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| >> Campfire Creative >> Fiction >> Fantasy >> ID #1092185 |   |
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| [Introduction]
Welcome to the Kingless land: ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^Icy Rim^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Blue Grass Plains^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^Gates of Heaven^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^++^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Dante's Peak^^^^ ^^^^^^^Magical Forest^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Fire^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Berry^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Stonehenge^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Mts^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Tang^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Mines^^^^ ^^^^Blessed Village^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Whispering Cliffs^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Silent Sea^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^Island of the Monkeys^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ A century and a half past, Dame Masako the Serene, the Queen of Vrede, died and the crown passed to the nearest blood relation, the Count of the Fire Berry Mountains, Sir Desmond. He ruled the land in an iron fist, squeezing the heart from the people. At first, the people were happy. Sir Desmond was a popular man in his homeland, great-nephew to the long-lived queen. He started his rule by replacing all the queen's ministers with younger men, of his own choosing. Small changes to the laws came next: an increase in taxes, more stringent import/export fees, and a trade blockade with their southern neighbor. The next decree by the new king abolished the kingdom's university and outlawed the written word. Still, the people believed the propaganda, that those barbarian "monkeys" had seized control of the university and subjected the students to all kinds of horrors. King Desmond took advantage of the uproar and declared war on what he now dubbed "the Island of the Monkeys." An entire generation, between the ages of 18 and 30, were conscripted into the army and navy and set sail for the island. They never returned. Meanwhile, magic users fled for their lives as the king sought to tighten his grip. He turned his eye on the guilds and increased their tithes, to the extent that most of the merchants also fled the capitol, and then the kingdom. Mercenaries were hired to stop the exodus, killing many in their efforts to close the borders. Needing to pay his mercenaries, King Desmond turned his attention to the Church. But the priests had anticipated this. They baricaded the Gates of Heaven at the foot of the Sacred Mountain and refused to surrender, even with the army camped just beyond their walls. Armed with little more than prayer, the Cathedral, its surrounding village, and all the people who had sought shelter within, were massacred, down to the last child. At that moment, the mountain rumbled, day turned to night, and lightning flashed down from the sudden clouds, striking Desmond dead where he stood. The Cathedral crumbled to ashes before the panicky mercenaries, who broke and ran. A madness seemed to descend upon the remaining people. Small atrocities begat larger ones until the land was a smoldering ruin and the madness had run its course. The nightmare days concluded with a terrible curse. The horrible plague spread like wild-fire. No one was spared. First came the black and blue discolorations, small, and then growing larger and more numerous until the whole body was covered. The rash was followed by raging fevers, hair loss, open lesions, and tooth decay. Loved ones turned on each other like rabid animals, drooling and screaming in their madness, their minds no longer theirs. Mutations were common. In some survivors, the rashes became permanent. Some lost teeth, or limbs. Few regrew their hair. Suddenly it was rare to not have blue eyes and a whole village was deprived of the ability to speak. Many others lost their wits completely, becoming little more than the monsters they resembled. When their neighbors began to see the horrors crossing the borders, they began their own enforcing, killing any once-human beast from entering their own lands. Vrede was closed off from the world and was soon referred to as the Kingless Land, or the Land of the Cursed, or the Cursed Ones. Within time, of course, the plague ran its course. Or so the survivors thought. Soon, however, the truth was discovered. Before the Gates of Heaven stood a monster from ages past, blocking the way up the Sacred Mountain to the Home of the Gods. The winds were unpredictable, but if the wind blew from the Gates of Heaven elsewhere, the plague struck anew. The dragon thrived on the people's despair like a delicious elixir and soon began its own mission of destruction, laying seige to the gods. It fought its way up the mountain, brushing aside the ancient guardians like flies until it stood at the very summit. None remain who remember those dark days, but a few chronicles were stored away, describing the days of nights, when fire streaked across the heavens, smoking boulders the size of houses fell from the skies, the earth shook, the sea rose up to drown the coast, and the Sacred Mountain blasted itself into a smoldering pile of rubble. At the conclusion, the dragon was seen no more. The Sacred Mountain was perhaps a quarter of its original size, and the Gates of Heaven fell into perpetual darkness. Still the plague remained when the wind blew down from the north. Ground beneath the heel of misery and despair, the few, scattered villages manage to survive, praying for an end to their curse. Finally, more than a century after the cataclysm, hope is stirring. A few, isolated people, are dreaming. They are being summoned to Stonehenge, the ruins of the once great capitol city. They know there are others, but the details of the dream are shadowy and defy description. Each individual carries a piece of the puzzle, but only together can the riddle be solved and an end made to the suffering. * * * You are one of these saviors. You are a survivor, touched by the plague and yet you lived. The death rate is about 50%, madness takes another 25% of the survivors, and someone you love dearly may die, unless you can find an end to the plague. You pack a few belongings, say your goodbyes and leave. Thus begins a journey towards Stonehenge and an end to the evil stalking the land. Only you and your mysterious companions can bring hope and life back to your people. Remember, these people have lived through a hundred years of horrific mutations and plague. They've seen a lot of nightmarish things in their short lives. Everyone fears a breeze from the north, as it brings plague with it. Each time the wind blows, the plague strikes and everyone is vulnerable. The more times you survive, the more likely you'll survive the next attack, but it's still a 50-50 chance to retain your wits. Those who go crazy are immediately killed by the others, because the plague can spread like rabies from an infected person. Bodies are burned. Each character must be from a different place on the map above, with the exception of the Isle of Monkeys and the Gates of Heaven; those are reserved. I'll color the towns as people claim them, so we'll know. For your first post, use the bio block below to create and describe your character. He/she must be between the ages of 20-30. Life-spans are shorter, with few people living into their 50s due to the plague, so the average marriageable age is 15. Just so you know. Anyway, here's the bio block. Be realistic! You have 3 days to add before I skip you. The normal rules for campfires also pertain here (no killing other chars, stay within the rating, etc). Hey! I found an item where someone had actually written down all the "Rules!" Take a look: "Invalid Item"  As you accept your invites, I'll email you your portion of the rede. Good luck! * * * Generic Bio Block Name: Age: Home: Physical Description: Trade/Job: Other: I'll post everyone's bios as they come in so you'll easily be able to see who everyone is. * * * Bios so far: Name: Dmitri Pavel's Son Age: 25 Home: Whispering Cliffs Trade/Job: Baker Physical Description: Dmitri is 5 ft, 6 and a quarter inches tall, and roughly 130 pounds. He's survived three bouts of the plague, the last depriving him of his right eye. His remaining eye is a light brown and his hair has turned a peculiar shade of bluish-purple, a reflection of the plague scars covering most of his body. As a Baker, Dmitri is stronger than he looks. He labors in the heat from well before the sun rises until late in the afternoon so that his village will have bread to eat. Fighting the tough dough has toughened his upper body, giving him strong muscles to carry out his trade. Other: Whispering Cliffs is organized as a communal village. Everyone works to support everyone else. Babies are watched by one or two while the rest toil in the fields or fish or any of the other thousand or so little tasks to support the population. There are no other villages or towns around for miles and miles, until the coast, a day's fast journey away. Name: Kiera Stants Age: 23 Home: Blue grass plains Trade/Job: Artist Physical Description: Kiera has long chestnut hair that falls to her waist. Her growth has been stunted becuase of the plague, so instead of being 6 feet tall like she was supposed to grow, she is only 4 feet tall. She weighs only 94 pounds because the last bout of the plague drained her. Her eyes are a golden yellow, for reasons unknown, because they have always been that way. She is very skinny and because she is so underweight, her bones show through her skin. Her wrist is broken because of the effects of the plague also. Other: Her village has many survivors and when plague strikes, they hide in the underground hut of holiness. All the rest must try to survive and when the plague has run it's course, the bodies are taken to the ritual house and burned. Name: Anglis Gliscan Age: 22 Home:Icy Rim Physical Description: He has survive two bouts of plague, the first turning his eyes a brilliant and eerie green, the second destroying the muscles and nervous-system in his left arm, rendering it unusable. He wears his left arm in a sling under his coat. His hair is a deep ebony and he stands just shy of 6 foot. Trade/Job: hunter Other: The winds from the south were once welcomed for their warmth, but the sickness that comes with it has destroyed the villages of the Icy Rim. Anglis lives alone, wandering between the tiny villages, selling his meat and furs and generally trying to stay away from anywhere the infection has settled. Every time he sees the smoke rising he turns aside and changes course with a heavy heart Name: Mordred Kaybil Vance Age: 19 Home: Magical Forest Physical Description: He is tall and strong, not burly, but well-defined (think Ryan Reynolds) and with a few more eccentricities. His hair is originally white, the colour bleached out from the plauge, but it's still thick and wavy, so he dyes it with roots and leaves, varying from pink to blue to green and various other colours he can make from plants. He's made himself jewelry and has many piercings on his ears and other places. He doesn't bleed much, the plauge adjusted his blood flow so it's not as fast as it once was, therefore he doesn't bleed. The plauge left him with grey eyes, not the customary blue, it seemed like it took away all colour, so with his jewelry and his hair dyes, he gives himself life and pizzaz. Trade/Job: Blacksmith Other: He has a quick mind and as soon as he came down with the plauge, he isolated himself from his family and attended himself, he refused to die, and his stubborness prevailed, he survived the plauge with only the trees around him. Funnily enough, it's only humans that are affected by the disease, the trees and animals were perfectly fine as they gathered around him to see. He studied himself and several of the bodies that were left when he came back to his villiage in the trees. He learned that the plauge attacked the blood, mutating it and making it like electrical signals, read by the nerves, and drowning them, sufficiently killing them, that's why people lost limbs and hair. He returned to find his sister, the only to survive the change in the winds, his family dead and madness creeping through the village. He took up his sister and fled, wandering now from place to place seaching for food and gathering what tools they can. Name: Ataira (Tai) Norther Age: 21 Home: A village near the ruins of the Gates of Heaven Physical Description: Tall, and long-limbed, and as thin as most plague survivors, Tai looks like she's been stretched out. The sickness has touched her at least a half-dozen times, dragging all the colour and all the softness out of her; her skin's bone-white, pulled taut over sharp bones and wiry muscles, and her face is so thin and sharp it's almost triangular under a dirty, messy, tangled crown of once-auburn, now dull black hair. The only bits of her that couldn't pass for already dead are her plague-blue eyes, their colour intensified by each bout of disease. Large and curious as a baby's, they seem far too big for her shrunken face. Trade/Job: Barfly / general hired hand Other: Tai's village is the closest place to the Gates of Heaven that people still live in. As a result they're pretty used to the plague, and the ghosts that come from the ruins. It used to be that the braver people from the village would go and loot them (Tai's gone a few times), but in the past few years they've stopped doing that. Largely since they've stopped coming back. Name: Marius of the Agony of the Gods Age: 20 Home: Silent Sea Trade/Job: Priest Physical Description: Marius is bald and has eyes so dark a blue they are almost black. He stands at about 5'11. The left side of his ribcage, his lower back, right hip, and the back of his right thigh are marked with the scars of the pox. Although his musculature is good, his immune system was severely affected by the pox, and he looks pale and sickly. Other: The Silent Sea was once the home of the Order Of Renunciation, which trained young men and women for the priesthood and sent their finest new ordained priests to the Cathedral. However, after the slaughter at the Cathedral, the Order of Renunciation renounced their old name and duty, becoming the Order of the Agony of the Gods. Their quest was to chronicle everything they could about the Cataclysm and to protect and maintain records of the great civilization that was quickly being eradicated by war and later plague. Today, although the gods have long since been destroyed, the priests and priestesses of the Order of the Agony of the Gods await their rebirth, believing that when the gods come again they will eradicate the plague from the land. Name: Derrick Maluse Age: 22 Home: Tang Mines Trade/Job: Miner/Wild Catter Physical Description: It is said that when Derrick was born, his mother died from fright and his father from outright shock. To call this man ugly is an understatement as vast as calling the plaque the daily flu. It is as though the Gods smashed his body with a sledghammer and used super-glu to fix him like putting a puzzle together with pieces in the wrong places, and/or reversed entirely. Furthermore, compounding his hideousness, is his outright size. Skirting 6 inches under 5 feet, he is often mistaken for a dwarf. A redeeming value for him is that even though he is ugly, his face is perfectly symmetrical. Other: Before the fall of the kingdom, the Tang Mines were a place where military diserters, and political prisoners were kept. Once the kingdom fell, the prisoners took over the mines and have operated it along strict military lines ever since. Name: Marguerite Alasdere Age: 23 Home: Fire Berry Mts Physical Description: Just a little taller than average. She has an athletic and graceful build. Rusty-red hair that falls just past her shoulders, dark green eyes that notice everything. Untouched by the plague, Marguerite's skin is deeply tanned from a lifetime in the sun. Job/Trade: Princess Other: Marguerite is the kind of person who makes friends everywhere she goes. These friends have taught her at least a little bit about a great many topics. * * * Oh, yeah, and I've finally remembered to put in the link to the forum!
Welcome to the Kingless Land!
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 KC is a teacher now! Name: Dmitri Pavel's Son Age: 25 Home: Whispering Cliffs Trade/Job: Baker Physical Description: Dmitri is 5 ft, 6 and a quarter inches tall, and roughly 130 pounds. He's survived three bouts of the plague, the last depriving him of his right eye. His remaining eye is a light brown and his hair has turned a peculiar shade of bluish-purple, a reflection of the plague scars covering most of his body. As a Baker, Dmitri is stronger than he looks. He labors in the heat from well before the sun rises until late in the afternoon so that his village will have bread to eat. Fighting the tough dough has toughened his upper body, giving him strong muscles to carry out his trade. Other: Whispering Cliffs is organized as a communal village. Everyone works to support everyone else. Babies are watched by one or two while the rest toil in the fields or fish or any of the other thousand or so little tasks to support the population. There are no other villages or towns around for miles and miles, until the coast, a day's fast journey away. * * * Dmitri watched the flames rise. It was Burn Day, when all the dead from the latest strike of the plague were reduced to ashes. He felt cold, even standing so close to the pyre, hollow, numb even. It was spring, or close to it. Warm air blew in from the sea, bringing rain, but a welcome end to the unusually cool winter. Except - except this year he faced spring alone. And he could not cry. The tears just would not come. Penda would have been a year in another month. A year, which was the youngest anyone had ever survived the plague. Now she would never have that chance. And neither would her mother. Ania had never successfully carried a babe to term, Penda being their first in almost six years of marriage. She had wanted this child so much! "Brother," came a soft voice at his elbow, "Please, come inside, you've been out here for hours." Dmitri at first couldn't focus on his brother-in-law's face. "I --" he began, but his mouth was too dry, he couldn't fuel the words. Lel threw a burly arm over the smaller man's shoulders. He dwarfed his brother-in-law by at least six inches but his sizeable strength was nothing to the grief which burned in his heart. There was nothing he could say or do to console Dmitri, he knew that, but from his own experience he knew better than to leave the man alone. "Come," he said, gently steering the grieving baker away from the pyre. "Come inside now. You must eat. Mourning begins tomorrow and you will need your strength." Dmitri let himself be guided indoors. He sat mechanically down at the table. The usual hustle and bustle was gone, replaced by another kind of quiet. Lel, too, had lost loved ones. His wife, gone these three years now, had just been joined by her two eldest sons and the only daughter. Chessa, her name was, always laughing and singing. Dmitri looked down at his plate without seeing it, picking up a spoon, but unable to summon the will to eat. They observed five days of mourning, days spent fasting and reflecting on the lives lost. There was a feast held on the sixth day, to celebrate those who lived still. Three years since the last attack. The plague was early. For many years they had been able to count on the five years in between attacks to rest and rebuild their population. That was no longer the case. What would it be now? "You must eat, Uncle 'Mitri," said a small voice from next to his elbow. Dmitri looked down. Young Burian, the remains of his left arm still in bandages, looked up at him earnestly from his pocked face and huge, blue eyes. They looked so solemn for one so young. Dmitri stood abruptly, walking away. He stopped with his hand on the latch, not wanting to return to his own, empty house of memories. "You are welcome to stay." That was Lel's voice, but Dmitri didn't turn. His body felt frozen in place and he sucked in lungfuls of air as he waited, the unshed tears burning behind his eye. His hand went to his face and massaged the new scar idly. If only Ania hadn't been so intent on nursing him back to health! If only he'd been stronger when the time came to care for her himself. He'd only just managed to hold onto her as the fever burned her up just as surely as the pyre outside. "It's not your fault," said Lel slowly, in an eerie echo of Dmitri's thoughts. "It's the plague. Ania was just too weak, she --" "Don't!" Dmitri shouted, whirling around so fast he almost lost his balance. His hands clenched into fists as he glared at his brother-in-law. "Don't say it! Don't say she wasn't - wasn't worth it!" His throat closed up on him, but Dmitri gasped for the breath to force it out. "How could I have - have just toss - tossed her aside? I loved her!" Lel flinched. It was true, what Dmitri said. The whole village had been thinking it. Why didn't the man take a second wife, one who could bear children? One who wasn't so sickly and could add to the prosperity of the village? Dmitri's breads were well-known. He could easily have traded for the goods to gift to prospective in-laws, just as he had those many years past won his way into Lel's heart. "She was Alina's sister," Lel reminded the grief-stricken man, "which made her my sister, too. I raised her after her parents died. I know what you're going through." True, Dmitri admitted to himself, he'd helped Lel cope with the loss of Alina three years ago. Still, their marriage had been of amiable friends, not the all-consuming love that had filled Dmitri's home. Since he'd met Ania, he hadn't been able to imagine a day without her. And now? Dmitri hung his head, his body slumping in sorrow and exhaustion. "I know you have suffered more than I, my brother, I apologize. Ania was my life. Who was I to deny her the one thing she wanted more than anything?" He barely noticed when Lel grabbed him by the shoulder to keep him from falling. The older, larger man helped Dmitri to a bed and pulled off his shoes to ease his way to sleep. Lel couldn't sleep, himself. He felt the loss of his children deeply, though they'd gone quicker into the next world than Ania had; he'd had longer to mourn. He checked to make sure little Burian was in bed asleep before he crawled into his own, to lay awake listening to the crackling of the pyre outside. Dmitri tossed and turned restlessly. In his dreams he heard bells ringing and he was running through an endless field of flowers, trying to find her, trying to get to his Ania, for she needed him and called to him. In his dream, though, she didn't wear a hood and had long, gleaming blonde hair cascading down her back. She'd always loved Dmitri's hair, embarrassed over her own baldness, though it was a common condition. He reached out to her, smiling in his own happiness to see something that would bring her so much joy - only to reel back in horror as his beloved turned on him, changing into some kind of hideous, fanged monster and striking at him with clawed hands. "Ay-eah!" he shouted, flinging himself away and awake, but feeling the burning pain in his chest and stomach as the claws sliced through flesh. Lel was down the hall and in the other room in an instant, flinging away sleep with practiced ease. But his feet took him to where Dmitri was, not Burian. He yanked open the door without thinking, gasping as he saw his brother-in-law trussed up in blankets on the floor and staring at the blood streaming between his fingers. "Redes are often subtle . . . and dangerous -- you may think they mean one thing when they mean something else altogether," cautioned Gavril soon after. He unscrewed a jar of paste and sniffed it. Dmitri scowled at the healer. "Talk sense, old man!" he growled. "How can my dreams do this?" "I dare say that someone's trying to get your attention," said the healer wryly, scooping up some paste to spread on the baker's wounds. "What else do you remember?" "Just what I told you!" Dmitri snapped. "Augh, that stings!" Gavril gave the younger man a withering stare. "Bells and flowers are pretty far removed from a monster. Where were you?" Dmitri hissed as the healer dabbed more of his paste on the oozing cuts. He'd lost a lot of blood before Lel had returned with the healer and wasn't too sure he was speaking clearly and that this wasn't also part of his dream. Except, he could definitely feel Lel's worried gaze from across the room. "Just a field, with blue flowers," Dmitri answered through his clenched jaw. "I could hear bells ringing and I was chasing Ania toward the stones." "Stones?" echoed Gavril in surprise. "What kind of stones? Sighing with relief as the paste began to soothe away the pain, Dmitri said, "I dunno, big ones, piled on top of a hill." Gavril put away his paste and grabbed a roll of bandages from his bag. "Well, I sh --" He stopped in midsentence as his patient closed his eyes and toppled over sideways. Lel was at his side in an instant. "Dmitri? Dmitri! Gavril, he's not breathing!" "Get out of my way, you big lummox," said the healer, pushing the big farmer off to the side. He bent down close to him, listening intently for sounds of breathing. It was then, bent over with his ear close to Dmitri's mouth, that the healer heard the words: "When silver bells sing while blue bells grow .." something something, he wasn't sure what that was, then, "And if you should fall, remember you almost had it all...." Soccie Name: Kiera StantsAge: 23 Home: Blue grass plains Trade/Job: Artist Physical Description: Kiera has long chestnut hair that falls to her waist. Her growth has been stunted becuase of the plague, so instead of being 6 feet tall like she was supposed to grow, she is only 4 feet tall. She weighs only 94 pounds because the last bout of the plague drained her. Her eyes are a golden yellow, for reasons unknown, because they have always been that way. She is very skinny and because she is so underweight, her bones show through her skin. Her wrist is broken because of the effects of the plague also. Other: Her village has many survivors and when plague strikes, they hide in the underground hut of holiness. All the rest must try to survive and when the plague has run it's course, the bodies are taken to the ritual house and burned. Kiera stared at the wide expanse of grass laid before her. It would be so beautiful to paint, if only her wrist wasn't broken. She sighed. "Well, I best put the supper on the table, Martin will be hungry." She wandered back into the small cabin just as Martin walked in the door. "Welcome home Martin." She happily cried. "Ahh, my wife." he responded. They both hugged quickly and then Kiera got to cooking. "If you don't mind," Martin said, " I'd like to see Rose." "She was pronounced dead this morning." Kiera solemnly responded, "they said that the plague hit her harder then it did the other children." Kiera started to sob. Martin quickly picked her up and carried her to the couch and set her down lightly. She slowly drifted off, fast asleep. He opened a window to let a breeze in and then heard a whisper. "And if you should fall, remember you almost had it all... Don't forget....Death's wind shall blow once more when spring comes upon the land ... and then the unity will break" Martin absorbed the words and then sprinted to shut the window. As he went back to the kitchen, his mind was filled with very disturbing thoughts. Who would be next? Their daughter was already dead, who would be the next? KC is a teacher now! Dmitri stared out at the sunrise. He shivered under his cloak, watching the colors spill over the surface of the ocean far below. He rubbed blood-shot eyes and took a sip of his tea. The wind on the cliffs were light today, merely ruffling Dmitri's long hair where it had fallen free of the restraining clasp. It was the beginning of the Second Day of Mourning, the first having passed in silence unbroken by tears or the spoken word. This day heralded the Third Day of Mourning, the day of Fasting. Dmitri would not cook this day. The Third Day of Mourning was observed with ritual, the ancient prayers to be said at noon, accompanied by the intricate dance. It was a complicated ritual, and one that implored the ancient gods to return to guide their people. On the Fourth Day, they would fast again. On the Fifth Day, each individual lost would be remembered by those who remained. Dmitri had not decided what he wanted to say. He had two people to Remember: his wife, Ania, and their daughter, Penda. Chessa, Lel's daughter, might have helped him craft an appropriate eulogy, but she was dead now, too. Lel had to speak for three of his family, now dead. Dmitri was sure that he would be able to give a long enough speech to set Ania's spirit to rest and pay her the honor to which she deserved, but he dreaded the end of Mourning. After would come Celebration Day, where he would be expected to bake cakes and sweets and sing and dance and .. laugh. Tears prickled in Dmitri's eyes, but still would not fall. He didn't think he would ever be able to smile again. And laugh? Why was it that no one else seemed as filled with sorrow as he did? Why was everyone telling him that he must move on? Work, they said, mourn now, so that you may again be happy. Did they not understand? Ania was gone! It was if someone had carved out a piece of his heart; his chest was hollow, and empty inside. A small sound caught his attention, pulling him from his melancholy thoughts just as completely as if he'd been struck. What was that? That ringing? It was beautiful and sad and seemed to come from up the coast. But as soon as Dmitri sought it out, the ringing faded. He stood on the cliffside, facing north, captivated by the sound, somehow calling to him. He remembered then the monster that still shadowed his dreams, chasing him through a meadow of blue flowers. What had Gavril told him he'd said? While being treated for the demon-sent injuries, Dmitri had whispered a few words that Gavril had instantly declared as heaven-sent and told him he must find out the answer. They had no priest, had had no one to intercede for the people of Whispering Cliffs in many generations, but Gavril insisted that someone had spoken through Dmitri and he must go wherever or do whatever the mysterious person had instructed. Dmitri wasn't sure, himself. How did he know it wasn't the monster, trying to lure him in and destroy him? "The demon wouldn't be after you if Heaven didn't need you for something - something important," Gavril had insisted. They hadn't spoken at all yesterday, due to the mourning traditions. Today, Dmitri was sure, Gavril would be after him to see what more he had learned ... as if the bread oven had the power to explain everything. Dmitri sighed and turned to give the new day a last, lingering look. He would go and help Lel break ground for the new spring's planting. Hopefully, the work would leave him too tired for dreams. Tileira Name: Anglis GliscanAge: 22 Home: Icy Rim Physical Description: He stands just shy of 6foot with shoulder-length dark hair. He has survived two bouts of plague, the first mutating the pigments in his eyes to a brilliant, eerie green and the secind killing the nerves and muscles in his left arm, which he now wears in a sling under his coat. Trade/Job: Hunter Other: The winds from the south were once welcomed for their warmth, but the sickness that comes with it has destroyed the villages of the Icy Rim. Anglis lives alone, wandering between the tiny villages, selling his meat and furs and generally trying to stay away from anywhere the infection has settled. Every time he sees the smoke rising he turns aside and changes course with a heavy heart. The first bout of plague left another scar: at first his short-term memory was damaged, then later he began to forget where he was or what he was doing. Now it has also taken a turn to occassional blackouts. In the Icy Rim it was cold. Villages were small and compact, families keeping close together to share fuel and warmth. Villages were wiped out quickly by the plague. The bodies would lie until the fires went out and the snow and ice would creep in. In the darker months they would be frozen quickly, eerily preserving everything. Including the plague itself. Wanderers and traders had to be careful not only of avoiding these villages, but of wary customers. Denien watched his ‘patient’ carefully. That fool of fisherman had thrown a harpoon at Gliscan: one of their regular visitors. The man had survived two bouts of plague already, one of which he had caught in this very port. He was also one of the worst patients Denien had ever had. It wasn’t that Gliscan was violent, or stubborn, or whiny. He barely ever spoke a word, and ashamed as Denien was to admit it those eyes unnerved him. Particularly the way that Gliscan could stare at nothing for hours. In any case, luckily the weapon had struck the dead left arm and although it wasn’t healing, the wound was also minor. No. The main reason that Gliscan was being kept under Denien’s care was because of the blackouts. The fisherman had been terrified that he had killed their hunter when Gliscan collapsed. It happened again while Denien was treating him. People were afraid that he had brought the fever over from another village, but he wasn’t showing any signs of the plague. Of course Gliscan wasn’t volunteering any information. There was a knock at the door: a weaver fetching Denien away for a girl that had fallen in the ice and cracked her wrist. Gliscan waited for him to leave before standing. It wasn’t as though the blackouts happened anything near frequently, and they weren’t new. What was new were the dreams. Bright plains of gold, unlike anything he had ever seen. Tall standing stone hat shone in sunlight. Dark smoke, weapons, horns, war. to quench the fumes of war, seek the aid of those not men. He disliked redes. He had always thought the so called seers amongst villages to be mad, fools or charlatans. He was not a fool, and he was not a charlatan. So either he was mad or he was wrong. It was more likely madness from the plague, another development of the scar on his mind. Either way he meant to leave the Icy Rim and seek out those fields. If he was mad he needed to leave before he was found out and believed dangerous. If it truly was a rede, then those field were where he was meant to be. Virgo Name: Mordred Kaybil VanceAge: 19 Home: Magical Forest Physical Description: He is tall and strong, not burly, but well-defined (think Ryan Reynolds) and with a few more eccentricities. His hair is originally white, the colour bleached out from the plauge, but it's still thick and wavy, so he dyes it with roots and leaves, varying from pink to blue to green and various other colours he can make from plants. He's made himself jewelry and has many piercings on his ears and other places. He doesn't bleed much, the plauge adjusted his blood flow so it's not as fast as it once was, therefore he doesn't bleed. The plauge left him with grey eyes, not the customary blue, it seemed like it took away all colour, so with his jewelry and his hair dyes, he gives himself life and pizzaz. Trade/Job: Blacksmith Other: He has a quick mind and as soon as he came down with the plauge, he isolated himself from his family and attended himself, he refused to die, and his stubborness prevailed, he survived the plauge with only the trees around him. Funnily enough, it's only humans that are affected by the disease, the trees and animals were perfectly fine as they gathered around him to see. He studied himself and several of