The Eating Woods, #2
Eldritch
by Keri Lake
Contents
Chapter 66
Overview
Zevander experiences a vivid, time-frozen vision within a sleeping vein, witnessing a younger Cadavros (Alastor) extract a mysterious black object and copy a brilliant silver glyph from the stone. As an ethereal woman pleads for Zevander to wake, the scene suggests a crucial origin to Cadavros’s power and Zevander’s entrapment in a dreamlike state.
Summary
Zevander awakens to the sulfurous confines of a sleeping vein, recognizing the forbidden black stone laced with purple fissures from childhood study. Nearby guards stand unnaturally still, as if frozen mid-motion, signaling an unreal or suspended moment in time.
A cloaked miner mutters about proving himself and rises to power. When a spider startles him, his hood falls back, revealing a younger Alastor—Cadavros—handsome, ambitious, and focused. He frees a small black, round object from the stone and then hurriedly sketches a complex, silver-lit symbol embedded in the vein, a glyph unlike any Zevander has seen.
As Cadavros etches the design, Zevander is drawn closer, mesmerized by the glyph’s intricacy and possible significance. The frozen guards and Cadavros’s youthful fervor frame the scene as a memory or echo tied to the sleeping vein and the black find.
An ethereal, blinding light appears, revealing a willowy woman seemingly bound within it. Her urgent pleas—“Zevander, please! Wake up!”—pull at him, breaking the vision’s hold as he moves toward her, suggesting he is trapped in a dream or enchantment at the brink of waking.
Who Appears
- ZevanderProtagonist; experiences a dreamlike vision in a sleeping vein and is urged by a woman to wake.
- Alastor (Cadavros), youngerAmbitious miner-scholar; extracts a small black object and copies a luminous silver glyph from the vein.
- Ethereal womanBlinding, willowy figure who appears bound; repeatedly begs Zevander to wake from the vision.