinning. His mind had poured itself empty upon the thirsting desert sand, and it had lapped up his reason as greedily as it bled the life from the bleached bones scattered amidst the universe of dust. And he had felt that terrible, terrible stare, looking into his very soul. Tugging at the frayed edges of his mind, seeking to unravel. To unwind. To learn, consume, and then destroy... The orcish priest sent after them had channeled the energy of his god and sent it spiraling outward over the desert sands to do his bidding. Talic had been prepared to feel the touch of the enemy - the odd sensation of one mind impressing its patterns upon another as the spell was worked. But he hadn't expected this. He felt it surge forward again in his mind, relived it as he looked up into the sky at an uncaring sun - the burning intensity, the fierce glare, the terrible hatred of humanity that had boiled over him like a river of venom. The touch of Tarkan. Talic's mind struggled to rise to the surface, to break the water and breathe again. The air was suddenly too warm, too impossibly *hot*. He gasped in pain. He pawed the air, seeking some way out of the sun, into the shade, *any* shade... His drowning thoughts turned to Reykalt. The old teacher had been his shade in another time, beneath an earlier sun. The student sought refuge once again. He was not denied. The pain passed slowly, like the choked crawl of the sun across the cracked dome of the desert sky. It would be back again tomorrow, of course - but for now, the young man had his shelter. He had his peace. He cleared his mind and began to think. -- -=-Chet Zeshonski v073pzuy@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu