Andrew's Songbook

[RollinsCat]

Revised per discussion.

A night not much less than this eve, wither round this fire brightening, I traded tales with a kindred soul to see whose was the more frightening.

I'd taken fare from Vehl, you see, on a dark and stormy afternoon; there were no other cabs around, not in that soggy near-monsoon!

He took my True, the cab was dry, the horse did not complain. For hours chatting nonchalant we drove on through the rain.

Landing here to rest the mare I told a story and then two - horrors witnessed, large and small, he listened as he drank a few.
 
And a few more -- he listed now, it took some time for him to speak. Bottles lined that seat of hay, under deep grey skies he looked antique.  His eyes how they misted!  His face forlorn and wary!  His cheeks veined and saggy, his bulbous nose like a berry!  His voice was quite sudden, after all of that booze, expunging his soul in fits and dropped clues.

"Something you should know" said he, leaning pale and thin, "I got a past I can't outrun" - his whisper, well, it scraped my skin.

"Nigh fifty turns past - I drove even back then - a proud man with a temper, I did mighty sin...she took fare to the Port, her face was a vision. I thought I must love her, I'd made my decision.

"I'm not sure why her - because she seemed so alone? Her autumn red hair? The way her eyes shone?

"It mattered not, my mind was set, and I started to chat up that women I'd met. I thought twas my heart but as a man in my youth, was likely parts south who set my lips loose. I asked her her name, I flattered and wooed, and for all of my charms she eyed me quite rude. I asked for her name, for her family trade, yet all she would say was 'Maggie Calcaighd'; to the rest of my questions she stared from a window into the deepening evening shade.

"I'd given my all in words and in reasons and still she turned and twisted away -- what right had she to judge a mere hackney driver, did she think me a mongrel, a vagrant, a stray? My temper soared as birds from a cliff at each thin-lipped frown and each haughty sniff.

"I stopped the cab and stepped from my seat, opened her door and tugged her to her feet. Pulling her out and down to the road I unstrapped her luggage and dropped down her load.

"She stood in mute fury as I locked fast the door; then fury turned pale at the sound of a roar; from the dark forest some creature drew near; she was frozen and shaking in desperate fear. She pleaded I didn't abandon her there...but I took up my reins and snapped at my mare.

"I felt a bit sick but it was her fault, you know? Or so I thought then in my pride. It was two days hence that her body was found - late for her wedding -- a merchant son's bride.

"I was asked if I'd taken her fare many times and lied and I lied and I lied, with my guilt losing battle to fear of a cell and casting my morals aside.

"I've a slick tongue and so they believed.  She was buried inside of eight days.  I didn't stick round to pay my respects, left determined to mend up my ways.

"That year I took fares far from Port town...till one night I drove near that road unaware...saw a woman walking alone in the dark and she waved me down for a fare.

"Garbed in a thin gown she shivered quite cold, a faded address all she allowed me to hold, pointed to cab and the aged paper, moving so lightly she seemed made of vapor.

"She was ill-dressed for chill, so I offered my coat; a silent nod all she gave, not a word did she spoke. You think me a fool, and that's understood, but you have to know I was trying to do good.

"The hairs on my neck stood as she boarded and something about her made me feel quite sordid but I drove, and I drove as the air thickened round us and through that foul mist I began to stress.
 
"Her address lad I could not find, hour upon hour of driving, in foul rolling fog we carried on still no closer to arriving.

"With weary horse, I made to stop; it was only then came to my ear; her scratching upon the window-cloth, so faint that I could barely hear...
 
"There were gates some paces back, I'd a hauntingly familiar sense.  I could not recall; I let her out; she walked silent to that fence.  She turned once and I thought she smiled but with no warmth, no, it seemed hostile...
 
"It was not until the morrow I remembered my noblesse, so next evening I returned to that address.  The iron gates stood mutely guard, a field chock with aging stones; jutting left, center, right; all markers over someone's bones.
 
"Twas more than an ill-feeling then I went walking through graves and found my coat torn to shreds cross one carved 'Maggie Calcaighd'.
 
"I turned right round, I left the coat, drove back to Hempstead in haste, but on the way inside my cab, I saw her pale, ghostly face!

"And heard that scratching at the cloth!  Again and again and again!  It was enough to drive me mad, that sound wiggling 'neath my skin!

"It was her, I knew it was, she'd come back just to haunt me, I fled my cab and left it there and ran fast as I could flee!
 
"I know not what happened to that horse, or to that carriage fine, I thought that I'd escaped my fate, and swore to the divine.

 "But lad, she didn't stop that night, nor most nights since that fare -- I can see her sitting side my guests, I see her there, I swear!  And hear that sound so often it's enough to make me froth!  The scratching, scratching, SCRATCHING always at my window cloth!"

Ladies and gentlemen I tell you what he told to me, I'd have taken it as joke if I hadn't seen what I had seen.  For when I let my eyes browse the carriage to my right, I saw someone behind the cloth lined in ghostly light.  And heard a gentle scratching as if picking at my ear - just above the threshold of the softest I could hear.

I declined the rest of way and took myself by foot, the driver dragged his feet while looking quite hard put.  I found out later his final rest had come on that old road; it seems ghostly Maggie had gotten what she'd been owed.

[RollinsCat]

Dear Beloved

Such a pithy start yet I have nothing better.  I'm running out of everything - time, patience, ideas, clout, smooth words.  I know when I set out to see what Hardragh wanted that you expected me back sooner and I am sorry it did not work out that way.  I have some time now to write, as we limp to Krashin in yet another destroyed ship, and I want to explain myself - and vent my fears onto this letter I hope you will read.

It all starts so innocent, doesn't it?  Our morning together, waking with a properly extensive and sweaty hello, and after our breakfast setting sail to Leringard expecting...to be truthful, I had no idea what.  That Hardragh would have requested my presence was, is, still a conundrum.  As we waited on the docks it became clear I was not the only one he wished at his back as Arkolio, G'ork, and Steel joined us.  It reminded me of nothing more than an old child's game: One of these things is Not Like the Other.  One of these things Does Not Belong.  And yet, sucker that I am for the atypical experience, I tagged along as he forced his way into a meeting in which the Tempest herself was expected to speak.  Really, who could resist?  The Tempest of Mist!  Head of the church!  Right hand to Mist herself!

She was shorter than I expected.

I digress.  In summary, the meeting was to announce the Tempest's latest game; she wants a dragon's egg which she, to the best of our knowledge, intends to raise as a Mistite.  My immediate reaction was that I would partake in no kidnapping and it remains so, which is why I am likely to be coming home soon.  That, and I've irritated G'ork, so if I do not leave of my own volition I will be returning via the bindstone almost certainly.

After the meeting and some failed small talk with a Tide and with Dougal - you recall he was at the meeting with Tide Murray and a more sour man I hope I never meet - we were about to leave when a tiny red-flecked object was tossed in the room and Hardragh and I were summarily frozen solid.  Most unpleasant.  I found later this was likely an artifact called the Glittering Craton, allowing a person to amplify the elements around them.  Pray Emwonk never finds it!  After our thawing I contracted Jetta (on Hardragh's True) to aid us and Hardragh brought Rose in to scry.  

Another digression, but how and why he carried on a relationship with Rose is beyond me.  He is very unsuited to a woman like her who requires quite a bit of tending.  He would do better to focus on Liere - more on her later.  Steel and Rose engaged in some successful scrying and we were off to Krashin to chase someone who might have found a dragon's egg.  Arkolio provided the ship and in a surge of magnanimity allowed me to name her.  I christened her the Minuet.  I hope that brings a smile!

Having gathered more information in the trip, imagine Hardragh's surprise when the location Dougal was chasing was Snowtooth's lair.  Hardragh and the big white lizard have a rather special relationship and it has been strained to the seams during this adventure.  And let me say before I forget that having stood now before Fisterion and Snowtooth, I prefer Fisterion.  He's a much better host and less prone to yelling so long as you are respectful.  The ice dragon is a hothead.  Ironic, no?

There was quite a bit of misadventure - trekking all over that bloody sheet of ice they call home, myself and Rose coming down deathly ill from chillblains and then nearly dying at the hands of our tracker at the time, a bladed maniac who hates women apparently.  I have become not very fond of Krashin.  Call me a pudding-soft southerner if you will but I'll always take a beach over a snowbank.  We encountered attacks from native tribes, delays, and a deadly foray into the Deep which we were able to cut short by arranging our first visit with Snowtooth.  I have also learned a valuable lesson; do not hold one's bow with half-frozen fingers in the chambers of a dragon.  If one's touch is blunted by the miserable temperatures, and one's arrow slips and hits one of the dragon's guards, bad things happen.  Lesson learned.

Rose has been having visions on and off since we started, and at some point in our conversation with Snowtooth - I say conversation, it was more an endurance of much bellowing and expected groveling - her vision manifested in an illusion.  This caught his eye as it was the picture of someone stealing an egg, and the location nailed his attention to the floor.  He ordered us to find that egg and if we did he would give us the location of one he did not care about.  We warned him of Dougal's attempt to steal another of his eggs and that earned the man's ships a thrashing.  I might also mention all the destruction of Mist temples and villages, directly attributable to this venture, and the subsequent calling off of the game by the Tempest.  A lot of innocent people have died for her amusement.  I'm sure that she'd only blame them for being either unprepared or weak in the face of a surprise dragon attack.

Our first ship was attacked leaving Krashin.  Snowtooth intervened and...well, I'll be honest.  It is amazing watching dragons fight.  Even in the war, I will confess to a certain awe at the grace bundled into their strength and the way they maneuver.  My brief time in dragon form was so clumsy, a toddler learning to walk, by comparison.  I was also very glad that he was intervening on our behalf, and being dragged in the wreck of the boat all the way to Leringard was something to be remembered too.  I suppose in the end it is moments like that for which I remain active in the world, and let myself be convinced to do things that perhaps I should know better than to do.  Feel free to remind me of this the next time I have a bright idea.

Sleuthing led us to Tide Cassandra and her followers whom had stolen an egg fathered by Snowy himself with a dragon in the Redlands.  I am ashamed to say I did not recognize the landscape of Rose's vision - I do not know where in the Redlands there is sand, as most of it is red clay as I recall.  It must be deeper in than I have ever traveled.  Arkolio once again provided a ship, and upon first glance at the captain I admit I was concerned, he being a large and burly half-orc.  Having gotten to know G'ork I can say with certainty that people like Tane are definitely the minority of half-breeds in that sphere.  The man's name didn't inspire my confidence for a conflict-free journey any more than his appearance, that being Captain Rabid Vash, and all of this had me in a light sweat until we were introduced.

Minu, my love, the world is a mysterious place, when a man who seems so obviously one thing can instead be a connoisseur of music and a writer (albeit an inexperienced one) of poetry.  The man was nearly smitten with me and apparently Arkolio had promised him in advance that I would be most attentive in sharing my stories, music, and poems.  I knew better than to argue.  It's moments like that I am reminded that I am in fact on a leash and it is uncomfortable.  At the least though this was a pleasant assignment.  Captain Vash was both and enthusiastic and appreciative audience and my time spent entertaining him was hardly a chore.  We worked on a few of his things during the trip to catch Cassandra and I was able to learn a few more song variants of some shanties I know as well as shake off my land legs and get my sea legs back.  I think of all the time we spent, this was the most enjoyable and I spent most of it with the captain and crew of the ship.

This next divulgence is a reminder that while it may be tempting to treat Arkolio and G'ork as peers, they are not.  A man like myself could not spread word among a network of acquaintance on strength of reputation alone and expect them to find and gift-wrap my quarry for me.  G'ork can.  Arkolio can.  I'm certain Steel can.  No matter what daily facade they put on - well, except for G'ork, he's fairly open in his misanthropy - these are not ordinary men.  It would do me well to remember that now that I have crossed swords with them.

