The echoes of his footfalls sound like thunder, his cloak billowing around and behind him like a shadowy cloud. Servants stumble to get out of his way. Guards stand at attention as he moves by, their ebony armor gleaming in the red light the torches give. Torches lit with witchweed, burning bright as cherries in morning dew. The thick smell fills the corridors, keeping walkways clear of any enchantments or sorcery.
The servants have seen him this way before. He has said nothing for weeks. He barely sleeps. Eats only what he needs. Spends all his time in the library at the top of the Tower.
He continues down the hallways that spirals forever upward toward the top of the tower. There are no stairs, only the slight and sloping corridor, always reaching toward the sky.
Finally, he reaches a doorway, carved with runes older than the mountains. The wood is from a tree who wept when the axes came — axes of silver, cooled with blood. He puts his gloved hand on the door’s black wood and whispers words that make his tongue numb and his teeth cold. The whispers echo, the lock clicks, and the sorcerer sucks in the smoky air, letting the witchwood smoke seep into his lungs. Then, he passes through the doorway and closes it tight behind him.
The walls of the room seem to be made of bookshelves. The floor is cluttered with pages and bindings. The Seven Books of Hsan. The Ulvan Volume. The Book of Barbed Blessings. He steps by them all as they lay open, the pages marked, notes made on each page with his flowing hand.
On his desk, in the center of the room, is a letter wrapped in slick paper from the East that feels more like silk than parchment. He whispers another word to the seal and it burns with golden fire. He opens the letter, reads the words. As he does, they burn as well. When he reaches the end, the page melts between his fingers.
He sits still for a moment. Then, his smile slowly finds his lips.
He opens a drawer of his desk and finds more of that slick paper. The ink is next. A few well-chosen words, then the seal. He stands, his hand reaching a long silk cord. He pulls and a bell tolls deep within the Tower. Moments flitter by as he turns to another book: the newest addition to his collection.
“Sire?” a voice asks behind the door.
“You may enter,” he says.
The door opens and a black-clad woman enters, her hair the color of sunset, her skin the color of ash. She kneels, her scarlet hair falling over eyes as emerald as the Southern Seas.
“Make sure this note finds our Enemy,” he says, gesturing at the sealed and folded paper.
“I will.” She takes the letter into her hands and it is lost in the folds of her robes. “Anything else?”
He shakes his head. “That will be all.” A pause. “Although, when you return, there will be a reward.”
Her breath catches in her throat. “I will return with all due speed, my lord.”
He looks up from his book, his eyes gleaming in the cherry red light. “I do not doubt it.”
And with that, she is gone. And he returns to his book. His newest prize.