The Illusionist's Play

The air in this place tasted like regret, thin and acrid. I’d grown accustomed to the stench of despair, to the gnawing cold that seeped into bone, but this was different. This was a sickly sweet perfume, a phantom fragrance that promised solace and delivered only deeper despair. The sixth circle. The Illusionist’s Play. The Weaver had a cruel sense of humor, I’d give it that. After the raw, visceral agony of Grak’s rage, after the soul-shattering despair of the previous circles, it decided to play mind games.

I found myself standing on a cobblestone street, bathed in the soft glow of gas lamps. The architecture was familiar, too familiar. It was a mirror of my childhood village, the very place I’d sworn I’d left behind, the place I’d tried to forget. Laughter, the bright, innocent sound of children at play, drifted from an alleyway. My heart, a leaden weight in my chest, gave a traitorous lurch.

“Lycar!”