Cassandra and the remains of her crew were trussed up on the island.  The man who found them for G'ork was a beast.  Merely being around him had Rose's hair rising like a cornered cat's and I shared her assessment.  He had gutted and strung up Cassandra's mages and some of her other crew.  I found it prudent to keep my mouth shut about my own magical abilities.  After some conversation we convinced them to not slaughter the crew, rather we would take them on, and he and his left.  I think even the wind sighed relief when he did.

Immediately they set upon Tide Cassandra.  You know me, love.  A defenseless woman, if only so because her hands and mouth were secured, is nothing I can stand by and watch abused.  I intervened then when they would have killed her outright and Jetta and I stayed behind to watch her once they ascertained that she had the dragon's egg on her now-sunken ship.  In the process they moved us all down to the beach and it was then that Arkolio began to threaten her.  It may be nothing I have heard before, but now I am not so sure he would not carry through.  Hardragh played good cop to Ark's threats but I was simply not taking a chance.  For my Lady I cannot.  I stood close as Ark threatened to do harm, and when G'ork moved to cut off her fingers - no idle threat there - I blocked his path, rapier drawn.

I'd like to think I stopped him if only by the shock of my less than impressive bulk being willing to fight.  Perhaps it was amusement although this is the least likely.  And perhaps it was Hardragh's words, which, in retrospect, is probably what gave him pause.  I don't know for sure.  I do know I was willing to die there to protect her, and would have.  I have sparred with G'ork before in the Arena.   I give myself six seconds or less at the wrong end of that thrice-dammed axe.

They left everyone alive and unmolested in myself and Jetta's hands.  Probably more hers than mine truth be told.  I made conversation with Cassandra, trying to figure her motives, and failed.  The few tidbits I did get out of her, such as she's been planning this for a very long time and Dougal must have gotten wind and planted a seed in the Tempest's ear to secure his own power, are worth nothing.  What I did get was a long internal dialogue with myself over ethics, and disgust with Cassandra.  Love, you know of my past with Jaelle.  You know that I have not had an issue with Mist's followers before.  Yet it seems to be that those in power are either unaware or uncaring of the rest of the world.  Change for change's sake with no thoughts to the future.  In the course our discussion, Cassandra stated the Cult was not wrong!  That the dragons should be eradicated before they grow more powerful!  She spared no pity for those caught in the crossfire of a possible war with the dragons over this egg, stating that, basically, anyone who died was weak and deserved it.  I was sickened.  When I told her that I wanted to head off another war on the heels of the first that was still causing misery and starvation as the world recovered, she dismissed this as culling and said we'd all be stronger for it.  Listening to her I am ashamed to say I regretted standing firm against her torture for a moment.  I would do the same, even knowing what I do now, of course - my ethics are not as situational as those of G'ork's or Hardragh's I'm finding.  However in my experiences her responses were that of a evil being and I will not mourn her passing should it happen.  To be so blatantly disrespectful of life, and to blame others for fates you foist off on them, is both evil and cowardly.  I have not visited her since we put her in the hold.  I doubt I will.

In the end they found Snowtooth's egg while we remained on shore guarding Cassandra.  Snowtooth landed himself on Captain Vash's ship, the Merkin Daily, not long after to reclaim his offspring and Hardragh got the worst of that deal.  We are taking port in Krashin, again, to change ships as Snowtooth's landing did some very serious damage.  Captain Vash has the heart of a bard though - he was delighted that a dragon had landed on his ship!  I shall be keeping his name in mind for any future need I have of private transportation and hope that the goodwill and entertainment I showered upon him will have some bankability.

And so my fears.  Snowtooth will be heading to Leringard in ten day's time, eight now, ostensibly to make some peace with Mist's church.  Or to gloat about something.  Or to get Hardragh in trouble.  Or maybe to destroy the city.  Really, all of the above are possible and I think the latter more likely.  Hardragh is to be given the location of an egg he can kidnap and I can't see how I can continue to be a part.  I've lost a son.  I can't contribute to someone else's loss.  I think of Freedom every day, every single day.  My son.  How could I bring that kind of pain?

And that is the end of my story to date.  Forgive me, love.  I did not mean to put my stamp on any of this.  I felt it necessary to help get Snowtooth his egg back, for the rightness of it and to stop the attacks, but going forward I do not know where I will be.  I've drawn a blade on them once before and may end up across the fence again, I don't know.  For now, there is a bar in town and I feel a great desire to rekindle the old performer in me.  I shall post this letter then Bella and I shall try to bring some smiles before we change ships in the morning.

I love you.

Your husband,


Tashe

[RollinsCat]

The room was cool; the fire was banked and winter air seeped around door frames and windows.  It was dim as well, shutters tight against the chill.  A quick scan showed dusted bottles, clean glasses, a swept floor, and well-dressed patrons.  Not your common dive and no place he'd played before.

Two tables past a loudly arguing gaggle of private school youths, the elf he'd come to meet crossed slender legs and opened a parchment, his carelessly careful non-reading of the page indicative of someone with an ear to the conversation around him.  He was early and the elf, Dretsil, earlier still.  Edging around the table of young men, he took the chair to the right of Dretsil at the round table.  The man sat with his back to the wall so he could see the entire establishment.  The bard would not block his view.

The elf look up and set the parchment, written in a language he did not recognize, aside.  "Master Reid, a pleasure.  You have the song then?"

"I do.  I must confess, this has been...most enlightening.  I wondered what beyond the war of the dark elves against the surface elves would earn such hatred from my Lady, who is normally a most forgiving Goddess - and I ought to know, I've certainly tested every inch of Her patience.  I dug into my knowledge of church history and recalled the assassination of Ilsare's daughter, which gave rise to Ca'Duz."  He kept his voice level at the cost of his normal expressiveness, but his face betrayed his disgust at even saying the Prince of Hate's name.

"I cannot be fair in this, honestly. Someone's child was killed so a being twisted with hate and revenge could rise. I can't condone it, it sickens me. But, it seems, I can write about it. Oddly enough I was listening to some children chanting rhymes while they jumped rope when I got the first few lines..."

The elf nodded and waited with the patience of the very long-lived as he removed Bella from her case and made some minute adjustments to the strings.  It seemed to him that his motions were under the elf's scrutiny to a greater degree than most people who anticipated being entertained and it made him wonder, but...on with the show.  His vocals lifted in a chanting song, simple and lilting in contrast to quietly sinister bowing.

"Sing a song of sacrifice
Mouths filled up with lies
Four and twenty dark elves
Cooking a demise

Recipe for vengeance
Nourished over years
A splash of spider venom
A quarter cup of tears

Hate in his silken womb
Counting down his time
Love in heaven’s parlor
Working on a rhyme

Love’s child in her garden
Enjoying nature’s art
When up came a spider
Crawling for her heart

Pockets full of posies
Scattered all around
Maiden in the garden
Fallen to the ground

When the dish was opened
Hate’s first wailing breath
The child of the Lady Muse
Was lying still in death

Mother loses daughter
Evil’s form is cast
All the world below him
Suffer for the past

Sing a song of old pain
Birth of black from white
One lurks in the darkness
One stays in the light."

He lowered the bow. "I hope that satisfies your request, Milord."

Dretsil smiled, a toothy affair that felt momentarily genuine.  "If you agree to give me the partitur...I would be certainly pleased.  If that is agreeable.  I have as I said some information about our...common acquaintance?  But I'd like the things sorted and ordered, savvy?"  The elf moved a bottle of wine to the center of the table and made to uncork it.  So fluid the motion, so correct the surroundings, that the bard forgot he was not allowed to drink and waiting for the wine to coat the sides of the glass with anticipation that should have been a warning.  Dretsil spoke as he took his time with the cork.  "What are your first concerns?  What is what you want to know?"

His smile was slight, working at casual affability, as a sudden stab of paranoia forced its way out of his mouth via his foot.  "While I have no problem sharing my work for the world to sing, I would hope this doesn't end up twisted for the use of some Ca'Duz apologist...I trust you'll take care that isn't the case?"  The wine bottle tipped toward his glass.  Wine.  Wine...wait!  He thrust a hand over the glass at the very last minute and fished grape juice from his pack. "Alcohol and I have had a falling out that I pray lasts the rest of my life. Apologies, but I shall drink the unfermented fruit of the vine."  Something about his reactions felt off, he was off-kilter, he could feel it in his gut, yet he teetered still as he poured the grape juice into the glass.  Flashbacks of a tightly controlled, almost mechanical woman asking him questions about the Resonance of Being and the dead.  Refusing to drink if he did not.  Would it be worth returning to alcoholism to avoid insulting people?

Something to ponder another day.  He settled back in his chair, hoised his glass, and spoke. "My questions come from opportunities afforded a group I am affiliated with. With a specific goal in mind, we've had offers of aid from two merchants - Elmer Darin's half of the Iron Throne, and Arthas. Arthas is the one that interests me more as the man is a cipher.  Normally I'd go from my gut - but as I am not the one making decisions..."  An acerbic twist of a grin. "I have been asked for due diligence of discovery.  My concerns are first that he may be involved in something that would cause those I am representing harm, either in reputation or in body.  My second concern is that he pursues adventurers for private ventures, and as a part-time member of said group, I am sadly used to ulterior motives that end up going against my Lady's wishes.  I'm looking for solid, honest information on Arthas that will help me make up my mind one way or the other. I find him both challenging, confounding, alarming, and interesting, but again - in this situation my gut feeling has been put up for committee." After his rambling preamble he sipped and waited.

Dretsil smiled just a bit at his first comments, but his lips were as tight as the drum heads at the Buckle.  "Oh, my...do you ask that always?  Because the implication of me betraying my skin for the betrayers, well, it may be an insult as big as if you would betray your lady..."  The furrow that started on his face at the bard's first words turned to a scowl as the hand blocked the glass.  He moved the wine bottle off the table with a firm clink.  "Keep your song then sir, I don't want to have anything to do with it."

The relaxed, crossed legs unfolded and Dretsil sat up straight and stiff, feet flat on the floor.  "And yet I am a man of my word.  Where I won't offer friendship, I will offer answers to your questions.  Yet the question is a bit general so far, for bodily dangers are almost a sure bet in almost all the endeavors of these days; you remember the last war for sure.  Arthas is a prominent merchant in the city, and with strong friends and presence in the council.  He may be a councilman soon, if he moves his pieces right.  With this said its hard to define what is wrong or good for body or reputation, since he surely may have his rear covered, as such powerful people do.  With that said, the man is an eccentric.  If the question is if he is involved with some unlawful activities, if he was he made it lawful, if you get my meaning.  So, no, nothing unlawful coming from him.

"As for danger for the body, its said that he has adventurer's heart, but he doesn't have the physical ability to actually do it himself, so he lives his dreams through others, that is his inspiration, his ... muse."  The elf shook his head, less distress than lack of comprehension. "He is also a consummated sculptor yet he does it for the sake of the art, for his own enjoyment, and none of his pieces are shown.  His reasons are not known; he keeps them to himself.  If asked about it he has answered that he is becoming a master and that he doesn't consider any of his art worthy yet to be seen, they are imperfect still - in his own opinion of course.

"He is not an Ilsarian and of course he has plenty of projects on his little mind, but no great scheme for Ilsare's demise as far as I know.  He is indeed familiar with adventurers and he likes to get their help for their endeavors, he's a good man to have you on your back for that reason, yet his agenda its his own and of course - same as everyone - he will use the resources he has to get his goals.  Yet his main interest is to get that position on the council for the future of course."  With that the elf re-corked the bottle and rolled up the parchment he'd been studiously not reading earlier.

