Burnell's Blog: Beth and the Fantasy World

Beth had just gotten back from a disposition with the police about a stolen necklace, she was tired, and it had taken most of her break day to accomplish, but she hoped that her roommate had better taste in boyfriends next time. Why couldn’t her life be more like that in the stories she read? Sighing she could barely find the energy to move and had to get up early tomorrow for work. Shucking of her shoes she climbed into bed fully clothed, and began to dream of the way today should have gone.

Chapter 1

The land of Naribia was gripped by famine and drought, and civil war wracked the land. Thousand’s died, mothers, fathers, and babies; all while the feudal lords languished within their cold keeps, draining the peasant class dry with taxes, and frequent warfare. This all occurred, so it was said, because the people had left their gods behind for worship of the High Queen of Naribia. Many in the land though argued it was not that but assassination of the great and wise High King that caused all the misery. Some few, very few; of the darkest mind said that it was because of the dark hand of Chaos and fate that led to their pain, these people were listened to least of all. Still whatever the causes of said events, many flocked to the temples and churches of Naribia to seek solace, their hoping to find some reason for their suffering and perhaps to take what succor they could from alms given for the poor.

It was to one such temple that a young penitent named Bethinia came. Of poor peasant stock, she was nonetheless pure of virtue; a foundling, she was raised by the temple to revere Gaia above all else. Most of the priestesses of the temple were from noble stock, but because of the intervention of the high priestess who herself had lost her children, she was inducted into the temple. Bethinia rose through the ranks, but painfully; for much went on beyond the sight of the priestess who was raising her; and she was the frequent brunt of much of the noble member’s cruelty. Still after many years and with the blessings of the Goddess, she was at least given leave to venture out into the world, to convert the heathen to Gaia, and bring the people back to the faith.

Bethinia went out into a world a beautiful lady of noble purpose if not of noble blood, and went out with eyes of innocence, her faith her shield, and perhaps a somewhat naïve belief in all things being good and righteous. Though some members of the temple had taught her somewhat of cruelty, it was of the petty kind, and the high priestess who she thought somewhat as her mother had taught her of the kindness of the Goddess, the balance of life and how all things were in the end virtuous. But she was to learn that not all was light, and that though there were good people in the world; in the world of Naribia they were few and far between.

Her first assignment as a very junior priestess was to bring back the alms from a local village, donations from the poor, a few rich merchants passing through, and the occasional feudal lord, mainly though from the poor peasant farmers desiring a end to the famine and drought, hoping to entice the goddess to help them. The village was several days walk from the temple of Gaia, and was connected only by the barest glimpse of a dirt road; the road was hard and the journey was long, but the Goddess seemed to favor her, for the journey passed relatively uneventfully. Bethinia passed the time enjoying the bounty of Gaia, sunlight, the spring rains, and the breezes blowing off pine trees. Coming to the outskirts of the village, she felt a little tremor of fear, for all her life she had lived a closed cloister, this was her first encounter with real people of the outside world, what she saw frightened her. The cut trees, the dirty streets, and poor disease ridden peasants moving through the streets, this was her first encounter with the ugliness of what humanity had to offer. Still calling on her goddess, she squared her shoulders and walked into the town, feeling always that she drew the eyes of every person in town to her.

Some eyes did follow her, though not as many as she feared, many of the men’s eyes languished over her lovely form, and then passed away as she passed. Priestesses were not a uncommon sight in the village, though none were enticing enough to draw thoughts of unfaithfulness, as Bethinia surely was. The men’s eyes only glanced though, so feared was the fear of disproval of the Goddess; but one pair of eyes followed her through the town, and though she did not know it for ill intent.

Bethinia had been specifically told where to go, but the landmarks of the village were not as of the those of nature nor even of the temple, and it took her most of the day to find the local priestess in the temple. So as the sky began to darken she eventually found where was supposed to go, it was nestled next to a cemetery, where a small ancient stone temple stood, knocking at the water logged door, a tap tap sounded, another tap and then the door opened she met the old priestess of the village.

The first thing she noticed about the priestess was her age, never had she seen anyone who looked so old and well well so ugly. Bethinia had been read many stories as a child, and this this was the personification of all the images she had of a wicked witch. Grey hair, wrinkled skin, a wooden cane, and a face that would have cracked a mirror if it ever looked in one. The shock on her face must have shown, for the old lady grinned, several of her teeth were missing, “Ah you must be new to our order, or you would have learned some manners. Well come in, come in.” A bit cowed, and to her credit mortified, Bethinia walked in, following behind the hunched old woman. “It has been some time since I last got a collection from the Temple at Hebridies, many days as a matter fact what took you so long dearie?”, pulling up the collection basket, and old priestess poured the coins into the saddle bags waiting. “I tried to get here as fast as a I could Priestess, but it was a long journey and I had some trouble finding this place.”

“Never you mind child, I was young once even though I might not look it,” she let out a loud cackle that echoed through the temple walls,” and I remember the call of the Goddess and of other things……..” she leered at her. The mortification must have shown on her face, “Oh sorry, you really are innocent, “clapping her on the shoulders,” Still you got here late enough might as well stay the night here, you can lay your bedroll on the floor for the night, there are unsavory types out at this hour.”

Bethinia slept the night on the cold stone floor of the temple listening to the laughing drunken calls of the villagers, counterpointed by the loud nasal phlegmy snoring sound of the old priestess, and nearby she tried not to think about the eerie silence of the cemetery nearby. In her sleep she dreamed of wooden monsters chasing her and laughing as they came closer and closer and when they were about to devour her alive, she awoke.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!,” a loud scream woke her, “the money its all gone, oh may Gaia curse their rotten souls,” a rough shove, “Get up girl, get up the tithe to the temple is gone.”

“Whaaa, what , “blinking the sand out of her eyes, Bethinia quickly got of the stone floor,” But who could have done such a thing?”

Replying, “I know not who, but by the Goddess we will get it back,” the old priestess leaned against the stone floor and closed her eyes, so still did she sit that Bethinia thought at first she was dead, and was beginning to worry, when the old woman’s eyes opened, “In the town, they couldn’t have gone far, that amount of money could be hid, but not anywhere far, the thieves would have had to have horses to go far, and the peasants had them for supper long ago.” Pulling her close, she spoke to Bethinia,” Go into town, look for anything strange, anything at all,” picking at her clothes, the old women walked quickly to the closet and pulled out a pair of typical woman’s peasant wear, “Wear this, if they see the clothing of the Goddess, whoever did this will know to leave and get out of sight, but a common peasant woman no not all, and here, your too pretty and clean, get you fixed up.”

By the time the old lady Bethinia left no longer looking like herself, her clean blonde hair, now closer to a brunette, a very dirty muddy and possibly flea ridden brunette, her body was clothed in drab clothing, her teeth were stained black, making it seem as if they were due to fall out; and after spreading poison ivy all over her face and arms, her once creamy white skin now shone red. It took all the old priestess could do to convince Bethinia to go out to village, finally telling her that it was necessary to please the goddess, and that anyway nobody in town was especially appealing nor worthy so why bother.

Her twists and turns hadn’t been for naught, though it had taken her most of the day to find her way around town, it had given her a pretty good idea where everything was, so Bethinia went to the old town inn. No eyes followed her, in fact most rather tried to avoid her, afraid to catch whatever the old lady had made her out to have. It was a new experience to the girl to be ugly, and reviled; all her life she had had no experience with the darker side of existence and now she experienced it. It served her in good stead, nobody noticed a perhaps disease ridden beggar, and after the night she had sleeping on the stone floor she did not have to act stooped her back naturally did it. So she searched the town fairly quickly, and eventually found who had stolen it, a priest of Ares, listening at the inn at which the man was staying, Bethinia, found it was hidden in the cemetery right next to the Gaian temple.

Going to the place specified , Bethinia dug and found the bag containing the alms. When she went back to the temple to tell who did it, the old priestesses face lit up with fury, “Him that little toad, that scalawag, he’s been after me since I was a young, he did this out of spite just because I spurned him, well I’ll show I will,” and her mouth started chanting strange tongues, in the air a feeling of electricity that Bethinia had never felt before surged through her, a little afraid, she hastily made her farewells, and started the long trek back to home, the temple of Hebridies.

Chapter 2

Beth yawned, and stretched her arms, today was her one day off and she intended to make the best of it. Today she planned on being a absolute nothing day, after she made her jog, it was just curl up in front of a good book at the park, and eat out at the Thai restraint on Main street, and then just sleep the rest of the day. Getting up, she changed into her jogging clothes, took her normal half hour route down to the park and back, then got in the shower to wash of the sweat. Dressed in jeans and T shirt and with her favorite Tolkien book under her arms, Beth was about to leave, when she noticed John, the latest of Sarah’s long line of boyfriends, leaving the apartment with a necklace clenched in his hands. She knew that John had given it to Sarah, but since she didn’t know why he had it, she shrugged it off and moved onto the park.

The park was quiet today, it being a Monday, the only day she could get off, but still Beth liked quiet, nothing to interrupt her reading, and a little peace from a hectic week. Getting to the part about the hobbits leaving the shire, and as her mind started to fly away into the far away realm of Middle Earth, a irritating buzzing sound stabbed like lightning through her thoughts, looking around, her mind slowly came back to normality, her cell phone was ringing.

“Hello, Oh hi Sarah, “Beth put down her book, her one day off why now she thought, “You can’t find your necklace, the diamond encrusted one, oh I saw John take it. Oh didn’t know you guys broke up, sure I’ll come back.”” Turning off the cell phone, she made the steady trek back, Sarah was severely pissed, they had broken up a week ago, after she found him cheating on her, and now apparently he had stolen a necklace he had given her back and now she was calling the cops, and now Beth had to come back to make a deposition. Walking back slowly, hoping to stave off the inevitable, she brought out her book and walked while she read, just barely avoiding a pedestrian here there until she made her way back up to her apartment. Sarah was quick, the moment Beth opened the door, she dragged her down to the car, “That son of a beast thinks he’ll steal my necklace after he cheated on me like he did, well I’ll show him, come on Beth we’re going to the cops.” Sighing again Beth bowed to the inevitable her perfect day off was shot, trying to convince Sarah otherwise was like convincing a hurricane or a lightning bolt, impossible it was best just to try and ride out the storm.

The police room was crowded and the cop on duty kept both of them waiting for a long time before they took their deposition, several hours later Beth was finally able to leave, the Bangor police department sent down a car to John’s house retrieve the necklace and arrested him. In the car Beth listened to Sarah crow nonstop about how she had really hurt him and how he would never forget her now, and the whole time Beth just nodded glumly, trying to play the part of the good roommate but really just thinking of how tired and hungry she was right now. Her one decent meal a week eating out gone, back to eating Ramen noodles again until next week when budget permitting she could afford to eat Thai or Indian again; maybe next time she’d think about choosing better roommates first no matter how good the price was for the apartment. Sarah hugged Beth after dropping her off, had a hot date tonight she said, tiredly Beth climbed the steps and moved to her room.

Chapter 3

Beth was on her lunch break, and was very tired, the night before had not been that pleasant what with it being her only break day, and now she had to get through the rest of the week, sometimes it was so hard working. She felt bad about her feelings about her roommate, she had felt so angry last night, but in truth Sarah actually had better choice in men then Beth ever did. At least Sarah went out on dates fairly often, Beth’s choice in men were less than perfect. I mean they started out Prince charming and considerate, listened to your feelings, and went out on a few dates, then later they turned out to be gay. Beth wasn’t sure if it were her that turned them gay, or if she just fortuitously always picked guys that were gay. Was it wrong to want the perfect guy? To want a guy that was calm considerate, listened to you and knew how best to understand you; was good looking, worked out, had a wonderful complexion, and liked his mother, was very smart, could hold a good conversation, liked animals, could cook, didn’t mind cleaning up around the house or doing the laundry, and had a artistic or musical bent; Was that so wrong? Her standards weren’t too high, it was the world that was the problem, there should be guys like that out there, damn it, that weren’t gay, and liked her; I mean that was how it worked in the stories and why shouldn’t it work here? Eating her lunch Beth slowly drifted into daydreaming about her perfect man in her perfect world.

