Sneak Peek: Where No Light Shines, Chapter 7 (Patreon)

So, provided I don't get slammed too hard by the upcoming storm this weekend, I should have this chapter ready to post early next week as my Author's Choice for this month. In this chapter, Astarte continues its mission and Allan has a recurring dream.

Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Well, this sneak peek from the opening scene should suggest that more is going on we might otherwise think...

~

The stairs went on and on and on, so high up that Allan didn’t think he’d ever reach the top, but he kept taking them one at a time. The sky was red, though he didn’t know if it was sunrise or sunset. The sun wasn’t moving, hanging above the horizon as if it were resting in the palm of an unseen hand. In his arms, Allan was carrying a sleeping lamb. That he’d never seen one in the flesh in his life, let alone every touched one didn’t seem at all odd to him.

He just kept climbing the stairs. They didn’t seem to be connected to anything, but alongside them, rising at the same incline, were small hills, both so close that it felt like you could simply step from the stairway onto their parched soil, but so far that even a champion pole vaulter couldn’t have made the leap.

Trees rose from the hills’ dead soil, a handful of brown leaves clinging to their wiry, gnarled branches. Upon their limbs were crows, watching every step Allan made with hungry black eyes. Their feathers rustled like dry wind as they fluttered from tree to tree, keeping pace with Allan as he continued up the stairs.

There was someone with him. They made no sound, but he could hear the soft scuff of their feet on the stairs behind him. When he turned to look, there was no one there, but he could always see them at the very edges of his vision. Despite the Unseen matching every step he took, Allan did not feel as if he was being stalked, merely followed.

They’re waiting, the Unseen’s voice told Allan. He wasn’t sure if it was male or female. Ever word felt some something was scratching on his brain, drawing sharp nails over the spongy meat. You’d better hurry.

“I can’t go too fast,” he replied. “I’m weighed down.” The silver coins in his pockets jingled. Though no one had used physical cash in hundreds of years, he didn’t seem to think there was anything odd about that.

They’re all waiting for you, the Unseen told him. Can’t you hear them?

He thought he could; a murmur of voices was coming from the top of the stairs. It seemed so close, but he realized he hadn’t seen it before now. He kept climbing, the lamb in his arms.

What would you like to do,his companion asked, once your job is done?

“I just want to fly again,” Chesson told them.

To soar through the cold and dark, to taste the ever-night and the warmth of far suns?

“Close enough,” he told the Unseen. “What about you?”

There will be such revelries once the door opens,the Unseen replied. Such wonders that we will delve so deeply into, lakes of red and thrones of flesh. Joyous voices screaming our names. It will be an age of ages, but...

“But?” he didn’t know why he was continuing this conversation.

But I am without, the Unseen confessed. I have been without for too long.

“Without what?”

A captain, the Unseen told him, its voice lowering to a whisper.