Well, Tashe, you could not have handled that worse unless you'd accused the man of being a dark elf in whiteface with a bottle of poison.   Muse.  "Please accept my apologies, Master Dretsil.  No insult was intended. It is a reflection of years of - well, let me be honest and call it paranoia.  Merely talking about dark elves leaves me twitchy and prone to rudeness, as I never know who is listening over my shoulder..."  His moment of genuine contriteness was combined with a shadowed glance around the room before he spoke again.

"It's funny you mention my lady, as she a daughter of Voltrex and would have twisted my ear into a knot for what I just said."  A long breath.  "I thank you for your information.  My instincts seem both right and wrong, yet my gut said to align with him and I think with what you've told me I'm still leaning that way."  Without hesitation he placed the musical score with the words to the song on the table.  "If you so choose, despite my rudeness. If I may ask, what instrument do you play?"

A brief pause.  "I do play the violin yet more due stubbornness than natural talent.  I am more a collector of sorts, not an artist.  Songs reflects the culture of our times and this stays in the annals of record and teach us of lessons for the future.  Slowly, the elf reached for the song.  He glanced at the score as he spoke. "The wise lord teaches us that, and your reasons are understandable indeed."  The score was rolled deftly in slender elven hands and placed into a crafted scroll case, made of exquisite malar skin and covered with simple yet sturdy wood.

He allowed some of his relief that his apology was accepted to leak into his expression, and finished his juice. "Stubborness...I can certainly appreciate that." A smile and the bard tapped his skull.  "I am honored to have written for posterity.  Thank you again for your information.  If you have further need of me, I am found often at the Angels Guild, and also at the Silver Buckle Inn in Mariner's Hold."

With a nod, Dretsil finished his packing and excused himself with polite goodbyes.  The bard sat a moment longer to stare at his empty glass as the fire only just lit reflected yellow and blue flames of youth across the glassy curves, humming the song to himself.

[RollinsCat]

To:
Lord Arelius Witherspoon
c/o Mariner's Hold Council
Mariner's Hold
Sagewald
Alindor

Greetings Lord Witherspoon from Andrew Reid of the Silver Buckle

As you have doubtless heard, I recently engaged the services of the Wayward Wildside Trio that resulted in the tragic loss of life after the protests pulled the guards from the gate and the bugbears attacked.

I am aware that you provided protection for the band by way of law and that you are considered a patron of the arts in this city. As it appears that one Edna Blackheart has made it her business to both sink my inn to the bottom of the harbor (I assume metaphorically but one cannot be sure - she was most outraged that someone would be tolerant of a talented musician in fur or feathers) and to take from you your council seat, it seems we share a problem.

Given that we are both men who understand art and we face a common difficulty in the form of this woman, I'd like to meet with you and discuss how we can mutually benefit each other and help Mariner's recover as well.

Looking forward to your response,

Yours in Ilsare,


Andrew Reid
Proprietor of the Silver Buckle Inn




Always a pleasure to recive a letter from such a fine musician of such splendid talent and moral fiber!

Indeed, it was I who had first convinced the council to vote in favor of allowing the trio entry into the city. I do not regrest my decision, though many on the council have been using the recent riots and bugbear invasion as a tool to villify myself and those who have open hearts to the arts and culture of others.

Culture, this is the central issue I believe to be most relevant. It is in the manner of our upbringing, the notes of our song, the manner of our dress and the fiber of our being. Those who reject other species based solely on prejudice are ignorant of culture. These same individuals would next cast out the half-bloods, then the dwarves, the halflings gnomes and elves all out of ignorance of culture. They fear the foreign, malign the unknown and cling tirelessly to outdated jingo notions of nationalism.

There is but one good in this world, knowledge. And there is but one evil, ignorance. Those who willfully blind themselves and shove fingers in their ears rather than open themselves to new sensations, peoples and art, they do murder unto their own souls. Edna is such a woman. She would see every home on the block a cookie cutter replica of the last, every leaf muted and every mind a fortress with its door barred and windows fastened shut, with her cankerous, joyless rump in my seat. For the sake of the people of Mariner's Hold, this must not pass.

You already have felt the pressure of her influence, and for that I apologize, for no doubt she seeks to strike at you with methods she dare not partake against a noble such as myself. I invite you and your allies to come and dine with me, perchance to perform one of your famous songs as well! I am rather fond of "Do Virgins Really Taste Better" and have yet to hear it from the author himself. Then after a good bit of libation and revelry shall we discuss the matter of Lady Blackheart and her lapdog Herschel.

May your heart soar on the wings of art, the joy of innovation be your wind.

-Lord Witherspoon of the Mariner's Hold City Council

[RollinsCat]

He slams the door, runs in calling her name - no, she's not here, they hadn't seen her since the two of them left together.  She isn't here, boss.  Yes, they're sure, unless she sneaked past and is hiding in the kitchen...

...he looks, just to be sure.  And Minu's office, and the pantry, and the clinic. The bathroom.  The Resident Halls, the basement.  She isn't here.

He is screaming inside his head.  How long can she last?  How can he combat those two female-shaped pits of pure pain?  How can he even find her?  He's completely let her down, failed miserably, all those promises to the man that she doesn't know he knows is her father and now he's put her in danger.  So bloody cocky!  So sure of himself!

He has to find her.  He can probably hold them off enough for her to run.  He'll die, certainly - he is still drained and in a state of panic.  There is no time.  She doesn't have long.  He needs help and he doesn't have time.

Okay, Tashe, think.  How are you going to find her, how are you going to save her.  Think.  Thi -

...

Grasp the necklace.  Close eyes.  Kneel, not for reverence but for balance.  You'll fall over otherwise.  Now, sing.

Sing.  Listen.  How do you feel?  What do you sense?  

His nostrils twitch - he smells roasted dwarf and throws up a little in his mouth.  Spits, and returns to singing.  The smell coats his nostrils in viscous memory.  Burnt beard hair.  Seared flesh.

Singing more, he hears...feels his panic bending the air around him.  He hears pan pipes, the sound doubled over the memory of sitting with her mother.  Of her playing the tune - a girl piping to comfort herself.  The panic rises and vibrates with his own weakness and he almost can't stand it.  He has not felt this desperate, this shredded inside, since Thalia walked out and took all hope of him knowing his only biological child with her.  This might be worse.  Someone's life is at stake, not merely his sanity and heart, and he does not know how to save her.

He hears Kaldar asking him to please watch out for her.  To bring her home to them...something he isn't sure he can do, she is no child.  He doesn't know her well enough to be that honest with her; she'd just leave.  Yet he hears the man asking again and again and in his song he uses to feel himself inside Her heartbeat, he repeats the man's words.  Tell her we miss her...we love her...we forgive her.  Miss, love, forgive...

Another sensation as his song changes - fear.  A bard, slipping from his knees to the ground as his throat is cut.  Cut not because he is a threat but because his captor is done taking from him what she wants.  She is finished with her human plaything, and wastes it simply because she can.

HATE. HATE - HE HATES THEM.  IT ROARS and he covers his ears - HATE!!!  He wants them DEAD.  He wants the pits of blackness to fade into nothingness.  DEAD.  He tried to do to them what they were doing to him, and failed.  It was desperation then.  Could he do it on sheer hate?  

That dark elf that took his life after the stupid, long speech about revenge.  He still doesn't know why.

Duchess.

The dark elf woman who murdered him in full view of Duchess, deliberately, as much to insult her as him.  He was a mere slave.  Replaceable.

The Shadow who holds his family hostage for silence over his pet enchantress.  HATE.

His jaw aches and his fists are tight.  His gut is tight.  Breathing raggedly, he stands.  He doesn't have much left.  He is afraid.  He doesn't know what he's up against.  He doesn't think he should be doing this, he who never used his songs to curse, he who lives by Lady Love.  But it's all he has, and he has a lot of it.

If love won't save Raina, maybe hate will.

[RollinsCat]

"Yes dear...of course dear..."

"Oh,  don't forget sugar.  We've got pies to bake and we'll need that and, let's see, some salt as well."

"Yes, dear."

A foot stamp.  "You're mocking me."

"Of course not, dear."

"Tashe, stop or I'll..."

He grins.  "You'll what?"

"I will pluck just one seam on your favorite coat when you're not looking!"

"You wouldn't!  I'll unravel!"

"Try me."

"Yes, dear..."

Swimmy, she's swimmy before his eyes.  A white blur stretching and shrinking.  He remembers the conversation and remembers their laughter but it drifts down from a deep, deep hole while his eyes struggle to focus.  She sounds different, her voice lower, masculine, a gentle urgency that he can't resist and if he does, pain --

"She calls you Tashe, why?"  A reasonable request in a reasonable tone.  He answers as he fades from stone cell to Buckle and back, a slow tide of consciousness, never really sure where he is.  There is another question in that same unhurried voice.  And another.  And another...he's walking down the hall to his room now, Minu is waiting for him near their bedroom door and she's been burnt black he can smell the seared flesh and hear screaming - Minu's hair is white - screaming -- his voice -- he's screaming --

________________________________________________________

He wakes on and off.  He's soiled himself and doesn't remember when.  The tingling itch of waste on his skin is irritating and he wants to sit up and clean himself, he's going to do that -- now.  Right now.  He'll move now.  Now.

Now.

Hungry.  Thirsty.  Sleepy.  Weak.  Now...not now...when he wakes up...

...someone is crying?

________________________________________________________

Time has lost all meaning.  There is always the same amount of light from odd globes and fungus on the walls, he has no idea.  He's not as fuzzy, though, and his veins don't burn with poison.  The human male who brought his food has not come in two days.  Hunger is making him light-headed.

He's clean, or cleaner.  His odor must have motivated someone to throw a bucket of water over him.

His cell is too short to stand in; not sized for humans, and certainly not humans his height.  He sits near one wall or another.  The smells coming from the waste grate in the middle of the cell are terrible in ways he's never imagined.  If he turns his head and breathes shallowly he doesn't gag.

He can make out Raina in the cell next to his.  He's already tried to reach her and can't push his hand through the bars; a magical barrier he senses but doesn't understand.  Not his kind of magic.  Minu would know...his heart aches, an evisceration that rips to his stomach.  She'll worry when he doesn't come home.

...quiet sobbing...not his.

Instinct.  He sings, trying to comfort in the only way he can.  He can see her shivering.

The guards are yelling at him in dark elven.  He lowers his voice immediately but keeps singing to her.  Her breath is shaky and she whispers.  "Don't, Andrew...they'll just come and take it... I'm not sure I'll ever sing again...my throat hurts so bad from screaming."  A pause. "I'm sorry.  This is all my fault."

Fault is the least of their worries right now.  He tries for eloquence and his throat rebels against his usual verbosity, scraping out words like a miser paying cash. "I don't know what we're up against, Raina.  I don't know what they are.  I didn't know...you could do that with song...I mean, I did - skalds --" A racking cough, pain, he looks for water.  There is none.

"I never should have come to get you.  I should have run.  I should have..."  Her voice breaks off.

"You did what you thought was right." A dry swallow as a pitiful offering to his throat.  He leans on the wall, taking shallow breaths. "We're alive. Let's start with that."  

"We're never going to get out of here."  Her despair thrums against him; she's curling into a ball, a fetal defense against the undefendable.

A pause.  A slow breath. "Raina, are you stonebound?"

She sniffles. "No, I'm not."   Muse.  Muse.  Muse!  It wasn't his first choice but it would have gotten them out of there...in his head, a string of Old Tilmarian curses that would have earned him a slap from his mother and an impressed whistle from his father.  He needs to keep her talking though.  She's slipping.  He keeps his voice low, as much to preserve his throat as to avoid attention.

"I don't know if we'll get out of here. That's me being honest."  Not helpful, really, but lying would serve no purpose even if he could make her believe him. "What I want to know...is what they are taking.  What are they taking from us?  How?"

Another sniffle. "You don't know?"

