crucial fiction 3: cancer still KILLS.
Robert Heinlein: July 1903
the DEAN.
for you!
Names Syrina Knightshade Whispers
The light Fantastic
the fairy witch, the sword of destiny, the foolish king, the angry Mage
If only!
But the hand of Arthur had been the hand of a man. He wielded great power, the power to rule and to strike heads from necks.
But in the hands of the witch Dorrinnicax, the ancient light of magic crackled and spat.
it could heal the sick simply as she gestured. It could whisper secrets of the earth to her ears. And it had an uncanny ability to send beams of emerald light into the hiding holds of the dark-elves. They never had a chance; their wide eyes, attuned to the dim lights of the OtherEarth beneath the crust of Elgos Prime were blinded by the emerald beams of light. They died screaming.
the Mountain elves stared coldly.
that was a tale of thousands of years previous.
When the elf-tribes returned to the surface world, the ruddy orange moon was gone. They tried to explain what had happened to the tribes of Men, who had all but forgotten their existance, but the tale was long in the telling...
after a while they simply returned to the lives they had known before, living near and with trees.
Now Dorrinnicax Nightshade, the Green Guardian,sat cross legged at the plateau above the river-valley.
Watching. Watching the vigilant, red-robed Muses keeping their strange and stoic watch over their cheltor. worried for her people.
the Delphine Muses were mysterious in the legends, passed down on ancient scrolls and by word of mouth, of the Elvenfolk.
The legends stated that the Nine Delphine Muses were the progenitors of the Elf Tribes, the ones who had come from far away to make a home on Elgos-Prime, the original ancestors of the Elves! this was fantastic but most accepted it as true.
And they had come, instead of earthquakes and volcanoes, with the orange moon Delphi.
And they had come bearing judgment!
in their red robes they made their humble cheltor outside the Grey Woods on the plateau, at the top of the valley that led down to the River of the Spiders.
Dorrinnicax had been watching them all day. She sat there, on her butt, on the green grass, and started wondering, resting her chin on her knuckles.
She had been watching them at sunrise. "These Muses," she thought to herself, "so intruiging in their behavior patterns..."
(merlin would have laughed, and perhaps did, watching the scene unfold with his wizard's eye.
i tried so hard to teach that boy...here comes a fey witch, and a ripe one at that! and she takes it and barely thinks and look? raising the dead? slaying the fell beasts of the deeps? zounds...
merlin might have thought.)
Dorrinnicax arrived at dawn.
The Muses changed their strange guard as she arrived. Arriving at the top of the mountain valley she saw the three red-cloaked figures in the lifting morning haze, illumined by their small fire. They stood, arms folded, red hoods raised, in a triangle around the small campfire.
Silent, Dorrinn watched.
These tall, slim beings, after all, were her ancestors. Dorrinn wanted to doubt it...she was rather short and rounded in comparison, she noted silently.
as Ra, the sun, rose in the sky, three of the ancient Muses left the tent.
They filed out, bowed deeply to the three who had been keeping watched. Dorrinnicax was entranced as she watched them trade places. The Muses who had been keeping watch all night bowed gracefully and entered the semi-pyramidal cheltor.
Dorrinn noticed the bow and thought -- "they seem almost...Man-like...how intriguing."
Then the Muses entered the tent. "To rest?" Dorrinn wondered. But she had no real way of knowing for sure. Full of pious respect, she sat watching. the fog evaporated and the sun slowly rose in the sky. the three ancient elven Muses did not stir, did not waver. Their cowls high, concealing their facial features, did not stir, did not weave, impassive, outside the tent.
"It is these who have come to judge us," she wondered to herself.
All day long she thought back to the time of war.
It had been more than three thousands of years ago. How long?
The arrival of the Delphine Muses was a shock to us all.
The fact that it was in response to the Otherearth wars was a personal shock to Dorrinnicax. Personally she thought it had been such a frightfully long time --
The Planet Elgos-Prime has three moons.
Shu, the dark blue moon rises, high he climbs.
Bas-tet the green moon waddles low across the night sky, scuttles subtly close to the horizon night til morn sometimes...
the third moon has an elliptical, wildly veering path, he leaves and returns to the Elgos sytem with the plodding steadiness of a sloth.
Several Elf generations could come and go before the third moon would return to the skies above First Planet.
The kingdoms of Men had forgotten it had ever existed. And he went through his progress with such slowness that even the Elves had all but forgotten it was coming.
