"Louis," A slender arm touched the back of Louis's neck. He shuddered from the cold touch of it. It could be no one but his mother with that icy of a hand.
"Mother, there is no one here, you can call me by my real name." Louis replied.
A woman, slender and gracefully walked around the chair that Louis was sitting on, "It is unwise my son to use those names that are centuries old, one never knows who spies upon us."
"Truly mother if someone were spying upon us would you not know?"
"It has happened in the past and it may happen again. I have someone searching the dream world as we speak for whispers that I have been hearing in the dark. The unconscious mind is a terrible thing, no one can defend against anything asleep. If they knew your secret Louis, then all would be lost. That old injury will never heal and while you have it, you will always be vulnerable."
Louis slammed his hand down onto the desk, "We have tried mother to find it. Excalibur still eludes us. We thought we had it in Wales but that was the pendant and it was destroyed. Excalibur is now stronger because of that very destruction and we don't know where the damned thing is."
"We do now, my son. Arumaga returned with wounds from that very sword. It is wielded by one called Gaviao. He doesn't realize its value yet and that will damn them."
"Where is he, mother? I will slay him myself."
"You are to go no where near him. I will attend to it. Don't stay up too late, Louis. I don't like sleeping alone." She brushed his lap with her fingers.
"Mother." Louis said with a stern look.
"Just once, then to make you happy. Modred."
Modred smiled, "Thank you mother, I will be right there."
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Blood mixed with snow, blood everywhere, splattered high in the trees, blood across boulders, bodies, human, drow, epona clerics, morrigan monks, bit and pieces of larger creatures, giants, dragons. The crows come now, moving things around, tearing out bits of flesh and swallowing whole. Nabila stands in the center of the massacre, arms outstretched to the heavens. Her hand reaches down and touches the blood, it oozes from the battlefield, touching her, enveloping her, then slowly fades away. The battlefield is clean but for some bones that lie everywhere.
"Ireland. Here is where the battle begins." Nabila says, eyes shot with blood, "then here is where I stay."
"They will come, my daughter. I can feel it. The Knights that defend them." A bony old man said huddled beneath a black cloak.
"That is what I hope for. Corison will come, it is he that I need." Nabila danced.
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Flight, soaring, updrafts sending you higher and higher. A steep dive into a forest, a light snow on the ground, the air though is warm and the snow melting quickly. The trees, still bare rush up at you. You spread your talons and feel them hook a tree branch. Creatures with pointy ears, but not the dark pointy ears are below, they speak in their tongue. The crow flies away leaving you sitting on the branch.
"The council of elves had gutted us. They let the drow stomp on our ancestral grounds, saying that the time to leave this world has come. They form pacts with our enemies to save their immortal skins. Have we left yet or are they making preparations to depart? No they bide their time and watch us die. The plague kills us as well, they think it a mistake. It is a mistake, a mistake to trust them."
Another elf speaks, "We are immortal, we must take the long picture and see what lies before us."
"It is hard to see, through the sleep of death." The other replies, "and the plague will see to that. Better to die on your feet, than coughing out your own lung. Do you not see the war machine that is at our front door? There are dragons here, we have lost more people this month to them than in the last 100 years. The plague has killed one of us, but more are sick. They are wiping us out. We need to act, before there truly are no more elves left."
"I see your point. But who do we throw in with?" The other asked.
"I don't know but the first thing we should do is find out why the council chooses to guard but one place. A minor fiefdom in Germany. I don't know the family name but its son is named Riyor. They must be guarding something precious indeed to place a garrison there. We must find out what at all cost."
"I will round up as many as I can." The other said.
"Good, meet us there on the 7th day past the new year." The first said. The other nodded and strode away.
The first walked into the forest, the skin rippled but the features stayed the same. A black color swept over the elf, white hair replacing blond. A drow continued to walk away. "All to easy. Now they will kill each other and we will find out what that keep holds." He smiled and walked away. Now to contact Lord Baile."
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A monk, his human face set and determined, walks, foot in front of foot. Sand pushes between his toes. He looks up, a pyramid in the distance and a long silver ribbon of water behind that. His parched lips crack as he smiles and plods on.
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Arumaga sat staring over his notes. I gave them a chance to live and they refused to take it. Gaviao still attacked. I lost my temper and slew him. It was so easy, so dragon like. Though that maybe who I am, that is not who I strive to be. Anger is not my way. It was anger that got me where I am today.