Beth was a princess in a tower, a fair maiden with blonde hair, full lips, who’s beauty out shown her small bust, who was enchanted to remain young and fair until the love of her love managed to climb the tower and make her his own. All around the world, all knew of her fair beauty; and many came from miles around, to try and climb the tower, and claim her. First was Prince Elrond of Beringia, he of the flowing locks, of wondrous complexion, and wonderful body, once heard of her beauty and had to have her. So leaving his castle, and saying his goodbye to his mother who he loved very much, he struck out across the land to search for his desired maid. First he came across the fabled black knight, or at least one of his sons, for the fabled knight had been fabled primarily for his strength with the ladies, and had left many a bastard child around the land. Each bastard child then made it his mission to be a pox on all good knights in search of fair maidens, and so Elrond encountered his black knight. Elrond fought a duel with the knight to the death; swords flashed, blood was raised, but the prince through skill of arms and through his love of the far off maiden prevailed the day, and subdued the knight. The next obstacle was a great giant whose great strength had killed many men, whose hatred of princes with fair locks was legendary, so it was that when it sighted the fair prince it issued no challenge and instead charged into the fight. Now Prince Elrond was no weakling, but he was still a man, and giants were many times stronger than even the strongest man could be; so he ran not from cowardice but through cleverness for he led the giant through a ravine, where the giant’s berserk flailing caused a avalanche and buried the giant up to its neck. It was then a simple matter for the prince to dispatch the beast with his sword, and win the day. The next was a different challenge and it required the fair prince to use his musical talents; for it was a monster unique in all the lands, it was impervious to all but the fairest song. A creature born of the sirens with the strength of Hercules and the invincibility of Zeus himself, it could not be cowed by force of arms, nor through the power of guile, and Elrond knew this. The prince had brought a lyre and with it he played the fairest song he knew, one taught to him by his mother, and it was about the love of mothers throughout the land. The song so saddened the beast (who had in fact had never had a mother), that he dashed himself of a cliff into the frozen depths of the nearby sea.

Prince Elrond fought many battles, always with his imagined image of the fair lady in his mind, and through the years and decades he defeated adversary after adversary, until his fair locks turned grey and he died of a heart attack fighting against a great monster who was the next enemy to his quest the fair maiden named Beth, and was quite sadly in the exact opposite in the direction of where she was held.

Second was Hiudia, a famous tamer of beasts, who was unequalled in all feats of strength. He came from the deep forests of Jiopia, and had such great natural empathy that he could understand any beast and know the pain of any man or woman. Hiudia was brown of hair, his muscles were as rocks, and tall of build; women from all over the realm swooned at the sight of him for these qualities, but to he could cook recipes such as would make the gods come to the earth to taste, and his proficiency in the bedroom were unrivalled by any man or so it was rumored anyway. He roamed the land for a quite many year before hearing the tale of the fair maiden Beth trapped in a tower; and decided to use his considerable talents to save the fair lady Beth from the tower. Hiudia was a tamer of beasts, but hand in hand he was a great tracker and knew exactly where the fair lady was being held. So he prepared himself and went along the path leading to the tower, until he encountered his first enemy; a beauteous siren by the name of Sarah who’s ability to ensnare any man was renowned through the land, and it was said one glance would cause any male to fool hopelessly in love with her. But she quickly grew bored with any she lay with, and since none could cook well, she cooked for them and poisoned the food so that they died horribly. Now Hiudia knew this weakness of her, and being as the imagined beauty of Beth was as nothing before that of Sarah’s he could resist her seductive charms. Still the siren had other cruel tricks and was as renowned for her sorcery as her ability to charm men, so Hiudia offered instead to cook for her, and in exchange if he could please her he could pass on to the next obstacle with her being no obstacle. The beauteous siren Sarah agreed, though in her secret mind she fully intended to kill him, she would play with him as cat plays with a mouse. Hiudia cooked the finest meal ever made, it ‘s confectionary was so perfect that reality itself seemed to move to enjoy, when the siren tasted it she died from the sheer perfection of its palate. The next to test Hiudia was a powerful titan named Atlas, who held up the roof of the world, and whose very feet held close the path through the mountains. Now before Hercules had tested the titan by first holding the sky on his shoulder and then tricking the titan back to take his burden back. Atlas was wise to such tricks and was wary of any entreaties to relieve his burden; but Hiudia too was aware of this and knew of a beast named the Turtle of the Sea, who once held the very earth on its top. He suggested to Atlas if he could tame the beast for a time at least it would serve to periodically relieve his burden. The titan knew of the Turtle but was also aware of its nature, which was born of chaos and was could not be tamed by any creature of order, he reasoned that this irritating hero would be killed by it first, and if not he would at least get to relieve himself of his burden, so he agreed. Hiudia did not have to voyage far to find the Turtle of the sea, for it is a curious fact that all great monsters seem to live relatively close by, a fact which made his job much easier. No creature of order could temper the Turtle, but Hiudia was a man born of the goddess Gaia, who was as much a entity of chaos as order , so too was Hiudia who was her son. So when he reached out to the chaos of the Turtle he rode its nature like a surfer on a wave in the sea; and tamed it with ease drove it to the great Titan Atlas, who agreed to move for a while. Hiudia passed quickly through the trail, moving as he had never moved before, and then when left the path he breathed a sigh of relief. The sky shook, and then stabilized, and a scream of rage sounded; for though Hiudia could tame the Turtle because he was partly a creature of chaos, the Titan was a creature of order, and when he tried to use the Turtle to relieve his burden it escaped, leaving Atlas to once again hold up the sky. The last of Hiudia’s trials was perhaps his greatest of trials and was a enemy he never defeated. It was his mother Gaia, who entreated him to come live with him, and being as he loved his mother very much, he agreed, abandoned his quest for the fair Beth, and lived for all eternity in the bowels of the Earth nagged by his mother.

The last of all heroes to attempt the fair Beth, though by no means the only one just the only one that was of any great importance at all to this story was the Norse demigod Thor. Thor was a God of Asgard, the son of Odin (ruler of all the skies); Thor himself though was perhaps better known then his father because of his many adventures throughout the land. It was because of these adventures that he eventually found about the fair princess Beth stuck in the enchanted Tower. Thor flung his hammer and came to the earth, there he cast a magic spell to appear as a mortal and began his quest for the fair Beth. Now why would a god not just come to the fair beth rather then go such a roundabout route, because the lives of deities are well rather boring, having powers beyond all mortals might sound wonderful but it also led to rather uninteresting challenges, so Thor as matter of course chose deliberately to go the roundabout route for all of his adventures, and this was no exception. He came down from the sky near the hills of Hades where live the Three Sisters of Fate. Thor knew of them through his father Odin, and even gods feared these ladies for they governed the fates of Midguard as well as Asgard; and he knew that they always exacted a price for their advice. Still he was brave demigod and feared not giving up a price for such a fair prize. The ladies could see all of eternity, and fate, but the very breadth of their purview meant they could not see the smallest of things of entering their realm, not a god or man, only large events could catch their notice so Thor slipped in relatively undetected. It was there he stole the eyes of the fates and through that forced them to give him advice on his quest, each reluctantly did so, but with a price that Thor knew nothing about, for after giving back the Fates the eye and congratulating himself on his cunning, and leaving for his next adversary, the Fates cursed him, and from that day forth it was said he was to die in the final battle with the World Snake(nobody escapes the three sister’s vengeance). Thor followed the path the ladies suggested, along the way he encountered Medusa, or rather her head as it had been cut off by the Greek hero Perseus. There it stood at the entrance to Tarterus, where his path lay. Thor as a demigod was unaffected by her gaze, and thought to simply walk by the creature. Medusa though cried out to the god, asking him to restore her or at least end her suffering; Thor instead of moving on took pity on her and took a golden apple from his pouch from his satchel, it was there that he restored her to mortality if not her original divinity, and bid her go ask sanctuary from the Greek gods from his father Odin. Thor made his way into the depths of Tarturus, fought Cerberus, and managed to seduce the Greek goddess Persephone to allow him passage through Hade’s realm. It was after passing through Hades that he eventually reached the Tower of Beth the fair. Climbing the tower the god easily made his way to the top, and was about to enter, when Beth the fair looking on his countenance declared him unfit to be her love and pushed him off the tower, where he fell far to the ground. Thor raged, throwing his hammer at the tower, night after night he climbed the tower and again she rejected him; until eventually even the demigod tired and shrugging his shoulders left for another adventure muttering about beautiful women with excessive standards.

Chapter 4

Beth drifted back, it hadn’t exactly been the most inviting daydream, it had kept her entertained, through the interviews of the day, enough at least to counterbalance some of the sad stories of the day, but it was rather like a dream, she knew she was supposed to get a message from it but only remembered some of the highlights of it. She had interviewed two college girls today, one had had a problem with a boyfriend that was to attached to his mother. The girl had tried to get him to go with her to her college and yet the mother was afraid for him and so wouldn’t let him go, and yet the girl still loved him. The other was almost as sad, the boyfriend was determined to hold the girl up on a pedestal, she never let him be normal it was like she was some perfect ideal, and though she loved him she didn’t know how much longer she could be with him, because she could never measure up to his imagined image of her. Beth liked the two girls she interviewed, she just wished she could do more for them, all she could do was offer a sounding board for some of their pain. Her last interview had been a walk in, and apparently he was being abused by his girlfriend, he was a man and his ego wouldn’t allow him to do any harm to her but he was just as afraid of leaving her of being alone, so he took it because it was better than the alternatives. Again Beth let him use her as a sounding board, and after the day was both emotionally and physically tired. It was all she could do to get into her beaten down Corolla and drive home and shovel enough Ramen noodles inside herself to keep her going. She showered, then dressed in her pajamas, and curled up with a good book beside her bed, and slowly drifted of into her dreams, the only place she felt any peace sometimes.

Chapter 5

Beth tossed and turned, her body was soaked with sweat, and this night had many nasty nightmares, only the smashing of her window woke her up, and after she fixed it she fell asleep and had the kind of nightmares where you never know where you wake up, and if indeed you are having a dream at all. She woke up very tired throughout the dreams in the morning.

Benji this is where you can split the stories, the rest is a attempt at a type of horrish thing and is still integral to the story but I have just mentioned that she had a bunch of nightmares that repeated over and over, so move on from here if it seems to nasty to your liking to the next chapter.

Lightning crashed, rain tattered against the window, and Beth slept, tossing and turning as if the beasts of hell chased her. A tree smashed into a window, waking her,” What, What’s happening? Sarah, Sarah wake up,” she called running to where the window crashed. Then moving back, saw her roommate’s bed empty, “Great just great another night you picked to stay out with your boyfriends.” Looking back at the window, Beth sighed, thinking about what to do, then her mind connected and she grabbed a piece of duct tape and cardboard to do what she could for the window. After Beth was done, got to remember to call the landlord tomorrow get this fixed. Grabbing a glass of water, Beth fell back into bed, and started to dream.

Lightning crashed, rain tattered against the window, and Beth tossed and turned as if the beasts of hell were chasing her, with a shock of fear she woke up, sweat running down her face, “What was that sound?” Storm must have broken the window, it didn’t seem broken, shrugging she looked out the window. The sky flashed tearing across Beth’s ears, and then her eyes caught sight, in between the flashing, shadows first branching off from each flash, as if playing with the light. Then slowly as if reality itself was gasping, all sound stopped and it became cold so cold. Beth shivered, how did it get so cold; a keening sound rushed through the sky. The shadows on the street seemed to move, each almost stepping out from their stuck on place to the things supposedly making them, a groaning sound pushed out, she shouldn’t have been able to hear them but it was as if came from her very soul. Beth turned away from the windows, weird must be seeing things, gotta get something to clear me up, opening the fridge, weird powers out, she grabbed a beer, and gulped it down quickly. It ran down, and for moment she felt a buzz, but then it was gone. It was cold, so cold, and then something bit her on her leg, it became painful, looking down she noticed, just shadows, but it was as if it was coiled around her leg like a snake. Screaming she began frantically slapping at it, and it only seemed to coil tighter, then she felt a another cramping pain on her leg and a hand reached down and touched hers and desperately she grabbed for it, suddenly she could feel her leg again, “Come on run, they’re slow but they are damn hell to get rid of without help.” Beth looking around noticed the shadows seemed to be flowing towards her like a kind of liquid but with teeth, “Come on, don’t look around run.” The man dragged her along out of her apartment, and she ran with him, “Where are we going?” Beth looked out across the street, it was like on the discovery channel watching a pack of lions bring down a zebra, a woman was being devoured her legs twitching spasmodically as they tore into her, here and there similar scenes were repeated across the street. That was all she got before Beth just concentrated on running as hard as she could, her heart pounding harder then it she ever thought it could, as they raced down the street the shadows were everywhere it seemed and she was up the street outdistancing them as she came into what seemed to come into the Bangor Public Library. “They don’t seem to come in here, we can stop here.” Breathing heavily Beth and the man sat on the couches running alongside the library. It was still dark but somehow it seemed less harsh inside, and the chill that had earlier permeated her body was no longer there, and sounds rather than being gone seemed to echo normally. “What’s going on, I was sleeping and then I woke up and then all this, shit my leg is bleeding.”