The Otherearth Wars had been the last war the Elves recalled or had participated in as a group. Dorrinnicax Nightshade remembered them well, though.
She had been their hero.
The Mountain-Elves led their descent to battle against the dark-elves with their unstoppable leader, the fairy witch who bore the ancient mystic Sword of Destiny, Excalibur. The legendary weapon spat gouts of green flame that sought out the dark-elves in their hiding places. all were slain in a conflict that was brief, and, for the Mountain-elves, grievous losses were avoided...had it not been for the timely acquisition of the legendary Sword From The Stone by the faery witch, both sides would have been depleted.
But the Mountain Elves triumphed; the dark-elves were wiped out.
And after time the OtherEarth wars were no longer spoken of. the kingdoms of Men had barely known they had happened to begin with....
They spoke of the time when the elvenfolk had vanished, passing without trace.
Then the strange Orange moon, Delphi, appeared in the skies above the first planet in the Elgos system, while the mountains trembled and spat fire from their cones.
in a hundred years' time, the elves had faded to but a memory, to "fairy tales" told to small children at playtimes and bedtimes. One century had passed and the Men had all but forgeotten that Elves ever were. then the elf-tribes of the daylight returned from their deep marches.
Victorious,
blinking!
That was the tale of many many centuries ago, centuries of time, many generations of men were born and returned to dust while the Elves, Immortal, had watched and more or less remained the same peaceful stewards of the green land that they always had. Dorrinnicax had become something of a celebrity, wandering the land with her companions, healing the sick and occasionally, raising the dead.
How the legendary King Arthur's ancient weapon had found its way across the light years from the planet of its origin to Elgos prime, light years and light years distant in the constellation Virgo (as would have been reckoned from Earth) was unknown.
And of course if only Arthur, that hoary-jawed king of old, had known the way to channel the magic energies that the fairy witch unlocked without really trying...well...
either
thirty thousand years previous
or
thirty thousand years later
Yeah, right."you believe in magic."
(so what.)
what was that that Syrina had whispered?
'we have different relationships...with different people?'
The valley is bright with purple lichens...the strangeness of this place...the sun is small and seems far away. i am starting to feel at home.
Planet Jen is a heavy world.
I know Dorrinn -- somehow...
...her presence is clear and positive always, even when she is far away...
a bond of friendship, a love bond....
i walk with my staff as a guide and a crutch down the side of the ridge with the phosphorescent lichens growing, gleaming...the sun is at a place like going down...but the sky coruscating with dark energies.
we came here to trigger the magic fields left in this planet's core long ago. here we wait to end the final conflict, and to enjoy the rewards for transcending the final enemy...the destructor with two faces.
I have been walking and contemplating...lately i am conmtemplating Mercury, and Loki.
Both have been called trickster gods. But i think perhaps Mercury has been called Trickster by those who doubted his wisdom when they sought some insight -- he was called Thoth by the ancients of Egypta, and for good reason...old Trimegistus...! Once called Hermes, again Thoth...!
Mercury knew what was really going on -- and when people inquired of him and then left, scoffing at his Olympian wisdom - later they would run afoul of their own foolishness --and, like fools, they would blame HIM. But Mercury was always a messenger, a messenger of old Jove...
Meanwhile, is it Loki who takes pleasure in actually decieving people for the -- whatever -- that beings get out of the real suffering and disgrace of others?
I have to contemplate these things here...this is Elgos, Elgos Prime, and we are gathered here for a reason deep and serious. And I mean we.
Dorrinn is here.
I have been here only for a few days, a fresh arrival. Dorrinn arrived a year ago, to manifest the Cheltor with Eclypta.
After a year Dorrinn feels strong. She waits inside the cheltor with Azallanthe, who knows a few things about the healing arts. Azzalanthe and Dorrin, the taantric sorcerors, very much bonded spiritually... they are very much involved in the ritual magic of connecting opsychically to the soul of the planet.
"We must bind ourselves to the core energy of this planet," she is saying.
"So we are here on Elgos Prime to remember what it means to be in bodies channeling cosmic energies, weft in the pattenrs of yin and yang that are the flowing structure of the universe."
And inside the Cheltor is the redolence of punk, burning in the braizer.
Energies gather and coalesce, and both the young lovers feel them.
'I begin to feel,' Azallanthe said, ' the pull of the sun...the sun has a...attractive, magnetic light...'
'So is that what causes the plants to bloom so iridescent? the light is different here.'
