gallowglass

Before: Washed Up

2005-06-30T11:35:00.000-04:00

I surface out of a black sleep, clamber gasping out of a nightmare of suffocation, to find myself sitting in the small hold of a ship. I take a few deep ragged breaths and look about. A few things immediately draw my attention: 1) the ship appears to be listing quite badly, because the stairs leading up are aligned at a diagonal instead of the normal arrangement, and 2) I assume the weight distribution problems are not cargo-related but rather due to someone punching holes in the hull somewhere because the place is rapidly filling up with water. A bright flash of panic sparks through my body and I fight to surpress it because my hands are shackled to a wooden post between my legs; struggling will only shear the skin off my wrists on the rough edges of the heavy iron manacles, and tire me. The water is at my chest, and I dip my head to it and take a sip: it's fresh. So, a river then. I listen carefully to the creaking of the ship as it fights its own internal battle with water and air and gravity, and wonder where we are, how deep will we sink, and how quickly. I take a breath and push my head under the water, looking for a tool or weapon; something with which to engineer my escape, and for the first time notice I am not alone. There is another figure floating in the deepest section of the room, fully underwater, bobbing slighty. Her chain is taut and pulling her hands out in front of her. The posture suggests to me a person begging and I push away an image of torture that flares up, raw and loathsome. I lift my head from the water and, as I reapply attention to my restraints, something that sounds like a prayer appears on my tongue.

My cuffs hold fast and things are quickly starting to occur to me now, as I cast about for an escape, in no order that I care to make sense of, as if my brain is saying Err...Here! Play with this stuff while I try and get us out of this mess! I remember a purple flower, and a bowl of water in the desert, inked with blood. A great battle made out of sand and steel and heat, and focused against a mighty castle built of dreams. War engines throwing enormous adobe blocks at walls and towers. Soldiers fighting a terrible windstorm, driving back a scirroco, with their curiously curved swords. I remember burying our dead and getting lost, marching for days on the very blade of sand dunes, then spotting curious objects sticking out of the ground, going to them and finding the desert has disinterred the corpses, left them with legs and arms sticking out in odd arrangements. A recruit said "The desert doesn't want us to forget". I remember a cool and dark cave filled with riches, falling to my knees and vomiting, then fleeing from that place as fast as I could run. I remember being captured... I remember being captured. I remember being captured by the enemy and then traded for crates of breadfruit and ripe knuckles of losfruit with bark still on the stems. I remember being captured and traded.

Now I know where I am: The Melenoplus, but why was I not chained to an oar, and where are the other slaves? We are sinking, and if we've been attacked then presumably our attackers are people who don't share our captors views on self-determination, and if they do then they'd want the rich cargo for themselves. Either way they'd want to empty the ship of it's resources, so why am I still chained up in this bilge?

A Life Left To Kill - Day 5, Dusk

2005-05-20T09:27:00.000-04:00

I can't get away as fast as I'd like. The cut across my chest is making it hard to breathe and running stealthed reduces my movement rate by about 70%. The hue and cry has definitely gone up. I can hear folks behind me shouting to each other and charging about. Humourously, their racket makes it easier to tell where they all are but an image comes to me now of hounds driving their prey toward the hunters and I start seeing all kinds of ambush possibilities in the trees and hollows ahead of me. I need to rest and regain my strength, let my skin begin the process of regrowth over my wounds, and I need time to deal with what has just happened. I killed that man and I need to sort it out for myself. Leaning against a tree I take a sniff of the air, trying to catch the scent of trouble ahead, then a yell nearby urges me onward, south and east.

I guess this is just how it happens sometimes. Two forces come together and produce something else, something outside of themselves. The energy that was a by-product of our meeting had to be expelled somehow. I try not to take it personally that the blue man attacked me - after all, he knew me not at all - and hope he takes no offense that I survived the encounter while he fell. Or was it the other way around? did I attack him? (I trip over a mossy, standing stone overun with weed and root and hunker down behind it to re-apply the grease to my knives. My hands are shaking.) My memory of the incident is of it HAPPENING with no forethought or malicious intent on my part but when you have no memories and therefore no reality to support your ideas the meaning of every act is called in to question. There is no doubt however that I did kill him, and that knowledge forms a hard little knot in my stomach that I need to worry at and wear away. I risk a peek over the top of the mile marker and notice some glyphs carved into its face, obscured by growth. Peeling away some of the leaves and branches i make out a series of pictograms showing a warrior falling in battle. A chill runs up my spine like frost and I look slowly down at my feet. Evidently this is a gravestone. Best I can make out is a fighter called either 'Thrown' or 'Throne' (not sure about that name, the word has other meanings in my language) was felled by another. Hum. It's entirely possible I've messed up the whole thing and whomever died here was dropped from a great height or died while on the kazi. Time to move on I th...