the bodies that were left when he came back to his villiage in the trees. He learned that the plauge attacked the blood, mutating it and making it like electrical signals, read by the nerves, and drowning them, sufficiently killing them, that's why people lost limbs and hair. He returned to find his sister the only to survive the change in the winds, his family dead and madness creeping through the village, he took up his sister and fled, wandering now from place to place seaching for food and gathering what tools they can. <><><><> Mordred gathered Lillya in his arms, she was still small enough to pick up as he wandered into a relatively small town, searching for an inn to stay at, though he doubted he would find one, with this thrice times cursed plauge they holed up against intruders. He felt eyes on him and he turned seeing a half-blind man watching him and his sister, his hair colour was eccentric, like Mordred's own pink today, but it looked like it grew that way. He gnawed his lip, carefully pondering his decision until he gave in and moved towards the man, "Excuse me, sir." He said, pulling his sister higher on his hip, "Do you know where there's an inn we can stay, just for a few days?" "There's one up the road." He said, his face emotionless. "Thank you." Mordred nodded his thanks and moved down the road, the man's eyes still burning into his back. <><><><><><><> Mordred was lying in the bed at the inn, the lady who owned it was grateful for the business. Lillya's breathing was hitched and heavy, she might be coming down with a cold. His eyes wandered to her bed as his vision fuzzed, he blinked trying to clear it, when a voice, loud and clear as a bell sidled through his head... "Hear..." The room was dark and Lillya's heavy breathing surrounded him, "Bwothew..." She sounded croaky, "Brother, help." Her eyes were blue as she stared at him, the black-blue patches on her skin stood out starkly, "Bwothew!" "Lillya!" He took her into his arms and held her tightly, "No, nononono. Please." He whispered. "Listen!" That voice from before, indistinct whispering came to him, until words formed from them, "...Else evil triumphant will ascend and rule forevermore.... and if you should fall, remember, you almost had it all..." Mordred's eyes flew open and he looked into his sister pale pink eyes, her black hair mussed from sleep, "Bwothew? Awe you otay?" Her voice was small and hoarse, she was only six years old, already lost her parents. He hugged her, petting her hair as she buried her face in his chest, "I love you Lillya." He said into her hair. "I wuv you too bwothew." She replied, "Can I sleep wif you tonight? I'm scawed." "Yes, you may, come on." He helped her into his bed and he curled around her protectively, his mind churning over the words he had heard, "... Evil triumphant, evermore..." KC is a teacher now! Once voiced aloud, Dmitri couldn't get the words out of his head. Lel was unhelpful in that respect, only suggesting he go speak to Gavril, the very last thing Dmitri wanted to do. The healer was a strange old man, half-cazy most of the time, and way too much of a gossip. Were it not for the Mourning, Dmitri was sure that the story of the "Crazy Baker" would be known up and down the coast. But with dawn came the start of Celebration Day. . . . Dmitri sat on Lel's porch and drank his tea as the sun went down. He was tired, but didn't want to go to bed just yet. Monsters still haunted his sleep, always chasing him across that field of flowers while bells rang somewhere in the distance. Little Burian sat beside him, quietly eating his supper and drinking his milk. He looked up, feeling his uncle's gaze, and smiled. "What'cha thinking, Uncle 'Mitri?" "You look like your mother," Dmitri answered softly. "I was thinking of her - and -" "Aunt Ania?" Dmitri nodded. "Yes." "That was a nice speech, ever'one says so." "I am glad you thought so. What else does everyone say?" The youngster frowned at him and shrugged. "I'm only a kid, Uncle 'Mitri," he scolded. Dmitri hugged him. "So you are, Burian, so you are." "So, are you going to go?" "Go where?" "I dunno. Papa said you're leaving." The little boy looked at him anxiously. "I don't want you to go." Dmitri took a gulp of tea. "I don't want to, either, Burian, but the Gods don't always give you a choice." "That means you're leaving?" "Well, I hadn't really thought about it, kiddo, but, yeah, I guess I am. I'll come back, though --" "Promise?" "I promise that I will do everything I can do to come back. Beyond that, well, I don't know, but I'll try." He thought a moment, then decided to tell the child. "You see, I've been sent a message from the Gods." As the child stared at him in awe and excitement at the coming tale, Dmitri thought, I sure hope it's Gods and not Demons .... Tileira Gliscan was used to navigating by the wind. In the Icy Rim the wind almost always came from the west, and when it did not, you could smell the pyres on the southern wind. However, it did not help when the wind you were navigating by was blowing your boat off course. Neither was it particularly easy to sail with only one functioning arm.He was sailing south-east to the Blue Grass Plains. It was best to try and island-hop in a small craft than attempt to take the whole journey in one go. It took a few days and nights of little rest and a heavy anchor. He finally saw land ahead of him, and aimed for the beaches on the north side of the Blue Grass Plains. He dragged his boat up onto the sand, pulling out his pack. He would have to abandon the craft here. It wasn’t heavy, but he couldn’t pull it over land alone. He would need to buy a new one on the southern coast. From there he planned to sail to Dante’s Peak once he found out where it was he was going. With that he began to walk south-wards and towards the distant town. Virgo Mordred yawned loudly as he woke, the warm weight on his chest stirring as he stretched."Go back sleep, bwoth..." Lillya opened sleepy pink eyes and glared at him as he laughed at her. "No Lil, we gotta get going, and soon too..." The words from last night returned to his once more, perhaps he would seek the diviner of the villiage, or at least the healer to check Lillya for a cold. "Up, up! Come on Lillya, rise and shine." "No." Lillya tried to borrow further under the blankets, but Mordred caught her ankles and tugged her from beneath them, setting her upright. "Lillya." He warned softly and she sighed. "Awight, fine, m'up." She stretched and gathered her things for a bath as Mordred got dressed and pulled his pink hair from his face in a tail. "Lillya." She looked up at him as she clambered out of the tub and dried herself, "We're going to see the healer today, see if you're coming down with something." As if the plauge wasn't enough. He thought, picking her up after she was dressed and gathering their things. "Bwo..." "Brother." Mordred interrupted, "You need to use the 'r' instead of 'w'." He glanced at her. "B... Brother," She said carefully, "You didn't sleep last night. Felt you kicking lots." "Rough night." He replied, knocking on the door that a townsperson pointed him to, "Excuse me? Healer Gavin?" An elderly gentleman opened the door, peering at Mordred and his sister, "What do you need?" He asked. "I'd like you to check my sister for a cold or the flu, she's been breathing funny, if you will." Mordred pushed a bit of hair from his eyes, showing his many adornments all down his ear. "Mmm..." The healer looked at him disapprovingly, but opened the door nonetheless, "Come on..." Mordred entered, setting Lillya down and pushing her towards the old man, "Be nice" He said sharply, "Don't kick, bite, claw, or hit him.... And don't, in any way, hurt him, got it?" He added as an afterthought. Lillya sighed in disappointment and followed the healer dutifully as he checked her over. "So, she doesn't like healers, eh?" Gavin asked him. "Not since our village in the Forest was wiped out. Our healer, she used to like him lots, tried to kill her, since then, it's been a struggle." Mordred said, absently stroking her hair. "Which village? The one in the trees or on the ground in the outskirts of the forest?" Gavin asked, his eyes gleaming for gossip. "The trees, most didn't die, they were diven mad, and Lillya here was the only one that got away with her life and her sanity. Well, her and me, we got away and we haven't stopped travelling." Mordred looked up at the old man with a shrug, "So goes life, my mother used to say, so goes life." "And so it does, traveller." Gavin said, "It seems like you sister has a slight case of the head-cold I'll give you something for it... ah! Dmitri! Hand me those leaves there, good of you to come... yes, good..." The old man puttered about, ordering the newcomer about, as Mordred watched. "Gavin..." Dmitri said, "My wounds..." "And they'll need rebandaging before you leave. Reapplication of the healing herbs..." "You're leaving?" Mordred inquired, "Mayhap you can come with my sister and I, it'd be nice to have some company, and three is better than two or one even." Dmitri looked at him speculatively, "Perhaps..." "Ah but you see, Dmitri has been sent on a mission of the Gods! He's had a dream and he's gone to fulfill it." Gavin said, a twinkle in his eye. "Mordred's been dreaming too, he talks in his sleep." Lillya said, crawling into his lap and cuddling up against him. "Lillya, it was just a dream." Mordred reprimanded. "But you were talking funny, didn't sound normal." She shook her head to emphasize her point, "Evil, evermowe or somefing like that." Kai Magpies Name: Ataira (Tai) NortherAge: 21 Home: A village near the ruins of the Gates of Heaven Physical Description: Tall, and long-limbed, and as thin as most plague survivors, Tai looks like she's been stretched out. The sickness has touched her at least a half-dozen times, dragging all the colour and all the softness out of her; her skin's bone-white, pulled taut over sharp bones and wiry muscles, and her face is so thin and sharp it's almost triangular under a dirty, messy, tangled crown of once-auburn, now dull black hair. The only bits of her that couldn't pass for already dead are her plague-blue eyes, their colour intensified by each bout of disease. Large and curious as a baby's, they seem far too big for her shrunken face. Trade/Job: Barfly / general hired hand Other: Tai's village is the closest place to the Gates of Heaven that people still live in. As a result they're pretty used to the plague, and the ghosts that come from the ruins. It used to be that the braver people from the village would go and loot them (Tai's gone a few times), but in the past few years they've stopped doing that. Largely since they've stopped coming back. *** His name was Jonathan, or so he said; nobody really cared whether it was true or not, as long as his money was good. He was the first traveller that'd come through this forsaken place in a long time. And, like most people do when it's getting towards the dark end of twilight and it's raining outside and there's nothing for them anywhere else, he'd ended up in the inn and discovered Tai sitting alone, drunker than she looked. They'd struck up a conversation, and he'd asked about the ruins of the Gates of Heaven - because there was really no other reason why an intelligent person like him would want to come to this place; the last outpost of life on the fringes of the place of the dead. So she'd told him. With a few drinks in her, Tai was a fantastic story-teller, and Jonathan sat with eyes widened by alcohol and interest as she told him what she knew of the ruins. She told him how she found it ironic that her very best memories were of the few, daring, terrifying, mercilessly thrilling scavenging-runs she and her brother Iain and her childhood sweetheart - who she declined to name - had made, as far as they dared into the ghost-town. You'd only dare to go in the brightness of the sunshine, and even then the ghosts would be lurking, sobbing, in the shadows; so in summer, when you covered yourself entirely because not even the air was to be trusted in that dead place, you sweated and burned and sweltered and swore but you never sought out the shade until you were back in places where living things could be. Jonathan bought her another drink, and Tai explained how in this place, the wind from the north-west doesn't just bring the plague from the ruined Gates; it brings with it all the wraiths who couldn't pass through. All the dead of the world... the ghosts of the plague victims, and those dead in the violence that follows, those who die nobly and badly and painfully and thankfully and the tiny infant ghosts who died before they could even live; you'd hear them, sobbing at your door, and sometimes you'd see them too. The first time Tai had seen them (she explained, accepting another drink from Jonathan), she'd been seven years old, in the grip of a plague-fever, and convinced she'd die; but the next day the sickness had lost interest in her and killed her baby sister instead. Since then she'd learned that it was only when they touched you - when you felt their icy fingers stroking your disease-torn face - when you heard their silent voices call you by your name - that you knew, for sure, that you were doomed. She knew all this because her husband had described it to her, three weeks after their wedding, in a rare moment of lucidity while he'd been dying on a blood-stinking bed as the north wind rapped ceaselessly on their door and the wraiths moaned and sobbed and stroked his pretty face with their cold fingers. "He brought the plague back from the ruins," Tai said, after a pause to angrily scrub the tears out of her eyes. "He never let me go there once we were engaged, because there are a thousand and seven ways to die in that haunted wreckage, but it used to be a good way to make money. He was the last person to come back... and he brought back a present for me, and the plague for himself. Which," she added with a dash of bitter, caustic and entirely inappropriate humour, "he was good enough to share with me, as well. He died. I didn't, much." "What was he called?" Jonathan signalled for yet another drink, noticing hers was nearly empty, slightly worried by the casual way she tossed it back. Tai turned a sad blue gaze on him. "We don't name the dead," she said bleakly. "Not when they come knocking on your door every damn time the wind comes from the north-west." "Oh... oh, I'm sorry..." "It's okay," she said bravely. "We're used to death around here. The entire world is dead, up where the Gates of Heaven used to be - even birds don't fly over that place anymore." Tai took a long, shuddering breath, held it, and continued in a more normal tone - at least, as normal as her gravelly, grating voice would ever sound. "And it was a long time ago. Three years... and since then not one person who's gone there has come back. Which is why you had better go back to wherever your home is, and not take the road to the north-west." Jonathan risked a smile. "How did you know that was my plan?" "Why else come to this hell-hole? Haunted places always draw treasure-seekers. I know, I was one. And it used to be worth it but trust me it isn't now. Nobody has come back for three years. Please don't go there." Tai put her empty pint mug down on the bar a little too hard. "Please! You'll only die for nothing. Like... like my..." her hand went to the pendant hanging around her neck; the present he'd brought her, the last thing but the plague to come from the ruins of that cursed place. She gripped it so tight her hand hurt, but her eyes were stinging more as the tears began to well forth. Jonathan looked at the barmaid in helpless worry. "Will she be alright?" "Tai generally ends up like this once a week or so," the barmaid replied heavily. "Tip her over by the fire, let her sleep it off. Come on, I'll help you." Between the two of them, they manoevered the sobbing Tai into a more-or-less comfortable position on the worn rug by the low fire. The barmaid arranged a blanket over the curled, crying figure, and stroked her limp black hair away from her face with weary compassion. "You know where your room is?" She asked Jonathan. "Yes." He paused. "Should I... is she right about the ruins? Are they that dangerous?" "It's certainly true that nobody's come back for years. Ask anyone here and they'll give you the same advice she did. Stay away, that place is haunted. It's..." she shook her head, lacking the words to express the deep revulsion she felt. "It's a bad place." "Well... thank you. Goodnight." "Sleep well." The barmaid turned back to Tai, sobbing herself slowly into drunken dreams. "And you," she murmured to the younger woman, adjusting the blanket and leaving her alone by the low, hissing fire. Tai dreams, and she does not like what she sees in her dream. Then again, she rarely does. In her dream, Tai is sitting in the looming skeleton of the Cathedral. She's never been there, waking, though she's seen it, and been afraid of its size and emptiness and menacing aura. It has no roof anymore, and the frowning overcast sky is pressing down on the soaring walls as though it wishes to bring the place down on Tai's head. There are fragments of gorgeously-coloured glass littering the floor; pieces that were once in the windows. Maybe they were pieces of angels, saints, gods... who'll ever know, now? They are shattered, and cannot be remade. Someone is speaking, although Tai is alone here. A young girl's voice, high and clear; it's not so much speaking as singing. It's a beautiful voice. Once upon a time, Tai had a voice a little like that. Was it really that lovely to listen to? She cannot recall anymore. The girl is speaking nonsense, her words are butterflies that die the moment they hit the poisoned air of this bad place, to lie beautiful in death among the fragments of angels and gods on the broken ground. But now the dead butterflies join in, the words are still nonsense but somehow the nonsense makes dream-logical-sense, and Tai knows she'll remember these words because they're terribly important to someone. The girl's visible now as she speaks the important nonsense, speaking along with the dead butterflies and broken angels in her wonderful singing voice. "Else you will fail to find the jaded soul. Else you will. Fail to find! The soul, jaded... the jaded soul, else you will fail to find. Fail, to find the jaded soul - else you will." She blinks, and the dead butterflies dance briefly before remembering that the dead aren't supposed to do that. "Else you will fail," she repeats, sadness weighing down her young girl's words like tons of stone. "Else you will fail to find the jaded soul..." Something's happening here. The little girl - she has hair as auburn and as curly as Tai once had - is growing, ageing; her eyes shift from bright chestnut to plague-blue, the colour deepening with each attack. Tai watches, helpless, sickened, as her own young self is torn and ripped by the plague's iron claws five... six... seven times, and her unspeakably beautiful voice becomes rough and gravelly and strained... and in the throes of the eighth time, she spits out words that are blood on Tai's hands. "And if you should fall... remember, you almost had it all." Tai would cry if she could move. The girl - no, woman - she's facing now has finally ceased moving after the ninth attack of the terrible disease. Her skin lies in tatters around her and her hair is gone; her eyes are the blue of the blind; only her thin, dead lips move to spell out a few final words. "...I almost had it all..." Tai has to lean in close to catch her own parting phrase. "I was only twenty-one when I died." The butterflies flap their gorgeous dead wings once, and are still. Andante {b]Name Marius of the Agony of the GodsAge: 20 Home: Silent Sea Trade/Job: Priest Physical Description: Marius is bald and has eyes so dark a blue they are almost black. He stands at about 5'11. The left side of his ribcage, his lower back, right hip, and the back of his right thigh are marked with the scars of the pox. Although his musculature is good, his immune system was severely affected by the pox, and he looks pale and sickly. Other: The Silent Sea was once the home of the Order Of Renunciation, which trained young men and women for the priesthood and sent their finest new ordained priests to the Cathedral. However, after the slaughter at the Cathedral, the Order of Renunciation renounced their old name and duty, becoming the Order of the Agony of the Gods. Their quest was to chronicle everything they could about the Cataclysm and to protect and maintain records of the great civilization that was quickly being eradicated by war and later plague. Today, although the gods have long since been destroyed, the priests and priestesses of the Order of the Agony of the Gods await their rebirth, believing that when the gods come again they will eradicate the plague from the land. *** "Come boy, don't dawdle!" The Precept’s voice seemed unusually loud as it echoed down the cold stone halls, sounding as dry and crackly as the ancient scrolls he so prized. Coughing in the dusty Archival Chamber, Marius carefully reached for the last book on the table and placed it on the top of the towering pile he already held in his other arm. Then, moving slowly but steadily to balance the numerous scrolls, leather-bound books, and loose leaflets, he made his way down the hall toward the impatient Precept. The flickering torchlight bounded on and off the walls, at one moment illuminating scenes of the gods performing their sacred Arts, and the next casting them into deep shadow. Marius’s own shadow was like a great monster, leaning back awkwardly with a thick, sinewy head--which was, of course, nothing more than the chronicles the young man carried. The hallway between the Archival Chamber and the Precept’s office was only about a hundred feet long, but it seemed like it took an eternity for the young priest to traverse it. But eventually he arrived at his destination, and leaned forward to place the records on the Precept’s desk. The books and scrolls fell in a heap to the ground, and Marius fell with them, landing hard and not moving. Eyes wide, the old Precept jumped up and limped to the young man’s side. “Marius, lad?” There was no response. He lay a hand upon the priest’s chest and to his horror did not feel the beat of his heart. “Brother Selbert!” he cried, and the old physician came hobbling in with his cane. “Do your legs pain you, Precept?” Brother Selbert asked as he rounded the corner. The man was covered from head to foot in pox scars, but his eyes were sound; he took in the scene at once and knelt beside Marius, feeling for his pulse. “He’s alive,” the old man breathed after a moment. “What happened?” The Precept did not get a chance to answer, for at that moment Marius began speaking in a weak, almost hypnotic voice. “Where fell the final blow; life once more will spring.” The young man was reduced to incoherent mumbling for a moment, and then his words took on a semblance of meaning once again and he said, “and if you should fall, remember you almost had it all." The Precept and Brother Selbert stared at one another in surprise. “What in the world?” the Precept asked, eyes wide. KC is a teacher now! Gavril stared at the little girl. She stared back. His gaze focused on the crazy-haired wanderer. "What did she say? What did you say? In the dream, I mean." "Nothing - it was nothing!" Mordred protested, glaring at his sister. "Don't be ridiculous!" Gavril snapped, then, without turning his head, "Come back over here, Dmitri, and take off your shirt." Dmitri, trying to nonchalantly edge out the door, halted. He might have blushed, it was hard to tell under the peculiar color of his face, but he mumbled something and made a gesture towards the strangers. "It's okay," said Mordred, correctly interpreting the mumbling, combined with the rather pained expression on the one-eyed man's face. "We're just leaving." "No you don't!" howled the healer. "You, sit," he ordered Dmitri, "There's no sense in being shy, you'll be traveling with these two when you leave." "What?" the two men shouted. Lillya quietly smothered her giggles as the three men shouted at one another. When there was finally a break in all the commotion, she pointed at the door and said, slowly and carefully, "I'll just wait outside." Mordred nodded and off she went. "Stay close," he added. "Now, Dmitri," said Gavril, "sit down and take off your shirt." Grimacing, the former baker hauled off his shirt and perched awkwardly on the stool by the healer's workshop. "Hand me that pile of bandages there, Mordred," said the healer, unscrewing a jar of thick, goey, yellow paste. He set it aside and began to unwind the blood-soaked bandages from Dmitri's torso. There were not many places not bluish-purple on Dmitri's body, but the bright-red blood seemed to glow in the light of the lanterns. Mordred, turning around, whistled as he saw the jagged cuts. "Those're some marks!" He frowned. "Something around here does that?" Dmitri and Gavril both shook their heads. "He was attacked in his dreams," Gavril explained, "by a demon." He gave Mordred a piercing stare. "Now tell me what you heard." But Mordred was staring at the oozing wounds. "How long ago did that happen?" he asked instead. "Evening of Last Day," Dmitri answered. "We had the Celebration yesterday, you must have noticed as you came in, so that would make it six days ago." "Shouldn't they be healing by now?" Mordred asked uneasily. "Yes," said Gavril, "but don't think you can escape your fate so easily." "What?" The healer waggled a finger at him, "Don't think I don't know what you're thinking," he chuckled. "You want as little to do with this quest as Dmitri here does. Too bad, you're stuck with it. Both of you are," he glared as Dmitri opened his mouth to protest. Gavril continued, "Dmitri is packed up and will be leaving as soon as we're done here. You should go with him, traveller Mordred. Leave your sister here, she'll be safer. Lel can look after her, he's got a son only a bit older than she is." "No, no I couldn't!" Dmitri grunted as Gavril began to smear paste over his cuts, thus sparing Mordred another of Gavril's glares. "Do sit still!" he snapped. "Just how do you expect to apply this without help? If these get infected, you're toast. Now, I've packed up a stack of extra bandages and you'll take one of these jars with you," Gavril continued, wiping his hands and screwing the lid back on tightly. "You," he said to Mordred, "make sure he cleans the bandages every night and reapplies them every morning." "But I'm not --" began Mordred weakly. The healer speared him with a disgusted look as he began to wrap bandages around Dmitri. "You're going. Together. Fine, don't tell me about the riddle, it's not like I can help you, anyway!" He sighed. "Just go, both of you, it's safer that way." Arms filled with Gavril's packages, Dmitri said to Mordred, once they were safely outside, "You don't have to come with me, you know." Mordred grimaced. "I know." "To be honest," said Dmitri, "I'm not entirely sure why I'm going, but I'll tell you what. Come break your fast with my brother and I, and we can discuss it." Tileira Gliscan paused. This was the fourth town he had encountered so far. He had seen the pyres burning in the other, and while there were none here, he could taste the ash in the air. He hesitated a moment before heading into town. He still hadn’t talked to anyone yet and needed to find out some clue as to where and what those standing stones were. He didn’t much fancy wandering every island in the world to find out.Everywhere people were in pain. This was why he hated towns. Parents were crying, children were limping, young men were blinded, and a mad woman was being dragged out of town by what were probably her executioners. Whatever sin mankind had committed to cause this he couldn’t imagine. Any god that would inflict something like this was cruel and undeserving. He paused, observing his surroundings for a moment. He had felt something. He wasn’t quite sure what, it was more an instinct. Something important was here. Something he needed, although whatever half-thought that had preceded it had left his mind completely. Something important. He needed information on the standing stones. They weren’t here, he knew that much, but… what was it? Gliscan blinked slowly, sitting down on the side of the street. He head swam. His mind was temporarily caught on that one thought of need. He could taste the smoke in his mouth; the sickeningly familiar bitter tang that proclaimed death. He pressed his hands to the soil and attempted to stand, but they slipped in the bloody mud. A shard of broken bone scratched his palm, and he lifted it. His left hand. He turned it over curiously. This couldn’t be real but… He struggled to his feet, the stinking ooze clinging to his legs so he could hardly walk. The smoke rose up, drifting in thick clouds, making him choke. There was the whisper again, colder, more distant than before, as though it no longer understood its own message. To quench the fumes of war, seek the aid of those not men. He couldn’t breathe, the smoke was too thick and was settling as smog over the grotesque field. He pulled at his collar, pressing the cloth over his mouth to try and filter the air some. There was a slimey burble and he felt himself start to sink. He pulled his foot out of the ooze, but only sank deeper as he set it down again to free his other leg. He looked up at the silhouette in the distance. The one walking by the stones in a golden field beyond this death plain. He called out to it, but it did not respond. The whispering continued as he was dragged down. If you should fall, remember, you almost had it all. Gliscan struggled and fought to no avail. He was sinking and there was no way of pulling himself out. His arm went dead again, and there was nothing to grab or pull against. He called out to the figure again and again but it couldn’t hear him or didn’t care. He awoke with a start, bright emerald eyes connected with those of a complete stranger. That was what he needed. There was someone here. Someone else who had been sent a rede. Virgo Mordred fidgeted unomfortably in Dmitri's dining room, not quite sure what to expect from the man's family, it had been so long since he had been part of one. He sighed, relaxing as Lillya placed her hand on his arm, a reproachful look on the little girl's face. "Yes, Lillya, I'm aware that I'm fidgeting." He said, with a smile."So, Mordred, was it?" Lel said, looking over the eccentric traveller with a critical eye, "What exactly is your trade?" Mordred fidgeted more, "Blacksmith..." "You make those things yourself?" He gestured to the earrings, liprings, and nose button he wore. "Aye." Lillya laughed somewhere to his left, "Shut up, sister mine." He hissed at her. "Why did you poke holes in yourself?" Lel seemed intent on pursuing his lack of respect for his body. "I was... too monotonous without them." Mordred responded, a glint of a glare in his eye. "And what colour was your hair?" "Before or after the plauge?" "Both." "Before it was red. Crimson as the sea at sunset, and now, after, it is white..." "Perfect for making dyes and changing brother's colour, I like it, it makes me smile." Lillya jumped in, trying to protect him. Lel looked at the girl as well, his eyes narrowed, before bursting into uproarious laughter that infected the entire table, including Mordred and Lillya, "Your sister is bold and protective, I like her!" He said between bouts of laughter. "I'm kind of fond of her." Mordred replied, his mirth dying down as he ran his fingers through her hair, "Lil, would you mind staying with these people?" Lillya's giggles died down abruptly, "NO!" She crawled into Mordred's lap and clung to him, "Don't leave me! You promised!" Her cries silenced the table. "But where I'm going, I don't want to risk you." Mordred picked her up, bowing slightly, "Thank you for your hospitality, excuse us for a moment." "I don't want you to leave me." Lillya said quietly, fat tears welling up in her eyes. "Not like mommy and daddy, and uncle, and auntie, g-granna, granbabba, and... and..." She started crying, "Don't go away." "Lillya, I'm not gonna do anything like they did, promise I'll go on my quest, then come back and you can have me all to yourself again." Mordred put his forehead against hers, "I'll never leave you alone for very long, I'll be back, no doubt about that." "Pwomise?" She had reverted back to her baby talk in her fear. "I promise, and if I don't these nice people will care for you, k? And that boy inside, he's very nice, he might be able to be a brother to you in my stead." Lillya shook her head, "He's not you, Mor." "Is everything ok? Lillya? Mordred?" Lel's head peered out. "Yeah, we're fine." Mordred stood, Lillya in tow, "So, Dmitri, about this trip, where are we going exactly?" Kai Magpies When she woke up, Tai felt like she might have already died. The inn was emptying after the breakfast-time crowd had come through, leaving only a few lurkers who either couldn't or didn't want to go back outside and face whatever the world had to throw at them; the lurkers, and Tai's brother, who tried to use the guilt-trips she always went through at times like this to stop her drinking so much. But by the time she'd had one or two, she'd already forgotten how guilty she'd feel afterwards. Tai's brother was ill - not with the plague, all he had was a mundane sickness that in times without supernatural diseases stalking the land would have been terrifying but now was almost a relief. When he saw she was awake, he trembled over and passed her a bottle of water without comment."Where did Jonathan go?" Tai asked, once most of the water had gone towards soothing the nausea that lurked maliciously in her throat. "He took the north-west road," Iain replied. "He's dead then. Idiot." She struggled upright, wincing as the stubborn stiffness in her neck and back made itself known. "Iain, do you believe in gods?" "Yes, and we've had this argument before... can't we just agree to disagree?" "No, it's not that." In the harsh light of day streaming through the open windows, the dream seemed as insubstantial as fog - nothing you can get a grip on, nothing to hold, but once it's there you can't see the world in quite the same way as without it. "How d'you reckon you'd know, if they sent you a dream?" Iain raised an eyebrow at his sister, and signalled the bartender for two mugs of tea. "I think you'd know because it doesn't vanish like most dreams do. It'd seem important, surely? But, Tai... alcohol isn't a god." "No, it's a spirit," she grinned wickedly as her brother winced at the pun. "I guess. I just hoped... I just kind of hoped... that it was something important." "Why don't you tell me what it was? You never know, maybe it was from the gods. They're tricksy bastards sometimes." Tai smiled, and dragged herself off the floor onto a chair. She recounted the dream as best she could - somehow the vividness of the thing wasn't suited to being caught in the webs of language - watching the expression on Iain's face shift through several flavours of surprise, before settling into an unencouraging pattern of gloomy disapproval. By that time the tea had come, and the bartender had lingered to listen to the tail-end of Tai's story. She didn't mind - she'd already decided that even if the dream was nothing more than the drink-fuelled neuroses of a plague-twisted mind, it was as good a pretext as any to leave this place. "Tai, that wasn't from the gods. If it was, it would have made some sense at all." "One, I don't even believe in any gods, so I don't care. Two, it did make sense. Just not a kind of sense that's easy to explain." Tai drained the last of her tea, the dregs dirty with flecks of leaf. "Even if you're right I'm choosing to believe you aren't." "So you'll deride a curious traveller as an idiot before chasing off after a dream? When did you