him, swelling to fill his flesh. No, he felt the difference. It was not the earth power swelling into him. He was not feeding off the world. This was different. He was feeding the world. It was his strength. It was being drawn from his marrow, teased out slowly at first and then with more and more urgency as he made the circle. The sensation of power flooding through his body was almost erotic in its intensity. He felt his body swelling, his heart beating arrhythmatically as the peculiar journey took its toll on his flesh.
A sudden thrill surged through his blood, pulsing through heart and mind with equal fervour.
The Serpent coiled through every fibre of his flesh in answer to the call of the stones.
Sláine walked on. His vision swam and blurred, pulsing black.
He closed his eyes against the erratic strobing of pitch black and bright light but it helped little. Pain flared at the base of his skull and rooted down through the ladder of his spine. He felt his knees buckle but refused to fall until he had completed the final circuit to wherever this doorway between worlds took him. The pain intensified. He felt the flesh of his face strain against the bone beneath, lips peeling back with his grimace, forcing his mouth unnaturally wide in a macabre parody of a smile. The pink of his gums pulled back, stretched until they bled around the white of his teeth. Sláine dug deep, drawing on a well of strength outside his body to make the final step. His eyes rolled up inside his skull rendering him blind and still Sláine forced himself to step into the darkness. It hit him like an axe to the chest, slamming into his body with raw elemental force as he completed the third and final circle.
Sláine pushed through the haze of pain and fell to his knees on the other side of the invisible doorway.
His chest heaved. The journey had cost him far more than a few laps around a pile of stones. His head pounded savagely, the blood pressing against the inside of his skull. He looked up. It was immediately obvious he was nowhere near the Forest of Dardun or the burned village. The sky was black, the clouds reduced to a few wisps in the otherwise clear night. A gibbous moon hung low, silver moonlight shining on an empty plain. He had lost more than a few hours of daylight making the passage - last night the moon had hung full and bright, more than a week must have passed for the moon to have grown. There was something uncanny about it. Indeed, the moon's position in the sky was wrong - for it to be where it was months had to have passed in a single heart beat.
The pain receded slowly. He slumped forwards, retching, and wiped the bile from his lips with the back of his hand.
He tried to absorb the most immediate and obvious changes in his surroundings while at the same time struggling to make sense of the time shift, the sudden return to night, and cope with the agonies the journey had wrought.
The landscape was too much for his mind to translate; it stretched on and on and on, unbroken and featureless. He turned to look behind him and saw more of the same nothingness. The absence of landmarks was disquieting.
The quality of the dark itself was thicker.
There were no stars.
The ground was coarse, ever-shifting to the whims of the wind, like sand but not like any sand he had ever seen.
"I can't see the damned bird."
Sláine looked up to see Ukko standing over him, scanning the horizon. He tried to speak but could not. The little runt seemed utterly unphased by the transition between worlds. Sláine's head lolled on his shoulders and he slumped back to the ground. Fine grains of not-sand pressed into his cheek. They were cold, like tiny chips of ice.
"What's wrong with you?"
"He is stripped of all bonds to the earth," a coarse voice answered. He hadn't seen anyone approach and there was no way they could sneak up unseen in this barren wilderness. Sláine looked up to see a black-cloaked figure standing beside the dwarf. "Not only is
A sudden thrill surged through his blood, pulsing through heart and mind with equal fervour.
The Serpent coiled through every fibre of his flesh in answer to the call of the stones.
Sláine walked on. His vision swam and blurred, pulsing black.
He closed his eyes against the erratic strobing of pitch black and bright light but it helped little. Pain flared at the base of his skull and rooted down through the ladder of his spine. He felt his knees buckle but refused to fall until he had completed the final circuit to wherever this doorway between worlds took him. The pain intensified. He felt the flesh of his face strain against the bone beneath, lips peeling back with his grimace, forcing his mouth unnaturally wide in a macabre parody of a smile. The pink of his gums pulled back, stretched until they bled around the white of his teeth. Sláine dug deep, drawing on a well of strength outside his body to make the final step. His eyes rolled up inside his skull rendering him blind and still Sláine forced himself to step into the darkness. It hit him like an axe to the chest, slamming into his body with raw elemental force as he completed the third and final circle.
Sláine pushed through the haze of pain and fell to his knees on the other side of the invisible doorway.
His chest heaved. The journey had cost him far more than a few laps around a pile of stones. His head pounded savagely, the blood pressing against the inside of his skull. He looked up. It was immediately obvious he was nowhere near the Forest of Dardun or the burned village. The sky was black, the clouds reduced to a few wisps in the otherwise clear night. A gibbous moon hung low, silver moonlight shining on an empty plain. He had lost more than a few hours of daylight making the passage - last night the moon had hung full and bright, more than a week must have passed for the moon to have grown. There was something uncanny about it. Indeed, the moon's position in the sky was wrong - for it to be where it was months had to have passed in a single heart beat.
The pain receded slowly. He slumped forwards, retching, and wiped the bile from his lips with the back of his hand.
He tried to absorb the most immediate and obvious changes in his surroundings while at the same time struggling to make sense of the time shift, the sudden return to night, and cope with the agonies the journey had wrought.
The landscape was too much for his mind to translate; it stretched on and on and on, unbroken and featureless. He turned to look behind him and saw more of the same nothingness. The absence of landmarks was disquieting.
The quality of the dark itself was thicker.
There were no stars.
The ground was coarse, ever-shifting to the whims of the wind, like sand but not like any sand he had ever seen.
"I can't see the damned bird."
Sláine looked up to see Ukko standing over him, scanning the horizon. He tried to speak but could not. The little runt seemed utterly unphased by the transition between worlds. Sláine's head lolled on his shoulders and he slumped back to the ground. Fine grains of not-sand pressed into his cheek. They were cold, like tiny chips of ice.
"What's wrong with you?"
"He is stripped of all bonds to the earth," a coarse voice answered. He hadn't seen anyone approach and there was no way they could sneak up unseen in this barren wilderness. Sláine looked up to see a black-cloaked figure standing beside the dwarf. "Not only is
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