From alt.pub.dragons-inn Fri Dec 17 09:26:48 1993
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!uunet!pilchuck!li
From: li@Data-IO.COM (Phyllis Rostykus)
Subject: [Kadrys and Kardia]  Night Flights of Fancy
Message-ID: <1993Dec15.222025.10580@data-io.com>
Sender: news@data-io.com (The News)
Organization: Data I/O Corporation
References: <1993Dec15.221530.10316@data-io.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 22:20:25 GMT
Lines: 229

ADMIN: Written by Andrea Evans and I.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

      For the next five days, Kardia went out to the pond, early in
the morning, before she started work at the Guild.  She would wade out
into the cold water and turn the stalks and then test them to see how
they broke.  The coldness of the water slowed the retting process.

      On the fifth day, the pith broke without breaking the strands of
fiber between the wood.  She left it for the rest of the day, and that
evening, Kadrys accompanied her to the site.  He was curious about
her visits to the Walled Gardens, and had been interested in her jotted
explanation.  She felt better walking the dark streets at night with him
by her side.

      His quiet presence was comforting, and as they walked, she held
one hand out to him.  Kadrys looked a little surprised, but took her
warm hand in his cool one.

      The garden was in bloom, the blue Winter roses filling the area
with their scent, and this time in Kardia took the time to enjoy the
scent and heavy velvet touch of a newly opened bloom.  As Kardia paused,
Kadrys looked around at the rose bushes, his brows lifted in surprise.
"I saw these roses at Luthor and Serene's housewarming.  Luthor must have
donated them to the Garden...  A generous gift."  He lowered his face
into a blossom, closing his eyes and taking a slow deep breath.

      When he looked up, afterwards, he found Kardia smiling at him.

      They walked through the growing light of the third moon and the
waning of the second to the small beaver pond.  Kardia took off her shoes
and socks, rolled up her sleeves, and yelped softly at the cold as she
waded into the water.  She broke one of the stalks and nodded in
satisfaction.

      She fished a doubled handful of the wet stalks from the pond,
brought them to shore and dropped them a good yard away from the pond.
She was shivering slightly with just the single trip; but she went back
in to get more.  Kadrys, after seeing what she wanted to do, waded in
as well.  The shocking cold of the water tingled through his veins like
a kiss of fire; but he relaxed into its cold embrace and fished out
some of the softening stalks that floated on the surface.

      He was slightly surprised to find that she could see in the dark
almost as well as he could, finding stalks even when they were fully
submerged under the black mirror surface of the pond.  He, however, was
the one to rescue an armload from where they had ended up next to the
beavers' home.

      Kardia was shivering when they were through; but smiled her
thanks to Kadrys as she sat down, pulled two towels from her backpack
and handed him one.  They were from the 'kani Lighthouse, soft and
thick and still warm from being shielded from the night in the sack.
She dried herself off and put her shoes and socks back on.

      "What now?" asked Kadrys.

      "I'll find/wheelbarrow." she scribbled on her wax tablet; and
when he nodded, she went off.

      While she was gone, Kadrys picked up a stalk, feeling its texture;
flexible yet still crisp, reminding him of old celery or fresh hakla-
grass.  He copied Kardia's earlier gesture, bending it into a smooth
curve until it broke to expose threads finer than a hair.  They glinted
as faintly as mist underneath the moonlight.  Kadrys marvelled silently
that strands so delicate had been strong enough to support the plant's
tall stalks when it had lived.

      He turned the bundle of rot and fiber to the light so that
the threads caught the moon's glow in streaks of soft grey.  'Not too
many things can boast a skeleton so beautiful... and so useful.' he
added, remembering Kardia's weavings.  The distant squeak and rattle of
the wheelbarrow drew nearer, and he put down the stalk.  'Here she
comes now, to separate the skeletons from the decayed bodies of her
plants: the spider, weaving webs out of bones, webs to kill magic.
Beauty out of the death of her plants, death out of the beauty of her
weavings...'  His hand throbbed once with remembered agony: the mere
touch of her shawl had once been enough to reduce it to bone and
withered skin.  As Kardia appeared through the foliage skirting the
pool, he rose suddenly to his feet, dismissing the oddly morbid turn of
thought.  When she pulled up with the barrow, he gathered a bundle of
dripping stalks and helped with the load, his manner as calm and
obliging as it had always appeared.

      They piled the stalks into the wheelbarrow and walked their way
to the barn.  The small building was dark and cool; but warmer than
outside as it was out of the wind.  The wet and retted stalks were
spread out in a drying rack to the flickering light of a lamp.  The
barn smelled of cut grass and straw, smooth, mellow smells.  After
the retted stalks were spread, they put armloads of the sweet, hay
smelling, dried moonsilk stalks into the damp barrow. 

      Kadrys made sure that the lamp was blown out before they went back
out into the dark.


                    **  ---   <<<<  --*--  >>>   ---  **                    


      The process of spreading the new stalks out in the pond went much
more quickly than the gathering had; but Kardia was shivering at a teeth
rattling rate by the time it was done.

       Kadrys frowned.  "I think it'd be a good idea to get you back in
the warm as soon as possible..." he murmured.

       Kardia jerked out a nod in reply.

       He stared earnestly at her, "I can get you there faster than
walking, but I need to know one thing first: how good are you with
heights?"

       Kardia blinked and then gave a faint chuckle with a shrug.

       Kadrys nodded and shrugged out of his coat, holding it out to
Kardia.  As she slipped into it, he stripped off his shirt and held that
out to her too.  At her sound of surprise, he grinned impishly at her.  "I
can't leave it on.  I get too damn many shirts ripped off my back as it
is..."  Kardia tilted her head inquiringly at him, then her grey eyes
widened.

