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From: stiltman@teleport.com (Stilt Man)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [Y't] Kalirya's Tale
Date: 27 Dec 1995 16:03:34 -0800
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[ADMIN:  Well, after I finally dug all my threads out of the dust pile, it
seems that I've evoked considerable impassioned response from the fans.
But I'm going to ignore it and keep posting anyhow... :) ]

[ADMIN2:  No Variable Man in this post (that was pretty good, Jeff! :), just
the two psychotic women stuck in the woods.  The slightly psychotic woman
with the blue tattoos named Azzar is the doing of Tanya Olsen, while the
very psychotic woman with the Embodiment of Death look named Kalirya
Haladane is the hallucination of myself, the Stilt Man, the Recently
Married, and Omnipotently-Evil-Horrible-Awful-Bad-And-Villain-Major-Domo-
In-The-Gospel-According-To-Hutch SCRIBE!!  <ritual laughter>  (Side note:
that was intended as an inside joke.  Smilie to follow for the
humor-impaired... :)

For this thread in its entirety, you may look at the Y't Thread Home Page at
http://www.teleport.com/~stiltman/Threads/ytthread.html . . . and for a
directory to the rest of my concoctions you can find it in
http://www.teleport.com/~stiltman/stories.html.  Any and all comments
and/or flames can be directed at myself or Tanya.  Roll film...]

			=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Azzar woke in the middle of the night with her sword half-drawn.  Her eyes
darted about, trying to find a sign of whatever it had been that had awakened
her.  She looked at the dark elf, still twisting and turning fitfully on
the ground where he was attempting in vain to sleep with his fetters on in
the presence of . . .

Kalirya was gone.  Thrud was still kneeling there, peering out into the
night in his vacant-eyed watch, but the enchantress was not in the camp.
Azzar stood abruptly, alarming Thrud with the sudden movement.  He raised
his axe, prepared to strike, but subsided when he saw that it was her who
had moved.

"Where is Kalirya?" she whispered.

"Gone," responded Thrud helpfully.

Azzar rolled her eyes skyward in irritation.  "I can see that," she snapped.
Thrud's face fell instantly.  Azzar saw it, felt guilty for holding him to
a standard he was not capable of fulfilling.  "Where has she gone to?"

"Woods," Thrud gestured up into the branches.

"She just went up into the trees and left?" asked Azzar.

"Flew up, yes," said Thrud.

"Flew up?" she repeated, surprised.

"Yes," Thrud nodded emphatically.  "Use wings.  Flew."

Azzar looked up up into the air as though the enchantress might dive down at
her at any moment.  Seeing nothing, she turned back to Thrud, who was
anxiously awaiting some response from her.  "Thank you," she said warmly,
and went into the woods looking closely both at her feet and above herself,
leaving Thrud beaming as he continued his watch.  Azzar wondered if it had
occurred to him that, without Kalirya or herself in the camp, the only thing
he was guarding with his watch was their prisoner.

			=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Some distance from the camp of the three intruders, two black unicorns cantered
into a glade and reared up on their hind legs.  Their torsos shrank in size,
their hind legs growing thicker in the shins and thinner in the thighs, their
hooves turning into hands and feet.  Their white manes remained as hair on
their heads, their horns vanishing into their skulls.

Where two black unicorns had entered, two humanoids with skin the same color
of coal as they had been previously stood.  One was male.  The other was
female.

"She should know about these intruders," said the male.

"She already knows of the intruders, fool!" snapped the other.

The male shook his head, striking himself on the temple for forgetting this.
"Then perhaps we should learn of them from Her."

They walked onward, into a murkier area of the woods.  Two heaps of wet
vines came into view before them.  Several greenish stalks protruded from
the top of them, with a sticky reddish substance dripping from bulbs at the
end that were roughly the size of a human fist.  At the sound of approaching
animal life, gaping maws opened in the heaps, revealing huge fly-trap teeth
lining the insides.  The two humanoids stopped a respectful distance away
from the two creatures, knowing well the fate of those who wandered too
close.  The disembodied hand of a dark elf that had strayed too close still
dangled from the sticky resin on one of the stalks.

"What has transpired?" came a feminine voice from both of the mouths at
once.  The two humanoids stood erect in respect for Her immediately.

"Little of which you are not likely already aware," said the female
humanoid.

"We come seeking your guidance," said the male.

"This wolf has us ill at ease," said the voice from the mouths.  "It could
begin to undo that which we have worked for."

"What of the three new intruders?" asked the male.

"One of them, the dark cloaked woman, has thus far evaded our ability to
spy upon her, even through our many eyes," said the mouths.  "We had not
thought the Shrouded One foolish enough to enter our domain, but if it is
indeed her, we must drive her from our woods or destroy her as quickly
as possible."

"We have sensed a demonic presence about this one you speak of, Mistress,"
said the male.  "We had not believed that the Shrouded One trucked with
such creatures, nor is she one of them.  If she were, we would know of
it already."

"You are correct," said the mouths.  "But we are not certain whether the
Shrouded One is above such things, nor do we know whether she might attempt
to feint us into believing she dealt with such.  We must learn more of this
intruder.  Identify this person, and if it is the Shrouded One, we must deal
with her immediately.  That one is as dire a threat as the wolf, mayhaps
more."

