Urtarra appeared deaf to his words, but he raised one hand and pointed at the opposite wall of the room. The blue tapestries acquired a tremulous depth they had not previously possessed, came alive with images of times yet to be. The images changed rapidly, showing different places and different eras, but they had some elements in common.
Always there was fire, always thee was destruction, always there was death on a scale that Dardash had never conceived.
And against these fearful backgrounds there came a procession of charismatic, mana-rich figures. Knowledge, foreknowledge, was again vouchsafed to Dardash in wordless whispers, and unfamiliar names reverberated within his head…
Alexander… Julius Caesar… Tamburlaine…
The sky grew dark with the shadow of thousands of wings, annihilation rained from great airborne ships, creating a lurid backdrop for the strutting figure of Adolf Hitler…
Dardash covered his eyes with his hands and sank to a kneeling position, and remained that way without moving until the sound of heavy footsteps and the clatter of armour told him the palace guards had arrived. And the stroke of the sword, not long delayed, came like a kindly friend, bringing the only reward for which he retained any craving.