The Shadows Triumph

[Crikkit Hixx]

Shadows gathered in the empty rooms of House Illumine's burned out ruins. The evening drew close to the lands like a falling blanket of indigo and black. In the West, beyond her home in Qeynos far off, the sun was dying a bloody death of scarlet light, choking on gilded clouds as she sank into the sea.

Sighing, I mount my white gelding Snowmeow. His white flanks are a canvas for the world to paint on. The color of the moment is shade gray.

Some months ago a madness took me, and I fled the world of Norrath. Long I wrestled with anguish and despair. But when I stopped fighting, a kind of peace came. And I returned to the little house in East Karana.

No one is there now. Sometimes Mirthan will come to mend a board or two. A woman I don't know, a ghost perhaps sometimes breezes by. But for the most part it is a house of shades.

I missed a war with Verin Vharc. Gilliadson and Sineliniel died, a few escaped never to return. The house burned, ironically in it's fiery demise finally a House of Light in truth.

Mirthan never speaks of my daughters. In my heart I do not want him to tell me. They are gone to ashes with those who perished in the flames...

I let Snowmeow wander, scarcely seeing the plains I once loved so well as we travel.

Night falls, there is no moon. We cross into South Karana...

Distant flashes of light stir me from my stupor.

It's lightning flashing on a distant hill.

Then I remember...in the Time of Fables, Holy Karana walks the earth...!

My heart is wild with emotions, excitement, terror, shame, how can I face my God having failed and fallen so far?

But Snomeow whinnies exultantly, and charges across the plains.

Twenty feet tall, stern and terrible, like an old man, but standing straight and tall, eyes flashing with electrical sparks, God looks down on me.

'...my God...!' I whimper.

'Whom do you speak to priestess? What god? God is whom you serve. Family? Guild? Friends? Pray to these Gods you replaced me with. Do they answer?'

'...no my Lord...' Tears come like a cloudburst storm, and I fall to the ground sobbing.

'Then they are not God, though you put them before me. Call me!'

'...Karana! Holy God!'

Then he laughs, and it's like thunder, and the brightness in his eyes like the lightning, and the shadows waver and quail.

'Priestess! When all is lost, only God remains! Lose it all, even the despair! Even the weakness! You made mortals your gods, but now I will show you a more excellent way!'

And somehow my sobbing turns to weak laughter and sweet relief. I sit at His feet, my Holy Karana, and the night holds no terror, and I am healed by faith and devotion. Tomorrow a new day will come. Perhaps I will be there to greet it, or maybe not. It doesn't matter. God is in heaven, sometimes on earth, and now once again at home, in my heart!

[Cerissa]

(( Wow.... Simply beautiful.... *applauds* ))

[Xar'Zith]

((agree, this is way up there with Willowen's post years ago that actually made me cry ))

[Stormfollower]

(( *nods* Very good!))

[Crikkit Hixx]

A few days later, and I have moved back into South Qeynos. Not to my one time little blue rat infested house by the Herb Jar, but into the Temple of Thunder itself. As I settle into a corner of the little walled in yard under the skies, my old teacher Gehna Solbenya watches me with amusement.

'Crikkit, it is long since you slept under the open skies here in the Temple.' she says.

I smile wanly, unrolling my Fieldstrider Blanket on the grass. 'You taught me that a roof is for the children, the ill, the good folk who need the comfort of warmth and dryness. But during my time at Surefall Glade, the druids laughed and asked if we were putting up cities and ceilings to hide from God. I need to be in His cleansing rains to wash away my many sins...'

'Sins? We all have them. Would you like to share your burdens?'

'I would Reverand Mother. Soon.' I promise her the story in time.

High Priestess Gehna nodded, and pulled out a pair of reading glasses and opened her little book of temple business. Funny, it -couldn't- be the book she used to write in when I was a child here, but it -looks- exactly the same. I notice that along with the glasses, there are gray hairs on her head appearing here and there, scarcely noticeable yet, but my heart is pierced suddenly with this silent reminder of mortality. So much changes, so much passes away. Enough tears of birthing and dying to fill all the clouds over Antonica... A sudden premonition, no, more a vague disquiet sends a shiver to my heart and set my hands a shaking.

'A Lady P'nala dropped by. I rather thought she was looking for you, though she didn't say so much.'

Nodding, I finish my bedroll. 'P'nala, a fine young lady. But I am not ready to see any Shadowbanes yet. My new life is still taking shape, wet clay on the wheel. I must not indulge in old affections, but must greet the new day and old friends anew, as the new Crikkit. When time comes, we will meet, and may it be a blessed meeting.'

Gehna nodded, and smiled. Then she wandered off to the cathedral to her customary place of waiting. As usual she was facing the wall.

'Ehr...Mother Gehna?'

'Yes Crikkit?'

'In all these years I never dared to ask, why do you gaze at the walls so intently all the time?'

'Come and see.'

So I stood by the lady that should have been my Mother, and when I knew to look I saw carved in the stone a long list of names. Mine was there. And Klikki's.

'It is by my orders that the bandit binders and the Karana bandits are hunted down and their ranks thinned...no, I will call it 'war'. Daily they grow stronger, and the Knights of Thunder draws less recruits, for most humans seek Mithaniel Marr in the East for Glory and Crusade..." The Reverend Mother paused, to take a breath, more of a weary sigh... "Rumors have gotten out that Holy Karana is locked in battle with the Storm Giant demigod Agnarr, and that he sleeps a sorcerous slumber...rumors and whispers, but fewer applicants come to our doors nowadays...desperately few."

"In any case, the bandits. We run them down and slay them, pay bounty on their scarlet sashes and broken spectacles. But they are of the same stock as the Millers, or Pious Minda, or Shivering Rongol. Men and women. And the children... Crikkit, everyday I pray for the orphaned bandit children we bring in. We raise them to revere Karana, we bolster our dwindling ranks of priests and paladins thusly. Sometimes I fear...it is a grievious sin, for all that it -must- be done.'

The afternoon sun creeps through the doors and dances on the storm cloud banners of rainbow hues. A silent drizzle turns the air golden where the sun kisses the rain drops.

"Pray with me, for each of these children Crikkit!"

The afternoon flies by as we stand side by side and recite the names, and our words drift up into the skies.


**********************************************

The difference between Qeynos and Freeport is that in Freeport, evil walks boldly in the streets, violent clashes of the Children of Hate and the Lords of Marr. But in Qeynos, Evil hides beneath our very feet. And it thrives and grows in that dark place.

It is night now, and we sit in the little Gazebo eating pastries from Vohleen's.

Woltan, the Quest Keeper, a fine paladin, but old, oh God, how did we all get so aged? Woltan shares a day of news with us.

"Ayuh! Strangers in Qeynos now. Or under it."

We all look uncomfortable but wait for him to continue in our silent response.

"Bandits. Dont' know if they be Karana Bandits or some new type. Smugglers and brigands share the aquaducts with the Bloodsabers."

"They always have Woltan." Chesgard Sydwen reminds him. "It's probably just the Circle of Unseen Hands as usual".

"Do you believe that the dark...is spiritual as well as the absence of light? Like graveworms seeking the choice bits in ripening coffins, -things- are gathering down there!"

'Yes, bandits." I agree.

"Aye, bandits in droves. Thieves, cutthroats, assassins...but now the vermin are afraid...something hunts them now...something...worse than wicked men!"

************************************************************
I thought about this as I lay down to sleep. Perhaps Lady Licinia will know. The thought comforts me, and I drift off to a dreamless sleep.