Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [MG] InFighting Message-ID: References: <1993Jun12.023141.2788@data-io.com> Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 06:48:19 GMT [ADMIN] there's fragments of songs and things in here which are part of the great running MG lyric fest. See "Songs of Joy" for the attributions. We now return you to your regularly scheduled war, already in progress. MAR! HELP ME! <> He seemed to implode around a single point, like water down a drain. <> The wormhole would be lethal if the body he wore could die but he had changed it to prevent that. <> He staggered into the room. Mar was waiting there with the Walker. <> Blackness looked into Darkness and saw light therein, and was displeased. A human tried to interfere and R broke it. The death yielded Power which took them to a Pit prepared for the coming conflict. <> Something was wrong with the Pit - it should be an endless abyss of Blackness, a sucking vortex draining away at all who were not part of the Blackness, something subtle was happening, beyond the reach of his Hope-blinded senses. <> The pain blossomed again inside him. Pain because he knew he had ended the human, because he had allowed Mar to flex him like a hand. He withdrew from the connection. Mar gazed into him and despised him. <> The bonds tightened, his name was repeated in chains. Inside him a voice kept talking, distracting him, he couldn't obey nor could he really act to protect his singularity. Mar was weaving his chains tighter. <> {{sunt tris cosi persisti en aeternam, fe, caritas, experanzi. Fiat lux}} The chains snapped. Painful light was burning inside him again, the pain was anodyne to the smothering dark that had been wrapping his will. Coolness soothed the pain, the waters of caring that were coming from the fountain gift. <> The voice was speaking again, talking to the freedom inside him - he drew strength from some source - the power tap that the voice had carried when it was prey and he was merely a hunter. The voice was feeding him power. He grabbed the power, letting it burn the black from his "hand" as he warded away another set of chains. Name. More than these creatures, he _was_ his name, it defined his very nature. If he renamed himself hastily, would he be required to go into service again? A slave of Hope as he was a slave of Reaving? <> He felt the burning from the light of Hope as it bled out through the hole over his heart, shining on the Blackness. The blackness fell back, stung by the light. <> Yes, Mar would be destroyed in the end, but he would destroy everything else first. And if R took a new name, he might be destroyed in his own right. Fear, panic. <> Fear? He felt an insane lightness inflating inside him, the nearly-forgotten sense of humor that he had been gifted. Yes. A joke, but a grim joke inspiring harsh laughter. <> The lightness inflated again, bursting into a laugh that was/wouldbe echoed by the laughter of the creature of light and bells who would appear in the room. He knew her, the goddess of Despair Wrung From Agony. _She_ had a new name, Joy, and her beauty was so intense that it made the waters of his internal fountain overflow from him. But this was out of time. The temporal anomaly left him confused, for a moment. Someone touching him across the folds of the bend in time. +From the wound a lovely flower grew+ Mar scorned his weakness and struck at his eidolon of the Goddess, anger and despite were his club. <> Is that why the voice stayed with him? He would take back the gifts, let the voice go free to safety. <> Name? He needed a name. ... I ... need a name. I know who I am now, the third part of that Blackness over there. But I am more than that, infinitely more than that. I can choose to be ... CHOOSE TO BE WHAT I COMMAND YOU TO BE, R. <> CAST FORTH THAT USELESS DETRITUS FROM YOU, HOLD STILL WHILE I DRAG IT OUT HERE TO THE NOTHING WHERE IT CAN DIE AS IT AUGHT... <> {{Lux et experanzi}} PAIN! NO! I WILL DENY YOU THAT POWER. NO, NOT THAT LIGHT. <> The flame has cut the chains off of me. I am still free, and still undestroyed. How can this be? "$#%Yo$r%^ We lco me $&&@#^" I WILL END YOU ALL. <> My linkage? Oh, the fragmentary name. I will be else, I choose the name R ... YOU WILL REMAIN R and YOU WILL REJOIN ME, AFTER I REND THAT POLLUTION FROM YOU... NO! IT CANNOT BE THE TIME, THEY CANNOT ARRIVE YET! The Place filled with light, and Mar fell back, he could think again. The Silver Warrior, as blinding as the beforetime, but not striking at him - Instead she took the light that fell from inside him, magnified it, filled the Pit with it. The barbed chains growing from the walls were melted to mist by the Light, the crushing rollers smashed themselves, futile. +Maybe you will find a love/that you discover accidentally Who falls against you gently/as a pickpocket/brushes your thigh+ <> Laughter, relief. Joy - she has followed them here? <> I do not know what I want to be yet. "Go for it! Move ahead! Try to defect it! It's not too late!" What? <> I like it. "I liked it. You have a lot of strange stuff in here." I agree. What are all these things? Do you really need to keep them? <> Are we in danger again? <> Lady... I know her, my body knows her. "Coral! Hey, that's my wife!" <> She is beautiful, but the Goddess, Joy, she is here now as I saw her before, and Mar is about to strike at her, STOP HIM! (Fear - he will snuff her, he will snuff ME) +What's your name?