20 posts tagged “writing”

At the end of November, I had written fifteen chapters and copious notes, and I did manage to win.  (YAY!)  I have assembled all the chapter links here for your easy perusal.  :D

Preface: In the dragon's eyrie.
Chapter One: Taliesin's adventure.
Chapter Two: The midget and the magician.
Chapter Three: Fateful meetings.
Chapter Four: Beginning it is the hardest part.
Chapter Five: Ava.
Chapter Six: The Great Dragon.
Chapter Seven: Traveling party.
Chapter Eight: The City of the King.
Chapter Nine: All is explained.
Chapter Ten: A long walk.
Chapter Eleven: The search.
Chapter Twelve: Lost.
Chapter Thirteen: Ava, alone.
Chapter Fourteen: In a world of snow.
Chapter Fifteen: Taliesin meets the King.

I'm always eager to hear your input, so leave comments any time you like.  And thank you for reading.  :)

Taliesin's mouth dropped open, and for a moment he could not think of anything to say.  He had just been trying to get used to the idea that he was not about to die at the hands of unintelligible barbarians, and here was a person who obviously was like him.  Where had he come from?

"Can you speak?" the man demanded, when Taliesin said nothing.

"Y - yes," he stammered.

"Then come with me, before T'krull changes his mind about you.  Quickly!"  He held the tent flap aside for Taliesin, then grabbed his arm and hurried him past many more tents, to the very back of the large camp.

Taliesin was wincing but did not say anything.  His new captor, or possibly his new friend, was digging his fingers into the bruises freshly left by the two barbarian men who had found him at the forest's edge.  He was hauled into a much smaller tent, and the man let go of his arm then. 

"Sit, please," he said, and sat down himself, on a hairy rug in the middle of the tent. 

Taliesin sat as requested, looking around him, and rubbing his arm gingerly.  The interior of this tent was also very dim, although there was a lantern hanging from the ceiling of it, which lit the center of the tent much more than the edges.  There was a low table near him, and on it was a beaten metal jug and one wooden cup.  He could also see a rolled-up bundle that appeared to be either a thick blanket, or another rug. 

"What is your name?"  asked the man.

"Taliesin," he replied, and then wondered if he should have been so quick to give that information out.  After all, he still did not know where he was, or who this man was either.  For all he knew, this could be an enemy.  Although he was not quite sure what type of person would be an enemy of his, he was still somewhat worried.

"I am Arthur," said the man, in a sorrowful voice.  "I was a King, once, but no more.  Here I am little better than a captive, even though I have my freedom."

Taliesin, in surprise and a little shock, said, "You were a King?"

"Yes," said Arthur.  "But as I said, I am King no more.  Through betrayal and dark magics, I was stranded here many years ago.  I have saved your life, although you may not realize it yet."

"But - " Taliesin was still trying to process Arthur's words.  "Where were you a King?"

"Do you disbelieve me?" Arthur was suddenly brimming with indignant pride, and he drew himself up where he sat.  Taliesin could see that he had once been accustomed to holding himself in a kingly way, and certainly did not doubt his words.  After a minute or so, however, he visibly wilted.  "No more," he murmured.  "No more."

Taliesin felt terrible, as if he had physically hurt Arthur.  His wounding was tangible.  "I am sorry," he apologized sincerely.  "Is there anything I can do?"

"No," said Arthur.  Sadness was in his voice again.  "What has been done is irrevocable.  I must live out my life here, on this godsforsaken place, in this world of snow."

"What place did you come from?  Did you come through the rainbow?"

At that, Arthur frowned, and sat up straight again.  "What do you know of the rainbow?" he demanded.  "Tell me!  Are you an apprentice of the vile Merlin?" 

"No!" shouted Taliesin, which had hadn't meant to do, except that the former king was exuding so much anger and emotion.  "I've never even met him.  I think that... I think that we've come from the same place, though."

Arthur looked nonplussed.

"How did you get here?" Taliesin asked, worried that Arthur was going to become angry again.  He could not remember how long ago Tristan had said that Merlin and the king had disappeared from the city, but he thought it had been a very long time ago.  Tristan was an old man, and he had been much younger then.  This man sitting across the rug from Taliesin was only a few decades older than he, if that. 

"I would first hear how you journeyed to this world, young man," said Arthur in a firm voice.

Taliesin figured that he should at least go along with what Arthur wanted for the time being, since he seemed rather volatile so far, and he had only known him for the space of about five minutes.  "Well, like I said, I came through the rainbow.  I don't know why it happened - I had the spell paper to pick up the waystone, but that didn't work, I guess - but that's how I got to this world.  As soon as I got to the edge of the woods, those two big guys grabbed me and brought me here to this camp.  And that's where you found me," he finished. 

Arthur looked at him skeptically.  "That is not the way I have heard the rainbow traveled," he said.  "However, I have no reason to disbelieve you, so I will accept your story as fact.  I came here rather differently; my chief magician, Merlin, took me to the world between the dimensions, in an evil and despicable plot to murder me, although for what diabolical reason I have yet to ascertain.  I fled him for many months, and only a year ago I appeared here, in this world.  I do not think he followed me; he does not know which door I used to come here.  Now that I am here, however, I cannot get back.  I cannot go home, and I cannot go to the world between the dimensions so that I can once again search for the correct door."  His voice broke a little.  "I am lost."

Taliesin sat for a while in silence.  He wanted to ask more questions, but the former king was obviously upset.  He had not imagined him, the former king that Tristan had told him about, to be so emotionally unstable.  Although I'm sure that's because he has been gone for so long, he thought.  I might go a little crazy myself if I was never able to get back to anyone I knew.  A horrible thought occurred to him then: What if this is it?  What if today is the day I got lost, and I will never get home?  That thought was so horrible that, after dwelling on it for a moment, he pushed it away. 

"We won't be lost anymore," he said decisively.  "We will get back home."

Arthur chuckled hollowly.  "Yes, I said that very same thing at first.  You will eventually come to the conclusions that I have: we are lost for all eternity, because we do not hold the power of the dimensions within our hands."

"And Merlin does?" asked Taliesin.

"Of course he does, boy - that is how he controls his comings and goings.  He can traverse the dimensions at will, and does so without a backward glance.  He has probably forgotten me by now... I am sure that I do not interest him any more."  Again, his face and voice were very sad.

"Wasn't he a close friend of yours?"  asked Taliesin, worried that he was saying too much, but he felt that he needed to know.

"He was my best advisor - my best friend," said Arthur.  "And he betrayed me to this doom," he said bitterly.

"Tristan told me that you two were friends," Taliesin said sypathetically.

"Tristan?  I'm not sure that I know who that is," replied Arthur.  "Oh, wait - is that the young apprentice of Merlin's?  The one who came from another world?"  At that moment, it looked as if someone had turned a light on over Arthur's head.  "From another world!" he repeated.  "He may know how to get us home!"

"With all due respect, uh, Arthur," Taliesin was unsure as to how to address the former king, "he isn't here.  He sent me to get a waystone, and instead of taking it back to him, the stupid thing brought me here instead."

"But he knows you're gone - at least, I am sure he will find out soon enough, when you do not return, isn't that right?"  Arthur demanded excitedly.  "He may find us here!  If he sent you, then he must value you, and I am sure he will try to locate you!"

"Well... I don't know about that," said Taliesin slowly.  "About the valuing me part, I mean.  I've only known him for a few days, because I accidentally left my own world the same way, and showed up back in his - and your - world, and it's all been very confusing since then."

"Oh," said Arthur.  He looked disappointed.  "But still..." he said.  "There may still be hope?"

"I suppose so," said Taliesin.  "And I'm going to do my best to figure out how to get back too, because I don't really want to spend the rest of my life on a world full of snow.  When does it get warm here?"

"Never.  It's always snowy here, or at least it is here.  I haven't been to many other parts of this world, so I have no way of knowing if it gets warmer somewhere else.  They," he gestured in the general direction of the other tents, "don't exactly give me a lot of information.  I only kept myself from dying by helping them in their wars when they demand it."

"They're at war?"

"Nearly all the time," said Arthur grimly.  "They are right now, and this is a war camp.  I had to swear to them that you were not a spy, or you would have been killed instantly."

"Thank you," said Taliesin sincerely.  "How did you learn their language?  It's all grunting and shouting to me."

"Out of necessity," sighed Arthur.  "And when I was King, back on Adrostu, on my throne of crystal, I knew all of the languages of my world.  Speaking a foreign tongue is not difficult for me."

He stood up then, and held out his hand to Taliesin.  "Now that we have gotten to know each other a little, I will show you around the camp - and you are to be my helper.  That was the other condition of your survival."

"Oh," said Taliesin, unsure as to what that would entail, but perfectly willing to do whatever he needed to in order to avoid sudden death.  He took Arthur's proffered hand, and they left the tent, walking back out in the blindingly white snow.

Taliesin woke to a freezing cold world full of snow and blowing wind.  He was lying on his back in a forest, and the snow all around him was melted to form a large circle that surrounded his body.  He sat up, shivering and scared.  What had happened?  His memory was a little fuzzy, but he remembered climbing the mountain stairway, and how upset he was with himself for falling asleep on his way up.  He thought about Dragon Bane, and felt a pang when he realized that he would not be able to untie the poor horse from the tree.  Hopefully someone found him before something really bad happened... because he was pretty sure that getting back again was not going to be easy.

In his hand, he still held the waystone from the forest back on the mountain.  The paper was still wrapped around it, and the ink had bled and marked the palm of his hand and his fingers.  He wondered how much heat had been produced by the rainbow that brought him here; last time he had traveled through the rainbow's light, he had not woken up until the next morning, as far as he could tell.  But it was so cold here that he doubted he could have slept all night here without becoming frostbitten if it weren't for the fact that the rainbow's power obviously heated everything up in the vicinity of its touching down.

He got up, and put the stone carefully inside his bag, which was still looped over his shoulder.  His clothing was all completely dry, which was unexpected.  He had thought that the melted snow would have meant that he would be at least partially damp.  He wished that he understood what really happened when the rainbow took him.  It struck him then that he was lost again.  And this time, he was lost in a world that appeared to be significantly less friendly than the last.  At least he was wearing leather boots - they should keep his feet dry and warm for a while. 

There was nothing else to do but find out where he was, so he left the oddly melted circle in the midst of the snowy woods, and crunched through the layer of snow for a while.  He had no specific direction he was going, and he worried that he might not be able to find his entry point again; but he figured that, at least for a while, he should be able to follow his foot prints back to it.

He walked, his ams wrapped around himself to stave off the cold for as long as possible, until he came to the edge of whatever wood it was he had found himself in.  The snow was blowing heavily beyond the border of the trees, and he hesitated to leave the relative safety of the woods.  Suddenly, he was grabbed by both arms and dragged into the clearing, and rough voices yelled at him in a foreign tongue.  He struggled and fell to his knees, and tried to put his hands up over his head in surrender.

"Don't hurt me!" he yelled back at them.  "I can't understand you!"

Two large men, covered in what looked - and smelled - like uncured animal skins, stood over him, menacingly angry looks on their large and rather ugly faces.  They gestured and scowled and made angry sounding remarks at him, and both of them were waving dangerous looking weapons very close to his head.

"I'm not here to hurt you!" he shouted, and ducked, as a very sharp looking, hefty knife flew mere inches past his left ear.  "Let me go, please!"

They gave up shouting at him, and began to converse, still loudly, with each other.  They had let go of his arms, but he was too wary to try and run off at this point.  One of them might throw one of their sharp knives in his direction; and he thought he saw a tomahawk or axe or something tucked into one of the ugly men's belts.

He rubbed his arms - they hurt where they had grabbed him.  He was very apprehensive, and more than a little bitter that Tristan's bright idea had led him here to this other world, a completely new one again, and who knew how difficult it would be for him to get back to Ava or even back to his own home.  He sighed loudly, which caused one of the men to grab his arm again, yanking it in an unnatural direction.

"OW!" he yelped, his heart leaping into his throat.  Were they going to kill him?  In response to his fearful thought, the foreign man hauled him to his feet and began to march him across the clearing, away from the wood, followed by the other man.  At least they weren't going to kill him just now.

The wind, which he had been mostly shielded from while in the trees, was very strong out here, and it was either picking up snow from the ground or snowing properly, but whichever it was, Taliesin was getting a lot of it in his eyes and lashes.  He started to shiver.  His coat, while warm enough for he milder climate he had just come from, was not lined nearly enough to protect him from the biting wind and the snow.

Soon, they came in sight of a large camp.  At least, from what he could make out through the blowing snow, it was a large camp.  There appeared to be tents very close together, probably made of the same kind of skins that they were wearing for clothing, but he could not see much more than that.  The closer they came, the more excited the two of them appeared to be, because they started hollering back and forth to each other again, and their voices sounded more and more agitated.  He hoped he wasn't being taken in to be summarily executed.  Of course, if none of them could understand him, he was not certain how he would ever be able to explain what he was even there for. 

What AM I here for, anyway?  This was a mistake.  I had no idea it would happen.

They hauled him, each of them holding one of his arms, into the largest of the tents that he could see. The sudden change of atmosphere from the overly bright, snowy outside to the warm, slightly stuffy, and very dim interior, was startling.  He blinked hard, trying to adjust his eyes to the lack of light.  One of his captors called out loudly, and he began to see that there were at least a dozen others like the two of them inside this tent, sitting around a large wooden table.  Nobody spoke at first, but they all stared at him, balefully and suspiciously.

One of them rose, from the head of the table, and Taliesin could see that he wore some kind of crown on his head.  He must be their leader, which must mean that his fate was in this foreign man's hands.  The two captors let go of his arms then, and he sank awkwardly to his knees, worried that he would do something offensive without realizing it, but so afraid for his life that he was willing to beg for it.

"Please," he said, but the leader barked a single syllable at him, and he was silenced.  The leader walked up very close to him, then grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him straight up off the ground.  Taliesin's feet left the ground altogether, and he was frozen in shock and fear as the giant of a man inspected him closely.  Grunting, he let go, and Taliesin barely got his legs under him so that he didn't fall into a heap.

After that inspection, the group of large, smelly-skin-covered men ignored him completely.  His two captors seemed disappointed that nothing else had happened, and they poked him rather violently in the arms a few times, then wandered off to have conversations with other men in the tent.  Taliesin remained standing, completely unsure about what he should do next, if anything.  Had he been given sanctuary?  Was he still a prisoner? 

Before he had to decide what to do, however, a smaller man walked into the tent, and spoke to the leader in the foreign language.  So far, Taliesin was under the impression that the language was mostly made up of guttural grunting mixed in with monosyllabic yelling.  After the smaller man spoke to the leader, in a very short conversation, he turned to Taliesin, and to his amazement, said, "Come with me."

The morning came slowly for Ava, as she had cried herself to sleep the night before, wiping her tear-filled eyes on the lacy, rather useless hand-made handkerchiefs that Greta had given her the day before.  Her eyelids felt swollen and heavy, and when she began to open her eyes, she discovered that she had quite a bad headache as well.

She sat up, not very carefully, and her head immediately began to pound painfully at the temples.  "Ow," she wailed, which also hurt her head.

Greta pushed the door open then, and instead of her usual jug of hot water, she had a basin of cold water and several extra washcloths, which she proceeded to soak in the water.  "You lie back down now, miss," she said in a mildly scolding voice.  "I will take care of you today, anything you need.  Now lie back, and I will put these on your head, there you go."

Ava lay there with cool cloths over eyes, wishing she had brought pain reliever with her when she stupidly stumbled into that damned rainbow.  She was thoroughly upset and disgusted at the entire ordeal.  All day yesterday had been completely awful, beginning from the time she got out of bed.  At least the day before, she had been mostly drugged up while waiting for her ankle o heal, and she had not even been informed that Taliesin was gone until that evening, when she asked after him.  Just thinking about it made her head hurt even worse, so she tried her best to leave it alone; but her mind would not stop hashing through the events, over and over again.