become so stupid?" "Go to hell, Iain. I have only ten and a half months left to live, and I'd rather see something more than this wasteland before I die." "What? Where did you get that from?" "My birthday was a month and a half ago. So I have ten and a half months left before my next one." Tai hesitated before quoting her own dying dream-self. "I was only twenty-one when I died." "And you believe that because...?" Tai shrugged. "Why shouldn't I?" "It's stupid?" "So is hanging around here, filling in time until I die." Iain couldn't help his expression softening at the look of despair on his sister's gaunt face. "Iain, I really don't want to fight you, but I'm getting out. Maybe if I'm doing what your gods want me to they'll even decide not to kill me before my next birthday." Before noon, Tai was riding south-east on the only horse left in town which looked like it could reasonably survive the trip. Its master had died recently, so he wouldn't mind overmuch. This would be the first time Tai had been far away from the village; and as she went, she imagined she could see the colour and the life leaching slowly back into the world, as she left the dead places behind her. Andante “Nothing!” the Precept roared, slamming the mammoth of a chronicle shut and tossing it onto the already enormous pile of literature on Marius’s bed. “There is nothing, in any of our books, about those words you uttered during your fit. I‘m beginning to think it was just madness, and not the will of the Gods!”Coughing lightly in the dust, Marius pulled the coverlets back and prepared to swing his legs over the side of the bed. “Precept, perhaps there is something in the---” Brother Selbert’s staff was long and hard, and it tapped Marius soundly in the chest. “I did not give you permission to get out of bed, young man,” the priest wielding the staff growled. Marius sighed. “I assure you, Brother Selbert, I feel well.” At least, as well as I’ve ever felt, which isn’t saying much… “I think I know where another useful scroll may be.” The old priest shook his head and said adamantly, “Do you remember what happened last time you got out of bed before I had determined you were well enough to be up and about? What was that, your second bout of the Plague?” “Third,” Marius whispered. He glanced up at Brother Selbert’s pox-scarred face in horror. “You don‘t think I‘m coming down with the Plague again, do you?” Brother Selbert looked at him closely, then sighed. “I don’t know, lad. It never seems to manifest itself the same way twice, with you.” Neither of them mentioned that another bout of the Plague would probably kill Marius. “Tell me where this book of yours is, my son,” the Precept murmured after the awkward silence that followed Brother Selbert’s words. Using his cane, he levered himself painfully to his feet. “I will get it myself.” Marius swallowed. “It is on the third floor of the Archival Chamber, in the section on the god Veddin…” ShogunOnlyWar Name: Derrick MaluseAge: 22 Home: Tang Mines Trade/Job: Miner/Wild Catter Physical Description: It is said that when Derrick was born, his mother died from fright and his father from outright shock. To call this man ugly is an understatement as vast as calling the plaque the daily flu. It is as though the Gods smashed his body with a sledghammer and used super-glu to fix him like putting a puzzle together with pieces in the wrong places, and/or reversed entirely. Furthermore, compounding his hideousness, is his outright size. Skirting 6 inches under 5 feet, he is often mistaken for a dwarf. A redeeming value for him is that even though he is ugly, his face is perfectly symmetrical. Other: Before the fall of the kingdom, the Tang Mines were a place where military diserters, and political prisoners were kept. Once the kingdom fell, the prisoners took over the mines and have operated it along strict military lines ever since. Looking back, the journey was going quite well. Others might think that riding on an ass was slow going, but compared to walking, it was joyous. Still though, Derrick wondered if he packed too much gear, the donkey was moving rather slowly, even for him. Granted, considering the way the dream had arrived...it was better not to take any chances. He had been on level 39, the lowest you could go since the Great Flood, scouting for a supposed strain of platinum that a miner claimed he saw when it happened. The floor beneath him was rent in two pieces, as if a giant knife had cut it, and he fell. The only thing that saved him was an arm, and a voice. "As still winter grips its icy hand, then come hunting that ancient lore." When he came to, Derrick was on the elevator headed to the surface. The doctor was such a beautiful lady. She told him that he had, in fact, discovered the platinum, but that he must've hit his head rather hard. She said that he kept repeating the line, "And if you should fall, remember you almost had it all." He had left that night. With permission from the General Manager, he had packed all of his belongings and set out on a pet ass. His two 30 pound sledgehammers never left his back, and with them went his most sacred possesion, A book written by his great-grandfather Matthias. It was a poem of considerable length. He had never read it, because he had never learned to read, and only knew two lines that his grandmother had read to him. He hadn't thought about those lines in years, but with the mining accident, they came flying back. "Seek the hunter in the sand, and find the others where the tall rocks stand." KC is a teacher now! As the two children stood morosely on the steps of Lel's porch, Dmitri and Mordred left town. Aside from Lel, everyone else was out at work, so the streets were deserted. Dmitri only stopped once, in front of the little house next to the bakery. He didn't go in, only stared sadly at the tiny porch and the flowers crawling up the trellis and the squeaky swing. Mordred watched his companion silently, reflecting on his own losses. But at last, Dmitri took the reins of the packhorse and smiled a sad smile at his strange traveling companion. "The best I can figure," he said softly as the last of the village homes faded behind them in the distance, "is that we have to go North. Somewhere," he gestured vaguely in front of him, "up there, is a vast field of blue flowers and a bunch of rocks in a lake." Mordred frowned. "Rocks in a lake?" he echoed. Dmitri shrugged. "Ruins of some kind, I guess. Don't know what it means." He sighed. "Wish I did." "Is that what your rede says? 'Go to the rocks'?" The corners of Dmitri's mouth twitched. He shook his head. "No, but I dream about it." He stared off to the side of the dirt trail they followed. "It's where I .. got cut." "Oh, great," Mordred muttered. "What?" "Oh, nothing!" Mordred called back. "So how far is it?" "Beats me," came Dmitri's reply. "North." Double great, thought Mordred. "Then how do we know we're going in the right direction?" "How should I know?" Dmitri demanded. "North, so we go North - I don't know any more than that!" "Okay, okay, jeez." They walked in silence for several minutes. Then Dmitri said, "My rede went like this: When silver bells sing while blue bells grow." "Huh. Mine was 'Else evil triumphant will ascend and rule forevermore.' Pretty strange, eh?" "And I thought mine was vague!" "Oh, yeah," said Mordred, "there was something else. It went like this: And if you should fall, remember you almost had it all." Dmitri stopped short and stepped around the horse to stare at Mordred. "Me too!" he said. "I knew that part, too." They stared at each other a moment before moving onward once more. "So what does it mean?" Dmitri mused aloud. "What do bells have to do with evil?" "Your monster?" Mordred suggested. "Hmmm, it did have wings ..." "What did it look like?" "Um, well, it's head was bigger than this pony, with big teeth, and smoke coming out of its nose. I really didn't get a good look. It .. It looked like something else at first and I woke up before it had fully changed." "Huh." "You've never seen it?" Mordred shook his head. "No. And nothing I know of matches that description. Smoke coming out of its nose? I don't know." "Yeah," sighed Dmitri, "No one else knew what I was talking about either. I'm lucky they just didn't decide I was plagued!" "Those slashes are pretty convincing," said Mordred with a snort. "I guess...." Virgo They camped out on a hilltop that night, a tree provided a bit of shelter from the cool breeze that rustled Mordred's hair. He tossed rocks into the night that pressed around them, his chin resting on his knee, and his eyes half-closed in lazy silence. "The stars are bright tonight." Dmitri said, his face upturned to the heavens. "Are they?" Mordred looked up as well, tugging on one of his earrings, "I never used to be able to see the stars, we lived in trees, the foliage was too thick. If we wanted to see them, we'd have to leave the forest." "I used to look at the stars all the time." Dmitri replied, laying back and tucking his arms beneath his head, "We used to do it together, my wife and I." He fell silent. "She was a victim to plauge, wasn't she?" Mordred said softly. "Aye." "My entire village was wiped out... the lucky ones died and the rest... they went mad. I had just come back, I had isolated myself when I got it, I wanted to protect Lillya and Mama and Papa, and everyone else, but... I returned to find Lillya cornered by Granbabba, Mama, Papa, Auntie... they were all going to kill her, the madness in their eyes was horrifying and I had to kill them. She was four at the time, but she still has nightmares about it. We got out of the house, only to be assaulted by the healer and he almost got her, the reason she's never really trusted healers. We left, burning the village to the ground, and everyone in it. Since then, we've been on the road, moving from town to town, occasionally I'll work for a week or so in the forge, I make a bloody good weapon, be it sword, battle-ax, or what have you." Mordred had picked up a stick and was drawing absently in the ground as he told his story. "I'm sorry." Dmitri said. Mordred shrugged, "No choice but to move on, gotta keep going. Mama used to say I wanted to live so bad that I'd die for it..." He laughed slightly, "I suppose that's true." "Well, we were sent here for a reason, maybe it's to find a cure for the plauge, that way, you don't have to have a will to live, you can just live." Dmitri said, his eyes (even the bad one) fierce with hope. "That's a nice thought, a messenger of the Gods, lovely, just lovely." Mordred sighed, "This is for my sister and my family." "You two, your sister and yourself, you're very close, aren't you?" "We are, we've had to be since then, this is the first time I've been without her since I went to the forest. She's never had the plauge, I intend to keep it that way." His grey eyes flashed in determination. Kai Magpies She'd reached the outskirts of the magical forest before Tai realised that she had no idea where she was going. The past couple of days she'd spent on the road without seeing anyone; which suited her fine, as she had an idea that people from the north would be about as welcome as the wind from that direction. But at some point she'd have to work out what, exactly, she was going to do with herself - all alone in the big wide world. Tai still wasn't convinced that the dream had been a rede. The further away it got, the less likely it seemed; but still it lingered, stubborn beyond the short life-span of most dreams.Well, whatever, Tai decided as she rode into town. She'd care about her ultimate destination later; for now, this place would do. To her eyes, used to the bleak despair of the dead place, it seemed a bustling haven of life and vitality. Though judging by the number of abandoned houses, it was merely a ghost of itself these days. The townspeople gave her quick, furtive and not entirely friendly glances; clearly she wasn't diseased, clearly she had been, at some point in the past, which left only the question of which bits of her mind had been rotted away. She could almost see the judgements forming behind their careful, narrow eyes - how insane is this one? Killing-insane or just worrying-insane?. Some days she wondered that herself. But their looks wandered off when she returned them. The half-dead boy wheezing into a rag in the inn's little stable didn't protest when she found a home for her borrowed - come on Tai, say the word, stolen - horse. And despite the sour smell and the flourishing of even more sour glances, Tai was smiling as she strode into the bar. She would never have consented to the tag 'alcoholic', but she firmly believed that all people were equal in the sight of the Spirit. That thought almost made her giggle, but sensing that such open amusement wouldn't be taken well here, she turned it into a cough. "I would like," she rasped to the innkeeper - haunted by plague-scars, half-blind, looking sixty which meant he was probably half that age - "a room, doesn't have to be nice, and a bottle of whiskey. Or something similarly vile. Okay?" He shrugged, and turned away to get the drink. "Whole bottle?" "Yes. Actually, make it two." "Got something to celebrate?" "I haven't had a drink for a few days. I'm celebrating the imminent end of my sobriety." The innkeeper smiled at that. "If the world was full of people like you, I'd be living like a king... anyway, room's the last one on the corridor upstairs, here's the key and your distilled evil. You want to pay now, or tomorrow morning?" Tai grinned. "Oh, tomorrow, please." She pocketed the key, and picked up the two dirty bottles with loving care. "Thank you. I hope for your sake the world shortly becomes overrun by drunks." "Want something to eat as well?" "No thanks. I am fuelled by alcohol." It was still pretty early, but Tai had been driving herself hard since she'd left home and felt she deserved some time to relax. Locking the door of the cramped little room - it was clean, which was about all she could say for it - behind her, she stretched out on the bed that wasn't quite long enough, kicked off her boots, and started happily on the first bottle; discovering that the name 'distilled evil' was pretty accurate, though it wasn't as vicious as some of the stuff she'd had back at home. Still, ganging up with her tiredness, it was more than sufficient to knock her out. That night Tai dreamed again, and she still didn't like what she saw. Another ruined city... it wasn't the Gates of Heaven. She knows this, with the certainty of the dreaming. This was once somewhere far, far greater - ruined by time and war, gnawed by the centuries to a mere stub - a collection of standing-stones, jumbled like the bones in a plague-pit, barely distinguishable from a natural outcrop. But Tai knows. She knows that once this place was a city. Teeming. Bursting. Seething with life - the perfect antithesis of the dead world she calls home. Someone's singing. A beautiful voice that sounds like it's singing, even when it's cursing. Not that a girl as happy as she once was would curse. Tai doesn't see herself this time and for that she's glad - but the word she's singing is Stonehenge, and she knows as you do in dreams that it's the name of this place. And then the dream becomes a nightmare again, and Tai wishes she could wake up but she can't so she dies and screams and sobs and dies again all through the endless, tormented night. ShogunOnlyWar One has to wonder about the stars. Are they other places? Are there other worlds orbiting those innumerable stars? Sleep had never come easily to Derrick, and he tended to lay awake most nights and just stared off into space. He wondered if space was like the mines, lots of hard work with little (if any) reward. Granted the mines were home. By decree, he had to maintain a dwelling on the surface, but he could only really sleep in the vast silence of the tunnels. Staring at the glittering minerals that seemed to dance across the ceiling, just as the stars danced across the night sky... Night passes so quickly when you are contemplating the world around you, at least that is what Derrick thought. That's why he does it, just about every night. Grumbling he roused the mule, and in short order was once more on the road north. You could, after all, only go north with the valley. The mountains that flanked it were near impassible this time of year, and the south of the valley was flanked by cliffs that came out of the mountains. Therefore the only path out of the valley, was near the roots of the Fire Berry Mountains, granted noone from the mines had ventured this far up the valley in a generation, and no one that had done so before was still living. Time seemed to move very quickly for Derrick, and before he knew it, he stood upon a hill gazing at the foot of the mountains. Like giant teeth clothed in sheeps wool, they are gourgeous. However, the dark clouds that have been moving in all day do detract from the scene, and soon force Derrick into the cover of a low overhang where he spends another restless night. KC is a teacher now! "That's it!" Dmitri said, pointing. "Are you sure?" asked Mordred, coming up the hill behind him. "There's no flowers." Dmitri frowned. "True, no flowers, but those are definitely the ruins I saw in my dream. Maybe the flowers only bloom at a certain time of the year?" Mordred dropped his pack at his feet with a sigh. "Well, if you're sure, now what?" Dmitri looked out on the view with a helpless shrug. Not quite two weeks of travel and he still didn't have an answer to that question. "Maybe we should look around." "And run into that monster of yours? No thanks." "The villagers back there," said Dmitri, pointing his chin back the way they'd came, "said they'd never seen a monster like that." Mordred laughed. "Hey, they'd say anything to keep you around!" "It was only a job!" Dmitri objected, flushing. Mordred's grin widened. "Sure, sure." "I only wish we hadn't had to trade the pony for passage up the river," commented Dmitri, looking back over the view. He rubbed his own shoulders. "But I just don't think we have the time. C'mon, let's go down there while it's still light." Mordred groaned, but he hefted his pack again and headed down hill after Dmitri. The two trekked out to the edge of the water, staring up at the great stone columns. "Why do you suppose it's under water?" mused Mordred. "I don't know," answered Dmitri with a shrug. "This must'a been some place!" "I think we need to go that way," said Mordred, stepping off into the lake. Dmitri closed his mouth with a snap and followed him. Mordred might be a little odd, but so were most survivors. And, he relfected as he strode through the ankle-deep water, perhaps being odd wasn't so odd after all. Within the outer-most ring of stones, the water deepened until soon the two men were in water up to their knees. Still they pressed onward. They paused only for a moment when Dmitri stepped in a hole and came up spitting and yelling. Mordred had to grab hold of a nearby stone to keep from falling over himself, he was laughing so hard. "Who would have thought," he went on to say later, "that someone so close to the ocean has never learned to swim!" Dmitri merely scowled and squelched on. The paused, by mutual consent, almost at the very deepest part of the lake, at the heart of the ruins. It was twilight now, and they could see a soft, red glow from beneath the water. They looked at each other silently. "Can you swim?" asked Dmitri. Virgo Mordred snorted, "Like hell, grew up in a forest, remember?""Oh, right, well you had to do some fishing, right?" Dmitri asked, cocking his head. "Not on the whole, we usually caught deer and other wild game, fishing, not so much." Mordred shrugged. "Well, what are we gonna do?" Dmitri demanded. "Learn to swim real quick, you first." Mordred ducked behind Dmitri and nudged him forward. "What? Why not you?" "Because, I haven't the slightest idea on where to begin, you have at least been around big bodies of water before. Me, not at all, I was lucky if I got to go wading in the ankle-high stream." Mordred yelped as bubbles surfaced and stumbled backwards, "I'm not liking water right now." "Great, just great, well we might as well stand here until someone comes back and decides to paddle down and get it." Dmitri climbed up on a stone and sat down, "Come on." "Yeah, yeah..." Kai Magpies In the twilight, Tai saw the two indistinct forms sitting on rocks in the lake. The soft noise of their friendly bickering floated over the calm water to her, too quiet to make out words, too quiet to really do anything more but define the silence. Tai had to admit that this place scared the hell out of her - with the fading blue light and the total stillness and the time-blunted bones of the once-great palace rising like admonitions out of the lake, it felt too close to the Gates of Heaven for comfort. But at least she hadn't heard any wraiths. They seemed to be a phenomenon restricted to her local area. Which gave this place a bit of an edge. In fact if she didn't look at the enormous stone skeleton and focused instead on the tiny little blue buds forcing their way out of the rough, scrubby grass - a week, maybe two, and they'd be blooming - then what with the peace and gentle cool of the twilight, this could actually be a lovely place. Except that she couldn't not look at the huge scary ruins of the dead palace.Stonehenge. It more or less had to be. And she'd finally gotten here, so now what? Tai considered sleeping on it and dismissed the idea as soon as it'd crossed her mind. For firstly, the nightmares'd been so bad she hadn't had the courage to sleep for a while. For secondly... she knew those perching men. She'd seen their faces and heard their voices in her dreams, before she'd stopped sleeping; they'd died, too, generally a little after she had, generally in equally unpleasant ways. And in the way of the dreamer she'd known them, known they'd had the same sort of bizarre riddles posed to them by way of night-pictures, known they'd be here... there'd been more than two, but probably the others would be turning up soon. Tai hobbled her horse and left it to roam - there wasn't a whole lot of trouble it could get into in this deserted place. Leaving her bag and boots on the shore, she sloshed out through the lake - walking where she could on the tops of submerged walls - until the water was high and freezing and they'd seen her and she had basically no idea what to say, because by the looks on their dusk-dimmed faces they didn't recognise her. Tai smiled and waved. "Hi," she said. "My name's Tai. I had the dreams too. So what are we supposed to do here?" The men exchanged slightly bemused looks. "We don't know either," the older said. "By the way, I'm Dmitri." "Mordred," the younger told her, in reply to a questioning look. "Can you swim?" "Sort of. Why? Do you guys know what the hell's going on here?" As an answer, Dmitri pointed to the dark water. "There's something down there. Can you see it?" Tai peered into the depths of the lake, wondering whether the red glow she saw pulsing softly from under the clear, shadowy water was what he meant or whether she'd just finally started hallucinating. Somehow the red glow, more even than the rest of this haunted old heap, made her nervous. "Yeah," she said uneasily. "Why didn't you get it?" "Can't swim," Mordred replied shortly. Tai looked up at them in exasperation. "Go back to the shore and light a fire. This water's really cold and I'm going to get soaked." Somewhat taken aback by Tai's suddenness, Mordred slid off the rock and waded back to do as she said. Dmitri stayed, with the expression of one who had a million questions but wasn't sure how to ask them without sounding impolite. Or maybe Tai was reading too much into what little of his shadowed face she could make out. With a mental shrug, she shoved aside the sensible bit of her mind and hurled herself, with the courage of those drunk on wakefulness, head-first into the lake. Tai had never learned to swim. She'd gathered, by practicing in the margins of the grubby little lake by her village, the rudiments of propelling yourself through water without drowning overmuch; but she hadn't liked it, she didn't like water, she didn't like the feeling that her feet weren't pressed against something solid that pushed back. Still, the red glow - the only thing she could see down here in the darkness of the lake at dusk - wasn't far down; and in a few splashing, graceless, worryingly breathless moments, she'd gripped one of the two handles that projected from the heart of it. It wasn't a large chest, and thankfully wasn't heavy enough to be much trouble; but when she pushed off from the broken rock surface it'd been sitting on, its weight added to hers slowed her down enough that she didn't reach the surface before she started to sink again. For one terrified moment she knew for a fact she'd drown here, despite her frenzied kicking - her feet weren't touching anything solid, she was in free-fall (free-float?), this was horrible beyond anything - and then her one free, flailing hand broke the surface, a moment later Dmitri grabbed it and hauled her spitting, gasping and cursing onto a broken fragment of wall. The chest's glow had dimmed in the air to a mere suggestion of crimson, crawling over the night-black wood. "You take it," Tai said, when she'd got enough breath back to do more than swear. "I'm not touching that thing again." Puzzled, Dmitri picked it up and they began wading back through the lake and the near-dark dusk back to the fragment of fire Mordred was building up. "What's the matter with it?" "Can't you hear the damn thing singing?" Tai snapped back. Dmitri shook his head. "Well... I could." She shivered, half from the cold of the lakewater draining from her hair and shirt, half from the recollection of the freezing, quiet whisper of song that'd flowed up her arm like spiders when she'd grabbed the box. She had no idea what it was about - like water it'd drained through her, leaving only the nasty aftertaste, like bad alcohol. In the firelight, Mordred and Dmitri examined the thing. Tai didn't particularly want to look at it. "It won't open," Dmitri said, disappointed. "What's this written on it?" "I don't know," Mordred replied, peering closely at the insane-looking sigils and scrawls and swirls burned into the sides. It was actually from them that the eerie red light was seeping. "It doesn't really look like a language though." Indeed, it looked like what happened before you got language, or once the need for it had been long surpassed - these wierd symbols were more than representations of ideas - they were the ideas themselves. And they didn't look happy. Tai crept back into the light - having slipped away to put dry clothes on - and took a quick peek before turning her back to the lake and her face to the fire, and curling on her side under a blanket. "Don't wake me," she pleaded; and, now she was finally here for whatever purpose the dreams had in mind, Tai let herself fall asleep. This time she doesn't dream. Andante “I dreamt last night,” Marius said.“Yes, I know,” Brother Selbert said as he pressed his hearing instrument to Marius’s chest. “Breathe deeply, my boy.“ Marius did as he was told, inhaling slowly and then letting the air out of his lungs again in a slow hiss between his teeth. Apparently satisfied with the state of Marius’s lungs, the old healer returned the hearing instrument back into its protective pouch, then pulled a thermometer out of his larger supply bag “Your screams were loud enough to wake the entire monastery, but when I came to check upon you, you had quieted once again.” He slipped the thermometer into Marius’s mouth. “Do not bite down upon this,” he commanded. “I dreamt that I was standing within a circle of towering stones, and there were others with me,” Marius said, balancing the thermometer between his teeth. “They had a chest of some sort with them, and they couldn’t read it. I was very frightened.” “Frightened?” Brother Selbert asked. “Why?” “I am not sure,” the young priest admitted. “I only know that it was very urgent that they open the chest, but… I don’t know… I felt that they needed me there with them, that disaster would befall them if I were not there. Does this sound prideful, Brother Selbert?” “Don’t talk so much,” the healer priest commanded. “You’ll mess up the reading.” Then he sighed. “No, it does not sound prideful. It is the wish of very human being, to be needed.” They were silent for a few moments, as Marius thought about what Brother Selbert told him. Then the healer priest took the thermometer from Marius’s mouth, and squinting in the dim light, examined it. Marius held his breath, hoping. At last, Brother Selbert said, “You have no fever. I believe you are well enough to get out of bed.” “Good,” Marius said, slipping immediately out of the covers. “I must speak to the Precept at once.” “You’d do well to wash up a bit first,” Brother Selbert laughed. “You’ve been abed two days, and smell it.” Marius nodded, and leaning heavily on his cane, the healer priest levered himself to his feet and hobbled out of the room. When he had bathed and donned a fresh robe, Marius made the long walk from the acolyte’s abbey to the Precept’s office. When he arrived, the Precept looked up, and gestured him in. “I suppose you are here to ask my permission to leave?” Marius jumped. “How… how did you know?” The Precept smiled grimly. “After you read the Book of Veddin, and after your dream last night---yes, Brother Selbert told me of it---how could a curious young man such as you not wish to seek answers?” “Precept, I---” “Oh, don’t worry, my son! It is the dream of very priest of the Agony of the Gods to be caught up in a quest laid forth by the gods, but it is the right of those with young bodies and minds to actually embark upon one. You have my permission---and blessing---to do what you believe you must do.” “Oh, thank you, Father!” Marius breathed. “Don’t thank me, thank Brother Selbert,” the Precept said. “If he had not pronounced you well, I would not allow you out of bed, no matter how much you desire to leave. Now go, and pack. And don‘t forget to take your Writ with you!” “I will not forget,” Marius said with a grin. *** The next morning Marius set off. The monastery had granted him the supplies for his journey, as well as the mule to carry them. Marius himself rode his gelding Bairacctar, the horse upon which he had made his journey to the monastery twelve years before at the age of eight. The other monks gathered outside to see him off. It had been a long time since a priest of the Agony of the Gods had ventured into the outside world, and there were many tears and well-wishes that had to be shared. “Do you know the way?” the Precept asked. Marius nodded. “It is near the village of my birth.” “Ah, the Blessed Village. That’s right.” By the time the noon sun had climbed into the sky, Marius was gone. Four days he rode, camping by the roadside when there were no inns to sleep in, and renting a room in exchange for consecrations or---more grimly---late rites. At last, weary after days of almost nonstop travel fuelled only by his strange, overwhelming desire to reach his destination, he arrived at Stonehenge. But… where were the people he’d seen in his dream? He found them, kneeling on the Western side of the lake that entombed more than half of the ruins. They had lit a fire against the cold of the night, and beside it one of the three figures slept curled up beneath a blanket. The other two knelt beside a faintly glowing object---the pitch black chest he’d seen in his dream. Its faint red glow illuminated the faces of the two men as they reached forward to open it. “No, don’t!” Marius bellowed, leg-reining Bairacctar into a full gallop. The two men turned away from the chest in shock, and stared with open mouths as the horse and rider bore down upon them. ShogunOnlyWar Introductions had been short and sweet. Derrick reveled in the company his two new traveling companions could provide, but he found himself withdrawn from them. He had always been a loner, and had only worked with others when he had been forced to. He had been standing upon a cliff gazing upon a wonderous sight. The ocean was truly blue and the sky was as clear as fine glass. He didn't know how long he had sat there watching, but it had been long enough so that he had been noticed. The two travelers made an odd couple, a woman (shorter than him) immediatly drew his eye. She was gorgeous. Unfortuneatly by the way her companion walked, she was also taken. Her fellow was a monster of a man. Standing almost twice Derrick's height, he was taller than any man that Derrick had seen before. As it turned out, Kiera was in fact married, but not to Anglis. Her husband was at home doing what needed to be done while she was away. And Anglis was not so much of a monster. Together, albeit loosly, they traveled west. Often it was with Derrick taking the lead, with Kiera and Anglis following behind. None of them knew where exactly they were going, but the members had come from opposite directions with the sea to the east, the only way left was to go west. It took them almost a week to reach the plain. In the distance Derrick could see the sun glint off a body of water, raising his hopes that he might once again be upon the sea. Those hopes were dashed when all they came upon was a lake with large stones rising from its depths. Depressed, they quickly made their camps upon the shore. The first night was dangerously cold and it forced the two men to share a campfire, and their blankets, with their female companion (much to her enjoyment). After all she thought, This was the closest the two men had been to each other the whole trip, despite her many, and varied attempts to get them to talk. The next day was spent wandering the perimeter of the lake, until the relentless march of time once more brought on the night. "Look! A campfire!" shouted Kiera. Her seemingly endless energy causing her bounce around with exitement. "It could be the others that we've dreamed of." "True it could be," began Derrick, "or it could be a band of thieves." "Don't dampen the ladies mood, Miner, or I will dampen you." "Oh, what are you going to do? Throw me in the lake? I can swim. Can you?" Moving in the night kept them warm, and the animosity between the two men kept them moving at break-neck speed. Neither wanted the other to arrive first, but both lost out to Kiera. She had heard the shouting. She had heard the horse. And She was there first. KC is a teacher now! Dmitri dropped the chest with a muffled shout, throwing himself backwards. The impact with the ground caused him to gasp and double-up in pain. He just laid there for a few moments in the dark, blinking his eyes and catching his breath.Mordred had no such compunctions to avoid trouble. He lunged for his walking staff and swung it at the approaching rider. "No - wait!" More shouting, and a female form threw herself on the smith. Together, they rolled down the slight embankment towards the lake. Similarly, Tai rolled out of her blankets, knife in hand and snarling something that sounded like, "I'll teach you to mess with m' sleep!" Two more figures, one short, one tall, ran into the light of the campfire. They halted abruptly as Tai swung at them. "Whoa, there!" yelped Anglis, dodging out of the way. Derrick held his empty hands out in front of him. "Mean you no harm," he said, slowly stepping backwards, "Honest!" From atop his horse, Marius snapped, "Enough with this nonsense already! I'm a priest in the Order of the Agony of the Gods - not a monster! Put your weapons down, all of you!" Anglis snickered. "That's quite a mouthful!" But he stayed out of Tai's reach. With a painful wheeze, Dmitri pushed himself to his feet and grasped the horse's reins, half for support as his other hand went to the bandages he hadn't yet changed for the night. "It's all right," he called to Tai. "Mordred, stop playing around and get over here. If