Excerpt: Two Left Hands

(C) 2023 Kyrinn S. Eis All rights Reserved

"I am prepared to sell, now."
Lom produced a metal inlain crystal prism which he held in his palm.

Ynnella's control was impressive.  She never once looked at it, and maintained perfect eye contact as she reached, openly, for a pouch of coins.  She placed it from its strings, upon the table, to convey its fullness and heft.  Lom began a smile, but became aware of her honesty and restrained his air.  He placed the prism on the table and slid it to the centre.  He openly gestured so that she could reproduce it at her Mistress' behest.

Images of Aariendor played in the air as a triptych of sequential stills which advanced one frame each; black frames between instances to indicate the passage of time.  His decline was apparent the longer he indulged in his revels in the Labyrinth.
"Is this a polished presentation or raw data?"

Lom gestured to indicate its edited form.

"We are more interested in the raw; the time between--"
-- "I need to inform you of a development last night."
Lom took back the prism and manipulated it before he put it down and showed the images from the point of the crash.

Ynnella's jaw set hard at sight of dragon's breath, and a sneer of hatred was apparent, yet still restrained, once the Dracon was in view.
"...makes sense, just being true to his nature..."

Lom looked from her to the projected image, it was the Dracon whom she loathed.  He wondered after that, and waited -- there it was, his breath's first manifestation.

Horror and rapturous wonder overtook her face as well.  Lom's mind, like a clock itself, had the timing down to the moment it played out in her countenance.  Her jaw retracted from slack, but now a deliciously hungry smile graced her face.

Excerpt ... some Metafiction

 (C) 2023 Kyrinn S. Eis All Rights Reserved

Klare, now dressed in blue trousers and the 'plaid' button-up shirt, still open over her grey sleeveless blouse.  Boots, brown and green, were nearby, but she simply sat around and looked out of sorts for something to do.  Syil looked up from her bed and watched as Klare paced about and then sat by her box of books.

"Do you have a favourite among the Aelvryqh books?"

Klare turned, face wet.
-- "Yeah.  The Belltower of Blackfall.  He and the sorceress Zharozenit's adventure in the Shadow Realm.  Why do you ask?"
"Would you read it to me?"

Klare's very dark hazel eyes wavered in their orbits; she blinked and the shimmer of her almost violet-russet eye shadow was breathtaking.  Klarissa declined her head and parted her lips as she looked elsewhere for the answer to Syil's question.  Klare then fetched a book, one with a yellow spine, and tuned back to face Syil.

     "The ship of silver brass and gold which brought Aelvryqh to the stunted forest of Litchos departed once he and his shadow, Aurien Twinblade, had disembarked.  The thing of artifice rose slowly, hovered and overshadowed them, and then climbed steeply and was naught but a streak of metal blurred and then gone.  Nearby, a great insect busily gathered pollen from gargantuan flowers; its four wings buzzed like a mass cavalry charge as it skittered about the dark brown tessellated face of the yellow pettalled flower.  Aurien perceived that Aelvryqh intended to secure a mount for their exploration of the wetlands region.  The silver haired sorcerer spoke in a trilling lilt:

     "Sun-tracked with many windowed eyes
       gentle harvest to buzzing hive obliged
       Bring ye now two light burdens sized
       smaller than drops of rain through skies
       o'er shimmered lakes kist with sun's fire
       towards dragonhome of golden pyre
       network of willing human spirits refined
       Colours enrobed ordered by red-black eyes
       This I ask of Bzzht' honeyed words ye bide."

     "The great hairy beast alighted the sun-like flower and graced them even as it lowered itself for their climb aboard.  Once secured, their legs tucked between large granules of collected pollen and ahold of soft fibres of the thing's thorax, the flyer took to wing and the hum became a steady background in which other sounds, voices, songs seemed to weave through like an oracle deep within a mountain cave heard dimly by those outside."

Syil was fascinated and at times experienced a strange sense of familiarity one has for a place never before visited or seen.
"That sounds like my world.  Lovely, please continue.  Your voice is soothing."

Klare looked up and her eyes lingered emotionless, before she lowered her gaze, and returned to read aloud again.

Except: Overseer in the Jet Labyrinth

 (C) 2023 Kyrinn S. Eis  All Rights Reserved.

From here, he chose to proceed beyond in the continuation of the alley turned street.  This was lined on either side by elegant shops of bespoke goods: tailors/seamsters, crafty artisans, book-binders, body-artists, smokables and chymists prescriptions, and on as money or influence permitted.  The apartments above these shops were often, but not always let by the shopkeeps or owners.  Their scalloped balconies took inspiration from the fountain, and the sinuous lines and dark colouration of their constituent stones made the two bancs of flats a dark mirror -- so close the flowerboxes as to cross-pollinate with merest touch of the rarified seaborne zephyr.  To look up from the street was to witness a profound mystery.

At the end of the street were a bespoke publishing house: Nurvneat Ad Anexrion ~ 'Fearless Industry Wed to Allpowerful Ink '  Their mirror-mate, a paper and leather crafter who specialised in bespoke book covers and corresponding slipcases.  It was in this fashion that Fountain Street functioned: this for that, shop after shop.  Now early morning rays graced the Labyrinth, one of only three times in daylit hours the sun could find slip and make its barred presence known.  A right hand turn would bring him to an open air qaphae already peopled by the most elegant and refined of Jet's citizens.  To the left, however, would bring new challenges as an unbroken rock spire forced all streets conform to its will.  All streets were stepped as they steeply declined, while all alleyways were of necessity switchback boulevards host to potted trees and gardens which had long runs across or down the way.  Yards between the bights were public parks with interconnected tunnels, while the central green was a memorial park home to the eldest families and heroes of times past.  The necropolis of the founders, three siblings: Dragon Lord, Dame, and Lady, were entombed and this for centuries a shrine.  The same black rock was carved from a spire.  Overseer loved to pass this way to refresh his natural essence from this powerful font of Blackest magics.  The surround of four quadrants were seasonal orchards; Winter's fruit was a blue-white ellap which tasted of sweet effervescent pepper and turned one's lips a numb blue.

Excerpt tune whispered

(C) 2023 Kyrinn S. Eis All Rights Reserved

"Ranger lad at ride one fine day,

in dappled light of shadow wood,

by the ancient riverside,

met a lass fair and fine,

her yellow flower caught his eye,

and so by flowed their time.

When she awoke to bloody sight,

for Common cause the boy's life

flowed by the river bide,

dragon rider stood at her side,

there under sheltered boughs and in

yellow flowers time, the lass found

that she had lost her mind."

Excerpt 23/05/12

 "Entering my mind?"

-- "I am in every mind which yet possesses the light of reason."
Marcher's Promethean vision: himself chained between the kindled loving desire of life, and the fiery black of searching need, returned in a panoramic vision; Dabil Arasoya disappeared as the scene became everything.

Another Excerpt

 (C) 2023 Kyrinn S. Eis

"Their lands, their vast estates are sunsettled, their skies storm and red clouds, where the earth quakes, and fire erupts from the ground; more ...", he hated the outright lie, "equatorial, but northerly still."  'Closer the galactic core, damnit!'
Six eyes wandered in dread lands of his words' weaving.

Excerpt

(C) 2023 Kyrinn S. Eis

Overseer delighted in the ultraviolet radiance of the grassy steppe, like the silver diamonds sparkle upon all the seas of blue he had ever seen with then human eyes.