Thrall (Daniel Black Book 4) by E. William Brown

Author:E. William Brown [Brown, E. William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-30T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The inside of the Sunspire was a strange and confusing place. It was like reality itself was twisted within those crystal walls, superimposing two very different environments. Sometimes I flew through air, with strange vapors wafting across my shields and lightning discharges leaping between the walls at random intervals. Sometimes I flew through water, lit by the eerie blue glow that warned of far too much radiation for my peace of mind. The dimensions of the halls seemed to shift and bend as I passed, and even gravity didn’t seem stable.

A dream it began, and a dream it remains, Alanna murmured, when I remarked on the strangeness.

I paused to examine a wall covered in intricate gold circuit patterns that pulsed in some complex rhythm. Was that a space warping enchantment? This was only one section of a greater whole, and it might take hours of exploration to find enough of them to be sure. But it looked an awful lot like some kind of wormhole spell.

“You never did explain what you mean by that,” I said.

What is there to explain? Once men dreamed of having mastery over the forces that drive the world. Wind and rain, the sun and the moon, the great spirits and even the gods themselves. The dream shamans called their vision into the waking world, and the wizards who came with it forged this tower to bring it fully to fruition. But while weather and spirits bowed down before man’s ambitions, and the sun itself became a tool in their hands, the gods were not so easily broken.

So there was actually some kind of dream realm in this world? Interesting. But it begged a lot of questions.

“So there was a war, and the gods won?”

Not just a war. A cataclysm. The Atlanteans thought they could play one pantheon against another, and pick off their enemies one by one until the balance of power shifted decisively in their favor. I warned them it wouldn’t work, but they paid little heed to the words of a minor nature spirit.

“You were there?”

Of course I was, Daniel. Do you think I would pass up the chance to bind myself to a man with such grand ambitions? I was the favored familiar of Ivor Stormbinder, one of the council’s most feared battle mages. Luckily he made no use of me in the later battles, thinking the power of the sun would triumph against all foes.

“That’s when Atlantis was destroyed?”

Yes. The island of Atlantis was broken, sunk into the sea and cast back into dreams. But it was more than that. The Titans broke the Dreaming itself, crippling the aspirations of men with nightmares of failure and torment. No civilization has dared to reach so high since then. For two thousand years I thought even the power of invention was lost to men, until Prometheus restored it to you.

I broke off my inspection of what was probably a gigantic mana relay network to consider that revelation.

“So that’s what inspired the old legend about Prometheus giving men fire? I can see why Zeus would imprison him for that.

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