these folks were hostile, we'd already be dead." Mordred laughed from somewhere behind him and squelched back into the light of the campfire. Equally wet, Kiera grinned as she sat down and began to steam. Tai lowered her dagger slowly and scowled at the dwarf. The dwarf and his taller companion inched around the fire in the other direction, sitting down by Kiera. "Thanks, friend," said Marius, looking down at Dmitri. "I didn't mean to startle everyone, but you cannot open that chest." "We found it!" Tai protested with a growl. Marius sighed. "I must apologize again. Perhaps it would be best if I told you why I'm here." Dmitri and Mordred exchanged a look. "I think we're all here for the same reasons," Tai answered. "That box," she continued, pointing at the glowing chest, "might have some answers, and I, for one, want to open it." Marius slid down from Bairacctar's back. "If someone will fetch my donkey, I left him behind a ways in my haste, then I will be free to examine the chest and can determine the best way to open it." There was silence around the campfire. "Well, I don't know about everyone else," said Kiera, "but I'm hungry. I'll stir us up a pot, if you two lugs," she peered at Derrick and Anglis, "will fetch our things from our campsite." "I guess I'll fetch the d--- donkey," grouched Tai, and she slunk off into the dark. Marius stared at Dmitri as the other made no effort to move. "Are you okay?" he asked. The dwarf and the tall man, the woman by the fire, and Mordred's head all snapped towards the others, pausing in their tasks. "It's nothing," Dmitri said, feeling a strange reluctance to admit to his wounds. Mordred was soon by his side. "Why don't we tend to your horse, then?" he asked the stranger. "That way, there's nothing to keep you from the chest." Marius smiled evenly. "Yes, and without my horse, I'm not likely to run away with it, am I?" Dmitri was feeling a definite weakness in his knees and he took a small sideways step to draw Mordred out of the conversation. He used the horse to mask his halting progress. "Sit down," Mordred hissed at him as they stepped off into the darkness. "You're going to fall over! What's got into you? Why didn't you tell them?" Dmitri sagged to the ground with a groan. "I don't know, Mordred, I just didn't want to. Somehow, it felt, well, wrong to tell them just now." "Well," said Mordred, with a practical shrug, "it's your funeral. Okay, wait here a minute and I'll go get the stuff." Dmitri held the dangling reins and patted the horse's smooth nose while Mordred went to grab the medicine and supplies. He watched as the strange woman asked Mordred about food and set about on building a stew in the one cooking pot the two men had carried with them. It would be good to have some decent food again. Mordred certainly knew how to make food out of what they could harvest from the land they passed through, but that didn't necessarily mean it would taste good. And while Dmitri could make decent flapjacks, those got old after awhile. The stranger, the priest, he'd said, dragged the chest closer to the fire, as Mordred heaped more logs on, and sat down to peer closely at the eery lettering. Dmitri knew how to read, somewhat, anyway, but those curling hieroglyphs made no sense to him. And then Mordred was back and the gruesome and painful task of unwinding and replacing his bandages began. "I need something from my saddlebags," Marius called, standing up. He walked toward Bairacctar with a frown. Whatever those two men were doing, it wasn't tending his horse. The taller one stepped from around Bairacctar, with a friendly slap to the horse's rump. "What is it? Can I get it for you?" "It would certainly be easier if I just grabbed it myself." Marius paused. From the way the man was looking at him, Marius got the impression that he really, really didn't want him to come any closer. "Uh, well, if you want to, toss me that satchel, the heavy one. Be careful, it's got books in it." Toss it? Mordred said to himself, Yeah right! Aloud, he asked, "What'ev you got in this thing? Isn't this something you'd normally saddle a pack animal with?" He dumped the bag into the priest's arms. Marius struggled a minute under the weight. "Yes, normally," he agreed, "but I wanted to read while I traveled. Research." Marius heard him say, under his breath, of course, "Uh-huh," as he turned away. The priest looked at the other's retreating back for a long moment, considering, before he turned back towards the chest. Sitting down, he pulled a scroll from the bag and wieghed it down with some rocks within the light from the campfire. He looked at the chest again. The writing is definitely Old Vredian! he thought with a surge of glee. He'd guessed right! Some long time ago, one of the followers of the Order of Renunciation had carved the runes into this chest. What was the reason, though? The runes were different than any written on the scroll. Derrick and Anglis trekked back to the campsite with their belongings and dumped them in a heap to one side. "Hey!" said Kiera, scowling at them. "At least shake out the bedding so it's not all filled with dirt!" Anglis rolled his eyes, but Derrick was attracted to the priest and that weird, glowing-red chest. Some of those runes looked familiar. "Hey," he said, squatting down next to the priest and pointing at a corner of the chest. "That looks like a symbol we have in our mine. It's like a prayer for luck." "A prayer?" asked Marius, looking up at the horrifically ugly man. "What do you mean?" The dwarf traced part of the rune with his finger. "This is the symbol for luck, and this," he traced part of the encircling glyphs, "looks like the word for blessing." "Then what's this?" asked Marius, pointing to the rest. Derrick shrugged. "Beats me." "It's a focus," said Tai, coming up behind them. Marius jumped. Somehow, the dagger-weilding woman had crept up unheard and bedded down the donkey without anyone noticing. Now, she knelt down and traced a symbol which went in and around the other two. "This," she explained, "is a symbol I've seen many times, although then it was a warding, warning of something within. I don't know what it means written like this." "Hmm." Marius looked down at his scoll, then fetched another out of his bag. He stared at it while the other two looked on. Clearing a spot in the dirt next to the fire, he began to draw with a twig. "On the chest are these symbols," he said, drawing them as he spoke. "Luck, protection, safety, elemental symbols for water, lightning, and fire, two different forms of the blessing rune, this warding one that you say focuses the spell on the box and whatever's inside it, and this one." He paused for a moment before drawing the last, central rune, a simple circle with a dot inside it. "I don't know what this one is." The other four were now also leaning over the box, Kiera with half her attention on the pot over the fire. Marius looked up, catching Dmitri's eye. The priest caught a smothered grimace on the other's face, and he saw that one of the stranger's hands rested lightly over his stomach. Hmm, he thought. "Well, you're the one who didn't want us to open the box," said Dmitri, misreading the priest's expression. "You tell us what we should do." "Hey!" said Anglis suddenly, "There's more writing on the lid." They all looked where he was pointing. More writing, of a different style, had appeared along the metal portions of the box, flickering in a blue light. Marius gasped. "I don't believe it! It's High Vrede! I've never seen anything written in that before! It was only spoken in the temple at the Gates." He frowned in thought. "According to our histories, only the Keeper of the Gate was allowed to write it, and the royal family, of course." He looked up into the puzzled faces of the others. "It's the private language of the Gods," he explained. "The Keeper was the high priest in the Temple at the Gates of Heaven and wrote down the prophesies he received from the Gods. When they would come to him, they came like this, and then had to be translated. I, I don't know if I'll be able to translate." Tai swallowed, fighting down a rising panic. Her right hand clenched an item inside her shirt. Slowly, she drew it out and pulled the cord from around her neck. She held it out towards the others. Marius' mouth fell open. "Where'd you get this?" he gasped. "It was a gift," she replied, fingers curling around the medallion. Marius' fingers hesitantly traced the silver medallion. Symbols, etched in gold plating, made a dazzling display on one side. On the other, a simple circle of gold, with a dot in the middle. "Do you know what this is?" he breathed, barely daring to blink, for fear it would vanish before his eyes. The girl, who vaguely smelled of old alchohol, shook her head, old pain shining from her eyes. "This is the Keeper's Medal of Office!" The priest touched it again. He looked up at her and opened his hands to receive it. "May I?" Opening her hand and releasing the grip she had on the cord supporting it was one of the hardest things Tai had ever done. "I want it back," she said as she finally let it drop. "Of course!" Marius cradled it in his own hands and turned it over and over. He looked up at them again. "I need to study this more. It might take a while." "Ack!" cried Kiera, at about the same time. "The stew!" With a laugh to break the tension, the group broke apart. They sat down around the campfire, traded stories and names, and ate their way through several helpings apiece of Kiera's cooking. Gradually, one by one, they rolled themselves into their sleeping blankets and fell asleep. All, that is, except for Marius, who stayed awake through the rising and setting of the moons; and at last, with a victorious shout to rouse everyone from their slumber, Marius had decoded the box. As the sun rose, they all gathered round again. "This chest," Marius told them, "is the treasure trove of the Keeper's last prophesy! What it's doing here, I have no idea, but his medallion is the key. The heavenly script is a warning to the unfaithful." He looked up at Dmitri and Mordred with a tired smirk. "You should be glad that I stopped you in time. There's dire consequences for anyone who should attempt it, and I can't read most of them. Anyway, the outer symbols are to safeguard the contents, and they're all peaceful ones." He gripped the medallion in his hand. "You may want to back up, in case I got this wrong ...." They looked at each other and grinned. Dmitri answered for everyone: "I don't think so, Marius, go ahead, do it." With a deep breath, the priest turned the medallion over and touched the two circles to each other. There was a soft click - then nothing. Mordred laughed. "Man! What a let-down! Is that all there was to it?" Marius eased the lid open and they all peered inside. "Oh no!" he cried. The bottom of the chest was covered in mud. The one remaining hide was soaking wet and fell apart in Marius' hands. "No, no," he moaned. "One of the spells must have failed." "Wait! Look," said Kiera, pointing. "There's another piece." Marius was the only one who dared put his hands inside the box and he carefully sifted through the mud to pull out another thin sheet of vellum. This, it seemed, was mostly intact. "What does it say?" asked Anglis. Dmitri offered Marius his waterskin. The priest accepted it without a word, using some water to wash off the mud. "Well, it's a prophesy, of course. Here, listen: "Blue Midget who Hides; The Dwarf in the Darkness; One-Eye marked by Evil's Hand; A Priest of Destiny's Lost; Mad Hunter traveling the Forgotten Way; Lover in Disguise, alone; And the Dreamer of Fortune: Take these with thee, no more, no less ... "And there's something else, but I can't tell what it is." Dmitri chewed his lip, his hand going to his stomach and the bandages hidden under his clothes. "I think that riddle is describing me," he said. Marius nodded. "That makes sense, but if that's true, then each of us are in here somewhere. What do you think means you?" "I'm the One-Eye marked by Evil's Hand." Virgo Mordred fiddled with his hair, making note that he had to re-dye his hair sometime soon, the white was beginning to come back. He stood, "I'll be back." He said over his shoulder, moving towards a patch of various coloured plants that he could see in the barren area."Where are you going?" Kiera asked, standing with him. "To attend to something that should have been attended to awhile ago." He replied. "I'll go with." Dmitri stood and Mordred slowed down to match the baker's pace. "One-eye, huh?" Mordred laughed, raising an eyebrow. Dmitri snorted, "Yeah, I guess, no one else is missing an eye and was attacked by a great big... thing, so one begins to assume." "Assuming is a dangerous thing." Mordred said, sitting in the middle of the group of plants, pulling a mortar and pestle from his bag, "My Da said to me once, 'Never assume anything, son, it makes and 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'. And I suppose that was the truth." "You speak of your family a lot, you must miss them." Dmitri observed. "I do, but I bear them no ill will for leaving me, they have it better now that they are at rest." He plucked a few purple flowers and scooped water into his bowl, mashing the inredients together. "How do you get it so... bright?" Dmitri asked, glancing at Mordred's hair, still that violent shade of pink. "With this." He pulled a few items from his back, a sort of powder in five different colours, red, blue, white, black, and yellow. "What is it?" "Sediment powder, with the oils of various plants to get it the right colour." He sprinkled some of the red powder in with the purple paste and mixed it in, "It a simple combination of colours to make the one you desire, painters use it all the time to make their paints and I add it sometimes to the steels and bronzes and other things to make variations in the metals and the customers love it, they usually pay very highly for colour alterations to their weapons and armour." "Interesting." Dmitri touched some of the paste and smeared it on his hands. "Careful." Mordred raised an eyebrow, "Too much and your hands will be stained." "Any idiot should know that." Kiera had appeared from nowhere to startle the two men. "Where did you come from?" Mordred demanded. "From camp." She replied, plopping down next to him, "What are you doing?" "Making dyes." "Not for clothing, I hope." She replied, prodding the thick purple liquid. "No, for my hair." Mordred said, picking up dab and rubbing it between his fingers. "I see." She sounded skeptical. "Just watch." He said, standing with his bowl of dye. He ran water through his hair, and applied the heavy paste through his long pink and white hair carefully. "You're sure you know what you're doing?" Kiera asked, watching him nervously. "Yes. I do." He scrubbed, producing brightly coloured bubbles that ran into the water, popping and dispersing quickly. "There." He stood wringing the water from his hair and lo and behold, his hair was another violent shade, this time of purple. "Wow, that kinda hurts my eyes." Kiera said. "Thanks." He said, cleaning his things and heading back to camp with Dmitri following behind and Kiera behind him. Kai Magpies "Dreamer of Fortune?" Tai raised an eyebrow skeptically, tucking the necklace back inside her shirt. "Dreamer of misfortune, more like.""You think it's you?" Marius was still bent like a giant bird over the cracked and stained sheet of vellum. Tai shrugged. "Who else? I've seen you die, Priest of Destiny's Lost." Marius's head snapped up as though dragged by a rope, and his creepy near-black eyes fixed on Tai's narrowed blue ones. "You've seen what?" She laughed harshly and flopped backwards, staring up at the cloud-stained sky. "I've seen you die. In my dreams of 'fortune'. Don't take it personally, I've seen everyone die in all sorts of horrible ways. But you know what the worst bit is?" "No." "If the dreams are real, then maybe there's a hope of doing something useful, otherwise why are we all here? But then I know I, at least, have ten months at most to live. On the other hand, if they're just random dreams, then we all might have a lot longer than that - but the world will stay just as comprehensively screwed-up as it is right now because this 'prophecy' or whatever is just a decaying chunk of baby cow's skin with some wiggles of ink on it, inside a box in a lake. Damned if it's true, damned if it ain't," Tai explained in a wierdly cheerful tone of voice, and started humming. There was a strained silence following that gloriously bleak statement, broken by a scraping and scrabbling sound, and a mutter of satisfaction as Anglis, who'd been rooting through the muck in the box, held up a lumpy stick-like thing in one muddy hand. On close inspection, it might actually have been a key; the hunter - Mad Hunter, Tai thought idly - splashed it clean, revealing that it was, indeed, a key. Maybe three inches long, covered in a lumpy skin of corrosion that came off in sullen flakes with a little bit of scrubbing. "This was in the box too," Anglis said. "What do you think it opens?" "Let me see that!" Derrick pounced, snatching the key roughly from Anglis's surprised grasp, and turning into the thin sunlight to see better, holding the thing close to his hideous face. "I don't... this metal, it's... odd. The rust was only a little, a surface layer, the inside's still sound." He weighed it thoughtfully in his hand - it felt far too light, lighter than a metal really had a right to be, as if there wasn't actually anything there at all. But when he tested it, cautiously bending and tapping and scraping it, it responded in all ways as a metal would had it been not only lighter but also harder than any metal, really, had a right to be. If it was an illusion, it was a pretty tough one. Finally, the ugly little dwarf shook his head. "This either came from a long way away, or a long time ago. It's not like anything I've seen before. Hey, blacksmith!" Mordred, returning with Kiera, Dmitri and startlingly purple hair, caught the key as Derrick tossed it to him - glinting with a cool blue shine as it arced through the sunlight. "Recognise anything like this?" Mordred took a few seconds to examine the key before admitting that he, too, knew of nothing else like it. "What does it open?" Marius shrugged, exasperated by this seeming dead end. "There's no way to tell. Is there anything written on it?" "Just decorations. Leafy vines and the like." They were etched into the wierd weightless key with a delicacy and detail that, Mordred knew, no smith or craftsman around today would be able to match. He passed it on to Kiera, who'd been hovering curiously by his elbow to see. "Recognise anything?" Kiera rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Honestly, do you know nothing? See, here's lotus, and this is obviously amaranth. Lotuses are mystery, truth, knowledge, that kind of thing, and amaranth is the flower that never fades. Which is generally a good sign." "Okay, it's very pretty." Dmitri glanced at the little shining thing in Kiera's hand. "What are we supposed to do with it?" "Find the door it opens," Tai offered. "You guys can have fun with that. I'm going back to the village." "Why?" Mordred asked. "You see any bars around here? Me neither." Shrugging off objections before they could form, Tai caught her wandering horse and pointed him up the road to the village. ShogunOnlyWar The water looked so nice to Derrick. Nothing at all like the water in the mines. This water was dark and murky, but unlike the mines it had the sun to shine off it. And that makes all the difference. Or so he thought. Completely intent upon the water, Derrick failed to notice Dmitri's arrival until he spoke, "The water here is awfully murky isn't it?" "I hadn't noticed." "Tell me something. In my village, everyone has to look out for everyone one else, and so we all have to get along with each other or at least...try to." "Is there a question in there?" "Well yes actually. Assuming the current situation with the plague and all is kingdom-wide, why do you sit off by yourself and not even try to talk with the others?" "I was kind'v talked out, what with all the yacking that Kiera did on the journey out here." "Really," Dmitri stated with skepticism, "She said that you hardly spoke a word except to argue with Anglis." "Much goes unsaid between two men who are used to being alone." "Such as?" "Don't you have a bandage to change?" "How did you know about that?" Derrick actually turned to face Dmitri and lean closer to him before he said, "It is obvious that you wish to keep it hidden from the others, but you don't carry yourself well." "And what is that supposed to mean?" "I have seen many stomach injuries in my time, short as it is, and yours appears no different from my experiences." "Yes well...wait. What do you mean YOUR experiences?" Derrick sat and thought. He turned back to face that murky lake and its moss covered stones. "Where have the others got to?" "That's not what I asked." "You want an answer, then trade one for one." "Tai went to town, and Marius went with her to 'Keep her out of trouble.' Kiera decided to go to town to replenish her supplys, so Anglis is escorting her on foot. Mordred is out gathering firewood, and here we two sit. Staring out at the lake." "Our elders recorded that back when the plague came, the overlords panicked. They threw the bodies of the dead and dying into the lower levels of the mines and blasted them shut. Unfortuneatly when they did that they sealed in healthy people. They even went so far as to blast the entrances to mines when just one case of the plague appeared. "Over time, reports came back of some monsters in the lower levels of many mines." Dmitri nodded staring at the standing stones, "No case was actually confirmed, and all of the members of the only expedition to find out the truth drowned when the bottom twelve levels of the main mine flash-flooded." "That's terrible. Do you believe the records?" "I do." "Why?" "Because, some of the beasts survived the flooding. They prey on isolated teams of miners." He turned to Dmitri, his eyes glazed, "I have seen the...remains of the attacks. You see, the beasts go for the belly first," he made a gesture as if his belly was being cut, "then they feast or somehting..." "If that is so, then why don't the miners send down teams to kill them all?" The question seemed to come out of nowhere and it startled Derrick and Dmitri. Mordred took a seat off to Derrick's left, and asked his question again. "It is because there is very little proof! By the time that others are brought, the tunnel is as if it never happened. And when there have been survivors, they usually don't live very long." "That must be why you carry your hammers, isn't it?" Dmitri pondered then spoke, "But they must also serve a practicle reason too? Right?" "My sledgehammers were passed down to me from my grandfather. They were his before, and now they are mine. They have seen their fair share of violence, mostly in my hands, but their job is to break rock so that I can see inside of it." "You HAVE fought one of those things, haven't you?" Mordred pried. "Yes. And if I had to venture a guess, I would say that I killed it too. Not much survives the impact of two 30 pound sledges." "Well then isn't that your proof?" "I was...forced to withdraw without the body." "Why is that?" "Hmmm, is that the sun going down already? Perhaps we should get a fire going..." KC is a teacher now! Dmitri sat, lost in thought, staring into the darkness, the flames of the campfire at his back. It was late, or, perhaps, just really early. Dawn would arrive in another couple of hours, and the others were still gone, possibly still in town. It was a fairly long walk and they only left in early afternoon. Derrick and Mordred slept, their two bundled forms half-hidden in the dark. He'd been more than ready for his turn at watch. The dreams had been particularly fierce tonight. Even now he wasn't eager to return to them, so he let Mordred sleep on. Derrick had wanted the first watch, the miner saying it would take him awhile to fall asleep anyway, so why waste someone else's time? The .. dwarf .. puzzled Dmitri. A man so deformed probably should not have been allowed to live, and yet, there he was, a grotesque parody of a man, but one with an uncanny knack for making Dmitri uncomfortable. He sighed and stood, beginning to pace again. Being so close to the ruins bothered Dmitri in ways he couldn't even begin to describe. Maybe it was the proximity to those old stones that caused the dreams to be so particulary fierce lately. Dreams. It would seem that most of this group had the nightmares, too. Dmitri shivered and turned his back to the lake as he made a circuit of the camp. The mules still grazed peacefully but even they kept a respectful distance from the ruins and the lake surrounding the jumbled stones. As he passed the spot where Gavril's bandages lay drying, Dmitri grimaced and put a hand to his stomach. Derrick had said he'd seen plenty of wounds, had defended himself even. What was Dmitri to that? He was only a simple baker, the son of a farmer. The most serious fight he'd ever been in was a bar brawl as a kid. Who was he to go up against the monster in his dreams? He shivered again as the breeze shifted, blowing in from across the lake. This country, he mused, was very warm in the daytime, just like at home, but the temperature dropped once the sun went time, much cooler than he was used to. Fog? Dmitri looked up sharply, his eyes immediately drawn to the lake. Thick, billowing clouds were spilling out from the ruins, covering the stars, out just moments before. The sight sent chills up and down Dmitri's spine. He began to wish he had some sort of weapon. Shivering in earnest now, Dmitri began to edge back towards camp. Soon he was running, stumbling in the blinding dark. Then he tripped, fell, and when he looked up, the face of his nightmares loomed above, fangs glistening, smoke billowing like the mist, eyes blazing, and claws - claws reaching, slashing, rending - With a yell, Dmitri threw himself sideways and rolled. The claws came after, gouging deep trenches in the soft clay. He ran, dodged and jumped, this time in the opposite direction of camp. He could feel the monster's hot breath behind him and threw himself down on the ground again as the monster took another swipe at him, but he went down hard and didn't move again as quickly. Almost lesiurely, the great beast used one of its huge paws to pin him down. It bent its neck to look down at him, the fangs dripping as it stretched its jaw into a hideous grin. The ground sizzled where its drool landed. Dmitri yelled as some hit him and redoubled his efforts to get loose. But the monster only laughed and displayed the claws on its other paw. The shaking got worse and now the monster seemed to be saying his name. It bent down towards him, closer now, its teeth bigger than Dmitri's head. He breathed in its awful breath, rolling over and retching. Suddenly, the pressure on his legs was gone and he could move. Looking up, he stared into Mordred and Derrick's worried eyes. "Are you okay?" Virgo "Dmitri..." Mordred heard the rustling of the other man, "Dmitri, your..." He heard him yell and was on his feet in an instant, "Dmitri!" Dmitri was scrabbling against the ground, his hands clenching into fists and his mouth open in a silent scream as he kicked his legs against something, as if a great weight held him down before he leaned over and gagged, the remains of his breakfast ending up on the floor. Mordred rushed over and shook Dmitri awake, “Are you okay? Dmitri, focus. Are you okay?” Dmitri’s eyes focussed on Mordred’s hair first before he brought his eyes down to Mordred’s face, “Yeah,” He said softly, “Yeah, I’m all right, but I think my wounds split again.” “Well, get up, and we can fix them in a jiffy.” Mordred and Derrick helped Dmitri to his feet and helped him to the horse as they made it lie down so that the injured One-Eye could lie against it. “What happened?” Derrick asked. “The same thing that injured me the first time.” Dmitri said, wincing as he took off his shirt and Mordred ran to get the herbs and bandages. “What was that?” The dwarf asked, sitting next to him as Mordred returned. “The thing with smoke in it’s nostrils, claws and teeth like a demon’s and monstrous breath.” Dmitri replied. Mordred undid the old bandages, “Then someone needs to show it some mint.” He replied seriously, smearing the distasteful herbs into the ghastly wounds on Dmitri’s belly and back. Derrick snorted, “And you honestly think that a monster would listen to advice from a wild-haired blacksmith?” “Hey it was a joke. You know, ha-ha funny?” Mordred said, helping Dmitri sit up so the he could rewrap him. Kai Magpies "We have," Tai said, staring into the remains of her fourth pint, "a prophecy that's mostly gone. A key to a door we haven't found yet, some random dreams, and a devil trying to murder Dmitri in his sleep. Are you sure you don't drink?""Positive," Marius answered. "I'd better have some for you, then. Anyway. Can't you just ask your gods straight-out what we're meant to do?" "No. They're dead." "What, the gods?" Marius nodded. "Well... damn. So now what?" "I don't know. Maybe there's something in the ruins of the Gates - you've been there, right?" "Yeah." Tai caught the barmaid's eye and signalled for another pint. "But I don't recall anything that looked like it'd be any use now. And I'm not going back." She shrugged, grinning. "It's nicer down here. I guess I'll just have to dream us some fortune, huh?" "Be careful with that. Dmitri might not be the only one the monster attacks." "Ha! I'm not scared of devils. If the plague doesn't kill me I'm going to live forever... what's the matter, see a ghost?" Marius had gone white with the sudden excitement of discovery. "No! The prophecy - listen, there's seven people described, and there are seven of us. 'Take these with thee' - it's not for us to follow, there's someone else." "And, what, we just go along for the ride?" Tai scowled. "Well, this mysterious other had better show up soon." She pulled the pendant from inside her shirt, the one that'd opened the chest. "What did you say this was?" "The Keeper's Medal of Office." "So given that this is what it takes to find the thing, probably the one who was supposed to follow the prophecy would have it. Who's the Keeper?" "Long dead." "Everyone's goddamned dead! Let's find someone and just make them the Keeper. You'll do. Right, Keeper, where do we go from here?" Marius was laughing. "It doesn't work like that. The full rites of the Keepers - we don't know them any more, in their entirety. And, besides, they were based up in the Gates of Heaven." Tai rolled her eyes and sat back in exasperation. "Dead people, dead places, whatever. You can think that one through. Dead drunk and happily passed out is all I'm planning right now." *** Dead drunk, and happily passed out, she's sober as she wanders dreamlike through the ruins of the Cathedral at the Gates of Heaven. As dreams do, it manages somehow to twist geography so that the next thing she sees is the ocean. Or so she assumes. She's never seen one whilst awake but it isn't possible that a mere lake could be this big. Out in the ocean is a heap of rocks which she understands is just a vague sort of representation of an actual island. "How much do you want me to spell it out for you?" Tai's younger self asks, annoyed by her inability to grasp what she's being shown. "If you didn't drink that brain-cell poison you might have worked it out by now." "Hey, you're the one of us that died," Tai reminds her. "Spell it out, I'm tired of riddles." In answer, the little girl points to the island. Lithe little brown figures are scrambling over it; little brown figures with fur and tails, flinging water at each other as they squabble over nuts. "Monkeys?" Tai guesses. "Dammit, monkeys!" And in that moment, as dreams do, it makes sense. All of it. Every last bit. But when she woke, the beautiful entirety of meaning slipped through her hungover fingers like sand. Andante Marius sighed, looking down at the drunken woman collapsed over the table. A gentle shake did nothing to rouse Tai. Nor did picking her up about the waist and lifting her to her feet; she simply lay limp in his arms, like a rag doll, snoring softly.“An’ where do ye think yer goin’ wi’ that lass?” a voice said sharply to his right. Trying to balance Tai in one arm---it was hard, because she was a tall woman, and he was not a particularly strong man---he turned around and found himself standing face to face with a large, middle-aged barmaid. She had pox scars stretching down the length of one side of her face, and sagging wrinkles on the other. He honestly wasn’t sure which side was less attractive. Probably the un-poxed, because there was enough mobility left in that side of her face to twist her expression into a deep, stern scowl. “I am going to take her to her horse, then try to find the rest of our company,” he said pleasantly. The woman stared at him suspiciously. “I saw th’ twa of ye talkin’. Ye hardly seemed t’ know one another. How do I know ye ain’t gonna take ‘er away somewhere, an’ ‘ave yer way with ‘er?” Marius tried really hard not to laugh in her face. He succeeded, concealing every sign of amusement but the faintest of smiles. “My good woman, I am a priest of the Order of the Agony of the Gods. The deities I venerate are dead and unable to enjoy the carnal pleasures, and like many of my brethren, I remain celibate in recognition of this fact. This woman is safer with me than with any other individual---man or woman---in this town.