Re: Part 62c - Into the mouth of the dragon
Cyan works feverishly but with meticulous care, creating the command room with every stroke of her quill pens. First, the outline - a dark, squared-off room, with tiny, shimmering lights on the obsidian walls, and a single, rough-hewn throne in the middle. A door, another door - two, in total, both visible from where the 'observer' stands. A spray of lights and symbols in the air before the throne itself, hanging without visible means of support. The 'display', as she came to know it.
A woman, pale skin and a black-silk robe, seated upon the-
No. Cyan closes her eyes. Her lips thin. That was me. Me. And not me. The General. The Warrior in Jet and Gold. She bites her lip, ceases to sketch the woman, marked to be filled in as the picture progresses.
Filled in, but never forgotten. Nor forgiven, for that matter.
Concentrating as she sketches, Cyan begins to slowly weave a pattern of forces into the art itself, creating (she hopes) a sympathetic link to the place depicted. A drumskin she will settle over the underflow, to be pulsed by her spirit, its particular vibrational signature matching perfectly only one place in all of the Myriad Worlds. And then, once signal reaches receptor, it will enable a gate to be opened.
So goes the theory, filled in recently by Berd's recollection of the Underflow and its uses.
But an interruption - Dorian, entering their own little fortress through the door, rather than any magical means. She glances up with a wry smile, and brushes damp hair from her brow, then freezes at the sight of the little child behind the dark man, an apparition made solid. "Dorian?" Cyan begins, and stares at the girl's dark eyes with her own, ruby orbs.
Berd lets out a tiny little chime, fixing his burning gaze on the entering pair.