...Clouds slowly castellating in a calm...

I booked a room at the small hotel and deposited my luggage there. I bought myself strong boots, a pair of breeches, a jerkin, and a couple of shirts. Then I turned my back upon the town and climbed.

Squat and gnome-like it looked, silhouetted against the dying fire in the western sky; an odd, elfin-eared, pink-handed, hunchbacked manikin with a tail.

Her voice was her sovereign talent.