"Now then, miss, don't think about things that make you upset.  Just relax.  I will bring you some breakfast and coffee, but I do not want to see you up when I get back with your food, do you hear?"

Greta's motherly tone was almost laughable, since she was either Ava's age or a little bit younger; but under the circumstances it felt very welcome.  Someone to mother her, who was not also being cruel and demanding.

"Okay," she said in as quiet a voice as she could muster.  Greta left quietly, apparently satisfied with Ava's answer. 

This is going to be another craptastic day, thought Ava miserably.  I can't believe he didn't take me along.  I can't believe him!  And I can't believe he didn't even wait until I was awake so I would know what was going on!  Hot tears seeped out from under the cloth covering her eyes, and the pounding in her temples started to get worse again.  Feeling sorry for herself was not something she normally did, at least not for very long at a time; but she was stuck in a world not her own, without having a thing she could do to help or change her situation, and the one person she had allowed herself to get close to had left without her on some stupid quest.  She felt entitled to some angry tears and some bitter thoughts, at least for a while.  Of course, she had already sulked and pouted and thrown verbal fits nearly all of yesterday, so maybe it ought to be time to stop soon.

She took a deep breath, intending to begin calming down, but then a vision of Taliesin's dark eyes popped into her mind's eye, and she was simultaneously lonely and angry once again.  More tears dripped off her face and onto the linen sheets.

The door was pushed open again, and she heard the sound of clinking dishes.  She sniffed, and wiped her face, trying to disguise the fact that she had been thinking about it, even after Greta had told her not to.

"Now, young miss, let's get some breakfast into you, I think it should do you some good," Greta said cheerfully.  She removed the cloth from Ava's eyes, and helped her sit up slowly.  "Sit over here in this chair by the window, and I'll draw the curtain most of the way so the light doesn't bother you.

"Here is coffee and toast, and some fruit.  Nothing heavy, mind you, because that won't be good for your head.  If you don't feel better after eating, I will have the King's Magician prepare you a medicine."

Ava stopped her slightly limping walk to the chair at the mention of the 'King's Magician'.  "You mean Tristan?"  she asked, her voice almost dripping with sarcasm and barely repressed anger.  "Don't bother."

"Now, miss!  You have to let go of that for now, or you will not get to feeling better at all.  Now sit, there you are, and eat something.  I will come back soon and see how you are doing."

She left again, taking the basin and used washcloth with her.  Ava sat, still angry, next to the tray of food.  Her chest rose and fell quickly, because the feelings of anger were causing her adrenaline to rush, and speed up her breathing.  Calm DOWN, she ordered herself.  Eat something.  Don't think about it, just eat something.  Deal with it later.

She forced herself to clear her mind of what bothered her, to find that place within herself that she always had to find when she was growing up in her mother's house.  After a few minutes, she felt calm and collected enough to actually taste the coffee that smelled so very good. 

Her headache began to recede somewhat as she sipped the strong brew, and she did her best to remain free of any thoughts whatsoever except for the taste of the fruit and the hotness of the coffee.  She looked through the space Greta had left between the curtains, out into the city that could be seen beyond the walls of the castle.  There was some movement, although she could not make out exactly what or who it might be, but she surmised that the city was merely doing its morning routine, whatever that might be.

Which gave her a great idea - what better way to stop thinking about that darned Taliesin and that stuck-up magician than to go out and mingle with other people?  She was sure that nobody would really mind her being out there, and in fact she probably would not be noticed.  She could walk around, close to the castle in case her ankle started hurting again, and get fresh air and a relative change of scenery.

Having a game plan gave her renewed energy, and she ate the rest of the fruit quickly, swallowing the coffee as fast as she could.  Greta came back into the room just as she was getting up from her chair and wondering what she might find in the closet to wear for walking outside. 

"All done, then?" she said in an approving voice.  "There are new things in your wardrobe, young miss Ava.  Will you be needing help getting into anything?"

"No, I think I can manage my bum ankle today, thank you," Ava laughed.  "You're very kind to me, Greta.  I don't deserve it."

"Of course you do, miss!  We all deserve kindness.  Now I'll be going, but you know where to find me if you need me," and she collected the tray and dishes and left the room again.

Ava smiled, warm in the knowledge that she had at least one friend here in this foreign world.  She opened the wardrobe, and gasped with delight as she saw that there was now a lovely green dress with a very full skirt hanging up.  It was a perfect shade of green to contrast her hair and skin, and it was actually her very favorite color.  Tears sprang to her eyes, because she knew that part of Greta's job was to find out what she liked and wanted and to provide that.  What a wonderfully generous person she must be.  More generous than I, she thought. 

She got dressed quickly, happy that she had a plan for something to do.  She put on a long pair of silky stockings also, even though she was going to be walking outside, because she loved the way they felt on her skin.  She pulled on the soft leather boots again, as she had been doing every morning since she had first woken up here, three days ago.  A woven cape of naturally ivory wool, trimmed in brown velvet, completed her outfit for the day.  Looking around her room one last time before leaving it, she noticed that she had been given a leather-bound journal and a pencil, lying on a low table by the door.  She scooped them up, thinking that she could journal in them, or maybe attempt to draw something.  With that, she left the room, shutting the heavy door behind her. 

Halfway down the hall, she pushed open a door that she had learned led to a very long hallway that led almost the entire length of the castle.  It intersected a north-south hall, which she took to the front of the castle, to the large staircase that was almost a direct copy of the one at the back; or maybe that was the other way around.  Or maybe they were both designed to be the same.

Once down the stairs, she pushed open the door at the bottom and stood for a moment on the front steps of the castle.  The front steps were, by themselves, almost as tall as the staircase she had just walked down; there were grand columns and colored paving stones decorating the porch itself, which was more like a very wide room with no walls, it was so very large.

The morning air was cool but not cold, and the sun was already warming some of the paving she was standing on.  Below her, in the square before the castle itself, there were only a few people and animals moving about.  It looked as if it was kept extremely clean, because she could not see any footprints or stray bits of straw or piles of dung anywhere.  She wondered if there was an official pavement sweeper who worked only here in the front of Castle Agria.

She decided it was time to walk down there and see what lay beyond the castle itself, since she had been nearly asleep on her first time in it.  She got down the stairs without incident, although she worried for a little while that her skirt would get caught under a boot and she would tumble down, bruising herself and most likely making a total fool of herself.  She always imagined herself accidentally doing awkward things like that, although she was not sure why.

Once down the stairs, without incident, she studied more closely the pattern of the paving stones in the square she was standing on now.  The pattern itself was quite large, and she decided she would have to look at it again from the top of the stairs, because all she could really make out now was that it looked a lot like a Celtic type of knot design. 

She twirled around a few times, enjoying the feel of the sunshine on her face and the light breeze across her skin, and her skirt fluttered out in a very satisfying way.  She loved to wear skirts, but usually she could not find the ones that were so extravagantly full.  This dress might end up being a favorite of hers.

Suddenly feeling foolish and narcissistic, she stopped twirling and set off toward the heart of the city.

It occurred to her, as she passed several merchants who smiled and nodded at her, that she did not even know the name of the city she was in.  She laughed aloud, finding her own ignorance hilarious.  Everyone around her must have thought the she already knew where she was, so nobody had said a word to her about it.  Tristan had been mostly closeted in his Great Library or wherever else he squirreled his disagreeable self away (the thought of him made her instantly frustrated, but she pushed that reaction away quickly), so he had not told her anything much apart from the wealth of information he had deigned to gift them with on that first morning after breakfast.  Wow, I am really bitter.  Get a grip, Ava!  Stop being such a whiner!

She continued to wander through the streets, smiling at men, women, children, and babies indiscriminately.  She wondered if they knew who she was, and if they knew anything about rainbows.  She wondered if she was an oddity, or if here presence here was nothing more than a tiny rain drop in a large ocean.  Every few yards or so, she saw palace guards, dressed in green and silver livery just like the two who had met them at the gate, but they all seemed very relaxed.  Her sense of this place, so far, was that everyone was content.  Content to be here, content to be doing whatever it was they always did, and content to keep doing it for the foreseeable future.  Their peace and obvious easy happiness was infectious, and her mood lightened considerably as each moment passed.

Some of the merchants had fruits and vegetables, and some had cuts of meat hanging of fish laid out on tables, ready for taking home and cooking up.  Some of the stalls were full of pots and pans, or jewelry, or tiny bottles that looked like they were full of many colored spices.  None of the merchants yelled out to her, although some of them were hawking their wares to the other people, mostly women with bags who were obviously out shopping.  That fact alone made her assume that they did know who she was.  Well, if that was the case, then maybe someone would be willing to talk to her for a while, and maybe tell her what the story was about the city and the missing King.  Also, she was sure that even though she would be laughed at, someone had to be willing to tell here what city she was in to begin with.

She continued to wander, but now she looked at each person closely, to see if she could determine who might talk with her a while.  Nobody looked hurried, or upset, but they all did seem quite busy in what they were doing.  She was now nearly at the end of the merchant district, at least as far as she could tell.  Up ahead on this same street were wooden buildings with signs hanging down.  "Oh! Shops!" she said aloud, and smiled.  This city was like a real life version of all those silly tourist towns that everyone loved to visit when they had money to burn and nothing better to do but buy breakable trinkets and overpriced lunch.

She slowed her walking, so that she could better read the hanging signs.  Magical Curatives, read one.  Dress Like Royalty, read another.  The sign over a two-story narrow building caught her eye.  It said merely Books.  A book store anywhere would always catch her attention, so she slipped in through the open doorway, eager to see what sorts of reading material a medieval type city would have.

Inside, it was lit only by sunlight that filtered in through the tall front windows.  Dust motes danced in the light, and it smelled a little musty.  Just like books ought to smell, she thought happily. 

"May I help you, miss?"  asked a young curly-haired man, who was wearing a dingy apron that might have once been white, but now so smudged and stained that Ava was certain that Greta would not even bother to wash it out if given the opportunity, but would throw it away without a moment's hesitation.

"Oh, no, I'm just browsing," Ava replied automatically, then giggled aloud at her rote response.  That was what she would usually always say in any book store in her own world - but this was a completely new place, and it called for all new responses.  "I'm sorry, no, I mean... what kind of history books do you have?"

"Over here, in this section.  World history, of course, and also local history.  We have a very large selection," he said earnestly.  "Please let me know if I can help you in any way."

"Thank you!" said Ava, eagerly scanning the titles.  The helpful shopkeeper left her alone to enjoy the stacks.  The titles were not all that exciting, but one caught her eye: History of Adrostu.  Her heart beat a little faster - was this the name of the world she was in?  She pulled it off its shelf.  It was very heavy, and she had to sit down to properly open it and look through the pages.  There was no stool, so she just sat on the dusty floor in her dress, hoping that it wouldn't put too deep a layer of dirt into it.  She would feel badly if she made a lot of extra work for Greta.

Inside the front cover, there was a short handwritten poem.

Pain and sorrow everlasting
Decreed by gods
Who dwell apart from us
Joy and hope eternal
Decided by men
Who dwell on this earth

It was unsigned, and there was no date, even though she would have no way of understanding the calendar yet, since she had not seen one or had it explained to her.  She turned a few pages, and read the first few lines of the beginning chapter:

"In the beginning before the world was made, the gods fought a war, and the four strongest: Deia, Naia, Treiu, and Crui, divided the universes and all stellar dimensions among themselves.  Being still at war with one another, they caused a rift between all worlds and all dimensions.  The Creator God, He whose Name is Most Holy, was displeased with the four lesser gods, yet was unwilling to destroy the universes that had been made.  Instead He, the One God Who created all gods, all dimensions, all stars, all worlds, made a thing of living light to tie the dimensions together in harmony.  Named by men, it is the rainbow that keeps the worlds together.  Foolish is the man who seeks out the rainbow to control it, for he is setting himself up as a god, and displeasure and doom will be his reward..."

Ava was fascinated, and a little horrified.  Was this a true account, or a lovely mythology?  If it was mythology, why would it be the first thing written in the history of this world?

She closed the book, not sure if she was ready to read something that deep, and looked for other books that might be easier to understand for an outsider.  She pulled out a half dozen more books, and paged slowly through each one, caressing embossed pictures or looking in fascination at drawings of buildings, mountains, dragons, and people dressed in interesting outfits.  Every now and then something would catch her eye and she would read something, the description of a picture, or a short chapter with an interesting heading.

"Are you finding what you are looking for, miss?"  the shop keeper was back, and he startled her.  She hadn't realized how engrossed she was in the books she had.

"Oh!" she said in surprise, and nearly dropped the book she was holding.  "Yes, thank you, I think I found a lot to look at..."

"History interests you?"  he asked in a friendly manner.  His eyes, which were big, brown, and kind, twinkled when he talked.

"Well, I'm... new here, and I wanted to know something about this place," she gestured with her hand.  "This city, this world, I guess.  I just feel like I don't know anything, and I need knowledge."  She laughed at that, and he laughed too.

"You can ask me anything, and I will do my best to give you an answer," he offered.  "I'm not a history aficionado necessarily, but I love all these books."  He looked at the stacks almost affectionately. 

Ava smiled.  "You know what, I might take you up on that."  At that moment, her stomach growled so loudly that it startled them both, and she dissolved into giggles.

"Do you need a place to eat lunch?"  he asked with that twinkle in his eyes again, as she attempted to stop laughing.

"I suppose I can eat at the castle any time I want," she began, and his eyes grew very round and he took an involuntary step back.

"You are a guest at the castle?  I apologize, miss!  I had no idea!"

"You don't have to apologize," she said quizzically.  "What I was going to say was, I would love to eat somewhere else here in the city, because I love eating in local places.  But I don't have any money whatsoever, and I don't know that anyone would be willing to put it on my tab or anything like that."

"Miss, you are a royal guest.  Any establishment here will have no hesitation giving you anything you ask for."

"Oh," Ava said, at a loss for words.  She had no idea there was so much privilege attached to lodging in the castle.  She was not used to being treated like this, and even though she had started to get used to having a maid do things for her each day, there was still a lot of this kind of wealthy life that she was not sure how comfortable she felt about.

"May I escort you to lunch?  It would be my pleasure," he offered.  "I will take off this filthy shop apron, of course," he said, and Ava laughed.  He was obviously not so smitten with her apparent importance to be easy and natural, which she was happy about.

"I would love that!  But won't you have to close up the shop?"  She stood up from the floor, putting the books carefully back on their respective shelves, and brushed her skirt free of dust.

"It will not matter.  I don't get many customers anyway, and it will be an honor to accompany you."  He slipped off his dirty apron, hung it over the chair by the front table, and opened the front door for her.

She left the shop and stepped into the bright midday sun, and had to blink several times in order to keep back the sneeze that was lurking because of the sudden bright light.  He shut the door behind him, and it gave off a pleasant jingle; he must have a bell attached to it. 

"What's your name?" she asked, as he offered her his arm.

"Benjamin," he said.  "Most call me Ben."

"Ben it is, then," she said happily.  The warm sun and a friendly companion to walk with combined to lift her spirits even more.  For a moment, she completely forgot why she woke up angry and crying that morning.  "So, where are we going?"

"There is an inn that has the best food in the city.  I promise you will like it.  Cross my heart."  He smiled at her and they walked together down the paved road.

After they had been walking for several minutes, Ben stopped at the front door of a large building with a sign that read "Golden Dragon Inn" hanging over the door.  Ava laughed at the irony of it, and was still giggling a little after they had been seated in a booth in the corner of the large front room.  Ben ordered a mulled wine to drink, and discreetly informed their waitress that Ava was a castle guest.  Without batting an eye, the waitress brought out a large silver platter of h'ors doevres, heaped high and garnished with leafy greens, and a mulled wine for Ava also.  The food looked absolutely delicious to her, and she had to keep herself from cramming it into her face.

Instead, she put a few things on a small plate and ate them slowly.  She was not sure why it seemed important for her to appear ladylike and well-mannered, but it seemed like a natural thing to do.  Ben continued to make small talk while they ate, and she warmed to him more and more.  He was so friendly, and he seemed to know a lot of interesting details about the different places within the city, and about the city itself, and its people. 