“Hold on I’ll get some bandages, at least those things don’t have any problems with infection.” The man walked towards a cubboard, pulled out some bandages, tended the bite marks on her leg. “They’re shadows, I don’t exactly know what they are, but when I saw the gate opening I tried to save who I could, you were the only one I could get to in time.” Beth grimaced as she felt the pain bite into her legs, “that doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Well lady its all I got I’ve been here I don’t know how long, new people always come through the gate, which draws the shadows, and if they can’t get here people get eaten.” His face was bearded, he had brown eyes, brown hair, and was dressed in torn jeans with a T-shirt that said save the planet on it; tall thin almost like he was starving but not quite, his skin was pale white like a vampire in the movies, “Who are you?”

Pacing back and forth, “I’m not sure I remember anymore, I think I came through………”, his face crinkled in concentration, “I don’t remember, used to know I think, you can call me what you like I guess.”

Beth tried to stand up, the pain in her legs seemed to be going away a little at least, and she looked out the window, It was dark, but in patches outside small flickers of light shown, almost like the sunlight piercing through the clouds. Here there too the shadows moved like moving oceans, moving in between the patches of light, some got caught and seemed to shrivel under the glare of the light.

“The gates closed by now, whenever one opens, all the lights disappear, and only a few spots like here stay safe,” the man said coming up next to her, “You got a name for me lady or should I just keep calling you lady?”

Looking back at him,” Oh my name is Beth, I suppose I can call you Brad name of one my roommate’s boyfriends.”

His face crinkled a little, “I hope that’s not a insult, but okay my name’s Brad then, hey you want some answers I can’t give you any but I think there are some people who could give you some.”

“You want to go out there with those things out there?”Beth said her voice quavering. Stepping out from the library Brad carefully moved between the patches of light,” Its safe now or relatively you keep to the light patches and if you get in the dark the shadows aren’t all that fast, but don’t stay there for that long. Come on we’ve got to move pretty quickly before the next gate opens.”

Hesitantly Beth stepped out of the library,” When’s that gonna happen?”

Brad walked quickly Beth right behind me, “Its not so much a question of time, whatever that is, you can notice the signs of it appearing, and the signs aren’t close, but we need to move quickly, the signs aren’t there anymore but they will be.”

Beth moved quickly, silent for a bit as she processed what had happened for her, looking around at the city of Bangor it seemed the same but yet not the same, here and there things seemed real and yet not real, it was like some things looked like real buildings, and others were defocused blurry, almost as if her vision was messed up but it was a real effect. In between the shadows were not visible, you could see them not being there at all, but when you stepped close to them they moved and were visible but shrunk back from the light. “What happened here, why is the city so strange,” Looking back Brad answered, “Its bits and pieces, I don’t know where you came from, but this place is like the shadows, a shadow from reality, and maybe a little of both, it’s like a mishmash of the light shining on a object and the shadow that object produces. What you see is real and unreal at the same time.” Walking up to the door of the Bangor police department, “Perhaps what you are is the same?”

Wondering what he meant by that, Beth followed him in, and saw the strangest sight she had seen since she ended up in this strange sight. The police department was not the police department, inside reality itself seemed to whorl and shift, it was like a bad acid trip, light shined in colors, a whirlpool, and then not, and it was the Bangor police department again. “Come on, the signs are showing up again, the gate is opening again.” Beth nodded and followed him in quickly, there another man stood, his eyes glowing red, and then he was in front of her, all of a sudden his face seemed human and then not, and Beth looked closer and he shifted and Brad and all the rest shifted, and it felt hot all of a sudden and the fires burned hot. She screamed in fright, “You brought the best piece for us, good job, and now its time to feed.” The demons, for that was what it was chased after and she began to run and they caught her, and……

Beth woke up, the lightning crashed, rain tattered against the windows, and all seemed right, “What a nightmare,” Beth touched her face, looking around is this real, it seems real, getting up to get a glass of water, she looked out the window, the storm was going on strong, but no weird shadows, no strange lights, everything seemed so normal and it felt right. Wanting to get a breath of fresh air, she walked out and breathed a deep breath, the smell of the rain and subtle tang of ozone from the lightning wafted into her nostrils. I really need to get more sleep, that last nightmare was a doozy, a groaning sound pushed through next to her. “Hey are you okay?” Beth put her hands around the man, who groaned and then sank his teeth into her arm, Beth screamed and tried to run, but the zombie held on tight, and then more groaned from the down the street, she managed to force herself of him and tried to run, and she was trapped as the horde surrounded her, then they grabbed her arms, and began to feed, and she screamed again and……..

Beth woke up, the lightning struck again and again scorching marks against the ground, and the wind blew strong like giants were crashing against the roof. Then in the sky, a funnel cloud appeared, then another and another, first off in the distance, and it all roared like a train moving next door to her apartment. Beth was quick, her legs pumping she was out in a flash, down the stairs, and into the furious war of nature which seemed to be occurring outside. The tornadoes had by now coalesced and touched down, then began destroying buildings as they made their way down Main street towards her. People seemed to be reacting but there was there was no direction that they could go without being hit, and like little dust flecks in a breeze were sucked up into the sky. She was quicker though, and managed to make it down towards the park, moving in between the trees, the lightning bolts barely missed her, and then of in the distance another sound, a swishing sound, watery, the river was overflowing the banks and up the way a wall of water was rushing towards her, bigger then the highest skyscraper, the type you see in disaster movies, it swept up the valley and hit her, and in a instant Beth was gone.

Beth woke up, the lightning struck, and the storm passed, the sun peaked through of in the distance,” That was some storm, I hate dreams when you never know if you are awake or not,” looking over at the window, “Oh shoot I was hoping that was a nightmare, gotta remember to call the landlord, oh well need to go to work.” Beth showered, dressed, and drove to work.

Chapter 6

The day was not quite so bad as it was yesterday, it was uneventful even boring. The counseling sessions were about normal things, some students were stressed about a upcoming test, others were worried about dates in the future. Her mind wandered throughout the day, as she took notes, she moved to other places, other realms, and times. Not quite as bad as dreams from the previous night, it was like the storm had released a wellspring within her, and it’s passing the other night had burned out any enmity she had in her at least for the moment. During her break her mind wandered again, not into a fantasy world, but at the guy there sitting at the table in there. Beth played a game she often did when she was in any open place, and overlaid a dream on the face. She knew nothing about him, nor what his interests were, and at the moment had no real interest in walking up to him to start a conversation with him. Starting with the face, cute, a little fuzz on his face, tall and lanky, dressed in business clothes, his eyes were brown, black hair; she imagined him to have a job working in a office somewhere, there he worked on taxes at the IRS, he was probably here auditing someone’s taxes, he’d be somewhat boring, but at least stable, Beth doubted he’d make a good boyfriend. Another face, a woman this time, blonde a little older, perhaps thirty, she sat all the way at the end, green eyes, average looks, but a body that made up for it, she seemed worried, she looked out the window. Beth pretended she was a single mother, waiting for a job interview, worried about leaving her kid behind, she’d been through many job interviews, and this was the latest in a long line of jobs, but still she tried. She probably lived in a apartment towards the bad part of town, and there lived with her parents, she’d had a kid fairly early in her life, but still had the bright splash of hope someone younger than her felt, she was a good mother, and tried to balance that with having some kind of life. The last was a old man, reading a book, she imagined him to be a retired professor, had once fought in the Korean War, had married, had kids, and before her time his wife had cancer, now he waited read, and enjoyed what little time he had left, his mind was still active, and occasionally he met with friends that he talked with.

The game was over for now, Beth went back to eating her lunch, then continued on with the day. It was as she felt uneventful, and as she got home, and made dinner, ate, and as she got into bed, there was no disquiet that lingered as she went to bed.

Chapter 7

Wednesday

Beth was dreaming, and knew she was dreaming, floating, and then it was if she was being dragged further and further out, the wind blew her hair back, clouds rushed by her face, the cold of the high stratosphere in her. Then it was as if she wasn’t dreaming, she had passed into border that lay between what felt real and what didn’t and this felt real like it actually was happening. Then stars, and planets, and deep into a black hole, its titanic excesses wrenching reality and time and space, and then she flew back to a planet circling a sun, a yellow star like the suns, except two moons circled it. Again the cold of high sky, and wind flowing through her, very gently her body touched the ground. The grass was soft under her, springy, the air clean and pure without that characteristic distinctive tang of the hallmarks of modern civilization. Getting up she laughed, and twirled around stretching out feeling the sunshine and cool breeze ruffling her blonde hair back and forth. Energy seemed to percolate through her body, like she was sixteen again, looking around she noticed, open plains with grass, and all around her open forests with pine trees, and feeling the urge to, Beth began to run, her bare feet pounding the grass, moving quickly she jumped over a tree trunk and kept running, her heart pumping pushing blood through her, and then she came to a clearing, where sat a crater and in that crater were eggs, large eggs. Most of the eggs were smashed, all except for one, which lay hidden under a little scraggly bush, it was under this one that she found a egg, mottled colored yellow green, with the consistency of a ostrich egg, but much much larger. As she touched it, the energy she was feeling began to vanish, and seemed to be flowing out through her body down to her arms and into the egg, and more and more energy began to flow into it, until it seemed to be draining her. Beth tried to let go, but it was as if she held a length of electrified wire, her hands were locked tight to the shells of the egg, more and more energy flowed out of her, so much she dropped to the ground, it almost felt like she was dying, and her whole body shuddered in pain, and she collapsed to the ground the egg still in her hand. Suddenly nauseous, Beth threw up, this didn’t feel like a dream at all, it was too real, and whether it was or not did not matter for it felt real enough she had to act as if it was real, and it was so real a pain lanced through her head, then another and another, so much she felt herself slipping into unconsciousness , just before her eyes closed , she saw the egg crack, and something, something distinctly not human began to come out.

Beth awoke with a severe pain in her head, it felt as if her head were cracked open, something lay next to her sleeping, it looked faintly reptilian, but not quite, a small pair of bat wings came out from its back, but a face that resembled hers and was faintly human, horns came from its head, its eyes were green like hers but so green they shone like emeralds, its hair was blonde, again like hers, and below it like a centaur of ancient myth were a pair of what seemed to be horse legs, it looked for all the world like a cross between a centaur and a dragon like she had read about in her stories. Only this horse was covered in scales, and the upper part resembled a human, a beautiful girl, but again not quite, it’s area where would have shown her female anatomy was covered in scales, all except her neck and face and arms, so it was as if she wore clothing made of scales, except it was a part of her. She, for that was what she was slowly woke up under the scrutiny, Beth was little frightened, but this alien creature or whatever it was seemed connected to her somehow and it elicit feelings of utter fear, in fact she was feeling feelings of love and a little fear, but it was as if it was from outside her, at first she thought it was herself but it seemed to be emanating from outside, and it was coming from the girl who herself was staring curiously at Beth. First she brought her face close sniffing, then using her hands which were soft like any girls she touched Beth’s body, examining it curiously. Her arms on touching Beth felt hot as a furnace then cooled down as Beth yelped in pain, Sorry mother, it seemed to say Beth thought it was a aspect of the dream she was in and quickly discounted it as mere happenstance in her thoughts. Then it examined her legs and upon finishing the examination, You are strange Mother, But the joining was right I think, the first to go right in a long time. All this Beth heard in her head, and she heard it as a different voice in your head, it seemed to be hers but not quite, and so it was distinctive enough from her own thoughts that it did not seem to be her own thoughts. What a weird dream, a dragon centaur, or centaur dragon, and traveling to another world, and now this.

The creature seemed to respond in her head, I am no dream Mother, I exist, but there is little I can say to prove my existence, except to say that you might as well act as if I do exist for now, for if it is a dream you will wake up but in the now you live in the real and the moment.

Beth considered this, Okay fair point I still think it’s a dream, but for now I’ll play along, what are you and what is this place?

The creature responded and spoke for the first time, “I will try to speak out loud for I am aware the mindspeak confuses you, and in any case taxing for me as well. I am for all intents and purposes your daughter Mother, I know I am strange, but when you touched that egg I did not exist and after that you became part of me, and combination made me me. I was born, and suddenly I knew, and had awareness of what I was and a history that I had no memory of, all from the place you came from but also something else of what I am as well. The people of many places in this place you call a world call us demons, Nukital, the closest translation is monster from the deep. They destroy us on sight, which is why all my brothers and sisters eggs were destroyed. We are not monsters, it is just a part of what we are, as what humans do is part of what they are, the sea far away births us and spats out far through the air, there we join and become aware, but before we are nothing, but after we are children born from what the sea gave us and what our land parents did, until one day after a long life we make our way back to the sea to share our souls with what came before. But I fear, I love, and now thanks to you Mother I exist, and am partly at least human. I do not know where we are, nor can I answer how you got here, I am as in the dark as you are Mother, but perhaps we can find out together?”