As Dorrin says this she sits, sits with her legs crossed in the lotus position. he eyes fly, up into the mystic trance immediately and energies craclle about her head...like a nimbus cloud.
As i pass the cheltor the sounds of physical bliss are rising in intensity...shouts, moaning, a joyful coo like something lovely and new has come into the universe.
I smile and keep walking...i am feeling the surf.
Feeling myself becoming one with elemental air and water as the sharp wind cuts at my cheeks, whips at the heavy tunic i wear, the salty foam wiull be encrusted later on the hem..
"what's it all about?" i say this out loud. "What's the meaning of all this?"
...and i feel her manifesting before I see her with my eyes.
Her spiritual presence...
"Love, Marques, love is the meaning of it all."
I smile. i always smile when i see Eclypta.
'Dove...'
She takes my hand, we walk a bit down the mossy peninsula. her walk is sure and steady, i need the staff for certainty. wet moss, thick with the salts of Elgos' ocean.
"We all forgot where magic came from, Marques...we have to remember here tonight."
"My mind feels clear. I am feeling....open to the origin of energy that forged this planet..i am feeling that presence. Here..."
She smiles. "Good.'"
And she takes my face in her hands, gentle Eclypta's soft, soft hands, and gently kisses me.
On the rocky atoll, the wind ripping away at my tunic, howling almost, tempestuous about my ears.
But we are a part of the storm, one with the wind.
Eclypta holds me gently, after a time, her face nestled into the hollow between my neck and jaw...she is whispering and her voice vibrates in my flesh, i can feel her words.
"Magic and love come from the same place, Marques. If we are to defeat the Hellions once and for all, we must reclaim the fire of love, of our own innocence...we never lost it, just forgot where it came from...my love."
As I am holding Eclypta i see at the top of the hill Draic, looking down at us with an impassive expression.
He makes a Gesture with his hands. Eclypta and I have talked enough.
Then he makes another gesture, the ancient hand 'glyph for lightning.
The clouds open above his head and I see the dim far awar Star of Elgos. He is summoning energy, as are Eclypta and I.
On the other side of the mountan Shareth and Cassadra/Cassandar are also summoning energy. They are communing with ancient powers...the ancient powers that have led us all here, assembled to face the Hellions...who no doubt have not pinpointed our location...yet.
to be continued
the DEAN.
for you!
Names Syrina Knightshade Whispers
The light Fantastic
the fairy witch, the sword of destiny, the foolish king, the angry Mage
If only!
But the hand of Arthur had been the hand of a man. He wielded great power, the power to rule and to strike heads from necks.
But in the hands of the witch Dorrinnicax, the ancient light of magic crackled and spat.
it could heal the sick simply as she gestured. It could whisper secrets of the earth to her ears. And it had an uncanny ability to send beams of emerald light into the hiding holds of the dark-elves. They never had a chance; their wide eyes, attuned to the dim lights of the OtherEarth beneath the crust of Elgos Prime were blinded by the emerald beams of light. They died screaming.
the Mountain elves stared coldly.
that was a tale of thousands of years previous.
When the elf-tribes returned to the surface world, the ruddy orange moon was gone. They tried to explain what had happened to the tribes of Men, who had all but forgotten their existance, but the tale was long in the telling...
after a while they simply returned to the lives they had known before, living near and with trees.
Now Dorrinnicax Nightshade, the Green Guardian,sat cross legged at the plateau above the river-valley.
Watching. Watching the vigilant, red-robed Muses keeping their strange and stoic watch over their cheltor. worried for her people.
the Delphine Muses were mysterious in the legends, passed down on ancient scrolls and by word of mouth, of the Elvenfolk.
The legends stated that the Nine Delphine Muses were the progenitors of the Elf Tribes, the ones who had come from far away to make a home on Elgos-Prime, the original ancestors of the Elves! this was fantastic but most accepted it as true.
And they had come, instead of earthquakes and volcanoes, with the orange moon Delphi.
And they had come bearing judgment!
in their red robes they made their humble cheltor outside the Grey Woods on the plateau, at the top of the valley that led down to the River of the Spiders.
Dorrinnicax had been watching them all day. She sat there, on her butt, on the green grass, and started wondering, resting her chin on her knuckles.
She had been watching them at sunrise. "These Muses," she thought to herself, "so intruiging in their behavior patterns..."