“So did you grow up here?” asked Ava, munching on a huge salad, the second thing that had been brought out after the large platter of appetizers.

“I was born here in the city, yes,” said Ben.  He took a large drink of his mulled wine.  Ava had tasted hers, and found it to be delicious yet extremely strong, so she asked for a pitcher of water, and was drinking that instead.  “My mother married a man from the countryside, and when I was only two years old, he bought a farm on a homestead just a mile out from the city, to the east, and we lived there until I was old enough to apprentice with a family member here in the city.”

“So you didn’t want to stay at the farm and learn your father’s way of doing things?”  Ava could understand wanting to distance yourself from your parents, but she was not getting a bad feeling from Ben about his family.

“Well… I have always loved the city.  I love the people all living close together, the way everything smells and feels when it’s all being done at the same time.  I love the sounds and the way it all looks – there is some of the finest architecture in all of Adrostu here in this city.  And my uncle, my mother’s oldest brother, owned that book shop until he passed away last year.  I love books, I always have; and he wanted to take me on as his apprentice of sorts ever since I was old enough to read.”

“What do you mean, apprentice of sorts?”

“Bookselling isn’t technically a trade,” replied Ben with a grin.  He took another long drink of his wine.  “But I still went to stay with him when I was nine years old, the same as all the other boys who apprentice in the city, and I learned everything he knew about the kinds of books he had, where to get them, who has the best translations of different prophecies and histories and things like that… I’m sorry, I must be boring you to death.  We can talk about something else now if you prefer.”  He looked so apologetic that Ava had to laugh.

“Oh no!  It’s all very interesting.  And I’m not just saying that!”

“Actually… that was about it, really.  I’ve been here since I was nine, living in my uncle’s house, and now that he is gone, I’m the only one there.  Not that I’m lonely,” he added hastily, as Ava made a sad aww sound at him.  “I quite like living alone.  It’s easier for me, not to have to worry about what other people would rather do or what things they would rather put on the table or if they would like to eat what I’m eating.”

“So he left his house to you, and the book shop too?”

“Yes.  And I do miss him.  He’s only been gone a year… sometimes I forget he isn’t here.  He was such a part of the shop, he seemed like a permanent resident there, and for a while it was really upsetting for me to go in there every day and realize all over again that he wasn’t there.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Ava sympathetically.

Ben laughed, a little nervously.  “It must be the mulled wine, because I don’t usually say this much about myself when I’ve just met someone.  Again, I apologize.”

Ava laughed.  "See, now, that's why I decided to drink water," she teased.

Two huge portions of steak, juicy and steaming and complemented by freshly steamed vegetables and loaves of crusty, fluffy bread, arrived then, and interrupted their conversation for the time being. 

Ava ate through almost half of her steak, which was so tender that it fairly melted in her mouth, and then had to give up and push her plate back.  She groaned a little, and rubbed her stomach.  "I ate too much," she confessed.

Ben looked up from his own plate, which was nearly empty of steak.  Ava gaped.  "How on EARTH did you eat all that already?!"

"Oh, I have plenty of room," he grinned, and took another bite.

"Yuck," she said, and grimaced.  "I need to take a walk now.  I am way too full."

"As soon as I finish this, we can do just that," he said.

"Oh good, because I am so uncomfortable now.  I haven't eaten that much since... I can't remember the last time I ate so much.  And that steak was... wow."  She rubbed her stomach again, and tried not to think about how much food she had just consumed in one sitting.

Ben nearly wolfed down the remaining steak he had, then wiped his mouth on his napkin and slid out of the booth.  "Are you ready?"

Ava gaped at him again.  "I can't believe you are acting so... sprightly, after so much food!  How can you not be almost asleep by now?"

"Growing boy?"  He grinned.  "This steak is the best around, anywhere.  Whenever I get a chance to eat it, I always clean my plate."  He offered her his arm, and she slid out of her side of the booth, a little more awkwardly than she liked, due to the extreme fullness of her stomach, and took it.

"Lead on," she said.  "Only don't go too fast.  My stomach..."

Ben grinned again.  "Of course, my lady. Anything for you," and he made a mock bow. 

Ava laughed, then clutched her stomach.  "Ohhh. Don't make me laugh, that hurts worse!"

"Very well.  We will walk slowly, and I won't be funny any more, at least until you feel better."

"Agreed," she said, and they stepped outside the inn, and proceeded to continue down the road in the same direction they had been walking before.  She was glad of that, because she dearly wanted to keep exploring the city.

Each shop they walked past, Ben told her what the name of it was, and who owned it, and often would wave or exchange pleasantries with the shop owner if they were standing in the door way.  Several of them winked at her, which was a little embarrassing.  Soon, they had reached the square at the far end of the road, which was the first thing she had really seen when she had first come into the city.  The dragon pavement was mostly covered with people walking over it, but she could still see parts of it.

Her overly full stomach no longer felt as if it was about to explode, so she let go of Ben's arm and ran over to the pavement.  She stood at the edge of it, studying the sections she could see. 

"Do you like it?"  he asked.

"Oh yes!  This is the first thing I saw," she said.  "It looks just like my dragon," and then regretted blurting that out.  Ben's eyes grew very large, but in a different way than they had when he had found out where she was staying.  He took a step back from her.

"Your dragon?" he asked, and his tone of voice was wary.

"I only meant... he's not mine, of course not, but he did let me ride on him - "

"You rode on the Great Dragon!  What are you, a wood elf?  A fairy?  You cannot be human!"  He backed away even further, and Ava was beginning to have hurt feelings.

"Of course I'm human!" she shouted at him indignantly.  "Are you saying that nobody here rides your dragons?"

"They are not our dragons!  They belong to themselves, and we do not mingle with them, or ride on them.  They eat us!  We are their enemies!"  He was nearly shouting as well, and a small crowd of people had stopped what they were doing to listen and watch, and they were all casting glances at Ava that she was feeling more and more uncomfortable with.

"I..." Ava was at a loss for words.  How could she know that dragons were a taboo subject?  "Then why do you have a picture of one on the ground here inside your city?" she demanded angrily.

"It's been here since the city was built," Ben shot back.  He was obviously very upset, although Ava had no idea why.

"Look," she said.  "I came here through the rainbow, and I startled this dragon, and he didn't eat me, so I thought I was doing pretty well with that!"

"Why didn't he eat you?" asked Ben suspiciously.

"I have no idea!  I've only been here four days!  He let me ride him, and no, I don't know why, and he said that I would fulfill my promise to him later.  I don't even know what he meant by that.  You have to believe me - why would I lie to you?  What would I have to gain from that?"  Her feelings were getting even more hurt.  Ben had changed so suddenly, and become so suspicious.  Maybe it was her own fault, for believing that he was as nice as he seemed to be.

Ben stood at the edge of the dragon pavement, staring at her, looking as if he was trying to figure out whether or not he could trust her.  She was indignant that he would suddenly treat her this way.

"I'm going back to the castle now," she said, rather spitefully.  'Thank you for a nice lunch," and she began to walk away.  Tears stung her eyes, but she was determined to keep herself calm, at least outwardly, until she had gotten back to her room, and could either just collapse into a sobbing heap on the bed, or burden poor longsuffering Greta with her tale of woe.

Ben said nothing, and he did not follow her.  It broke her heart a little that her new friend would so quickly turn on her, and for something she was not even aware was an unacceptable thing to say or to talk about.  One tear escaped and slid down her cheek, and she wiped it away quickly, unwilling to let anyone see it, although nobody was really looking at her. 

The way back to the castle was longer than she realized it would be.  The time she had spent walking with Ben, and before that, by herself, must have gotten melded together in her mind as a much shorter trip than in actual fact.  Her legs and feet were very sore by the time she came into view of the tall white pillars and the wide paved porch, but she sped up when she saw them, because somehow the castle had become somewhat of a home to her.

It had been a long time since anywhere felt like home - but here, she felt secure, protected, and welcomed.  Even if the outlying city was uncomfortable with her, the castle itself felt as if it was meant for her, that there was a place for her here.

She went up the steps slowly, lifting up her full skirt so that she would not trip on it.  What a strange day - she had really not met anyone except for Ben, and even though he had seemed really nice at first, he turned out to be... prejudiced, somehow.  Or maybe he was just superstitious. 

Ava turned to look at the city before she went inside; it was late afternoon, and the residents were still going about their daily business.  Nothing looked different than it had before, but something was not the same.  She knew more now than she had, but all that knowledge did was open up more questions. 

She sighed, and went inside through the door that a servant was quietly holding open for her.  What she wanted now was a private place to either scream, or cry, or nap.

The sunrise woke Taliesin, because his face was somehow facing directly to the east, and the rising sun sent its rays right at him.  "Ouch!" he said reflexively, and shielded his eyes with his hand as he sat up.  Dragon Bane was still sleeping - at least, his eyes were closed and he was still except for the deep, regular breaths he was taking.

Today was the day he had to climb the mountain.  His heart sank as he looked up at it again; in the early morning light, it looked even more impressive.  The sun shone off its tall sides, highlighting rock faces and jagged edges.  He would be lucky if he did not kill himself trying to get up to the top, let alone get up in only one day.  He pushed the thought of death from his mind, and determined that he would only focus on the task at hand.  He got up, finding the saddle bag that Tristan had told him held the special spells and supplies; he had not needed them the day before, but he was almost positive that he would be needing them today.  He emptied the bag and spread everything out carefully on the ground to take inventory.

There were three small squares of thick paper, and on each was written a different grouping of symbols.  Another piece of paper, which Taliesin was relieved to see, appeared to be a set of instructions on using the three smaller papers, among other things..  He set them in a careful pile, and went through the rest of the small group of items.  There was a short knife in a leather sheath, with a wide loop on the back.  He immediately took it and slid it onto his soft leather belt, on his right side.  He hoped he did not forget that he had it with him, in the event that he would need it.  He had never killed anything, not even any animals, so he fervently hoped that he would not have to use it against a living being. 

There was one small bottle made of very thick glass, with a tiny cork stopper and a looped leather thong attached to its neck.  He looked at it for a moment, holding it in his hand, trying to determine what it was that was inside - he could not tell whether it was a liquid or a solid.  There was a faint glimmering from within the glass, but it did not slosh or feel otherwise as if there was liquid inside.  The paper of instructions had a sentence or two about the glass bottle as well - Tristan called it Blood of the Rainbow, and said he should wear it around his neck, tucked underneath his coat and shirt.  Taliesin obediently put it on and put it carefully between his undershirt and the rest of his clothing.  He hoped it would not break unexpectedly.

The last thing in the bag was (insert thing here! and also a lengthy description, because i love writing very very lengthy descriptions.)

He was nearly ready to leave, when he realized that Dragon Bane had not had anything to drink since the day before, when he had stopped once at a small pool of water.  Looking around, he saw a shimmer a little way off, something that he had not seen the evening before while it was growing dark.  He went to inspect it, and after confirming that it was in fact water, he untied Bane from the tree and led him away from his apparently delicious breakfast, toward the water.  The horse smelled the water almost as soon as Taliesin began walking him to it, and pulled him the rest of the way there; then he spent a very long time drinking.  Taliesin was glad that he still had almost a half skin of water left, because he probably should have gotten something to drink if he had needed it before Dragon Bane began slurping it up, since in his excitement and thirst he was making a lot of foam and bubbles on the water's surface.

He led the horse back after he was done with his drink, and tied him up to the tree again.

"I'm sorry I won't be here all day," he said apologetically.  "But I'll be back soon, I hope."

He hoisted the bag onto his shoulder, and set off toward the mountain, as the sun continued to rise at his back.  He located the start of the path he had found the day before, and started up it.  The path itself was very rocky and not very smooth, and he stumbled right away and nearly fell.  It was obvious that his way up was going to be full of bruises if he was not careful; he readjusted the bag and started up again, choosing his steps cautiously.  The sunlight grew gradually warmer, until about an hour into his climb, he realized that he was dripping with sweat and smelling pretty horrible.  He looked up the path, as he had been concentrating on his feet so as not to stumble again, to see if there was any place up ahead to rest for a few minutes - keeping in mind that Tristan had told him not to stop if at all possible -  and saw what appeared to be a small clearing about a hundred yards up.  He sped up somewhat, imagining how he would be able to cool off in just a few minutes.

As he got close to the clearing, he saw that it was actually a little alcove of sorts, a natural shallow cave in the rock of the mountain.  He stooped down and sat in the cool shadow of the little cave.  For a few minutes, all he did was lean back and shut his eyes, breathing heavily still, but happy for the short respite.  He opened his eyes again, and now that they had adjusted somewhat to the lack of direct sunlight, he could see a small opening in the back of the little stony alcove.  Curious, he rose to a crouch, and peered at it.  It looked more than large enough for him to fit through, and he moved toward it to investigate.  Peering into what seemed at first to be deep inky blackness, his eyes adjusted a little more, and he could make out faint shapes that looked like trees.  Trees?  There aren't trees underground, he thought, his curiosity further piqued.  He crawled up to the opening, put his face into it, then his arms, then because it seemed to make perfect sense, he pulled the rest of himself through - and found himself standing in a dimly lit wood.  Behind him was the opening back to the small cave, and before him stretched a forest so green he could smell it, even though the light was low.

He continued to look around, not taking any steps in case he decided to leave again through the cave mouth, and spotted a wooden staircase, almost completely free of fallen leaves, made of wood so light it was almost white.  It was not very far away, so it seemed not at all risky to him to walk to it and stand upon it.  The wood made a satisfying clunk-ing noise when he stepped onto it, and he looked down the stairs - because it was obvious that there was a downhill and an uphill - and grew a little dizzy.  They went on for at least a mile or more, down in a very straight line through the trees.  He turned and looked back up the stairs, and they looked as if they went on forever, or at least to the very top.  Now that he was in the cooler undergrowth, beneath the dappled greener light under the branches, he was very reluctant to go back to the outer path, the one paved in broken rock and, at times, frighteningly close to the edge of the mountain.  The further up he went on that outer path, the more danger he was in, he reasoned; he could fall off at any time if he started to get tired.  This stairway obviously went up to the top of the mountain, so it seemed reasonable to stay on it.

His decision firmly made, he began walking up the stairs.  It was certainly easier on his legs and feet, not to have to continually step around larger rocks, to be able to walk in a straight line, in one direction.  No curving slowly around the mountain, and no more extreme heights from which to potentially fall.

Every seventeen steps, there was a wider step, almost a platform, and there was a symbol carved on each one.  In his haste to get up as many stairs as possible before he needed another break, he did not study them very closely at all.  Fleetingly, he thought that was possibly a mistake, not to stop and look at one or two of them, because some of them, their shapes, almost seemed familiar, as if he had seen them before.

He made it at least a few more hours, and his stomach was growling loudly by the time he decided to stop again.  He pulled the bread out of his bag.  It was getting stale, which he supposed was the fault of carrying it around without a bread bag; but there were probably no bread bags here.  The saddle bag itself was supposed to serve as a bread bag, he guessed.  The cheese had formed a hard-yet-soft shell on its outside, the way he had seen a block of cheese do when he left it out overnight accidentally once.  It had seemed spoiled to him then, even though he knew technically cheese would not really be unhealthy unless it was completely covered in green mold, and even though he knew that the cheese in his bag was perfectly fine, he still did not want to eat it.  Not right now, anyway.  If he was really hungry again later, he might eat it.

He ate nearly all the bread before he realized it.  He was lost in his thoughts, but also he was lulled by the peacefulness of the trees.  It was amazing, really, that there were so many trees on this mountain.  They were all hardwoods, and looked like oaks, maples, birches, elms, and ironwoods, just like most of the northern forests that he loved so much, except that there were no pines anywhere here.  All of them were tall, stately, and crowned high up with branches full of thick leaves, and they moved a little, dancing slowly, as if a wind high up tossed them gently back and forth.  He stared up at them from his seat at the base of a thick maple, and his eyes grew heavy.   He had a thought, that he should get up now, keep moving, but it seemed a little bit too hard.  Maybe he needed a little extra rest before he kept going.  His eyes drooped, then shut.  The bit of bread he was still holding fell from his hand, which had sagged onto the ground.  There was no sound except the faint rustling of the trees.

