From: BGHO@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA (BGHO)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [Jiri]: A Dream of Darkness.
Message-ID: <01APR93.23086916.0124@VM1.MCGILL.CA>
Date: 2 Apr 93 02:22:36 GMT

[admin]: This takes place just after the post [Jiri] the Wolmage has
come, and continues through the dinner that Kyhra, Andrea, Sheryl,
'Raelf and ar'Elya are having.  Jiriku had left Kyhra in the Inn
to sleep the Sleep of the Sylvan and walk the Dreamlands.

 The Wolfmage turned away from his furry friend and walked towards the
shadows in the nearby corner of the Dragon Inn.  As the shadows met
with his form, he melded with them, darkening, then dissapearing.
He walked through the Shadowhall for a short distance, then opened
a door from the seemless wall.  Stepping through, he walked from the
shadows, just as he had earlier entered them.  He was no longer in the
Inn- in fact he was much further from it than the ten paces he had taken
should indicate.

  A deer drank deeply from a silver brook that ran nearly through the
middle of a clearing which was surrounded by dark and ancient trees.
As the elf walked out of the shadows of the trees, the deer started,
for no scent nor sound had warned of an approach.  As the doe turned
to bolt for the safety of the trees, a quiet hushing breeze blew round
her head, calming her.  She turned back to the newcomer to the clearing
and a joyful light glinted in the nearly black eyes as she saw that the
figure who had startled her was one of the Fair Ones.

 "My apologies, great mother, for my sudden appearance. I meant not
to startle you," a gentle voice passed into her thoughts.  The doe
walked calmly over to the sender of the voice, who extended a graceful
hand to scratch the spots behind the ears.  "I am in need of answers,
mother.  The wind blows wrong, and the streams are no longer as clear.
The air smells not sweet, and the shadows appear deep."
 The doe tossed her head in a sort of agreement as Jiriku continued to
scratch her perpetual itch.
 "What causes the rabbit to start, and the bird to flee?  What causes
the fox to hunt the farmers chicken, and the eagle to fly so low?"
 The doe looked the Sylvan in his golden eyes.  As she gazed into his
shimmering depths, the eyes changed, first seeming to darken, then
almost swirl as they took on a greenish blue tinge.  The colour of the
sea...
 "Ah, great mother, I see what you feel.  The answer lies with the sea,
though it causes question in the forest."  Jiriku seemed not to be
looking at the deer anymore, but at something only he saw, something
within his own eyes.  "Then I must go to the sea," he continued after a
long moment. "The sea, for it is there that haunts the beast, there that
ails the forest. Thank you, mother, for your insight.  Ever do your kind
know, and see, and ever have you shown the Sylvan.  My people are ever
grateful for your help, ever admiring of your beauty."
 The doe tossed her head once more, as if to wave off the compliment.
"Go know mother, go to your children.  Guard them well, for they are
your greatest prize.  I must go now, to another forest, and the sea. I
go to walk the Dreampaths." Jiriku's hand fell away from the does ear,
and she turned and ran smoothly from the clearing into the depths of the
great trees.
 Jiriku sighed as he took a look around the clearing.  Yes, he must walk
the Dreams, and try to find that which was plauging him with ill
forebodings.  He walked to the brook and touched its waters, then drank
deeply of its sweet depths.  A moment longer he stood looking into the
swirling waters, then he broke the gaze and walked to the clearings
center.
  The Wolfmage touched briefly the amulet that hung around his neck,
the Ahnk that Dargon had worn for all those centuries, the one that he
had given Jiriku when last he had seen him.  When he named me Wolfmage,
Jiriku thought painfully.  A day of pain it was, but of triumph as well.
 "Well my friend, you named me aright, and I hope that I have lived up
to your expectations.  I vowed that I would think of you always ere
walking the Dreampaths, though it's not often that you are ever far from
my thoughts.  Where are you, Dargon? Where did the great Watcher go?
Even the dragons know not where you be.  That I find most strange. Ah,
but I dally. Perhaps my best place to seek thee lies in the road ahead.
My people have always spoken so, yet now when I seek something I listen
not to their redes.  Ah, but it has been long since last I dreamed."

 With that, Jiriku began to sing, his voice almost indestinguishable
from that of the brook.  As it grew in strength, slowly, it seemed as if
the water itself did.  The sad voice of the Sylvan carried quietly on
the still breeze, and wherever the animals of the forest heard it, they
paused and listened, for he sang the Lament of Ton'githala.  The oldest
of all musics calmed the forest, as the Wolfmage began to enter the
sleep of his people.  It is hard to say how long he sang, for even time
seemed to pause to listen with the woods.  But the song began to fade,
and when it was no longer heard at all, though it still whispered and
echoed in the mind, Jiriku Goldeies was gone from the living and waking
world.


- Dani Treutler.

(will be continued soon...)