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Message: <blockquote data-quote="your father is" data-source="post: 1740192" data-attributes="member: 5475">Well, here's my ten-page sample.  I may change things around and develop the first part of this into a short story if it's rejected, so any criticism is appreciated <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The Dragon Between, Chapter One:The Burden of Old Scars (10 page sample)    The poison would work its way out of his bloodstream or it wouldn’t.  Tobias would die in this chalet, overlooking the dead-gray corpse of Cyre, his once-beautiful homeland, or he would survive to spend his remaining days fighting to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again.      Serenaded by the pooling ripples of the river Ghaal, the secluded chalet wouldn’t be a bad place to fade away in.  The Darguun valley was lush and secluded and it rained most every night because of all the ash in the atmosphere:  the art, the architecture, the people of Cyre returned to the continent of Khorvaire as falling rain.  Tobias moved shaking fingers over his chest and thought again about the burden of old scars.      Cool night air carried goblin song to his poison-weakened ears.  It was the first night of the Dorn-Dara, he remembered, a traditional pilgrimage to the nearby spot where a minor tributary diverged from the Ghaal.  According to local interpretations of the teachings of Dol Dorn, a mystical river -- the Sardoldara, in the goblin tongue -- appeared for a few nights every year when the summer turned to autumn.  The goblins whose songs Tobias heard and whose soft lanterns he glimpsed now, glowing amid the trees, meant to quit the prime material plane and sail to an uncharted paradise.  Turning again to the river, Tobias searched out the tributary and found himself toying with the idea of joining the goblins on their journey.  The lands beyond, the pilgrims said, were peaceful, never changing, and devoid of pain.    Stomach suddenly clenched, Tobias fell to the hard wooden floor gasping for breath.  He had spent nearly a month ingesting minute doses of Carcass Crab venom, but it hadn’t been enough to develop total immunity.  Tobias had sat down to a poisoned dinner with his chief adversary, Lord Crassius, luring the despot into a false sense of security by eating and drinking so freely.  The poison had killed Crassius, but Tobias had at least a fighting chance at life.    Pushing aside all thoughts of dying or slipping away to a mystical paradise, Tobias clawed his way up the dangling sheets and got back into his sweat-soaked bed.  The night would tell the tale, he decided.  He was expecting a delivery of goat milk and healing herbs from a Zarrthec merchant called Xarn first thing in the morning.  If he lived to accept the packages, he would be over the worst of his sickness.  If he died in the night, at least he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d taken his mortal enemy with him.    Tobias fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of Cyre as it was before the war -- a time he had never actually known.  The grass was so green, the towers so beautiful, Tobias wept upon waking.  Everything he loved had vanished, taken from him by a century of fear and greed and pettiness.  Duty, honor, survival -- the old paradigms no longer worked in this new world, and Tobias wasn’t at all sure he’d be able to make a place for himself within it.    In the morning, Xarn’s persistent knocking drew Tobias to the door.  The goblin was a hard worker -- a credit to his race, really -- but why couldn’t he make his Shadow-damned deliveries at night? Still grumpy from his dream, Tobias opened the door to glaring sunlight.  Arms stinging and ears burning, he handled the light better than he had the past several times he’d been exposed.  He supposed he had finally started on the long road to recovery.    Tobias squinted down at Xarn’s packages and his heart leapt into his throat.  There -- right there at the top of the second bag -- was a big yellow wheel of cheese.  “How are you feeling today, Mister Tobias?” Xarn asked.  “Do you want me to set these on the kitchen table?”    “Please,” Tobias said over the pounding of his heart.  They’ve found me, he thought miserably.  After all these years, they’ve found me again.      Seared into Tobias’ vision by the harsh daylight, golden globes danced before his eyes.  He blinked to clear them, then very carefully examined the creases in the grey skin on the back of Xarn’s neck as he followed the delivery-boy into the kitchen.  Not a hair out of place.  Am I imagining this? Has the venom finally driven me mad? Tobias listened as Xarn placed the packages on the table, but his eyes searched desperately for a weapon.  He saw a knife on the far side of the counter, and noticed Xarn watching him cautiously.    Tobias lunged for the knife but Xarn was already upon him, stabbing with his own jagged-edged dagger, red-rimmed eyes no longer his own.    Tobias raised a thin arm, noticed how frail and white it had become, how the blue vessels stood out against the skin.  Xarn swept the arm aside and brought his dagger down with a reverberating thud.  The dagger, Tobias saw, had missed his own wasted flesh and instead pinned his nightgown to the floor.  He launched himself upwards, tearing the thin material and catching Xarn up in it.  Naked now, Tobias hit the counter, bruising his ribs, and scrambled for the kitchen-knife.  He spun about and held the knife before him as steadily as his shaking hands could manage.    Xarn was still on the ground, trying to pull his dagger from the floor.  He stopped when he saw that Tobias had armed himself, and looked up with a cool and detached expression.  “How did you know?” he asked.    “I never order cheese,” said Tobias.  “I can’t eat solid foods yet.”    The goblin smirked.  “You’re a walking corpse, Tobias.  We’re going to murder you, and then we’re going to vomit nightmares on your world.”    “I’m already at death’s door,” Tobias said, “and you still couldn’t kill me.  A full century of sustained warfare hasn’t wiped us from the continent, so what hope do you have?”    