Dark Armor: The Stone Tower

The vision appeared in fragments and flickers, images called from the misty depth of the tall silver scrying mirror in the antechamber to the chapel. It was placed there so that the Black Knight could look over the field of battle before it went to join the fight; but, as with so much else, nobody had ever bothered to inform Pallian that he had access to that resource. 

I should have consulted with the elders earlier, he thought. I should have been talking to them, learning from, this whole time. Only... when I was first sent here all I wanted was to be left alone, and I assumed that was what they wanted too. He pushed the thought aside, kept his attention on the mirror.

It was... he caught a glimpse of a massive statue supporting a section of curved wall, there and gone again with nothing to establish any sense of scale; a shattered remnant of the city wall, partly melted and twisted up to flow into the smooth white wall behind it; a more distant image of a tower, flickering against a distant horizon; a half-dozen stone statues held in a great stone hand; ramps and balconies and parapets...

"Whatever it is, it's replaced the city," said the sturdy older woman, her expression blank with concentration. "It's using a huge amount of magic, enough to warp the shape of this plane. I doubt there's a House out there who isn't aware of it by now."

"How the hell are the rest of the Second not aware of it by now?" asked Pallian. "Has there been any activity at the Tomb of the First?" 

"Some," said Dakrin Eld. "Not what I would have expected. Perhaps the others are waiting to see what happens. It's been centuries since any of them have truly awoken, after all."

"We have to go back there," said the Shadow of Edrias, in that genderless, whispering voice. "We need to know what's going on."

"The carriage won't take us," Pallian said, frustrated. 

"The carriage won't," said Dakrin Eld cheerfully, "but perhaps the horses could be convinced."

Pallian turned his head slowly to look at the ancestor. I like the way you think, old man. "We'll try it."