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From: reaux@csgrad.cs.vt.edu (Ray A Reaux)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [A'arden] Modrake's Tale 4
Date: 22 Sep 1994 20:54:28 GMT
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>>WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE:  Modrake tells A'arden the story buyer his story, 
>>wanting in exchange some information. He tells A'arden that he was an 
>>apprentice Poet, equivalent to a bard and priest among his people. While 
>>looking for herbs in a forest in preparation for the Moonday feast, 
>>Modrake and his master Lynorgen stumbled upon murder and kidnapping 
>>of a family.  Lynorgen was killed by the bandits and Modrake was taken 
>>captive and then sold into slavery by Sinfar of Gemmanuc.										
>>
>>Modrake copyrighted by me.

	Modrake was silent for a moment, his gaze once again returning
to the candle.  His eyes lost its focus, and as he began to speak, A'arden's
pen returned to his parchment.

******************************************************************************

      For three years, I was a slave.  My first two years, I labored in
the Ninmedian coal mines.  My owner, surprised I had lived that long,
decided not to overlook the chance of reducing any loss from my death
and sold me to his brother-in-law, a buyer for the Ninmedian navy.  So for
the final year of my servitude, I was a galley slave chained to the oars
of a huge man-of-wars the Ninmedian used to dominate the Western seas.  The
coal mines were more brutal than the pits of hell, but the oar benches
were by far the more terrifying.  I had to endure three naval battles, and I
have faced nothing that has threatened to unman me more than being
chained to an oar bench when the drummer sounds out the measure of
combat speed.  But it was my third battle, and the sinking of the
man-of-war I was chained to which set me free.
        The Ninmedians, a powerful sea power were at war with the
Artennians over the use of certain shipping lanes off the coast of
Ammdalen, a vast wilderness just north of the Haruchai empire, and
the ship I was on was attached to a fleet on blockade duty.  Five Artennian
war ships decided to contest the blockade.   In the ensuing battle, my ship
was rammed, and chained as I was to the oar benches, I went down with
the ship.  I remember the agony of burning lungs and my frantic but futile
efforts to wrest loose the chain that dragged me under the waves.  But it
was not my hands that freed me.  I do not remember how or why I was
saved from drowning, but I saw, before I lost consciousness, manshapes
gliding like fish through the waters towards me.  Perhaps it was the mad
visions of a dying man, but I saw what I saw.  How else could I explain
waking up on a sleeping mat in the cave of Kikaben, a venerable Sword
Monk.
        Kikaben told me that he had found me, draped on a broken chunk
of ships's hull that had washed ashore.   Somehow, despite his old frail
looking body, he had managed to drag me all the way up the cliff face to his
cave.
        When I was able to sit up, I looked at the broken chain link that
Kibaben had carelessly tossed into a corner of his cave.  While I was
unconscious, Kikaben had cut through the rivet on my manacles, but
the chain link had been pried open with strength far greater than Kikaben
or I could muster.  Kikaben never told me who might have broken
the chains and rescued me from drowning, but often, during the time
spent with Kikaben, when I would sometimes walk the beaches on
foggy nights, I would hear singing, sometimes sweet and gentle as a
calm sea but just as often surging with vitality and unbridled passion
like a hurricane, coming from the sea.
        I lived with Kikaben for two years.  At first, I was anxious to
recover so that I could travel to Gemmanuc, as my duty demanded,  to
sing the conclusion of the Song of Justice, but recovery was slow.  Three
years of slavery and depravation had left me in poor physical condition.
However, as I regained my strength, Kikaben began to teach me the Way,
a unique blend of ancient martial skills and spirituality.   As I later
learned, he was a Sword Monk, one of a handful of men and women
dedicated to the Way who were just as respected among his people
as a Poet was among mine.  Why he chose to teach me, I do not know,
since he had retreated to this lonly cave in the fastness of the Amaduin
wilderness, to get away from what he called "pesky students."
        Two years I lived with Kikaben, but in those two years, I learned
less than a third of what he had to teach me.  I come from a warrior people,
but what Kikaben taught me transcended the warrior's skill.  I had always
been skilled with weapons.  Kikaben taught me that my body was a weapon,
and that a man without a weapon was the deadliest adversary of all.
He taught me to tap inner strengths I had never known and develop mental
skills that among my people only a few gifted people could perform.
I have had two great teachers in my life. Lynorgen taught me duty
and shaped my intellect.  Kikaben trained my body and shaped
my spirit.
        I was amazed by Kikaben's vitality, which he attributed to the Way
and his own perverse desire to show the "old guard Sword Monks" that the
Way is ever changing and not the static forms and katas that they taught but
never questioned.  His disdain for these other Sword Monks had brought
him to this remote coastline to write "The Book of Water," the culmination of
his experiences and wisdom.  One day, almost two years to the day that I
was fished out of the sea, he handed me his manuscript and said that his
task was done.  He bade me, in the morning to go to the fishing village an
hour's walk away to purchase some supplies.  Because I made an early start,
the cold sea fog was still blanketing the shore when I returned to the cliff
above the cave.  From the cave, I saw the whispy outline of Kikaben walking
along the shore.  I called to him, and although I could not be sure, I
thought I saw him wave to me before he turned and walked into the sea.  
And as I ran down the treacherous trail from the cliff to the beach, 
I heard again the sea sing.  I never saw my mentor and friend again,
but unlike the death of my first mentor, I did not mourn his passing.  And
sometimes, when I stroll the decks of ships,  I heard his voice singing with
others the song of the sea.
        Now with nothing to keep me in Kikaben's cave, I was driven by
my need to accomplish my duty and singt the Song of Justice.  I turned my
steps toward Gemmanuc, and to Sinfar and booked passage on a fishing
boat heading north.  Two months later, I walked through the gates of
Gemmanuc.