He was standing on the top of a high mountain, but he did not know how he knew that it was a mountain at all, because the snow blowing around him was blindingly white.  His cloak and hood were furred and warm, but his face was as cold as if he had been standing out on the mountain for hours.

A sound like crackling lightning and deep thunder spread over the sky and all around him, and although he did not move, his heart raced with the fear of it.  Dark shapes could be seen overhead, and fire flamed very closely in front of him, accompanied by a loud screech and the flap of heavy wings.  He could hear, faintly, men shouting - he could not make out the words.  Somehow he also knew that the dark shapes were fighting dragons, who were waging war against one of the powerful tribes of warriors who lived in this world.  How he knew all this, he did not now.  And why he was standing there, he also did not know - at the same time that he did know it.

Suddenly and without warning, a huge weight hit him in the back and carried him over the edge of the mountain, and he fell, screaming, down through whiteness and into blackness.  He could feel the end coming, and he anticipated its pain as he screamed.  He would never be able to save her now -

He awoke, and heard a scream, then realized it was his own voice screaming.  He was panting and clutching a handful of dirt and grass, and his heart was beating wildly.  I fell asleep!  I can't believe I fell asleep - I am so glad that was a dream!  I have to get a hold of myself so I can keep going... I have to go up the stairs...

He stood up quickly, and steadied himself against the bole of a tree.  His pulse was pounding in his ears from the frantic beating of his heart.  How long he had been asleep, he did not know.  He scanned the sky, at least as much of the sky as he could see through the thicky leafy green, and he could not tell at all if he had been sleeping for ten minutes or for several hours.  He had a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach, like the feeling he used to get when he knew his parents were angry with him and there was no getting around it.  There was nothing to do but start climbing the stairs again, and to resolve not to stop any more.

He sprinted up the first dozen stairs, but had to slow down after that; he found a swinging pace and hoped he was making good time.  He was beating himself up mentally over that unexpected nap. I am SO stupid.  Why did I stop and sit for so long?  Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The remaining hours until evening seemed to slide by very quickly indeed, which only made it seem as if he must have slept for a long time.  He was going to be angry with himself about it for a long time.  Soon he could barely see the stairs he was traveling up, and the trees around him became like darker shadows in the shadowy evening light.  He fervently hoped that he was almost at the top, because he did not want to be forced to spend the night here, without any idea as to how much longer he had to go.  One thing he regretted about changing paths was that he had no real way to tell where on the mountain he was.

Just as his feet were so sore they began to feel almost numb to the constant pain of stepping on them in regular rhythm, he arrived at the top of the stairway.  He could tell that it was the top because there were no more stairs, but he was still surrounded by tall trees.  He stood for a moment, indecisively, wondering what he was supposed to do next.  Find the waystone, he reminded himself.  Find the circle of grass, and find the waystone left behind.  He hoped it was there, because otherwise this journey was completely for nothing.  And he still had to go back down the mountain, whether or not he found what he was looking for.

His eyes were probably not going to adjust to the light any more than they already had, so there was no point in staying where he was, not even to rest.  He was so tired, but so afraid of falling asleep before he finished his task; the task he agreed to do out of a sense of duty and a strong urge to protect Ava.  Ava... he hoped she was alright, and that it had not been too upsetting for her that he was gone when she woke up the day before.  She was strong and opinionated.  He didn't need to worry about her.  The thing he needed to be worrying about was whether or not he was going to find a small grey stone in nearly full dark, in the woods, which made it even darker.

He decided to keep going straight forward, because he had no idea how exactly to check a whole area in a uniform manner.  He had an idea that she had not been very far from the edge of the wood when she came through the rainbow, so hopefully that meant his search area was smaller than it could have been.  His feet hurt an immense amount, but he was trying very hard to keep from thinking about them.  Just find it, just find it, he said over and over in his head.  Just find it, and I can sleep.

He kept walking, pushing his way through some underbrush, trying to avoid small branches that threatened to slap him in the face.  These trees seemed smaller than the ones he had been walking through all day, although he barely noticed it in the haze of weariness that was wrapping up his senses.  He quite suddenly exited the wood, and found himself on top of the mountain, standing under a cloudless, star-strewn sky, with the moon a huge and pearlescent white overhead.  The change in surroundings was dizzying, even though he was not near the edge at all where he was standing.  He swayed and nearly fell, but willed himself to remain standing.  If he fell down now he would just go to sleep where he landed.

After looking longingly up at the moon for some time, unsure what he was longing for except maybe sleep, he tore his gaze away and turned back toward the dark wood.  He decided that he would walk around the perimeter of it, looking for some breaking of branches or flattening of grasses.  Maybe he would be able to see where Ava had left the wood, and he could follow her trail back to the grass circle.

He had to squint in the darkness, to make out the differences between branches, tree trunks, and possible trampled grass.  Once, he thought he had spotted it, but it looked more like a gigantic footprint, the more he looked at it.  That made him remember Cernunnos, and the fact that Ava had met him right up here, most likely very close to where he was standing.  He shivered, and was glad that he had already met the Great Dragon - although he had no idea whether or not that gave him some kind of immunity from being eaten or flamed to death.  Spooked, he looked around and checked for large golden eyes, but saw nothing.  Still feeling strangely nervous, he kept on with his perimeter-checking. 

Not five minutes later, he found a spot where the grass was bent down and a few branches appeared to be broken, so he plunged back into the darkness of the trees and attempted to follow the trail he thought he was seeing.  Almost before he realized it, he had stumbled into an opening in the trees.  As he looked around in the gloom, still narrowing his eyes so that he could better make out the shapes he was looking at, he could see that it was, indeed, the circle of grass.  So long as there was not more than one of these circles in this wood, he had found the place he was looking for.

He got down on his hands and knees and looked as closely as he could at the ground.  He knew he should not touch the stone with his bare hands – the instructions Tristan had left him had been very specific about that – but he was worried that he would never find it unless he felt around for it with his hands.  Remembering Tristan's instructions also reminded him of what he was supposed to use to pick up the waystone.  He felt around in the pocket he had found inside his cloak for the one paper that he knew was supposed to make him able to pick up the stone without adverse affects, and pulled it out carefully.  It was barely big enough to wrap around the stone, but it was what he was meant to use; so he used it almost as a glove, to feel in the grass and find the stone.  After doing that for about a minute, it dawned on his sleep-weary brain that if he simply walked through the grass on his knees, he was bound to bump it, and that way he would not accidentally lose the special paper that held those symbols that were intended to protect him.

Soon, he knelt on a hard, round something, and he excitedly used the paper to pick it up, ever so carefully.  He brought it up close to his eyes so that he could see that the shape of it was correct, and the more he looked at it, the easier it was to see it.  In fact, the air seemed to be less dark, which was odd.  He assumed that his tired mind was playing tricks on his eyes, and then he realized that something was happening, something familiar to him, even though it had only happened to him once before.  The light did indeed begin to change the air around him, and it soon was suffused in many colors.  This time, he could almost imagine that he could reach out and physically touch the colors, but instead he stayed on his knees, confused and shocked, and unsure what to do.  Could he leave the circle?  What would happen if he was trapped here with the stone?  Wasn't the magician's spell supposed to keep him from disappearing into the rainbow yet again?

He tried to get up then, tried to leave, because the light was growing brighter and beams were beginning to shine out from between his fingers.  The spell paper was still on the stone, and his hands were not touching the stone except where they were protected by the paper; and yet the light grew brighter and brighter still, and he could not move.  He tried to jump away, and his body would not obey him.  He was stuck, frozen in place. 

Whiteness bathed his body, and took him away.  He fell out of that world and into another, and his conscious thoughts faded away.  The last thing in his mind was a picture of Ava, her face sorrowful, framed in a blood-red sky.

Taliesin woke up with a new dream vividly in his mind.  Ava's face filled his mind's eye, and she was riding Cernunnos across a sky that was full of rainbows.  They flew through them, unaffected, and the colored prisms of light played across her fair skin and Cernunnos' many-colored scales in a dizzying display of beauty.  There was thunder all around them, and a blackness in the sky that seemed ready to swallow them.  He was afraid, frightened for Ava and for the Great Dragon, and he tried to call out, to scream and warn them, but his voice made no sound.  It was as if he was not even there, but merely observing, as if looking through a window into someone else's memory or experience.

He lay, awake, but unable to shake the feeling of fear.  It felt very early, and the light in his room was very dim.  He could not go back to sleep, however, not after that kind of dream.  It had felt so real; he had never dreamed that way before.  He got out of bed and grabbed the robe that had been laid out across the wooden chest at the foot of the bed; there was a chill in the air.  He wondered if he could start a fire in the fireplace on his own, and decided to give it a try.

The hearth was stocked with a pile of split wood and some kindling, so he arranged it like he imagined he might have learned how if he had been a boy scout.  There were hot coals under the ashes, which he knew were there because he had noticed Greta covering them over carefully the morning before, so he poked at them and tried to prod them up underneath the twigs and dry bits that he was hoping would catch fire quickly.  The twigs started to give off a tiny curl of smoke, which excited him an inordinate amount.  He gently put a medium-sized piece of wood over the smoking pile, with the cut side facing it.  He was watching it so intently that he did not notice his door opening, or the hooded figure that came up behind him, until he was tapped on the shoulder.

"Hey!" he yelled in surprise, and jumped to his feet, a split log still in his hand.  "Tristan?  What are you doing here so early?"

Tristan pushed his face close to his own, and shushed him.  "Keep quiet!" he hissed in a stage whisper.  "He might be listening!"

Taliesin lowered his voice to a whisper as well.  "Who are you talking about?" he asked, trying to keep as quiet as possible.  He sat down on the hearth, and noticed that his little fire was failing miserably.  The curl of smoke that had looked so hopeful was nearly gone.

The magician crouched down next to him.  "Merlin, of course," he hissed.  "Come with me, and I will explain what I mean," and he grabbed Taliesin by the arm and dragged him, silently, through the door and down the dark hallway.  The windows at the end were faint shapes that could barely be seen in the early morning half-light, and the dark paneling of the walls and doors made it even dimmer.  Tristan hurried them along the hall, his feet making no noise at all, and turned down a hall that was opposite the doorway to the morning room.  Taliesin had only been down this hall once, yesterday, when he was carrying Ava back from their walk.  It led to the large staircase that he had climbed up, with her in his arms.  The small magician passed the staircase and kept going; now they were going deeper into the castle than Taliesin had been yet.

The hall here looked almost exactly the same as the one in the guest wing, except that the tiled flooring had no rug on it, so their feet made some slight sounds as they made their way toward whatever destination it was that Tristan had in mind. 

Taliesin was nearly about to ask the magician where he was being taken, when they stopped abruptly at a doorway, and Tristan took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, casting glances up and down the hall as he did so.  "In here!" he hissed, and almost yanked Taliesin's arm in his haste to get him through the door.

Inside was a small, cramped room, lined with shelves and stuffed with books.  In fact, it looked so much like Tristan's tiny cottage that Taliesin began to chuckle.  This was obviously the magician's laboratory, or personal library.  This must be the place he came to when he wanted to think and relax and write important things and ponder the meaning of life.

The magician gestured at the room in general.  "This is, for lack of a better term, my office.  I keep most of my journals here, and all my important papers and research.  I have only a few of my own things at my cottage, except for all my many books.  And as you can see, I have a great deal more books here, although some of them do belong in the Great Library.  I brought you here because I have spells on this room that protect it from eavesdropping or spying."

"So, like the spell to hide us that Cernunnos saw through?"  Taliesin hadn't meant to mock him, but that was the first thing that occurred to him to say.

Tristan's face grew a little red, and he sighed rather loudly.  "The Great Dragon's powers were obviously a little beyond my estimation.  It will not happen again.  And I can assure you that the protective spells I use here were taught me by Merlin himself, and I can trust their strength; he was the strongest among us.  It is about him that we must speak.  Sit down."

Taliesin found a low stool, and sat as Tristan instructed.  His curiosity was piqued, and he was also becoming a little bit nervous, as a result of the magician's paranoid manner.  He had thought that Tristan was merely putting on for show, but now he wondered if that initial assessment was wrong.

"I have discovered something, just an hour or two ago, that disturbs me deeply, and it moves up the time line drastically."

"Time line?  What are you talking about?"  Taliesin was confused.

"I thought - oh, bother it all.  I have had no chance to explain to you what I confirmed in my research this evening.  We do not have very much time, and you must believe me on this point.  We are all being watched, and you must leave in a matter of hours, less than that if possible, so that you can begin your journey before he realizes you have left."

"Leave in a few hours?  Where am I going?  You can't just - "

Tristan interrupted him.  "I understand your frustration and your confusion.  Please believe my words - time is not on your side.  Listen to me now, and I will try to make it as clear as possible."

Taliesin had stood up and was wavering between leaving and going back to his room, and staying to listen to what was beginning to seem like the paranoid fancies of an old man.  He decided that Tristan deserved at least the courtesy of his attention, so he sat back down and motioned for him to go on.

"Good lad.  Now, what I was searching for in the Library was a particular text, an alternate translation of the prophecy that reads the first part as:  the rainbow will bring forth a king and in him our destruction, instead of the more traditional:  the rainbow shall appear and bring forth a king, and he shall bring about our greatest danger.  Either translation can be taken as meaning the new king will BE the destruction or danger, or the danger will come as a result of his appearing.  I personally, through careful research, have concluded that this prophecy refers to you as the one who comes as the king, and to Merlin as the one who is brought about by your appearance here - he is our destruction, the most dangerous person to our world.  While I was re-reading the manuscripts once more, I sensed a presence in the Library, an ominous presence.  I tried to ascertain where in the building it - or he - was, and I followed its aura toward the castle.  Once I realized that it was indeed headed for the guest wing and your rooms, I knew that I had to act quickly."

His urgency was infectious, and Taliesin felt very bothered and anxious.  "But where did it go?"  he asked in a worried voice.  "Is it still here?  Is Ava safe?"

"She should be safe, yes... the prophecy pertains only to you, so I do not think that she will be bothered at all.  Merely an accident, I'm sure, her being here as well.  There are no prophecies about her.  The presence did leave, but only because of my spells and incantations - and I came into your room directly after I had chased it away, and now we are here.  And now you must prepare yourself for another journey.  I will get provisions for you, and a horse, and you should leave in no less than an hour from now, if at all possible."  His voice was very grave.

"But where am I going?" 

"You are the only one who can find the waystone in the rainbow's imprint.  The closest one is the mountain where Cernunnos sometimes dwells, where the girl came through, and a swift horse will get you there in less than a day.  I'll put these things in a saddlebag," and he began scooping up various small items from shelves and tables, acting for all the world as if Taliesin was not sitting there stunned and unmoving.

"I'm not going anywhere until I know what you mean," Taliesin said in a measured voice.  "Why am I the only one who can find it?  Why can't you go?"

Tristan stopped his packing for a moment and answered in a shocked voice.  "Me go!  I have to stay here, foolish boy - my research and knowledge are too important to this city and your future in it as king for me to be galloping toward the mountain, putting myself in danger!"

"Oh, so I will be in danger, then?  Just how much danger?"

Tristan waved his hand impatiently.  "I am sending you with spells, and you will have a sword and a belt knife.  I am sure that you can take care of yourself."

"You still haven't told me why I'm the only one who can find the waystone," Taliesin rejoined sharply.

"Because you just came through the rainbow!  I did not think I would have to explain such a simple concept to you twice!"

"You know what... I need some time to think about this.  I was not prepared for you to spring this on me, and I - I need to think.  I'll be back, but don't follow me," and Taliesin walked out the door as quickly as he had been hurried through it.