The group seemingly came from nowhere and running at pace. Eight of them, single file, wrapped in a tone of transport that pushes them along faster than they'd normally be able to run. At the front of the group was that red-headed Norse I ran into back at the gates and the other, stumpy one was with them also. I take a few tentative steps backwards, deeper into the thicket and watch the group swing around again to cover the area from another arc. They are trolling for me, and it sounds like the siege has started up again behind me, perhaps reinforcements have arrived? How do I get out of here? Why did I come here anyway? I'm not cut-out for this business. I should just go raise crops or something, get into calving and out of this. (The group doubles back and zips off at a tangent to my position.) If I make it home I'm gonna throw these weapons away and become a teacher, something of worth. A merchant selling dyes in the square. Which way should I go? I'm surrounded. There are noises in every direction now. I can hear a ticking sound close by. Which way should I go? Maybe there are invisible assassins closing on me right now? Tick. Tick. Tick. A teacher, that's it! I'll tutor saplings in the ways of philsophikal matters. I'm surrounded. I could buy an office in Tir Na Nog and sleep upstairs on a hay bed, keep my own hours. People would send their little ones to me and I'd see seven or eight a day, make up a schedule. Tick. Tick. (The group sounds like it's back a little bit to my left. A voice cries out something I don't understand. Another calls a response over to my right.) I'm surrounded. Why did I come here? At luncheon I'll put up a sign saying 'Back in 45' and head down to the Inn, the Green Tea place, or whatever it's called, and I'll have black figs and toasted munchies and recline with my feet up drawn onto matters of intellectual pursuits. I'm surrounded. Why did i come here? I'm... Tick.

The arrow entered my body just under my left shoulder blade. I felt it punch between a rib and pierce my lung. My face went tight and hot and it felt like my eyes were going to burst. I breathed in, coughing, breathed out, coughing. I brought my hand up to my lips and there was blood on them, a crimson stain on my fingers and I thought how pretty it looked against the green. In dream-time, I felt my body turn around in little steps, ve r y s l o w ly, like the sail of a windmill rotating to face the breeze it knows is there, I turned to look behind me, I wanted to see.

The arrow entered the fleshy part of my upper left arm and I grunted, almost knocked off my feet from the impact but I stubbornly stayed up. There was my archer, a dark-skinned Albion drawing back her bow for another shot; her third, my last. I coughed again and tried to raise my right hand to her:

-Hey, i said, thickly: Hey there. Teacher.

I dream of a purple flower. And falling from a great height onto grass. Someone is throwing stones at me. Rain falls around me like applause.

And then the archer is engulfed in a sudden rush of green and two assassins explode into view. She drops her bow and manages to pull her sword, smashing one of them in the face with her shield. But he shrugs the blow off and she is quickly hacked apart. I smile at them. The taller one winks at me. Then they vanish, and I know they're coming for me.

And then it's quiet. And I'm standing in a forest, held fast to the moment by steel-tipped arrows, drowning in my own blood, waiting to be struck down with the ripe, earthy smell of leaves and dirt in my face, filling my senses. Somewhere I can hear a bird singing. And the sun is going down on the edge of my vision making the light in here dapple golden, winking coins through the foliage. I'm very tired.

* * *

When i wake it is dark, and I find the druid has patched me up. I am stiff, but my head is a little clearer and I feel more present. The druid smiles approvingly when I quaff a tumbler of water and wolf down some patty cakes, then sends me off armed with a course of bell root for the pain, an unguent for the cuts and scrapes, and a program of stretching and exercise for my unhinged back.

A merchant in Mag Mell suggests the south as a nice place to recline and gives me detailed directions for a place called Connla, but I don't use of them. Most of the traffic that is pouring past is headed north, back toward the place called Druim Ligen and I find myself moving that way also, dragged along by the flow.

A Life Left To Kill - Day 2

Ligen is bustling with creatures of all shapes and sizes. some are, like me, teeny weeny, but many are not and tower over me as I heave the big wooden doors open and...

