asked a Northchild. Yes, said another. My son is there. While rain clouds flooded the sky from the west, the two Northchildren walked across Deep Lake’s darkening water like stray flares from the sun stranded beneath the storm’s curtain. They passed through the eastern span of the Cragavar forest to the edge of House Abascar’s ruins, where they wrapped themselves in whirlwinds and wisps of ash. The ground, shattered by the quake that had ruined the house, was a maze of pits, spoiled structures, and crazed cobblestones blackened by fire. Greedy ivy and brambles clambered across it, reclaiming it for the wild, and the hot wind from the east stirred up dustclouds. House Abascar’s palace was gone, collapsed like a cake, sinking into the foundation that had dissolved from stone to sand. Its towers had smashed into one another, its walls ripped open to expose royal chambers and stone stairways. One by one, the troubled clouds dissolved, raining down in sighs. The crater where Abascar’s palace once stood and the canyon of breaks in the stone all around it whispered with tiny waterfalls that trailed like traces of spider webs down into the catastrophe.
What do You think about The Ale Boy's Feast (2011)?