"We are blessed by your guidance, Mistress," the two humanoids said.  The
mouths of the plants began to sag down, until only the stalks and the heaps
were visible once more.

The male turned to the female.  "We must gather more of the insects and
learn of this intruder.  If she is the one She speaks of . . ."

The female nodded.  The two humanoids turned, and leaned forward until their
hands nearly touched the ground.  Their shapes shifted again, and two black
unicorns left the glade as they had entered.

			=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Azzar walked soundlessly, keeping to the shadows of the woods.  She had taken
up a small stick and was quietly poking them into the soil before her, wary
of any further traps intended for the wolf.

She heard the sounds of wings fluttering, and the cracking of a decent
weight suddenly coming to rest on a branch.  She whirled, her sword out, and
looked up into the trees.  She could see nothing up there, but she could sense
that someone watched her.  More wing fluttering, smaller this time, and
closer.  The stench of something evil reached her nostrils, and she shivered.

"For what do you search?" came the voice of Kalirya from above her.

"I search for you, enchantress," Azzar replied.  She still could not see
the other.  "A search which you do not appear to want to see completed."

"You stand in a combat-ready pose, you admit openly that you search for me,
and you draw your sword at the first sign of my presence.  Perhaps I am to
believe that you wish to discuss the weather?" said the other woman
sardonically.  "Did it occur to you that, out here in the night, you
nearly beg to be ambushed?  You cannot see in the night, while the dark
elves can see you even better now than during the day."

"And yourself?" retorted Azzar.

"I have not the same . . . deficiencies of sight," Kalirya said, trying to
evade the subject.

"Who or what are you, really?" demanded Azzar.  "You have a friend around
here somewhere that you do not reveal to me."

"Such as your own?" responded Kalirya.  As if in answer to her noticing its
presence, the owl that served as Azzar's familiar hooted at that moment.

--She knows too much!  She suspects me!-- came the voice of Sornulakh in
Kalirya's mind.  --She must die!--

{No}, Kalirya thought back firmly.

--And why not?  Because she, too, is Kryalla's stooge?--

{If you wish to have the Shrouded One's vengeance pursuing you, feel free
to strike at this one}, Kalirya responded sarcastically.

--How would she ever find us?  The amulet she gave you prevents her!--

{How do we know?  She may have only given us such means as others cannot
find as, while leaving herself the ability to do so if we defy her.  Even
did it do as you say, your lord might well give much to avoid the Shrouded
One's ire.}

--She would not dare challenge him!  His power is inviolate!--

{So do many say of the Dark One herself.}

--Point taken.  So what do we do?--

{We act like we're still paying attention to Azzar instead of each other.}

"Kalirya?  Are you still there?" demanded Azzar, having indeed grown
impatient with the other woman's silence over the last few moments.

"Perhaps closer than you realize," came Kalirya's voice behind her.
Azzar spun, but still saw nothing.  Kalirya had to applaud Sornulakh's
superb mimicry.  Azzar heard movement up in the branches again, louder
movement which betrayed that the enchantress herself moved again.  She
saw Kalirya, with wings sprouting from her back, flying down from a branch
above to the ground.  When here feet had touched the soil, the wings folded
up and resumed the shape of the enchantress' cloak.

"I respectfully request that you lower your sword," said the enchantress.

"Why?" said Azzar.

"Are we not allies?" asked Kalirya.

"I had thought so," said Azzar, lowering her sword slowly but keeping a firm
grip upon its hilt.  "My question still stands.  Who or what are you, really?"

"My name is Kalirya Haladane, daughter of Haladane," said the enchantress.
"I am no demoness, if that is what you fear.  I am half dryad by blood, half
human."

"Are dryads not supposed to be linked to nature?" challenged Azzar.  "I had
thought that their offspring were as well."

"I was," responded Kalirya simply.  "That is a thing of the past."

"Tell me about it," said Azzar, sheathing her sword.  Kalirya looked up at
her, incredulous.  "You know something of my past.  I know nothing of yours.
Your actions certainly beg for some form of explanation."  Kalirya said
nothing.  "If we are to cooperate as equals, we should know something of
each other."  Kalirya sighed, sitting down upon a log.

--You're not going to . . .-- began the voice of Sornulakh in her mind.

{Yes, I am.} she responded.

--She doesn't deserve . . .--

{I care not.  I want to speak of it.}

--Oooo, the talky-feely sort who wants to speak through her problems with
someone, anyone, to give comfort.--

{Comfort which you have failed to give me.} responded Kalirya.

Azzar sat upon a rock near her, listening intently both to her and their
surroundings.  Realizing that Kalirya could likely see better than she in
the dark anyhow, Azzar did not continue listening to aught but Kalirya
herself long, trusting her owl to warn her should something approach.

"My mother was a dryad, of the woods of an island nation.  She was like
most of her ilk, caring nothing for tomorrow, living without any cares
at all in her trees," began Kalirya, openly contemptuous.  "She was a
smaller woman than you or I, waifish in appearance and with little strength
of will."  Kalirya sighed again.