Beth wasn’t all that nervous or fearful perhaps because she still saw all this as a dream, “So you know as little as I do, well if we’re going to get through this weird dream, I’ve got to continue the adventure, wonder what my mind will come up with next.”Beth herself examined her daughter, it did seem to share many attributes with her, it was like what did she call it, a joining of who she was and something else, “So what’s your name?”

The girl got up her scaly horse legs stretching, “I believe the mythology, the stories you have in you speak of creatures like me, somewhat, but I think I like the name Mita suits me best, from your mind it was a daughter of the sea and of wisdom, and I am a child of both.”

“Very well Mita what should we do here, should we go west towards to the those high fast mountains topped with high peaks, or east through the forests towards the lake, or south across the plains off in the distance, or north towards the smoke billowing off in the distance, and where the river flows. I don’t care where we go, this is just a dream, so it is unimportant where we go, adventure wherever we go, You decide, “Beth said stretching her legs and twirled around her arms flying through many different directions.

Go to Chapter 8 for the north, Go to chapter 9 for the west, Go to chapter 10 for the east, and Chapter 11 for the south.

Chapter 8

Mita turned once towards the north then the west then the east and lastly the south, her neck arched out almost fearfully sniffing the air in each direction, her emerald green eyes searching the distance. “Mother again it is best you treat this as a real for now, but I think it best to choose the north, It seems to be based on my sight to be where other people would be, and we know so little about this place other people could help us with this. But there would be dangers there, this land is not kind to women nor at all to those of my kind, the Nukital are killed wherever we are found, but I can change somewhat my shape as I appear to others though it would take some concentration, I would still be me, but most would think me a normal horse is it?”

Beth replied,” Yes horse, they have horses here, well I guess they do I dreamed them up after all, hmmmm it seems a fair distance away I guess let’s start walking.”

The two walked slowly, for Mita was still quite weak, her strength gained rapidly, and when she caught a boar and devoured it whole her strength returned rapidly. The town seemed closer from the smoke then it actually was, and as they followed the river down to its end, the orange sun began to sink below the horizon, and the sky lit up like a polished jewel. Making camp, Beth put to work some of her own skills she learned in camping, Mita helped her gather firewood, and hunted the rabbits that they then cooked for their dinner, it was crude lean to made of leaves and broken logs, but it might help keep off the rain. The two lay down below it huddling together in the place for warmth; Mita looked up at the sky in wonder, “Mother do you think those stars are gigantic stars like I saw in your mind or as in my memories from long ago the abodes of the infinite gods.”

Beth too looked up and noticed the pattern of stars did not match that of what she was used to, but it was more than that it was as if they had no patterns at all, and seemed to ripple and flow as if the sky were a giant ocean, and waves rushed across its breadth. This was not Earth, but Beth didn’t think it was anywhere else in her universe, because nowhere else would the sky move, while the planets would seem to give that appearance at times it was all a intricate dance of fixed motion, here it all moved quite chaotically, combining and recombining, as wavelets moved across the black sky, and every now and then a hint of something moving beyond the surface, in her world that would have indicated a predator below the surface, but this was the sky, what surface was that, and what creatures might live there? “I don’t know Mita, it seems to be too strange to be like my home, it changes to much, maybe your memory in this case are right ones, or maybe it’s something else up there, it’s a weird dream I know that.” and slowly she fell asleep under the trees of the forest.

She dreamed which was strange, dreaming in a dream and it was of minds out there watching her, and it seemed they were confused as to what she was. They were cold in their analysis as if she were a bug, but amused by the change, perhaps the pattern would change. Then those others felt something and left quickly in fear, and Beth too felt it some lengthening dark cold reaching into her skin, its hunger touching her deep, and just before she almost felt the teeth like cold icicles she woke, Mita was shaking her awake,” Mother are you alright, I felt your dream, the others came and I was there, but what were they and what was that thing in your dream, my memories only talk off old Gods.”

Beth awoke and stretched, her muscles were sore from the cold night air, “I don’t know it was weird having a dream when I am dreaming, but I think we only need to follow this dream to its conclusion to find out.” Again they walked for hours more until they started to come up onto the fringes of civilization, and a strange civilization it was, for it was almost as fluid as the sky itself seemed to be. There were houses and temples, and what seemed to be a market place, and it stayed that way for a while, but then before her eyes it seemed to change into something else and the pattern was completely different, and as she got closer it seemed to be happening quicker and quicker, and stranger and stranger patterns seemed to form, it was as if the very act of her observing it was changing it, but that was impossible. The people of the place were normal enough, and that itself seemed strange, some were human, some elvish, others creatures she had read about like centaurs and medusas. All of them seemed somehow quite fearful of her, not Mita but Beth herself, who they cowered from in utter terror. They all looked completely normal to her so much as normal meant being thrown into a fantasy world, though they seemed blurred indistinct at a distance, they became more real as she and Mita walked closer.

As they reached the center of this strange town it seemed to gain solidity from afar and close up and it was at this point that people seemed to be more strange and alien. Some were of tentacles, like octopuses but with eyes and cold intelligences lurking behind their eyes, others were akin to electricity but like that patterned in a electric ball, flowing out towards a certain distance and stopping; still others were like simple dark nesses, but upon closer inspection resolved into deep dark abysses, and many more strange creatures, and all unlike before were not cowering in fear, but had a kind of haughty arrogance to them, if you could ascribe such emotions to creatures as strange as they were.

Mita felt a pull, and through her Beth followed as she felt it grow stronger and stronger, until to simply resist would tear her mind apart. The two eventually came to a tower rising high into the sky, at its very tip, it seemed to spear the sky, and those same strange ripples seemed to flow around it. At its based was a rather ordinary looking table, with a rather ordinary boring looking human, who looked at Mita with a kind of contempt, “Ah a Nukital, I’m surprised you made it this far, how did you make it this far by the way?” and all of a sudden a strange force forced its way into Mita’s mind, and she began to cry in pain. Beth could feel all this through her strange link to Mita, and she came closer to her she could feel where it was coming, then as Beth looked around her, her gaze was drawn towards to the rather ordinary looking man, who shrieking himself began to flicker and change just as the people did earlier, “A Chaos shaper, in a human?” then he flickered and changed until he was gone and nothing was left until all that remained was dust. But that did not end it, though Mita’s cries of pain quieted the presence now focused on Beth, who now felt the pain in her head, pushing like daggers. Desperately she looked around and all of a sudden it was if a wave washed out from her, and canceled the wave hitting her, and then there was silence, a peculiar silence. A iron wrought door opened, and out walked a dwarf, exactly like Gimli in Tolkien’s books, only this one had no stern but kind gaze, it seemed cruel, like he had tortured a thousand men and women, heard their and cries and delighted in it. He gazed around looking at Mita, and that peculiar feeling of a wave, like that in water flowed out again, only this time it hit the bow front of her own wave and did not affect her or Mita; then the dwarf focused on her, “Ahh what a strange sight a human chaos shaper, and this would be your slave I take it, strange to take a Nukital for a slave, but all the same, what brings you here human?”

Beth thought quickly, this was exactly like in one of her stories, this was alike the dark cities, where the monsters lived, everyone seemed to be cruel there and had slaves of all kinds, no heroes roamed, nor would there be any help brought if she messed up. She did not think of the language problem, for in her strange battle she had felt parts of Mita being torn out, the dwarf only seemed to be speaking her language, but a strange wave front, seemed to be shaping her and his words into intelligible characters. But suffice to say they had made the wrong decision to come north; thinking on her feet would be the only way she could survive, and subterfuge.

Mustering up a angry tone, Beth replied,” I am from the south with my slave, what is the meaning of this outrage, attacking my slave, and then having the gall to attack me, do you have any idea of who I am, I am,” Mita interjected helping her with the lie, placing the words of Bethinia of Castle Higial, of the Warlocks of the Abyss, from across the sea. ‘Who are they’ Beth whispered in mind speak. Mita replied back ‘Horrible creatures from long ago, still known, and greatly feared by all, and they often used human agents with power in their conquests.’

“I am Bethinia of Castle Higial from across the sea, and I trust you know what that means,” Beth said, doing her best to give the impression of haughty cruel indifference that Mita said their agents would supply.

The dwarf was taken aback for a bit, but seeming to think it over, “Very well Lady Beth, I am most sorry for what my slave did to you, as you can see he is no longer around for punishment but in exchange perhaps I could put you and your slave up for the night and welcome you to the city of Abynia.”

“Hmmph I suppose that would be a start to relieving me of this impertinence, “Beth stroked Mitas legs then hit her hard who yelped hard at this though she felt nothing from it through her scaly armor, “I well understand the problem of impertinent slaves.”

Motioning them inside, “Very well then come in, we have refreshments and entertainment inside.”

Now wondering what they should do, Mita and Beth made their way into the dark tower.

That was the last of her dream, at this Beth felt a rude almost painful yank, and all of sudden her soul seemed to be traveling backward through the air, and down a immense vortex then out the black hole she had entered, and then back to the Earth, Beth awoke on her bed with only the barest remembrance of Mita and the story before that too faded from her memory. The only thing she did remember was that it seemed to be very cool and that Beth was disappointed to come back here, to the humdrum world she lived in of her poor apartment and her less than ideal job.

Chapter 9

Mita turned once towards the north then the west then the east and lastly the south, her neck arched out almost fearfully sniffing the air in each direction, her emerald green eyes searching the distance. “Mother again it is best you treat this as a real for now, but I think it best to choose the west, though the north I smell civilization, civilization is not kind to my kind nor to women in general. At least the mountains might offer some safety from some of the threats I remember, and I have remembrance of long ago of a place of safety there, though it might be past now.”

Beth stretched her legs, “Well the mountains it is, it looks to be a long walk, let’s get going.”

Both Beth Mita began to make their way to the mountains, even after the first day, the mountains were no closer. The two walked slowly, for Mita was still quite weak, her strength gained rapidly, and when she caught a boar and devoured it whole her strength returned rapidly. The mountain did not seem any closer and so towards the end of day the orange sun began to sink below the horizon, and the sky lit up like a polished jewel. Making camp, Beth put to work some of her own skills she learned in camping, Mita helped her gather firewood, and hunted the rabbits that they then cooked for their dinner, it was crude lean to made of leaves and broken logs, but it might help keep off the rain. The two lay down below it huddling together in the place for warmth; Mita looked up at the sky in wonder, “Mother do you think those stars are gigantic stars like I saw in your mind or as in my memories from long ago the abodes of the infinite gods.”

It took several days to make their way to the mountains, and as they inched their way closer and closer, the environment became more and more barren, and the stone seemed to predominate more than the pine of the forests. Her dreams were normal, and forgetful, it was as if whatever things had been with her the first night had forgotten about her, and now left her alone. Though Beth had roughed it in the wilderness she had never had to depend so much on herself before, which is why she thanked whatever was up there that Mita was with her, Mita had Beth’s memories, her own deep memories, and the instincts of the creature she was born in, and so as a consequence, she caught many creatures like rabbit, boar, fowl and fish, while Beth cooked it up and tried to supplement her own diet with berries she picked off bushes. The nights became colder and colder, until Beth with Mita’s help had to stitch together the skins of a bear the Nokital had caught. This made a decent coat, if somewhat gruesome to Beth’s civilized sensibilities; and was sufficient to keep her warm until the pair made their way to a long ancient road. The road had not seemed to be used in millennia, but having little alternative (they were too far now to turn back) they made their way onward.

The road led them up towards a empty ruin, inside could be heard the howls of wolves, farther up another ruin, and another, and still another, it was a dead city, high up her in the mountains. The mummified remains could be seen here and there, why the wolves had not yet devoured them both Mita and Beth did not know. Still they moved on, Beth felt no fear due in no small part because she still thought this was a dream, but Mita began to feel fear, as she felt dead eyes follow her.

“Mother it was unwise to come up here, I can feel something watching us,” she looked around catching a glimpse of something unnatural, and the frequency of such events seemed to be increasing the farther they made their way into the city.

“Oh Mita, it’s just your nerves, there’s nothing here but a few dead bodies, and city that died eons ago, where’s your sense of adventure?” Beth said this with a hint a bravado in her voice, but the cold feeling in the pit of her face, and the fact that she had to constantly say to herself, this is only a dream over and over demonstrated she was not quite unaffected as she pretended to be. Mita had gotten her through the mountains, and if her senses said something was wrong, then Beth was inclined to trust her. Except the concept of what she was saying, the cliché of something following them, she refused to believe in it as anything of substance but that of the scripts of bad old TV shows. This is why despite her own fears, and her trust of Mita’s skills, Beth continued onward her mind refused to believe what her senses were telling her and so she rejected it.

