Kyra Dakar comes from a clan of gypsies that once roamed Sibain before her father settled down to run a curio shop in Gavrenslocke. This is a preliminary sketch for the cover of Daemon Lost which will display the ensemble cast.
The stranger then turned to draw the shop curtains and flip the Open sign to Closed while Kyra remained frozen staring out the now obscured store window. During her moment frozen there a lifetime seemed to pass. She saw her mother and father holding each other, their eyes eerily reflecting the flickering light of a bonfire, while she played foxes and hens with the other gypsy children. She could hear the caravan dogs baying to the wild wolves of the alpine woods, the laughing and shrieking of children in the dusk light, and the murmur of all the adults as they solemnly spoke around the bonfire. The smell of ashen debris mingled with the scent of fresh pine and spruce as the fire growled and blustered over their encampment like an angry titan. That moment seemed like an omen of what was to come if only she been more aware, but regret could not change the past nor awaken the young child to the impending danger about to beset her family and loved ones.
I came across the perfect analogy of my own pulp awakening in John C Wright's foreword to Jeffro Johnson's Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons . "Imagine if you had lived in a house for decades, as had your father before you, and grandfather, and you thought you knew all its halls and chambers. Idly, some rainy day, or when the snow has covered all the roads, you take up a lantern and go to see what is stored in those old boxes in the cellar, or where that one small door you never opened before leads. You pry the door open, and it groans on rusted hinges, and beyond are caves of wonder, heaped with treasure. Here, like a column of fire, stands a strange genii and other spirits bound to serve your family. They are willing to carry you whirling through the air like an autumn leaf, in less time than it takes to gasp in awe, to far and fabled lands beyond the cerulean ocean, to elfish gardens of dangerous glamor, to jeweled mountains, alabaster cities...
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