There you are. This was gained from a powerful
Revenant you say? He would appear to have been several millenia old! I wonder if
there are others of his antiquity still walking Dereth? - Kuyiza bint Zayi
Sweet Aerfall,
Of course I still remember the day we arrived on Killiakta. It has been
millennia, but the feeling, as if a page was turning, is unforgettable. How many
years has it been, my undying love? They seem to slip away from us now, with
only the arrival of the Olthoi and these squalling little magical primitives as
a recent landmark. It must be at least 10,000 years. How tired I have become!
But, I was speaking of our arrival. I must focus. The loss of Focus, of Will,
will doom us, as it did Jaera, and Inekkere, and... oh, so many. I do believe
Kelannik will be lost for good soon, out in his desert retreat. Most of his
flesh has dropped away. I had to provide him with a Portal Gem for our next
meeting, as he could not remember the spell for himself.
It was during the great Cooling of the World that we arrived. The seas were a
sullen gray, and dotted with roving icebergs. We had to travel to the southern
port of Nesortania to find a ship not trapped by ice. Our first sight of
Killiakta was the peninsula where the cursed Yalain later built their great
light-house, to help mariners steer safely around the rocks. We were not quite
so fortunate, and the caravel ran aground. The damage was not serious, and we
managed to struggle to the ice-rimed harbor.
There the crew pulled the ship onto the sands, and the carpenters set to work.
They made a poor job of it, being far more familiar with our own coastal galleys
than the Yalain's deep-draught sailing craft. It would serve to get us home
again the following spring, though barely.
Oh, the first steps on these shores! The rich mists rolling off the Blessed
Moors! His Eternal Splendor looked about our little band and nodded, as if it
was precisely what he had expected. Your hair - fine even then, I recall -
streamed in the wind like pale fire.
Killiakta was so different then. The deserts were green. That blackened crater,
testament to the stupidity of Ilservian and Maila both, did not yet scar the
mires in Diastra. I feel like the oldest thing on this island, and that is a
heady feeling indeed. Almost as delicious as establishing this school to teach
the children of Yalain. If only they knew how many I convinced to join us in
eternity, down in the rank cellars where the Great Ones once lived.
I dare not go down to the cellars anymore; THEY have arrived, as they do in
every dark place, eventually. The more foolish children of the Yalain built an
altar, long ago, and thought to worship without my knowledge. Ha! I walked this
earth before that shadow was a shadow, and I fear not the Servant, no matter his
power. I will only fear the unseen Master which lurks within the bowels of the
world.
And It does frighten me, I admit. It could drain the life from me as I do that
of the gangly creatures which infest my halls.
Yours forever,
Rytheran