<html><head><style type="text/css"></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt"><div>Reposting the entire thing due to the first section being bounced. Ryx. ---<<>>--- <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///G:%5CUsers%5CRyx%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///G:%5CUsers%5CRyx%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///G:%5CUsers%5CRyx%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style>  </style> Dream’s Aria:  Dark Interlude<o:p></o:p> Oct 28, 706 CR<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Sir Yacoub Egland of Yesulam, Holy Knight of the Ecclasia, stared morosely at the plain bowl of porcelain before him.  In the bowl was gleaming clear water that reflected the wan torchlight of his recovery room.  That water would be cold, he knew, and while he once may have paid little heed he was no longer what he once was.<o:p></o:p>             Cold water, for one, clunk to his new pelt of short, fine fur quite tenaciously without ever seeming to warm appreciably.  Since autumn was well under way it was getting cooler and his rooms were feeling that chill.  He did not look forward to another chilling bath out of that porcelain washbasin.  Nor did he look forward to the ignominy of having another aide in his bathing because of his weakened state.  He sighed heavily and looked down at his hands, now like the rest of him given over fully to the change.<o:p></o:p>             Contemplating the two hoof-tipped thickened fingers and one thumb that had replaced his once fine hands and nimble fingers he did not hear the polite knock at his door.  The sound of a polite cough did finally interrupt his fractured thoughts and bring his attention to his visitor.  A short woman, age regressed by the villainy of the curse where Egland had been made a beast, stood at the threshold bearing an arm load of towels and a fresh ewer of water.<o:p></o:p>             More cold water.<o:p></o:p>             “I’ve brought you some towels, Sire, and more water for your rinsing.” She explained once he looked up and bade her enter with a nod of his antlered head.  Egland, a knight of many years, accepted the weight atop his head as normal, as he might a steel helm, but the balance was vastly different.  How elk in nature dealt with their cumbersome antlers he could not fathom.  Before becoming injured and trapped at Metamor, victim to its curse, he never would have cared.  “I can call Angton to assist you with bathing if you wish.”<o:p></o:p>             That idea pleased Egland even less than the thought of bathing with icy water.  “No.”  Angton, a huge burly man that he was could be gentle enough but a bull gracing in a field had more personality.  “What is the hour, lass?”<o:p></o:p>             “Halfmark past the eleventh hour, milord.”<o:p></o:p>             Almost midnight, Egland realized.  The listless empty passage of time in the healer’s rooms was playing havoc with his body time.  The curse could not be helping that, either, he realized.  “Would the baths be usable at this hour?”<o:p></o:p>             “Oh, aye.” The nurse nodded, “They’re available all the day and night for those that keep such hours, milord.”<o:p></o:p>             Carefully drawing his crutches over Egland levered himself out of bed carefully.  He had donned his tabard some hours before and suffered no qualms of modesty.  Not that he would have had ne not been dressed for this nurse had been one of the many who had been tending him since his untimely crippling.  After he had tried and failed the death of his Patriarch where so many others had perished under the attack of but one madman of incredible ability and power.  Of a retinue of fifty only three survived.  Himself with legs crushed beyond all but the touch of magic, and Metamor’s curse, to heal.  Bishop Vinsah who remained comatose even two weeks after the disaster and Kashin who had lost an arm but retained his mobility.  That last had left to hunt their attackers and exact vengeance and escape the touch of the Curse.<o:p></o:p>             “Point the way, if you would.” Egland hobbled inelegantly on the rough wooden crutches toward the door forcing the nurse to move.<o:p></o:p>             “Well, sire, that’s not really a simple task, as such.” She wrung her hands in consternation, “Where the baths are and we are, well, is all up to how fickle the Keep wants to be.”<o:p></o:p>             Egland leaned on one crutch to take one of the towels and drape it across his shoulders.  Tightening the belt around his tabard he hobbled through the door with the small nurse at his tail.  “Ah, for blessed Yesulam, where the forsaken walls don’t move.” He muttered.<o:p></o:p>             “Just a moment, sire, I’ll fetch someone to assist you.”<o:p></o:p>             “Nay, lass, nay.  I am whole and hale, if weakened.” Egland belayed her hasty fetching of some other sad invalid to wander the cold corridor with him at the turning hour of the night.  “This pilgrimage is betwixt Eli and mine own heart, I shant bring others from their comforts just to shuffle alongside me.”  So said he awkwardly drew open the outer door and stepped into the corridor beyond.<o:p></o:p>             Or would have, had the broad spread of his antlers not caught against the lintel and hauled him up short.  “Gods all bedamned horns!” he swore, shaking his head violently free and staggering into the corridor.  “When the master healer arrives have him fetch a bone saw.  I wish to be rid of these fey things!”<o:p></o:p>             “As you wish, milord.  Have care and come back safely.” The nurse called after him.<o:p></o:p>             Frustrated at his infirmary and the cumbersome weight upon his head Egland made his way slowly down one corridor and then another.  Not attentive to his own twistings and turnings and angrily aware that had he put more thought into remembering his path the attempt would be moot a minute later.  