“It’s not my nerves mother, I could have sworn I saw something behind us just now,” Mita looked back fearfully and whispered, “Several something’s.” It was all the young Nokital could do to force herself onward, but mother would do as mother would do, and she could do no less than Beth.

Both forced their way inward, deeper and deeper, until even Beth had to acknowledge the feeling of something enclosing them was real, neither talked nor even whispered, and they continued on for what they could do now there was no way out. Until they reached the center of the city, where stood a magnificent castle, such as Beth had only seen on television and Mita only in Beth’s memories and far back in her sea memories.

It arose out of the rock, as if it were carved out of the mountain, not built, as if it had grown their like a tree, and its spires rose the full length of the mountain and touched the sky where they created strange ripples in the almost solid sky, it unlike rest of the city seemed untouched by time and gleamed bright white, with banners of various clans and civilizations all decorating its walls.

“Something’s been keeping this place up, “Beth said, the disquieting feeling that had been chasing her throughout the trek now at such a high fever pitch it boiled up her body and insides.

Mita began to shriek, and grabbed Beth’s arms, “Maybe its them, now run!” Beth looked behind her and saw a literal army of the undead, all the mummies they had seen on their way in walking quickly towards them, one of them moaned loudly, which is all it took for Beth to accede to Mita and run with her. The two women ran into the castle, as the horde of the undead followed them in.

Chapter 10

Beth stretched her legs, “Not a ringing endorsement, but I guess it will have to do, onward to wherever this dream takes us.”

The part of the forest they started in was relatively thin, but as they moved deeper the trees began to get bigger and bigger, until they dwarfed the sizes of even some the redwoods Beth had seen on TV, and all but the shallowest amount of sunlight reached the ground floor. The air seemed clean and full of energy and Beth relished the feeling as she moved deeper, though Mita seemed eager to get out of it for some reason Beth could not understand. The two walked slowly, for Mita was still quite weak, her strength gained rapidly, and when she caught a boar and devoured it whole her strength returned rapidly.

“Onward mother, we have to breach the forest before nightfall, Mita breathed heavily as she picked up her pace trying to drag Beth with her. Beth grabbed one of the tree trunks running her hands down its length and felt a charge of energy,” What’s your hurry Mita, I’ve never felt so alive in here, I could live here forever.”

Mita dragged her faster, “Because of that, nobody comes from this forest alive after sundown, all parties sent in find nothing, it is as if they all vanish, if we don’t reach the lake we might vanish. So hurry up mother!” she said loudly, which did cause Beth to hurry though she could not understand what was the rush, it was wonderful here, So wonderful, Beth eyes started to droop, then she closed them completely and fell asleep.

Beth awoke and stretched, her muscles were sore from the cold night air and breeze which she saw now blew in from the lake, “I don’t know it was weird having a dream when I am dreaming, but I think we only need to follow this dream to its conclusion to find out.”

Mita slapped Beth roughly, “Stop saying this is a dream, You fell asleep and I had to drag you out, if you hadn’t dream or no dream you would have been apart of that forest like them, “She pointed back, Beth looked back and gasped loudly. At the very edge of the forest were many, many statues, or what she took to be statues at first, but they weren’t they were trees, and in them were many human like shapes, some not so human but all were frozen in a kind of sleep that seemed to have washed over them.

Mita explained, “There is a very old sea memory and in that memory which talks about this forest, nobody really believed it at the time and in any case now was so far in the past that even sea memories are distorted but I think now it is true. Once long ago there was a man.”

“This man was a chaos shaper like many in this world, and he was one of the greatest of all of them, it he who defeated the Giants of the Great endless Swamp, he who destroyed the fairies of the chaos forest, and he who began the Warlocks of the Abyss across the sea. He was said to be a very arrogant and brash man, but justified by his power perhaps, and he had achieved a power undreamed of by even perhaps the gods who watched down from above. But his very success had left him jaded and bored, he had ravished many maidens, accomplished great tasks, and faced even death itself, and still was alive. He was hated by most, but so powerful was he that it did not matter, only one thing did he care about was that people feared him most all. And in all the land across the sea and beyond, everyone did fear him; mothers would tell stories of him to get them to eat their vegetables, and even the most vile of chaos creatures would avoid him for his power was that encompassing. He could have created a empire that spanned over this world, but he only lived for a short time, for like many in history he let his ego make him do some very stupid things.

He had heard stories about this precise forest, it was said to be feared even above him, for even then none had come out after sundown, many passed through of course, but always quickly, and if they could they avoided the forest entirely. He wished to be the epitome of all fear, and the fear that this forest created, only in this land mind you, overwhelmed even their fear of him. So he decided to challenge the forest, he set out from his mountain castle along with his Nukital. A divergence Mother apologies, yes even then the Nukital existed, his was perhaps not the worst that had ever lived, certainly one of the worst. His was not shaped as I am, for each Nukital is shaped and joined by its parent, and the Nukital then I could not describe, your words and mine cannot describe it. But suffice to his Nukital was as bad a creature as his parent.

So as I said he set out from his mountain castle far from here with his Nukital, and along the way he did his best to inspire the fear for which he already was justly famous for. Not much is remembered from that part of his journey, at least by other Nukital, for he killed and destroyed even them, we have only the memory of his own Nukital, and the path his told was bloody, and vicious, so much even today many areas of the lands cannot be lived in. Until he came to the forest which he started his quest for, there he confronted the forest and lost. The Nukital which came out of that forest was damaged in mind and soul, and soon after made his journey to sea; and much could even now not be made of what occurred, but I think with this experience I can make some deductions of what occurred.

The forest is a creature of nature, of the primeval forces of creation itself, but it does not flicker and change like some things, it has stayed the way it is for a long time even as measured by sea memories, and I think this is because it has learned (or evolved as your Darwin on Earth would have said) to shape the chaos unintentionally, and creatures that are strong chaos shapers are themselves shaped by the forest into what it wants.

I think when that man went into the forest he felt powerful at first, but as the forest integrated itself into who he was it changed him little by little until he did not want to leave the forest as you did yourself, until he changed into one of those trees we see on the outside, and which might have been your fate if I had not managed to take you out of there.”

Finishing listening to Mita’s story, Beth touched one of the man trees hesitantly, “Thank you I think” then she drew back to the lake.

“You’re welcome mother, but as much as I love you it was also partly self interest I would have been as damaged as that Nukital long ago, and I have little desire to go to the sea so soon there is much adventure to be had yet.”

Beth replied, “Yes well I don’t think we’ll go through that forest again, so which way should we go?”

Chapter 11

Mita turned once towards the north then the west then the east and lastly the south, her neck arched out almost fearfully sniffing the air in each direction, her emerald green eyes searching the distance. “Mother again it is best you treat this as a real for now, but I think it best to choose the south for the plains suit the form I currently have, better than all the rest, at least once I feel a bit stronger. I do not have many memories of that direction, but all the other memories of the other directions are somewhat disquieting so I think south is best.”

Beth stretched, then got up, “Well those plains seem to stretch on for quite a bit, we’d better get started.” The two walked slowly, for Mita was still quite weak, her strength gained rapidly, and when she caught a boar and devoured it whole her strength returned in a flash,” I think mother if you wish you may ride me, it would take some of the time of our trip.”

“Well it’s been a while since I did any horseback riding, but if your willing and it’ll cut some time of okay,” with that she climbed onto Mita.

“Hold onto my arms mother it is going to be a rough ride,” and Mita began to slowly trot then sped up into a gallop. They galloped like this for hours moving across the plains until the orange sun began to sink below the horizon when they were forced to stop by the night. They camped nearby a old dead riverbed, where they managed to dig deep and found some water. Mita managed to bring back a few rabbits to eat, but the plains seemed to be relatively threadbare of game. There wasn’t enough wood to make a fire, but Beth remembered a old trick of the settlers in the old west of using buffalo dung for fuel and used that instead. It didn’t smell that good, but served to cook the rabbits, and offer some “Mother do you think those stars are gigantic stars like I saw in your mind or as in my memories from long ago the abodes of the infinite gods.”

She dreamed which was strange, dreaming in a dream and it was of minds out there watching her, and it seemed they were confused as to what she was, and then she was being dragged away and those minds were gone, and she awoke to find Mita shaking her awake frantically.

“Mother, mother wake up, something is coming, I can see it, is it what I think it is?” Off in the distance Beth scrubbed her sleep dreary eyes and noticed a winged shape and then another, and then another, what was it, she thought, dragons, nahhh what the hell would dragons be doing her, then getting a better look, she caught the reptilian glint and a ball of fire shot towards them right over their heads.

Beth quickly climbed on Mita,” Yep dragons, and they seem really pissed off, so let’s get out here baby,” who did precisely that the dragons seemed to be following them, but it was more as a afterthought it was like a cat playing with prey, it didn’t have to be done but it was just fun. The dragons were playing with them, shooting a fireball here and a fireball there, which Mita attempted to dodge, just barely doing so until Mita after galloping as fast as she could began to tire, and then stop.

Mita said breathing heavily, “We are so screwed mother, no wonder no Nukital memories are of this place it’s a major dragon migration route, and has been for a very long time.”

Climbing off Beth tried to think of something anything that could help, and then apparently tiring of their game the dragons fired three giant balls of fire at them.

That was the last of her dream, at this Beth felt a rude almost painful yank, and all of a sudden her soul seemed to be traveling backward through the air, and down a immense vortex then out the black hole she had entered, and then back to the Earth, Beth awoke on her bed with only the barest remembrance of Mita and the story before that too faded from her memory. The only thing she did remember was that it seemed to be very cool and that Beth was disappointed to come back here, to the humdrum world she lived in of her poor apartment and her less than ideal job.

Chapter 12 Thursday

Beth had some strange dreams, and couldn’t help waking up with slight feelings of loss and regret; as if she had lost something special but could not remember it, but like most dreams of this sort, it passed like a fleeting wind, the memories of what it was gone as the sun pierced her vision. Getting up she dressed, and showered, it was almost time to go to work, she drank her morning tea, gulped a quick glass of orange juice and a bagel and drove to work. The traffic on I-95 was murder, the long drive to Orono clogged with cars and trucks, so instead of the usual thirty minutes or so she took two hours; Beth had to call in saying she was going to be late, at least a hour and half. This meant that some of her appointments had to be canceled, and so a bit frustrated she arrived in the University of Maine parking lot.

Speed walking, rather nervous, Beth rushed in the door, making her apologies to the student secretary and went to her office. Since many of her appointments had to be canceled, this left her with something she didn’t often have, a lot of free time, so she got out her notebook and doodled for the next hour or so until her next appointee. Beth began to draw, first faces, then little fantasy creatures, a griffin and a dragon, then drawing a map, making up the landforms, doodling in a continent here, a island chain there, and a vast ocean there. Then she drew a tree and a lightning storm, where the lightning bolts struck the tree branches again and again, after that a sea voyage, one of the old Greek galleys, the oars stroking around and around as they touched the sea, she drew a storm here, the lightning crashing and again against the sea. Beth began to drift off, in her head constructing the sound of the men rowing, of the drums pounding, the captain roaring orders.

“Move quickly ya bastards, or we’ll come up on those rocks, “she imagined the captain and several other men tying up the sails frantically, “Put your backs into it or you’ll kill us all.” The captain quickly grabbed the rudder, straining his arms as he tried to force it in the opposite direction, trying to steer so the ship made it around the rocks.

A lightning bolt struck the mast, killing the man observing, the mast now caught on fire, screaming orders the captain now had new things to worry about, as he ordered men to throw water at the now burning ship. Another lightning bolt struck the ship, starting a fire at the back, more men frantically tried to put it out. His and the crews attention now on the fire, they didn’t notice as the galley ran aground onto the rocks. The ship broke asunder, the crew tumbled into the water screaming, some men managed to make it to shore, while the waves crashed against them, nobody made it to shore all except a lone woman who…….

“Beth,” she came out of her day dream, and slowly her mind began to focus, she looked at the detailed map, she had drawn, and then looked up, oh her next appointment, “Hello Tricia, come on in sit down, how are you doing.” She listened, Tricia was having some problems, and she was drinking again, mainly because she felt so alone. Beth could understand, most people could, but Tricia had Aspergers Syndrome very heavily to the nonfunctioning zone, and that was what was different about her. She felt like she didn’t know people, as she talked Tricia said that she felt like a different species, she didn’t understand. Beth tried to console her, aware that people with Aspergers needed rule bound behavior, she explained some of the stuff she knew about how to meet people and couched it in rules she had to follow. They talked a bit longer, Beth saw her out and waited for her next client.