Images fly quickly by. Arumaga attending an Epona Ritual. His ascension to the headmaster position of Epona for the temple of Andorra. Two clerics dressed like Epona clerics, stealing into a room. A beautiful woman holding a baby. The womans throat is cut, blood founts. A child, part dragon, part human, held in the hands of the clerics. Arumaga breaks into the room. His anger plain on his face, he assumes his dragon form. A threat by one of the clerics that the child will be killed. Arumaga breathes. Both clerics and the child killed by that icy blast. Arumaga in his grief, destroys every living soul in the temple. He sits at the alter of Epona, blood still dripping from the walls. Remorse sets in and he cries for a good long time. He stands, drops his holy symbol to the ground and steps on it. It cracks in two, he walks out the door of the temple.
So many bad memories, so many more that I have made since. I know Gaviao lived, he wore the ring of Ra. He will probably be the end of me. The question is whether I let him or not. It will have to be after the death of Epona, I can't die knowing that I would have to face her in the afterlife.
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A single fighter standing alone on a battlefield. The grass is green but it must still be cold, drow are standing around covered against the cold and the sun that shines low in the west. Black leather armor and a single sword arm the warrior. His leg is chained to a stone column. Lord Baile walks to the edge of the chain's reach. The man growls at him and tries to reach for him.
"How many is that?" Baile asks.
A drow female answers, "38 today, just over 1000 in the last month. This is why we called you."
"Spells?" Baile asks.
"Not effective he bats them away, that column has something to do with it. It seems to absorb them. Nor were the dragons we called. The column absorbed the breath weapons."
"A mass rush?"
"Some sort of shield, this is the only door in. Our magic is not strong enough to break the shield." The drow answered.
"Starve him out, then."
"He seems to have an unlimited supply coming from somewhere."
"Then it looks like, it is my turn." Baile pulled a scimitar from its sheath and stepped into the shield.
Two daggers embedded into each of Baile's knees, a third quivered in the sand where Baile deflected it from the scimitar. Baile fell back, out of the chains range.
"I see the problem." Baile said, pulling the daggers from his knees, "Find a weakness. Who is he?"
"Atievno de Navarre."
"Can't be. He is still locked up." Baile said.
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The Spanish Epona cleric was running a hand down the leg of a tall dapple, "You are sure that this is the foal, I helped birth, 2 weeks ago?"
The farmer nodded, "he is 18 hands high at the forelock, 6 hands higher to the top of his head. There is something wrong with him. It ain't natural."
"No not natural. Is he for sale?" the cleric asked.
"Sure, you can have him. What's he worth to you?" the farmer said, almost licking his lips.
"I will give you the going price for a full grown horse. He is a standard draft size 50 gold." The cleric said.
"I knew that you would come back, Callas. You had to come back here." The voice said, "its just too fascinating not to watch. I am very sorry, ma'am, but I have too."
A hand plunges into your ghostly chest, Pain bursts through you and she reaches for your heart. You can feel her hand wrap around it. It slows and then misses a beat. She quickly pulls her hand out. Your heart starts to thud again.
"I just can't. Go! I will tell her you didn't dream tonight."
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Hurtling out of her dreams, Callas sits straight upright, hands clutching at her chest. Her eyes wide, she gasps for breath. Galvin is almost instantly awake, as well, sliding an arm around her shoulders, saying "Callas...Callas, are you all right? What happened?"
Callas doesn't reply. Instead, she looks at her hands. In the light of the lamp burning low beside her bed, she can see a dark smear on her fingertips. She lifts her hands to her nose, and smells blood. Her bare chest glistens with it, as well, as if she's been injured. The skin under the blood is smooth and unbroken.
Abruptly, Callas seems to come out of whatever had held her, and she draws a long, shuddering breath. "Oh...." A cloth by the side of the bed takes care of the worst of the blood, and then she allows Galvin to draw her back down, nestling in his arms.
After a little while, after her heart stops racing and her muscles relax, she speaks. "There's too much, Galvin. Too many things that need doing, too many things that endanger the world if left undone. They are too many, and too strong, and they don't have to stay together.
"We have deadlines. We have to be at Riyor's family's kingdom in nine days, to keep the elves from doing something that's probably going to be utterly foolish. Nabila's at play in Ireland, and Ireland itself is a battleground. And the dreams were right, and Excalibur is right. King Louis must die, and Excalibur's the only thing that can kill him. That godsbedamned sword..." She trails off, absently running her hand along Galvin's side. "Oh, love, i don't know if we can do this. We're going to have to let something go. If we could only get Morrigan to stand down! That damned bitch's support is their main advantage, and she's not afraid to meddle directly in the affairs of mortals. And nobody's trying to kill *her*."
