From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 23:00:30 GMT Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [DQ] Week 12: Kadrys ... Fall From Grace [ADMIN] Most of this story is from Andrea Evans. It was supposed to go on before the Week 11 "Return" post, but I never got it, so we're fitting it in here as an extra added bonus. The others had gone to sleep, or were drowsing. 'Raelf and Kadrys were both awake, though. Miro sat against the mast, eyes abstracted in the Elvish meditation that substituted for sleep. William tossed, fitfully, chewing on a knuckle in his sleep. Valgar growled quietly, Alita at his side, one hand on his head. ShockWave and Lancos had both stayed awake for a while longer, but finally had drifted into fitful dreams. 'Raelf toyed with the amber-crystal amulet around his neck, and then spoke. "Kadrys, could you tell me where you were? My older self was using Miribel the Prophetess. I've been forbidden to use that form while I still live. I don't understand why he'd break that forbidding, and I'm not sure any more that what he did here was really right." Kadrys shifted, uncomfortably. "I already told you some of it. The poem I sent you, gives the whole thing, really. But this is the part I didn't tell." His voice changed, subtly, schooling into the formal cadences of a storyteller-bard. It would be in the third person, the form demanded it. --- Everyone's idea of Heaven differs. The mere touch of sunlight without pain is wondrous to Kadrys. The simple sound of Imariye's voice brought tears of joy to his eyes: though he would once have been the first to say that vampires are unable to weep. To even glimpse Imariye' again is bliss he has never dared to dream about. And he has had more than a glimpse of her. They have shared precious time with each other. They have talked of many many things: of their past together, of Kadrys' long and lonely sojourn without her. And his darkest unspoken dread has at long last been assuaged. He _knows_ now that she has never stopped loving him. Countless griefs, myriad regrets and sorrows, multitudes of the tiny injuries of living alone which even he cannot remember or name, have one by one been lifted from his soul. How could he remain unchanged by such a gift of love? He has not yet had the chance to gauge how great the changes within himself may be. But he will. * * * Somewhere outside their charmed circle, their fragile place of peace poised perfectly between her blessing and his curse, life goes on. Powers loom outside the meeting place. Between them it glitters, with the delicate, fleeting beauty of a bubble. Though they could hardly be less alike, they have come together not to clash but to converse. If there were any ears to hear, both of the voices would sound female. If any eyes could behold them, it would be seen that both of the speakers are much more than women. The dark one speaks: "There has been meeting," The light one replies: "There has been loving." The light one speaks: "There has been healing," The dark one replies: "Now there must be parting." Both of them stretch out their hands to claim their own. * * * To Imariye', the green meadow of their meeting place is not bathed in cool shadowless light, as it appears to Kadrys' eyes. To her, it is in moonless darkness. But it is a clear night, and the sky overhead is glorious with stars. The star-blazoned night holds no terrors for her. Her first glimpse of the intangible black talons of the vampire curse clenched on Kadrys had struck fear into her heart, but in the next glance she could see that somehow, beyond all expectation, the soul enmeshed in that curse was still that of the man she had loved in life. Somehow Kadrys had survived his long exposure to that curse with his essential self intact - though she could tell that it had been a terrifyingly close thing. His spirit bore the deep wounds of time and loneliness. As he turned towards her, she could see that he had been teetering on the brink of final, fatal despair: a spiritual death that would leave only a monster, an inhuman and evil mockery of the man she had known. Her smile when he had turned toward her had been more than half relief. Their meeting was only just in time for him. But still, it was in time. It was not too late for him. He had not gone beyond her aid. Now, the tide of their speech had ebbed a little. For the moment, they had fallen silent. He was sitting beside her, content simply to rest his eyes on her, drinking in the sight of her, basking in the light of her regard. The next moment, Kadrys' eyes blink and narrow. To him, the radiance of her presence has started to intensify beyond its former gentle glow. It brightens with the same gradual, unstoppable power of the sunrise. He opens his mouth to ask her what is happening, and sees his uncertainty mirrored in her own features. She has seen him as a deeper patch of darkness in the starlit night, with only his face pale and distinct. Now, the shadows that have always cloaked him seem to her to stir restlessly, rising until they start to obscure his face from her vision. As she strains her eyes to pierce the thickening darkness, she sees him echo her sudden apprehension. "The Lady! I feel her call!" Imariye' cries. Around his form the darkness of the night draws close and she shivers in its chill. "Ah gods! Must it come to an end?" he breathes. The light gathers itself to her, and he feels his eyes stinging from its steadily rising brilliance. "I love you!" she calls to him. "Always!" he cries. He reaches a hand out to her, striving instinctively to narrow the widening distance between them, pushing it forward against a buffeting gale of streaming light, as once he did to grasp her holy symbol, to prove himself to her on the first day he arose from death. But now the power of her spiritual purity is far greater than that of any mere physical symbol, and he is prevented from bridging the gap. For now he too feels the touch of a stronger power. Darkness claims him, and his consciousness is overwhelmed, as completely as if he lay buried deep within the earth. * * * After a timeless interval, the dreamless, deathlike sleep moderates, though the time for wakefulness has not yet come. In dreams Kadrys feels the sickening sensation of falling, falling forever, from a dizzyingly rarefied height into a landscape that gapes below him like a hungry maw, somehow aware of him, waiting eagerly to feed on him. The transition could hardly have been more wrenching; once he would have been driven to despair to be so torn away from his beloved. But the memory of their meeting, the mere fact that it had been possible, is a comfort he has never known before. From it he draws the strength and serenity necessary to endure the sudden separation. --- With a faint chime, the amber amulet in 'Raelf's hand locked away the story, writing it in the lattices of a newly grown storage crystal, and the Traveller smiled. Around them, the others had awakened. This place had no dawn, but the light was rising again.