“ The woman still looked skeptical, but when Marius reached into his robe and drew forth a silver chain upon which hung the symbol of his Order---an obsidian pendant inlaid with a silver circle surrounding a jagged silver line---she nodded. “Ah, very well then. But ye be makin’ sure none of th’ others in yer party be tryin’ to take advantage, ye hear?” Marius did laugh this time. “That I will, my good woman! And thank you for caring so much about your customers; it is not something one sees often, in today’s hard times.” The woman’s face softened somewhat. “Kindness is all we ‘ave left, young man.” “That it is,” Marius said softly, then bowed slightly and hauled Tai out of the bar and to the post where their horses were tied. He pushed her up over the horse’s back, then mounted Bairacctar and took her reins, gently leading her horse as he began his search for Kiera and Anglis. ShogunOnlyWar One might think that any quest with only seven people in it would be doomed to failure, but Derrick knew better. It was three wildcatters who had redirected the river water in the flood several years back, and it was 5 miners that unblocked nine tunnel entrances in less than a day after that earthquake in autumn. So a quest with seven people seemed just the right number to save the world, if that was in fact what they were supposed to be doing. Still though, this monster from Dmitri's sleep sounded awfully familiar. If only he could place it... Walking through the woods with an arm-load of wood seemed the perfect time to muse about past events, unfortunately Derrick WAS a wildcatter. Therefore he had to stop to examine every large boulder and rock for mineral ore. The rock he was currently looking at was larger than a man, at least it was taller than him, and it seemed to squat in this rather odd clearing. Covered in moss a small sliver of something shiny reflected the torchlight right into Derrick's eyes as he walked past. "Wonder what that could be." muttered Derrick as he walked over a low rise that separated him from the stone. Approaching the rock, he unslung one of his sledgehammers, and gave the stone a solid whack. The hammer nearly vibrated its way right out of his hand. Rocks aren't supposed to do that, thought Derrick. At least not solid ones...With that he placed the bundle of wood off to one side and withdrew one of his many tools for examining a rock. It was a flat blade, designed to split a rock along a possible vein it also worked to scrape off surface crud. Starting at the strip of silver, Derrick worked quickly and it was not long before a shape began to take place. However, no matter how quickly it was that he worked, he didn't believe that he was going fast enough. Something seemed to drive him to reveal the shape hidden by the moss and rock. He worked until the torch went out, and the sky began to lighten around him. And still he worked... Finally it was finished. The statue had been revealed for what it was. And as he gazed upon it, he turned to view the circle which lay to either side of the monument. The circle was far from uniform, it could barely be called a circle actually. The shape was made by mounds that rose from the ground, buried under dirt and grass and who knows what else. But even so, Derrick began to work. He had revealed three more of the statues fallen upon their sides or back. The black rock had once been painted, although who would paint Obsidian escaped Derrick's grasp. The paint had been worn away with time until it had only remained upon the grounded side of the statues. Given the features of the first four statues, Derrick started to work on revealing a fifth, when he heard crunching behind him. Upon turning to look, he saw Mordred and Dmitri staring upon the standing stone. While the features had been slightly eroded by time there was no mistaking the woman standing before them. Weilding a scimitar and a small buckler, the amulet of office draped around her neck, its silver shining in the broad morning sun. Her blue eyes were done up with beautiful blue sapphires and a trace of white paint could be seen on her cheek. The shield sported a strange inverted V, and a web of entangling lines surrounded it. She appeared to be wearing some sort of armour, but it was hard to tell, whereas the face had been spared the ravages of time, the body had not been exempt. "Now if you think that that is odd, wait until you see these." Derrick motioned towards the three fallen stones. KC is a teacher now! "Do you think this has anything to do with my rocks?" Derrick asked, ignoring Mordred. "Rocks?" echoed Dmitri, struggling to hold still as Mordred smeared him with goo. Mordred scowled at the miner. "No, Derrick!" he snapped, "But do we need to have this argument again?" Derrick frowned back. "I wasn't doing anything," he grumbled. "That's the point!" growled Mordred right back. "You were supposed to be on watch, and instead go digging at rocks. We could've all been killed!" "Mordred, Derrick," said Dmitri with a groan, "give it a rest." "Well there's no way I'm going to be getting any sleep tonight," Mordred grumbled, "and I'm always cranky when I haven't slept." Derrick opened his mouth to argue, but Dmitri cut him off. "Why don't we go look at those rocks, then? Between the three of us we could probably uncover them all before dawn. I don't know about you, but I'm not staying here another night." Mordred shook his head in silent agreement. "I need something to drink." They moved over to the campfire and Dmitri poked the coals into life while Mordred went to get water. "Hey, what's this here?" "I wanted to see if any of those paper scraps actually said anything." Derrick poked at the scattered pieces. He could barely make out a few words, if he held them just right against the light of the fire. "What does it say?" "I don't know. We'll have to save them for Marius to look at later. I cleaned out the box, too. We should probably take it with us." "Where, though?" asked Mordred, coming back up the hill. Dmitri shrugged. "Anywhere other than here." "Why the rocks?" Mordred asked with a sideways look at Derrick. "I mean, granted, it'll keep us busy, but why bother? What difference does it make?" "Didn't you see?" demanded Derrick. "They're not just rocks, they're probably the last remnants of a temple or church or something." "Look," Dmitri interrupted, "we'll just have to wait and see what Marius says, but in the meantime, let's just clear them off. We can pack up camp afterwards and be ready to go when the others get here." Virgo Mordred grumbled under his breath. He didn't like rocks, rocks meant the end of the forest. Rocks meant no more trees. Rocks were not nice. He huffed, yanking the moss off a part of one before sneezing. "I don't like this." Mordred sneezed again, his eyes crossing."No one said you had to, smithy." Derrick rumbled. Mordred snorted, "I haven't been a smithy since I left the village." He replied. "That's beside the point, you're still a smithy." Derrick huffed. Mordred sighed, dropping down, "This isn't my thing." He looked over at Dmitri, "Forgive me. Come find me in an hour and we'll change your bandages." He frowned, unwilling to leave Dmitri in the hands of the miner, but did anyways, in favour of putzing through the box again. He liked the funny symbols on it and traced over them absently, thinking. He finally gave up when his thoughts left him with an empty mind, and opened the box, poking through the mud and ick on the bottom, unearthing a piece of less-decayed... something, written in the funny symbols and he set it aside for Marius when he returned, perhaps he could make heads or tails of it, he sure couldn't. He nosed through a bit more when he heard the sound of hoofbeats and looked up to see Marius with Tai in tow over the horse's rump and Anglis and Kiera pulling up the rear. "Hey, Priest, can you read this?" Mordred point to the squishy bits of writing he had uncovered. Kai Magpies  Hey, guys, I changed a few words in the letter, FYI - KC Marius took his time in answering, poking the fire up still higher to cast as much light as possible before he settled down to wipe the mud off the scrap Mordred had uncovered. Whoever had written it - and it wasn't the same hand as had written the rede - had pretty bad handwriting, which the passage of years and mud and wriggling things hadn't improved. Only bits and pieces of it were still legible; even less of it made actual sense. "Insel," he said slowly, rolling the word around his mouth. It tasted like a place-name; that strange tang of something that's almost recognisable; something he'd heard once, in passing, and never known anything more about. "Have you heard of a place called Insel?" Mordred shook his head. "What about the big bit?" He pointed to the largest piece he'd salvaged, and the priest took it up carefully. Marius' eyes brightened as he scanned the text. "This is a letter... to someone called Marguerite." he began to read aloud. "Ever since your grandfather arrived I'm afraid it's only become worse... can't read a bit here... it has to be said that Prince Desmond wasn't a wonderful man and now, well, I'm sorry to lay such slander on your family, but all one has to do is look at the evidence and it becomes all too clear that..." the priest struggled with the decayed scrawl for a few long moments before shaking his head in regret. "It always ends before you get to the interesting bit," Mordred grouched. "Who's this Marguerite?" "Prince Desmond's granddaughter, from the sound of things. I wonder if she's still alive." Mordred shrugged. "By the way, Derrick found some rocks." "What rocks?" "Standing stones, statues... I don't know, I'm not a rock person. He thinks they're important. And also, we're moving." "You're joking," Kiera stated flatly. "It's too late to go anywhere. Besides..." she pointed, grinning, to where Tai had finally succumbed to gravity and slid, still asleep, from her horse to lie in a crumpled mess on the ground. "If you boys are so eager to move on, go and we'll catch you tomorrow." Marius nodded agreement. "Besides, I want to see those rocks of Derrick's... but tomorrow, when it's light, and also when I've had some sleep." Andante Mordred and Dmitri exchanged a glance. After a moment Mordred shrugged, and Dmitri, looking displeased but resigned, sighed and turned to Kiera.“Alright, I’ll agree to camp here one more night, for Tai’s sake. But tomorrow let’s please pack up camp after we show Marius the rocks or statues or whatever they are, and then leave. I don’t like it here.” Marius didn’t like it here either, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. There was just something… creepy about this place. It shouldn’t have made him this uncomfortable; the artifacts they’d found so far suggested that this place had once been holy, but now a cold, slimy feeling of defilement seemed to crawl up his back every time he looked around. Maybe it was just that this place of past splendor was now dead and in ruins? The priest tried to shake off the feeling as he stepped over to Tai and knelt by her side, lifting one of her arms and slinging it over his shoulder. Anglis joined him, supporting half the woman’s weight with his good arm, and together they levered the tall, heavily-intoxicated Tai to her feet. “We’ll get her into bed,” Marius said with a nod toward Mordred and Derrick. “Why don’t you see to her horse?” A good fifteen minutes later Tai was bundled in her blankets, the horse had been de-saddled and brushed, and Marius was settling into his own bedroll beside the warmth of the fire. “Good night,” Marius said. Dmitri’s voice was so soft the priest almost didn’t hear it. “I hope so.” Marius hoped so too. *~*~* The statue of the woman towered over him, and the obsidian stone of her body seemed to flow like black blood just beneath the surface of her alabaster, flaking skin of paint. Without warning, she began to topple toward him, her face stern but compassionate as it rushed to fill his whole sight. With a strangled gasp, Marius sat bolt upright in his bedroll, cold sweat streaming down his face and plastering his shirt to his back. His aethiara---the symbol of his Order---was clutched in his hand. A quick glance around assured him that he’d just been dreaming, that no statue was about to crush him. To his right, Tai snored peacefully, while Dmitri on his left shifted restlessly in his sleep, muttered something, then stilled. The campfire had cooled to faint, angry embers that barely illuminated the night with a dull red glow. Marius shivered in the cool night air. What had his dream meant? Trying to be as quiet as possible, he slipped out of his bedding and knelt beside his pack, where he’d set his robe that night before climbing into bed. He felt warmer as the deep crimson garment settled over his soaked tunic and pants. Not wanting to risk waking the others with the sound of him pulling on or lacing his boots, he instead padded barefoot away from the campfire and toward the standing stones just a little ways in the distance. The silence of the night was oppressive, and his every footfall seemed to thunder through the forest to the beat of his racing heart. There should have been insects chirruping from their hiding places, or the stir of nocturnal animals searching for prey, but there was nothing save his own footsteps. Only now did he realize that, during all the time he’d been here, never once had he seen an insect or animal. The moon was high in the sky, and bright, casting a silvery-blue light over the land. Marius needed neither sun nor candle to make his way around rocks and shrubs and down to the standing stones. He came to stand before the statue he’d see in his dream. She was much smaller, standing only about a foot higher than him. But the obsidian stone was the same, and the face… The face he knew. Marius stared at the statue for a moment in amazement, and then his eyes flickered down to her feet. There, a single pale blue flower grew, its petals opening to the moonlight. ShogunOnlyWar "It's beautiful, isn't it?" The question seemed to come from nowhere, and everywhere. Marius felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and something seemed almost unreal about the situation. "It is funny that so desolate a place can harbor such a wonderful flower." Marius turned, and saw the eyes of the miner shining amid a dull green glow. He looked every inch the gargoyle that the order had adorning its monastary, and Derrick just sat there, with his head on his sledge's handle gazing at the flower and the statue. "How long have you been sitting there Derrick?" Marius questioned warily. Of all the party members, Derrick was the one that he knew the least about. "It is alright monk. I have no intention of killing anyone this night, let alone a defenseless religious man. And to answer your question, I have no idea." "How can you not know?" "Because I went to sleep with the rest of you, and the next thing I knew, I was here, staring at her. Wondering how she could possibly be standing there. Wondering who she is, and what she says." "What do you mean?" "For a learned man, you are somewhat stupid aren't you." Marius looked at him a rebuke slowly bubbling to the surface and the tip of his tongue, but he held back. This miner knew more than he was letting on about these statues, and if he kept quiet, maybe he would tell him. "Perhaps by your definition I am stupid, but I would prefer to say that I am ignorant. I know not what you do, and you must remember that this is the first time I have seen these monoliths." "Ever the words of the wise pass your lips. Look then at the base of her statue, and read the words that she says." "How can I read them? I don't have a torch or a fire. And that glow does not illuminate the base well." "Well then, we shall simply have to wait for the dawn, won't we." Time passed slowly in the pale green light. Much was exchanged between the two, miner and monk, and slowly light crept back into the world. Marius had fallen asleep curled up at the base of the statue and when the sun had risen fully over the horizon, he was rudely awaken when the ground began to shake violently. Suddenly the statue that had not moved in perhaps a hundred, began to waver, and then to fall. As he had dreamed the statue's face began to fill his entire field of view. Then it was gone...Derrick had risen and in one swift motion, he had grabbed the hapless monk and flung him out of the way. By the time that the two of them had gotten themselves reorganized, the others had arrived and where staring at the now fallen statue, and the pile of rubble where its head had been. KC is a teacher now! The falling rock roused everyone from their sleep and, en mass, ran towards the source of the commotion. "What happened?" Dmitri demanded. Marius shrugged. "I don't know. It fell. It just fell." "That's it!" Dmitri declared. "I'm not staying here another minute!" He stomped back to camp and began to throw his few belongings into his pack. "What's going on?" groaned Tai, propping herself on an elbow to glare at him. "What're you doing here?" Dmitri asked, surprised. "I thought everyone was down looking at those blasted rocks?" "What rocks?" she asked, stretching. "Urgh, it's obscenely early." She raised a hand to shield her eyes against the dawn light. "So what are you doing here, then?" "Um," Dmitri looked down at the bag in his hand and grimaced. "I'm leaving." "What?" That announcement woke Tai more thoroughly than any coffe could. "Where?" He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. Home, I guess, since my whole purpose seemed to be in getting here. I don't know what else to do, Tai, I can't sleep, I can't think, and without anything else to go on, what else can I do?" She stared at him. "I think we need to go to an island." Now it was Dmitri's turn to stare. "Island?" he echoed. "Yes. The Island of Monkeys. Isn't that what part of the rede says? Seek the aid of those not men? What else can it be?" "You've had another vision, haven't you?" "Yes." She shrugged. "Or, it could just be the beer talking." Dmitri smiled, chuckling a little. Then he sighed. "I don't think I'm cut out to be some kind of messenger or what-not to the gods." "It's hard to be a servant to gods who are dead," replied Anglis, returning to the campsite. He stopped by the fire and stoked the coals into flames. "That's right," Tai said, "I remember Marius saying something like that last night." "Why?" asked Dmitri. "Why do you think they're dead, Anglis?" "Only demons would enjoy watching people suffer," he answered. "I prefer to think that the gods are dead, rather than believe they'd let something like this go on like it has." "You know," said Tai, fumbling from her blankets to sit up, "Marius said something else last night. He said that he thought there was something else in that riddle, from the box, I mean. He seems to think that there's someone else who's supposed to be involved in this." "Who?" asked Dmitri and Anglis together. She shrugged, yawning. "No idea." "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not going to stick around here to find out." Anglis tossed a couple more logs into the embers and propped the cooking pot over the small fire. He was quiet for a few minutes while Dmitri stuffed some more items in his bag and Tai rolled herself out of her blankets. "It seems to me," he said after awhile, "that I think going home is a good idea." "Hmm?" He had Dmitri's attention again. "I've travelled much of the north, you know, but I seem to recall maps indicating that this isle of monkeys lies to the south. You live that way, don't you, Dmitri, along the coast?" "Yes, but if you want a ship, we'll want to go west of my village, towards the monastery along the edge of the Silent Sea." "Oh good," said Tai, "then it's settled. What's for breakfast? I'm starved!" Tileira Gods. What god would throw such a curse to taint the wind? What deity would sicken children or turn people mad to turn on their families?Not that he had any thought against the mad ones. They were not always dangerous and those that were could be easily put out of their misery. No, it was the healthy, the ones that still had their minds that he despised. Those that would stare, full of suspicion, full of hate for anyone they didn't know. The ones that would kill the harmless addled or ignorant stranger in the name of safety and go back to their wives. The ones that would murder a man in cold blood for speaking oddly or simply losing his way. The only thing worse than the plague itself were its survivors. What gods would allow that happen? No, the gods were dead. He knew, because the world was neither over nor saved. He paused, pressing his fingers over his eyes. The sensation that had come on so suddenly had barely been a whisper of a threat, and subsided easily enough. The hoarse gir had her vision, the priest his words. The dwarf his eye for steel and stone. How did the rest fit? Keira had a smooth enough tongue and sense in her head, but that was as much as he had gathered from them. And Dmitri's wound. He didn't understand what manner of creature could have caused it by attacking in a dream. It was a worrying thought, so it was only natural that the man had been taking a great deal of care to conceal it. Too many years picking trails out of ice and taking the trail by the wind had given Anglis glimpses enough to understand the man was injured and the wound was not healing well. All of this, these pieces of... nothing. Shards of shards amongst mud and glass. He was not a scholar, he knew land and animals and how to find something in miles of glacier when it seems your best hope is to freeze in your sleep before you starve. What was a one-armed hunter, who relied on traps and ambushes in this prophecy left behind by dead gods and dead priests? To quench the fumes of war, seek the aid of those not men. The Isle of Monkeys? If she said so, but what war, something past or dawning? He had heard that once the world was all siezed under the control of one King to the south, that this had angered the gods when his armies touched upon the last free foothold. Were those fumes the plague taint on the wind, or did the rede mean something newer. In all of this, knowing that for all the simplicity of the North he would be hard pressed to piece anything out of this mess, there were the few whispers that the Icy Rim still feared to forget. He might not have believed in gods, but there was always still that hint of something more than air and taint in the wind. The whisper that men claimed to hear to guide them back to the path. Partly they held it in case it was even the ghost of a remaining god, but mostly because men were afraid to die alone in the wastes. If that whisper was even the ghost of a god, even if it was only the fear of dying alone, anything that could put an end to this plague had to be done. He stood up from warming his hand over the fire and wandered towards the lake. He was a light eater, too used to rationing his food. Instead he gazed over the water, listening to the dead place and all the creatures that would not tread there. Barely a breeze stirred and when it did he could feel the false imagined taste of dry decay. This was a place of dead, corroded saints and bitter prayers. He narrowed his eyes. For amoment he had seen something amongst the ruins. A dark shadow that had turned to him for just a second before it was gone. If it had ever been there. Anglis stalked back to the fire where the horses were being readied, not that he liked horses. Animals that size were for salting or eating, not using as mounts. People had feet, they should use them. That and the accursed creatures had no love for him either. Once again he lifted both his and Kiera's packs to carry them while he walked. The young woman made soothing company. The headaches were less frequent and he had not had a blackout since he had met her, which was just as well. Like Dmitri's injuries, it was not something he particularly wanted the others to know. What Dmitri had done to earn an injury was one thing, having them know that the plague had left its scar on his brain was another. On their way past the statue he paused at the fallen warrioress, or whatever she was. He knew the armour styles from his rede, but bothe she and the stone were unfamiliar. Another lost name, perhaps even another dead god. He closed his eyes as their path finally found the wind and he inhaled deeply. This, as ugly as it was, was the world. Not his world of ice and snow dusted forests, but it was the same wind anywhere. The same voice that whispered in the dark, the same tail that whipped up a cold fury in winter. As long as there was wind Anglis could never be lost. Except when the pain hit and he was too blind and too deaf to know anything but fear and dark and the desperate need to not be alone. He barely stumbled once before he passed out and hit the floor. Virgo Mordred tsked at the remains of the statue, circling around it as the others made to go pack up camp. He shuffled through the bits of it, slipping a piece of the stone into his pack to examine later in better light as Dmitri called for him to join them. "Yes, yes, I'm coming." He sighed, trotting up to Dmitri who had fallen to the rear to wait for him, "What's up?""Let's get out of here, we've already..." Dmitri was cut off from a squeak from Kiera. Mordred trotted ahead to see Anglis out cold, flat on his face in the dirt of the road, "Woah, what happened here?" He asked, rolling the heavy man over and checking to make sure he was breathing, "Hey?" Mordred shook him, "Anglis, was it? Hey, come on..." He trailed off as he could nearly feel the pain radiating off the man, "He's... not so good..." Mordred sighed, "We need to get out of here, yes?" He glanced at Dmitri who nodded, "Keh..." He bent down and hauled the heavy hunter to his back, carrying him like he had done with his sister many a time, piggy-back style, "Let's go." He murmured, setting about placing one foot in front of another. "Mordred, we could wait until he wakes..." Dmitri protested quietly, so only Mordred could hear. "We could, but this place... it is... disconcerting to you, is it not? It is better we are gone from here, isn't it?" Mordred glanced down at the baker, "Come one, Dmitri, let's greet what comes next with raised fists and deafening roars of defiance, we'll not let out world perish without a fight, yeah?" Mordred smiled broadly, the rings in his lips and in various other places on his face stretching the smithy's face oddly as he did. Dmitri shook his head, "Impossible..." "Humph, at least he's better than the rest of us, all smiles and a grin." Tai muttered, walking awkwardly beside the horse, "With dead gods and a world in chaos, I suppose it's good to have someone who does not look on this place with a bleak gaze." "I don't think the gods are dead..." Mordred mumbled, "I think that they sleep, since whatever it was that started this plauge... I think they were forced to sleep. In the village... before it was gone, people used to tell stories of a time where the plauge did not stike everytime the wind blew, instead people looked to the wind for hope... for life and for the rains. People used to dance for wind and water and sun, and there were great parties, just because, not for only mourning those who passed on." He looked up, "And when the bad things happened, no one knows quite what the story was, the gods were forced to sleep, and turn their faces away for a season as their creations reaped that which they sowed. I think... I think that they are beginning to awaken and see what their lack of guiadance has left us... that's why we're here, to help return the world beneath the gentle sway of the mother goddess' wind." He paused in the road as the others stared at him. "Quite a theory you've developed, child. You are the youngest in our group and you would impose upon us the teachings of gods? Isn't that the Preist's job?" Derrick asked, his face turned to the bright-haired man. "Sorry, you all gave your theory's I thought it was time to give you mine." Mordred growled, muttering something unintelligible, but the word 'dwarf' and 'bleedin' mental' could only just be heard. * * * Okay, here's the part I was going to add in. If I get too far off your char, Reamie, give me a shout and I'll fix it, k? One minute Anglis was walking along with the others, the next he was face-down in soft, moist dirt. The air around him was heavy with, well, something, almost oppressive in its weight, and making him feel heavy and sluggish. Strange sounds filled his ears, unfamiliar bird calls and rustling of great trees. Slowly, he levered himself to his knees, looking about in wonder. It was so green! Flowers of every size, shape, and color imagineable drew the eye, quite like that Mordred's hair, in fact. Anglis leaned so far back, searching for a break in the tree canopy above that he almost fell over. A young girl giggled. Anglis started and turned about to stare at her. She had long, rusty-red-brown hair, which hung down her back in a thick braid, heavily laced with white flowers. Her green eyes shone with amusement and the thick freckles on her face moved as she smiled with even, white teeth. She wore a simple, one-piece dress of a dull, brown color, and was barefoot. She fiddled with a necklace of blue beads as she giggled, and stared back at him. "Who are you, where am I?" he asked. "Dreaming," she replied. "I'm not even really here." For a moment, a flicker of annoyance crossed her face. "We've had such conversations before, don't you remember?" Her voice seemed much older than she appeared to be. "Uh, no," he stammered. She shrugged. "Well, no matter, I suppose I've gotten good at explaining things." She sighed, looking sad. "You can't get there, you know, you never will until the gates are unbarred. Until then, you'll just end up coming back here." Anglis just stared. "Huh?" She either ignored him or didn't hear, for she continued, "I've tried to get there myself, of course, but have failed. I can only ever get here." She frowned, definitely not seeing him now. "I wonder sometimes if I'm not just imagining things, imagining you, too, except you never appear the same way twice." She looked at him sharply as he stared, seeing her becoming less real to him and more dreamlike. "Wait! Don't leave yet. Here, take this!" She leaned towards him, holding out a bracelet of white, carved beads. "Rangsey says this charm will ground you in this time and allow your mind to remember - that is if you're real, of course. I'm not sure he believes me. His letters are so confusing." His hand on the bracelet, Anglis thought the place seemed to become more real, and rather familiar. He was beginning to feel a discomforting sense of deja-vu. Still, he couldn't seem to stop staring, or voice the questions that burned with the need to be asked. She was watching him again, waiting for something perhaps, or merely trying to ground her own thoughts, just as Anglis found it harder and harder to concentrate. There was blackness again, creeping up on the edges of his vision and his head was pounding. The girl was fading again. "Remember!" she cried, speaking ever faster as Anglis dimmed to her own sight. "Remember the way is barred and you'll only be hurt if you keep trying without help! Stay away! It'll be the death of both of us if you keep summoning me." Anglis felt himself slide into unconsiousness, her last words echoing in his head: "Stay away - stay safe ...." Kai Magpies The afternoon sunshine tried to burn them, but through the grumpy layer of thin clouds all it could manage was a sort of soupy, directionless light. They'd stopped a little way off the road for a lunch-break, letting their horses - and Derrick's donkey - wander down to the noisy, inefficient stream for a drink. To Mordred's relief, Anglis had floated back to the surface of conciousness and muttered that he was perfectly able to walk. None of them had really known how, exactly, to put the question to him - asking straight out, 'what is wrong with you?' didn't seem like the diplomatic, or even intelligent, way to broach the subject. Anglis volunteered nothing."Where fell the final blow..." Marius was going over the rede for what seemed the millionth time, determined to understand what they were meant to be doing before they started doing it. "I don't know," Tai answered. "Where fell the final blow?" "Sacred Mountain. Life once more will spring?" "About time. Even the weeds die young- okay, what the hell is that thing?" She pointed to a bright scrap of vermilion fluttering nearby. Marius peered, but couldn't see it well enough to make out what it was. "It's a butterfly," Anglis called. "They exist? Wow. I thought they were only real in dreams." The hunter grinned. "No, they're true enough." "Nice to know... hey, you're talking. What happened?" Anglis looked away from the suddenly attentive group, uncomfortable and uncertain exactly what had happened. "A green place," he said at last. "And... a girl who knew me, though I don't recall seeing her before." He stuck a hand into his pocket and pulled out a bracelet of carved white beads, holding it up. "She said this would 'allow my mind to remember', whatever that means." "Has it?" "No," Anglis admitted. Then he shook his head and shoved the bright thing away, back into one of many pockets. "We should get going," he got up, provoking a general trend; before long they were back on the road, silently trudging towards some longed-for sanity. Andante "Where are we headed, exactly?" Marius asked after about four hours on the road. The sun was beginning to beat down overhead, and Marius's stomach kept rumbling. He could eat in the saddle if need be, but he saw no reason why the group could not take a break to stretch their legs and enjoy a meal. Yet Dmitri drove a hard pace and seemed to be determined to reach some destination with speed. "Somewhere else," was all Dmitri said. Marius shrugged and twisted in the saddle to reach into his pack. He had some dried meat in here somewhere... An hour later they reached a fork in the road. A small, unkept sign dangled precariously from a leaning post. One half was marked Tang Mtn., the other Blessed Village. "So..." Anglis said. "By 'somewhere else', do you mean right or left?" The Nameless Hermit ~*~*~*~*~ Dear Marguerite, It was a pleasure having met you at the ball a fortnight ago. I enjoyed our conversation immensely. Such impetuousness and courage is seldom seen in young ladies these days and, as I mentioned at the time, I would be pleased to correspond with you. The country these days is indeed lovely and I could only wish that my duties allowed me out more. I am back home now, you see, away from the hustling and bustling of court, and shall endeavor to write you at least monthly, but as you shall have ever so much more fun things to accomplish, I shall expect your letters quite a bit more quickly. From what Lady Adamma said before she whisked you away to meet some other stifling guest, you are about to venture into the frozen north. Take care, if you would, to enjoy the solitude of the heavens some evening and write me back on what you shall experience. I dare say you can convince your parents to allow you the privilege of staying awake until you can write back about something truly spectacular. I await your response with sincere pleasure, Rangsey ~*~*~*~*~ Dear Rangsey, I am so happy that you agreed to write me. As much as I love traveling with my parents there aren't many people I can talk to. The adults in our party think I'm too young and mothers won't let their children talk to the 'visiting nobility'. Right now we are back on the road. Grandfather wanted us to stay longer but Uncle Juro - he was always with father, do you remember? At the party? - said that we had to go before the mountain passes closed even though we had plenty of time. I don't think anyone said anything because Uncle Juro is always doing things like that. I don't think he likes Grandfather very much. We're going home before heading north to drop off the award. I can't wait to get there and see all my friends and favorite places. I'll write again when we get there. Marguerite ~*~*~*~*~ KC is a teacher now! They were at a crossroads. Dmitri could feel the different paths ahead like a strong wind. There were the Fire Berry Mountains and Derrick's home, the Tang Mines, to the East. To the West was the legendary city called the Blessed Village, behind them to the North was Stonehenge, and directly south was Dmitri's home along the Whispering Cliffs. He yearned to return to his baking oven, and to his family, yet a stronger tug pulled him onward, towards the Silent Sea and the Monastery dedicated to the old gods. Somewhere, beyond the coast to the south, was the Island of the Monkeys. Tai had said they needed to go there and no one had argued. The way things were going, however, Dmitri had to wonder if there wasn't something driving each and every last one of this odd-ball company. Tai had her dreams, Marius his books, Mordred's hair, Derrick's hammers, and now Anglis was acting strangely. He was dreaming, too, and had brought something back with him. Hand rubbing the bandages concealed under his clothes, Dmitri frowned at the signpost. "Well," he said out loud, "if we're really going to the island, we need to take a right and head South-West towards the Monastery." Mordred gave him a questioning look. "That 'gut feeling' again?" Dmitri shrugged. "I just think Tai's right and the island is our next stop." "Well, let's get going then," said Derrick, pulling his donkey's head out of the weeds again and forging on ahead. Shrugging, Kiera and Marius followed, then Tai, and Angli dropped back to walk by Dmitri in the rear. "What do you think these are?" asked Anglis after a few minutes of quiet, staring down at the white beads in his hand. "Marius is the priest, why don't you ask him?" "But you've been in the dream-world ...." "So has Tai." "But, you - look, Dmitri, I'm not so good at plain talking and I have no desire to argue. Tai's asleep for her visions, but you've had yours awake, too, Derrick and Mordred said so." Dmitri cocked an eyebrow at him, but didn't deny running from the dragon two nights past. He sighed. "I really don't know, Anglis .. but, well, I think you should wear them. I