Head shake.  "I've never encountered this.  Even the skalds I've met...I mean...I don't know much about it.  I've never used the Heartsong this way."

"Because it's forbidden."  Fear thickens her voice.  His thoughts are jumpy, he is having trouble thinking past his stomach.  Forbidden?

"Tell me."

"It doesn't matter anymore.  Maybe I deserve this.  You should have just left me."  More despair.  He knows why.  He's heard them torturing her as they have been him.  He knows the slice of every note.  He knows how she's been suffocated nearly to death on a spider-sweet chorus, only to be let go, gasping, and then suffocated again.  He knows how each caress from their dark elven captors sears like an iron pan right off the fire.  He knows, and no matter what happens, he will never forget.

And yet -- a petite elven woman stands in his mind, her golden whiteness a contrast in every way possible to those who keep them here.  She endured worse.  She tended to dying men and women until she herself was ill and even then she kept working, kept caring, washed withered bodies and wiped fevered foreheads until she could no longer move.  She bore the brunt of the very first cure at the risk of her life and was in constant pain for longer than he can imagine.

His White Lady, his Minuet.  She didn't give up.  He won't either.  He can bear this, for both himself and Raina if necessary.

"Raina...tell me. We can't fight what we don't understand."  She does not respond.  "Look at me."  Not unkind, but firm.  He's been accused of overthinking many times before but this time -- this time -- he must understand.  Flailing blindly got them here.  He'll have a dollop of knowledge with his gut instinct, thank you.

She coughs harshly, shudders, curls up tighter.  He's always been fascinated by that.  Does every warm-blooded race go fetal under extreme stress and pain?  Do orcs?  Do bugbears?  Her voice cuts through his mental wandering. "When you sing for people..."  She takes a deep breath. "What does it do?"

"It lifts their mood...it makes them feel stronger, more energized...I mean, I hope."  He tries to smile. "Or they pelt me with vegetables and beer bottles."

"And when these..." Fear choke off any further description.  He doesn't need it, he knows what she means.  "What does it feel like?"

He pauses to look for the words.  Torture he's not had a lot of experience with, but some.  Some.  Francesco was removed from the Resonance for that.  Forbidden... "...it's pain, it's like the antithesis of everything the Heartsong is...it's blackness and suffocation and hopelessness and weakness.  Like the power of the cursing songs, but...worse.  Much worse."  He blinks even as he says it, furrows his brows, resting his chin on his knees to think.  She waits.   "Like the curse songs...Muse, I've been trying to put more emotion into my uplifting, to really...they are doing the same thing.  Not the same song, but the same focus, the same practice.  To hurt and to kill." He's never imagined that anyone would use the Heartsong for this.  He knows it's forbidden by the Resonance, and now her words make sense.  This is why.  

So many points of light firing, he feels he's going to pass out.  His words..."It lifts their mood, it makes them feel stronger, more energized..."  Bam!  Bam!  Bam!  Like new years in Huangjin, epiphany after epiphany booming through his skull.  As all artists do he gives to his audience, sends feelings and desires through the Heartsong, and he takes from them as they give their enjoyment.  Give and take, audience and artist passing energy through Ilsare's Heartbeat.  But his heart is not blind anymore, he can feel the Heartsong like he never has, and he could...he could...so much, he could do, to bolster and excite...another corner of the veil lifts...

He's not going to be Harmonious.  Harmony -- when has he ever?  It's not his style.  He's performed his entire life.  He's been on the right path but the wrong road.  Augmentation.  That is who he is.  If, when, he gets out of here he'll tell Illia.

But why wait?  It's not that he doesn't know how, only that he's been blocking himself from throwing fully into what he really is because he's a cleric, and he thinks he must know something of healing.

Let Minu worry about healing.  He will sing for the people.

It's right, it's absolutely right, this path. He feels it from head to toe. He can do this.  It's what he does.  And moreso he doesn't need to tell any mentor.  He must start now because Raina needs him.  Raina -- she's speaking --

"It's not just music, Andrew. They don't need a song to do it.  Just like I don't need a song."

He thumps his head gently on the stone wall, partly to clear it, partly to make sure he's not dreaming.  His brain is still reeling from that thought explosion.  "But the theory is the same.  To project hopelessness and pain so that the person feels it."

Her voice catches and she cries softly again.  "But I don't know that I can anymore.  I feel so empty."

"You're not."  He closes his eyes a moment.  The words march past the dry pain in his throat with the war-beat of his heart.  "I don't believe they can take it away.  I don't believe it.  Inspiration isn't something we're born with that we use up as we age.  It's all around us - every person, every thing, every experien...ce..."  BAM!  "I hate when I make sense." He thumps his head again.  She sits up, wiping her eyes.  "Our...fuel...is all around us, processed by our hearts.  You are not empty.  I am not empty."  His cheek twitches -- he is pretty empty actually.  Muse, let them feed us soon...

As he speaks he warms, almost physically.  His words seem to calm her.  "I don't know what this forbidden magic is, but the more we understand it, the better our chances of getting out.  And they can't take our inspiration away, Raina, so long as we live.  There are people on the surface who care for us. That's reason enough to learn and survive."  Like your parents.  Like my wife and son and family.

She is still wiping her eyes. "My father used to tell me that we were all connected in spirit. Do you know why the bardsong is powerful?  Or do you just use it?"

"I...er, skipped a lot of temple classes when I was younger.  I've always thought it came from shared experience - emotions we can all respond to, bard or not."

He can see her turning to look at him. "Temple classes?"

"Well, shrine."

"Huh?"

"My family is Ilsarian.  All of them - except maybe my sister."

"What does that have to do with it?" It's hard to explain, his education, but her confusion gives her a moment away from her fears and he's glad of that.

"Well, when I had chances to learn some of these things I didn't exactly want to ruin a beautiful day listening to a lecture so I skipped it."

She rubs her forehead, confounded that so simple a thing is beyond him.  Good.  It's more like the Raina he's seen in the past.  "So, no... you have no idea why the bardsong is powerful."

"Well, not exactly true.  The Resonance of Being has remediated part of my ignorance."

"Tell me."  She is watching him through the bars although her face is in shadows.  He pauses a moment to gather up what he's learned.

"The Heartsong.  We're all a part - every living thing, and possibly even dead things."

"So why does a bard have power?"

"Bard song, or dance, or art, or whatever, it reaches people by projecting the emotions of the artist into the Heartsong."

Her voice has taken on a teacher's tone, or perhaps he's imaging that.  "That's the first sphere."  Of course she would know that.  Kaldar and Illia...

He nods. "As to why we have power?  Because in some way we're more aware of that connection we all have in the Heartsong than others."

She licks dry lips and coughs again, letting out a soft wimper of pain as she does so.  He can only look sympathetic as his own lips are cracked -- running his tongue over them merely sands them down a little.  He dredges up some foamy spit to try and moisten the skin.  

She continues.  "When you sing in battle for people, what do you feel for them?"

"Mm." Once again he draws his knees up, resting his arms on them.  The sounds of footsteps echo in the corridor, coming closer, and a knot forms in his belly.  She hasn't heard them yet.

"Determination.  Strength.  Focus...fire.  As in 'in the belly'."

Now she's heard them -- he hears her sharp intake of breath.  The feeling of warmth he's decided must be coming from her as they've been speaking but it fades now, pulsing dimmer with each booted step.  It's as if she has pulled her very being closer to her for protection.  The air around them presses down, tense, smothering.  "Oh no... not again...please don't come for me...please don't come for me..."  He sits up as straight as he can and forces himself to look alert, defiant -- well, alert.  More tempting than the terrified woman in the cell next to him.

Come get me.  Take me.  Take me.

Without voice he focuses some of his determination toward her -- the same determination he sings in battle, ironically.  Strength.  Focus.  Fire.  He's always interacted with magic through song and vibration, always, he's never learned the art of silent singing as he's seen other silent cast.  It's a struggle but the remembrance of flow from him to her helps.  He can feel his energy, the same energy he puts into his performances and his war singing, ripple toward her.  He offers it freely and without reservation.  Muse, if only he could have done this for Minu when she was sick...there is a sensation of loss as he opens his heart, he's a tap with a broken spigot, but there is no pain.  When it's taken by force, there is pain.  Here he gives, and there is no pain.  It surprises him and yet it doesn't.  So much to learn, Tashe.  So very much.  Focus on the feeling...the giving...she is your audience.

The door to Raina's cell is opened.  They slip inside, lithe, graceful, eyes flickering red.  The faces of evil.  She's screaming, begging for help -- it tears him to pieces.  A lady in distress and he can do nothing but watch them sneer in delight as they drag her out, her pleas for them to leave her alone echoing down the corridor.  A stone door slams shut.

It is his turn soon enough.  The two females torture him, talking in between the pain in their peculiar speech.  They gloat -- he doesn't need to speak dark elf to know that.  They insult him, he's certain, over and over as they drag out his screams.  Fighting it only seems to excite them.  He's more passive this time.  There are things he needs to pay attention to, if he can.  The torture goes on...and on...

When he regains consciousness he's in his cell. Raina is breathing. He thinks she's sleeping.  And he knows two things he didn't know before.

Most of their attacks are not sonic.  

And they hate him.  They hate him so much he can feel it, almost touch it.  Pure undiluted hatred.

Interesting...

[RollinsCat]

Sweat etches lines through the dirt on his neck.  The song he hears is one to a lost love and it is beautiful.  Her voice is beautiful.  He recognizes it immediately.  He sees her, facing the water by her stool, making the music of her heart and he wears her song like a stormy summer day until she abruptly stops.  She turns her head and is staring right at him with her sightless gaze.  Illia.  Right at him.

"BRING HER HOME!"

His eyes snap open as if he'd never been asleep and he wonders if he was.  For a moment the oily remembrance of earlier sexual dreams of Minu and how her sun elf face morphed to the icy black, physically perfect face of one of his captors mixes with the clear, cool water of Illia's plea before the memories drift and separate.

He doesn't think he dreamed Illia.  He's not sure he dreamed either, and despite how utterly filthy he is he slips a hand down to check if he's been with anyone...

...no.  A dream.  Illia's song isn't an echo so much as a residue now.  There is a thump, wet and boneless, and a door slams.  Raina lies motionless just inside her cell.  He listens but can't hear her breathing.  Without his spectacles or incense, he can't see, either.  In the middle of a surge of panic, one quiet thought: He has to learn to let go of the song components.  His life no longer allows for these kinds of dependencies.  When he sees Minu, he'll ask her to teach him.

Of course he'll see Minu again.

He doesn't know how long they've been here but he knows Raina doesn't have much time.  He doesn't either, but longer than her.  His well of experience is deeper.  His tolerance for pain is also much higher.  Yet he won't bring her home if he doesn't do something.  What worked before might work again and he stamps on rising fright at her inert state and tries to project through the Heartsong to her.  What was it she mentioned her father saying?  "We're all connected in spirit..."  Meaning bards, he guesses.  They never finished that conversation.  He speaks, and feels a terrible guilt that it's so easy when she's not awake.

"They love you Raina."  Their love, Kaldar and Illia's parental love, he tries to express into the Heartsong in silent waves.  It's hard -- he knows parental love, but his is not theirs.  Raina doesn't move.

"I should have told you sooner.  I'm afraid to get involved.  I don't want you to end up hating me and then them too...I'm afraid to be in the middle like this.  I've been here before and it turned out badly for all involved."  He wants to sing.  He wants to sing.  He can't sing, they'll come back and he has to help her. "They love you.  They miss you.  I wish..."  

The words stick.  Ty.  Minu. Being apart and trusting others to do what's best for your loved one.  Separation with no way to know what your family are feeling and thinking.  He projects a blazing pulse of his own memories and emotions from that time.  "I know what it's like to miss someone you love that much.  I wish I wasn't such a coward that I have to tell you while you're unconscious."

