From Wistrix Donn

Prologue

The old king sat aloof and carefully watched his arguing counselors. As usual, only one of them spoke sense: Daegred. He was different, though, and the others would never fully accept him. Unlike the other counselors—whose skin shone like copper—Daegred’s had an indigo tint.

Here, hours before dawn, the old men argued over the news brought to them by a young woman. Her coming had destroyed both the peace of the night and their illusions of safety. She had come from the Blue Mountains on the southern edge of the kingdom. Years ago, rumors came from that region of a phenomenon the natives referred to as the glass house. According to legend, it was a spire of unbreakably hard, blood-purple amethyst. Initially, the natives sought it out because of its beauty. Over time, they came to believe that it granted wishes and brought success to their agrarian endeavors. Each year now, the mountain people made an annual pilgrimage to the site. And, their crops and herds had never been better.

Because the beliefs of the mountain people had never caused any problems for the king in his far-removed capitol, he and his advisors were more than willing to leave the situation alone. Now, though, all those beliefs lay in shards. The young woman had confirmed recent suspicions.

She had begun shyly explaining the ways of her people and how deeply they had loved the tower. As her tale unraveled, the king and his advisors began to realize just how wrong they had been. This year, as usual, the people of her village had left to make the pilgrimage. It would take several days, as the glass house rested in the bottom of a bowl shaped valley that lay in the most desolate region of the mountains. Because she had recently given birth, she could not go. Her husband had taken the newborn to have it blessed. Neither returned. Nor did any of the other people of her town.

“We were so wrong,” she had whispered. “We were wrong about everything. All the beautiful things we believed in turned out to be lies.” Though her husband and newborn child had not returned, the glass house had sent a gift of its own. On nights that were cloudy or moonless, creatures swept through the darkness of night. They consumed all living things. She had not seen them, but she had seen the effects. Her few remaining neighbors disappeared. So also did all livestock. Soon, even the wild animals were gone as well. The world had gone silent. Somehow, she alone remained. And now, she lay before the king and his counselors, unconscious on the stone floor. As she spoke of the evil which came at night, she had been taken by a violent seizure. Over time, her breathing had returned to normal. She now slept peacefully beneath a pile of robes.

As she slumbered, the king’s counselors bickered with increasing anger. “Quick decisions are often rash decisions,” Daegred reminded them in his slow, sonorous voice. “Her report remains unconfirmed, and we don’t even know where this ‘bowl shaped valley’ is.”

“Shyk,” cursed one of the others, “not only that, we don’t even have a name for it.”

“The mountain folk call it the glass house,” offered another.

“A wistrix donn,” Daegred chuckled to himself. His laughter brought the others to silence and they stared at him expectantly. “Wistrix donn,” he explained, “is Bailsinian dialect for palace of glass.” The others repeated the phrase among themselves; the words seemed to fit, and they nodded approvingly.

          The counselors had thought to question the young woman again on the morrow, but she had spoken her last. For in the morning, the young woman—their singular link—lay dead. Though her body bore no incriminating marks, her dead face offered testimony of the agony she experienced in her final moment. She had come to them like a character in a dream—appearing in a rush of energy and then slipping away into oblivion. In stark contrast, the effects of the Wistrix Donn, as they came to call it, existed in the unseen beyond and refused to fade away.