(merlin would have laughed, and perhaps did, watching the scene unfold with his wizard's eye.
i tried so hard to teach that boy...here comes a fey witch, and a ripe one at that! and she takes it and barely thinks and look? raising the dead? slaying the fell beasts of the deeps? zounds...
merlin might have thought.)
Dorrinnicax arrived at dawn.
The Muses changed their strange guard as she arrived. Arriving at the top of the mountain valley she saw the three red-cloaked figures in the lifting morning haze, illumined by their small fire. They stood, arms folded, red hoods raised, in a triangle around the small campfire.
Silent, Dorrinn watched.
These tall, slim beings, after all, were her ancestors. Dorrinn wanted to doubt it...she was rather short and rounded in comparison, she noted silently.
as Ra, the sun, rose in the sky, three of the ancient Muses left the tent.
They filed out, bowed deeply to the three who had been keeping watched. Dorrinnicax was entranced as she watched them trade places. The Muses who had been keeping watch all night bowed gracefully and entered the semi-pyramidal cheltor.
Dorrinn noticed the bow and thought -- "they seem almost...Man-like...how intriguing."
Then the Muses entered the tent. "To rest?" Dorrinn wondered. But she had no real way of knowing for sure. Full of pious respect, she sat watching. the fog evaporated and the sun slowly rose in the sky. the three ancient elven Muses did not stir, did not waver. Their cowls high, concealing their facial features, did not stir, did not weave, impassive, outside the tent.
"It is these who have come to judge us," she wondered to herself.
All day long she thought back to the time of war.
It had been more than three thousands of years ago. How long?
The arrival of the Delphine Muses was a shock to us all.
The fact that it was in response to the Otherearth wars was a personal shock to Dorrinnicax. Personally she thought it had been such a frightfully long time --
The Planet Elgos-Prime has three moons.
Shu, the dark blue moon rises, high he climbs.
Bas-tet the green moon waddles low across the night sky, scuttles subtly close to the horizon night til morn sometimes...
the third moon has an elliptical, wildly veering path, he leaves and returns to the Elgos sytem with the plodding steadiness of a sloth.
Several Elf generations could come and go before the third moon would return to the skies above First Planet.
The kingdoms of Men had forgotten it had ever existed. And he went through his progress with such slowness that even the Elves had all but forgotten it was coming.
The Otherearth Wars had been the last war the Elves recalled or had participated in as a group. Dorrinnicax Nightshade remembered them well, though.
She had been their hero.
The Mountain-Elves led their descent to battle against the dark-elves with their unstoppable leader, the fairy witch who bore the ancient mystic Sword of Destiny, Excalibur. The legendary weapon spat gouts of green flame that sought out the dark-elves in their hiding places. all were slain in a conflict that was brief, and, for the Mountain-elves, grievous losses were avoided...had it not been for the timely acquisition of the legendary Sword From The Stone by the faery witch, both sides would have been depleted.
But the Mountain Elves triumphed; the dark-elves were wiped out.
And after time the OtherEarth wars were no longer spoken of. the kingdoms of Men had barely known they had happened to begin with....
They spoke of the time when the elvenfolk had vanished, passing without trace.
Then the strange Orange moon, Delphi, appeared in the skies above the first planet in the Elgos system, while the mountains trembled and spat fire from their cones.
in a hundred years' time, the elves had faded to but a memory, to "fairy tales" told to small children at playtimes and bedtimes. One century had passed and the Men had all but forgeotten that Elves ever were. then the elf-tribes of the daylight returned from their deep marches.
Victorious,
blinking!
That was the tale of many many centuries ago, centuries of time, many generations of men were born and returned to dust while the Elves, Immortal, had watched and more or less remained the same peaceful stewards of the green land that they always had. Dorrinnicax had become something of a celebrity, wandering the land with her companions, healing the sick and occasionally, raising the dead.
How the legendary King Arthur's ancient weapon had found its way across the light years from the planet of its origin to Elgos prime, light years and light years distant in the constellation Virgo (as would have been reckoned from Earth) was unknown.
And of course if only Arthur, that hoary-jawed king of old, had known the way to channel the magic energies that the fairy witch unlocked without really trying...well...
either
thirty thousand years previous
or
thirty thousand years later
Yeah, right."you believe in magic."
(so what.)
what was that that Syrina had whispered?
'we have different relationships...with different people?'
The valley is bright with purple lichens...the strangeness of this place...the sun is small and seems far away. i am starting to feel at home.
Planet Jen is a heavy world.
I know Dorrinn -- somehow...