* * *

She discovereth the depe & secret things: she knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth within her." -Daniel 2:22

A Life Left To Kill - Day 5, Afternoon

2005-05-19T09:26:00.000-04:00

From up here I have a terrific view of this part of Midgard and have learned a few things about the places that people build keeps. First, be sure and locate them well away from any trees that may be growing nearby. The stretch of open ground I'm looking at acts as a natural firebreak, which is a GOOD THING as it's highly likely mean people will come and try to set fire to your keep, usually with you inside if they can arrange it. Second, always always build on top of a hill. When the mean people come it will help if you can throw or shoot pointy things at them to make them go away and being higher than they are is another GOOD THING as your pointy things will travel farther. I can't imagine what sort of ruler would place a keep at ground level but am fairly confident they would have their advisors beaten up and then hung shortly after the first time it came under concerted attack.

The siege settled down to a lull about an hour ago, with both attacker and defender enjoying a respite from the battle, and I could see ration packages being handed out from the back lines. I have divined from studying the complicated and intriguing banners that are being bandied about that the attackers are Midgardians and the defenders Albions. (Also, about 20 minutes ago, someone stepped gingerly out on to the roof of the gatehouse and ran an huge flag with a cup on it up the flagpole. And was then promptly shot with a dozen arrows for his trouble.) I'm no expert on warring, but even my untrained eye can see that this siege is at an impasse. The Mids fling themselves against the keep and the Albions repel them with vigour and prejudice but do little to diminish the Midgard numbers or discourage the Midgard spirit. Something... something decisive is needed to sway the conflict one way or 'tother.

As I'm pondering what that thing might be my attention is wrenched to a spot about 30 yards in front of the treeline. If I'm not mistaken, a wolf just appeared there out of the vapour. Hum. I stare at it wondering if perhaps it's the distortion of the heat waves that are rising from the fires scattered about. The wolf turns sharply to face west, as if it had been called to attention by someone in that direction, then it moves off to the left and out of my field of view. I put my head on one side and listen as carefully as I can. I can hear...something. Something like... I'm not sure. It sounds like a something is pushing through the brush toward me. I pull my legs up under me and peer down through the branches, trying to see what's down there. Then a twig snaps off to my right. Hum. I make myself invisible. That's a different direction from where I've been focused. This is worrying. I suddenly feel very vulnerable and exposed, and decide I would rather be down and moving than up and still. I strain to hear the somethings I am now certain are moving around down there.

I shinny down the tree as quietly as I am able and freeze at the base trying to get a lock on the noises around me. Very carefully, I take out the little pot marked LB, pull the cork stopper, and trickle a line of green onto the edge of an angled dagger. Repeating the process with the GENV I spill a little on my hand and allow myself a small smile. A bird caws a little way off and I assume it's a response to a nearby presence. I turn and set out in the opposite direction. After about 30 feet I hear a bark farther off to the west and begin to relax. I don't know if I was being hunted or not but decide I'd rather be somewhere they've already looked and will swing around behind the Mids, to the south. I'm invisible and therefore a little more relaxed than I would otherwise be so I didn't notice the tracks until I'd been walking on them for a minute or two. They are larger feet than mine and leading back the way I've just come. The fact that the owner took the exact path I now follow implies that this person wanted also to remain unseen by anyone nearby. I'm contemplating the meaning of this when another invisible person pops into view beside me.

I was so shocked I let out a YELL and registered only later that in yelling I had gathered my will and focused it, throwing a surge of power out to the figure and damaging it. This had the added effect of dropping it and I out of our invisible states and we stood shocked and blinking at each other for half-a-second, then SHIIIIING weapons were drawn and he was upon me slashing and stabbing I feint away and evade pulling my daggers up to deflect his attack with my forearms he catches me on my upper arm and draws blood a sudden cloud of green goes up around me and I feel weaker I drop and roll away swinging back around to try and hit him under the arm he extended to cut me with while his defences are drawn I land a blow and he grunts folding around my blade to take some of the force away from it I bring my other dagger up aiming for his throat but he bends back at the hips and I miss off-balance for a second he crouches and tries to slice the tendons at the back of my left knee I kick out and throw my weight backwards landing on my butt in the snow with the air pushed out of me he's on me in a flash I challenge there are sparks as our weapons meet in the space between us I tense and spring trying to throw him off me swing my right hand in to his chest he evades finds my left hand at his back punctured a shower of green he coughs poisoned he rolls away jumps to his feet dropping his axes in the snow and pulling two more from his belt coming at me I back off dodge deflecting his attacks I SHOUT again he takes a damaging blast of purple and black light he cuts me across the chest opening up a ragged wound another storm of green goes up I'm overcome with nausea I deflect I attack he evades I evade I land a quick stab he stops fighting I push my advantage roll into him landing a punishing attack to his kidneys another that slices his stomach he attacks again as I make a daring jab to his throat cut it exposing myself to counter attack but he's had it he slumps to his knees in the snow holding...his neck...with both...hands...choking...he falls onto his side...and. stops. moving.

