Where Lies Adventure!

OF GODS AND MEN Chapter 19: Hellos and Goodbyes       Tarsus raised a hand to shield himself from the shock of sunlight.  It was bright to his eyes, though the sun had sailed past its zenith and was well on its way to the horizon to mark the end of his first and only day in this limbo.          An instant ago he passed through utter darkness: a void at the edge of an encroaching forest.  Now the darkness had passed, and he found himself in the middle of a village square without much time left to claim what he had come for: Malthir.      He was not surprised to find the square in complete ruin.  Remnants of stone walls stood at varying heights and crumbling brick lay strewn, covering the dry earth.  What small homes once filled this village center were now dust, picked up by gusts of wind and carried far away; even desolation was not enough, no memory of this village would be allowed to remain.      The wind picked up, and Tarsus lifted his arm to his face protecting himsel

OF GODS AND MEN Chapter 18: Desire               The forest was dank on the inside.  Humidity hung heavy in the air; grains of pollen languishing in vaporous clouds that floated lazily.  The airborne moisture weaved in and out of the thick rows of trees that bordered the path on which Tarsus stood.  Broken rays of sunlight shone through; fractured by dense brambles of shrubs that grew overhead, wreathed together like a fisherman’s net.             Tarsus wondered how shrubbery could grow so high up.   He had seen such choking vines before, littering the floors of the Wandering Wood outside Brierden.   The village had been named for those thorny bushes, and shepherds avoided taking their flocks through that forest at all costs to spare their sheep.   Like those briers, these brambles were laden with beautiful roses.   Normally, Tarsus would welcome the sight of flowers, but these overlarge blooms only added to the densely woven briers.   They only helped in choking out more o