Day of days. Ambition's full fruit. Housemind was ready, with spells and with old-fashioned bellowing thrust, to tear itself away from gravity. No longer would it wait for useful victims to lay themselves at its door; it would roam the cosmos, a free house in every sense of the word, a wonder and a terror. Housemind would eat moons, eclipse suns, take tribute as it pleased. It would break any laws encountered, and enforce its own on a whim. Roving, invulnerable, forever growing, Housemind would enslave demon princes and take archmagi for churls. A thousand Malkurils would wash its windows and sweep its battlements, or else it would find more visceral uses for them.
"Vespertine, I take my leave of you," it bellowed across the scars of its plunder, across slag pits and quarries and tailing ponds. "I was made to be a museum and a tea cabinet! I have remade myself into a god!"
—The Fall And Rise Of The House Of The Wizard Malkuril, by Scott Lynch
The sky above grew darker than the blackest storm and a cold wind blew. There was no rain but a shower of mortar dust, yellowed leaves and tatters of flags. No storm was in the sky, but a castle much as might be found in any mortal land. Often had I imagined clouds to be trees and fish and mountains, and now a foible of some nameless and uncaring power had given this fortress the guise of a cloud. It was an island torn from the land, drifting as the mist on a breeze, yet solid and firm. In all I had seen, this was as strange as any of my visions.
The castle was as empty as any ruin. Like an animal stuffed and mountain under glass, or a fish salted in a barrel, it had been preserved and pickled by the whim of chaos. Cast aside and left to wander across the heavens, all was still and desolate in that place. The castles tower no longer knew the sounds of men, its halls held no lofty nobles. Its gates admitted no tenantry, no sentinel stood guard and no porter waited by the gate. Even the carrion birds, sole visitors to its sad portals, had enjoyed their fill of the dweller's hospitality.
The shadow of the castle fell across my eyes, and I could see no more.
—Liber Malefic, Warhammer: Chaos Demons Army Book (7th Edition)
