From beneath a helmet of alloyed red and green gold, eyes blazed with no less intensity than the plethora of dazzling lamps. One mailed arm was upraised. As it lowered slightly, so did the light of the fifty lamps, reducing the blinding brilliance that flushed the chamber to a more tolerable level. Straight-backed and steely-eyed, white of hair and lean of muscle, a venerable soldier-sage stood to the left of the throne and slightly to its rear. Near the foot of the splendid dais fluttered two ominous, independently hovering puffs of malevolent black vapor.
The intruders scanned entrances and alcoves, but the rest of the chamber was deserted. There were no concealed guards, no approaching platoons of heavily armored soldiers, no murderous dogs snarling and snapping madly at the ends of handlers’ chains. Only the imposing figure seated on the dais, and the single venerable attendant.
Simna’s hand drifted away from his sword. The black litah rose slowly from his crouch. Around them, saturated wicks flickered and sputtered softly, fed by finely sieved and blended oils. Ehomba searched the helmet-shrouded eyes of the towering figure seated on the throne, and those same deep-set, intelligent eyes gazed unblinkingly back.
“‘A master of the necromantic arts,’ the Worm said. ‘A questioner of all that is unanswered.’” Leaning forward slightly on the dais, Hymneth the Possessed, Lord of Ehl-Larimar and Supreme Ruler of the central Aurreal coast all the way from the Wall of Motops to the frozen northlands, leaned his chin on his fist as he considered the taller of the two humans standing before him. “Have you really come from all the way across the Semordria, the eastern ocean?”