...her presence is clear and positive always, even when she is far away...
a bond of friendship, a love bond....
i walk with my staff as a guide and a crutch down the side of the ridge with the phosphorescent lichens growing, gleaming...the sun is at a place like going down...but the sky coruscating with dark energies.
we came here to trigger the magic fields left in this planet's core long ago. here we wait to end the final conflict, and to enjoy the rewards for transcending the final enemy...the destructor with two faces.
I have been walking and contemplating...lately i am conmtemplating Mercury, and Loki.
Both have been called trickster gods. But i think perhaps Mercury has been called Trickster by those who doubted his wisdom when they sought some insight -- he was called Thoth by the ancients of Egypta, and for good reason...old Trimegistus...! Once called Hermes, again Thoth...!
Mercury knew what was really going on -- and when people inquired of him and then left, scoffing at his Olympian wisdom - later they would run afoul of their own foolishness --and, like fools, they would blame HIM. But Mercury was always a messenger, a messenger of old Jove...
Meanwhile, is it Loki who takes pleasure in actually decieving people for the -- whatever -- that beings get out of the real suffering and disgrace of others?
I have to contemplate these things here...this is Elgos, Elgos Prime, and we are gathered here for a reason deep and serious. And I mean we.
Dorrinn is here.
I have been here only for a few days, a fresh arrival. Dorrinn arrived a year ago, to manifest the Cheltor with Eclypta.
After a year Dorrinn feels strong. She waits inside the cheltor with Azallanthe, who knows a few things about the healing arts. Azzalanthe and Dorrin, the taantric sorcerors, very much bonded spiritually... they are very much involved in the ritual magic of connecting opsychically to the soul of the planet.
"We must bind ourselves to the core energy of this planet," she is saying.
"So we are here on Elgos Prime to remember what it means to be in bodies channeling cosmic energies, weft in the pattenrs of yin and yang that are the flowing structure of the universe."
And inside the Cheltor is the redolence of punk, burning in the braizer.
Energies gather and coalesce, and both the young lovers feel them.
'I begin to feel,' Azallanthe said, ' the pull of the sun...the sun has a...attractive, magnetic light...'
'So is that what causes the plants to bloom so iridescent? the light is different here.'
As Dorrin says this she sits, sits with her legs crossed in the lotus position. he eyes fly, up into the mystic trance immediately and energies craclle about her head...like a nimbus cloud.
As i pass the cheltor the sounds of physical bliss are rising in intensity...shouts, moaning, a joyful coo like something lovely and new has come into the universe.
I smile and keep walking...i am feeling the surf.
Feeling myself becoming one with elemental air and water as the sharp wind cuts at my cheeks, whips at the heavy tunic i wear, the salty foam wiull be encrusted later on the hem..
"what's it all about?" i say this out loud. "What's the meaning of all this?"
...and i feel her manifesting before I see her with my eyes.
Her spiritual presence...
"Love, Marques, love is the meaning of it all."
I smile. i always smile when i see Eclypta.
'Dove...'
She takes my hand, we walk a bit down the mossy peninsula. her walk is sure and steady, i need the staff for certainty. wet moss, thick with the salts of Elgos' ocean.
"We all forgot where magic came from, Marques...we have to remember here tonight."
"My mind feels clear. I am feeling....open to the origin of energy that forged this planet..i am feeling that presence. Here..."
She smiles. "Good.'"
And she takes my face in her hands, gentle Eclypta's soft, soft hands, and gently kisses me.
On the rocky atoll, the wind ripping away at my tunic, howling almost, tempestuous about my ears.
But we are a part of the storm, one with the wind.
Eclypta holds me gently, after a time, her face nestled into the hollow between my neck and jaw...she is whispering and her voice vibrates in my flesh, i can feel her words.
"Magic and love come from the same place, Marques. If we are to defeat the Hellions once and for all, we must reclaim the fire of love, of our own innocence...we never lost it, just forgot where it came from...my love."
As I am holding Eclypta i see at the top of the hill Draic, looking down at us with an impassive expression.
He makes a Gesture with his hands. Eclypta and I have talked enough.
Then he makes another gesture, the ancient hand 'glyph for lightning.
The clouds open above his head and I see the dim far awar Star of Elgos. He is summoning energy, as are Eclypta and I.
On the other side of the mountan Shareth and Cassadra/Cassandar are also summoning energy. They are communing with ancient powers...the ancient powers that have led us all here, assembled to face the Hellions...who no doubt have not pinpointed our location...yet.
to be continued