He shut the door quietly behind him, and now that he was once again out in the dimly lit hallway, with the silence of the castle all around him, and the thought of Ava alone in her room, possibly in danger, he began to wonder if what Tristan was asking of him was really too much.  He rubbed his eyes and walked back down the hallway the way they had come.  At the staircase, he paused and remembered carrying her upstairs what seemed like only hours ago.  Tristan might not think she was in danger, but he was not entirely sure that the magician had everything correct.  Ava had been through the rainbow too, and Ava seemed as likely a target as he was if the presence, which he assumed was connected to Merlin in some sinister way, was in the castle for evil purposes.

Was he really the only one who could do the thing that Tristan seemed convinced must be done?  He had not explained why the waystone was important.  Maybe it had some greater significance than merely being present at the time that all three of them had been translated into another world.  Maybe it had powers of its own.  He remembered that Tristan had a waystone in his cottage, and frowned at the recollection.  Why couldn't he be going back there to fetch that one, since the road back to the cottage, at least passingly familiar now that he had been down it once, was arguably safer than an unknown road to the mountain where the Great Dragon might be?

He continued to walk back toward the guest wing, thoughts turning this way and that inside his mind.  Tristan must be holding some important thing back, some piece of information that might cause his insistent request, which was hardly a request, to make more sense in Taliesin's frame of reference.  Before he realized it, he was standing in front of Ava's door.  Greta had told him to leave her alone, but that was before a crazy old man had whisked him out of his room to charge him with a ridiculous-seeming and time-sensitive quest.  He hesitated only a moment, and then opened her door as quietly as he could.

She was fast asleep, curled up on her side toward the windows.  Her rich red hair was very dark in the grey morning light, and he reached out tentatively to touch it, then thought better of it.  There was no reason to wake her up; he was not even sure what he was doing in here besides staring at her.  The longer he looked at her, peaceful and slumbering, the more he felt firm in his heart that if there was anything he could do to protect her, he would.  Whatever connection they had felt very strong to him already, even though he really did not know how she felt about him, if she felt anything at all.  He could not dream about her and experience her physical presence and talk with her, and not become attached in some way, even in such a short time.

Quite suddenly, his mind was made up.  He would accept this task, or quest, or whatever it was, if for no other reason than to ensure the safety of Ava and all the others in the castle, the ones he had met as well as the ones he hadn't.  If he was the 'king' in the prophecy, then he had some kind of power here, or at least some kind of job to do.  He looked at her one more time, then turned and padded quietly out of her room, shutting the door behind him with barely a sound.

He went into his room, dressed himself in his clothes from the day before, and rummaged around in the wardrobe until he found a heavier cloak and a more sturdy pair of leather boots.  He also found gloves, which he took, and a rather silly plumed hat, which he decided not to take.  Once he was completely dressed, he made the short trek back to Tristan's crowded little office.  As he passed the staircase, he glanced down and saw two servants walking together across the wide floor at the base of the stairs, speaking quietly to one another, apparently unconcerned with anything unusual happening in the castle at this early hour.

When he entered the room again, he found Tristan sitting in a chair, smoking a pipe and looking off into the distance with a faintly disgruntled look on his face.  He looked up as soon as Taliesin came back in, and motioned for him to shut the door quickly.  "Ah, good, good," he said.  "You appear to have made yourself ready to travel."

"I have," said Taliesin.  "I will go and find the waystone for you.  But first, you have to tell me what it is for, and why I must go to the mountain to get it - why can't I go to your cottage and bring you back that one?"

"Because, my lad, their powers are greatest when they were recently used.  There is something that I should be able to do with the stone when you bring it to me, something that should help ensure that Merlin has no way of coming back here again; but it can only be done when the stone is as full of the rainbow's strength as possible.  This is why you must go quickly - that, and I do not want him to send anything to block your way.  Take this bag - there are supplies for you, bread and cheese for eating, and several papers with spells already written on them.  They have some power, just the paper and the words, but you must use them carefully and sparingly.  There is a horse ready and saddled, with the rest of the things you might need."

“I guess I’m ready then,” said Taliesin.  It all seemed very final now.

 

Tristan led him out to the stables, where there was indeed a chestnut horse waiting for him, stamping and twisting his tail around in the dawn-tinted air.  He was saddled up, that much Taliesin could see for sure – but he was at a loss as to how to get on the horse in the first place, since he had never ridden one in his life.

 

Impatiently, Tristan waved at the stable boy, who was waiting patiently, holding the horse’s bridle.  “Help him up, would you please, boy?”

 

“Yes, sir,” the stable boy responded, and quickly gave Taliesin a heave up.  Taliesin managed to seat himself, but felt quite uncomfortable, and his legs were hanging awkwardly over the horse’s sides.  It would probably take him a long time to figure out how to sit properly, he lamented to himself.  For now, he was happy not to have immediately fallen off.

 

Tristan pointed to the west, in the direction of Cernunnos’ mountain, which was a faintly purple color.  “Ride directly toward the mountain, and do not stop.  If you ride all day, you should reach it by night fall.  Rest in the shadow of the mountain for the night, and be sure you arise with the dawn.  You will need to leave the horse tethered at the base, because the trail up the mountain is too steep for him to climb.  If you push as hard as you can, you should reach the top by the end of tomorrow; do not stop except to eat a little.  It is imperative that you go as fast as you can, and as carefully as you can.  Do you understand?”

 

Taliesin nodded, a little reluctantly now, because the prospect of riding all day and mountain climbing all the next was not something he realized that he was signing up for, and he was worried about his ability to actually do all the things Tristan was expecting of him. 

 

“What is the horse’s name?” he asked the stable boy.  “If I’m going to spend all day with him, I guess I should know his name.”

 

“Dragon Bane, sir,” replied the boy.

 

“Really,” said Taliesin.  “That seems rather… an odd name.  For a horse, I mean."

The stable boy shrugged, then walked back into the stables.

"Off you go, then," said Tristan, and waved at him.  "Don't forget what I've told you!"  And he slapped Dragon Bane's rump, who jumped suddenly and trotted away before Taliesin realized he was in motion.

In his confusion and attempt to re-seat himself correctly before he fell off, he was already a tenth of a mile off from the castle when he twisted around to wave goodbye.  Tristan was already gone, however, and nobody was watching him leave.  He supposed that was a good thing, but still his heart sank.  Alone again, and this time doing something dangerous.  He had always avoided danger, kept himself apart.  But here he was, rushing headlong into who knew what exactly, and all to fix the problems of a world he had only just come to.  A world that seemed to be attempting to have some sort of claim on him.

He settled in, rather glumly, and tentatively kicked Bane's sides, hoping that he would go faster.  The horse sped up, breaking almost into a gallop.  It was incredibly uncomfortable, being jostled and bumped up and down, but Taliesin was grimly determined to handle it.  He had made a promise to himself and to Tristan, and he meant to fulfill it.

The sun climbed overhead as the day wore on, and he grew hotter and stinkier, which he had not necessarily anticipated.  Dragon's Bane seemed very comfortable moving forward without stopping, and he was actually a little worried that he didn't know well enough how to stop or start a horse, so he left well enough alone.  He did reach down and drink from the water skin from time to time, but tried to keep from drinking it all.  He knew enough about surviving in the wilderness, from books he had read and from all the exploring he had done himself, to be careful of his supplies.  He felt woefully inadequate for this quest, however.  He wondered if anyone whom other people considered a hero felt that they were deserving of the name, or if they were as clueless as he was.  He certainly did not consider himself a hero, but who was supposed to go on quests and break spells and rescue the princess?  A hero. 

"I'm not a hero," he said out loud to Dragon Bane.  The horse merely shook his mane, not stopping or slowing his pace at all.  "You don't care, I see," he said, and felt foolish.  Talking to a horse was like talking to himself, and that seemed utterly silly.  He sighed and shut his mouth, and tried once again to find a comfortable angle for his rear end, and once again did not succeed.  Horseback riding was not as romantic as he had imagined it to be.

Afternoon came and went, and Dragon Bane neither paused nor reduced his pace.  Taliesin was beginning to feel a large measure of respect for the horse, because his stamina seemed unending.  If only he could run like that, how far could he go before he felt like stopping? 

Time seemed to drag on, and finally the base of the mountain was what Taliesin estimated to be an hour's ride away.  The mountain was such a large thing, however, that it was difficult to really tell how long it would take to get there.  Even if he knew how many miles or yards away it was, he had really no idea how fast he and Dragon Bane were going.  He hoped that it only took another hour, because it was nearly completely dark, and his legs and bottom were extremely stiff and sore from riding.  He wondered dismally how many times you had to ride a horse before it didn't hurt you so badly.  I am such a whiner, he thought to himself frustratedly.  Heros were supposed to be noble and strong and have an personal identity that precluded them from feeling weak or like complaining.  At least, he assumed that a real hero was like that.

The mountain grew steadily closer, and its looming presence in the sky hid the last light from the sun's recent setting.  He shivered; the air was most definitely colder, and he had unbuttoned and then removed his coat earlier during the heat of the day.  He unfastened the coat from the side of the saddle, and put it back on.  It occurred to him that it might be even more cold on the mountain, and he was frustrated with himself once again at not bringing a warm hat or scarf or something that would keep his head and neck warm in the brisk winds that surely blew on the mountain's bleak sides.

Finally he reached the base.  Strangely, the mountain seemed to have sprung up out of the ground whole, because there were no foothills or piles of rock near it; it was simply there.  He pulled at the reins, saying "Whoah!  Stop!  Whoah, Bane!" 

This seemed to work, or maybe Dragon Bane was simply tired of the journey himself, because he slowed and came to a halt.  Taliesin paused for a moment, unsure what the procedure was for getting off a horse without help.  Am I supposed to jump?  Do I slide off?  He decided to go for a combination of sliding and falling, in which he nearly got his foot stuck in the stirrup and came very close to hitting his head on the ground.  He was glad there was nobody around to see his ungainly dismount, because it was quite embarrassing that Dragon Bane saw him fall so awkwardly.

He patted Bane's side and looked around for a good place to bed down for the night.  There was a stand of trees a few yards away, and it looked like the best shelter around, so he grabbed Dragon Bane's reins and tugged, and the horse followed him obediently over to the trees.  He wound the reins around a low branch, although he was not at all sure that his makeshift knot would hold if the horse decided he was done staying there.  "You're a good horse, Bane," he said, and rubbed his nose.  Bane mouthed his sleeve playfully, and belatedly Taliesin wondered what on earth he was supposed to feed the horse.

"Are you going to eat grass?"  he asked.  "Because I don't have anything else except bread and cheese, and I don't know if you can have those."

In response, Bane twitched his ears and dipped his head to the grassy ground, tearing up a chunk of vegetation with a loud sort of crunch. 

"Okay then," said Taliesin, relieved.  "I hope it's alright with you if I sit for a few minutes before I take off all the stuff you're wearing."

He sat down, but winced, because his rear end was still really sore.  Maybe he ought to walk around a bit, to stretch everything out.  He got up and decided to wander around the stand of trees for a few minutes.  As he walked, he stared up at the mountain, and the night sky, and breathed in the cooler air.  He could see that, now that he was closer to it, the sides of the mountain were not straight up and down, as they had seemed to be at first.  He could even see a kind of path that snaked up the side, all the way to the top; and the top seemed very far away indeed.  He was not at all sure that he could make it up in one day's time, but Tristan had thought he could do it, so he had to at least try his best.

The more he walked, the better his legs started to feel.  He kept glancing back at Dragon Bane, and he was happily and serenely chewing grass.  He should probably go back and get the harness and bags off his back now, so that he could rest.  He had only read about horses and never ridden one before today, but he was sure that, just like a person falling asleep in a pair of jeans and backpack, a horse might wake up really uncomfortable if it fell asleep fully hooked into a saddle and saddlebags and all the rest.

Giving one last look to the mountain, he said out loud, "I'll see you in the morning," then he turned his attention back to Bane and the problem of getting the harness off him without hurting either the horse or himself.  Dragon Bane stood peacefully still while he lifted the bags off and unhooked a few things, but he turned his head and gave Taliesin a horsey glare when he tried to lift the saddle off all at once and instead yanked really hard on the strap that went underneath the horse's belly.

"I'm sorry!" Taliesin said apologetically.  "I'll be more careful, I promise, it's just that I'm kind of stupid about this."

Bane turned his head away and began ignoring him once again.  He was apparently not that worried.

Taliesin managed to remove the rest of the saddlery and things without hurting Bane any more, and when he finished, he had quite a large and impressive pile of leather harness parts.  He was positive that he would never be able to get them back on the horse, but at least Bane could sleep freely tonight.  The only thing he left on was the halter and reins, because he did not want to be responsible for the horse wandering off during the night. 

There was no daylight left at all at this point, and even though Taliesin dearly wanted a fire and a warm dinner, he doubted that he could get one started with no light at all to see by, so he just pulled out some bread and cheese and munched on them, leaning against the pile of harness.  Dragon Bane finished his own dinner, and lowered himself to the ground, tucking his legs underneath his body.  Taliesin took the blanket that had been rolled up and fastened to the saddle, and laid down next to the horse with his back against his warm side, and pulled the blanket up as far as he could underneath his chin.  It felt weird, sleeping with boots and a coat on, but the air was too cold to do without them.

He drifted off to sleep, thinking about Ava's red curls, remembering how her hair smelled when it was in his face.  He slept dreamlessly, the slumber of someone who had worked hard all day and was completely exhausted and ready to sleep deeply.

The tree line was a lot further away than Ava had though it was going to be, and her ankle felt swollen by the time she asked to stop walking and sit down.

"Oh," said Taliesin, in an anguished sort of voice, "I didn't realize you were so hurt!  We could have stopped earlier!"

"I'm alright," Ava said in a mockingly cheerful voice.  "No, really, it's okay.  No, ow!  Don't touch it, just let me sit down here.  I think I overdid it, that's all.  It's my fault."

He eased her down near one of the curiously planned-looking piles of rocks, and she leaned against a rock and stretched out her leg as far as it could go.  It was swollen; she had walked at least twenty minutes longer than she should have.  She had been enjoying the feeling of walking with him, her arm through his arm, his body supporting hers as she walked.  He kept leaning closer to her and she thought for sure that she had caught him smelling her hair once or twice.  Every girl gets a peculiar sort of rush when a boy likes her, and this was certainly no different than that; unless it was somehow different.  He had seen her in his dreams.  They both came here the same way.  Were they connected?

Taliesin sat down next to her, breathing a little heavily.  He must have been using more energy than he showed during their walk, helping her the way he had.  He leaned his head against the rock and closed his eyes for a moment.  Since he wasn't looking at her, she studied his face a little bit.  She might be very brash and outward most of the time, but she still felt rather shy where the opposite sex was concerned, even if she did get a charge out of being admired.

His skin was pale, but his cheeks were flushed slightly just now.  His hair was very dark, almost black, and his eyelashes were thick and jet black.  A thin, narrow nose suited his face, which was what an older generation might call patrician.  His features were all clean cut, somewhat delicate, and quite nice to look at - at least to me, she thought a mischievously.  His eyes, when they were open - she could already recall their color with a surprising level of clarity.  They were grey, deep grey with black flecks, and a just the slightest touch of gold.  She had looked full into them once when she had stumbled and almost fallen, and he had caught her; and their depth startled her.  She did not expect them to be so bottomless nor so fascinating.  He opened his eyes and must have felt her looking at him, because he immediately turned his head to meet her gaze, which she quickly broke.  For some reason she could not quite fathom, she was completely nervous and embarrassed when he looked at her.

"Well, I guess I have to sit here for a while," she said and giggled, stupidly, she thought to herself.  "I should not have walked so far," she grimaced, trying to stave off the fit of additional foolish laughter she could feel bubbling up inside.  There had been so many times that her tendency to act like an idiot when she was nervous had caused a potential friendship to fizzle out into nothing, and she didn't want to make that mistake here.

"Do you want me to carry you back?" he asked anxiously. 