Again she doodled, drawing the woman who had made it to shore, a haggard face, a princess but a tired dirty princess. Her fine clothes and jewelry soaked wet, nearly all of her clothing had been torn off from the storm, and sharp rocks. The rain crashed down, as gasping the princess made it to shore, cut and bruised from the ordeal, but alive. It was so exhausting the woman just managed to make it beyond the hostile waves and fell into deep unconsciousness.

The woman woke up to the sight of sunshine in her face, and her body sore from the night before; little bits of the galley around her. Getting up slowly the princess surveyed where she was, “Gods above I’m stranded on the isle of Magadin, what a worse place to be stranded I can never know. And what is that stench?” She looked down and beheld the corpses of some of the crew nearby, and began to retch towards the ground.

After heaving up, the princess explored the island, looking for supplies, as well as possibly any chance that she could somehow get off the island. The island was a large volcanic island, crowded with all manner of palm trees, and little flying dragons winged through the trees hunting little creatures. The princess knew of the island only from its reputation; it was one stop of the migration patterns of the great dragons, it was here that the young dragons found safety from those who would hunt them, and here they grew to maturity. She just prayed that she never met the fully grown dragons, for they were known to periodically check in on their younger children. After exploring the island, she found it abounded in all manner of fruits and animals to eat, she wouldn’t starve to death on this island, and there were at least three springs she could drink from, so thirst would never be a problem. But there was no exit from the island, and that was a problem, for even if she avoided the great dragons, the little ones would grow to maturity in at least a year, and they after beholding her wanderings would know precisely where she was.

The princess cried a little at her predicament, she had managed to dig a pit and trap a boar, and found a dragon fire to help cook it, but her father, her mother, she would never see again, even if the gods were kind and she avoided the dragons hunger, this island would be her home for quite some time. For the captain of her vessel had never intended to go so near the island of Magadin, the storm had driven them far from the planned route, and that was where the searchers would likely look. Even if by some miracle somebody came close, nobody would go near Magadin Island, it was well known it was suicide to approach the dragons nest.

Sniffing to herself, she grabbed a sharp dragon tooth she had found and used it to cut meat off of the boar, and put it in her mouth, it tasted divine, but the situation made her not have such a large appetite, she lay underneath the fire resistant Hium trees, watching the roars of the little dragons, and the sight of their fires moving through the forest.

“Beth, I’m sorry I was a bit late, can we have our meeting now?” Roger, her next client asked. Beth looked up from her doodling, and replied,” Sure Roger, why don’t you sit down, now how was your day?”

Roger looked down at the floor, “Okay I guess, went to class, they had a discussion about politics there,” he said nervously, moving his hands up and down his arms.

“Now how did that make you feel?” Beth asks, pulling out her pen and notebook.

“Nervous, I had a lot to say, but just couldn’t, I always think that people are going to laugh at me if I speak up,” he said nervously looking out her window.

Tapping her pen against the desk, Beth responded, “Now why would you say that people would laugh at you?”

Responding, he said” Oh I don’t have a explicit reason I just think that if I say something, I just worry about if I say something and they do laugh at me, I always assume they would,” looking directly at his feet, rubbing his fingers

Beth thinking, Roger had a severe Social Anxiety problem, and she had been treating him for quite some time, “Well Roger I think they wouldn’t laugh at you, I think if you tried to be a part of those conversations you would find out you were wrong.”

Roger responded, “It’s easier said than done, I just have this deep fear in the pit of my stomach every time I get in a situation like that, I don’t think I could get into it as easily as you say I could Beth.”

Beth, “I think you underestimate yourself, but how about this, try slowly easing into it, you don’t have to go fully into a conversation, just a word here and there, and would you try that?”

Nervously, Roger replied, “I suppose I could, I mean I could try, it’s just I’m so afraid.”

“It’s okay Roger, I’ll tell you a secret, nearly everybody and that includes me is afraid when talking to other people, you just have to ease into it slowly, little baby steps and you will be fine,” Beth said, and talked to Roger for a little while longer, she liked Roger, and thought he would do well, just if he could find the confidence to do so.

After Roger, Beth had her lunch break at the university cafeteria. It wasn’t the best food, but it was adequate, and of course for her it was the price that was right not necessarily the taste. She hated eating in the cafeteria, all these college girls so full of life and energy, when all she felt was tired half the time. She had some regrets, even though Beth thought she chose the right path, it was still hard to relive those choices unlived in. The college cheerleader, the popular one, or the chairwoman of her own sorority; all things she could have been if she hadn’t been such a mouse. Beth had been attractive, no was still attractive, she wished she could have exploited that a bit more, it was a regret that dogged her sometimes especially when examples of boyfriend girlfriend giggling over some joke or telling some inane story she were presented to her. In the dating scene sometimes she chose right, sometimes she chose wrong, but Beth thought, it was so much easier to meet decent guys at college, then while working, trying to scrape together the money to pay for her master’s thesis. Oh well no use thinking over shoulda beens, I wonder what my princess is doing on Magadin, Beth pulled out her pad and began to doodle again.

Beth drew her face as somewhat tanned, not quite burned, with mud smeared all over her nearly naked body, leather straps and fur covered her body in places which would embarrass the princess, but the heat and fairly constant rain made anything more substantial impractical, and in any case her original clothing such that she had was already nearly destroyed anyway. In a strap hanging on her arm, Beth drew a leather bound dragon tooth, which the princess used to hunt for food, for protection and had used to create her home. The princess had now been marooned for many months now, without any companionship except for the growing infant dragons flying like birds in swarms around the island. They didn’t seem to bother her, leaving her alone; primarily she thought because they had never seen a human before and also because as yet she was to big a prey for them to tackle as yet. She was careful to watch them nonetheless, she had found them useful for two things, one they were her only source of dependable fire, their breaths constantly set the occasional brush on fire, though not the fire retardant trees, and two with them teething fairly constantly, their teeth made excellent knives which were razor sharp and nearly indestructible, which helped her hunt for meat, cut wood and other needed activities.

The princess had grown in musculature since her first early days scavenging, then her skin had been creamy white, and she had been fairly weak, but after months hunting boar, finding shelter, fishing, and doing all the things she needed to survive, her father and mother would have barely recognized her. She was quick, strong, and moved with subtle grace through the undergrowth as she silently approached a boar, which was to be her dinner; before she had had to catch them in traps which she still did, but she was too tired to try and dig another pit, and go to all the effort of leading the boar towards it, now she quickly slit the boar, letting drain out, and climbing a tree waited for its lifeblood to drain out of it. When it finally died she dragged it back to her home. It was a hole dug in the ground, the princess would have chosen the innumerable caves around the island, but many of the bigger dragons already had staked their claims to it, and in any case where she had placed it, was sufficiently close to a nearby spring to be convenient. It was deep dug, and with her many months of clearing it out by hand, she had made it nearly as big as a peasant’s house back in her kingdom. She had covered its top with leather, and top of that she had hammered in with a rock dragon scales, they festooned the top reflecting the sun’s heat and some quality in them seemed to make it cooler during the summer months, while keeping it warm during the winter months. Pulling the boar next to her home, the princess quickly and by now with long practice skinned and stuck it on a spit. She heard a subtle growling howl, “Alright Brightback, dinner’s coming just have to get the fire started, maybe you can help mummy with that.” The princess then lifted up the covering, and let her dragon crawl out. It padded over to boar, took a sniff, and blew a flame at it, which caused the wood and brush the princess had laboriously collected to burn in the fire pit, and begin cooking the boar. “Good Brightback, here you go, have something to tide you over,” she cut a piece of salted boar meat and gave it to the young adolescent dragon, “It’ll be cooked soon enough, then we can both have dinner,” Mewling the dragon lay next to her as they both watched the fire cooking the pig. Dragons, fortunately for the princess, like humans tended to prefer their food cooked, even the youngest ones she had found roasted their meat before eating it, they rarely ate it raw, and so it was not something she had to teach Brightback, as it was instinctual with any dragon.

Scratching Brightback between its horns, the princess reflected on how she had found him. It had been two months into her stay on the island, and she had been stalking a boar, hoping to lead it to one of her trap pits, the boar had charged, and she was leading it on a merry chase towards the spike pit. The boar fell and killed itself in the pit, a quick loud squeal was all it made before it was dead. Then she heard the strangest sound, a loud almost reptilian wail, looking in she noticed what she thought was a mirror, but then she saw it move, and it was a little infant dragon, it had gotten its wings caught on one of the spikes in her pit, and it was struggling wildly, cawing almost like a bird but not quite. The princess had seen dragons which had punctured their wings, and they did not live very long; if they didn’t starve to death, their own fellow dragons killed them for meat, so she knew this one would not live long on its own. So the princess with some compassion in her heart gingerly climbed down into the pit and very gently pulled the dragon off the pit spike, it had tried to snap at her, and nearly bit one of her fingers of but using taking a leather strap she managed to tie its mouth closed, and brought it back to her home. It had taken her some time to even get the dragon’s trust, as its instinct said to bite something different from it, but she had gradually managed to train it to move next to her, and now she even occasionally took him on a hunt sometimes. Though usually she left him behind to protect him from the ire of his bigger siblings, who now were grown to his size, about the size of a panther, but who were enough of a problem for the princess let alone the dragon with his slowly healing wings.

She had grown to love the black dragon, and called it Brightback because of the way the light shined on his black scales, mirror smoove like a lake reflecting the black night sky. Brightback had been her only companion since arriving on the island, and she relished using her words, for she had almost become a primitive beast without language without any companionship for her, and the dragon responded in its own way, nuzzling her head, and understanding her language even if he could not speak it. Dragons were known to be quite intelligent, but it was an alien intelligence perhaps equivalent to man’s; but so different as to make communication all but impossible. Some dragons had been taught language in the early days to control them better, but always their natures came out in the end, they were wild untamed, smart, and the top of the food chain in the princess’s world, and usually went their own way. They usually avoided places of men, not from fear, but so much as they did not like the places men liked, whenever men encroached on their land they were viciously driven out en masse.

The princess knew all this when she adopted Brightback, but not having any companionship, she had needed something to help her push back the loneliness which nagged at her day after day. She knew that even with Brightback she was slowly going quite mad on the island, but could not help that at all. She missed human faces, Gods how she missed her home, would she see any human face ever again?

Beth stopped doodling, it was time to go back to work, for the rest of the day the clients were normal, at least comparatively speaking relative to her morning clients, it had been really just her role to listen, not offer advice sometimes that was all any of them wanted just to be heard by another human being. So Beth finally at long last made the half hour trip back (the traffic was a bit more reasonable coming back) to her home, climbing the steps slowly she plumped herself down in front of TV on the couch. Turning it on she didn’t see anything on, so maybe she would see what was happening with her princess on the island of Magadin.

The princess was nearly to the year mark when the dragons reached their full maturity, she had done well to avoid them so far, but it was getting harder and harder to do so, and in any case the adult dragons were beginning to wing their way to the island, preparing to lead their children away from the island. Brightback too was nearly to his full maturity, his wings nearly healed, and he could even do limited glides now, no longer could he live in her little hole in the ground, instead the large dragon now let her ride him as he hunted on the ground wild boar or in the sea lots of fish; Brightback seemed to have a endless appetite, and ate more and more food. Though he could not fly, when challenged by other dragons, he was ferocious enough and smart enough to drive them off if not beat them. The princess had been in one such dominance battle, as a gold dragon had challenged him, firing its fire down on him, Brightback had ran letting it chase him, until he had reached a ravine, where he quickly leaped from crag to crag until he managed to jump down on the gold, and tore its wings, it had flown away roaring and mewling piteously. More and more these things were happening, but as the adult dragons seemed to come more and more, though they became quieter, almost as if they were teaching them to channel such instinctive urges.

Brightback seemed to be ignored by the elder dragons that had so far come, so he stuck close to the princess, now he helped protect her as the younger dragons now viewed her as a potential source of meat. The princess was little frightened and a little sad, Brightback seemed to be enormously loyal and ferocious, yet the other day she had noticed him trying to follow a dragon train off of the island, his wings were nearly fully healed, she knew him enough to know that he would eventually leave her, as instinct and the simple urge to be among his own kind would call him, and then if she survived the dragon flights again she would be alone.