Galvin mutters, "I suppose it would be wrong for us to find someone who wants her dead...it might keep her occupied, at least."
He feels Callas cock her head slightly, like she does when she's considering a new thought. "I wonder. I wonder if the council could be convinced she'd betrayed them..."
"They'd all be distracted, that's for sure."
"I don't see how, right now. Unless...no that *can't* be what that meant. I refuse to believe it."
Galvin asks, "What?" but Callas doesn't reply.
A long few minutes passes. Then Callas takes a sharp breath in, as if just remembering something. "Galvin. My father. My father is *alive*. He's guarding...something. A portal, somewhere. Somewhere where the grass is still green but it's cold...he's guarding the entrance to something the council wants into." She shivers. "Papa is *alive*!" In her voice is happiness alloyed with fear--fear that this one dream may be the last time she sees him, fear that he will fall before she can reach him, fear that he's the thing she's going to have to give up in order to save the rest.
"And the dreams...they were just as clear with only one amulet as they were with three. I think it might be me, and not them...and maybe that means I can control them, at least a little. Maybe enough to chase down the woman following me, anyway."
"Did you see her again?"
"She saw me. She was extremely polite for an assassin. I think she's in the employ of Modred's mother. She tried to kill me, but, for some reason, she decided not to. It's a little bizarre, but I felt like, if we ever met, we'd be friends. I wonder what that's all about? But I think that, if I don't return to one place and I'm not wearing the amulets, she won't be able to find me again. Unless, maybe, if I want her to."
Callas sighs. "And there's so much more...Arumaga was set up, Galvin. He was set up by someone who knew that he loses his temper, like he did on Gavaio..."
"That was losing his temper? I'd actually call that self-defense. Wasn't he in pretty bad shape?"
"He was *leaving*. He could have taken one more blow and then been gone. Gavaio pissed him off and he lost his temper. But Arumaga wants to come back to Epona, I think, he just thinks she'll never forgive him for what he's done. He's been punishing himself for three hundred and fifty years. He'll keep on forever if nobody interferes." She smiles wryly. "You've really rather got to respect him for that, even if he's just wrong. It wasn't his fault, I'm pretty sure someone planned it that way."
"Callas, love. It's been three hundred years now. What could we possibly do to prove that he was set up?"
Her voice is low in the darkness. "We can find a way, I think. Lead him back to the person he used to be, back to the cleric named Aru. Wake up his spirit and bring him into the light. I don't know how to do it, but I think it can be done."
"Atonement, do you think?"
"That'll be part of it. It can't be all of it, though--you have to be willing to accept the atonement, and for him to accept it would mean that he has to believe in the possibility of redemption. They killed his wife, and he killed his child and then the rest of the clerics in the temple in his rage. It's driven him almost mad, just like whoever set him up hoped."
"If we could find out who..."
"I have to talk to Endraya in the morning. I think there's a way." She kisses Galvin, lingeringly. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere." She wraps a blanket around herself and slips out of the room.
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Gavaio is dozing, sleeping with one eye open. He comes awake as Callas comes into the room from hers, closing the door behind her. Gavaio's hand touches Excalibur, the sword waking to his touch. The fire is low, it must be three AM or so.
"Callas? What are you doing awake?"
She shrugs. "Dreaming again." She is wrapped in a blanket, and her hair is unbound, falling around her face. She looks at Gavaio for a long moment, her green eyes looking almost black in the flickering light of the fire.
She crosses the room to the window, and with her hands and voice shapes a transluscent bubble--a Sending. Into it she whispers, "Tennant, this is Callas. I need to speak with you, as soon as I can. Don't reply to this, just send a message whenever you can get away to meet us." The bubble flashes through the window and out into the night.
Callas turns back to Gavaio and pulls the blanket tighter around her. Her gaze is steady, and there seems to be something older about her tonight. It almost seems as if she's glowing, just a little, but it's probably just that she's standing between him and the fire.
"I just wanted to tell you that that goddamned sword is going to get its chance to make you a king," she says, flatly. "King Louis must die by your hand. And soon. The only thing in this world or the next he's vulnerable to is Excalibur." She takes four long steps and is at the door to her room. She looks back at him, her hand on the knob of the door.
"I'm sorry, Gavaio." There is anguish in her eyes. "I accepted the geas for you, and didn't allow you the choice. I can only hope that in the end, it was the right thing to do."
Without allowing him a chance to reply, she opens the door and slips through, latching it behind her, leaving Gavaio to his thoughts and the dying fire.
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