No response.  He doesn't feel any better, either.  

"I want you to live.  I don't know how to save you but I want you to live."  Hoarse, but fierce.  Quietly fierce.  She remains limp, although some shallow rising and dipping of her side indicates that she is in fact breathing.  He slumps back and runs a thumb over the empty space at the top of his ring finger.  It is he and Raina.  Just them.  He can't send her emotions that he doesn't know.  "They're not here.  So it's me.  I have to be...yes." A nod; he's come to be very cordial with himself.  He's been asking himself questions and answering them too.  Politely.  Maybe he should be worried about that.  But he can't worry now, he has to help her.  Drawing in his thoughts is difficult.  He gives in to his need to hear and hums to himself.  It helps him focus.  

He thinks about what he feels for her.  She is aloof, annoyingly so at times. He has a good guess as to why, though.  She's sarcastic, yet vulnerable in her youth.  Confident yet nervous, independent and perhaps a little flippant, at least in her casualness about dating his bouncer and friend Edward.  She's talented.  Instinctive.  A witch's brew, her personality, not unlike his sister's only less abrasive.  A sister -- yes, that's what she feels like.  A younger sister.  He's never been a big brother.  He feels like one now.  He draws on that, on his caring, the same caring he offers his family even when they drive him crazy, and his worry as well.  The humming hones his emotions and he pushes them out, timing his heart to the lullaby both mother and daughter play on the pipes.

It's a release not to put on a brave face.  Even though he's learned that lesson before, he needs a refresher, and as he lets all of his feelings out he warms.  It's subtle at first but it grows.  He visualizes his emotions rippling toward her and her breathing strengthens.  From that comes hope, and wonderment, and wild gratitude to Ilsare; it all flows through his heart toward her.  He feels stronger.  She breathes easier.  His fatigue and aches lighten, still there but less pressing, less urgent.  He feels loving.  The hope is making him a little high, and this latest miracle of his Goddess humbles him.  He has no idea how long he sits there sending out his emotions.  It feels too good to stop.

He calls her name but she doesn't stir, and so he quiets and revels in the sensation.  Even through his light-hearted euphoria he knows it's been a while. His bladder is full.  Can one continue to do this while attending to body functions?

Apparently so, as he finishes and sits again.  A short time later she stirs, shivers, tries to pull a blanket over her in a pantomime of comfort.  There isn't a blanket, of course, and she sits up and looks around.  He speaks.

"Good morning, sunshine."

"Andrew?   I...am I dead?"

"Not unless I am."  He thinks he must be glowing a little.  He lets the emotions flow unimpeded.  He basks in them, love and worry alike.  He does not want to stop.

...his own words echo through his enjoyment.  He has to tell her, now, before anything else happens.  "Raina.  I need to be honest with you."

She smiles and he hasn't seen that since they woke in this place.  She inches closer to the barrier.  "I thought I heard you talking to me, but it was so dark where I was...I couldn't find my way out, and then...there was a light..."

He beams.  Hate.  He thought his hate could save her.  He has never been so wrong -- and that's saying something. A spike of pure love for Ilsare; once again, my Muse, you've shown me truth.

"Honest with me?"  

"Yes.  I was telling you when you were out...but that's a cowardly thing to do."  He keeps his voice gentle.  He's sure this won't go over very well.  "Do you remember when I told you I was visiting Kaldar and Illia?"

Faster than he thought the warmth ebbs away, she retracts, their connection drawing thin. "Oh.  Yes."

"Back in Fort of Kings, when I was researching my violin."  He can't hold back the pang of misery as he remembers that and he doesn't try -- not about Rosemary's theft, he's worked through that, but that his Bella is...somewhere else.  Not here.  Maybe never to be held by him again.  He lets it flow with the rest.  "I wondered why talking about them upset you.  I could tell."

She winces then laughs, nervous and quiet -- everything they do is quiet, they both seem to hope that it will stave off their attackers longer if they are little church mice. "I'm...not very good at hiding my emotions apparently."

"I'm too good sometimes. It's not healthy."  Their healing connection shrinks further.  He doesn't want it to stop.  A cleansing breath.  "Conductor Whinessey asked them to mentor me.  That's how I met them.  I wondered why for a long time."  She listens and pulls her knees to her.  "But Illia has taught me things, or more...let me learn things without letting me stand in my own way.  Does that make any sense?  In the meantime you came into the Buckle, and we met."  She is silent.  He presses on, needing to talk, to keep her connected.  "That day I was torn up over my violin's history.  I...I'll explain it later, but it was difficult for me to understand.  I didn't wish to play her so I took out those pipes you gave me.  I've been practicing."  He's proud of that.  He's always disdained woodwinds, and now he can play recognizable tunes.  Sometimes he plays them to shake his brain, find inspiration from an instrument he still has to think about.  She favors him with a hint of a smile.  "Kaldar asked me where I got them, and I told him -- there was no reason to be dishonest.  He seemed very interested in them and I thought perhaps you'd given me something magical or...I don't know...I suppose they are.  He told me then where they came from."  Not warm...not warm...don't let it stop...  "Don't pull away."

Confusion.  "What?"

"You've been pulling away, ever since we started talking about them."

"I haven't moved."

"I've felt something since the other day. I always thought for me, working in any sphere meant sound, but I have been able to...to project myself to you, without singing."  Again the wonder.  Is he really doing this?  He is, he feels it.  Intellectually he knows what is happening and there is no way mere words have prepared him for it.  "That's what I've been doing for the last...Muse, I don't know.  Since they brought you back last.  I lost track of time.  It felt good."  A pause as she listens. "It was like you were closing your heart when I started talking about your parents."

The connection finally breaks and cold seeps in, or perhaps he imagines it -- a lack of the warmth they shared.  She closes her eyes, tenses, even with the connection gone he senses panic from her expression.  "I...I didn't think I'd survive that."

"Shhh, you did.  You're stronger than you think.  We have to get out of here...but I think we have to keep each other alive until the chance comes."

Fear.  "I don't know how.  I don't know what you did..."  A single tear.

"Raina.  They love you.  They miss you.  They forgive you, and they hope you forgive them.  And they want to see you.  So much I can't even..."  He pulses love. "That's what I wanted to say.  Everything is forgiven.  Stuff happens, no one person is to blame.  They love you.  They want to see you."

Her eyes are closed and her breathing ragged. "Andrew, what I did...I can't take it back."

"No.  I've done things I can't take back either.  But you can go forward."  His emotions flow strong, memories of decades of his mistakes and his acceptance of them.

"But she can't."

"She has.  She's come to Hlint to be at my wedding.  She's promised to visit my Inn...she's mentoring me.  Is that not going on?  She's reaching out to you.  Look, I've screwed up.  My grandmother...Muse...she's screwed up, and if she hadn't, I'd not be who I am today."

Raina rests her forehead on her knees and quietly sobs.  Her shoulders shake and the movement is at odds with her restrained grief sounds.  He feels the flow of pain, sends his own feelings into the Heartsong redoubled -- regret, determination, resolution, and love.  Her voice is muffled. "You don't know what it was like... always arguing.  I don't know why, but it seemed that no matter what either of us did we irritated the other.  I thought she hated me."

"I've been that way with my father before.  Often.  But I know he loves me, and I know she loves you."

The connection rejoins, tentatively, but the warmth is there again.  She turns her head on her knees and looks at him. "Did you almost burn your house down with your mother inside?"

"No, I rebelled against my father by never being what he wanted.  By shirking my responsibility.  By having sex with...lots of women.  By doing drugs and being a drunk and disappointing him every single day, because he could see my potential."  His regret flows unimpeded.  "I threw away a decade at least, not caring."  Slight grin. "That's a lot of time to us humans."

"I'm half human."

"Still got pointy ears."   He's grinning for real now. "And you'll be very pretty at two hundred.  I won't."

She smiles and steers them back to the topic of his father. "But you're so...powerful now.  He'd be able to see that, right?"

"Things are better.  I've realized what I can be, he's seen that.  He's figured out he was overbearing, and stepped back, and let me learn."

A sigh. "I used to get so frustrated with my mother.  She traveled all over when she was younger.  She saw the world, and that's what I wanted to do.  For my stories... you can't learn all of those stories by staying in the woods.  Don't get me wrong, I love being out there, but the peacefulness... eats at me after a while.  I need to be out, performing, learning, being around people."

"You know, I think it does her too."

"What?"

"She was very happy to come all the way to Hlint on Mistone.  Super happy to be around people, a wedding, all that joyous emotion...I think she'd like to get out a little more.  Maybe not a lot, but more...that's my guess.  If I had to guess, she stays, hoping you'll come home."  He pauses while she thinks on this. "Did she not want you to go out and travel?"

Raina frowns. "There's something more, I just don't know what it is.  Something made her stop traveling, and I just don't understand.  She said she loved it, but she just gave it up.  She always told me I wasn't ready."

The easy back and forth, the feeling of their emotions healing each other, he's almost comfortable. He's almost forgotten he's so filthy he's developed a crust, and has a rash in a place he really wished he didn't because there is never enough water to even coat their throats let alone bathe.  They are always hungry here and they are always, always thirsty. "Parents and children.  We make so many mistakes, from both sides of the relationship..."

Her laugh is bitter. "Maybe I should have listened.  I wouldn't be down here."

"But then you wouldn't know what you know.  I guess you have to find a happy medium...something between stuck in the woods and stuck here in the Deep with an ex-drunk innkeep."  A bubble of giddy, almost hysterical mirth -- he smiles.

She turns on the sarcasm. "A near murderer and an ex-drunk?"

"Now that's the Raina I know."

"I'm scared."

"I am too."  And he is. And she knows it. "But we can keep each other alive while we figure out how to get out.  They hate us, Raina."

She puts her hand on the ground next to the barrier.  "I know."

"They hate us.  Hate, so much hate...why?  Why hate a human and a half-elf?  Why bother?"

"Because it's who they are."  She licks her cracked lips. "I...know a story..."  

Who they are.  Who are they?  Hate is who they are.  And he's struggled to understand, struggled with his own hatred, struggled to temper it because he thinks it misplaced.  Struggled to understand the three dark elves he knows that are not evil, or at least, he doesn't think so -- Minu trusts one, Daniel another, and Angela is married to the third.  And yet here they are, being tortured solely for pleasure; he's been killed by dark elves for reasons he still doesn't know; he's been treated as a slave and almost branded; and still he struggles.  Words his father has spoken come back to him clear as if William were standing next to him.  "Don't let the exceptions obscure the rule."  They are hate.  He doesn't know why, but they are.  He feels a surge of his own raw hate for their captors and the entire dark elf race.  If he'd been singing, it would have been vibrato.  Raina winces, her eyes widen and she looks directly at him.

"I felt that."

"Sorry.  I hate dark elves."

"So do I."

"You know a story?"

She nods, slowly.

"Tell me...please."

She doesn't hesitate.  This story, she says, comes from her mother and has been passed down through the elves in Illia's lineage.  In a parched whisper she recites it, the tale of a war clan who once had skin tones as varied as any surface elf.  She tells of how they fought a war with the dragons, in the time before what the elves call the Betrayal, and how the dragons appeared to be winning by attrition even killing prey animals to starve the elves.  A corner of his mind turns to the world above them and the return of the dragons, and his own fears that war is coming -- again.

She speaks of the elves' desperation as so many of them die.  How the of them all the war clans stood their ground, convinced they could win.  And of how they were offered a solution by a pit fiend -- power enough to defeat the dragons...at the cost of their service "for a little while".  Of course the council was horrified and forbade the alliance, if a contract between anyone and a fiend like that can be considered such.  The war would be fought and won or lost on their own strength -- elves are a proud race, and deservedly so, most of the time.  She tells of how the attacks increased and the elves began to retreat -- he feels a surge of his warlike nature, that which he too often hides or admonishes, the part of him that paced the walls in Fort Hope and sang the armies from Lor into battle.  He is a peaceful man much of the time.  But he can't keep shoving this part of him aside, even if it might distress Minu.  He has a war bard's heart when it counts.

