The Room

Eifan drags one finger lightly along the door jamb as he enters the room. The door itself has long since crumbled into dust, long since forgotten what it was — but the stone remembers. The memory whispers up to Eifan like a ripple of warm water. He knows he could tease out that memory with the right song, could in so doing restore some semblance of a barrier to the room, if he so chose. He does not.

Instead, he turns his attention to an examination of the room. That redolent scent of incense lingers in the air, but now Eifan also detects a subtle but unmistakable hint of scorched earth beneath that aroma. The smell is not entirely unpleasant, and it interests him, but he chooses for the moment not to pursue it.

Three physical objects lie strewn about the room — a bound volume, stamped with a rune he has not seen in a dog’s age; a small wooden orb, polished to a perfect finish and entirely free of dust; and the hilt of a dagger, the blade strangely missing, as though it had never existed in the first place.