I drop to my knees also. I vomit copiously. Thus emptied I wash my hands and face with some snow and try to get my breathing under control. I run snow through my wounds as well, to clean them up a little. When i'm finished i turn to the blue man lying dead beside me. His eyes are open and staring. I don't know how to feel about this. And in any case, have no time for it now. I can already hear people thrashing through the woods crying in their jangled language "Mettah! Mettah!". I stagger to my feet and, after saluting the dead man, melt into the forest.

A Life Left To Kill - Day 5

2005-05-17T08:45:00.000-04:00

Everyone, I think, in their secret heart dreams themselves an artist. The reckoner down at the 'Change blushes when described by their manager as 'a wizard with the numbers'. The stone mason whose daily routine is drawn by buttress and support beam imagine deep inside that what they are doing is, in some way, a work of artistik endeavour. This fancy fills them with music and raises what they do to a higher level. In so doing, they can then look at their turn and believe they made of it something finer; They were here for a more profound purpose, which they carried out and thus established their individuality, made their mark. No one else could have constructed this T-Joint just so. Only this person could have devised and codified this mathematikal theorem in exactly this manner. It's this quality in all races and peoples that brings out the best in them, urging them onward to ever-greater achievements. Consequently, when thoughts and ingenuity turn to matters of warfare and destruction we should take pause, and be fearful.

The sound is immense, the sound has mass. It feels like a solid wave hitting me in the chest, and I've never heard anything like it. A vast tearing-thumping-grinding-slashing that blends and twists its arms together to form a single shape of noise that surrounds and penetrates us. Sadly I can close my ears no more than I can close my eyes, though I wish for both. My eyes cannot quite absorb all that is being shown to them and keep darting about, stopping every few seconds on some fresh atrocity. The snow is stained with large patches of red that have pooled and frozen where the ground dips. Warriors slip and slide on them, trying desperately to find purchase and defend themselves from the barrage of arrows raining down from the keep walls - they crab forward and sideways in little bow-legged steps, trying to keep their centers of gravity low, their shields (if they have one) held protectively in front. Here and there are craters scorched right down to the yellow dirt, like a boil on the land that has been lanced, leaving a rim of white, then a circle of brown, then a bowl of yellow. Many of these depressions contain bodies, whether living or dead is unclear, but at any rate, they are currently un-attacked and achieve through this lack of attention and activity a kind of peace within the tumult. There are charred remains sitting in clumps, black and burnt, frozen still in a rictus of suffering, their arms thrust out as if to deter the incoming fireball from its path.

There is a ram up and pounding on the double doors of the keep, while smoke and fire explodes all around. The wooden roof of the gatehouse is burning brightly and I can see defenders ferrying sacks of dirt up onto it to try and staunch the flames. A small blue figure dramatically pops into view on the wall and attacks one of the sack carriers viciously with its axes and there is a sudden, brilliant flash of combustion nearby, freezing them for a second, outlining them against the tower like some hellish tableaux, then the moment passes and they are back in frantic motion, the small figure jumping off the wall with arrows and darts of light pinning the cloak to its back. It stumbles down the hill, falls and lies still. seconds later another little person appears at the top of the wall and is greeted by a dark figure appearing suddenly in front of it and drawing two daggers across its throat with a fast, sweeping action. The blue person lets go of its weapons and drops to the ground in a heap. At the back of the keep some unfortunate mage has fallen, or been pushed out and there is a scuffle that consists mostly of attackers being stopped in their tracks and made to stand still as stone while the mage casts rapture after rapture at them. Three arcs of light stream down from the keep wall and the frozen fighters are lost in a white inferno of limbs and power. The mage on the ground blinks at the denuded circle of melted snow and ice and the tangle of bodies strewn about, in a moment of shock, but this gives way quickly to a look of delight and she waves cheerfully to her friends on the battlement, giving them a thumbs-up sign. Alas, her enemies take advantage of this distraction and press her position anew. She casts and re-casts but this tactic cannot hope to keep up with the number of attackers swarming around now and the magician is quickly overcome and killed. I'm startled by a mighty crash of brick and dust as something of great weight and force slams into the keep tower and tumbles down the front, landing with a dry splash of wood and splinters in the courtyard. At the base of the hill, the attackers have set up large war engines that buck and stamp as they loose their missiles into the keep. Set a little way back from these machines is a semi-circle of menders either caring for their wounded charges or sitting and replenishing their will. Whenever they are able they summon fiendish magiks and actually raise the dead from the battlefield, returning life and spirit to the crushed and mangled bodies.

