Withered Land, early June, 2009.
Though it was called the Withered Land, it was lush and full of life. Palms and cacti kept company beside jagged, bizarre rocks; tulips and larches nestled against each other for warmth. Yellow hibiscus and coral trees grew in the sand, while tamarisk and camel thorn grew in puddles. Night-blooming cereus blossomed beneath the blazing sun, hostas smiled toward it, and pitcher plants and sundews secreted sweet nectar to feed passing ants and aphids.
A white rabbit strolled past a pack of grazing wolves with a pork knuckle tucked in its arms, its mouth still greasy from gnawing bones. Not far away, its companion—a slender little deer—was viciously berating a gray bear that had dirtied its hooves. The bear hugged its head and meekly endured the deer's kicks, not daring to make a sound.
After following the captain ashore, Nikita saw this nostalgic scene.
Yes, a nostalgic scene.
When she had still been a proper wizard, she would never have imagined liches living in such a fairy-tale-like environment. In her imagination, liches ought to have lived amid ice and snow, with a desert made of dry bones beneath their feet and a forest woven from resentful souls and flesh before their eyes.
Eight Night Steeds pulled a broad Pumpkin Carriage across the plains at full speed. All she could hear was the wind and the chirping of bell crickets in the grass.
The Pumpkin Carriage eventually stopped outside a three-story white tower.
This was the liches' Mage Tower.
Many stalls stood scattered across the open ground outside the tower. Their owners were all liches from within, old and young alike, most dressed in black robes. The goods they sold were not much different from those found in ordinary Dark Wizard markets: ghost banners, guest spirits,