      Kadrys' eyes went distant as he concentrated and the muscles of
his back writhed uneasily.  The flat shoulderblades warped, spiking upward
until she was sure that his skin would tear wide open.  But it stretched
unnaturally, covering the lengthening bony spikes even after they split
into vast skeletal hands, webbing the long bones in a veil of black skin
fretted with tiny veins.  And then the eerie transformation was complete.
Wings, like those of a bat but far larger, slowly unfolded, looming dark
as stormclouds behind his pale form.

      Kardia froze, unable to choose a reaction.  She stared at the clawed
and bony wings.  Then a voice broke in, his voice, quiet and full of
concern.  She gulped, shivered a bone rattling shiver, and then looked at
him.  He was frowning, his mouth tight with worry, and his eyes watching
her reactions closely.  "Are you all right?" he murmured again.  She
snorted to rid herself of the shock.  She sighed and reached up.  When
Kadrys saw what she wanted, the wing glided under her hand with a soft
rustling slide of skin on skin, and she ran a trembling hand against the
bony rib of one of those great wings.

      Kardia smiled at him and saw him relax, before a fresh bout of
shivering struck her.  He took a slow step toward her, as tentative as a
deer, and held out his hands to her.  His touch, his tones, were gentle.
"Come on then.  I've got to get you home before you freeze!"  She grinned
at that, and took her first step toward him.  He went down on one knee,
put a forearm behind her knees and the other behind her shoulders then
scooped her up into his arms.  He supported her as she drew the coat and
towels around her and wrapped herself as warmly as possible.

      Kadrys' wings unfolded to their fullest stretch, he tensed, and
came out of the crouch in a surge, leaping into the air.  His wings
blurred into the downstroke, and they were thrust still higher into the air.

      Kardia leaned against Kadrys' smooth, white shoulder as the Gardens
dropped away beneath them, the pounding wingbeats becoming gentler and
more even as they gained height and speed.  She could feel the muscles
sliding beneath his cool skin, working with the oiled efficiency of
machinery.  Something felt... right... comforting in a way nothing had
for the last year.  She frowned a moment and then realized that Kadrys was
not breathing at all.  The insane surges of speed, the exertion cost him
nothing.  There was no heat, no sweat, no panting, even as she felt the
surge and fall of his efforts and the world blurred by.

      Just like Alistair, after one of those blurring streaks of speed,
was able to speak in a completely even, low voice.   As clearly as the
sound of the wind she heard that even voice saying, "At least you have no
reason to complain about body odor."  and then chuckling that even
chuckle.  In her life with Alistair she had been surprised to find herself
reacting defensively to the unnaturalness of it, until she'd realized what
the problem was.  Now she realized this was one of the reasons why she'd
been more comfortable with Kadrys than with almost anyone else in
Generica.  That omnipresent, almost inhumanly calm capability was exactly
the same in the two men.

      At an inquiring look from Kadrys, Kardia smiled and saw his answering
one.  This time she was able to relax into the waves of shivering and just
let them wash over her.  When his arms tightened around her, she leaned
her head against his shoulder until the wave was done.

      Eventually she looked down and was caught up in the beauty of the
vista that spread itself below her.  Their elevation didn't bother her at
all: in fact this was a far more secure feeling than what she'd felt the
time Chistofer had taken her up on his stripped down hovercraft.  They
were making good speed: the outskirts of the city were already rolling by
far below, a rapidly thinning crazy-quilt of streets, a mosaic flecked
with burning gold.  Ahead of them was the coast, the beaten pewter sheet
of the sea fringed with faint silver threads of foam, the spur of land
crowned by the Lighthouse looming larger and larger as they started into a
smooth, gliding descent.

      When the walled courtyard gaped just below them, Kadrys backwinged
hard, stirring up twisting gales of fallen leaves and petals, until they
alighted.  He knelt and set her on her feet.  Kardia hugged him and then
swayed slightly before she caught her balance.  She stretched, grinning,
giddy with the strangeness and the cold.  

      Kadrys chuckled, vastly relieved by Kardia's reaction.  "I'm glad
the transport met with your approval..." he grinned and she laughed in
return, before shivering and drawing the coat back round her shoulders.
His grin softened into a look of sympathy.  "...You look to me as though
you could use a _really_ hot bath."  At Kardia's emphatic nod, Kadrys
smiled and bowed her on before him into the house.  

      Kardia hurried inside.
      
      Kadrys paused and that same moment of concentration took him as his
wings dwindled away, sinking back into his flesh and disappearing.  By the
time Kadrys entered the main building, Kardia was nowhere in sight.  But
Kadrys showed no hesitation, passing down the corridor containing the
guest facilities until he came to a particular door.  He glanced at the
'kan shiftsymbol and it flickered maddeningly for a moment, blurring
through countless different types of writing, before giving up on him and
settling on two images: steam rising in a plume from hot rocks, and a
matching plume above heated water.  Kadrys grinned and pushed open the
door, disappearing into the warm mist and the sounds of splashing that
spilled from the room beyond...

---------------
Copyright 1993 by Andrea Evans and Phyllis L. Rostykus.  Permission
granted for distribution via the usual Usenet channels and for archival.
All other rights reserved.
-----
Andrea Evans can be reached at Andrea.Evans@orb.nashua.nh.us for comments
and fan mail.  :)
-- 
Liralen Li           | "Looking down on empty streets, all she can see are
li@inigo.Data-IO.com |  the dreams all made solid, are the dreams made real."
aka Phyllis Rostykus |  - "Mercy Street" by Peter Gabriel