I am completely unequipped to deal with this spectacle and unsure of what part, if any, I should play. The constant motion is manic and crazed and it makes me uneasy. I have no idea what kind of disposition I had in my old life but in this one I am most certainly a watcher. Fairly certain that I remain so far unnoticed I look for a place of concealment from which to observe and worry and decide on a course. I dart back into the thicket and begin walking a line I figure to be more-or-less parallel to the keep but is far enough back that I can stay hidden. Checking my provisions I find I still have half my stock of nuts so between them and eating snow for fluids I can probably last a day or so before I'll need to forage. I choose a sturdy-looking evergreen and deftly climb up until I find a spot that affords me a good vantage point. After trimming a few branches away so my view of the plain is unobstructed, I arrange them under me (dropping them is like painting a big sign on the tree saying 'HIDEE HERE HIDEY') and settle back into the trunk. For a moment it occurs to me I may nod off and fall, drawing enemies to me with the noise, but I am far too shaken by what I have seen, and far to fearful of being discovered. I watch. And wait.

A Life Left To Kill - Day 4

2005-05-16T08:50:00.000-04:00

Something's burning. Dawn has chased away the last of the night, and the brunt of the storm seems to have passed, leaving a light drizzle that's quickly freezing and painting a layer of treacherous-looking ice on everything. I do some of the stretching exercises the druid taught me, testing my back, and fiddle idly with my angled daggers. The almost-encounter with the two companions last night has me wondering if I have what it takes to push them into the body of an assailant. Or would I falter, drop them in the dirt as I am run through and killed. These thoughts occupy my mind most seriously but my stomach has an agenda of its own and grumbles loudly, protesting the paucity of bread in my pockets. I ignore this for the moment and tackle the tallest, nearest tree in the hopes that it will afford me a view of the surround and give me direction.

The limbs are slippery and the way hard but after a few minutes sustained grunting and groping I achieve a sturdy bough and take a breather. The tree is shed of it's leaves and I find I can see quite far. Trees covered in snow. More trees with and without snow. And some other trees slightly less snowy that the first. There is a thick plume of black smoke in the middle distance, the burning I smelled earlier. What does it portend? The odour is not of wood alone, but an acrid, sour smell, something familiar and unthinkable - the smell of the charnel house. The question is whether the fire burns now brightly or if it is raging only against it's own dying and passing? If persons are still feeding this fire it's horrible fuel then they would likely think nothing of adding a little me to the conflagration. What to do?

As I'm thinking, my hand slips into the crook of the tree limb, a little hollow where the larger branches meet, and is poked by a sharp object. There is something here, covered over by a lattice of sticks and thatched with leaves. I use a dagger to gently pry the roof off the tiny hidey hole and find, much to the delight of my stomach, a winter stash of nuts! Slightly chagrined, I look about for the stashee but whoever it is has either been driven off by my presence or is watching me from a secure place nearby and no doubt speculating on how it might subdue and detain such a tasty-looking treat. I pocket half the nuts, take a fast compass reading, noting the direction of the smoke, and mostly scrape and bump myself back down the tree.

The land is clogged with trees and rocks and snow. Where there are no trees or rocks there are fallen trees and odd creatures loping about looking miserable. I eat the nuts as I run, and experiment with my visualisation trick, making myself visible and then invisible at will. After a while it is effortless and, deep inside me, a little bloom of confidence opens. I find myself grinning idiotically. Perhaps the wee one back in Ligen was right? Maybe i am an assassin? Maybe I have an identity, a someone I can be? What an exciting life I must have led. Then it occurs to me that I might have killed people and my smile scatters like riverstones.

As I'm crossing a road from one treeline to another I'm halted by the sense of something large looming on the periphery of my vision. Instantly I become invisible and when I turn to look am gobsmacked to see some kind of behemoth standing in the road. The creature is easily 200 feet tall and appears to be made entirely of ice. I think for a moment that it's a sculpture put in place to act as symbolic guardian but then it moves and appears to look at me, underlining and enforcing its status as actual guardian. I shudder, and take the long way 'round.