"Oh!" she said, and her cheeks flushed.  "I don't... why don't we just sit, and maybe my ankle will get better if I don't walk on it right away."  She was so conflicted suddenly - part of her wanted to be carried, and part of her wanted to avoid it.  Which was odd, because just yesterday he'd carried her to the castle.  Of course, she had been tired and out of it then.  Today things were different; although it wasn't just because she was fully awake.  There was something else too, something that wasn't there yesterday.

"So where did you live, before?"  she hoped that some normal conversation would help with the awkwardness she was feeling.

"I go to college in northern Michigan," he said.  "Or I did.  I guess I still do - it's a holiday break right now, so I won't be missed for a few more days."

"Wow," she said, envious.  "I wish I was still in college.  I've had one semester and I loved it; I took a philosophy class and a writing class and math.  And I hate math, but somehow I enjoyed it anyway.  I think I just love to learn."

"So do I!" he grinned then, and his smile was breathtaking somehow, like a sunset painted across the sky in glorious colors. 

She stared at him for several seconds before she remembered to respond.  "What's your favorite class so far?"  She was glad he couldn't hear all the conflicting things going on inside her head.  For once, her mother's voice was not present - she had enough different voices inside her head to argue amongst themselves without her being there as well.  Stop staring at him!  she thought, and then His eyes are so dreamy...  She shook her head in an attempt to clear it enough to carry on a conversation like a normal person.

"Oh, I don't know... I like the world literature class I've had.  My professor is really old and bent over, but he is so interesting.  I already wrote a paper for him and he loved it, so I must be on track with what he's trying to teach us.  And I'm in a creative writing class too, although so far I've just done a little bit of crappy poetry.  I still get a good grade for writing anything at all, because it's a freshman course, so I'm happy with it.  I'm hoping that by the end of the semester I might be writing something worth reading to someone else..." he trailed off.  "I suppose that might not happen now."  His face was very sober.

"It's hard not to think about it," she said.  "I was hoping we could just talk about, you know, anything, but... it all comes back to that.  We're stuck and we can't go back, at least not right now."

"You don't seem very upset about it," he grinned again.

"I am, really, I'm just holding it in I think.  I learned how to hold things in a long time ago."

"Really?"  he looked skeptical.  "I didn't get the impression that you hold anything back."

Her cheeks flushed again.  "But I do!  I'm out there, sure, but I know when to keep things to myself.  My mother..." but she stopped, not sure if she really wanted to get into all that just now.  Not now, when they were having a good time talking.  "Never mind," she said.  "We don't need to talk about that right now.  Tell me more about yourself."

"Well... what do you want to know?  Because I keep things to myself too," he said.  "Maybe I don't want to talk about myself."

"Are you teasing me?"

"A little, maybe," he said, and smiled again. 

"You seem a lot different from yesterday," she said, smiling back at him.  Why did he have to be so gorgeous?  This was making it very hard for her to keep herself on an even keel.  Control yourself, girlie, she said firmly to herself.

"Really?"  he seemed genuinely puzzled at that.  "What was I like yesterday?"

"You hardly said a word!  You were so silent.  And I thought you were afraid of Tristan, like maybe he was angry with you or something.  Today you're... happy, maybe.  I don't know."

"Happy?  Really?"

"Now what are you doing?  Every sentence is a question!"  she started laughing.  "Aren't you usually happy?  You know, when you're in the place you're supposed to be living, doing the things you usually do?"

He laughed again.  "I suppose I am.  Well, probably not happy.  I don't think you could normally characterize me as happy.  Although I'm a lot happier than I was a few months ago."

"Oh, explain.  Now I'm all curious," she said.  She moved her legs and wiggled her ankle a little, but it still hurt quite a bit.  I'm so stupid, she sighed inwardly.  I think I just wanted to go for walk with him because he's so cute.  And I was bored.  So now my ankle is worse than it was... so stupid.

"Do you really want to hear all this?"  he looked sad again, or maybe it was worried, like he had yesterday.  "It's kind of complicated."

"Mine's complicated too," she said sympathetically.  "But I love to listen, so please tell me.  I promise I'll listen to all of it."

"Only if you promise to tell me yours when I'm all done."

She sighed.  "I walked into that one, didn't I... okay, deal."

He reached out to shake hands, which she did with a giggle.  She let her hand linger in his a little longer than she should have; his skin was warm and smooth, and she wanted to keep touching him, but she forced herself to take her hand back.  Why do I fall so hard when I fall?

He drew up his knees and leaned his elbows on them, and looked off into the distance, past Castle Agria.  "My growing up was... lonely," he began.  "I have a brother and a sister, but they are seven and nine years older than me, respectively.  My parents had gotten rid of all their baby toys after they outgrew them, and when I came along, I was a bit of a mistake, I think.  No, I know I was.  Anyway, they didn't buy any new toys for me, and they didn't let my grandparents send me any... I played a lot with toys that I made myself, but that wasn't until I was a little older.  I was ignored a lot, so I don't even think my parents even noticed when I started making toys out of the things they were throwing away, or things that were lying around the basement or garage or yard that they obviously didn't want anymore.

"There's a lot more than that, but.. I don't think I can talk about it all right now.  It's too much, and I've only recently been able to talk about some things without wanting to run away and hide.  My brother and sister went to boarding schools, and I only saw them on holidays, but not every holiday, because they spent a lot of time with my grandparents.  I went to public school, walked to the bus every morning alone, walked home every afternoon alone, waited until late in the evening for my parents to come home.  I used to clean the house a lot because I knew that would make them... maybe not happy, but they wouldn't notice me as much and be angry with me if the house was neat and clean when they got home.

"When I graduated, which I did with honors, I left that same day for school.  I got a full ride scholarship to Northern, and I did it all by myself.  I guess maybe I've been the happiest these last few months than I was all my growing up, and it's only because I'm finally free of them... I don't have to go home if I don't want to, I can stay gone forever if I want.  For now, I think it's enough that I'm not there anymore."

She wanted to hug him, hold him tightly and tell him everything would be okay, because there was so much pain behind his words.  Every sentence made her heart want to burst for him.  When she spoke, her voice quivered a little.  "I'm so sorry," she said.  "I don't even know what to say..."

"It's okay," he said quickly.  "You don't have to apologize.  I can't change it even if I wanted to, and it's part of me anyhow.  It'll always be part of who I am."

"But it's so sad," she said, a tear welling up and sliding down her cheek.  "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry," she sniffled and wiped it away.  "Look at me, I'm crying at you story - you should be the one to cry!"

"I'm alright, really," he said, and smiled again.  "I don't like to talk about it, but I can a little bit sometimes.  And you are easy to talk to."

"Oh," she said.  "No one ever said that to me before.  Usually they say I'm loud," she added.  She laughed a little and wiped her face again.

"Your turn," he said. 

"Oh," she said again.  "I guess it is, isn't it?  Yuck.  I really hate talking about it, but I did promise.  I don't think mine is as bad as yours, but I think it's kind of bad.  My mother - she left my biological father when I was just a baby - raised me on her own, and I think she ended up resenting me, or something, because when I was old enough to know I could screw something up, she was always telling me that's all I did.  I thought for a long time that all I could do was make mistakes.  Of course, I'm also really mouthy, and I tend to think I know what I'm talking about, so we got in a lot of arguments and fights and she threw me out of the apartment more than once.  I went to a therapist for a while, and she said that I'm a very independent person and that my mother felt threatened by that.  All I know is, I can't ever do anything right where she's concerned.  Heck, I even have her voice in my head all the time telling me so, even when I'm nowhere near her.  It's kind of disturbing."  Taliesin was looking at her sympathetically, but she was starting to worry that she was coming across as really nuts.  He did ask, though, so she was going to go ahead and just say it all.

"When I was seventeen I ran away from home.  You would think that because she threw me out so many times that it wouldn't bother her, me leaving, but she went absolutely crazy about it.  She had the police looking for me, posters up everywhere, the whole deal.  She even went on the local television station during the evening news and cried over me and lied and said that she had no idea why I ran away, that maybe I was upset but it would be okay, and to please come home.  And even though it was a lie, I believed her - she sounded so genuine.  I thought maybe she really did love me, that things would be different, so I went back home.  Do you know what she did?  She beat me - smacked me around and threw me against the wall and screamed and yelled and broke things.  I had a black eye and I limped for three months after that.  The police came to the door a few days after, to follow up with her, and she made a big deal out of me being home and how she hadn't told them yet because she was so busy taking care of me, and that I had shown up bloody and limping and wasn't it awful.  I couldn't even say anything because of what she might do to me later.

"After that, I made a promise to myself that I was going to leave as soon as I could.  On the outside, I pretended that I was going along with her way of doing things, I wore the clothes she wanted me to wear and spoke the way she wanted me to speak and did my homework and got good grades and went to bed when I was supposed to.  I did my chores without complaining and kept the apartment straightened up.  I got a part-time job, and some of my friends helped me find a cheap little apartment in another city, rooming with a friend of mine, and I left one day while she was at work."

"Did you tell her where you were going?"  Taliesin looked like he was on the edge of his seat, and she laughed a little.  It was so odd to have someone so fascinated by the pain that had followed her in her life.

"No, but I sent her a postcard after a week or so.  I told her not to try and find me, that I was fine and had a job and didn't need her to help me.  She knows that I live in the city but not where, and I don't use my real name any more."

"Wow," said Taliesin.  "Your story is much better than mine.  You have a fake identity and everything?"

She laughed, relieved to have told it all and still be in possession of her self-control.  "My first name is really Ava, but I changed my last name."

"What city do you live in?  Grand Rapids?  Detroit?"

"No," she giggled.  "I don't live anywhere near Michigan.  I'm from New York state."

His surprise was tangible.  His eyes got very wide and his mouth dropped open a little bit. 

"Did you think the rainbow only went to your part of the country?" she started laughing then, a gasping sort of laugh, the kind of laugh that usually left her with sore abdominal muscles and teary eyes.

"I guess... but that's no reason to laugh at me!"  he seemed indignant, but then he broke down and joined in the laughter, and his face went red and he had to wipe tears from his face from the force of all the hilarity. 

After they had convulsed with laughter for a few more minutes, they calmed down a little bit and tried to breathe more slowly.  "I guess we should go back soon," said Ava.  "Do you think anyone wonders where we went?"

"I'm sure we didn't go so far that they can't see us, and besides, it's not like we were walking so fast anyhow.  You're not all that fast on that bum leg of yours."

This last caused Ava to start giggling again, which hurt her already sore stomach muscles.  "Stop," she gasped.  "You're hurting!  Stop being so funny!"

"Nobody's accused me of that before," he grinned, and stood up.  "Here, let me help you again.  There's no way that your ankle is better yet."

"I guess I shouldn't say no to help," she said, and grabbed his outstretched hands.  "OUCH," she exclaimed when she tried to put weight on her injured leg.  Before she knew it, he had scooped her up in his arms and was carrying her back to the castle.

"Hey," she protested ineffectually.  "I was going to try and walk, you know."

"I know.  And you don't like to be helped, but that's too bad.  You can't walk right now."

She gave up arguing about it, and laid her head on his shoulder again, since it was too difficult to keep her head steadily upright while he was walking with her.  Truthfully, she did not at all mind being carried again, but now his close physical proximity was sending off all kinds of signals.  Wow, he's strong.  And gorgeous.  And troubled.  That can't be a good combination...

It did not seem like any time at all before they had arrived back at the castle, and he was carrying her up the staircase, servants looking on surreptitiously, toward her room.  She was really not sure how he managed to find the wing with their rooms in it, because he had gone in a completely different door than the one they had left from, but he did it.  In the long hall, Greta was coming out of one of the many rooms, and he stopped her. 

"Greta - it's Greta, isn't it?"

"Yes, young master," she nodded.  "Is there something you are needing?"

"The lady has hurt herself further, and I believe she needs some kind of medicine.  Do you have medicine you can give her?  Or a... compress or something?"

"Just take her in and set her on her bed, if you please sir, and I will fetch some medicines."  She hurried away down the hall, and Taliesin found Ava's door and pushed it open.

Her room, which she already thought of as hers, was flooded with daylight, since the curtains had all been pulled back.  The rugs on the floor were golds and greens and deep reds, which suited Ava's temperament very well.  The bed was all in dark green, and had a canopy over it.  It was the consummate princess room, or at least the kind of room she would have wanted if she were actually a princess.  No pinks or yellows or lace, but rich colors and plenty of natural light.

Taliesin put her gently down on the bed.  "Thank you," she said, and hoped that she was conveying how heartfelt her thanks were.  "It is so generous of you to carry me so far.  If I had been you, I think I would have left me there and gone to find a horse or a bigger person to carry me."

"It was my pleasure, really," he said in a low voice, and met her eyes.  Her heart started to beat a little too fast, and she found herself at a loss for words. 

At that moment, Greta came back into the room, followed by two more maids, who had several bundles and a pile of towels and a steaming pitcher of hot water.

"Off you go now, young master," said Greta, shooing him out of the room, and he waved and gave her a half-smile before he left.

Ava's heart fell a little to see him go, but her attention was immediately returned to her injured ankle, and how much it was throbbing as the three maids tied it up tightly in a poultice, then gave her something to drink to ease the pain, then left her propped in the bed with a small pile of books. 

-----------

Taliesin did not see Ava for the rest of the day; he ate his dinner alone in his room, as Greta informed him that Tristan was still in the Library and was expected to be there for many more hours before he was done. 

He played parts of their conversation over and over in his mind, dwelling on the parts where she was smiling and laughing.  How someone who had experienced so much pain could be light-hearted and funny, he did not understand.  Maybe it was her coping mechanism, or maybe she was just naturally able to come out the better for things happening to her.  The only thing he could really be sure of was that he was falling for her.  Something about her was lodging itself deeply in his heart, and he felt completely powerless to stop it from happening, even if he had wanted to; and he did not want to stop it.

He sat for a long while, an open book, unread, in his lap, and stared off into space, thinking about her warm red hair, her smile that lit up her face.  Her bright green eyes, and the freckles that were sprinkled across her pale skin.  He remembered that she had said her mother had given her a black eye and a limp for a while, and he felt anger surging into his body, his fists clenching and his heart beating more rapidly.  All he wanted to do was protect her, even though she seemed more than capable of doing without anyone else's protection or help.

Greta came to clear away his dinner tray, and he asked about Ava.

"She's sleeping, young master.  Her ankle should be healing up nicely, but only as long as she stays off her feet," and she glared a little at him.  "You're not to disturb her this evening.  Tomorrow morning she can decide whether to have breakfast in the morning room, or stay in bed.  Until then, you just let her rest."

"Oh," said Taliesin, sad that he would not get to see her anymore tonight.  It did not even occur to him that he had only just met her, because the feeling growing deep within his chest was beginning to inform his thoughts about her.  "Tell her I said goodnight, then?"

"I will, if she is awake when I go in there.  I will see you again in the morning with your hot water, and you can ask me about her then."

"Good night then, Greta.  Thank you."

She smiled and left, taking his tray of dirty dishes with her.  He had never been waited on before, and it was simultaneously uncomfortable and enjoyable.  He hoped that the staff here were treated well, because he could not stand to think of them being yelled at or punished harshly or sleeping in dank little rooms; although admittedly, that might just be all the books he had read that were giving him those ideas.

Not long after she left, he climbed into the big bed that was his, and lay there for a long while thinking about Ava and the rainbow and what both she and Tristan had told him that day.  He wondered if he would dream of her again.

The moon shone clear in the night sky, and there was once again a shadow that moved through the castle halls, silently and almost invisibly.  It made no sound, and no living person saw it.

All the travelers slept deeply that night, each in a large guest room along a long hallway in the east wing of the sprawling castle, on ornately carved wooden beds, between softly silken sheets.  The cool night air was kept at bay by tall glass windows on the outside wall of each room.  They slumbered more peacefully than they had in years - even the two who had only recently come from a modern world of foam mattresses and ergonomically correct lounge chairs. 

