Prince of Ravens

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Jack awoke with the sensation of falling. He cried out in alarm and flailed his arms in thick, cloying blackness, trying to catch himself as he pitched forward-to no avail. He toppled full-length onto a cold, damp floor, and his breath whooshed out of his lungs.

He sprawled on the ground for a long moment without moving, unable to make sense of the situation. Had he fallen out of his bed? Passed out after imbibing overly potent spirits? The air was chilly and dank, and the cold floor he was lying on was covered in shallow puddles of icy water. That did not seem very much like the floor of his bedchamber or any place he might care to drink himself into a stupor. He could feel smooth, glassy tile and crumbling grout under his fingers. “What in the world?” he groaned. “Where am I?”

Jack opened his eyes, and wondered what was wrong with his vision before he realized that there was little light to see by. Gradually he became aware of an eerie greenish glow illuminating the scene. He was lying on a tile-covered plaza at the foot of a great stone monolith thirty or forty feet high. The tiles in the plaza were arranged in a strange, spiraling mosaic of greens, purples, and blues; the mighty column was made of subtly twisted rock, cut and polished like an enormous gemstone of onyx. Around the plaza hovered several glowing emerald globes, which cast their soft light over a confused clutter of work tables housed in open-sided shelters or pavilions.

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