Navigating a particularly dense clump of brush I emerge in a kind of clearing. The stench is ever stronger now and I remove a 'kerchief from my pocket and tie it around my lower face that I may breathe less of the foul air. The ground begins to thump and I think I catch flashes of light and motion sparking through the trees to my south east. I follow them, remaining invisible and watching my steps carefully to ensure I don't snap any stray twigs and attract unwanted attention to myself. Closer and closer, I can hear shouting now and voices crying out in pain and distress. The air is charged with static and I feel my hair standing on end. Steel clashes against wood and the ground trembles with a thudding sound that rises up through the soles of my feet. All at once the wall of trees falls away and I emerge onto a plain. There is a keep here, one of solid and low design, hewn from mighty trees and lashed together with iron girders. And there is a sight, a sight of such weight and violence it was all I could do not to turn tail and run off back the way I came, back to Ligen and the light and space of Hibernia. I begin to take my breath in huge gulps, too afraid to move forward and act, yet wholly unable to turn my back on what I am seeing. Clearly this keep has been under siege. And it is not over.

A Life Left To Kill - Day 3

2005-05-14T08:06:00.000-04:00

I get to my feet and put my amulet back on, buttoning my tunic all the way up to my neck. It is snowing quite heavily now, large flakes falling around me in the silent courtyard, settling on my black cloak like ash. Off to my left something lets loose a howl into the night, whether from hunger or fear is unclear to me but I fervently hope that whatever made the sound is either smaller and less fierce than I am or else, observing the rites of some obscure local holiday, is off meat.

I climb the wooden stairs leading up to the battlements and stand on the wall peering into weather. That is the largest word I can think of to describe what is happening around the keep. It is not a snow or hail storm. It is not flurries or precipitation. It is Capital W Weather and it just is. I cannot see 10 feet into it. While trying to get a lock on the moon and fumble for my compass simultaneously I slip on the frost-coated ledge and with a small 'oops' sound I flail backwards and off the wall. I tuck my head into my body as I'm falling and try to go limp[er], my eyes tightly shut, and I actually lay on the ground, in a snow bank, for perhaps a full minute before realising I had landed. I was apparently unharmed, I'd noticed my landing not at all, in fact, as I thought more about it, I seemed to recall a sensation of air moving around me in a supportive manner at some point in the fall. Most curious.

I get to my feet and pull the hood of my cloak back up over my head. Looking at the ground I perceive a darker patch bordered by two less-dark strips which I take to be a road of some sort. As it looks to lead away from the keep, and I am without map or landmark, I decide my only option is to start walking along it.

The path seems to wind this way and that and at times I hear fell creatures fussing and shifting close by me. After a few minutes a high stone wall melts into view. There is a double door emblazoned with… I’m not sure… Some monstrous creatures no doubt intended to discourage uninvited guests from making themselves comfortable (I don’t really see the need for it; the geography and climate of this land is unpleasant enough I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hang around here longer than is absolutely necessary) and a gatehouse straddling the doors like a fat courtesan astride a particularly corpulent horse. I stand for a moment with head cocked on one side trying to reach into the wind with my senses for any sign of danger. Feeling nothing untoward I lean into the door and it creaks open. I find myself in a small antechamber, two more gates similarly decorated standing before me impassively. The first gates grind shut behind me and I am free for a moment from the blustering winds and snow, in a little pocket of calm. I stand again, listening, when suddenly HORROR! the gates in front of me are opening!

I draw away instinctively, feeling the cold stones press into my back. My heart in my mouth, my stomach sinking down to my boots, there are two figures stepping carefully into the room, sniffing the air. One is short and squat with a long, white beard, carrying a hammer and a small, round shield painted with a runic symbol. The second is taller, with red hair and a large 2-handed Sword strapped to his back and I notice he has some minor-rapture of bright sparks dancing around his feet. They inch into the little room with me, talking in low growls, in a language I do not understand and that sounds most rough and ugly to my ears. I hold my breath and wonder if I can get the heavy gates open and flee without being slaughtered when a wonderful and mysterious thing happens: the taller one comes over to the corner where I am and looks right at me. I get a grip on my weapons, get my blood up, trying to locate the place where his jugular vein might be between the lip of his helm and the collar of his chain hauberk. He looks right at me. I look right at him. He hesitates a moment... Then he moves to the other corner. He doesn’t see me. He didn’t see me! I am astonished and grateful. From outside a third person calls out “Jitzahek!! Klahpahov!” and the two look at each other. They take a last, fast look around the room and leave. Their footfalls fade and I breathe for the first time in two minutes.