The Keep gave him creeping horrors the likes of which he had not known since childhood.  He had visions of the floor opening up at his hooves or the walls slamming together where he stood.  Neither mental image, fatal as they might be, was as terrifying as the thought of being sealed away in some stone room bereft of window or door to perish alone.<o:p></o:p>             He heard the calling of the hour through a casement and looked out at the starry darkness the view presented.  No torches were lit upon the curtain wall, relying on the keen night eyes of those on watch, and the moon was waning somewhere beyond the casement’s view.  Along the shadowed crenellations an armored form moved on patrol.  “Eli, all Father, how have I failed you that I am cast into this place of waking horrors?  Why did your good, kind servant Akabaieth and so, so many others perish and we few of us survive only to live on in such a cursed half-existence?” Egland asked, again, as he had since awakening and finding the raccoon healer Coe hovering over him.<o:p></o:p>             “Why were we deemed not worthy to be brought unto you as the others?”  He spoke toward the cold, distant stars with a familiar crushing ache in his breast.<o:p></o:p>             “It is not the destination; it is the journey that defines who one is when they arrive.”  A new voice, mellow and tenor, interposed gently on Egland’s questions of faith bringing the elk knight about abruptly.  Irritation and embarrassment burned in his ears and eyes at being caught in his weakness of faith.<o:p></o:p>             Standing several paces away was the pine marten minstrel, Dream Serpent, who had entered into Egland’s infirmary room the first time some six days earlier.  He had since returned twice more to help Egland re-learn how to use his hands and make music with his precious viola.  He was always nobly and gaily garbed in the latest court fashions, insofar as fashions could be adjusted to fit his long, sinuous form.  Now was no exception save perhaps being more ostentatious than Egland had seen before.<o:p></o:p>             The dark brown marten was bedecked in a turquoise silk surcoat and leggings etched with silver embroidery and gold piping.  Over this was an indigo coachman’s long coat while deep azure boots adorned his feet.  Atop his head was a broad-brimmed hat festooned with peacock feathers.  In contrast the dark brown leather dulcimer case slung across his back looked like horse dung flung across the dawning sky.<o:p></o:p>             “Your poetic reach is not well taken, minstrel.” Egland muttered flatly.<o:p></o:p>             “Ah, ts’amut, be at peace.” Dream held up a placating hand.  “I was merely observing an old verse.  When adversity strikes ever the faithful question their faith.” The marten said as he approached languidly.  “A friend once told me that without adversity we lose our faith, without conflict we soften.” The minstrel’s head came barely as high as Egland’s chin.  Smiling, Dream reached up a hand to clasp the taller elk’s shoulder encouragingly.  “The gods do not look upon us in the throes of our adversity, giggling at our tails like bullies, but rather wait to see what emerges upon the other side of them.”<o:p></o:p>             Egland looked quizzically down at the good spirited fop.  “You’re waxing fine philosophy for one who cleaves to no faith at all.”<o:p></o:p>             Dream smiled hugely and then laughed.  “My friend, I am drunk!” he chirruped happily.  “I always wax philosophical when I’m swimming in my cups.”  The hand fell from Egland’s shoulder to his elbow.  “Come; come, where ever it was you were going.”<o:p></o:p>             “To bathe.” Egland did move, however, drawn from the black edge of the abyss he had wallowed in quite enough already.<o:p></o:p>             “At this hour?  Ah, and a good idea it is, too!  The baths’ll be vacant.”<o:p></o:p>             “Yes, and you’re about at such an hour as well?” Egland followed Dream’s lead along the vacant hallways, the slender fop’s hand upon his elbow like a courtier escorting some courtesan, following the marten’s lead along the vacant hallways.<o:p></o:p>             “Beh!  Duke Tomas brought in a clot of his vassal nobles and spent all of the day yammering about Metamor’s response to the inevitable lying of blame for your Patriarch’s untimely demise.”<o:p></o:p>             Egland frowned.  “His murder.”<o:p></o:p>             “Oh, aye, no quibbling on that matter.  A dark, dark day that was.”<o:p></o:p>             “And their conclusions?”<o:p></o:p>             Dream released his arm momentarily to pirouette lazily as they crossed an open courtyard bounded by an arcade to hang from a pillar, “No idea, I came to play the banquet that followed.  The last drunken sod rolled his fat rump out not long before the midnight bell.”  Spinning from the pillar Dream danced into the inky shadows of a narrow passage.  The air in the courtyard was still and cold with the bite of coming winter, brown leaves scattering across the flagstones with a whisper like court gossips, stirred by a fitful breeze.  “Ah, hah, here we are.  Come along my smelly friend.”<o:p></o:p>             Egland followed more cautiously for the passage seemed tight but it was the darkness within giving that seeming.  In truth it was both wide enough and high enough to accommodate Egland’s frame and antlers.  He could hear the minstrel scrounging about in the darkness.  Somewhere ahead was the sound of water slowly moving and a warm draft of damp air whispered past to stir a brief mist of fog along the arcade.<o:p></o:p>             “Ten paces and turn right, or you’ll flatten your nose on the wall.”<o:p></o:p>             “Can you find a light, minstrel?  I cannot see but blackness.”  After ten paces on his crutches Egland fumbled about to his right and found another archway.<o:p></o:p> </div> </div> !DSPAM:4c3957cf168521122247586! </body></html>