The Dreaming Tithe

The Dreaming Tithe

Imyr, The Dreaming Isle. A legend at the periphery of the mists of reality, time and imagination the fog shrouded isles were the home of the most powerful creatures to have ever once lived in the world…and in the caves high above there were dragons contentedly sleeping as well. The sorcerers of the Dreaming Isles were the binders of demons, elementals, and even gods. The result was a dynastic rule that lasted aeons beyond what any other earthly realm had ever known or imagined. Over time the once great and mighty sorcerers that bent the wild spirits of the newly forming world to their wills became jaded. Their proud intellect became twisted, and perverse. They ultimately allied themselves then with the forces of misrule in a pact of guardianship with possibly the greatest of the gods of chaos: Arioch.

True to his place in the scheme of the great universal spiral Arioch betrayed the inhabitants of the once great kingdom of Imyr and the Ruby Throne was left without an heir. Her great Prince wandered away, lead astray to follow in the footsteps of the Eternal Champion…never seeing the truth until the last. That was the moment he died. He realized the full depth of the god’s betrayal as his own black blade drank his soul away. He was still a hero however. His death righted the scales of balance, as did the destruction of Arioch by his hand.

There were heroes in the land of Imyr capable of such feats, and this Prince of the Isle was but an albino. A weakling by any human standard, so frail he was that he required his alchemy to always keep him capable. So weak he would become without his herbs and mixtures that he could scarcely drag himself from his own bed. But with his herbs, his ancient sorcery, and his cursed black blade…the terrible black bane all knew as Stormbringer he was a foe to be feared.

Shyra leaned at the bow of the small ship she had commandeered. A shapely and comely young woman with sun-kissed skin bared to the world her ample charms. Her warm amber brown eyes narrowed at the glinting sun on the dappled waves. She could see the outline of the Dreaming Isles but not the entrance that was on her copy of an old map. Shyra cursed under her breath as she went back to her rigging and made some adjustments causing a slight portside lean as she finished roping off the lines. She pulled out the map and looked at it again. Her pretty full lips frowned as she looked forward once more. She sighed and hoped the map was right.

There were still wars in The Young Kingdoms, and it was from such a place that she was from. It was a small barony called Coranthir with no real worth but to be used as a battle ground by larger armies to settle their petty differences. Her father was a proud warrior and had stood his ground many times, even against the leg