From alt.pub.dragons-inn Wed Dec 22 09:41:00 1993
Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!netcomsv!decwrl!olivea!sgigate.sgi.com!sgiblab!munnari.oz.au!uniwa!cam
From: cam@gu.uwa.edu.au (Cameron Neylon)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: A brief story (perhaps)
Date: 22 Dec 1993 08:34:18 GMT
Organization: The University of Western Australia
Lines: 56
Message-ID: <2f90qa$1cv@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mackerel.gu.uwa.edu.au

ADMIN: Hello to all peoples who remember me, and to those who are too recent
to. Just a short note to prove I am still alive, and may be back in force
in the new year. Heres hoping.

A small cloud of dust was picked up by a flurry of wind. The river runing
through Generica was guiding the wind straight off the sea and up the
valley. A figure appeared, not suddenly, or magically, but just quietly
out of the dust, as though he'd come around a corner. He looked around,
as if to re-assert hsi sense of direction, grunted an affirmation under
his breath, and walked on.

As he walked further he looked around, as though seeking to reattach himself
to a familiar place, recognizing things only slowly, but gradually beginning
to remember. 

Light was fading gradually but surely, the way itdoes in Generica, with
a long and slow sunset, but the knowledge that when the sun reaches the
horizon, the night will fall like a curtain. The wind was picking up.
Old scraps fluttered in the breeze, assuming strange shapes, improbable
in any other city, but here?

"Typical", he muttered under his breath.

He left the river bank and walked into the city proper, losing his way a
few times but quickly finding it again. It was easy enough. The inn is
an easy place to find.

Gradually moving uphill, only slightly faster than the falling darkness,
he finally came into the square. The square appears suddenly as you come
out of the side streets. You are moving through a canyon, almost a cave
of buildings towering above, and suddenly the sky opens up. At least it
does during the day. At night the change is merely from one blackness to
another.

Again he looked around, briefly finding his bearings before moving towards
the door which was now obvious amongst the others. The noise, the scent
and just the feel of the building was unique amongst all the others in
the city. The Dragons Inn is impossible to miss.

He walked up to the door, pausing briefly before pushing it open, almost
bumping into to some faceless, nameless stranger as he moved through.
Finding an empty table, there is always an empty table, he sat down. He put
two fingers to his lips, then thought better of it, saying aloud.

"Strongbow White Littlefair, if I may."

Then he leant back pulling a stone and a circle of wood on the table, the
wheel on top of the stone, and dumped a clod of clay on the wheel.

ADMIN: Sorry for the last bit but I couldn't resist. I'm not seriously
going to ressurect William. (At least I don't think I'm going to :)
--
Cameron Neylon: neylon@rsc.anu.edu.au or cam@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au

Cantate domino, canticum novum 
[Most pieces of this title were composed over 500 years ago]