Broken Glass

This is a short story of an old mage, and broken shards of crystal. It is a possible chapter, or inspiration for a future book.

Shards of glimmering copper and ice white, sat within the soft embrace of dark gnarled hands. Shaking, the hands placed the shards upon an open table top, carefully spreading them apart with care. His trembling form, sat upon an old wooden chair made of hoary ebony bark. Hunched over the table top, his bone white eyes fixated on the collection of broken crystal, he began to chant. In a garbled mess, the words escaping his parched lips were old, and heavy-a scent of wild spices emanated from each syllable. The shards on the table top began to twitch, shivering with energy as the chanting grew stronger. Dark shadowy forms grew behind the back of the hunched man as the crystals jumped to attention, surging upwards in fervor. Dancing in an odd fashion, each of the crystal shards began to glow with warm red, and bitter blue lights-filling the dimly lit room with glaring beings intermingled with the fervent shadows. The old man’s ratty grey hair hanging loosely into his face turned silver a moment-each strand reaching out with paper thin fingers. With a sigh the old man let out the last of his chant- in a deep growling song. With eager energy the crystals stopped their dancing, glowing a hot white before crashing together with a loud ripping of air and sound. Silence.

The old man rubbed the back of his shaking hand over his damp forehead, and gave a loud huff. Licking over his cracked lips, he nodded as he looked down at the table top. A small woman of shining crystal stood with her delicate fingers outstretched to the sky. Long hair that seemed to flow as water, cascaded down her shoulders and over her bare chest-long legs poised at a point as a dancer, stretched out beneath her.

His eyes wavered and his lips, though cracked and sore pulled backwards into a warm smile, gently touching the curved face of the small crystal form.

“My Saphira…”

 

Author's Note

This is a little bit old, but by only a year or so.

Reviews

[GURGAR]

A good opening to almost anything. Discovery of the significance of this event could prove to be a very enjoyable journey.

[Daniel Seward]

Vivid images, but I was wondering about the old man and why he had the shards in the first place.