A shadow flitted down the hallway deep in the night, making no sound, and waking no one.  The only thing alive that saw the shadow was a songbird, whose tiny black eyes glittered in the moonlight in his perch near a window, and who then tucked his head back under his wing, uninterested and unruffled.

As the sun began to rise in the early morning, the magician continued to snore in his comfortable bedding.  The maid assigned to his room slipped in and out with clean robes and did not wake him.  She did not draw the curtains or bring hot water, because he had been very specific about being left alone until he decided to rise for the day.

Taliesin woke slowly.  It felt like he was in a warm cocoon, nestled deep in, and he was really trying hard not to wake up.  Unfortunately, his body decided it was time to wake up.  He had a morning philosophy course that he loved, and was used to waking early, even if it was just early enough to jump into a clean pair of jeans and brush his teeth before he had to rush out the door.  Thinking about college made him feel disoriented, and it took opening his eyes and squinting in the sunlight at the artfully arranged bedroom furniture to remember where he was.

Memory came flooding back in, although less painfully somehow.  Just a little less.  He sat up and rubbed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, then swung his legs over the side.  Today he needed to find out... well, everything.  And he was going to start with Ava.  He had to talk to her, to try and explain to her that he had dreamed her, to try and communicate that strange sense of familiarity that he had about her.  She might not be happy to hear it, or maybe she wouldn't mind.  Over dinner the evening before, they had been laughing a lot and she seemed like things didn't rattle her too much.  It might be okay.

His feet had just hit the thick rug under the bed when a maid suddenly appeared in the doorway, holding a large jug of what he assumed was hot water, since there was steam coming from the top.

"Good morning, young master," she said in a pleasant voice.  She was very young, maybe a few years younger than he.  He was not at all used to having servants around, and he wasn't sure what he thought of it.

"Good morning," he replied.  "Thanks for the hot water," he said, and tried to take it from her.  She held on tightly and moved gracefully to a large bowl that sat on an ornate side table.  A snow-white towel was folded up next to the bowl.  She poured the water, then set the jug down and picked up the towel, hanging it over her arm. 

"What..." said Taliesin, feeling very awkward and unsure of the protocol.  He had never had a girl helping him wash his face in the morning.  "...I'll just wash up then," he finished rather lamely, and splashed his face with the water.  It did feel good, and woke him up a little more.  He blinked water from his eyelashes and found the towel in his hands.  He dried his face and put the towel down, and the young maid went around the room then, opening the curtains and straightening here and there.

"Will you be taking breakfast here, young master, or with your companions in the morning room?" she asked.

"I guess... in the morning room," he hesitated.  "Will Ava be there?"

"I will find out for you, sir," she said and curtsied, then left the room as quickly and silently as she had come in.

He found a set of clothes that, while they did not look at all like his jeans and sweater that he had worn from home (because he had thought of the college and his dorm room as home ever since the first day of the semester), certainly seemed comfortable as well as slightly dressy.  There was a pair of pants, a thin undershirt, and a lightweight yet very warm overshirt that buttoned up the front.  Instead of his dirty socks and running shoes, he put on long warm socks and a pair of flexible leather boots.  He was quite taken with the boots, in fact, and posed in front of the long mirror for several minutes, admiring them and the effect of the whole outfit; he was interrupted by the maid coming back into the room, silently again, to tell him that Ava was taking her breakfast in the morning room, and would he please be there in fifteen minutes.

Since he was already dressed, he decided to wander the halls for the remaining time.  He stopped a moment in front of the windows, taking in the spectacular view from his vantage point.  The eastern wing of the castle looked out over the residential district of the city, and the morning sun made the white stone roofs glow.  The dragon's words echoed in his mind again: THE BOY WILL BE CROWNED.  Was that him?  Was he destined to be king in this castle, of this beautiful city?  He was a college student, a boy from the northern United States, a lonely person most of the time.

Things had been going on too long now for them to be a dream, so the only conclusion he could reach was that he was indeed caught up in another world, another dimension, and that there were talking dragons and magicians here and prophecies that might actually be talking about him.  It would be easier if he could silence that part of his mind that was still struggling to match his life at college with the life he was suddenly and unexpectedly living; but did that mean he wanted to forget?  Was he giving up the hope of going back home?  He shook his head and sighed, then turned away from the windows.  He still wanted to walk a little down the halls before breakfast, because he wasn't sure at all what he was going to say to Ava.  There was too much in his head that might come spilling out badly if he didn't take some time and compose himself first.

The heavy door of his room swung open effortlessly and without a sound.  That must be how the maids come and go so quietly, he mused.  He shut the door behind him, and it gave out a barely audible click.  His room was on the very end of the hall, so there was only one direction for him to walk.  It occurred to him that he had forgotten to find out just where the morning room was; so maybe his walk to clear his head was actually a quest to find the room with breakfast in it, and Ava.  And maybe Tristan.  He hoped that Tristan wasn't there, actually, so that he could figure out what to say to Ava in relative peace.

He passed three or four more doors on the same side as his room door.  The hallway was a north-south passageway, and so far all the rooms in this wing were on the eastern side of the hall, probably because the views were better.  The furthest end of the hall, which was still a way off, faced directly north, and it ended in a windowed alcove.  He was fascinated with the architecture in the castle - it was all so beautifully done, so evocative and solid and... it felt like home.  He stopped, shocked that he had just thought that.  It felt like home.  This place.  Like he belonged here.

A strange smile started at the corners of his mouth, and his heart was light.  The day suddenly seemed as if it might be quite wonderful: breakfast with Ava, time to spend in this wonderful building, and maybe Tristan would go to the Library and then answer the rest of their questions. 

He passed another door just as it opened, and Ava nearly collided with him.  She sprang back, obviously flustered and embarrassed, and he stammered out an apology.  She looked very fresh and clean and vibrant, in a simple dress of deep reddish-orange.  He noticed that she had a pair of new boots too, although hers had slightly higher heels than his, and had laces that criss-crossed up the sides.

"Why are you looking at my shoes?" asked Ava, in a loud voice. 

"I - I'm sorry," he said.  What was it about her that made him always sound like a fool?  Now he was worrying about how their conversation might go, or if it would go at all.  "Do you know where the morning room is?" he asked, attempting to shift the focus to something other than his own awkwardness.

"It's this way," said Ava, apparently unconcerned with his inner turmoil.  "I asked Greta."

"Oh..." said Taliesin, and followed her as she led the way determinedly.  "Who's Greta?"

"The maid!"  Ava said over her shoulder.  "You didn't ask her name?"

"Uh, no," Taliesin was beginning to feel rather stupid.  Breakfast would probably help.  He hoped it would.

Ava sighed loudly but did not say anything else, and then they arrived at the morning room.  It was the last room on the right side of the hallway, and its walls were completely of glass.  The northern wall of the city was also the northern wall of the castle, and behind the city were rolling hills, some gold with ripe grain, some green and dotted with little white things that Taliesin assumed were sheep or cows.  In the distance, he could see a mountain range, which was faintly purple.  The mountain that Ava and Cernunnos had come from was on the southern side of the city, and so could not be seen from this room.

Ava walked right up to one of the windows and put her hands on the glass, her eyes large.  "It's so beautiful," she said breathlessly. 

A table had been set with a white cloth and many silver dishes with lids.  Taliesin almost sat right down, then remembered his manners and stood by his chair, waiting for Ava to sit down.  She stayed at the window for a little while, not noticing that he was waiting for her, but he decided that he didn't mind.  Yesterday she had started out as a burden, and he had been resentful of needing to carry her, but today he was seeing her in a completely different light.  Maybe it was the good night of sleep he had gotten, or this new place, or the fact that she looked rather breathtaking in that dress.

She turned and looked at him, and he was momentarily afraid that she could read his mind and knew what he had been thinking just now.  "Were you waiting for me?  I'm sorry," she said, and hastily sat down at the table. 

"It's okay," he replied, and sat down opposite her.

"Oh my goodness, look at all this food!" she exclaimed, taking lids off dishes and examining their contents.  "I could never eat this much!  Can you eat this much?"  She spooned out some scrambled eggs onto her plate and took a few pieces of bacon.  "Is there coffee?"

Taliesin was still so engrossed in his own thoughts that he nearly forgot to respond out loud.  "Here," he said as he found the small silver pot that had the unmistakably marvelous aroma of roasted coffee beans coming from it, and he poured her a cup without spilling a drop.  As she began to eat her small portion of breakfast, he put bacon, toast, pancakes, sausage, and several fried eggs on his plate.  She cocked an eyebrow at him once, but seemed content to eat her own food and enjoy her cup of coffee. 

Ava finished her eggs and bacon well before he was done, and sat back in her chair, sipping her coffee.  "This coffee is so great," she sighed contentedly.  "It's as good as the cafe I usually go to."  Her face fell at that, although he could tell she was trying to keep from thinking about it too much.

"I know what you mean," he said.  "I miss home too."

Ava teared up a little then; he could see tears glistening at the corners of her eyes.  Her eyes were golden green, which he somehow had only just noticed.  She put her cup down and dabbed at her eyes a little with the napkin from her place setting.  "Thanks," she said in a shaky voice.  "I was trying not to think about it too much, but I guess I shouldn't have said anything in the first place."

"No, I'm sorry too.  I could see you were upset and I guess maybe I thought that if I said something it would help, not make it worse."

She wiped her eyes a little more, then put the napkin back and picked up her coffee again.  "I think... I think that I'm still getting used to being here," she said.  "And I don't really understand what's going on, so that doesn't help either."

Taliesin hesitated.  "Can I tell you something kind of strange?  And promise not to throw coffee at me for it?"

Ava frowned.  "What are you talking about?"

"I had a dream, the first night I was here.  That was the day before we met you.  I dreamed about a dragon, a huge dragon with golden eyes, and I... saw you, too."  He waited for her to shout at him or toss her coffee in his direction, but she just sat there, tapping the cup with her right index finger.

"Well, that explains it," she said.

Taliesin was confused.  "What?"

"When I first saw you, or I should say when you first saw me yesterday, you had a really odd look on your face. I could have sworn you were going to ask me if we'd met before, except of course I know I've never seen you before in my life, but instead of saying anything you've been absolutely silent about it until now.  Which actually is kind of frustrating for me personally, but then not everyone is going to behave the way I want them to, right?"

"Right," said Taliesin.  "Wait.  You're not angry about this?"

"Why would I be?  I can't help that you dreamed me, anymore than you can help that there is some kind of prophecy about you, or that I can help that I met a Great Dragon.  Well, I suppose I could have helped that.  But I'm curious.  My mother always says - " she stopped, and a look came over her face as if she had tasted spoiled milk.  "Never mind," she said in a tight voice.

At that moment, Tristan came into the morning room, dressed in bright yellow robes.  "Good morning!" he said cheerfully, and Ava's face looked even more sour than it already did.  Taliesin felt extremely out of his depth.

Tristan sat down and merrily began helping himself to every food item on the table.  "Eat, boy, you haven't even finished yet!" he said to Taliesin, who obediently began putting food on his fork and then into his mouth again, but he was thinking about Ava and why she was so upset suddenly.  She sat at the table for a little while longer, and then pushed her chair back and walked back over to the window again, where she stood and seemed to be lost in thought.

"Today, I will go to the Great Library," said Tristan through a large bite of buttered biscuit.  He washed that down with some freshly squeezed orange juice.  "I have some friends there that I will be happy to see, and they should be happy to see me as well," he continued.  "I have been gone a long time..."  He trailed off, but continued eating as if it did not at all interfere with either speaking or thinking.

"Why did you leave?" ventured Taliesin, who had finished eating.

"That is a long and complicated story," said Tristan.

"We have time though, don't we?  I need to know some things," said Taliesin.  "Please," he added.  "You said you would explain things yesterday, but then we... didn't really talk much, not after we met Ava."

Tristan frowned.  "You're right, boy.  And yesterday I had a lot on my mind.  I still do, in fact, and I still have the same pressing urgencies to be taken care of, but I slept well last night, which has cleared my mind of some of the cobwebs that had cluttered it previously.  I would rather speak with you about this after I visit the Library and re-read the ancient texts, but I suppose you will not let me wait so long."

Taliesin nodded.  Ava had turned to face the two of them, but was still standing by the window.  She looked distant, but her eyes were focused on Tristan.

Tristan sighed deeply and tugged on his robes, rearranging himself in his chair, and then pushed back his plate.  "Well, then.  Where do I begin?"  He was silent for a few moments, and then he began.  "A very long time ago, when I first came to this world, I first heard of the prophecy.  Now this prophecy is so old and so obscure that it has no formal name, so you will have to forgive me for always simply referring to it as 'the prophecy' when I speak of it.

"Merlin was the one who first recited it to me, because he thought that it was possible I was the fulfillment of it.  He had studied it himself for some years, certain that there was some deep, great meaning in the words, even though all other magicians since the time the prophecy was spoken and recorded had passed it by.  The King was still in this castle at that time, when I was first here, and that fact alone was enough for me to distance myself from having any active role in fulfilling the dragon's words.  Time passed and Merlin left, leaving me to my own devices - "

Ava interrupted him.  "How did Merlin leave?  Why is there no king here?  You aren't really explaining much, you know," she said tartly, and gestured at Taliesin as if she expected him to agree with her.

"Right," he said, a little hesitantly, which drew a glare from her.

Tristan frowned.  "I don't see how those events are relevant to what you need to know," he said.

"But I want to know - WE want to know," insisted Ava.

Taliesin nodded, then hastily said, "Yes, we want to know," when she turned her head toward him with that glare in her eyes again.  She either had a bad attitude in general, or the two of them were making her angry somehow.  He racked his brain quickly but could not think of what he might be doing wrong; maybe it was just Tristan.  He hoped it was just Tristan, because the last thing he wanted was to have her mad at him.

"Very well.  I suppose it cannot be avoided or put off," he raised his eyebrows at Ava, "so I will begin at the beginning and tell you the whole of it." 

At this, Ava came closer to the table and sat on the floor, her legs crossed, skirt spread out around her, and sat forward expectantly, leaning on her folded hands.  Taliesin wanted to slip off his chair and sit near her, but he was worried that she might take it wrongly, and decided his best bet was to stay where he was for now.  He shifted a little uncomfortably, and Tristan began speaking again.

"When I came here, as I said, I was taken in by the nuns of Woodchurch Abbey in the small town of Grainge, which is many miles to the west of this city.  They kept me for weeks, nursing me back to health, since I had nearly injured myself fatally in the journey and the lack of food.  Until I was well enough to get up, I read books that they had in their small library, or I sat and stared out the window, trying to make sense of what had happened to me.  This was painful for me, however, since I had absolutely no idea how I would ever get back to my home, or if it was even possible; so I tried to make myself busy instead.  Once I could get up and move about, the nuns allowed me to help them in their gardening.  I showed myself to be able to learn the different herbs and their properties, which was mostly the purvey of the Magicians' Order, although the nuns learned it as well out of necessity, so that they could care for their congregation and all rest of the folk who inhabited their little town.

"The magicians themselves, once each year in the spring, would come through each town, looking for apprentices.  The nuns were impressed with my ability, and suggested that I attend the meeting the magician would be holding in the sanctuary when he came.  The gathering was always held in the Abbey in that town, because it was the largest building that they had.  They never knew which magician would come through in any given year, but one always did.  That day, I woke early, nervous and unable to sleep, and after completing my chores early, I went to sit in the sanctuary and wait.  Merlin was already there, although I did not know who he was, or that he was the King's Magician, the highest of that order.  He must have sensed in me something that he was looking for in an apprentice, because he went directly to the nuns and asked to take me with him, even before the meeting was called.  They were somewhat shocked at his manner, but they agreed to his request, because the life of a magician's apprentice was the best thing they could offer to me.  I did not expect to cry when I left them, but I did; they had become like an extension of my family, indeed the only family I had at all in this new world.