haven't figured out what the dragon wants of me, but the girl of your vision told you straight out. Whatever she wants you to remember, it'll probably be worth it." Anglis stared down at the beads for a few more minutes, then slipped the bracelet around his numbed left wrist. Dmitri watched, but said nothing, leaving the man to his thoughts. They walked together for several miles until making camp in the dusk. The climate was definitely cooler, and they huddled around the campfire for warmth. It was Mordred's turn to cook, but Kiera bargained a story from him in return for one of her delicious stews and the whole group enjoyed light-hearted banter as the night slowly settled around them. Derrick took the first watch, so the rest slipped into their blankets and one by one, fell asleep. It was a day of strange occurrances, it would seem, for Dmitri found himself back on his field of blue flowers as soon as he'd closed his eyes. This time, though, he could make out the spires of a magnificent tower through the mist up the slope from where he stood. Low chuckling quickly drew his attention to the side. The dragon, it's monstrous jaws pulled apart in a hideous grin, laughed at him. It was curled up on a rock in the sunshine (and a part of Dmitri wondered if it was always daylight in this meadow). Remembering his words to Anglis, Dmitri forced himself to hold still and, trembling, shouted, "What do you want of me?" The monster only chuckled, grabbing Dmitri in one claw, too fast for him to react. Then he squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed, and laughed .... And this time woke to Derrick's urgent voice, and a hand over his mouth. He sat up, gasping for breath, tears still pouring from his eyes. "He's enjoying this!" Dmitri sobbed, wiping at his eyes furiously. "He likes it!" "Shh!" hissed the dwarf, "You'll wake the others!" Dmitri gave Derrick a weak smile. "Thanks. I was screaming again, wasn't I?" A nod. "And you're bleeding again." Sighing, Dmitri said, "It hurts to breathe, too." "Should we wake Kiera? She seems to know a few things about herbs and stuff." "No, let's wait until morning. I want to see how bad it is myself." "Well, stay there, then, I'll wake Mordred for the next watch instead." Tileira Anglis was woken for last watch sometime later. He sat up by the fire, turning the beads on ths string again. Stop summoning her, huh? It wasn't as though he could help blacking out let alone do it on purpose. He did well enough avoiding it as much as he already did. He'd never seen anything so green."Come on," he whispered to himself, "You must have a name at least. What's your name?" Red hair and such green green eyes. White flowers. <i>You never appear the same way twice</i> Was that true for her too? If so and these beads worked, then there was a chance he might recognise her later whatever state she was in. She couldn't really be so young could she? No, she had to be older than he'd seen her. At least he remembered the last time. M. Was there an m in her name or was he just trying too hard? He slipped the bracelet back onto his left wrist and paused a moment, but whatever half-formed thought that had grabbed him just then had gone just as quickly. He lifted his eyes to the sickly glow of the horizon as the sun rose but before it had broken over the shadow of the land. They would have to sail again to get to the Isle of Monkeys. Which would either mean trading for a boat or bartering passage on a ship headed closer that way. He had no idea if they could afford a boat, but he much preferred a delay to sailing with strangers. He could trust these people. At the very least they were as deluded as he was, at the worst (and most likely) this was all real and they were linked by fate or however you described it. Strangers had no such loyalties and therefore little reason to tolerate him and his peculiarities. Virgo Mordred threw a rock as they rested, his boredom and his youth showing as his impatience grew. The hunter was out fetching something for Kiera to put in the stew, Dmitri was stoking the fire and helping the others gather firewood while he was on watch. Usually he was busy keeping Lillya out of trouble and making sure she was fine, however, Lillya wasn't here, she was back in Dmitri's village. Alone. He sighed, throwing another rock, sorely missing his sister, and feeling rather self-depricating at the moment, though he knew it would get him nowhere. He glanced around, his grey eyes settling on the dancing fire, being lulled into the yellow and red streaks flashing up and around the dull pot. He weaved back and forth, almost seeing... seeing... images, a battle... a dragon... his eyes drooped, he was falling down on the job, and he knew he was, but the fire had it's allure and he was drawn to it..."Mordred!" He drew a dagger and spun, startled at Dmitri's voice, "What's going on?" He asked, his eyes darting around wildly. "You fell asleep. Are you all right?" He asked, kneeling down in front of the usually cheerful man. "I'm fine." Mordred leaned back, "I think I need to dye my hair again." He raked his hands through the soft purple strands. "Again?" Dmitri looked skeptical, then shrugged, "Do what you will. Are you sure you're okay?" "I... I wanted to go the other way." Mordred admitted, standing, "I wanted... I..." He turned away from Dmitri, "I wanted to see my sister again. I wanted to be selfish and go back to your village and take her and leave. I even told myself that I would if we went to your village, but we didn't, so I couldn't be selfish." Mordred looked up, his gaze drawn to the now-dark sky, the stars spread out for them, just like the first night he and Dmitri had spent in each other's company. "I know the feeling. I wanted to go back too." Dmitri murmured, "I wanted to return to my life at the bakery, but I knew I couldn't. Because..." "Because we have to save the world, yeah?" Mordred raised an eyebrow as he turned his head to look at the other man. "Yeah, because we have to save the world." Dmitri murmured. "Do your bandages need changing?" Mordred asked, sitting back down. "No, Anglis helped me." Dmitri said. Mordred didn't say anything to that, throwing another rock instead and rested his chin on an upraised knee as Kiera came over to tell them that dinner was ready and Tai had somehow scrounged up a bottle of foul smelling liquor and was drinking it herself while Derrick and Marius murmured to one another quietly over the fire. Kai Magpies Monykom City. It shouldn't really be possible for a city to have that many people in it. Marius had said there were around five thousand - and at first Tai hadn't really believed him, as this was ten times the size that a large town could really get away with being. And yet, here they were, riding the last stretch of gently sloping road down to the main gate, and she was beginning to suspect that the priest may not have been that far off in his estimate. Certainly the place looked grossly swollen, bloated in a way that suggested it had expanded massively, and very quickly, at some point in the past; like a starving man bolting down far too much food to decently hold, and then lying down for a week or so until the swelling went away. That was what Monykom City reminded Tai of. And when they got closer to the wide-open gates in the high wall, the smell suggested that maybe our rhetorical starving man had died at some point, but had still been left to lie for a week or so. She wasn't a particular stranger to bad smells - she'd lived with the Plague and its attendent pyres all her life - but after some time in the fresh air of the uninhabited places between her home, and Stonehenge, and here, the foul reek was an unwelcome reality check.The week's journey had been, thankfully, uneventful; the only point of excitement being two more showdowns between Dmitri and the devil in his dreams, the beast attacking with frightening new strength, as though determined to stop him before he reached... somewhere. Somewhere he was heading, that it didn't want him to go. The monster, whatever it was, had so far not been very inclined to attack anyone else; but that didn't stop the nightmares. Tai's were back with a vengeance - violent, screaming, bloody affairs that even alcohol couldn't entirely kill anymore. Judging from the other's drawn faces in the mornings, they hadn't been seeing pretty things behind their eyelids either. Eventually she'd just gone back to her unsleeping ways. It beat the nightmares, but not by much. The sky was crowned with ugly thunderclouds as they reached the gates. For the past few days the air had been heavier and heavier - at times, it felt like heaven was, somehow, in league with Dmitri's devil in trying to stop them in their tracks. Now the sunlight forcing its way through the ponderous storms slung low between the horizons was diffuse, desperate, and clanged like a bell in the hot, still air. Strung out by nights of pain and terror, wrung out by the effort of forcing themselves through the stifling, smothering weather, the last thing any of the party particularly wanted to come across was a pair of guards, irritated by the heat itching beneath their livery and by the sheer soul-sucking boredom of their unfortunate lot. "Okay, who are you lot?" The man's voice fell flat and lifeless on the dirty road as they dismounted. Marius, unofficial leader - because out of all of them, he knew what he was doing, he'd been here before - answered in an equally enthusiastic tone, introducing them all. But once he'd explained that he was a priest here, the guards waved them through, directing their attention only at a large notice posted on the open gate. Like everything else, it was wilting and curling in the oppressive mugginess. The rules written thereon weren't anything special. Mostly just common courtesy; Tai guessed that when you had this many people all crammed together inside a big stone wall, you needed to spell things out. Make absolutely sure that everyone knows what's allowed, just so the city doesn't suddenly decide to explode. Once inside, Marius urged them to keep going; apparently it wasn't allowed to hang around the city with nothing to do. Either you lived here, or you had business, or you went away. "We'll most likely be able to stay at the monastery," he said, yawning. "They have a hostel there; I can probably get you all space. It's not luxury, but it's free." "Tomorrow we start looking for ships?" Mordred suggested, looking around wide-eyed with curiosity at this strange new place. "This evening we find a pub, and we lay out our plans." Tai had already spotted one or two. This looked like a good place - well-supplied with such establishments, though it did stink rather a lot. "What's it now, just past noon? A couple of hours of not moving sounds good to me." Kiera made a small, tired noise of assent. "We'll all be able to think better after a rest," she agreed. Crushed by the weight of the impending storm, nobody argued as Marius secured themselves and their horses a place to stay in his monastery's little hostel. The afternoon wore on in a fog of exhaustion; although everyone was curious, nobody went exploring - they lay around in the shade, talking fitfully, waiting with tired impatience for the storm to break. Andante As soon as he had arranged for his companions to stay in the monastery hostel, Marius reported to the Precept.The old man glanced up when he heard the priest's rapid footsteps approaching, and his face lit up when his eyes fell upon the young man. "Marius! You have returned! Have you succeeded in your quest? Did you find the people you saw in your dream?" Marius smiled wryly. "Yes, I found them. They are housed in the hostel, actually. I cannot say that I have succeeded in my quest, however, for in finding the individuals in my dream, the quest has... changed, somewhat." "Oh?" the old man asked with a raised eyebrow. "Do tell all. But first... are you well? Brother Selbert can examine you if you are not..." The young priest shook his head. "There is nothing wrong with me other than road weariness, and that is easily-enough alleviated. In truth, I have felt healther these last few days than I have in years. There's someting curative about being out and about in the world. I feel very... alive." The Precept nodded. "Yes, I understand completely. I was a missionary when I was only slightly older than you are now. It was one of the best times of my life. But alas, such days must eventually come to an end. I am old now, and I must live vicariously through you. So tell me, what has occured these last few days?" ShogunOnlyWar As the party rested in the tower room that Marius had procured for them, an insidious sleep stole through the room and even Derrick, scared to death of the height of the tower, was soon asleep. As Anglis sleeps, he dreams: Anglis looked up from the mud he was digging at the bank of a river. He had a long, broad, dull knife in one hand, and a clump of red clay in the other. He was covered in varying degrees of damp clay, and he didn't seem to be wearing any clothes! What the --! A little girl giggled from somewhere behind him. Anglis whirled around. "You again!" The child hopped up and down in excitement. "You remember!" she cried, clapping her hands. "What do you remember?" "I, uh, um .. beads! You gave me a bracelet. Why?" "Rangsey said it would help you remember. I guess I can tell him it worked." She cocked her head at him. "I thought I told you to stay away?" Anglis shrugged. "You did, I guess, I'm just not to good at controling .. this .. this, whatever this is." "Well you better learn!" she snapped. "I can't just keep disappearing like this, you know, people talk." Anglis gave her a blank look. "Huh?" She sighed and picked her way down the bank to sit on a rock, regarding Anglis thoughtfully. "Well, it's, um, illegal to have magic where I come from. If I'm found out, well .. well, let's just say that bad things'll happen to me." She cocked an eyebrow curiously. "Just where do you come from that you don't know any of this?" "Uh, from the North, originally up along the Icy Rim, but I've traveled all over, really." "Hmm, I've been there once, long ago. You don't look like the people I saw there." She stared at him, her expression hardening. "Are you sure you're telling me the truth?" Anglis scowled. "Of course I am! You seem to know everything, though, why don't you tell me where I am and what I'm doing here!" Unexpectedly, she laughed. She stopped as Anglis turned an even darker shade of red. "You mean you really don't know?" She rubbed her chin. "I don't know where we are, either, except back in this jungle again. We always seem to come here, you know, but it's like nowhere else I've ever been, and, believe me, that's saying something." Anglis sighed, feeling his anger fading. "I've traveled a lot, too, and I've sure never seen anywhere like this, either. Do you," he paused, shaking his head as the scene before him flickered and faded into double-vision before settling again. "Do you know how I get here?" "I'd say it's somehow like how I get here," she answered, "and I don't know the why or how to that, either." She looked down at the ground, frowning. Suddenly, Anglis was seeing double again. The ground seemed to be shifting beneath him and his stomach rebelled at the movement. "I, uh," he stammered, lurching sideways and falling, falling, falling ... BAM! Anglis sat upright on the hard stone of the hostel's floor. He shivered. Looking down, he saw that one of the beads had turned black, and then, before his eyes, crumbled into dust, and vanished. Half-closing his eyes, Anglis staggered into the privy-closet and gave in to his heaving stomach. It seemed like hours later before he was able to stagger back into bed. The next day dawned sunny and bright, with the storms having passed in the night. The light air, however, did not last long and a renewed mugginess descended upon the city. As scared as he was of heights, Derrick soon found himself looking out upon the city and observing it. The people were always in a hurry, the vendors were very pushy, and the soldiers that were clearly visible in their livery seemed to be feared. Then there was the city itself. The monastery sat inside an enclosed area, called a bailey if Derrick remembered right, and it was placed oddly close to the motte upon which the palace sat. The palace itself was surrounded by a tall stone wall, and a tower sprang forth as the tallest building in the city. The first bailey, inside which sat the monastery, was enclosed by a thick stone wall, and a moat (the contents of which may, or may not, have still been liquid). Outside of that was a second bailey enclosed by a rather rough looking wooden palisade. The only real thing going for that wall was the hill upon which it had been built. The outermost areas of the city was also enclosed by a wooden wall, but it was slowly being replaced by a stone structure. That wall had been started at the gate and wrapping its way around the outside of the wooden fence. It already featured four monstrous square towers, one on either side of the gate, and one more a ways down the wall. Derrick would have given almost anything to see what stone was being used in the construction, just so that he could be working again. Still...it was nice not having to work alone. He may be on a quest, but he had allies in it. Being one to grouse, Tai grumbled, "Well, seeing as how we managed to sleep through yesterday, what is the plan for today?" Seeing as how the question was not directed at him, Derrick turned back to the window to study the city once more. Dmitri took up Tai's challenge when he answered her, "We need to find a ship that can take us down to the island, and back again." Ahh the docks. The pungent smell of the sea was quite clear to Derrick at his position by the window, and he was forced to wonder how the outer wall would incorporate the bay area. "Even if we do find a captain willing to take us there and bring us back, how do we get him to agree?" The question came from Anglis. He knew that things were bartered for other things, and he also knew that the group had very little to trade, if anything at all. Suddenly a slab of metal hit the table upon which their breakfast dishes still sat. The clattering drew everyone's attention, but Mordred was the first to pick it up. Turning it over in his hand, he plied the metal with a finger, and tossed it from hand to hand. After which he tried to bend it in-between the two. Then scratching his head, he placed it back on the table and stated matter-of-factly, "It's platinum." With that all eyes turned towards its source. Derrick sat facing them and said, "It's not just any type of platinum. That bar is of the purest strain that I ever found in the mines, and it is worth all our weights in gold." To the astonished eyes of his fellows he mumbled, "I always said I was a miner, and its only natural that I get to keep some of the stuff I find." "How much more of that do you have?" questioned Tai, her eyes aglow. "Does it matter? That bar of platinum will more than buy our passage to and from the island. Now. If you will excuse me, I am going to find the local Miners Guild." "Why?" asked Kiera. "Because they will have a representative of the Tang mines there, and I have questions and things to take care of. Not to mention that I need a drink, and they are likely, the only place around to have miners ale at the bar." "A bar!" Tai sat up straighter, "Why didn't you say so? I'm coming too. With that Derrick and Tai departed, the platinum bar still sitting on the table, being stared at as if the others expected it to get up and follow its owner out the door. KC is a teacher now! * * * I'm sorry, guys, but I've been in kind of a rough patch and I haven't been feeling well. I hope you'll forgive me, but I haven't been able to finish my add. Best I can do right now is to say that I figured our characters would go explore the city and I'd planned on Dmitri going to see one of the monastery's doctors. All right, I'm back in business. Let's get this show back up and running, okay? I'll start pressing with the cf, with the 3 day limit on additions again, starting Monday, 9 pm eastern. Remember to ask me for more time if you need it. Ready? * * * Virgo Mordred sighed, he had departed from the group rather quickly or, moreover, they had separated from him and he was left to wander the city all by his onesy. This place was enormous, he reflected, the buildings were tall and high up, almost like that of his forest home, but he doubted he could climb these buildings to reach the top like he used to. He meandered around for a bit, looking at all the things, shiny, dull, vibrant, and strange. He picked up a necklace with small pink stones on it, they matched his little sister's eyes..."That's tweleve silver coins, young man." An older woman emerged from the shadows of the street shop. Mordred smiled wanly, "I don't know if I'm going to buy it." "For Lillya?" She asked. Mordred looked up sharply, "How do you...?" "I know many things, you and your friends are on a God's mission. A massive undertaking for your group, do you think you will succeed?" She asked, wide green eyes seemed to look through him and stare beyond. "Of course we will." Mordred growled. "You are so positive... good, good, you will need that attitude in the coming storm... fire... always trial by fire... beware the dragon, the cruelty of the beast is unmatched. Dmitri will not find what he seeks here." She stepped forward, her skirt jangling with the bells and coins that adorned her. Mordred stepped away, "I... Don't come any closer." "Be gone with you traveller, the necklace is a gift, but the gem in your pocket will cost you a silver." She held out a gnarled hand. "I don't have..." "Check and see if I lie. The dieties will smile on you if you succeed." Her eyes refocussed upon him and he shifted uncomfortably. Mordred checked his pouches rapidly, his eyes widening as his hands came upon the small black diamond in his palm, "How did..." "Do not question those that know most." She shook her hand. Mordred dropped the silver coin in her hand, turning and fleeing into the crowded street. The black gem in his hands emitting a soft glow as he ran towards the docks. Kai Magpies Another night, another vision. Or dream. Or evil brain playing tricks on her. It's hard to tell, when you're asleep; but tonight's show at the Mind's Eye Theatre rings with a sort of hollow-eyed truth. Familiar with how these things play out - and glad in a muzzy way that at least it's not turning into a nightmare just yet - Tai watches the scene unfold before her dreaming eyes.It's Monykom City - long ago, she knows, when it was still fresh and unswollen; before the human flood poured in and bloated it to its present monstrous, oozing size. Floating with a pair of chatty gulls above the city, she sees how careful and regular it is: the streets run as straight as man can make them, cutting each other at polite perfect square angles. The sun is shining down on the calm water of the docks, which plays host to a small forest of ships flying more brightly-coloured flags than Tai ever imagined there could be countries in the world. Hard by the docks is the market, and clearly today is market day because the big square is stuffed with happy, smiling people, going about their cheerful business in the glorious summer sunshine. This is when she knows it must have been long ago. There hasn't been this much general good cheer in the Kingless Land for a hundred years or so. Under the rich sunshine the bustling crowds seem like some vibrant, colourful living organism; that is, until a note of unease creeps into Tai's sleeping mind, and she finally realises that everyone here is either very young, or old, or sick, or injured. And these aren't plague-injuries. Somehow Tai can tell that these are war-wounds. Looking up from the ageing, but happy marketplace-throng, Tai recognises the monastery in which her body is currently snoring. For a lurching, sick second she thinks that somehow it's the Cathedral from the Gates of Heaven; but then she realises that, no, this building has more outliers; the massive graceful church-building is merely the centre of a modestly clutter of monastery-related buildings, unwalled, open to the business of the city it nests in. And, unlike her Cathedral, its bell-tower still stands. Devoid of bells, on a platform high up in the tower stands the a heap of flame big enough to burn up the world, or so it seems. A lighthouse; tiny figures scuttle around the edges, feeding the monstrous flame that flings a tail of scarlet and vermilion and bright yellow, near-invisible in the sunshine, into the perfect blue vault of the sky. Looking out to see, Tai watches a ship come in, noting a miniscule navigator keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the dragon's-head of flame that the monastery's lighthouse sends up. Tai feels the dream-breeze twist under her invisible wings, tumbling her away to the northern edge of the city. There's no wall here, not anymore - no, not yet, this is the past before the fortifications were necessary - and the city blends gently into a surrounding patchwork of fields and farms, quiet and fertile and so green that it seems unreal. Through this blanket of lush production, contented livestock, and happy farmers runs a ribbon of well-mantained road, that stretches out northwards as far as she can see. Down this road comes the nightmare. First a trickle, then a flood of worn-out, exhausted, near-dead, starving refugees drag their wagonloads of salvaged possessions and drive their depleted flocks of exhausted, starving animals. As the frightened flood approaches - they're so tense they would start at butterflies, had they the energy - dark clouds pour in from the horizon behind them. The first of the refugees reach the city at the same time as the storm paints the perfect blue sky with leaden tones of heavy, brooding thunder, rattling the black clouds with menacing drum-rolls like the march of the armies of Heaven. Chaos and terror ride with the refugees, spreading like a storm-front through the previously peaceful city, smashing through the happiness of the bustling market day as the panicking refugees commandeer through sheer force of desperation every one of those clean, many-flagged ships. After about the fourth time of watching a scared captain being torn half to pieces and flung overboard into the increasingly violent, blood-frothing sea, Tai turns her face away. But there isn't anywhere that's less horrible to look. The city is overrun; havoc and panic and primal, animalistic rage have turned it into a seething witches' cauldron of violence and terror. Even the militia, nominally trying to keep the peace, are resorting to increasingly brutal acts. And then the world splits apart, and everyone - including Tai - shrieks in a mixture of spine-rattling terror and sympathetic agony as a boulder, a chunk of rock the size of a house, through some dark sorcery set aflame, blazes like a comet across the storm-nighted sky. It smashes into the lighthouse-tower, knocking it over and demolishing a good half of the cathedral with brutally insolent ease. Fires begin to spring up in nearby buildings, their rich blood-light the only illumination as the afternoon becomes nightmare-dark, and streams of dark blood begin to run through the panic-violent streets. As though the first had launched a new fashion, more flaming boulders come, tearing and smashing the city to pieces. Desperately overcrowded, every single ship that tries to leave the harbour is seized by the raging sea and shaken to sodden match-wood. The apocalypse dims as wakefulness begins to make its timid demands of her. The last thing she sees is a puddle of flames and smashed rock that once was a prosperous, happy city; it rings with the roaring crackle of the devouring fire and the screams and prayers of those still able to make a sound - over which comes, as unexpected as an albatross in a mine-shaft, the pleasant singing voice of a much younger, much happier, dead Tai. "Well, now you know. Wasn't too pretty, was it?" *** Outside in the muggy, brassy sunshine of the - rebuilt, swollen, stinking - city, Tai was glad that Derrick didn't seem inclined to fill the air with idle chatter as last night's dream rampaged through her head again. Following the hideous little dwarf through the odiferous streets - which she began to recognise, in places, from the apocalypse so recently played out behind her eyelids - she barely paid attention to where they were going. The lighthouse was gone, though; she noticed that much. It'd been the first thing she'd looked to see that morning. Evidently they hadn't seen the point in rebuilding the thing, not when so few ships came to the Kingless Land anymore. "Who can blame them? Everything here is under a death sentence." Tai startled, thinking it'd been Derrick, wondering how he'd managed to strike so exactly into her own morbid thoughts. Then she noticed the little ghost-girl walking beside her, strolling unimpeded right through the hasty passers-by that jostled carelessly into the living Tai. The ghost grinned impishly at her. "Yes," the girl confirmed. "You've finally cracked." "Great. Go away." "Make me!" "Go away!" Tai lashed out, instinctively, only just avoiding punching a small one-legged boy in the face. He cried in alarm and shrank back against the Plague-blinded man by his side. "Sorry," she mumbled to the aghast faces glaring at her, and ran on behind the swiftly-disappearing miner, trying her best to ignore the giggles of her own dead self. But she couldn't ignore the rest of the ghosts. The first ones were engaged in building a house, where a cracked fountain now stood in a puddle of stagnant water. The sight brought Tai to a dead halt. "What is it?" Derrick asked. "Look." "What? A fountain?" "Can't you see the wraiths?" Derrick shook his deformed head. "There's four of them. Building a house." "Long ago," the dead girl said, peering around her living counterpart. "Before the city was even really here." "Shut up," Tai replied. "I didn't say anything." Tai shook her head to indicate not you, and turned away from the industrious ghosts, deeply troubled. But no matter where she and Derrick went on their quest for the bar, dead-Tai followed, and more wraiths appeared. A century of ghosts, carrying out their daily business right past and right through the living and each other. There was the newly-wed couple, smiling and laughing, unable to keep their eyes off each other as they strolled together to the market - "Pretty recent," the ghost of Tai remarked, "look at her plague-scars." - and the militia-soldier patrolling with the weary tread of someone who's only got half an hour left of his watch to go, before he can go and get some much-needed sleep. "Just after the attack," was the ghost's verdict. "Look, he's still stepping around piles of rubble." Tai didn't answer herself, and tried not to notice the throngs of ghosts; in places they seemed to outnumber the living, as they went about the everyday business of the dead. But the next one she couldn't but notice, because it was a nightmare sprung out of the darkness to haunt the light. The courier on his exhausted horse, galloping hell-bent towards some distant payment; the child, blinded by the plague which had left delicate patterns of sores on his bald head; the inevitable sickening end which she couldn't turn away from, horrible though it was... and as the ghostly hoof-beats faded away into the city, Tai found herself looking down at the mother's ghost, cradling the ghost of a dead child in her translucent, foggy arms. The mother looked up at her, and for a second Tai knew that this dead woman was looking at her, was aware of her presence. "He wouldn't stop bleeding," the wraith said softly, rocking her dead son. "Wouldn't stop bleeding..." Tai screamed, and shut her eyes, and ran in some direction hoping for sanity. Andante The ground was chilly against Marius's forehead and the palms of his hands, but even as a shiver began to roll from his aching shoulders past his sore knees all the way down to his stiff toes, the priest refused to move.In truth, the discomfort seemed far away, an irritating buzz in the back of his mind that wasn't a great enough concern to truly warrant his attention. He was deep in meditation, and he could ignore far greater discomforts than this… and had. A vague memory rose in his mind, filling the void that he’d built for himself. Briefly he considered banishing it---banishing all thought---but then he let it come. Bone-deep tremors shook him, ripping convulsively through screaming muscles. The left side of his ribcage, his entire lower back, and the back of his right leg were a fiery mass of poxy sores whose searing heat overwhelmed that of his feverish body. The stone beneath his face was cool and comforting, but taking a deep breath, he tried to ignore the simple pleasure of that comfort, to ignore the pain of his body. But that breath caught in his lungs, and a single rattling cough erupted from his mouth. Footsteps sounded in the sanctuary, vibrating through the stone. Marius heard them with every fiber of his body, and cringed. The voice that sounded in the sanctuary was soft, but it carried. “Marius, lad! What in the names of all the gods are you doing?” Marius didn’t bother rising from where he lay, prostrate on the sanctuary floor before the alter of candles. Each of the tiny flames represented one of the gods, and Marius liked looking at their flickering lights even though he knew that he was supposed to avoid worldly pleasures as he meditated. “I am doing my morning meditations, Brother Selbert,” Marius’s twelve-year-old voice whispered. It was still high, and would remain so another three years; those afflicted by the plague did not mature as quickly at other children. “It is three in the morning, and you are ill, lad!” Brown robes suddenly obscured Marius’s view of the candles, and a moment later Brother Selbert knelt and gently with cool but rough hands, gently encouraged the young priest off of the floor and out the door toward the infirmary. The memory ended there. Marius had fainted then, or perhaps simply been too delirious to remember the walk back toward the warmth of his cot. Brother Selbert had asked him, later, why he’d gone to meditate when he knew he should have been in bed. “The gods are dead,” Marius had said. “I am not. While I yet live, I will try to do my best to remember them, to believe. For is it not said in the Writ of Kalais that only remembrance and faith can return the gods to our world?” Lying on the sanctuary floor now, eight years later, Marius couldn’t help but feel differently than his young self. He doubted that faith and remembrance alone would be sufficient to bring the gods back. It was becoming increasingly more obvious to him that the events unfolding around him and his companions would be far more likely to facilitate the rebirth of the gods than mere prayer and meditation. But still, old habits die hard... The Nameless Hermit ~*~*~*~*~ Dear Marguerite, Business called me back to the city, on a matter of great import, so forgive me for not responding to your letters sooner. Each one I received brought to me a happiness and sense of adventure, bringing back memories of my own childhood. I thank you for that. During these past few weeks, those letters have been my only joy. I still can smile at your sketch of the baron. He is indeed a pompous old fool, but he is a shrewd businessman, nonetheless. In fact, the country could stand to have a few more like him, for he pays a large sum in taxes. Ha-ha! But, you cannot deny that he takes care of his employees. He would be a good master, and would indeed be a good teacher, should you wish to own a merchantry business yourself when you get older. So you are learning to ride the white tigers, are you? That is good practice for when you get to the far north and are introduced to those great white