Raina continues -- the abrupt cessation of the attacks, the moment when dawn broke and the elves saw the dragons dead on the ground, every last one.  He tries to whistle -- what has that much power? -- but it ends in a cough.  And she recounts how the leader of that war clan walked across the wreckage of scales and wings, skin as ebony as the midnight sky, hair shock white, eyes now glowing embers of red, and the emblem of the pit fiend burned into his chest.  

They had gone against the council.  He wonders a moment if it would not be in some way justified to save their people, a sacrifice for the greater good, but she continues; it was not the victory the war clan leader wanted.  It was the power, and the war was but a means to that end.  He did not forge the alliance with the fiend alone, moreso.  From behind him came others, all of them blackened and with white hair and red eyes.  The surviving elves were horrified.  Not only had the deal with the fiend changed the appearance of those who stood with the war clan leader, it had changed their hearts.  They were lustful of power and more war.  They sold away their souls in favor of the strength to take what they wanted.

The council banished them out of fear, although Raina says no one really knows how this exactly happened and that there are other accountings of the aftermath.  The new race of elves hated light, and those who dwell in it.  They were -- are -- the dark elves. She tells him that elven parents raise their children with stories of disobedient children being stolen away to the Deep.

She grows quiet as her story ends, then quieter.  "I believe it now.  Maybe this is my punishment."

He thinks one last time of Alantha and the others.  "How are there exceptions born?  Are there ever?  I've met dark elves that seem...not so evil.  One is a friend of my wife's and the other is Ilsarian."

A shrug. "I don't know, except that they lie."

"That they do.  I wonder if we can use that somehow...I said inspiration isn't tied to us but all around us -- the Heartsong, life itself.  I wonder if I could give them a surge of lo -- "  Footsteps in the hall.  He speaks quickly.  "We can keep each other alive, Raina.  Remember that.  I'll be listening for you -- "  He taps his heart.  "And helping you."  Raina tries to push herself into the wall behind her, through it if she can, as far from the door as possible.  He all but throws his emotions to her, waves of them, all that he can give, as he listens.  It is not her door that opens this time.  It is his.  There are two female dark elves outside the cell in silk-covered plate that blends them into the ever-present dimness.  One speaks in the dark elven tongue and there is no preamble, no build up, only instant overwhelming pain, all his nerves suspended over the fire of her words, he can't move...Raina is screaming his name, he wants to say shhhh...shhhh...it's almost too much to process, the agony.  The pain in his arms increases as hands grab him.  It is the last thing he remembers.

[RollinsCat]

A moth is carved in his shoulder.  The burning is constant.  His left shoulder -- he's not sure why that detail is so important.  His left shoulder.  He could try to heal it but does not.  He does not want it to be permanent.

There are not words for the pain he's been put through.  Dark elves, all females, marking him in some sick ritual.  He wants to hate them, their smug chanting, their smirking enjoyment at the agony they cause.  He wishes he could hate -- oh, how he wants to hate.  A lava flow of bone--deep hatred to sizzle them where they stand.  But he can't.  Not because he's too good a man, or because he's too exhausted, starving, and dehydrated to care, or because his prior attempts were as feeble as he is right now, or even because hurting someone with the Heartsong is forbidden, although those are all factors.  But after Raina’s story, his hatred has morphed to pity.  They really are what they are, just like sharks are what sharks are, and mosquitos are what mosquitos are.  They are pre-determined.  They can't help being wretched, loveless, spiteful, hateful beasts – they are born that way.  He doesn't hate sharks.  Why bother hating something that cannot be anything other than what it is?

But, like sharks and mosquitos, it doesn't mean he'll think twice about killing them.

He can hear a woman screaming and sees Raina is not in her cell and prepares himself.  Ilsare, please let her -- and screams himself, as his prayer causes the moth to burn, burn...

It is the same as when he was strapped to the table, the same pain as he called out to Her.  He is ANGRY.  They cannot block his Goddess from him.  She is in him, part of him, as he is part of Her -- the burning flares, and he struggles against blackness.  They can't take Her away!  They can't separate them!  He literally sees red, pounding on the floor and walls.  The frenzy spends itself quickly, he has precious little resources to spare for such a pointless display, and he sits with his back to stone and hums soundlessly as Raina’s screaming stabs his conscious.

What he doesn’t know about the Heartsong is staggering, and yet...he’s learned a lot in the last...months?  Year?  He’s learned he can’t send emotional ripples any distance, at least not here, not now, not yet.  He’s learned that he can’t send emotional messages in the Heartsong either.  Illia has not felt his attempts, he’s sure; a dream must just be a dream after all.  He’s learned that sharing emotions the way he and Raina are sharing is healing but it seems to be a function of being close, physically as well as spiritually, and the connection must be mutual.  He’s learned that certain emotional states sever the connection.  That confuses him; no emotion is bad, all emotions must be expressed to be dealt with, but perhaps it is a reflection of a person needed space?  Withdrawing lest they reveal that which they don’t understand about themselves?  He doesn’t yet know.

He’s learned that praying hurts, and that hearing himself inside the Heartsong doesn’t.  He’s always known that the Heartsong is not exclusively Ilsare’s; Jaelle taught him that years ago.  But it has never been so real, the difference.  The stone is cool on his bruised, whip-marked back.  Raina’s screams fade.  The moth burns.  

Ilsare’s or not, it doesn’t matter.  To him it will always be Her heartbeat, just as he chooses to think of the Heartsong as something he can hear, although with his soul and not his ears.

So he and Raina can help each other and keep each other alive.  He rests and prepares to speak to her likely unconscious form when she’s returned to the cell.  He prays through flaring pain that she is alive.  He does not want to be alone down here.  No one has come...Rory has not come...Minu has not come...no one.  They are alone and unarmed and nearly naked, starved, thirsty, attacked the moment their cell doors are opened, tortured regularly for no reason he can see.  It is going to be like this for a long time. It may well end like this.  He can’t bring her home because he can’t combat them.  He would, if he could, but he has nothing, not even a song now; he can barely talk.  All he can do is keep her alive, keep himself alive, and pray no matter how much it hurts him.

Please Ilsare...rescue us.  Rescue us.  A chance, an opportunity, a party of Voraxians even -- Muse, he’d dearly love to see Griff and Gunder and Gorm and Zig and Argali come stomping down here...the pain literally takes his breath away and he smiles, for he can’t be sure that wasn’t from Her for his flip thoughts of Vorax’s faithful.  But he’d still kiss each one of them on their hairy upper lips if they did show up.

So weak.  He needs strength.  Again, as it has been now and again, a thought wanders through his head.  If he and Raina can help each other in their emotional resonance, can he also draw strength directly from the Heartsong?  He wishes to find out, and opens his heart to listen, searching for a way to connect...

[RollinsCat]

When is the moment that everything changes?  That patience and prayer become panic and desperation?  That shift inside.  It's so small, not something one can put a thumb on or quantify in any way.  Only that then, he observed and waited and prayed for rescue, and now...

He's tried to understand what it is that he needs to learn here.  Ilsare has not brought him here for nothing and She has not forsaken him, even though prayer burns worse than fever and fire.  His unfolding friendship with Raina is one thing he's learned, certainly.  They have found a way to help each other emotionally.  Other...he has found Other, another, and he understands more than when it was just him.  Just himSelf.  Now the emotional...resonance...makes more sense, with another.  He's told her about it, offered to teach her, but she isn't interested.  She only wants to escape, and to stay alive, and have a friend and not be alone.  He ponders when she sleeps on what this could mean.  Beauty, yes, he understands that, and love - being here in this place makes it hard to love, but love is what makes this work.  

And they say it's not really Ilsare's Heartbeat.  Pfagh.  He smiles, cracked lips and all.  Love, caring, is the facilitator.  He offers, she accepts, she offers, he accepts.  Unspoken and fluid, their emotions buoying and healing each other from the torture and pain and magnified by the Song of Life.  They need each other.  It is that simple.

He thinks of them as them now, not her, and I.  Oh, he's probed his feelings, examined his guilt while she sleeps, wondered on his own wild inner nature - or is it? - and finally accepted that he is not harboring secret lust for this half-elven woman.  His heart is Ilsare's and Minu's, and Raina still reminds him a great deal of Aya at times.  He tells her and she thinks it's funny.  He wonders if she'll laugh once they meet.

But they are they, and there may only be a tiny handful of secrets they still keep.  They anticipate each other now.  Nights...days?  He has no idea - they've sat, built stories from thin air now that they've shared all the ones they know - "...and, realizing her life might be in danger from this vain and wild royal, she snuck one day into the girl's closet, and plucked a thread from each hem.  And sure enough, the very next day she was summoned to the princess's room.  'This corset is too tight, and my petticoats too short!  Fix them immediately or you shall perish!'"

"...the seamstress could do no more work than had already been put upon her that day and begged for a little more time, which displeased the princess..."

"...the princess waved one imperious hand and said 'Off with her head!'"

"...but the seamstress was after all very clever and she pointed to all the spoiled princess's dresses.  'Oh, my dear Persephonie, there is a thread loose in those seams - if I am to die, who will fix all of those as well?'"

"...vexed and purple-faced, the princess stampled her foot..."

Stories, their own and those of their fancies and whims, are how they share.  He knew the things she's seen and felt as a child.  She knew how many times he skipped his lessons growing up (twenty-two) and where his hiding spot is in the home he grew up in.  And that it is not the home that his parents live in now, and that he left a journal behind in his old bedroom for the family moving in.  

He waits for the tiny moan of metal on metal as her cell door is opened.  She comes back alive, if barely, and carved with her own moth.  Their pain seems equal when they compare and neither have any idea what it is or what it means beyond controlling prayer.

Control, though.  Yes.  Control.  He thinks perhaps they've passed some test, some dark elf test of stamina, and now the real trial begins.  And that shift inside - no one has come...no one is coming...it is time to get out of here.  He does not know why Minu has not come.  He does not know why Rory has not come.  He knows he has to get them out and keep Raina alive.  He's examining every outlet, every crack, every hinge, every bar.  Even the grate in the floor, Muse help him, if he can squeeze through.  They have both lost a good deal of weight, but his shoulders are still broad-boned...maybe...maybe.  He starts another story as he again goes through what he knows, what he has, and what it will take to escape.

"BRING HER HOME!"

I'm trying!  I'm trying!

[RollinsCat]

To: Alantha T'sarran
Stort
Alibor Island

Milady Alantha, I write in hopes you might meet with me. I have had a long and terrible captivity with dark elves in the Deep and have been marked for it. I'm trying to identify the mark and perhaps translate the ritual, and for that, I need someone fluent in the dark elf tongue.

Plainly put you are one of only two dark elves I know that I would trust to go where you will go, should this work - literally inside my mind, to see what I can't or don't want to remember. It will require trust in me, and in the redoubtable Sister Bernice, who a friend of Minu's and a high-ranking Aeridinite.

How this will be accomplished will be fairly awful and possibly even deadly for me, but in this case, necessary. From what I remember I'll be put into a drugged state that loosens my control of my mind, and you and Minu will be drugged as well, and through this substance you will be able to witness my memories or my interpretation of them. I hope this does not frighten you into refusing! I do need your assistance and I pray you can make it to Mariner's Hold in time. Please bring your lovely lady wife if you can, I have not had the pleasure of either of your company in far too long.