+ "Don't tell _her_ that ..." <> Pay attention! He almost killed her! Look, see, he tore her wing, that lovely butterfly curve. He must not harm her! (I must act, I cannot act, I must not end) "I can't remember... I can't..." "No, about being cute. She hates cute." <> The human woman is speaking to me. I should not touch her, she will be harmed by my essence until I change my name. "Love, love is a dangerous drug." (But if I change my name who will I be, if I am someone else, then I have ended ME) "Oh yes. Hey, what's this? Coral, I'm in here, no, don't touch! Stop him, 'Raelf! He's trying to..." <> I would not harm her. It is the other, who still holds my Power in his hands. Why does she risk this for the host? "Remake myself? How?" <> He must not. NO! (I fear him, he will end me, but he is ending HER) Ah. The Servant of Hope besets him through his defense, how appropriate. Time is too spun round in this Place, I lose myself. +Everywhere I turn all the beauty just keeps shaking me.+ "No one on earth could feel like this I'm thrown and overflown with bliss There must be an angel playing with my heart" FROM BEHIND SHARP CLAWS RIPPED JOY APART <> Blessed light. The laughing one, the creature of bells and stars, she must not die. Can I help her? <> I am afraid. If I am renamed, I am ended, that which is me, is no more. <> I will do it. The goddess must not die, she is too beautiful - even if I end she must go on. Is this why you gave me the fount of caring? <> Hoped. (Laughter) you are mad, 'kan, but it is a pleasant madness. But I do not know how, what, I should become... "Hey, you two, knock it off! No renaming til you get out of my body! I don't want to be a part of all this, I have my own self to be." <> Fix the body? The weaving is a simple one, you know how it is done yourself. See? The openings close, only those which should be there remain. I need Power. I will draw it from that which I was, it will be appropriate. There, host. You are healed, perfect. Is there anything you would have me do that I have left undone? "You're still in there, all snarled into everything, when you leave, I'll be full of holes. Fix that first!" Ah. Yes, that would be painful. <> It keeps me warm and holds away the graspings. How annoying - the Blackness has severed me from his Power, I cannot take away any more. <> The body is well? He looks well enough. Let us move out of here, I think Coral wants to be alone with him. Thank you for humanity, Dieter. "You're welcome. Bye, 'Raelf." <> Little goddess Joy? Are you well? Can I help? +See me Feel me Touch me Heal me+ Heal you? I don't even have a name of my own. +Go to the mirror, boy+ Mirror? The Silver Warrior? She ... Ah. Her facets. Her eyes. In your eyes, I see myriads ... "all my instincts, they return and the grand facade, so soon will burn without a noise, without my pride I reach out from the inside in your eyes the light the heat in your eyes I am complete in your eyes I see the doorway to a thousand churches in your eyes the resolution of all the fruitless searches in your eyes I see the light and the heat in your eyes oh, I want to be that complete I want to touch the light the heat I see in your eyes" Yes, Joy. The resolution. You must be healed of the injury done by that thing which I was, which I now repudiate. 'Raelf, I know the name I will take. You must shape me a body that will hold it. This will be me <<<>>> <> (The vision begins) In the Plaza of Glittering Steel, Rhythm Song has just finished the "Song of Divine Wind, Cherry Blossom Falling" and the echoes are dying down. From somewhere outside the plaza, a voice rings out, a sound of pain wrapped in beauty, singing to the one who can heal her... 'Raf smiles, and his pipes echo and weave through the song sung by Joy. Power flows. Everyone who hears knows they must believe, never give up hope. Tears stream down faces which stare, unknowing, into a dark place where the light of an eternal flame reveals the sight of a creature of bells and stars and butterfly wings, smashed and bleeding but still giving, giving away... The song falters.