bears up there. The tigers were a gift from Insel, and the baron has spent many years breeding them into the fine creatures we have today. Should you meet a scarred female, named Sheba, please tell her that I apologize for staying away so long and will endeavor to visit soon. The baron swears that the beasts understand much more than we think. Enjoy the tigers, dear Marguerite. I look forward to your next letter with pleasure. Rangsey ~*~*~*~*~ Dear Rangsey, I couldn't wait to read your letter so I hid it under the table and read during dinner. Having you call Grandfather a pompous old fool was almost too much; I nearly laughed out loud. I'll have to read your letters in private from now on. It is funny that you should mention Grandfather being a good master. I think he wants me to go into the merchantry business. He is always trying to keep such close ties to us. He wants to know where we are all the time. I think mother and father want me to make my own choices so they won't let me see him often. I don't know for sure, because they won't talk about it. What do you think, Rangsey? Am I making all this up? I'll find Sheba and deliver your message, Marguerite ~*~*~*~*~ Lorelei Tai looked so unhappy when Kiera found her that the shorter woman was tempted to turn around and run in the opposite direction as fast as possible. She had never before seen drunkenness, a splitting headache, frustration and a bad response to visions in one person, and to look at Tai was to understand why they didn't combine. She blinked and gulped several times before she plucked up the courage to approach the stony-faced woman at the bar.She hoisted herself up onto a bar stool, favouring her slowly-healing wrist as she did so, struggling slightly because the stool was so high. Tai didn't look at her: by the looks of things the evil-smelling drink in her hand was demanding all her attention. Kiera ordered "something reasonably benevolent" and stared straight ahead for a moment. Finally, mostly because Tai's silence was becoming oppressive, Kiera picked up the end of her long chestnut braid and tapped Tai on the shoulder with it. "What?" Tai said blandly, her voice harsh as usual. "I need to talk to you," Kiera said, equally blandly. "What about?" "Equal division of labour among the group, a non-discrimination policy, and, while we're at it, a worker's union. Actually I just want to sue the gods, and I figured you hate them enough to help me out on this one." Tai finally turned to look at Kiera, her expression softening visibly even though her face didn't move. Kiera grinned. "Thought that might get your attention," she said, sipping demurely at the drink the barman handed to her with a distinct lack of ceremony. Tai allowed herself to smile, recognising the smell of fruit juice and mentally acknowledging that that could probably be classed as benevolent. "You know," she said, "you always make me laugh. I don't know how you do it, but thanks. What can I do for you?" Kiera kept sipping. "I just told you," she said. "Is this guava? Didn't think that grew here." "Joking aside," Tai said, punching Kiera lightly in the shoulder, "what do..." "I wasn't joking," Kiera interrupted, turning to face Tai directly. At close quarters her yellow eyes were slightly disconcerting, and Tai wondered why she hadn't noticed this before. Kiera continued: "I don't think things are fairly organised, and by that I mean I feel left out. All I've done is cook and tell jokes. Fine, none of the rest of you can cook for old rope, and someone needs to lighten the mood when Dmitri gets all 'Oh, my personal demon, the pain, my stomach, owch!' (Tai spluttered: unorthodox as it was, Kiera's impression was pretty good), but I haven't done anything useful." "That's not true," Tai countered, wiping spilled alcohol from the bar with her sleeve. "That stew the other day was extremely useful. Took the taste of that poison from the tavern right out of my mouth." Kiera grimaced. "See?" she complained. "That's what I mean. Back at that creepy lake I got the impression everyone on this mad expedition is supposed to be here for some reason or other. Well, except for that one fragment of dream I had before I started out, I don't have a reason. Everyone else gets technicolour visons. Me, I get a soup ladle. Even Anglis is blacking out and seeing things - do you know we were travelling together for three weeks and he completely failed to mention that to me? It's not fair. I want in." Tai raised her eyebrows. "And what do you need me for?" she asked, downing the rest of her drink and ordering another. Kiera shrugged, her plait sliding off the shoulder she'd slung it over and thumping heavily onto her prominent spine. "You've got enough visions for the rest of us put together. I've got...some knowhow as to...well, as to how they work. Don't ask how I got it: you don't want to know. I want a trade. You get some respite, I get a reason to be here." Tai almost had trouble believing Kiera. Almost, but not quite. Because something about the crazy idea rang true. She'd had trouble working out how the small, frail woman fit in, except to prevent the rest of them starving. She'd been waiting for a revelation, sure she'd be able to work it out in a second except for the alcohol gently cushioning her synapses. Well, her synapses were still cushioned, but something was falling into place. She just didn't know what. "No deal," she rasped finally, toying with her glass. "I don't want you or anyone messing with what goes on in my head. It's messed up enough already, thanks." "You got that right," Kiera snapped, her yellow eyes narrow. "Come on, Tai, I can help you. You need a break. I've seen you, everywhere and every time we stop, nearest tavern, chucking back the drinks like there's no tomorrow. And you know what that's called?" "Surprise me," Tai retorted, drumming her fingers on the bar. She suddenly wished Kiera would leave. The thin slip of a woman was no fun when she was serious. "Self-fulfilling prophecy," Kiera said. "You'll be dead before you're twenty-one because your liver's about to pack in. Your liver's failing because you drink. You drink to get away from the visions, and guess what the visions tell you? That you'll be dead before you hit your twenty-first birthday. If you want a way out, think about what I'm offering. I'm more than just a good cook, Tai. I was even a mother for a while." Kiera took Tai's drink from her hand, and downed it herself, replacing it with the half-full glass of fruit juice, put down on the bar just hard enough to make a point. Then she slid off her stool and headed out. Tai stared at the juice for a while before she tried a sip. Her tongue was numbed from whatever she'd been drinking before, but she could tell the juice was supposed to taste good. But Kiera's odd, disturbing words wouldn't go away with fruit juice. She ordered something potent, and drank the rest of the juice while she waited for it to arrive. Something was bothering her, something just out of reach of her well-cushioned synapses. If she could just jolt them slightly... "Kiera," she said slowly, "when did I tell you the visions said I'd be dead before..." But Kiera was already gone. *** Kiera bumped into Mordred - literally - as she stormed away from the bar. He was wandering in a daze; from his direction, she guessed he'd come from the market, though she still wasn't well-enough aquainted with the geography of the city to be sure. The impact knocked her off-balance and she fell heavily, Mordred catching her before she hit the ground. "Thanks", she muttered, too annoyed to make one of her usual quips. He set her on her feet again and she massaged her wrist, which ached from the collision. Mordred just stood there, one fist clenched, the other curled protectively around it. A necklace of delicate rose-pink stones was laced around his fingers. Kiera admired it silently as she rubbed the pain out of her wrist. When Mordred still didn't move, she reached out to touch it, asking, "Present for someone?" Mordred snatched his hands back as though Kiera had stung him, and she started in surprise. "I'm sorry," she apologised hastily, "I didn't realise...I mean, is it delicate? I wouldn't break it." "How do you know about..." Mordred started to ask, then trailed off when he saw Kiera's eyes lingering on the necklace. "Oh," he said, understanding dawning. "Not that." "Then what?" Kiera asked. Mordred looked more than dazed, she realised gradually, as he opened and closed his mouth once or twice but didn't answer. He looked afraid, almost hurt. His hands were clenched so tightly his knuckles showed white, and looked like they had been that way for a while. The cramps in his hand would be agony. "Here," Kiera said gently, reaching out again. "Let me see your hands." Mordred tensed, but this time he let Kiera touch first the necklace, then his tightly clenched fist. The tendons were knotted and straining; Kiera drew in her breath as she felt how taut they were. "Gods, you must be in agony," she whispered. "How long have you been like that? An hour? Two?" As she spoke, she rubbed the tense skin gently, warming and loosening the muscles, working in the same patient way she used to soothe her wrist when it ached. Gradually she felt Mordred relax: his shoulders eased and he stopped resisting as she worked on his hands. Finally, after what felt like hours, he loosened his fist a little, just enough to hear the joints pop as they shifted. He sighed in pain, and Kiera moved her small hands to ease the muscles in his fingers. As she shifted them, they parted for a second. For the briefest of moments Kiera saw a blackish glow stealing out from something hidden inside Mordred's closed fist, a dark light oozing from between his fingers and casting shadows on her own. Mordred clenched his fist shut again hurriedly, and Kiera looked up at him, directly into his uneasy grey eyes. Suddenly she understood. ((Mostly Tai's POV - I apologise, but I needed it for Kiera's exposition. I've tried to keep her in character, but if I've failed anywhere please go ahead and edit it to fit.)) KC is a teacher now! Dmitri went to the marketplace after visiting the physicians. As he'd feared, they'd been unable to tell him why his wounds refused to heal; but, he had been able to get more of the yellow goop that Gavril had given him what seemed like ages ago. There were no monsters in the monastery archives that matched the description of the monster in Dmitri's dreams and Dmitri was too self-conscious to press that matter. Most of the group had vanished into the city shortly after Derrick and Tai had left. Marius was still in the monastery. Derrick and Tai were looking first for a money-changer and second for a bar, and who knew where the rest of them had gone? Kiera, Anglis, Mordred .. Dmitri hadn't seen them at all. For a wonder, he hadn't dreamt at all, although from the haggard looks on some of his companions' faces this morning, not everyone had been so lucky. But, as if the thought had conjured the monster in real life, Dmitri rounded a corner and ran smack into the monster -- "Augh!" he cried, leaping back, but tripping and falling onto the cobbles. There were a few curious looks, but no one wanted to borrow someone else's troubles, so he was left alone, listening to his thumping heart. He looked up, to where a monstrous mask banged against the pole of an awning shading the storefront. Outside, in haphazard piles, was an assortment of bizare junk. Grimacing, Dmitri hauled himself to his feet and stepped towards the little shop and the mask. The piece was heavy, hanging by a rope around the back of -- the skull! He dropped it with a bang back against the pole and stepped back, shivering. Finally, getting up his courage, Dmitri went back to study the mask. It was an old cow's skull, he saw, painted gold and red, with the teeth sharpened into points, and some sort of device fashioned into horns. Setting it down, Dmitri heaved a sigh of relief. Now that he knew what it was, he could see it for the farce it was and it no longer frightened him. Sticking his hands back into his pockets, he continued down the street. It was getting to be late in the afternoon now and the streets were beginning to fill with people. Dmitri's stomach led him to a busy cafe. He purchased one of the meat rolls and a watered-down beer, taking his late lunch further down the street to listen to the minstrel on the corner; but the pox-scarred youth was singing some stirring ballad of courage in the face of mortal danger, so Dmitri soon moved on. Darkness fell quickly and suddenly in the city, and the streets emptied of people even quicker. He hunched his shoulders against the sea breeze that cooled the air just as cool as it had been warm a few hours earlier, and hurried towards the black silhouette of the monastery. Hands in his pockets, Dmitri completely missed the two darker shadows emerge from the darkness of an alley. In moments, he was trussed up, blindfolded, and dumped into a cart full of other moaning bodies. With the smack of a whip, the cart trundled off through the night, jarring Dmitri's ribs with every wheel-turn over the cobblestones. After what seemed like forever but was probably only a few minutes, the cart stopped and Dmitri felt himself lifted and dumped into a boat that pitched frantically as more bodies followed. Dmitri moaned through his gag at the impact of others, then frantically had to concentrate on not being sick as the small boat set off somewhere else, the oarsmen pulling hard against the swells of the outbound tide. * * * The bar closed down at nightfall, the bartender forcibly tossing Tai out onto the street. "We're closed!" he growled, shutting the door. Through her drunken haze, Tai frowned at the peculiar behavior. She began to stagger down the street, pausing to clear her stomach on the cobblestones. When she looked up, her little ghost-girl was back, leering menacingly at her. "You're a sight," laughed the dead girl. "So're you!" snapped Tai, grumpy at having her binge interrupted. "Go away!" "Oh, no, there's something I've got to show you first. Follow me." "What? No way! Haven't you tormented me enough for one da?" The little dead girl laughed. "Gods, no! I've barely gotten started." She stopped laughing and glared at Tai menacingly as she said, "And if you don't follow me, right here, right now, I really will drive you insane." Tai stared at her. "Kiera said she could make you go away." "Oh, sure," scoffed the ghost, "with some sleeping potions and herbs. But that won't make me appear to her." "Why not? Why does it have to be me?" The dead girl grinned at her. "Because I like you so much, that's why!" She turned and skipped across the street. "And besides, I'm you. Now come one, this way, hurry!" Spitting, Tai followed. She dodged the city guard as they lit the street lanterns and talked to and arrested up other curfew-breakers. Slowly, she made her way down towards the docks. The area was not well lit and Tai huddled against some barrels of foul-smelling fish as a gang of sailors wandered past, singing drunkenly at the tops of their lungs. The little ghost-girl popped through the wall of barrels. "There!" she said, frightening Tai half out of her wits. "Look there!" Tai squinted through the gloom. There! Half obscured by a stack of wine kegs, and completely oblivious to the men loading the kegs into a cart, hunched three hooded figures. Tai frowned. What was so darned important? "Shh! Keep watching!" hissed the dead girl. Shrugging, Tai returned her attention to the hidden trio. After a few minutes, the figure furthest from Tai lifted its hand and pointed. Quickly, they darted from cover and dashed across the road. There was a shout and the clatter of hoof-beats, but the men with the wine kegs kept on, oblivious to the drama being enacted right in front of them. The three were almost across when there was a twang of a crossbow and one of the cloaked figures fell. There were two cries, one deep and yelling in pained surprise, the other high and frightened. The remaining of the cloaked figures grabbed the middle one and dragged him/her/it? down off the road and into the shadows. There was a splash of oars and then nothing. Back on the street, the men on horseback had dismounted and seemed to be having a heated argument over the hunched figure on the ground. The injured one said something in a strange language, quickly silenced by a flash of silver. One of the horsemen wiped a dagger on his cloak, said something to his companions, then mounted and rode away. Two of the others grabbed the body and slung it over the backs of one of the horses, already shying from the smell of blood. Tai gasped. That guy had a tail! "Hope you've seen enough," said the ghost-girl suddenly, "because it's now time to leave." "Why? What's all the rush?" "The press-gang's here. Go on! RUN!" the ghost screamed at her. Without thinking further, Tai lit out as fast as she could go back towards the monastery, hounded at every step by the little dead ghost-girl screaming threats and warnings. She arrived, panting and heart pounding, threw open the door and gasped: "Dmitri's been kidnapped!" Tileira Anglis turned to look at her. He hadn't left the monastary grounds the entire time and unfortunately was the only one in the room.He walked over to her and lifted her chin a little, studying her for a moment. "Stop it! There isn't time!" Tai smacked his hand away, "Where is everyone else?" He finally decided she was telling the truth and not just off her head. "Around. Where is he?" "At the harbour. They took off in a boat." she followed him as they hurried off round the monastary gathering the group. Anglis didn't give any explanation until they had all gathered. Understandably they didn't take the news well. "They'll be out at sea by the time we get a boat." Marius mused, "We could just carry on the way we were, but..." "I can find them." Anglis said firmly, "And we have Tai. We get the boat and we follow them. The wind only blows one way and it wasn't a big boat." "Yes but if the wind turns away from their destination and they take to oars?" Kiera pointed out. "We'll deal with that when it happens. The more time we wait the more time Dmitri is in danger." Anglis replied. Virgo Mordred let himself breath once Kiera had left, she had rattled him, if only slightly when she had run into him. He held up the pink necklace sighing and tucking it away in his pack before letting his hand open once more to reveal the black diamond. He stared at it contemplatively, sighing heavily, what was it? He turned it over in his hands, perhaps he could lay it in a sword... "Mordred! There you are!" Mordred was suddenly hauled off his rear and to his feet, running beside Anglis who was dragging him alone, "What the hell?!" Mordred yelled, struggling to keep up with the other man. "Dmitri's been kidnapped!" He replied, releasing Mordred and galloping after Kiera who had appeared out of nowhere and Tai as well. "Oh for hell's sake!" Mordred snarled, rushing after them, "Could this get any worse?" He mumbled mutinously, quickly catching up to the others with his long strides. ~*~*~ The docks were easy enough to navigate through and they immediately spotted the ship that had set sail. "Well, now what?" Marius asked, "Do we even have a boat to chase them with?" Derrick scowled, "No, we don't." He harumphed. "Well..." Mordred said, "We could... borrow one." He glanced at Tai, "Does anyone know how to sail?" He itched the back of his head. Andante Marius stared morosely at the boats bobbing in the water. “I most certainly do not. I cannot even swim.”“I don’t know how to sail either,” Mordred said. “Nor I,” came the general response Tai’s wild, drunken blue eyes rolled toward the water. “Then we won’t use a sailboat. We just need something with oars. I think even we can figure that out.” Marius stared at her in stark amazement. “You want us to go out onto the ocean with a rowboat?” he demanded. Tai shrugged. “It can be done. I think. We have another option?” Kiera pointed. “There!” She and Derrick, spotting the rowboat first, took off at a dead run down the pier. The waifish midget and the ugly little dwarf only got halfway toward their destination before the others --- spotting the boats later but covering nearly twice the ground with each step --- caught up with them. Mordred, taking a running leap from the docks, nearly overturned the boat in his haste. He had successfully steadied it by the time the others began to pile in. One of the oars he took up himself. The other, he handed to Marius. The young priest looked at it dubiously, then carefully lowered it into the dark waters. Together, they began rowing. Or, rather, they tried to begin rowing. Unfortunately, Mordred was much stronger and fitter than Marius, and his strokes were more vigorous. The boat kept turning about itself, for a solid ten minutes, before they finally worked out a rhythm and started out across the water. The Nameless Hermit ~*~*~*~*~ Dear Rangsey, I've sent this letter by bird so it would get to you sooner. I have a question that greatly needs to be answered. Grandfather met us in the Blue Grass Plains earlier this month. Mother and Father weren't pleased. The entire time he was with us he was either talking to them or trying to talk to me alone. I swear, Rangsey, everyone was trying to keep us away from him and he was trying just as hard to be alone with us. We left weeks earlier than when we had planned. A week and a half out we were attacked. Everyone with us says that it was bandits but... This can't be right. It's a horrible, horrible thing to even think let alone write. Please Rangsey, don't think any less of me. I think Grandfather had something to do with the attack. I think... I think Grandfather wants to keep us close at hand. I think Mother and Father don't want us to be just as much. Please help me understand this all, Marguerite Dear Marguerite, I've disguised this letter with all hopes that you will receive it. The courier is a special friend of mine, should he survive to place this letter in your hands. I trust that you will know him - or will sense foul play. My child, do not discount your feelings, your instincts will tell you what to do and who to trust. You can confide in the courier - he will relay your troubles to me. I feel that we should be careful in discussing these matters until we can be sure of our safety in doing so. My prayers are with you, Rangsey ~*~*~*~*~ KC is a teacher now! The press-gang handed their prisoners up to hands on the ship waiting for them. As Dmitri was hauled up the side, he saw several small rowboats, empty but for their rowers, making their way back towards shore. He hit the deck hard enough to make him cry out, and received a kick for the outburst."Hold your tongue!" snapped one of the sailors. A few more bodies tossed to the deck later, one of Dmitri's captors hauled himself over the side. "That's the last of the night's catch," he said, looking down his nose at the huddled prisoners. The other sailor grunted and handed the man a heavy bag of coins. "We've our cargo now," he replied. "We'll be heading off soon's we get it stowed." "Aye, and a good profit awaits your return. Get more travelers in the summer." They both laughed and the first man slipped back over the side. In response to the other's barked commands, other sailors grabbed the helpless prisoners, divesting them of their bonds. In their place, however, were slapped metal shackles to ankles. The prisoners were then marched below decks and chained to the end of a long line of waiting prisoners. Dmitri couldn't believe his eyes. What was this horror? Slavers! He was in the company of slavers! He'd thought he might at least be pressed into service on the ship, but sold somewhere?! No! This couldn't be real! With a moan of horror, he sank to the deck where he huddled with the others, waiting for morning and whatever might await them. He slept, fitfully at best, waking as the slavers began to walk up and down the rows of chained captives with water and hard biscuits. Dmitri took his biscuits and got his sip of water while trying to hide the blood stains on his shirt. It stuck to him, but either the slaver didn't see or he didn't care, passing on without a word. The prisoners passed most of the day in solitary silence, broken only by a few scattered bouts of hysterical or frightened weeping. Toward mid-afternoon, they heard an odd, rythmic beating upon the water. "Pirates!" came the cry up the line of captives, from the ones who could manage to look out. The hold was soon full of excited and frightened moaning and whispers. Then the slavers were upon them again, dragging lines of shackled prisoners up on to deck, arranging them in rows up and down the decking. Other sailors on the ship patroled the lines, laying about with whips on unruly or disobediant captives. Dmitri's line was one of the first hauled out, so they went nearest the bow and was consequently the last to be brought before the pirates when they finally came aboard. They came in a group of five, plus a handful more who set about arranging the planking walkway between the two ships. The pirate ship was powered by two large sails, but also by oars. The ship was much larger than the clunky merchantship and looked alarmingly fierce. Neither ship flew flags Dmitri recognized and he'd seen many from his home on the cliffside. As each line of captives was brought forward, the pirates looked them over and separated the ones they wanted, driving them across the plank to the other ship. Some didn't make it across, causing jeers and laughter from the pirates as they watched. It was late in the afternoon before Dmitri's line was brought forward. Now he was to find out what were the pirates' determining factors. The captives were stripped of their clothes whilst the pirates checked for signs of the plague. The woman to Dmitri's right was rejected for simply having blue eyes. She began screaming when the young girl at her side was hauled off to the pirate ship. The woman was silenced only when the pirates threatened to toss her and her daughter overboard. The pirates didn't so much as glance at Dmitri. "Unexceptable," grunted the leader with a curt gesture. For once, Dmitri was glad to have the bizarre shade of hair-color that had made his younger years miserable. The slavers gathered the remaining prisoners, chained them back together, and marched them back down into the bowels of the ship. Dmitri counted some twenty in all. He figured that more than three times their number were now huddled in the bowels of the pirate ship. The muffled weeping trailed off eventually and Dmitri curled up to sleep as best he could. It was cold and he was on the outside of the group, and so he shivered and turned restlessly, worry - and who knew what else - gnawed at his belly. * * * * Anglis, Derrick, Tai, Marius, and Mordred paddled as fast as they could out of the harbor. Kiera clung to the bow and whispered back directions, like, "You're going too far left!" and "Shh! A boat coming our way...." They were close enough to see the sails unfurl on their goal, but paddle as fast as they could, they couldn't keep up. Just as they realized that, another rowboat loomed up out of the darkness. Quickly, all but Tai and Kiera ducked out of sight. "Eh, you missed them!" shouted a man in the other boat. His companions laughed. "Yeah, ye'll just have to wait 'til next month!" said one. Kiera let out a stream of curses that made even the stalwart Tai blush. "But we want our #&$* money!" Kiera finished. The men in the other boat merely continued laughing, with one suggesting a particular bar if the lady were interested in earnin' some dough the old-fashioned way, nudge nudge, wink wink. A few catcalls from them and some nasty replies back from Kiera, and the other boat paddled out of earshot. "Jeez, Kiera," Marius whispered loudly, "where'd you learn that kinda language?" "Does it really matter?" Mordred interrupted, "the ship's long gone, we'll never catch it now." "So what do you suppose we do, then?" asked Tai, "Give up?" "It's too cold out here, not to mention wet," added Derrick. "Let's go somewhere else to argue." "You know," said Tai thoughtfully, "those guys might be worth talkin' to, to see what else we can learn about this little operation." Marius nodded his head in the darkness. "I agree. Tai, why don't you and Derrick hit up that bar, see what you can find out. Pretend you're one of them, or whatever it takes." "Why me?" Derrick laughed. "You 'cause you're female and me to keep you out of trouble, why else? What're you guys going to do, then?" Marius answered, "I have to let the monks know what's going on, see what I can find out that way, and see if I can put a stop to it." "Well, I'm not getting the bags this time," said Anglis suddenly. "We're going to need a boat." "I'll help," Kiera volunteered. Mordred sighed. "Then I guess I'm with you, Marius. So why don't we meet back at the room at dawn? If Anglis and Kiera can find a boat, we'll sail on the next tide." "Agreed - just don't let the guards catch you on the streets at night," warned Tai. Planning complete, the small group began to paddle back toward shore. They were all fairly quiet, thinking their own private thoughts. Only Marius made any comment aloud: "I can't believe I've lived here most of my life and never heard about any of this ...." * * * * From what Dmitri could tell, the slavers pressed south and east from Monykom City. The captives talked little amongst themselves, each too caught up in their own grief, but Dmitri soon came to find out that most were either criminals or debtors, and often both. All who were arrested, and who didn't have a rich family to pay for their release, were sold to slavers, although when sentenced, all agreed that they'd merely heard that they'd go to jail. There was some grumbling that now they knew why no one ever escaped. Was there even a jail in the city? A few, like Dmitri, were strangers to the city, unaware of the curfew, captured by the captives to supplement what the city would sell them. And all wondered at the fate that awaited them. Most of the others, on the pirate ship, would be used to power the oars, and the rest sold on elsewhere. The woman next to Dmitri kept muttering, "I couldn't read - I couldn't read the sign!" over and over again until she'd half driven Dmitri mad. Eventually, he figured she was talking about the sign at the gates of the city and he couldn't offer any comfort, even had she been able to accept it, for he couldn't, and hadn't read the sign, either. This new place where they were held was more accustomed to holding prisoners, Dmitri saw. Here the were well below the waterline, with no vents, leaving them in near-total darkness and breathing stale air. But they were just above the bilge, so over the passing days they began taking on water - not much, never more than ankle-deep, but too wet for most goods, which must've been the main reason the prisoners were kept there: they wouldn't spoil like other cargo would. But as the days passed, the prisoners grew weaker on their one meal of water and biscuits. Dmitri kept to himself, as did the others, glad for the hull he leaned against, alternately shivering or sweating as his body's chills came and went. He'd lost a lot of blood and had pulled off his shirt, to add to the soaking wet bandages. He stood when he could, but was too dizzy to put up with it for long, and there was no slack in the chains to walk around. He'd lost track of the days by the time they were hauled back out. Strange sights and sounds greeted them, as well as blinding sunlight and thick, oppressive heat, like trying to walk through steam. The prisoners crouched on the deck, too weak and intimidated to struggle or object to their transport to shore. Dmitri managed one look back, at the merchantship sailing back out the harbor. He couldn't have been happier to see the last of that ship. But where was he now? What was next? Virgo Mordred shifted slightly as they stood, looking up at the monastery, "So, where do we start?" He asked glancing sideways at Marius."I don't know." Marius replied, pushing open the doors and stalking inside. "Perhaps the head of this place, the pope, or whatever?" Mordred guessed, scratching the back of his head. "The Pope?" Marius raised an eyebrow, "Not a pope the Precept." Mordred shrugged, "I was never much for religion." "Obviously." Marius replied dryly. Mordred snorted, moving deeper in the dark halls. It reeked of old papers and ancient something-or-others that Mordred didn't care to name just then. He looked around as they walked, keeping note of the turns they took in case he got separated from Marius, "Is there even anyone here?" He hissed at the silent monk. "There should be, but if you don't keep your yap shut there won't be." Marius growled at the youngest member of their group. Mordred humphed and crossed his arms, grey eyes searching again for any sign of movement. "Brother Marius! How do you fare today?" Mordred nearly jumped from his skin at the voice so close to them, and he whirled with a glare, "Don't you people know how to make noise?" He demanded. "Hush, Mordred." Marius hissed, clearly getting irritated at the exuberant youth, "We need to ask you a few questions, if you will..." ~*~*~ "So we get ablsolute jack about the possibility of slave-trade in Monykom, or your priest friend was lying when he said he had no idea." Mordred huffed, blowing his hair from his eyes. "I sincerely doubt he was lying, what with you breathing down the poor mans neck and mentioning you were once a blacksmith and knew how to handle weapons, I don't think he was capable of telling lies. And he was a Monk, like me." Marius glared at the ex-blacksmith. "So I dropped a few threats, big deal, you know it helped... some. And Marius how do you honestly expect me to tell preists and preacher-boys, and Precepts and all that other junk apart when I was never taught the slightest lick of religion other than 'The Gods will Watch you Forever.'? Like every other man, woman, and child has posted over their door, outside, inside or in between." Mordred snorted in semi-disgust. "Well you said you didn't believe that the Gods are dead, you gave that whole speech before we even got here and it seemed like you..." Marius was cut off. "Of course I don't believe the Gods are dead! I've believe in the damned people all my life, how the hell can I think they just up and disappear. Nothing, nothing, dammit, disappears just like that! Not even some bloody gods!" Mordred's hair was standing on end with the the force of what he was saying, even the shaggy hair on the top of his head was starting to bristle, when he was startled out of his tirade when the crunch of gravel announced the arrival of someone new. It was a guard, spear carried in his hand, and the signs of plauge upon him too, by far worse than Mordred's own bleached state, "What're you two doing arguing in front of a monastery, don't you know it's bad luck?" He asked. Marius seemed startled at this proclamation, "Um, well..." Mordred started as an idea hit him, there was hope yet for their quest for information, "Um, say, what's your name?" He asked smoothly. "R... Roger, why?" "Well, Roger, we are... kind of in a jam, you see, perhaps you can help us?" Mordred raised an eyebrow and winced as he felt an elbow jab him in the side. