Images of Woodfalen, Anest's home city, passed by as though seen from high above by some great bird. Other places less familiar came and went, places where elves and dwarves dwelt. The mean dwellings of gnomes and goblins came into view, as well as armed camps dotted with small fires.

Anest was filled with a sense of wonder and exhilaration; what a thing of vision and power this was! It made one feel as though the entire world were at one's feet! But then, the scene abruptly changed. A pale grey sunset stretched before him over a landscape that was as bleak and desolate as death itself. He felt a pang of fear, and felt as though he were being watched. The land itself seemed to be the very source of this feeling, and there was something else, something chilling . . . something evil. The darkening sky cast the dead stone landscape into nightmare shadows like an unquiet cemetery. The sky was filled with tiny black

shapes that wheeled in great circles, some as wide as a dozen miles across. Many were bats as large as cormorants; others were crows and ravens, and all were as black as night.

"What am I afraid of?" came an unbidden thought. He felt as one must when they are alone in the deep forest on a night when there was no moon, blind in the dark and being pursued, hunted. A panic like the fear of impending insanity gripped his heart.




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