The thing controlling Xarn gave Tobias a look that made his heart grow cold.  “Wiped you from the continent?” It smirked again.  “I would say that dust cloud where your homeland used to be disproves your analysis.”    Cold rage gripped Tobias and he lunged forward.  He hated the creature, he hated the world that had taken Cyre, and most of all he hated himself for surviving.  He put the knife through the goblin’s eye -- there was no way to save the boy -- and fell panting over the lifeless gray body.  It was morning now, but Tobias dwelt still in twilight.  Like the goblin faithful, he existed in the spaces that separated the worlds:  the living from the dead, the past from the future, the innocent from the damned.    Eventually, he found the strength to push himself from the floor.  He drank the milk and used the herbs.  The cheese was difficult to keep down, but he would need it to keep his strength during the long journey ahead.  An hour later he stood outside the peaceful chalet, body wrapped in a dark cloak that still let in too much sunlight for his comfort.  The Last War had ended nearly two years ago and this, Tobias thought bitterly, had been his first real opportunity to rest.    He turned his back on mystic rivers, stillness, death, and self-doubt.  Let the ghosts stay in Cyre.  His ears were getting better, the wind almost making sense.  A familiar discomfort the exact circumference of the self-inflicted scar tingled his chest.    Tobias, a voice whispered on the wind.  Here’s what you need to do...#    Goss opened the door to Kaius’ inner sanctuary and marveled at the young king’s discipline.  Rows of books adorned one wall and a series of tables and chests kept the king’s possessions in careful order.  Though he was nearly a decade older, Goss had to admit his own chambers back in Cyre had never been as tidy.    Since he was alone, Goss allowed himself to wince at the memory of his homeland.  Cyre’s destruction hung like a pall over his very being, influencing every decision and altering every mood.  A large, powerful man, Goss knew that his ebony skin and piercing eyes provided a powerful defense against physical as well political threats.  Goss had grown used to maintaining a calculated air of invulnerability, and he straightened up and squared his shoulders with practiced precision.    “It’s a good sign,” he muttered, jangling the ornate copper keys on their ring.  Cyre and Karrnath had been at war a very long time, yet Kaius had trusted Goss with access to his innermost room.  Of course, Kaius had ordered him here like a common vassal rather than an esteemed foreign dignitary, but Goss supposed that was the way of things.  As forward-looking as Kaius could be, the king also felt the constant need to express his political dominance.    Goss scanned the books for the small leather-bound volume Kaius had described.  There it is, Goss said.  He reached for the book, then stopped as light flickered.  A shadow moved the wrong way against the wall.  Goss blew his candle out and the room dimmed, lit now only by the torch in the outside room.  Faint steps sounded beyond the opposite wall and there -- yes, just there -- the red-orange outline of a hidden door.  Goss traced the outline with his fingertips, then gripped a jutting stone and pulled experimentally.    The door opened.  A low grumble sounded as Goss considered whether or not to proceed.  He had been playing at politics for almost thirty years, and the one thing he had learned during that time was that things worked best for him when he went with the feeling in his gut.    He entered the stone passageway.  It didn’t smell musty, like he’d imagined, and he surmised that someone must use the passage at fairly regular intervals.  Torch-light flickered in a chamber ahead, reinforcing his suspicions.  What are my duties in a situation like this? Goss wondered.  He had no official standing in the court at Karrnath, but he had sworn allegiance to her king.    Goss strode boldly into the chamber, then stepped back instinctively as terror clutched his heart.  He waited for death in the relative darkness of the passage, and stepped back into the room only when it didn’t come.  A series of stakes dotted the room like wooden stalagmites, a shriveled undead form on each one.    “Why are they storing vampires?” Goss wondered out loud.  The Karnathi had employed undead throughout the Last War, but only ghouls and zombies -- at least as far as Goss knew.  He stretched a finger toward a black talon on the end of a shriveled grey finger --    -- and crept back into the passage.  Footsteps sounded and Moranna, Kaius’ aunt and advisor, entered the chamber.  She wore a cloak, but only Moranna could have so hulking, yet so unmistakably feminine a form.  She’s almost as big as I am, thought Goss.    Moranna did something Goss couldn’t see, extinguished the torch, and left the chamber.  Goss hurried back to the king’s room.  “Kaius must know about the chamber,” he reasoned as he pushed the door closed again.  He went to the shelf and squinted at it in the dim grey light, found the book he'd been sent to fetch, and slipped it under his arm.  He decided not to say anything about the disturbing chamber for the time-being.  Kaius was a good man, but Goss wasn’t yet certain that he was good enough.  If the king wavered in the peace process -- if he decided to push for war -- Goss might be able to use this bit of information to discredit him.  Goss hated playing dirty, but he had pledged to do whatever it took to prevent other nations from suffering the fate of Cyre.    Cyre.  The memory lay before him like an open wound.  Everyone had suffered during the war -- that’s the only reason the conflict had finally ended.  All the old issues still remained, ready to flare up into open warfare at any moment.  Every nation suffered, but none more than Cyre.  Sometimes things get so screwed up you have to lose the past in order to see the future, Goss had told King Kaius at their first meeting, and the young king had gazed back with old eyes that had seemed to understand...</blockquote>

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