In hopes to see you soon and may the Muse inspire you,


Andrew Reid

[RollinsCat]

Wings on my shoulder
Too close to the flame
Want to share the pain but I’m the only one to blame
Some things never change

Wings on my shoulder
Engraved with black and inky hate
Would like to change my mind but it’s way, way too late
Some things never change

There are no angels in the Deep
No seraphs perched by my ear
It’s not Ilsare’s voice I hear
Leperdoptera

Wings on my shoulder
Savage pinpricks in fleshy ego
Would love to take the thorns off but I crossed that bridge long ago
Some things never change

I’m crying out Her name
Setting myself on fire to pray
Would love, I’d love to still my tongue but it’s a small price to pay
Some things never change

Maybe it’s proof, maybe dare
Maybe a test of my fealty
She’s earned that much from me
If this is how it has to be
Leperdoptera

Wings aflutter at Her name
Pounding glass again and again
A moth behind a window pane
Some things never change
Some things never change...

[RollinsCat]

Wicky Fennel - something about Sagewald and kenku? - vegetable farmer.

Girntif Smazor - dung man - gossip with Wicky about mercs

Note:  ---if the old mines were reopened-----maybe----more gold means more money----dwarves----what happened to the----the halfling could help----

Some of the fort officers forfeiting pay; voluntary, or forced, or king is broke?

Prostitutes are good spies.  Good thing I'm married.

----------------------

Johnny (Kurn chopped his legs off - Muse, I was with the horses or I'd have stopped that!) and his friend marking wagons for Darius the halfling bandit leader.  "....the halfling could help"?

May Ilsare keep his soul.

------------------------

4.2-120.3-4.1-3.3-1.2-2.4-3.1-6.1-4.6-9.3

7.1-13.1

3.4-2.2-15.3-7.2-4.5-2.3-8.2-5.1

4.3-14.1-15.5-8.1-11.7

4.8-19.2

11-3.2-15.2-14.3-4.9

22.6-27.3-18.1-5.2-5.1

4.4-5.4-17.1-32.1-5.3
_______________________________

The Quiet Laws - stars and song!  And here I thought it was bedtime reading for a bandit...
_______________________________

White Mouth Harbor.  Harold Carterton is governor and loyal to the guilds.  Possibly; probably; the guards as well.

Smithing Guild, Shepard's Guild, Shipping Guild, Seamaster's Guild = Council of Guilds.  W/king appoint Governor.  Profit to be had from letting Sagewald take over; need to dig into the guilds, much deeper.  Something is rotten on both sides of this fence.  Are they looking for Sagewald to take over, or to give the harbor semi-autonomy?

Halfling - Troubadal Lightfoot, Shipping Guild.  Richest halfling in Taur'en.  Must ask Denon.

Code: visit Jimmi's.

Ask Naldin to dig into dwarf side of things, very possible that's got termites too.
-------------------------------------

Government district: Council Chambers, Governor's Court, Governor's Mansion, Jimmi's on the western edge, shrine to Aragen

Merchant district: Main Gate, four major guild houses, Fluffy Swan, Deliar shrine

Western docks: Warehouses, slums, Dark's Den (gang-run gambling), Brass Buckle

Eastern docks:  Nobility housing, business offices for shipping companies, Governor's Landing, arts houses

---------------------------------------

Ball crushingly dull, especially when I'm not playing.  Aging fop indeed - fashion in that town is a wreck.  Must keep outfit long enough to give Minu a laugh.

MOTHER OF MUSIC of all times to sneeze!  What kind of flowers did they bring in this place anyway?

...Darin Yu.  Must find out more

------------------------------------------

What you wish for...Rook's found out Ms. Yu is an active bandit leader, after giving up our mission and the name of the King.  I hope they believe she's working independently but I can't assume.  Regardless myself, Jetta, Minu, Jil and SehKy can't go to Jimmi's anymore.

Yu wants to meet the King and implied she'd like to revoke his single man status.  Really?  Or bluff?  How much can I trust her?  Can I trust her?

Zildjian Fie; Yu is setting Jetta up to be a bandit, a recruit from her organization.  Rook going deep, need information conduit - Drogo? Foresta?

---------------------------------------------

Troubadal Lightfinger, powerful man and the head of the hydra as far as where the bandit goods are being laundered.

---------------------------------------------

Bertha Stoneforge - I must be part of her bodyguard, protecting her as the regent of Taur'en.  A dwarf, surely Voraxian or Dorandite.  Ilsare protect me...

Clan council of the Taur'en Hills - seven members of the most influential, oldest, and largest clans.

-One wants stronger ties to Bydell along with Bertha
-Three want to defect to Erilyn due to ancient packs with the nobles and knights
-Three want to defect from Taur'en and start a new dwarven nation with a new dwarven king.

Twelve years of arguing, how wonderful.  Despite Kurn's faith I doubt an Ilsarian bard can wring any concessions from them.

According to King Thomas, they offer protection of the lands above the halls, but otherwise have put nothing on the table.  This will mark the first time Taur'en has made a statement to the Dwarven Council since the time of Kraklin and Milara.  Stoneforge will direct all negotiations.

Good questions, bad answers.  Not happy about this.  Troubadal Lightfinger is coming along, and that bodyguard of Sabian's.  Not happy at all about this.

---------------------------------------------


Erilyn:

Stonehunger – Ogaffum, representative. Clan loremasters; ask them for past information? Perhaps about King Angus’s vanishing or digging too deep? Appears to be persuasive, perhaps leading the Erilyn charge. Votes for closer ties with Erilyn.

Granitemaul – Uskar, representative. One of two youngest clans with a seat along with Axeheart, very prolific group, good for them. Nookie and family – dwarves I could enjoy. Likely considered less influential than the other five due to youth. Votes with Ogaffum Stonehunger for closer ties with Erilyn.

Ironaxes – Harkojud, representative. Great clan warriors, Harkojud best of them all. Do not challenge to arm-wrestling. One of the clans in existence when Angus was king. Votes with Ogaffum Stonehunger for closer ties with Erilyn.

Independence:

Strongforge – Murdag, representative, granddaughter of Angus Strongforge. Clan of the last true king. Murdag wishes to reclaim throne, no surprise there. Votes for independence.

Stonetrees – Aidenhammer, representative. Clan that existed when Angus was king. Forgers, builders, likely very tied to the ore in the hills as such. Built most of the city, will know all ins and outs, any secret passages. Votes with Murdag for independence.

Axeheart – Oighrig, representative. One of two youngest clans with a seat along with Granitemaul, very prolific as well. Oighrig is youngest council member in the history of the clans. Considered radical, possibly open to new ideas, also very likely less influential than the others. Seniority rules in dwarven culture from what I’ve seen. Votes for independence.

Bydell:

Elfbane – Lrakuxil, representative. Clan wizards, very unusual. Not popular with Bertha and very likely not popular with any of the other clans either; why are they on council if they’re so controversial? Blackmail? Fear? Magic figures in there somewhere. Votes for union with Bydell.


-Why was a king or queen never re-crowned?
-What happened to the clans that Stonehunger, Granitemaul, Axeheart, and Elfbane replaced?
-Would an independent dwarven kingdom ruling under the hills in alliance with Bydell rather than as a part of it be so bad? Except for the Vorax bit of course.
-Must find all dwarven songs I have, good thing I have a lot of drinking and anti-Rael tunes...

--------------------------------------------------

-Do NOT insult dwarven honor.  Not even a little bit.
-Be direct.  No frills.  Ilsare, help me...
-Be true to your beliefs and your values.
-Do not disrespect.
-No frills!
-No frills...

They searched and inventoried us.  Shades of Prantz.

--------------------------------------------------

A mere handful of survivors so far.  Better than none, but Muse, what a cave-in...

We lifted the curse, at least in a little area.  Now thanks to Katelyn and Protector Merritt we know how - the dwarves and elves must forgive each other, and be blessed while doing it and sharing blood.  A ritual of peace.  I haven't felt this good in a long time.

It's strange to think that Ilsare, Deliar, Rofierin, Dorand, and Vorax were all part of cleansing this place.  

Aidenhammer's son, his only son, lives.  It's been a good day.

--------------------------------------------------

What a show...Muse, I'm drunk...what a show...

--------------------------------------------------

Aidenhammer Stonetree and the Elfbanes for Bydell, then. Two down!

The forces of the mountains and Erilyn banded to fight Milara, and lost - badly.  The Ironaxes and the Stoneforges bore the brunt of the loss.  Must emphasize that Erilyn and Bydell are not enemies and find out how close they are, in trade agreements and in mutual aid.  Troubadal?

Harkojud of Clan Ironaxe has asked for help with a problem.  He called our actions saving Aidenhammer's son "exploits" and mentioned that he wants to throw in with the "nobler" knights of Erilyn.  Interesting word choices.  Harkojud has caught word of an assassination attempt, and the assassins are already in Lusaxon.  They have vanished since entering.  He wishes to catch them and ask questions - in the way that only dwarves ask questions - but can't tip off the assassins, which means no extra security.  

Targets are unknown.  A description will be sent - I'll draw that as best I can.  One known agent but possibly more who came in not too long before us.  I wondered about moles in the city, as dwarves often assume a loyalty that another race may not.  Now we must find out.

Suggested we check the various estates for evidence of tampering.


GENERAL Ironaxe  !

Elfbane indeed least trusted, although also one of the oldest.  Must meet these dwarves, I am helplessly drawn to why they would buck expectations and use magic.  Secretive and Harkojud says you won't forget meeting the clan leader, Lrakuxil.  This I must look into, really - and Minu won't forgive herself unless she's able to learn of dwarven magics.

Possible targets after discussion - council members and pin it on us, council members and pin it on a clan that is for Bydell, or Bertha, so the ring goes to Troubadal.

Elfbane is first visit and Naldin tells us they are older than the Cataclysm, and took their name from the great wars between the elves and the dwarves.  It was a long time ago, and they apparently don't hate elves any more or less than any other kin now.  They have an affinity for "tricky magic", and Lrakuxil is a wizard, by the Muse!

--------------------------------------------------

We've met Clan Elfbane, Lrakuxil the Clan Lord and his brother Loudrig.  What a difference - magic everywhere, not merely being used but actively being studied.  It's no wonder they're distrusted by the other dwarves, they make no bones about who they are and what they do.  Their clan home is smaller by far than the Stonetrees, however, although no less appointed.

Lrakuxil has done his homework - he knows about the Buckle, and who Tyra is, that Minu is a healer, and about Lance's military service.  As one would suspect, I suppose.  He invited us in and was quite gracious as well as to the point.  I found myself quite liking him, in fact.  His brother?....well.  His comment on how war is good might be suspicious, although I admit to being pre-dispositioned.  What if brother dearest is tired of his reputation or being in the number two slot?  

Upon being questioned, he admitted that his purpose was to avoid stagnation and to help the whole of Lusaxon, although he used the term "all dwarves".  I quote: "to protect our lively hood and further our family name and bring honor to all dwarves".  It was at this time that Zig noticed that some of the dwarves about the alchemy tables were scratching their necks.

While Minu asked about helping with the allergic reaction, Lrakuxil told us that Uskar has romantic feelings for Oighrig and in fact has been spurned by her a few times already.  When I asked why, he said to seek her out and ask her...if we dared.  Muse, that's going to be tricky.  He did say it may have something to do with her strong ties to Murdag and their devotion to independence.  Uskar votes for Erilyn - although that may be because he's allied with Harkojud and also to spite Oighrig for spurning him.  He felt the hardest votes to change will be Murdag's and Uskar's because they are stubborn even for dwarves.  He thinks the easiest will be Ogaffum, as the man is old and out of touch - lore for the loremasters might sway his vote.

Discussion on magic and the kin, which always leads to the same place - I admire the struggle of Elfbane but I don't envy them.  To change minds is a long, long road indeed when the prejudice begins millennia before birth.  Lrakuxil believes that a split Taur'en is the end of Taur'en.  I turned the discussion away from magic and dwarves and instead to Harkojud of Ironaxe, hoping there to be a secret that might lend us an advantage.  He is the greatest warrior they have and committed to the defense of the Taur'en Hills - and that is all, apparently.  We thanked our host and were shown out.