Several days later she saw Brightback fly for the very first time, and off he tumbled into the air, chasing a elder black dragon. The princess looked wistfully, but then fearfully as red elder roared at her, recognizing a human in the nest. Screaming she ran as fast as she could through the forest, but the elder dragon was to fast, and landed right in front of her, it let loose a burst of fire, which shrieking she just managed to duck, it instead caught the trees, which though relatively fire retardant caught fire easily enough in the flame of a elder red dragon. The red managed to correct its shot when another roaring sound moved through the air, and down came Brightback, growling and roaring back, spitting fire in practiced shots close to the elder. The elder did not react, though its fury was aroused at a human; its instincts told it to avoid confrontation with the young black. For elders are the adults of the dragon race, they typically have challenges by young dragons, it is a part of their learning process, to kill every one that challenged them would have meant the destruction of their race, so there was a instinct in them to allow for challenges, to let the young learn this way, and so Brightback’s flame attack did not arouse the ire it would have from any other enemy. Instead the red moved back as Brightback moved closer, and took to the air as a elder black dragon made its way to them leaving the judgment to a true parent.

Brightback nuzzled the princess onto his back, as the black elder landed in front of them, it roared, and somehow in the undercurrent, with the heat nearly scorching her, the princes could feel language, she had spent many months with the young dragon, its roars, and she knew why he did certain things, though she could not always understand everything he did, she understood enough of what those roars meant. The dragons language seemed to be in heat, couched in the temperature spikes of the fire they themselves spouted, there were patterns in that heat, and it was through this that they could speak to each other. Though she could not communicate as they did the princess could somewhat understand what they spoke, just as Brightwind had somewhat understood what she had spoke.

Hiding behind Brightwind’s head, she clung to his scales, shielded from most of the heat, and felt the language. The language of elder was immeasurably more complex than that of Brightwing’s, and so she could not understand but the princess could pick up the conversation based on what Brightwing said. He was arguing for her life, telling of how she had helped him, how she was a companion; the elder seemed to be saying humans could not be trusted, were vermin, a threat to the young. Responding Brightwing, said, perhaps humans cannot be trusted, but this human can, and had been no threat to the young all the years she had been here. The elder responded, perhaps but humans can not be allowed on our island, even if this one could be trusted, the others cannot, and in any case no human may be allowed on our island it is our law. Brightwing responded, yes it is our law, and the others cannot be trusted, but perhaps she does not have to stay on this island, we could take her to where the humans dwell, and return her, she does not have to dwell here at all, so she would not dwell here any longer. The elder responded, Very well youngling, take your pet human back to the humans, we shall divert our train towards a human dwelling site.

The princess could not believe it, at last she could go home, or if not home at least to some place where humans were, holding tight to Brightwing, the dragon took off into the sky following the black dragon flight. The dragons kept to their decision and dropped her in the land of Uilil, a kingdom miles across the desert from where the lands of the west were and her home kingdom was. Here the humans were slant of eye, and yellow of skin; yet human they were and were amazed at her tale of living on the island of the dragons. The strength she had shown ingratiated her to the kings son of Ulil, and her peculiar connection to the dragons offered much insight into their alien thinking. The princess eventually married the prince of Ulil, and the two had four children, yet always she would tell of her time shipwrecked on the island of the dragons, and wistfully of her companion the black dragon Brightwing.

Amongst the dragons themselves, not much was said of the events on their island, humans were fairly universally thought off as vermin, and so even one living on their island did not provoke much of an imprint. Yet this was only for the majority of dragons, some few did make a study of humans and their ways, and for them Brightwing was valuable source of insight that they came to when questions arose. Brightwing lived for many eons, outliving the princess who befriended him, but even as he forgot her, he retained a peculiar affection for humans that none of the other dragons shared, and that only his own offspring perhaps understood. As is said dragons still considered humans vermin, but those of Brightwing’s clan were at least willing to make of them pets, which was more than any dragon did with regard to humans before.

Beth stopped doodling, she liked how her princess had ended, she really thought it would be cool to have a dragon like that. She cooked dinner, ate and went to bed dreaming other dreams of different things.

Chapter 13

Beth dreamed, tossing and turning, the wind swept the leaves of the trees nearby; in her sleep she could hear it, and it affected her dreams.

It is said that the gods and goddesses live far above us, cavorting on high in heavens, and on occasion they deign to make their presence known on the earth. For many this is a choice of favor, of supporting the mortals they hold in high regard, or of necessity, that of fulfilling their offices. Many of course choose to interfere in those affairs of earth because of the amusement it affords them. Of those the worst was the Goddess Vicix, goddess of entropy and chaos. It was she who destroyed the giants of the Great wood for refusing to grant her Zeus’s holy cloak, she who corrupted the nymphs of Fountain of Youth, and in so doing caused the deaths of those few mortals the gods had granted everlasting life, and her who had lain with many of the Titans and Frost giants enchained in the many places below, and in so doing bore many of the afflictions that affect god and man alike.

Gods and man alike called for justice to be done towards the Goddess Vicix; and the rulers of the Olympians and Norse gods conferred for a long time even as measured by gods themselves. Conferred for the Fates had made clear that the Goddess Vicix could not be unseated, for she was a daughter of the three sisters, and their servant, to bring justice to Vicix would change the fates of all even the highest of all Gods. But what could be done, Zeus and Odin thought long, and to their minds was presented a solution, if Vicix could not be chained or punished, then perhaps it would be possible to teach her empathy for those she hurt. So appealing to the Fates, the gods decided that every other century Vicix would serve a mortal life down on the earth, in places she had worst plagued, there she would suffer the pain of what she had wrought herself.

Vicix of course appealed to her mothers, the Fates; but they assented and allowed her to be stripped of her powers, of her memory, and to be born down on the earth.

Vicix was born, a squalling babe, to a peasant in the kingdom of Shaban. It has been the worst afflicted by the plague which Vicix had sent for her own amusement. Her father had been killed by a mob seeking food, leaving her mother to take her own care of her. Her mother was not rich, but with her own aunt managed to keep the food coming, though there were many times that they had to eat rats and sup of bark. The plague was a problem as well, it had nearly destroyed the people of Shaban, and thousands of hungry plague infected went throughout the land, but in this the Fates had perhaps shown some favor on their prideful and cruel daughter. For Vicix’s mother live deep in the wilderness far from the cities of men, and so little of the infected reached their little hole deep in the forest of Kiuni. It was from the cities they had fled, and her father had died getting her mother out of the city, so though they occasionally starved, living with her aunt was at least safe.

Vicix, as mentioned did not know her name or her true nature, so she went by the name her mother gave her Aiiot, or happiness in the old tongue. This as it turned out was more a matter of intent by her mother then by the reality, for life was cruel to her even in the shadowed alcove in which they lived. One powerful winter came in the time of the Dying Trees, her aunt died on that day of hypothermia trying to get food for her and her mother. Though they survived the winter, Aiiot’s mother was never the same after the death of her sister, and retreated deep inside herself; Aiiot was of the age of thirteen then and could periodically hunt and scavenge for food in the forest. But her mother would not eat even when forced, and slowly she wasted away until one day on the night of the first spring died. Aiiot crying put her mother in the hole that they had for so long called home, and lighting a fire, burned the ramshackle arrangement they had lived in. With her mother and aunt gone there was little to keep her where she was, and because she had little recourse she decided to leave the forest which had been her home for so long.

The forest of Kiuni had for a long time had a reputation as being a forest full of ghosts. It was here that the Kingdom of Shaban had fought its final battle against the Monsters of the Deep, and here that the many thousands of men had given their lives, and the king as well. The Monsters were all slain, but it had a reputation that even the starving desperate infected would not broach, but the lands bordering the forest were another matter, it was here that Aiiot found burned fields, and picked clean skeletons both animal and human. Desperate battles had been fought for hearth and home, but all to vanish into the darkness and to the forgotten memory of Mother Time.

So Aiiot actually found less food out of the forest then she had had in the forest, and as she made her way farther and farther, her body wasted more and more. Until nearly on the verge of starving she found a hidden cache of food, of sweet apples, and salted meats, and breads flavored with cheese, Grateful for this she did not question her providence and quickly devoured the food in the basket. Where the food came from, who had left it there, Aiiot did not know, but it is a well known that all parents take care of the their children, even the unruly ones, and perhaps the Fates had interceded for her on this task as well.

The food gave her the strength until she found her way to the village of Jiops. Jiops was a village built of the survivors of the plague; it had been built after the plague burned itself out from a price of many thousands dying. It was here that a few had come to escape the now constant warfare of what was left of the Kingdom of Shaban. It was one of many of such refuges of course, and Aiiot had found one. It was here that she found some degree of happiness as befitting her name. The villagers of Jiops were wary of her at first, but a kindly old smith took her up in her house, and fed her. She grew stronger and stronger, and with her skills learned in the forest of hunting and scavenging, and of herbs of healing she quickly proved her worth to the suspicious villagers, and to what would be her future husband. Her husband was another foundling taken under the wing of the kindly blacksmith, he was of about her age, about fifteen at the time, and was learning the skills of his foster father, the old blacksmith. As they grew together, they slowly fell in love; when the old blacksmith finally died he left his shop and house to the two. They married and had many children; her husband became a very skilled blacksmith, and she a good mother and huntress. For a time they were happy, and village prospered as did Aiiots children; until the war that had been caused by the plague finally came to their doorstep.

None of the villagers had cared all that much about who was on which side of the Great War, but it finally came none the less to their doorstep. Raiders of the great Khan, barbarians who had come with the collapse of the Kingdom of Shaban, came in great numbers. At first a trickle, which the villagers managed to drive away, then a army which they were not able to do anything at all. The Great Khan’s raiders killed and enslaved the whole village, and torched the rest. Her husband was killed protecting the children, while her children were taken away in chains to be slaves. Aiiot’s final fate could have been that of many of the women of the village, a fate that men historically use when sacking a village; but she was out in the forest collecting herbs at the time the final doom came to Jiops. When she made her way back, saw the twisted destruction of the village and the villagers, and saw the fates of her dear husband and one of her daughters, Aiiot collapsed to the ground in grief. Crying she did her best to clean them up and wrapped them in sheets of cotton, then she placed wood upon them and lit the pyre. Then sorrowfully she grabbed a knife and plunged it into her chest, and fell into the fire to die with her dear husband and daughter.

Vicix awoke for a time but first in great pain and grief at her mortal life, then as her memories of her times as goddess came back to her, her own cruelty returned, but perhaps tempered a little at least by her time as Aiiot. The great gods Zeus and Odin, along with her mothers the Fates came to see if she had learned her lesson. Vicix told them all sorrowfully that she had learned her lesson of humility, but the gods and fates were not so easily fooled and they still saw the cruelty in her heart. So as Vicix screamed her curses at them, they stripped her memories and powers once again, and gave her back to the mortal realm to be born again.

Chapter 14

Beth tossed and turned, the wind outside had picked up, and rain had started to pour down, this too affected her dream, for a while she awoke, but then drifted back to sleep again and started to dream once more.

Again she saw Vicix, the goddess of entropy and chaos, and again she saw her goddess form stripped of its divinity and memory where it was then forced into a mortal body to be born.

This time the she was born to a prostitute of the High Fires, an expensive brothel frequented by the nobility of the Kingdom of Castien in the capital of Mulcii. Many such women found themselves pregnant from their trade, and it was the custom to leave such children to die in the wilderness. Some women did not have the courage to abandon their children this way, but Vicix’s mother was hard of heart and did not care to raise her child, so she left her out in the forest bordering Mulcii, and gave not another thought to her offspring.

Most babies die in the forest, there they are eaten by wolves and other predators; but Vicix was fortunate in this, for as she cried out into the cold woods, a singing sound chorused through the air. A wandering bard came upon her, his name was Norok the Witless; and he had just lost a child to a woman he had loved very much. Norok did not have the heart to leave the child to die, so instead he took her to a nearby inn where he was living, fed her and decided on the spur of the moment to adopt her as his own. Norok fed her as well as he could, the leavings of a bard are few and far between, but the capital of Mulcii was rich enough it brought in enough coin for him and his adopted daughter to be fed. Norok named her Fiulin, or singing sunset in the language of the church of Ghinsan, of which Norok was an adherent. Norok raised his daughter on a dozen songs of woe and heroism, but also of happiness, and spring rains, and feasts; and she grew up on them if not the meals which were at times few and far between.

