Tristan's Lifelong Journal

[gilshem ironstone]

*In his mind's eye Tristan experiences a flashing series of images.  Balls of lightning crackle and dart too and fro, constantly eluding his grasp.  A mad dance unfolds as the lightning leads him in an un-ending chase.  Beyond the stage, a tall and slender shadow presides, absorbing meaning beyond comprehension from the senseless ballet.  The presence pulls at Tristan, its weight becoming more and more relentless.  Just when it is on the verge of flowering in Tristan's consciousness, when Tristan almost realizes there is an arbiter of his hunt, the crackling spheres converge and smother him in an agonizing quilt of pure Al'Noth.  It brings Tristan to the brink of death but the piercing cry of a raven, and the clasp of razor talons, scatter the lightning so that the hunt may continue anew.*

[gilshem ironstone]

How can I put the pieces together.  I feel like a traveler in an inn.  Not anywhere I belong, just passing through.  She still has the same deep eyes, in fact she looks as if she has not aged a day.  Neither do I for that matter.  Yet how can that be?  It feels as if my world is upside down.  And I have not even met my daughter yet.  What am I supposed to do?  Where do I fit in?  Storold seems to have worn the years sadly and with a lot of strife.  But seeing so diligently standing next to Sala gave me hope.  I just do not know.  Now more than ever I need Lucinda.  "I am the whole and endless change is my nature." So it reads in the Coran Arta i' Tha vair maen.  So it must be.  And so must I be.  But how?

[gilshem ironstone]

Gone.  I can scarcely believe it.  For over a decade.  I feel numb more than anything.  A bizarre feeling.  Their ghost has hung over me for so many years.  They have come to me in dream and divination.  They have been a benchmark for the strength of my belief ever since I joined the order, and now they are gone.  I hope they missed me.  I missed them.  I always wanted them to see how much I had accomplished, how far I had come.  I wanted them to meet Alleina.  I wanted them to meet their granddaughter.  Did they know, I wonder.  Did the church ever contact them on my behalf?  I have so many questions for them.  And so many questions for those that committed them to the earth.  But alas, those answers lay hid in that spike of sorcerous stone the Tower of High Arcana.  And why are my parents involved with them in the first place?  I dont know.  This world feels new again, but with more ghosts, more shadow.  Where is my beacon?