Hanging Softly Upon the Cheek of Night

[Breaker]

A soft blue light bathed Breaker’s body, and as he stood he realized it was the sun. Or was it the moon? He could not be certain. The sun’s radiance would not have allowed him to look straight at it… and yet, the moon had never seemed so large. Whatever celestial orb it was, it shone its aquamarine glow down on everything beneath. Gingitsu stood nearby, looking back over a shoulder with a tail stroking his chin.

“Welcome, Breaker, to the Realm of the Thaynes!
Let us hurry; to be here gives me pains.”

The fox scampered across the surface of a free-flowing clear green river. Breaker followed cautiously, expecting his sandaled feet to sink through the shallows, but finding that he too could walk on water in this strange place. He crossed the stream and ran carefully after Gingitsu. They raced over purple sandstone cliffs, past bright yellow trees standing in thick groves, and across lush red grass thriving in the blue light.

Differences beyond the colors abounded. Insects trilled from the loam and bushes, but they all seemed to play together, their sound symphonic. Creatures like birds flew from tree to tree, but rather than the air they flitted through reality. Spectral trails flowed off of most things like shadows, likely a manifestation of Breaker’s ability to see magic. His heart seemed to beat differently, faster, in time with a distant pulsation.

Gingitsu rounded a broad bank of golden forest and paused on a crimson hillock, diving down to lay prone and gesturing for Breaker to join him. Josh crawled to his side and peered over the embankment at the clearing below.

Four figures met in the spongy orange meadow, only one familiar to Breaker’s eyes. Am’aleh’s flowing form of water stood in a square with three others, aqueous hair swaying in the breeze.

On her left stood Hromagh, the Beast God. Josh knew him by his chiseled musculature, his lion’s head and mane, the curved ram’s horns which extended from that golden brow, and the snow-white paws of a Salvic bear. He looked at least ten feet tall, towering over the ocean goddess beside him.

To her right was Khal’jaren, the Sage God, recognizable by his four arms. Strange insectoid eyes peered out from beneath the hood of his long dark robe. Two of his hands were pressed together in prayer, while the other two clasped a quill and scroll, as if taking the meeting’s minutes.

Across from Am’aleh stood Y’edda, the Sky Mother. She was a rosy-cheeked young woman wearing a long cloak of sleek feathers. Her mischievous smile betrayed her as easily as her choice of garb, for it glowed across the open meadow like a beacon from a lighthouse.

Gingitsu held a paw to his lips, and then cupped it to his pointed ear. Breaker nodded and listened carefully, using the full reach of his godlike perception. He could just barely pick up their voices over the song of the breeze and the harmonies played by the insects.

“Now that we four have met upon this night,” Khal’jaren said,
“Let us speak of the calamity which
Once more threatens the world of Althanas.”