It was a pleasant time, and as she approached the age of a young maiden, she took up her foster father’s trade, and sang her own songs with her father. However not to long afterwards, demons came and possessed the high king of Castien’s family. For days and weeks, the cries could be heard throughout the castle; and tales rang of the misery of the royal family. Nothing could be done, no cure could be found, all magics had been tried, and the holy men though they cried to their gods could not find away to stop the misery. In times of such powerlessness, to take back power, people will grasp any reason or cause for their misery no matter how unlikely, and though the High King was noble he was no different. He sought throughout the land for cures, took advice from nearly every one, until at last he came to a particular priest of the faith of the Guldani (a rival of the Ghinsan) who said that it was because of the High King’s allowance of unbelievers in the city that the demons came to his son, to save his son he must cast out the ones who had brought the gods wrath on him. Thousands of Ghinsians were cast out of the city; including Norak the Witless and with him his foster daughter Fiulin. Wherever they wandered they were persecuted, for the demons had begun to possess others throughout the land; and it was spread throughout the whole kingdom that it was because of the Ghinsian church that their misery was reigning. Now it did not lessen the misery any to expel the Ghinsians, the demons did not lessen their possessions, in fact they increased it. People are unreasonable when they can not control something, and instead of lessening the persecution increased it, Ghinsians were burned alive by the hundreds, others were drowned in nearby rivers. It was said that even this was not enough by the priests of the Guldani, and even worse atrocities were perpetuated. Though fortunately for Norak and Fiulin, they had by this time wandered out of the kingdom and only learned second hand. They continued to sing, but Norak her foster father, who had only jokingly been called the Witless, finally in truth did lose his wits. The songs of tragedy, which was all they had to sing after being expelled, they sang instead of the breathing happy songs they had once sang wore his spirit down, until the pressure snapped his mind like a twig.

One day Norak, after singing a song of the tragedy of the Ghinsiani, heard the laughter of some visiting Castiene soldiers who remarked on how their tragedy was deserved because of their sinful nature. Pushing aside Fiulin, who desperately tried to hold her father back, charged with all the grief and heartbreak he had endured, Norak charged the soldiers with a knife in his hands trying to kill them. Madness often times does not recognize reality, Norak did not recognize numbers nor training nor viciousness, only that here was a target he could lash out against, and so he did. The day passed, and Fiulin cradled her foster father’s bloody broken body against her, as his life slowly left him, she sang him a song of righteous gods, of the gentle lands of death. As his soul left, her song turned to the simple sobs of a daughter who had lost her father, and lost much of the life she had known with him.

Fiulin had to drag her father’s body out of the inn by herself, as even here outside the kingdom the stigma of the Ghinsiani carried. She wrapped him in her father’s favorite dress, the one he had bought for her on her sixteenth, and now really all she had of him left. It was all that would hold his corpse, and dragged him out to the nearby forest. She dug with her bare hands until they bled, until finally she felt the hole was deep enough, Fiulin did not want her father to be eaten by predators of the wood. With the hole big enough, struggling, she pushed his body into the hole, and covered his body with handfuls of dirt little by little until her father was covered.

Fiulin just cried at first, the tears running like a torrent down her face and touching her muddy hands. Sobbing she tried to get up, but instead fell down, the grief taking away what strength she had to stand. It was some time before Fiulin could stand, and then only weakly; slowly she opened her mouth, and tried to sing the song of a Ghinsiani funeral. It croaked out at first, and then it grew stronger as the rhythm thrummed into the forest. The song reached into her, and gave her the strength to sing more, until it cascaded through the air, and as the final cadence came, Fiulin found the strength to turn and walk away.

Now many would scream bloody vengeance against the people, and go on a quest to destroy her persecutors. But Norak had been no warrior, nor was the foster daughter that he had raised, nor had either really believed in bloody vengeance. Once Fiulin might have done so with Norak still alive, but with the death of her father the strength of vengeance had gone out of her. Death had left not anger but a great sadness, of the times missed, and of what should have been. Her father was a great believer in the Ghinsiani way, and that was not the path of death and vengeance; Norak had so much believed in the path of healing, of using the song to heal if not the body, then the hearts of men. If Fiulin wanted to be true to her father, it should not be that of destruction but of creation.

So squaring her shoulders, and breathing deeply; Fiulin turned away from the forest she had buried her father in and walked back to the kingdom of Castien to confront the demons who had driven them out.

Fiulin knew well the reception that would await any follower of the Ghinsiani way, so she paided for different clothes, and in her mind played new songs other than those taught by her father. Practicing them over and over, she changed her mannerisms, colored her beautiful blonde hair to a dull brown, and changed her face and body until even her own father would not have recognized her. Lastly she came up with a new name Diakal, keeping only name her father had given her only within her own mind. It was a new Fiulin that walked into the first village that lived on the border of Castien, and new songs followed her wake. The songs were of love joy, of the subtle touch of raindrops on the cheek, of the clouds in the sky, of the laugh created from a bawdy joke. In the time which the kingdom of Castien lived through this was novelty, as even the most optimistic bard of the time could not summon the energy to sing of even simple pleasures. So her songs drew throngs in every village that Fiulin went to, until the day somebody brought one of the demon possessed to her.

The demon possessed listened to the song, and became jealous, and sang its own song discordant, and ordered simultaneously. Its song pierced the veil of joy that Fiulin had spun, and brought back the gloom that seemed to have infected the land. Feeling the mood darkening and knowing her songs of simple pleasures joy would be no match for supernaturally sophisticated, she decided to not even try. Instead she sang the demon’s own song back at it, twisting a word here and word there; using all the intuition she had learned from her father and from experience, to change the song subtlety. Her song only seemed to darken the mood, and the villagers began to look at each other with malice once more. The demon possessed took notice and started to copy Fiulin’s own song, changing it too match its own perverse inclinations, a word here and there, and all of a sudden the darkness seemed to have come banishing all light. Once more Fiulin’s song rang out, as if from the depths of the void, and it spoke what that demon possessed sang, and taught of what the abyss taught, until all thought they were in the very hells themselves. Then suddenly the demon possessed no longer sang, for it knew it was home; and it flew out into the void, where all the damned made their home.

All thought they were lost, the abyss left by Fiulin and the demon’s song hung over the village like a monstrous ogre. Then a voice sang once more, this time it sang the demon’s song, and it seemed far darker than one even the demon possessed had sung, but this time the gloom seemed less then it was, and as the song became darker, it seemed to draw the void into it; more and more the weight of the world seemed to lift from the people of the village despite the dark song. At last all could see the others with some degree of joy, and even though the song was full of malice and hatred, and everything that all believers seemed to be the fount of all wrong, it only seemed to trap the monsters, just as it had drawn out the demon possessed and trapped the demon. At last, as Fiulin’s song ended, and her voice sung its final horrific note, a breath went out, almost curative, as if the darkness had been purged from all of them and taken into her song.

The villagers were happy to see Fiulin leave that day, for her song to easily reminded them of the darkness, and when she sang her dark song at the next village, none came in droves for the evil in men’s souls is not so easily confronted, and purged. But the family of the demon possessed had spoken of her song, and though they did not wish her song to come back to them; they did speak of her with some kindness and also hope for all those afflicted. So the demon possessed came in droves instead and as they came her song grew even darker; and in its twisting words any demon could be trapped. Fiulin feared the song, feared that if it should spill, that if the song should no longer be sung, then the demons would escape once again, and again would come the misery that had killed her father. So at each village she tried to find other bards who might share the burden of singing her dark song, and few there were willing to shirk the singing of all joyful songs, and instead sing of the dark abyss that her song made. But there were some, and they sang the dark song as well, as it spread throughout the kingdom of Castien the demons were trapped one by one. Finally Fiulin herself came to the High King of Castien, and sang the song that trapped the demon which had possessed his son. The High King was no more eager to keep Fiulin then even the villagers had been, but with wisdom that had made him king he saw its purpose, and passed a edict protecting all who sang the dark song, and required its singing by those who wished to. Ever since then in the kingdom of Castien, all protect the dark singers, for it is said that if the song were to be no longer sung, then all the demons trapped in them would come out to once more plague the land. Fiulin lived to a good long age, and though she did not have any children; still she lived through her children, the dark singers who lasted through the centuries singing her dark song. So Fiulin, even though she did not accomplish her goals through songs of joy, did make the world a more joyous place through her dark song.

Chapter 15

Beth, again tossed and turned, the memory of the song in her own head, so lovely so haunting, and then gone and again back to the goddess.

Vicix, awoke once more, again her mortal memories dogged her, the song of Fiulin still ringing through her head, and for a moment it held her as well, as if she were just one more demon to be trapped in the song. Her memories of a goddess again returned, but now a more permanent guilt factored in her mind, she quickly buried it again of course, for what did a goddess need with guilt, it was unbecoming of divinity. Again she tried to placate her mothers and gods, again they saw through her. Stripping her once more, she was flung back to be reborn once more as a mortal.

It was in the barren wastes of the Pijin that was she was born again. It was here that Vicix had appeared once to show her pleasure on the undead legions of the Nikian with a blessing of immortality for the Nikian. This led the mortal defenders of the High Kingdom of Pijin to think that they had no choice but to bring their greatest weapons on the Nikian, weapons which had been forbidden by both mortal and immortal law. Weapons which had been held back only as a last resort, and now they were forced to use against an immortal enemy who would have devoured and consumed their very souls. Magics were spun, webs of energy, and from the heavens were drawn the comets of heaven itself to crash down on the undead legion. The legions were destroyed, for though they were immortal, there essence could at least be dispersed. But the cost of their use destroyed the High Kingdom of the Pijin, and caused the changing of the very seasons across the entire realm. For many a year millions starved to death, and the gods were hard pressed to stop it; for the weapons of Pijin had disrupted the very natural forces which many of the gods controlled. At last the gods working together did manage to stabilize the world, but only with great effort. It was this one act that spearheaded the gods’ decision to bring punishment to Vicix, and to the clouding of mortal minds when it came to the knowledge of creation of the forbidden weapons so that such an event could never happen again.

On the barren wastes left by the weapons of the Pijin, Vicix was born to a trader’s wife. They were crossing the wastes of Pijin, when they were beset by the undead disease, and their whole party was wiped out, all except for the trader’s wife, who lived long enough to birth Vicix. The mother died soon after, leaving Vicix to die in the dead wastes.

As she screamed and screamed the night came, a star shown bright in the sky and brightened until it seemed to shine as bright as the sun. The star dwindled in brightness and sank down to the ground where Vicix cried, and it became a man. The man was the image of perfection, of all the facets that mortal men and women dream of when picturing a god and that was what he was. This was Vicix’s brother, Coliyiu, god of order and causality, and he looked down on Vicix with more than a little irritation.

“Hello sister, our mothers sent me to help you, why I don’t know I thought the point of it was to teach you something,” Sighing, the god picked up Vicix in his hands, “Still if I don’t you know how our mothers can be, what to do?”

Thinking the god walked back and forth, pacing in the ashes of the wastes, looking at Pijin he came up with a idea that would not violate to much both his mothers’ and the gods edicts. Coliyiu drove his fingers into the ground, and whispering to his mothers he begged their permission for what he was about to do. The Fates saw what he wished to do, and assented to his desire. So the god Coliyiu gathered the essences, both Pijin and Nikian, into his hands; and wrenching time and space he summoned the souls caught in that last moment of utter tragedy. There were only fragments left but enough left for Coliyiu to do his work. Gathering them all together he sewed them together into one soul, and creating a mortal body he placed that soul in it. The body he made from sand and the undead essence which permeated all of Pijin, and calling on his office he shifted events and order so that life was brought to it, and it breathed air.

Gasping it looked around, and started to scream as all the souls which made it up remembered the final agony, “Why did you make us this way?, and why did you bring us back.” It asked as it looked at Coliyiu.

Coliyiu, “I brought you back for a purpose, and if you fulfill that purpose you may go back to where you came. I want you to teach my sister, you remember her?”

Rage and elation both filled the eyes of the creature as souls, both Pijin and Nikian, remembered the goddess Vicix, the creature nodded, “But this is not the goddess at least as I remember her.”

“Yes you are right, but it is her none the less and as to the why call it a lesson in humility, you all may remember the reason for that lesson. “

Coliyiu reached into the air, and brought back a Pijin structure from the far past to remain for the abode of Vicix and creature. “But you are not to let her know you know who she is, you shall name her Heregot, and I think your name shall be Zinian. I wish you to raise her as one of your own, teach her of your shared history, of who you are, but ,” and the god grinned somewhat viciously now, “if ever she should find out who she is and it is from you that she finds out, it will be you that suffers. Then I will not torture you, nor punish you any way except that I will allow you to live. You serve me well I will send you back to death, if not you live forever, and that is a very long time. Do you accept creature,” Coliyiu held Viciix out to Zinian.

Groaning Zinian nodded, and took the child from the god and started walking towards the Pijin structure. Coliyiu, his purpose served, flew back into the heavens from which he came.

Heregot, for that was who she thought of herself was raised by Zinian in the Pijin building. It was a marvel of the ancient age and could provide for all of her wants and needs, both physical and mental, and what it could not provide Zinian could provide. Heregot, grew to be a very strong woman with a active mind, she explored the wastes every chance she could get. Her father Zinian, protected her against the worst the wastes could do to her, and followed her out on her excursions keeping her safe.

But the sheer desolation of the lands of the Pijin burrowed into her soul.

Burnell's Blog

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Beth and the Fantasy World

No comments:

Post a Comment