* * *
When Torben finally came fully back into consciousness, the air around him felt cold and damp, not like the stuffy atmosphere of the vault, where he last remembered being. He shivered involuntarily as the memory forced itself to the front of his mind of Hrex staring wickedly up at him as she drove her dagger home, the memory of the piercing, agonising pain as it had punched into his belly. That pain had now dulled to an ache that barely troubled his consciousness.
Am I dead? he thought.
Am I dead? Everything was pitch black, but then the realisation occurred to him that his eyes were shut. Indeed, he was slowly becoming aware of the rest of his body, as if his mind had stepped away from his corporeal form for a moment and was only now returning to take stock of his physical vessel
