Day 8 - Kas

        ‘Kaaaaaas.’ The voice, hissed, scratched, came from everywhere, but nowhere at once. 

The man, Kas, clad in leather armour with a brown cloak draped around his shoulders, raised his head as if roused from slumber.  He scanned the hall’s depth and breadth, finding it vacant save for the four sentinels stationed at the base of the throne dais.

‘You’re sword moves’, the voice rasped.

‘Where?’ demanded Kas.

‘Not where you thought.’ replied the voice.

‘Where!’ he bellowed. ‘Where?’

His voice reverberated off the pillars, bouncing between them and the walls.  The once lush carpets and hanging that could absorb sound had long wasted away, leaving only echoing emptiness

‘Show yourself, Wizard! I’ll not talk the walls.’

A ball of black materialised, billowing and expanding, at the base of the dias between the two sentinels. It grew in size until id dwarfed the soldiers standing guard.

From the shadows emerged a tall, gaunt, bald mand, skin drawn tight, cheeks and eyes sunken, cloaked in a blood-red robe.

‘Your sword, it is not where you thought it was.’

‘You’re wrong Wizard, it’s on the far side of the burning peaks, it’s beyond the mists.  I know I can sense it.’ Kas insisted.

‘You, Kas are wrong!’

‘So why do you tell me this now?’ Kas demanded.

The wizard watched the man on the throne, weighing him up.  It had been an eternity since Kaz had been throwing his undead into the mists.  Centuries of trying to get to the citadel on the belief his sword was there.

‘Where Wizard, tell me.’ Kas pressed.

‘Faerun.’

‘How long?’

‘Days, I’ve come post haste to tell you.’

‘Why, It’s not as if the Great Szass Tam would do such a thing out of the goodness of his dead heart.’

‘What will you do if you get the sword? The Wizard asked.

Kas looked down at the Lich Wizard, contemplating.  What was Szass fishing for? It wasn’t the first time he had stood there, asking questions and offering little in return.  But this time he was offering the sword, the key to ending the endless war. ‘Can you bring it to me?’

‘Are you willing to leave?’

‘Leave?’ Kas looked above and beyond the lich to the back of the hall, through the open doors, into the mists swirling beyond.

‘Yes, to retrieve the sword, you will need to leave this domain, leave the mists’

‘You said it’s moving, how?’

‘It’s come into the possession of a dragon slayer.’

The two locked eyes, Kaz’s pitch-black gaze meeting the Wizard’s milky white stare.  In that instance, in silence, they formed an agreement.

‘I can leave.’ Kas Declared