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Marius hissed into Mordred's ear. "I think I'm getting some info, we tried it your way, now we go my way." Mordred growled in return. "What kinda jam are you in?" Roger asked, the guard's curiosity was clearly piqued. "Well... I, ouch! We need some inside information on the goings on of this city..." Marius started rubbing his own side where Mordred had elbowed him. Dear Marguerite, Since our last conversations, I've come to the conclusion that your fanciful conspiracy theories are nonsense, amusing, but not something that a young woman should be spending her time thinking about. Attached to this note you'll find a professor from the academy who has agreed to tutor you in the ways of the society of other young women. Professor Cesare will see to it that you are ready to enter gentile society when your parents give up that incessant wandering. But I'm curious as to how you like the Plains. The people run small in size, but they have large hearts and the most beautiful horses in the kingdom. If you get a chance, you should take a ride along the border country. It's a wild land, desolate and empty. In my youth I spent a great deal of time fishing out there with some distant cousins. Should you meet the Wolfsblade Clan, give them my good wishes. There are days I envy your freedom, Rangsey Kai Magpies The hidden bar - that wasn't as hidden as the people inside probably wanted it to be - opened its grimy front door a thin crack at Tai's insistent knocking, and a suspicious pair of eyes peeped out"Well?" "We've got business," Tai growled, shoving first her foot then the rest of her body through the widening door. Derrick scuttled in behind as the doorkeeper stood back, as though afraid he might catch the hideousness that the little dwarf wielded. The secret bar was larger than a passer-by would guess, even if they knew it was there; a series of low rooms, rambling away into the guts of a crumbling building that might have been a workshop or an office or anything, really, but was now a series of storage-spaces where men went to drink after curfew. In place of tables and chairs there were barrels, crates, crude things put together out of nothing that would be incriminating. In daylight, when the alcohol and the drinkers were gone, this place would be merely empty and dusty and sad in the way that neglected places are. Now, it was a close and suspicious cubbyhole of drunken-tinged candle-light and conversations that rarely rose above a whisper. "What business?" "Well I'm starting to sober up, and that's never good. Hangover's lurking, you know?" She tossed the words behind her as she made a beeline for the bar - little more than a few broad planks resting between barrels, nothing that couldn't be dismantled into total innocence at a minute or so's warning. Derrick slid after her, waiting until she slouched down to his level on a bar-stool, and muttered in her ear, "Do you have a plan?" "Plan?" Tai grinned. "Not really. Why, do you?" Derrick growled under his breath and managed to snag the lurking bartender's attention. "The slave-ships," he said quietly, absently playing with a fat silver coin on the bar-top. "Where do they sail to?" The man's eyes were fixed on the coin, flashing brightly in the dull light. The mere fact that Derrick knew about the slave-ships, that he knew to come here to inquire, granted him some trustworthiness in the man's eyes. Not a lot, granted, but enough for the money to work its magic. "Dunno," he shrugged. "You gonna buy a drink or what?" Derrick put the coin flat, and began playing with another - the twin of the first. "The lady'll have a beer. Miners' ale for me. Someone here knows where they go. Who?" The barman's eyes glittered with avarice, but suspicion held him back. "What's it to you?" He asked warily, filling a grubby mug with beer and putting it in front of Tai. "They owe us money," Derrick answered baldly. "My friend here isn't too good with numbers, and they ripped her off." The barman glanced over at Tai, smiling a little. She returned the grin hugely around her beer. "It's true," she affirmed. "Bastards tricked me out of my drinking money." Leaning forward, she whispered conspiratorially to the barman - something Derrick didn't catch, but it made the man laugh as loudly as he dared in this quiet place. "Okay," he said, plonking a second mug in front of Derrick and raking the two coins into his pocket. "There's a man in the other room wearing a dark red shirt. He used to captain one of the ships. Talk to him, and I didn't tell you this. Got it?" "Thank you." Taking their drinks, the pair wandered into the room the barman had indicated. This room was smaller, with a ceiling so low Tai was half-afraid she'd brain herself on the beams that loomed out of the shadows of the ceiling. There was, indeed, a man sitting here, shuffling a deck of dogeared cards on the cracked surface of an ancient crate; and, indeed, he was resplendent in a shirt that would probably be dark red in proper light. The fact that it was unpatched and still fairly clean pointed to this man's status - a little more exalted than the majority of the customers in this dingy place. He looked up, instantly wary, as Derrick sat on the barrel across the crate from him. Tai lurked nearby, listening, drinking slowly - not a usual situation for her, but she was already drunk, and didn't want to pass out here. "We heard you could help us," Derrick began. "Heard from who?" "The voices in my head told me," Tai said dryly. The man hesitated, then nodded slowly, still shuffling his cards. "Go on." "We hear that you captain a ship that carries... um... special cargo?" "If you mean the slave-ships," the captain replied coolly, "say so." "Alright." Derrick appeared relieved to be able to talk plainly. "Slave-ships. Where do they go?" The captain put his cards down, stared at the backs of his hands, and spoke so quietly Tai had to lean down to catch his words. "I'm out of that business. It stinks, and I don't want any more to do with it." "But -" "Any more," he repeated, more firmly. "Find someone else to do your dirty work." Derrick got up, frustrated, and caught Tai's eye with a Now What? expression. She hesitated, looked into her near-empty mug, gave the miner a significant look, and with a little shrug took his place on the barrel. Derrick, understanding, hurried off to get her a refill. "You just shuffle those things, or actually play?" The captain looked up, smiling when he saw the grin on her face. Tai had never really bothered to learn to flirt, or even thought of herself as someone who could, but she knew enough about men to know that a smiling woman could get better results than a hideously ugly dwarf-man. "I play. Mostly against myself, though. Why? Up for a game?" "Hell, no, I'm poor enough as it is." "You don't know how bad I am, though..." "And you don't know how drunk I am," she retorted, laughing. "You're not lying on the floor yet, which makes you more sober than most of the people I meet in this hole..." Derrick passed Tai her second pint, and withdrew. She wasn't a particularly stunning woman, and the plague had stolen what attractive figure she might once have had, but the dim light and her slightly-intoxicated smile suited her - Tai was at least recognisably female and the man was, after all, a sailor. A drunken sailor... what do we do with a drunken sailor? Trick his information out of him, of course... "Nah, no sleep for me... my cousin's in such a damn rage since your col- sorry, ex-colleagues ripped him off, he won't let me rest." The captain sighed, and grew grave again. "I told you. I'm not interested in helping you, if you're working with them." "Sorry?" Tai forced herself to giggle - it sounded bizarre coming from her harsh vocal cords. "Working with them? When did we say we liked them? I doubt they've got a mother between them." She paused to take a drink of the somewhat horrible beer. "And if they do, they probably sold her long ago." The captain laughed at that. "Okay. So why do you want to know where they sail to?" "Secret," she replied. "Oh yes?" "Yeah. Look, I'm -" she glanced around, pretending to be afraid, really scrabbling for a convincing lie. Tai lowered her voice to a near-whisper, leaned close to the man. "I'll be honest, since you're out of the business, okay? I'm trusting you here, this could - no. Forget it." She pretended second thoughts. "Can't tell you." The captain sat back, his interest clearly piqued. Tai had to stop herself from laughing when she realised he could probably see straight down her loose shirt. There wasn't a whole lot to see - and the shadows in this dark place obscured it still further - but, she guessed, male instincts were strong and rather un-picky. "I'll make a deal," he said, conspiratorially. "You tell me why you want to know, and I'll tell you where the ships go to." Tai grinned, nodded, and saluted him with a raised beer-mug. "Deal," she said. "Okay. I want to know so I can tell the people who are planning the crack-down where to go, to catch them in the act." Stunned, the captain sat silent for a few seconds, digesting this piece of news. "The monks are moving in force?" He asked, cautiously, not sure whether to believe her. Tai hadn't known the monks even cared - that whole fabrication had been a gamble, but she nodded anyway, as convincingly as she could. "Yeah. So. You gonna honour our deal?" This here is Reamie's add: Anglis and Kiera walked though the docks aimlessly. Anglis had never been on anything larger than a fishing boat so wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for. Mostly he simply followed Kiera along the piers. "What about..... that one?" Kiera stopped by a boat that looked very familiar. It was in fact exactly the same as half a dozen other boats except that it had a different name which Anglis didn't understand and a different battered figurehead. Anglis looked at Kiera for an uncomfortably long time, then shrugged and walked up onto the deck. Yup. It was a boat alright. It looked like it might be fairly fast too. But why this one? “Watch it.” Anglis turned and the figure in the cabin doorway lifted the lamp higher. The stranger pulled a face, “You put that down.” “Put what down?” It took a moment for Anglis to realise what he meant, then he pulled his coat off his shoulder and open. It was easy enough to see why the northerner wasn’t going to be reaching for weapons with that arm anytime soon. “Hmn, I don’t get many people out here, not at this time of night with the curfew. What are you two, eloping?” He leant back against the wall, lowering the lamp a way so that it wasn’t blinding them. “No! I mean, we were just trying to find a boat we could borrow. We’re not running off anywhere.” Kiera answered a little too quickly, earning her a suspicious look. “We need to catch up with someone, preferably leaving as soon as possible,” Anglis continued. “Only smugglers leave in the middle of the night. I’m still waiting for my boys to get back.” He set the lamp down, “You should try again in the morning. There’ll be more people around and less chance of you getting taken advantage of. I'm a merchant, you know, and not in the habit of taking on passengers.” “They’re not coming back,” Kiera said suddenly, “They won’t because they’re with Dmitri.” The owner of the boat stared at her long and hard. “You saw this?” he asked slowly. “They took our friend too.” She carefully avoided specifically claiming to be an eye witness. “Will you take us out to get them back?” There was a bang before he answered. “Anglis?!” The northerner rubbed his eyes, but shooed Kiera off from helping him up. There was something weird about the fall but just now he was concentrating on trying to stay conscious. It had never come on so fast before. He blinked, but Kiera's worried face was fading fast ... He reached up to rub his eyes and opened them again to jungle. This time he was sitting on a dock dangling his feet into the water and the little girl of his dreams was sitting beside him with a fishing pole. She gave him a quizzical stare. "Remember me?" Anglis nodded. "Yes." He rubbed his head; he had a pounding headache and his vision seemed blurry. "What's going on?" "I don't know," she replied, "but I'm safe for the time being, we can talk as long as we want." Anglis groaned, holding his head in both hands. "I don't feel like talking much right now." "Yeah, you don't look so good. Don't worry, it'll be okay." "Why's that?" Anglis asked, blinking through his double-vision. She laughed. "I don't know! But everyone's always telling me that!" He regarded her for a moment. She looked truly young this time, as if some of the fear and worry had been pushed aside or gotten rid of somehow. "You said you're safe," he said. "How so?" She turned serious again. "Well, it's a long story. How long you plan on sticking around, anyway?" He looked down at his hand, at the strange bracelet he wore. One of the pearls was glowing, red-hot amongst the others. "I don't know." He looked up at her suddenly. "This all has a purpose, right?" he asked, "a reason? I'm not really going mad, am I?" The corners of her mouth turned down as she pondered. "I would say no, that you're not going mad, but if I'm just a figment of your imagination, that would be just what I'd say, wouldn't it? I was never that much good at philosophical discussions, but what I think I can say is that I believe that there is a reason for this. I've read something that sounds like what this is, and I'll find out if I'm right or not when I get to where I'm going." Her face closed down in sorrow for a moment and Anglis waited. He could see that there was more going on, but he didn't want to provoke more pain by asking the questions he wanted to ask. So he waited. Eventually, she looked back at him, in control of her features once more. "There's a lot of things I want answers to as well - and I'm this close," she held up two fingers, close together, "to getting those answers. I feel ... trapped, sometimes, like being in the center of a hurricane, with the winds all whipping around and yet all is still, for the moment, where I am and yet there's this feeling, always pressing against the edges of my thoughts, that all is going to break loose, any minute and I'll be flung to only the Gods-know-where!" She stopped, panting a little, her eyes gone a little wild. She kept eye-contact, though, and continued with, "And it all seems to revolve around you, somehow. Who are you?" But the double-vision was back, the girl fading before him. Still he fought out the words, "Traveling, I'm a Traveler, my name, my name is ...." Andante The guard eyed the two men before him dubiously. "You two new to Silent Sea?" he asked finally.Marius tried not to glance down at the symbol of his order, which hung even now from a silver chain around his neck. If Roger did not recognize a monk from the monastery right in front of him when he saw one, then Marius saw no need to enlighten him. As unobtrusively as possible, he elbowed Mordred once again in the ribs. "Ow-Yes, we're just visiting." He clapped Marius on the shoulder --- a little harder than the priest thought necessary --- and gestured toward the monastery. "I met Marius here on the road on the way here," the wild-haired man lied. "We were, er... traveling with a third companion. Um, Marius' little brother. He's gone now. He was taken by some men." The soldier looked concerned. "Taken?" Marius felt an answering sharp elbow to his ribs. His turn, then. He tried to look distraught, which wasn't too incredibly difficult when he thought of his "little brother". "I don't know who else to come to for aid!" Marius cried, grasping the soldier's arm and looking pleadingly into his eyes. "I am a simple man, and accustomed to no more than a priest's life. I didn't know how to defend him from those men, who handled him so roughly as they tied him to the others and hauled him onto the boat." The guard's eyes widened. "He was taken with others onto a boat?" he asked. "Yes!" Marius said frantically. "He was tied and tossed into the boat with the others! I need your help!" With a frown, Roger scanned Marius' face. Apparently the monk did not display any improper emotions, because a moment later the guard continued. "Did your brother recently get into trouble with the law here in Silent Sea?" Marius frowned. "The law? No... but what would that have to do with him being taken across the sea..." Roger cursed. "You two, follow me. I'll explain something about Silent Sea to you, but not here, where anyone can hear us." And with that, he turned sharply on his heel and started away from the monastery steps. Mordred and Marius exchanged a glance. The taller man shrugged. "Well, it worked," Mordred whispered. "Luckily for you," Marius growled. They ran to catch up with the guardsman. Dear Rangsey, Professor Cesare and I have spent many nights talking about many subjects. For the most part, I find him to be useless. If I have to mimic that...puppet to enter 'gentile society' then I will happily exile myself from court for the rest of my life. Marguerite ShogunOnlyWar Upon his return to the captain's table, Derrick saw that the captain and Tai were in deep conversation. "Ahem. Is there something going on that I should know about Tai?" "Nothing at all dear cousin..." "So how much of our business have you told to your new friend here?" "Well I..." "A dwarf and a streetwalker! What are you doing in this bar?" A gruff voice demanded. Turning to look the livery of a city guard literally shone in the low lamplight. "We are attending to business with our 'friend' here." Derrick responded. "Well, I don't recall you asking me about wether you were capable of asking this citizen ANY questions." "And I don't recall asking your opinion on the matter." Derrick retorted. "What you recall doesn't matter dwarf! I say what can or can't be done in this bar! And I get a cut of any 'business' that goes on in here. Or would you like to take a trip with a slaver?" "How much will it cost to make you go away?" "Well, maybe some...services, from the lady." With that Tai stood up and strutted over to him, on the way grabbing her drink from Derrick. "Well I think that that is completely..." she leaned over, staring in the gaurds' face and placing her free hand on his chest, "ridiculous." Her drink then managed to find its way out of its mug and onto his tunic. "You'll pay for that WENCH!" shoving Tai away he drew a sword from his belt and waved it threateningly at the trio. "I will kill your fellows for that! Then I will have my way with you girl!" Lunging at Derrick, he was surprised to find twin sledgehammers deflecting his every blow. Suddenly his blade was stuck. Grinning, he looked at the dwarf only to see a mask of...ugly staring right back. His blade was firmly in the grip of the heads of the hammers, and try as he might he couldn't free them. "Well boys, it looks like we have a wannabe swordsman here. Get Him!" Twisting the sword sharply, the blade snapped clear of the hilt and was flung aside as Derrick bellowed, "In the name of the Mountain, the mine, and the ore that's in it!" The sound of scraping chairs answered Derricks' call, as a dozen men stood up and drew whatever weapons they had on them. "What is this?" yelled the head guard. "Need any help 'Rick?" "Anything you could offer would be nice 'Hal." "You aren't the only one with friends, Dwarf! Soldiers of the city to me!" More scraping chairs sounded out. The bar had effectively been divided up into three groups. The first being the guards, the second being Derrick's allies, and the third were like the red-shirted captain - pressing themselves against the wall and making a bee-line for the exits. "So who should start this party?" "Oh, its already started." Derrick muttered under his breath as all hell broke loose. Soon the bar was filled with brawling men, weapons flashing, fists flying. And through it all Tai was, curiously, absent. Meanwhile Derrick and 'Hal fought back-to-back from one end of the bar to the other, overturning tables and shattering bottles. "'Hal?" "What?" "We need to get out of here!" "Awww, but I was just starting to have some fun." "Business before pleasure 'Hal." "Right. Well then, follow me!" 'Hal forced his way through the crowd, swinging his staff from left to right. Clearing a way for the dwarf's twin hammers to pass. Reaching the door the two escaped out of it, leaving the brawl behind. Cursing her own haste in dumping her beer on the head-guard, Tai had followed the captain along the wall and out the main door. She had barely finished grilling him when Derrick and his friend came bursting through the door, dual sledges making short work of the light wood construction. "Derrick." Tai hissed, "Lets get out of here before more soldiers show up." "I think that 'Hal can handle any that do, but you are right it is time to leave." A strong hand fell upon his shoulder, restraining him before he could move. "'Rick, aren't you going to introduce me to your..." he checked Tai out as best as he could in the dim moonlight, "Lady friend?" "Fine, if it gets us out of here any quicker. Tai this is 'Hal, 'Hal..Tai. There intros made, lets get out of here." "Hold it. I do believe you are forgetting something." "I didn't forget, but I had hoped you had." Placing a strip of platinum in 'Hal's outstretched hand, Derrick then gripped his friend in a handshake. "Thanks for the help 'Hal. It was like we were back at the Rock again." "Yeah well, I found it to be quite...enjoyable. Now if you will excuse me, there is a fight that goes unfinished." With that he turned and strolled back into the bar, his Halberd swaying with his stroll. "Derrick, lets go find the others." "I take it you got what we needed from the captain?" "He gave me a map to the island, and he said that the people untouched by the plague were sold to pirates. The leftovers were taken to the island and sold to the occupants. Who, by the way, stop the ships at the mouth to the bay and conduct their business on the decks of he merchantmen themselves." "Great. So we get a map, and a few vague descriptions of his former trades...How do we know they haven't changed methods? Or stopped allowing merchants in at all?" "We can only hope that they haven't done either. By the way, what is the 'Rock' that you mentioned to 'Hal? And who were all those people that helped us out?" "Halberd and I fought together in the mines. He was the only one that could stomach being around me for extended periods of time, and as such we have a close bond. Those were mercenaries that I hired at the Guild." "Wait, wait, go back. Fought, fought what? I mean its a mine after all? Isn't it?" "You think that the plague ridden are on the surface alone? They are everywhere, even in the mines. They wander in from the surface through abandoned shafts, and they become a problem for us and them." "Them who?" Tai looked at him quizzically. "Never you mind." The walk to the warf had been quick and soon they reached a square of crates. "Lets rest here until dawn, then we can search for the others." "Why can't we go back to the monastery?" "You mean other than the press-gangs, and the soldiers and the other parties that would do us harm. Especially since you are drunk, and I am exhausted. I may not be city born, but even I'm not that stupid. Now, lets try to get some sleep." The Nameless Hermit ~*~*~*~*~ As was his habbit, Uut walked out onto his balcony and looked at the city sprawled below him. The sun had hardly cleared the horizon but Uut knew that plenty of people were up. He could even see some activity at the temples that stood between the palace and the rest of Insel. As a palace healer, Uut didn't have to be up this early. If there were no serious injuries or illnesses he liked to go into the city and see what he could do around noon. But Radit was up with the sun everyday and Uut had always made it a point to have breakfast with his teacher at least twice a week. Uut stretched himself once more before going back into his room to get dressed. He walked down to Radit's room and knocked lightly. "Radit? Are you awake, or have you finally gotten the sense to sleep in?" No matter how many times he said it, the old joke never failed to bring a smile to Uut's lips. The old healer opened his door without his usual quip and instead stepped aside to let Uut in. "Is something wrong?" Uut asked. "No," Radit said slowly, "I think something right might be happening." He motioned Uut further into the room. The young man offered his arm for support and led Radit to the low table where their breakfast was laid out. "For two nights, I have had dreams of Antono telling me about the traveler who is destined to arrive. Last night makes three," Radit said. Uut gasped involentarily, "You think he's coming today?" "Once is nothing, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a warning. I believe that he is coming soon," Radit said, quoting an old proverb. "Have you told Their Majesties?" Uut asked. "No, I don't want to get their hopes up. Uut, I am too old to go into the city inconspicuously. I would like you to tend to the new arrivals and keep an ear open for anything unusual the next few days." Uut nodded, "Of course." ~*~*~*~*~ "Sir?" Uut looked up from his patient at the nurse who had called. "Yes?" "There's a man, he's delirious and he has scratches on his chest that I can't get to stop bleeding -" "Where is he?" Uut was striding toward the nurse before he had stopped talking. The nurse showed him to a man with bluish-purple hair and a surprisingly well developed upper body. His eyes were closed and he was muttered something Uut couldn't understand to himself. Uut knelt by the man's pallet and peeled back the bandages to see that the man's scratches were indeed oozing slowly with blood. "What could have done this?" Uut asked himself quietly before laying his hands over the man's wounds and sending his magic out. The second Uut's magic touched the man's body his eyes flew open and he gripped Uut's arm. "I have to go back! The others will be looking for me. I need to go back to them!" Uut ignored this for the most part. It was a common thing for the new arrivals to say. He did note distantly that the man's right eye was missing but that it seemed to have healed well. "If I don't the dragon will find me. It'll kill me and we have... have to get to the Island of... Monkeys." This got Uut's attention. He called a nurse over and tried to keep his tail from twitching excitedly. "I've done what I can for now. Take this man up to the palace and see that he is taken care of until I get there." KC is a teacher now! Redit looked at the fevered man and slowly shook his head in disappointment. "This is not the one," he told his young friend sadly. Uut sighed. "It seemed it must be, for he spoke of needing to get to 'The Isle of the Monkeys.' I am sorry." "No matter, Uut, I am still certain that the man for whom we wait can't be far away now." He shook out his arms and shoulders. "Now that I'm here, I might as well take a look. Hmmm...." Redit pulled aside the blankets and the blood-encrusted bandages to take a look at the wound. His young students made various noises of disgust, but a slight wrinkle of his nostrils was all that Redit allowed himself. He'd seen many a wound on the rescued men and women, but never one so ghastly. The blood that continuously oozed from the cuts was the only thing that held the gangrene at bay. He probed the edges of the wound gently, his two students ready to hold the man down, but he was already too far gone, too weak to really put up much of a resistance. Still, Redit's healing magics had rarely failed in the past and, despite the swelling and angry red streaks around the man's torso, Redit had faith that his magics would again bring about a full recovery. He relaxed his stance and placed his hands, palms down, a few inches from the wound. Closing his eyes in meditation, Redit called forth his magic. He could sense the power flowing through him and into his patient, but then it seemed to hit an impasse. Suddenly, he was forcefully and ruthlessly expelled, his repulsed magic stinging him like so many barbs. There was an image in his mind, a dark, frightening image, dripping with evil, and it spoke: "NO! He's mine!" Uut grabbed for his mentor as he flew away from the bedside. "Master!" he cried. "What's happened? What's wrong?" The old healer gasped for breath for a minute or two before struggling to his feet and snapping at his students, "Fetch me Lord Cesare's Journal! Now!" He steadied his nerves by pacing, muttering to himself. "Master, please! What's happened?" Redit paused a moment, to look at his protege, worry clouding his expression. "I've just seen something, young Uut, something so . . impossible! Something so evil in nature that I am bewildered." He glanced over at the twitching form of his patient. "What else do you know of him?" "Well," said Uut slowly, forcing his mind to deal with the question and answer fully, "One of his shipmates said that he used to mutter to himself under his breath, almost the entire voyage. She couldn't say whether he was asleep or awake of course." The older healer nodded. "Fever?" "She didn't know, but said that she didn't really start to pay attention to anything after they were put down in the dark." He shrugged. "But something might have been lost in the translation. Healer Loma said her mind was mostly gone, the shock of capture and of losing her loved ones. I don't know, Master, but that it's not just the ravings of a mad woman." Redit nodded absently and continued in his pacing. His mind kept whispering, "Impossible! Impossible!" at him until it was almost impossible to think, and so he paced, fuming at the time needed to fetch the precious journal from its place of safe-keeping. Still, sending his students was faster than going himself. "Ah!" he exclaimed as the panting students rushed back into the room, cradling several large, thick books. Redit grabbed for the first of the books, the oldest, and began flipping pages hurriedly, ignoring his students' gasps of surprise at his careless handling of the precious manuscript. Then he got to the page he wanted and stared at it in shock. "No! It cannot be!" Tai woke with a start. She stared about her, panic threatening until she recognized her surroundings. She was in the cabin formerly belonging to the ship's captain's sons. Kiera snored softly in the other bunk. Anglis was unconscious in the other cabin, the one the captain said was for passengers he never had ... And Derrick, Mordred, and Marius, were asleep in hammocks strung up in the cargo hold. They were four days out of Monykom City, following the map Tai had acquired. Now why am I awake? she wondered. "Me, that's why." Tai jumped. "You!" she hissed. All she could see of her little ghostly shadow was the girls' glowing eyes. "What do you want?" The ghost was clearly aggitated, from the sound of her voice. "You must get up! Now! Go to the helm - we're drifting off course." "Huh? And what do I know about sailing a ship!? And aren't we at anchor anyway?" "No time, no time!" snapped the ghost. "You don't need to know anything, just do as I say!" "Okay, okay," Tai muttered, swinging her legs over the side of the bunk. She pulled on her pants, not bothering to tuck in her shirt or grab shoes, and staggered for the door. With the ghost heckling her at every step, Tai managed to make it to the deck of the ship. It was a beautiful, cloudless night, and chill. Tai shivered. "The anchor!" prodded the ghost. "That takes all of the boys together to haul that thing up!" she protested. She was rapidly waking up in the cold air and occassional cold water across the deck. "So cut the rope!" "What?" "It's not like you have the time to waste sleeping," replied the ghost. "You'll need to sail day and night to get there in time." "In time for what?" yawned Tai. "Just do it!" Tai jumped. "Okay, okay! Geez." Grumping across the deck, Tai pulled out one of the knives she always had upon her person and attacked the anchor ropes. The exercise warmed her up and she maintained her silence against the ghost's tirades and wearily took the wheel. She slipped off the restraining rope and silently followed the ghost's directions. The chaos of the following morning was certainly to be expected, but Tai was really tired by then and merely snapped that they were running out of time and stomped back off to bed. Henceforth, Mordred, Derrick, and Marius worked the day shift and the captain and Tai maintained the night watch. The tension on the little boat by the end of the week was thick enough to be cut with a knife. Kiera reported that Anglis had infrequent bouts of consciousness, but there didn't seem to be any indication of his returning to sanity any time soon. And Tai kept seeing other ghosts during the daytime, so she tended to avoid everyone else altogether. Mordred had run out of herbs to die his hair with and groused about it continuously when he wasn't talking metal-working with Derrick and Marius kept his nose in a book. Kiera also seemed to be going rather stir-crazy, muttering dark words under her breath and glaring at everyone she encountered. She pulled ship duty whenever they needed an extra hand, some days, some nights, for she seemed to sleep less and less, just like Tai. There was one ghost in particular, other than the one whispering predictions of doom every few seconds, that Tai saw most often. It was a young woman, not too much older than Tai herself, with long hair that might've been red if she wasn't the silvery grey of a ghost, and a tall, thin, and graceful athletic build that tended to make Tai feel shabby and envious. The girl stood in the bow of the ship for the most part, staring out ahead. The people she spoke to were rarely seen, but she paced much as Tai did and managed to look both exceedingly worried and rather happy and carefree all at the same time. Like the ghosts in the city, this ghost didn't seem able to see Tai, but Tai saw her, or saw glimpses of her, everytime she turned around, it seemed. And always there was her own little spirit whispering in her ear that they were all doomed - doomed! if they didn't somehow manage to go faster. Anglis left the dock, but opened his eyes only the a world of gray. He stood still at first, waiting to wake up, but time didn't seem to matter here. He didn't know how long he waited, but it seemed like forever; and so when nothing happened, he got up and began to walk. He walked first in one direction, and then another as first a mild concern, then worry, and finally panic began to set in. He stopped his head-long rush into nowhere when he regained his wits and took deep breaths, trying to calm down. I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy, he told himself, over and over until he thought he might actually believe it better if he said it out loud and only stopped when better sense told him that he needed to conserve his strength and shouting would only dehydrate him. He didn't know where he was or how long he'd be there, or even how he'd gotten there -- Oh really? he thought silently. Come on, you can do better than that! "Fine!" Anglis said, giving in to the urge to talk out loud. "It's the dreaming, isn't it? Isn't it? Hmm, it doesn't seem to even echo in here. Well, if I'm dreaming that I'm here, why can't I wake up? I want to wake up, I feel like I'm going crazy! You hear me? I want to wake up!" He kept walking. Funny thing about that was he didn't really feel tired, or thirsty, or hungry, although his feet hurt and his eyes hurt from squinting into the grayness, trying to make shapes appear from nothing. And even more worrisome than that was his hand seemd to be hurting, too. His left hand. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt anything in that arm, and now his fingers tingled. Well, sometimes, but often enough that he was beginning to think he wasn't imagining it. So he walked. He kept walking . . . and walking . . . and walking. Hmm, he hadn't changed directions in a while. He stopped and turned to face to his right. He took a few steps . . . and continued walking back along the direction he'd been going a few minutes (hours?) - anyway, a few moments ago. Hmmm, that was new. Again Anglis tried changing directions, and again, and again; and then he realized that he actually had a direction to take, and that cheered him immensely. For a while he even jogged, just to feel his arms - both of them - swinging along at every stride. But he slowed eventually back to a walk and kept going. |
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