World of magic
The first chapter acquaints reader with a magic world, where things happen not like in an ordinary reality. Old Cob tells a story of Taborlin, who has been kept in a cell no man had ever escaped from. “But Taborlin knew the names of all things, and so all things were his to command”, so he commanded the stone to break, “and the stone broke; the wall tore like a piece of paper”. With the help of both metaphor and simile the author leads a reader into a world where known laws of physics are not followed. Comparing a wall to a piece of paper adds an atmosphere of impossibility, and attracts a reader to further reading.
Taborlin the great
Taborlin could command all the things, and the wind was one of these. “The wind obeyed him”, when Taborlin ordered the wind to get him out of the cell, “the wind cradled and caressed him, it bore him to the ground as gently as a puff of thistledown and set him on his feet softly as a mother’s kiss”. Poetic simile creates an atmosphere of cosiness.
The amulet
Long time ago Taborlin received an amulet from a stranger. The amulet had the power to protect its owner from harm and evil things, though it was “as black as a winter night and cold as ice to touch”. But with it on his neck, Taborlin was safe from demons.
Spider
Carter, one of the characters, has met a strange creature on his way to the inn where all his friends gathered. When he arrived, he brought a sack with him, and when he opened it, everyone present was terrified with the view: “It was a spider as large as a wagon wheel, black as slate”. Nobody pronounced a word, and “silence filled the room like a cold sweat”.
