All around the lower levels of Andratan rats drop dead, and outside the fortress birds fall from the sky. Prisoners drift into comas; guards find themselves on their knees, struggling for breath. It is far too late to worry if the Lord of Andratan will sense the disturbance; there is no possibility of disguising what is happening in his keep. The raw magic coursing through Husk and out to his three spikes is unmixed agony to him, his blood having turned to something like acid. His already maimed body begins to steam. He chuffs out a breath, fouler than a crypt. Something is desperately wrong with the world outside Andratan. He has known this for weeks now, has bent his thoughts towards puzzling it out. Why now? he asks himself. Such cursed coincidence, this interference to the fabric of intersecting wills that lesser men know as magic. If coincidence it is. Have his actions, small as they are, drawn something opportunistic to nibble at his carefully laid plans like a rat at poisoned bait?