Further discussion in private led us to the neck-scratching and the fact that Elfbane has many, many servants.

Regent Stoneforge opined that Lrakuxil was in fact more open with us than he's been with anyone she's seen or at Council meetings, which I surmise is because we don't come with the same cultural baggage as kin.

All in all a very interesting and informational visit...let us see what Stonehunger holds, then.

[RollinsCat]

From the books Millon let me borrow.

The first is "The Stone and the Will"; old lore, legends of the past, artifacts; good documentation.  I'll scribe a more through copy later.  This is what is of interest:

"I am so close to find the stone, It may solve most of the problems , witches, power, dreams reality, what is which..  soon i'll realize .. Naales was right,. this is the answer..  if i can find the stone...

I may speak with him on Center..  he must know what else i need ..

I found some work by darkelves here. . they are after this, or no.. what is real what not?  they have taken slaves to the deep ..  how they get here?  I killed one.. he said that they are after me.  ..  EVERYone is after me..."

The second is a journal from a "Rolanda".  A mere diary although in execrable shape, nearly illegible except for this last passage:

" ..  The stone must be found. . that is the way to get rid of this..  .  he's comming back...  He's comming back...  Oh no... ... NOOOOO..."


I dislike this I think.  More references to dark elves, and a "Him".  What are they doing?!

[RollinsCat]

Per discussion with Kaelan.

Dark elves are responsible for the attacks on the Port Hempstead fields.

Kaelan says he hurt Minu twice.  They went to the farms to investigate - I know her side of the story on this, I have Millon's books still.

He says that he and Minu went to the cave and found dark elves.  She vanished - here is where she was captured - and "they" fought the elves.  They are Millon, Aesthir, Kaelan, and a halfling with a cat named Master Flora.

"The woman killed herself...she...she said that nothing was real and all a dream and such, and that I was the dark evil man from her nightmares."

"Rolanda died.  Killed herself.  Because of me, you know.  She said I was the one from her nightmares.  Deluded.  She could not separate dream from reality."

They visited Rose in Wayfare, under one Captain Tunnings.  Daniel was there.  She reacted as Rolanda did - "she died before my eyes and I dream of burned flesh since then, the people I burned...Caly I hate you...."

"Rose tried to kill me."

Tormenting through dreams...how well both Minu and I know that.  Raina as well.  This elf's been living in hell for a long time.  He says Minu was there!  That Rose tried to dominate him and there was someone in the prison called the healer, who is not.  "Fishy".

Minu is in jail for trying to spell cast in a Rofirinite prison.  Dang it, woman...not a good time to think like me!

[RollinsCat]

Minu has filled in more information - "The Stone of Chitomaru".  Dark elves attacked Port Hempstead before, and had possession of the stone which might still be in or around Port Hempstead.  Either the Rofirinites or the Lucindites have a traitor, and Daniel remembers a traitor, perhaps working with the dark elves.

From Daniel - fifteen farms lost in the last year, burned, and people taken by dark elves.

[RollinsCat]

Dear Andrew

I regret I have not been out of contact for so long, a pile of letters and dust awaited me as I returned.
If it is not already too late, I would be happy to assist you. I am certain Angela would like to accompany me as well if only to get away from her duties in Lor for a little while.

I hope this letter finds you in good health.

Alantha

[RollinsCat]

The drink was poured before his brain caught up to what he was doing.

Two fingers, Silver Buckle.  Neat.

No reflection in the glass; it was a few hours until dawn, the candles were out and the fire was tamped.  Old timbers breathed soft moans and one of the cats was sharpening it's claws on something, likely something expensive and imported.  He sipped without thinking.

How had one little baby bard brought him here in front of the bar cabinet?  One ex-slave, rescued, nursed to health and set free to fly.  That baby bard had no nest to return to and so she'd come to the Buckle, bright-eyed with stories he had not heard, experiences he had not experienced, and a passionate desire to share it with the world.  When had he stopped being that bard?

Another, larger sip and the burn, that old burn, that wonderful familiar old burn...he'd missed it.  He missed a lot of things these days.  Audiences, traveling, seeing new things.  Old friends.  He was a relic; there were fewer and fewer stonebound, fewer and fewer who took the adventuring path.  Fewer of those he knew.  Their shrinking gatherings for music or stories too often felt like a eulogy for years and friends past.  It depressed him.

And this place, his shelter, that just hours ago had been home was a shackle that taunted the key in his hand.  She'd asked what was holding him back.  He'd made a throwaway remark about bills, obligations, soup kitchens, family.  All true and yet not all true.  The glass clinked on his teeth; empty.

He poured another.

No, true would have to include the things he'd been slowly giving up on.  Not swiftly because hope was too ingrained in him to leave without a fight.  But even hope can't hide the world forever.  He had never achieved fame, not as himself at least.  He'd never played the auditorium in Huangjin after that first, terrible, half-drunken attempt in his teens.  The next gulp of gin tasted like pure irony.

He had not, not so far as he knew, ever made a significant difference on any scale.  Not that the few real successes he'd had were not something; Jed, for one.  Ty for another.  He'd done some good during the years the war had been active, not that anyone cared to acknowledge the ones who had gone after the Broken One. Not the ones that didn't already have heaps of accolades anyway.  He wondered what the hells had happened to Jennara.  

But then...there was Raina, whom he had all but delivered to the dark elves.  And Freedom...Muse...the gin sloshed into the glass as he sang.

"I wanted to be there for you
To stop nightmares from coming true
Watch you dream and when you wake
We’d a thousand moments make

"Freedom gained is Freedom lost
No one really knows the cost
A thousand moments never known
A thousand hugs and kisses, gone..."

He sounded terrible.

He was becoming an old man, afraid to leave the perceived if not actual safety of his home, afraid of what his past would do to those around him.  Afraid to let himself dream anymore because if it wasn't a nightmare it was a moment so sublime that he knew in the dream he'd be waking from it.  Afraid that he'd spent decades trying to learn something he was not capable of doing.  Afraid, most of all, he was simply not relevant enough to merit notice anymore.  Unworthy of an audience.  What worse death?  What, indeed.

There was the gentlest sway as if a breeze had hit him but all the doors and windows were locked.  The bottle was nearly half empty.  Alright.  Alright.  He was hurting, he was worried about his father, he'd get over this eventually.  Sleep.  He just needed some sleep.  He stuffed the cork back in the bottle and dropped his empty glass in the trash barrel just to hear it shatter.  Muse, how he wanted to be that bard again.  Hungry, passionate, unfettered.  Playing bars and taverns all over Layonara singing against Rael, before he had people who would suffer for his foolishness.  Young and rife with possibilities.  That bard.  He had to lean on the post near the Residence Halls door, his feet floating half an inch above the floor.  He'd better sleep in Iri's old room.  Minu would smell it on his breath.

Ilsare, please let me dream of an audience tonight...

[RollinsCat]

In italic script but scrawled fast, as if taking dictation.

The Lost Moot.  Must find location.

Duncan Blackwater - Chum Runner.  Stolen Raelite ship.  Runs slaves, children, natives, legal and illegal ports.  Runs labor camps, cruises the Dragon Isles for pygmies to sell.  Sold Captain Rakish of the Devil's Reef out to Prantz for a pardon, then stole Raelite ship in doublecross.  How the hells am I going to turn this guy?

Captain Pike - Death's Gate assassin crew, Flagship Alpha of Omega, unstable, speaks through intermediaries - problems and solving them one death at a time.  Arranges accidents and suicides.  Reapers, Revenants, Ghouls as titles...lovely.  Pass.

"Kenshad the Self-Righteous" (The Righteous before mutiny from King William) - Siege Perilous.  Captain thinks he is a Knight of Toran.  Was ordered to do the impossible and mutinied, taking the old captain prisoner and executing him.  "The Kingsmen", all have price on their head.  Makes his own law but is said to keep his word.  No slaves, smuggling, or mercenary work.  Maybe?  Insufferable and pirates to boot.  Maybe not.

Captain Rakish - Devil's Reef, rarely slave, rarely smuggle, mostly raid.  No law, just dark elves and monsters and crazies.  One law: The duel.  Second choice.

Captain Unknown - Smoky Bones.   Smuggling, moving people who don't want to be found.  Possibly agreeable?  The "Bonesmen".  Kurn will send captain's name if I don't find it.

"Twelve Pint" Quaid.  Muse, help me, this next dryout is going to hurt if I board Smoky Bones...

Also scrawled but with more care.

Illwmaky - Andrew
Vmaaw - Greed
Cylaan - Lust
Liymwam - Murder
Wailanir - Death
Slave - Lacilela
Prisoner - Tymelaelam
Suffering - Layooamelv
Malice - Liilcesta
Pain - Tyilel
Anguish - Illvyelair
Betrayal - Faanmilailc
Vengeance - Elalvaillsta

Goecc anirali - Kill them

Wilmgolalala anilgoa aey! - Darkness take you!

Ane anira wailanir - To the death

Ane anira tyilel - To the pain

Fa anira tyeanla - By the pits

E ceela tymaanana ocekyamla, cil cil cil - I love pretty flowers, la la la (will get me killed instantly).

[RollinsCat]

Just got off a ship my friends and lemme tell it to ya
Wasn’t sure I’d be here with this guitar in my hand
The trip was mighty quiet till we hit the Sea of Lampil
Then it was a gamble if we’d ever see dry land!
 
They came up quiet in a fog and ne’er we did see them
One creeping up our skirts and another hard a-port
Times like that a man just hopes that the heavens hear him
Cause a merchant ship’s a tasty treat to a pirate sort

Cutlass to the left and a crossbow to the right
And us in the middle on that foggy foggy night
Never get between two dogs rarin’ for a fight
Cause the only one who loses is the bone!

The pirates on our tail were firing volley after volley
The ones to the port of us swinging over for to board
We all hit the deck as if Mist had blown us over
That first round of arrows stuck the portside pirate horde

There were hollers and confusion and red upon the deck
The pirates screaming bloody murder as the arrows stuck
When they turned and through the mist they saw the other ship?
Oh, it was on my friends, the gauntlet had been struck

There was a cutlass to our left and a crossbow on our right
And us in the middle on that foggy foggy night
Never get between two dogs rarin’ for a fight
Cause the only one who loses is the bone!

The black-hearted thugs that were snuggling our portside
Turned swords and rushed to the jolly rogers rear
The clash!  The thuds!  The shouts and the blood!
A man don’t know whether to lay down sobbing or to cheer

Them pirate boys fighting over our tiny measly boat
Was a chance we’d only get one time we knew
We dropped the oar right quiet while they tore into each other
And into the murky darkness we did flew

There was a cutlass to our left and a crossbow on our right
And us in the middle on that foggy foggy night
Never get between two dogs rarin’ for a fight
Cause the only one who loses is the bone!

By the time they got all turned around we were lost inside the mist
Rowing silent as a tiny baby’s breath
They never caught us thank the gods and so I’m here today
Twas pirate greed and luck that slipped us out from under death, ah yeah – greed and luck that slipped us out from under death!

[RollinsCat]

To: Councilman Grue
c/o City Council
Mariner's Hold
Sagewald
Alindor

Honorable Councilman Grue

I would ask for some of your time, privately, that we may speak about a possible security risk to Mariner's Hold - namely, myself.  It is a very long story that I would prefer to go over in person and in magically protected circumstances but I would ask for the city's assistance in the matter.  Please allow me some time to make my case that we can decide on the safest course of action for Mariner's Hold.

I am sorry to be cryptic and I hope to speak with you soon.

Sincerely


Andrew Reid, proprietor of the Silver Buckle Inn