"Merlin brought me here, and I lived in a tiny room adjacent to his quarters for ten years as his apprentice.  On my twenty-fifth birthday, I was inducted into the order, and the King himself gave me the Magician's Oath in a ceremony held in the Great Hall.  Soon after that, Merlin grew restless, and he seemed to change overnight; although, to be fair, I was extremely busy in my new role as Magician, so I may have missed what signs there may have been that would have indicated to me the change that was taking place.  He and the King, with whom he was quite close (in friendship as well as being his chief counselor), began having many loud arguments, lasting long into the small hours of the night.  I did not ask what they argued about - Merlin is not a man who is easily confronted about anything, and his word had been law for me for so long that I assumed that all was well.  My foolishness and naivete may have cost the kingdom its King, however..."  he trailed off, looking out through the glass toward the far mountain ranges, or at least that is what Taliesin thought he was looking at.  Perhaps he didn't see them at all.

Tristan continued after a few moments, and his voice was more grave now.  "Merlin and the King fought, on the last night anyone saw either of them.  They argued loud and long, and at one point they sounded as if they must be threatening to kill one another, because their voices grew harsh and full of rage.  The next thing that happened is hard to say exactly, because it was late at night, or early in the morning, depending on how you look at it.  There was a great crash and a bright blinding light appeared inside the castle wing where the two of them were; several guards rushed to the room and threw open the door, and found neither the King nor his Magician.  There was blood on the floor, and a piece of the King's robe, torn off obviously, was lying next to it.  The furniture was in some disarray, as if they had struggled and fought, but there was no sign of them apart from that.  It is generally believed that Merlin took the King with him on some type of journey, because to think that the King was murdered was too much for the guards and servants to accept.  There was not enough blood, surely, to have come from a dead man, although that does not mean that he is not dead.

"I left the castle after a few months, because I could neither solve the mystery myself, nor stomach the lie that the King's own people wanted to believe.  At least to me, it is a lie.  I do believe that Merlin killed him, but for what reason, I cannot say.  I went away, and I built my little cottage, and I gathered my own people around me that respected my powers enough to obey me as their master.  I have waited for another to come through the rainbow's path into the wood that I once came to, so that I could finally discover what the prophecy really means.  So that I could find out why I came here, and maybe avenge the King I never bothered to protect because I thought he was already safe."  This last was said sadly, in a melancholy voice that touched Taliesin.  He was seeing Tristan from a completely different perspective.

Ava sighed quietly.  "I'm sorry, Tristan," she said.  "I didn't realize you weren't from here, that you came here like us.  I thought you were just..."  she stopped, her cheeks flushing.  Taliesin wondered what she was about to say.

Tristan sighed as well, and got up from his chair.  "I will be in the Library if you need me later, but please... don't bother me for a while.  I need time to think and read, and to concentrate on my theories."  He left, considerably less cheery than he had been when he arrived. 

Ava brightened a little as he left, and looked up at Taliesin.  "Let's go for a walk, out there where the trees are.  Do you want to go?  My ankle still hurts but I want to exercise it, so that it gets stretched out.  I think it might heal more quickly that way."

Taliesin's heart leapt in his chest a little.  She wanted to walk with him. "Of course!" he said before he realized he was speaking.  He reached down and helped her up from the floor, and she put her arm through his and leaned on him a little. 

Something was happening with him, something that almost felt more important than his recent travel through the rainbow.  But he couldn't think about that now, because her hair smelled really good and it was very close to his face again.

I have to apologize up front for this chapter - it's a little rough around the edges (okay, a LOT), and it doesn't feel to me as if it's really done.  But I've got to keep moving in my story or I'll get bogged down by editing stuff.  ;)

The sun was setting low in the sky, bathing the city walls in blood-red light, as the traveling party walked wearily up to the front gate.  The stone of the walls sparkled here and there, leading Ava to believe that it was in fact some kind of quartz rock. The walls were very high, and the only thing that she could see above them was a tall, slender spire that looked like it might be on some beautiful cathedral.  Its shape was graceful, and along with the sparkling rock walls and the colors of the setting sun, she was beginning to have an expectation that the city itself must be very fair to look upon.

The gate itself was actually a gigantic set of doors, carved from a pale ivory wood.  They were wide open, and the closer they got she could see people walking through a paved square, other people riding horses or on wagons, and a few stalls hawking wares.  Two guards began to shut the doors, but Tristan shouted out - "Hold! The king's magician has returned!" - and they stopped immediately and marched out toward the three. 

Tristan and Taliesin stopped walking then, and Ava slid off Taliesin's back and was pleasantly surprised to find that her ankle did not throb nearly as much as it had last time they stopped. 

"Tristan, King's Magician," said the taller of the two guards, as they came to a halt in front of them, "have you now come back after your years away from us?"

Ava sensed old history here, and suspected that these guards were angry, or disappointed, that Tristan had been gone for so long.  She wondered how long he'd been away from them, and why.  They had not spoken to each other for the entire journey to the city, and she was beginning to feel disoriented from such a long trip and the sudden knowledge that she knew nothing of her companions.  A wave of unsettling emotion hit her then, and it took a supreme force of will for her to remain standing and not show what she was feeling.

"I am here now," stated Tristan.  "What reasons I had for leaving have now been fulfilled, as you will all find out soon enough... but for now, we need food, and beds, and I need a page to take me to the Great Library."

Ava was taken aback at his manner; he had become almost regal, a change from the frustrated silence he had exhibited all that day.  He must have been used to ordering people about and being given what he asked for or demanded.  At least he had asked for food and bed, because she was most definitely exhausted and could use both of those, as soon as possible.  Thankfully, the guards did not waste any time getting them into the city; and as they walked through the carved doors, the sun slipped down below the horizon for the day and the air instantly became cooler and the shadows bluer.  The doors slammed shut behind them, which startled her.

The paving of the square caught her eye next: it was a large representation of a dragon, complete with colored scales, fierce ivory teeth, and unfurled wings.  She stood and stared at it for several minutes, then recognition dawned on her.  "That's my dragon!" she exclaimed, which drew confused and worried looks from the guards, who were still beside them. 

"Cernunnos belongs to no man," chuckled Tristan.  He had not even cracked a smile all day, and his change of behavior was almost irritating to Ava.  She suspected that the irritation might be mostly the result of walking all day and having next to no lunch or dinner.  Her stomach growled then, and Taliesin's echoed hers, which sent her into a fit of giggles, which made her stomach hurt.  Taliesin merely looked embarrassed.  He had yet to speak, which Ava thought was odd, but then she didn't know him at all yet, so maybe for him that was normal.

"Take us to the food, please," she begged.  "I am so hungry!"

"Follow me, please," said the shorter guard.  Ava thought he looked nice; he had brown curly hair and brown eyes, and dimples that were obvious even though he was not smiling.  He took them on a route that went directly into the heart of the city and through it. 

Only a little way into their trek, Ava stumbled and fell into Taliesin, who was trudging along beside her.  He caught her and held her up.  Tears sprang to her eyes.  "My ankle," she moaned.  "I think I twisted it again!"  She started to cry.  So close to food and sleeping, yet so far away, and now her feet wouldn't even take her there when she wanted them to. 

"It's okay," said Taliesin gently.  "I can carry you again.  But not on my back this time."  He scooped her up then, one arm under her shoulders and one under her knees, and they started walking again. 

Ava was too miserable to be embarrassed, and laid her head on his shoulder and cried a little bit more, silently.  She hoped he didn't mind too much that she was leaving a wet spot on his sleeve.  The rhythm of his steps lulled her almost to sleep, and she was startled when they arrived at their destination and she was being gently put back on her feet.  "We're here?" she asked in a disoriented voice.  "Where are we?"

"This is Castle Agria," spoke the curly-haired guard.  "You are guests here for the duration of your stay.  Ethelreda will take care of you now that you are at the Castle.  Farewell," and he bowed to all three of them, then left.

"Ethelreda? Who is that?" Ava asked, feeling increasingly stupid with fatigue and hunger. 

"Mistress of the house," said Tristan.  "She is in charge of the servants and everything that they're in charge of.  She will get us our dinner and our beds."  He pushed open the door they had stopped next to, and led them inside. 

The atmosphere changed completely once they were inside the castle.  They had apparently arrived in the kitchens, and the air was heavy with heat and the smell of things baking and broiling and roasting.  The room itself was huge, and it was full of stove tops and ovens and long tables piled with potatoes and other vegetables and loaves of bread.  A large woman, swathed in a red apron, appeared in front of them, and immediately began talking in a very loud voice.  "TRISTAN!! You old fool!  I should have known it wouldn't be long before you showed up in my castle again!"  She looked almost as if she would hit him, but instead she gave him an energetic hug.  Tristan looked as if he was being crushed, and also looked like he was enjoying it.

"Ethelreda, my dear woman, you haven't changed at all!" he said when she had let go of him.  "We are famished and have traveled all day to get here.  What can you give us?"

"I have fresh bread and stew," she said, but sniffed disapprovingly.  "That is hardly a dinner worthy of a Magician of your stature," she said, then turned to inspect Ava and Taliesin.  "Look at these two!"  she exclaimed.  "Near starving to death!  Come in here with me now, sit down, have a drink of this.  ANNA!" she shouted that last in the direction of a woman who was busy over a pot at one of the stove tops.  "Bring three bowls of that stew, and a new loaf of bread, there's a good lass!"

Ava sat at one of the wooden tables, eating piping hot stew with crusty, buttered bread, and felt herself coming a little bit back to life again.  She did not realize just how hungry she had been until she was halfway through her second bowl and was buttering her fourth slice of bread.  Taliesin and Tristan were similarly engaged, the two of them going through their stew at an alarming rate.  Ethelreda had Anna bring them slices of apple pie with hand-whipped cream, and tall silver mugs of hot cider.  They ate and drank until Ava was nearly asleep on the table, and were then ushered off to bed, each in their own guest room.

She was so sleepy that she barely noticed that a maid had to help her out of her clothes and into a nightgown, and then into bed.  She was almost completely asleep before she had a chance to realize that she was even in a bed at all.

As the three walked along, the old magician and the boy walking next to each other, and the girl clinging to the boy's back, late morning gave way to afternoon, and the sun was high in the sky before the magician called a halt to rest and eat.

They stopped at a rock pile that looked to Taliesin that it had been arranged just so, which was overshadowed by a one large tree with several large branches that hung low over the rocks.  Ava slid off his back near one large rock that was separate from the pile, and he sighed heavily and stretched out his arms and back.  She heard several loud cracks, and immediately felt horrible for being the cause of his obvious back pain.  They had walked all this way in total silence, however, and she felt almost uncomfortable breaking it, which was another unusual thing for her, and she knew it.  Already this place was... not changing her, but it was eliciting different responses than she usually gave.  One thing she was certain of: having been nearly eaten by a dragon, she would never again see anything the same way.  Fear had a whole new meaning for her now.

As Ava sat and rubbed her arms and shoulders and tried to relax in the shade, Tristan paced back and forth, back and forth.  He seemed unable to stop moving, even though he had been the one to tell them they were stopping to rest for a while. 

"Tristan," said Taliesin hesitantly, as if afraid to break his concentration, "what did you bring for eating?"

Tristan stopped only long enough to open his pack and throw a few apples at the two of them, and mutter something about bread and cheese for later.  Ava caught the apple he threw at her, and looked at it in mild surprise.  "This is a snack," she said matter-of-factly.  "Not that I'm refusing it, but this is hardly lunch."  Taliesin nodded but said nothing.  Ava wondered if the small magician was angry with him, because Taliesin seemed very wary of upsetting him.

After only ten or fifteen minutes, during which the white-haired magician continued to pace back and forth and occasionally say things under his breath (at one point he stopped and gestured, in a sort of westerly direction), he waved them up again, and Ava climbed onto Taliesin's back once more.  It was starting to feel familiar, if not exactly comfortable.  Now that they were traveling again, they kept silent like they had before.  She felt that this was odd, but did not feel comfortable being the first one to say something, so she remained mute, keeping company with her thoughts once more.

------

Taliesin's back was beginning to ache.  He had carried the red-haired girl for what seemed like miles already, and Tristan was obviously not going to stop again for hours.  His mind, which up until about a half an hour before their rest stop had been foggy and, he suspected, still under the effects of whatever magic Cernunnos possessed, was now laboring over the things the dragon had said about him.

THE BOY WILL BE CROWNED, he had said.  The reverberations of his voice had gone all throughout Taliesin's body and seemed to have lodged in his very bones, because recalling the words of the dragon also recalled the sensation of those words being spoken.  There was no other boy there but him when Cernunnos had spoken, although he honestly did not think of himself as a boy.  Tristan, however, certainly considered him a boy - he called him by that title constantly, even though he had only met him the day before.  How strange that one could meet a person and already have a complicated history with them only twenty-four hours later.  And how strange to dream a red-haired girl, and the next day to be carrying her on your back. 

He shook his head, trying to get the thoughts in some kind of order so he could figure out how it all affected him, what it all meant.  Ava shifted her weight and her hair fell in his face again, but he didn't mind.  She tossed her head a little, which almost threw him off balance.  The hair was not hanging by his cheek any more, and part of him regretted that.  He had no idea who she really was, but some part of him knew her.  If he only knew why, maybe some part of this would make some sense. 

He tried to recall his dream from the night before, but all he could remember was her: her pale skin, red hair, and her sadness.  She hadn't seemed very sad when he met her, though.  She had seemed decidedly annoyed, although whether it was from her twisted ankle or some other reason he was not privy to, he had no idea.  She smelled like the woods, like autumn leaves and mossy bark.  She made him think of poetry and loneliness, and he did not even know who she was.

If only someone would start talking; Taliesin was beginning to feel uncomfortable, as well as powerless to change that feeling.

------

Each mile they walked was another mile closer to the one thing that would either confirm or destroy Tristan's long-held belief in prophecy.  Cernunnos had referred to a very old prophecy, one that was so obscure that almost none of the lesser magicians even discussed it anymore.  Tristan was different, however.  Tristan had not been born on this world, and his perception of things, as somewhat of an outsider, had always served him excellently in his life here.  There were always mistakes that could be made, though.  This was either a colossal mistake or the fulfillment of what he considered to be the most important prophecy that this world had ever known.  Cernunnos' sire, a Great Dragon of legend, had been the one who prophesied more than an Age ago.

The prophecy echoed inside his mind as if he had heard it when it was first spoken, instead of having merely read it from its brittle pages and repeated it to himself many times:

The rainbow shall appear and bring forth a king, and he shall bring about our greatest danger.  The Great One will be wounded and his blood will heal the rift.

The rainbow itself was a very rare appearance, and he had made a point of studying every such occurrence throughout the last Age and this one, ever since the prophecy had been made.  His first reason was, of course, because he had come through the rainbow himself years ago.  For a time, when he had heard of the prophecy through Merlin, he wondered if he was meant to be a king.  As time went by, he began to believe that the prophecy was not about him.  Not only was there a King in the city up until five years ago, which would make ridiculous any claim he personally had to be the fulfillment of the prophecy, he had always had an inkling... a feeling deep inside his awareness... that he was meant to be in this world to guide the coming king when he appeared.  Taliesin could be that fulfillment.  And Cernunnos had referred his sire's ancient prophecy when he met the boy, and the words of a dragon were always of some import.

Whether great import or small, it remained to be seen.  His impatience in their journey was getting out of hand - years of life had not taught him nearly the patience he tended to need on a daily basis.  He needed to read the prophecy once more, in the King's Library, and to consult the attendant commentaries and expositions that had been written on it hundreds of years ago when it was still new and was being discussed by the most important and wisest magicians.  He needed to speak to his fellow magicians, the few of them who still lived in the city.  He needed Taliesin to go into the king's castle and observe him there.

He sigh, irritated at their slow pace.  Taliesin, obviously sensing Tristan's frustration, began to walk a little faster. 

This is taking so long... complained Tristan to himself.  It would not be a good idea to let them know just how impatient he was, so he attempted to rearrange his countenance and walk purposefully instead of hurriedly.  Still, it was several miles to the city and evening was coming on soon.  He hoped they could get within the walls of the city before twilight arrived and the gates were shut for the night.