From: kjc@aramis.rutgers.edu (Kelly J. Cooper) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [LH] [MG] Wandering in... Keywords: The band, Elwood! THE BAND! Message-ID: Date: 28 Oct 93 20:38:14 GMT Time is the warp and matter the weft of the woven texture of beauty in space, and death is the hurtling shuttle. -Annie Dillard, _Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_ "I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, and I'm happy, Doctor, I finally won out over it." -HARVEY, 1950 "The universe is mostly full of it." -J. Feynmann * * * The three took a step that stretched somewhere between two feet and a parsec in length, and were gone. There was a soft yawning sound and three figures stepped *into* the garden. Bright colorful lights flickered, music thrummed somewhere nearby, and voices laughed, yelled, giggled, cried and spoke in swells that rose and fell like the surf hitting shore. Abruptly a door opened and a silhouetted figure stood in the door, waving them in. Incidental light gleamed off his perfect white teeth and played in a blond hair. Kron's eyebrows arched slightly, then with a quick glance toward his companions, he stepped forward and entered the party. With a shrug, Kardia followed him and was herself followed by a flickering black hole in space that wasn't quite there. Lex looked out for a moment, then turned into the brightness and was gone from the doorway. * * * Jameson took a deep breath of the night air, walked forward a few steps, only to freeze stock still in the doorway. The full noise and press of the crowd washed over her, deafening her with its voices and heartbeats and bloodsongs and consensual hallucinations and whisperings of cloth and scuffings of feet. She watched her companions drift into the crowd as she lost the scent of them, the sounds of their blood, she also lost the slender tether of this familiar reality. It was all too much, the voices whispered, too many, too much, a galaxy packed full, too far, too down... >From the perspective of Leo the Lucky, standing to Jameson's right, it looked like the newcomer had paused with a look of shock on her face, then started to blur in a weird flurry of stillness. * * * There were very few rooms that Kron would enter without a complete scan from a good vantage point. Being a guardsman for years makes one paranoid, and justly so. Kron's gaze swept briefly over the bizarre bursts of light and color; the gesticulating crowd of blurred shapes could not be easily separated into discrete units that could be lumped into comfortable categories of relative danger. No weapons were in evidence, and none were expected, but Kron didn't get old believing that a cigar was just a cigar. His eyes swept the entrances and exits, concluding at the entrance >from the garden. Behind him, Jameson's face had just frozen into a mask of surprise; a nimbus of shifting light was distorting her form. Time seemed to slow down for Kron. He began wading through people at the same rate he might wade through peanut butter. A few steps ahead, Lex turned with a strange expression on his face and took two lunging steps towards Jameson but suddenly there was a twist and a large black dog stepped out of the air directly in front of her. Very deliberately, the dog dropped his head and butted against her leg. There was a sort of shriek as something came to an abrupt stop and a high pitched whine, then a noise that wasn't actually a noise, of breaking glass and water being poured onto stone and the blur around Jameson flew apart into hundreds of tiny white shards that took to wing and floated and fluttered serenely, silently away, as butterflies are wont to do. There was a smattering of applause and the leonine woman beside Leo muttered in his ear, "Aren't wizard parties fun?!" Eyes dropped down >from watching the butterflies dissipate to the figure of the woman, who was on her knees beside the dog hugging him and ruffling his fur. Interest lost, conversations continued and the localized lull passed back into the loud rumble of the general party. Lex looked at Jameson and dropped to a crouch beside her. He was silent a moment, watching her pet Scaedu. Then he said softly, "Need any help?" Jameson shook her head and blushed slightly. "I'm sorry. I forgot my filters for a moment and everything inside... tried to get... outside." She cleared her throat and peered at him from around the dog-thing. "Terribly rude of me. I apologize. My name is..." "Jameson W. Walker." He finished, looking faintly amused. She nodded. "But you aren't. Er, aren't 'Raelf. Exactly." He held out his hand. "Exactly. Call me Lex. Pleased to meetcha." Jameson shook it with a firm grasp. Lex stood and gently raised her up as well. She left the fingers of her other hand lightly touching Scaedu's head, before he twisted into the corner of her eye and drifted over to where Kardia stood, beyond Lex, looking concerned. Jameson smiled sheepishly at her over Lex's shoulder. Kardia nodded back in answer to the smile and turned away as a delicately beautiful elf touched her on the shoulder. Time resumed for Kron, or rather at its usual pace. He forced his way through the press of the crowd to stand by Jameson's shoulder. "All okay? No missing silver?" Jameson smiled shakily. "All okay. No missing silver. Megathrusters are go." She made a kind of shrugging motion. "Welcome to Chez Weird." Kron peered at the crowd, noting in passing that some of the guests might or might not possess bilateral symmetry, and had to acknowledge that Things Most Strange were afoot. And he hadn't even touched the punch yet. Kron held out his hand. "If 'Raelf has been as many crazy places as he says he has -- and I'm the trusting sort -- I'd guess the man can mix a drink. I'm dying to find out." His eyebrows waggled. "I think I can even find a couple of clean glasses." Jameson took the proffered hand, and the two glided into the crowd with their composures quite unruffled. However, privately Kron was worried. He had seen that strange shrugging action before. It was the gesture of the proverbial "cats walking on one's grave"; it was an expression of having thought a bad thought, or having had a near miss. Kron had had both, and didn't like them. Just in case, he kept the eyes well and truly peeled. --- Comments appreciated. Lex is property of Steve Hutchison, Kardia is property of Phyllis Rostykus, Kron is property of HWRNMNBSOL (all of whom added bits to this... my thanks!). Leo and the lady are random NPCs. Kelly J. Cooper \ HWRNMNBSOL Writer for Jameson W. Walker \ lies, lies, lies! Contact for the Mage Guild \ caz@owlnet.rice.edu kjc@cs.rutgers.edu \