I step away from the wall and make a move to push the interior doors open. As I lift my arm I see, or rather don’t-see, a most curious thing: my arm is transparent. What is this? My hand, my arm, indeed my entire body as I look down at it, are only vaguely there. I can see through them. when the door opened I somehow shocked myself into invisibility! I concentrate and form an image of myself inside my mind. I visualise the image as solid. I look and my body is visible again. Returning to the image in my mind I make it into a hollow outline. I check and I am invisible again. I am bewildered. How did I get to the place I now find myself? I push open the doors and slowly move off the path and back into the woods a little. Checking carefully that I am truly alone, I sit down on a shielded rock, and, unbidden and uncontrollably, feeling myself suddenly overcome with a rush of guilt and fear, I quietly start to cry.

A Life Left To Kill - Day 2

2005-05-13T08:56:00.000-04:00

Ligen is bustling with creatures of all shapes and sizes. Some are, like me, teeny weeny, but many are not and tower over me as I heave the big wooden doors open and push my way inside. I survey the courtyard and my eyes alight on a morose-looking fellow skulking under the stairs. He has a nagging air of familiarity about him and I notice his fingernails are dyed the same green as my left hand. When I draw near his eyes latch onto me and the look of recognition in them pulls me to him – perhaps this person can tell me of myself. When I get close he draws back his cloak revealing row upon row of little clay pots sheathed in leather hoops.

-Nice to see you alive, Mistress, a most welcome sight you are. Not that I think one way or the other about your skills and abilities, you understand, it's just that even me best customers tend to get themselves maimed and/or killed in all sorts of nasty ways.

-Do you know me?

He looks briefly suspicious:

-Oer... Aye. I do.

-Do you know my name?

-Our relationship is purely professional, Mistress. I know only that you come to me every few days that I might furnish you with my oils and grease.

-Grease?

-Aye, the green grease. That which sticks to blade and wound most handily.

-When was the last time I purchased from you any grease?

His eyes flick to the sky as he accesses some inner calendar:

-A little while, tis why I'm happy to see you er, well...hobbling around like you are, I thought p'raps you'd come a cropper.

-How long?

-Close to 4 weeks.

-I see. Well, you'd best give me my usual order then. How much do I owe you?

He specifies an amount of gold and silver and hands over two clay pots. One is marked LB, and the other GENV. I look at him uncomprehending and he looks puzzled, staring at me intently, then silently mouths 'Lifebane' and 'Greater Enervating'; he points to the swords hanging at my sides. I get the strong sense he thinks I've gone a bit doolally and I hope he didn't overcharge, thinking me a simpleton.

Next I join the line-up at a medallion merchant who convinces me that I will be magically transported to another realm if I buy a piece of jewellery from her and then wait patiently on the stone plinth. I buy one marked with a hammer and one scribed with a cup and enter the crowd, mesmerised by the colourful armours. Someone yells out 'Neck check!' and this stirs me from my reverie. I remove the amulet I wear and put on the necklace imprinted with the hammer. I wait for whatever will happen next.

After a short while some tall, thin people in turquoise robes join us on the stone and stand at equidistant points around the circles edge. One impossibly pale person stands at it's center, gathering her will. I feel the pit of my stomach sink into my boots as she begins to cast a rapture. The air is being focused toward the middle of the group, a sound I feel more than hear rises in pitch as the other figures join in the casting. There is an impossibly bright rush of light and a...a nothing. I black out.

I am woken by snow falling on my face. It is darker than pitch and a bitter wind pulls at my cloak. Why have i come to Midgard?

A Life Left To Kill - Day 1

2005-05-12T09:42:00.000-04:00

It appears I am not without purpose. A quick inventory reveals I am worth several platinum pieces. Whether this bounty is ill-gotten or not it seems clear that the person I used to be was both resourceful and capable. Taking directions from a stable lad I make my way to a large, urban center called Tir na Nog, where i seek the counsel of a physician. She confirms I have a herniated disc at the 5th lumbar vertebrae, a puncture wound just above the kidney and, quite clearly, I am concussed from a blow to the cranium. I am pleased to learn there are objects in this world more blunt than my head.

The druid suggests that the weakness and disorientation will pass and that my memories will return gradually. I am directed to take a constitutional and wander the land like a nomad, and that I should expect to see features of our glorious country that will help to clear the fog and kick-start my faulty memory. I am nonplussed.

-But first you need to sleep for a few hours. Rest your head here and let me sew you without your shocked and curious sad eyes upon me."

