Blockage begining to clear...

I've been up for over 24 hours now, and just sat down an hour ago with a story I could write within the novel. It started with the idea of writing about a man waking up from within a dangerous place. One that had once been safe. And, well, it kind of grew from there. I'm still well below where I need to be before the days over, but at least it's a start. Here's the blurb I came up with.

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They had warned him about the Sultan's Palace. That it was a place of dark desires. He had assumed they meant it as a warning against sinning while there. It would have been just like Rolph to give him such a cryptic warning to keep him "on the righteous path, the only true path for a hero". He hadn't then known that Rolph had actually been to the palace before. Hadn't known it till he saw Rolphs handwriting on a note. When he recognized the handwriting he stuffed the letter in his pocket, not entirely sure what he'd do with it, but wanting to know what Rolph had been doing here.
It had been about a week and a half after the Sultan invited him to join him in the harem when he finally got a chance to look at the note. Not wanting to anger the Sultan he asked one of the harem girls to read it to him, but she claimed illiteracy and excused herself citing the need for cleanliness. He hadn't known that she was going to the Sultan. He hadn't known a lot of things.
For one, that Rolph had been the Sultans son by his favorite concubine. That Rolph had been taught by the local equivalent of a cleric. That he had learned his religion well, and had a falling out with his father. He hadn't known that the letter in his hands, an alien script to his eyes, was the final letter given by Rolph to the Sultan. An insult to the Sultans very way of life, and a curse on his line, a vow never to let the line be carried on in himself.
The Sultan wasted no time, and had him thrown into the dungeons while a magi could be summoned. The magi was to bind his soul into a new gem for the Sultan to wear, so that he could never rise again, and could never proceed to the afterlife.
Fortunately the magi was an old friend, from days long past, and had promised him a way out. The magi was to bring a sprite. It would be small enough to be hidden from the Sultans sight, yet have a potent enough spirit to make the gem glow as though a human spirit were trapped within. He would be killed within moments, but had already been prepared for such a thing. His ensured body waited for him back in the city. His spirit would simply fly there, and he would rise with a weapon in hand, and a pocket full of gold. It would be difficult to pull off, but if done right would save them both from his wrath.
Everything happened according to the plan. The Sultan never checked the magi's robes, and so never found the sprite. The sprite was slain mere moments before he was, and was pulled into the stone while the blade opened his throat. Make no mistake, it was horibly painful, but it was a small price to pay compared to the penalty he'd been given.
Of course nothing could go easy for him. His spirit arose, and he fled to the city. There he found his new body waiting for him, just as he'd left it. He even checked the pockets before he entered it to be sure it was all as it should be. He entered the body and felt himself pulled deep within it, anchored within. He waited for the old man to come and free him from the stasis he was in, so that he could be about his business. Could find Rolph and appologize for not listening to the warning. Could go find himself a nice farm girl to settle down with. Or maybe find another ancient ruin to explore, he had left an awful lot of gold behind with his corpse after all.
He continued to wait. He'd been through the process before, and new the routine. The old man came into the Sarcofogi room once a day, and used the bodies within as a material link to those he watched over. When a spirit had returned to the body, the old man said a few words and the body was released. He even had figured out a way to reach out to the old man while in this state, his body may be frozen in time, but his mind certainly wasn't. So he reached out, and felt... nothing. He tried again. This time he felt something... older. Something a bit more alien than the mind of an old man lost in the past. He didn't know what it was, but he pulled back. Perhaps the old man had gone out for some spell components. Yeah, that was it. He just needed some more ground buksis seed, nothing more. Perhaps he had simply taken on a new client. A fellow mind, trapped in flesh and time, waiting for no more than release. Yeah, that had to be it. Except... except that the mind was moving. Hadn't that mind learned how to reenter it's own body?
He reached out to it again. This time it reached back. He felt it wrap around his thoughts like a vine wrapping around a new growth elm. Squeezing him, testing him, weighing his strength of will. He tried to fight back a scream, and then realized he'd not be able to scream even if he tried. The strange force moved into his field of vision now. It was a woman. Slender, lithe, young. She would never do as a wife (she didn't have the hips for children), but as a mistress? In any case she wouldn't be out of place back at the Sultans Harem.
Under any other circumstances he would have cast an appraising look over her body at this point, but being trapped in time meant that he couldn't adjust the angle of his eyes. He could do nothing but stare into her eyes, as she stared into his. And then he saw the age in her eyes. He saw forests being burned down, siblings catching light along with their homes. He saw men being led deep into a forest by an enchanted song. He saw men being led into a tent by a wiley Satyr. He saw the old days. He'd never heard of male Dryads before, yet he surely saw them now. He'd never heard of this type of ancient ritual, but he saw a young man lying in the mud, as holy sandlewood was placed under his skin at the points where his spirit was strongest. Saw the sandlewood grow beneath his skin.
He reached out once more to find the old man. He used all the strength of will that he possesed, felt outward across the minds of the city looking for the spark of magic that was so strong in that man. Looking for the wistfullness and nostalgia that followed the old man no matter where he was. He reached till he felt himself tearing at the seams, till he had stretched out to the very walls of the city, but he could reach no further. Whether the walls were warded, or whether he was simply not strong enough, it didn't matter. The old man, who hadn't gone one block from this building in more than fifty years, wasn't anywhere within reach, and couldn't help him.
Once again he tried to cry out. Not because of what he saw of the ancient and near past, but because of what he saw of the future. As he stared deeper into her eyes, he saw the ritual being performed on himself. Saw the transformation happening within his body, despite the spells cast over it. Saw the other form rising up from where he now lay. He didn't see himself ever arising again. The body that rose up in that future to be, it wasn't his. The spirit within was not his. And yet he knew that he could no sooner stop it than he could rise up from this sarcofogus without the old mans help. He prayed then, to the gods he had never acknowledged. To the gods who he had cursed more times than was his right. He could see them in his mind. He fell before their countenances grovelling. Begging their interference.
Something was wrong. Though he could see them in his mind, he could tell they weren't very near. They seemed hazy, and almost immaterial, or they seemed firm, yet at a great distance, as though warded from this place. Almost in the way an evil creature is driven away from hallowed ground. But these gods were not evil, well, not all of them. He began to shudder as he realized that there was no one coming to his rescue. The most he could hope for was that the creature before him would find another host for her wicked designs, and that he would be left to go slowly mad in this place he'd hoped to find release. But what was far more likely is that he would soon be given the same treatment the other poor bastard was given. That he would rise again, but not as a man, and not as himself. The spirit he once was having been sublimated to power the transformation ahead.
It was then that he saw the others. Saw them coming ever closer. There were five of them, all alike, all with the same, deep, cold, ancient eyes. He pulled his mind within himself, and slowly whimpered.
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