GlassEye said:
As Ymris boldly walks into the chambers of Chancellor Zimmerman, Thom's yeowl sends a frisson of fear spiking down her back like lightning. She hesitates not having ever heard Thom express such intense emotion and more than a little taken aback by the Chancellor calling her by name. Nothing for it but to brazen it out now.
She tries to send Thom soothing feelings through their link then takes several more steps into the room stopping in front of the Chancellor's desk. She bows. "Yes, Chancellor, I am Ymris. Please accept my apologies for the interuption." Her eyes flick to the robed figure and back again to the Chancellor. With the odd events and portents that she has been experiencing lately Ymris begins to feel an irrational dread of the figure turning from the window and revealing his identity. Continuing, however, she says, "I was directed to deliver this case to one called Devries whom I was informed would be here this evening."
Chancellor Zimmerman glanced at the figure by the window, waiting for a moment as if he were to move or speak. The silence in the room was broken only by a low hiss coming from the corridor as old Thom lurked at the threshold, as if ready to spring to her mistress’ aid.
“Yes,” his eyes returned to Ymris. “Mr Devries is here, but he does not speak to messengers.”
The figure moved a little within his long cloak, enough so that Ymris could tell that it wasn’t simply a coat-stand holding those robes up. Slowly one heavily robed arm raised, the fabric draping over the figure’s hand, and gestured from Ymris to the Chancellor, signalling for Ymris to pass along the message.
The Chancellor stood warily and gently lifted the case across to his side of the desk, there was a fear in his eyes that was genuine, pure, unhidden as stared at the figure and opened the end of the case. After a slight tap a scroll slid out, and Zimmerman slowly unrolled it before him.
It was blank.
From the window a voice that seemed to echo with an icy chill in upon itself whispered through the room.
“I know not who you are, but I smell her on you. It is long faded, but I can smell the stench of her betrayal upon everything she touches.”
Chancellor Zimmerman looked at the blank scroll, his eyes darting as if they were reading something. “Ymris, after all these years…” He looked up at a painting on the wall, it was that of the fatter Zimmerman from downstairs. He sat on a large throne with three small girls on his lap, no more than a few years old each, and had a dirty evil look on his fat and corrupt face. The plaque was easy to read:
The Ladies Stephanie, Ymris and Amanda.
The middle girl looked the same as the one downstairs, and had her name.
There was another icy hiss,
“You however, are no use to me alive…”