I am reluctant to sleep, and fearful of the place I might wake but the body doc soothes me and soonly I drift into oblivion.

I dream of a purple flower. And falling from a great height onto grass. Someone is throwing stones at me. Rain falls around me like applause.

When I wake it is dark, and I find the druid has patched me up. She sends me off armed with a course of bell root for the pain, an unguent for the cuts and scrapes, and a program of stretching and exercise for my unhinged back. A merchant in Mag Mell suggest the south as a nice place to recline so I take directions for a place called Connla. But I don't make use of them. Something is calling me north and I follow the voice, limping slowly back the way I came, back toward the place called Druim Ligen.

A Life Left To Kill - Day 0

2005-05-11T18:13:00.000-04:00

A rush of sound moving fast through a tunnel and then...voices, the scrape of weapons being sheathed, feet stamping, names called out. a dull ache coming at me sideways. I can move my left hand a little. I'm holding something. I uncurl one finger experimentally. Someone shouts out and laughs. I understand the language being used so assume, hesitantly, that i am in a safe place. I decide to leave my eyes closed for now. There is warm stone under my cheek and a bitter smell like copper. I feel a wind blow up and rustle the hair on the back of my head. I wonder if that means there's a door behind me? Starting with my neck, moving down my arms to my hands, down my thorax to my buttocks, thighs, calves and feet, I slowly tense and un-tense my muscles. Checking for injury by rote, to the meter of some buried instinct i cannot control. there is pain in my back. Located centrally in the lumbar region, maybe around the bottom 2 vertebrae and blossoming out like a stain over my lower back to my hips where it sits throbbing. my right arm is numb also, but that may just be the result of it being under my weight, crushed against the ground. I find i am holding something in my right hand as well.

I'm breathing in and breathing out. both good signs, I think. I decide to try opening an eye, the left one first. It's a bit gummed shut but gradually it opens and is assaulted first by light and then by colour. I blink rapidly a few times and wait for it to adjust. I see large feet and large legs and a teeny person sitting among them like a nymph in her forest home, looking at me. She is smiling. I cast around a bit and see brightly coloured clothing and armour and shields. Weapons hanging from sides. Lots of weapons. I take it as a good omen that none of them look to be pointed in my direction and begin the un-sticking of my other eye.

There is movement among the gathered standing bodies and the cacophony dies away like water raining from a bath. I sense people in bright robes entering the throng and a low murmur begins. There is a blinding flash of bright light off to my right which I shut my eyes tight against, and a keening explosive sound which ends in a sort of POP. Then nothing else. The collective hum of bodies close together is vanished. A bird calls out to its mate nearby. A door creaks open and then slams shut. I open my eyes and see, shockingly, that the bodies have vanished also. What manner of deceit is this? I decide to sit up.

Spikes of pain shoot through my body as I roll onto my side and up into a sitting position. My face feels tight. I move my jaw a little and look around. I am in a courtyard bound by high stone walls with double doors set in them opposite each other. I'm sitting on a circular stone plinth that is slightly warm. I note the worn bricks are stained in patches by what looks like blood. There are armed guardians standing around idly. Where am i? better yet, who am i?

For the first time, I look down at myself. I'm wearing scuffed and torn armour of black and crimson. My body is of similar dimension to that of the nymph I saw sitting among the legs. There is a hole in the left knee of my strides. Oddly, my left hand is stained green in places. It holds a dagger. My right has a longer sword in it. Both weapons are marked with dried blood and have a ring of green up around the hilt.

-Roister doister!!

I look around. Another wee thing, and this one has a thrall in tow behind it, similarly proportioned and making magicks of its own.

-ROISTER DOISTER!!

-Are you talking to me?

-HAHA! Yeah, talkin' to you. That's a fun thin' to say! Roister Doister! What are you doin' sittin' here all lost and such? Shunt you be out killin' uglies?

-Killing...?

-Killin! Stabby Stabby! The little person makes sweeping motions in front of my face: Fighting the Breatunnach!

-The British! You shuld be out there slitting throats and dancing prettily on their bodies!

-Why do you think that?

-HAHA! Good to see the Path of Essence continues to attract the brightest and best! Well, for one, you're an assassin! That was my first clue! Roister Doister! HAHA! And with that the creature cast a rapture and sped away, laughing.

So I am an assassin it seems. Or dressed and armed like one at the very least. I reach deep inside myself for the memory of who I am, the things I've done, and find...nothing. Nothing but blurred images, the sense of something caught briefly from the corner of my eye and then lost. Why can't I remember?