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The Book of Change
Saturday, 17 October 2015
Changed @ 09:40 - Link - comments
I've spent time farming down in the tombs of N'Rolav while Ellyana sleeps off the last traces of some slight fever. As I fought my way through the twisting gloomy passages, despatching the foul wretches that infest the place, images came to my mind of the tombs as they might have been before the halls were darkened and innumerable skittering creatures found their way in. And I couldn't help but wonder how the tombs and sepulchres would have looked when first constructed.
I made my way back to the guildhall after many marcs of chasing down the wretches, exhausted after slaughtering hundreds if not thousands of them - though as I made my way out it sounded as if there were as many there as when I started.
After tending to Ellyana I fell into a deep sleep. As I did so there must have still been in my mind thoughts of how things were, and are, and could have been ...

Ellyana laughed and played on that old shipwreck lodged on the eastern coast of Kilican. My sleeping self watched as the dying light of the 'rifter reflected from her emerald eyes, highlighted the matching colour of her dress, and sparkled off waves breaking gently around the wreck and onto the shoreline. She'd slipped off her footwear and was running and dancing along the handrails that still stood upright around the deck of the battered ship. I hoped she'd keep her footing - though as a disembodied spectator I'd not be able to help should she fall. The helpless feeling gnawed away at me as I watched her at play.
A light ran began to fall, and my sleeping self felt concern as I noticed the handrails become slick with rainwater. Ellyana too noticed the rails become slippery, and she jumped down onto the deck, dancing in the rain as she so loves to do. The rain fell harder and storm clouds gathered. A cold wind rose, lashing the gentle waves into foaming whitetops which crashed against the shore. A flash of lightning obscured my view of the scene, and Ellyana must also have been blinded for a moment.
Sight cleared and a chilling scene unravelled before my sleeping eyes. The withered caricature of Ellyana materialised on the deck, arms reaching out for her. Ellyana, the Sylvan one, owes her strength to the benign force of the beautiful side of nature:that awful withered other sylvan takes its power from the more destuctive elements. As it appeared the wind howled stronger, lightning crackled and thunder rolled. Through streaming torrents of rain it grasped Ellyana, its hands clasped around her neck, lifting her into the air as it grew to thrice her height.
The loathsome creature looked around, as if it sensed the presence of another - could it have known that although sleeping and incorporeal I watched as it appeared? And it spoke, or rather, issued a challenge 'Who would save this one? Who would stand for her whatever the cost - who cares for her above all others?'
The voice was strange, words mixing together with the howl of wind. And oddly enough also mixed in was another sound, another howl - the howl of a wolf which quickly dissipated into a whimper of fear and panic before fading into impotent silence.
I looked at the twisted thing that held Ellyana through sleeping eyes - and as it looked back at me I felt some force tugging at my body which slept in some corner of the lands. There was a sensation of stirring, of movement through the air, and a sudden jolt as I crashed onto the deck of the shipwreck. Landing in a crouch, I reached for weapons as Ellyana twisted in the evil creature's grasp, punching, clawing, kicking - all to no avail. Her voice rose, cutting through the wind's howl 'Put me down you ... let go ... someone ... anyone ... L ... Pallas!!' She called my name louder, then as her head twisted she saw me rising to my feet, and her voice softened somewhat ' ... Pallas ...'
I'll never forget the look in her eyes, the expression on her face. Even in the extremity of such mortal peril still she seemed to have total trust, absolute faith, that I could find a way to save her.
I'm no great hero, not gifted with more ability than others in the lands we call home. Though it's been said that I tend to notice things, details that perhaps aid me in using my wits as well as my weapons when the situation demands. And I bent what abilities I might have to two tasks in hand. To destroy the foul creature which held my lady in its clutches, and to save Ellyana. I'd not see her bones splintered, her neck twisted and snapped, not again.


At that moment the voice of the Crier echoed across the lands, waking me from sleep. I rose and set off to answer the call of the Iron Misstress, the duty to which we all respond, to protect these lands we call home.