"One day, a man entered the forest.  I know not why he was there, what he
was doing, or how he happened across my mother.  I never knew even his name
until much later.  All I know is that he encountered my mother, and she
quickly cast a powerful enchantment over him, taking him as her mate.  He
was kept from his people for long, staying with her in this enslaved state
for several years.  Over that time, she conceived and bore a child of the
union."

"Yourself?" asked Azzar.  Kalirya nodded.

"I had no memory of my father as a child.  The enchantment upon him faded
with time, and he left my mother.  My mother cared little, and forgot about
him entirely, not even speaking to me of him.  I knew I had had a father,
for I saw this same thing happen with others of my mother's kind, but like
my mother, they simply released their mates and inducted their children into
their world, with little regard for the men who had sired them.  I only knew
his name:  Haladane."  Kalirya sighed.

"I was raised with little cares myself, quite unaware of many things of the
world," said Kalirya.  She half smiled wanfully at the memory.  Then the
expression turned to the same stone-like one that Azzar had become familiar
with.

"One day," said Kalirya, speaking in a monotone, "a man came with a small
mob of other men into my mother's woods.  They had brought charms with them
from the local soothsayers, that protected them from the enchantments of my
mother's kinds.  They rounded up all of the dryads of the woods and slaughtered
them on sight.  The leader personally inspected each one before they were
killed, and when he came to my mother, he took her out from the rest.  He
violated her, beat her, tortured her, and at the end, killed her slowly."
Kalirya shuddered.  "My last memory of my mother was the pain on her face at
what was being visited upon her."

"You escaped?" asked Azzar.

"Yes.  A handful of us managed to get to our trees, bind ourselves to them
for a short while, and evaded the raiders," responded Kalirya.  "Mine died
soon after the slaughter."

Azzar started.  She had heard that the trees of such nature spirits were the
very souls of those who were bound to them.  She looked deeply into Kalirya's
eyes.  Was there even a soul left to the enchantress?  Had it died with her
tree?  The hair of the kind was said to be green, the color of leaves.  The
enchantress' was brown . . . the brown of dead leaves, Azzar realized.

"With no remaining bond with the forest, I left, became an urchin of the
streets of humanity's cities, a part of the decay that their kind likes to
conveniently ignore in their self-serving myths that all is well in their
society," said Kalirya bitterly.  "Over time, I began to hate what I was,
hate my mother for bringing me into this world to endure this."  Kalirya's
eyes shook, anger coming into them.  "One of their soothsayers took pity
upon me, wondered how it was that such a child of nature should come to be
a victim of humanity's cruelty.  He took me in, raised me."  She looked
somewhat more cheerful.  "He said that I had a gift for his arts, one that
he could not teach me.  My link with the elements made me a natural sorceress,
he said, and this together with what he saw as a burning intellect and will
would take me far in that art.  However, he could only teach me the rudiments
of magic.  I had to make do with that whilst I grew up.

"Over time, he grew older, and finally he died.  He had no family, and what
small money he had was left in my keeping.  I used it to find a wizard to
teach me.  That was the soothsayer's final wish.  He wanted me to take what
he could leave me and use it to better my skills of magic beyond what he
could provide.  He said that his only regret was that he would not live to
see what he felt I would become."  Kalirya smirked sardonically as she said
this last.

"I found a Wizard's Guild to take me in as an apprentice.  But I soon found
that their motives were selfish.  They wanted the money I had, wanted to use
me as a magical tool for their own elemental spells," said Kalirya bitterly.
"I had to bear it, for I had nowhere else to go.  Over time, they learned to
respect me, fear me, even.  They described me as a half-demoness running
loose, searching for a focus to give vent to my rage at the world around me,"
she said sarcastically, contempt for what she clearly saw as their high-and-
mighty airs showing.  "When I felt that I was strong enough, I set out to
find this vent.  I did, after all, have a perfect motive for it."

"The death of your kind," Azzar observed.

"One of my first spells cast towards this end was to learn from certain
powers of those who had despoiled my mother and her ilk," said Kalirya,
ignoring the interruption.

"What sort of powers?" asked Azzar, not sure she wanted to know.

"Some which you would no doubt consider too distasteful to deal with," said
Kalirya.  "Ooooo, they're going to come for my soul and take my children . . .
whenever I have any," Kalirya mocked.

"You consulted a demon lord of some form," Azzar said.  It was not a question.

"Some who do not understand them call them that," responded Kalirya.

"I see," said Azzar tightly.

"Who are you to consider yourself good and they evil?" said Kalirya, anger
rising in her voice.  "Have you any concept of the evil that humans are
capable of?  The tortures and injustices they dole out upon other races,
deeming them either `goblins' or `orcs' and exterminating their kind because
they are different?  The injustice they dole out upon their own kind.  The
paladins who claim to be the high and mighty protectors of the common good,
who kindly put to the sword anyone who disagree with them as to the nature
of that good as heretics?  Uh oh, little woman have too much will of her own,
she must be a witch, let us burn her at the stake!" Kalirya reflected bitterly.
"Little half-sprite bitch able to control sorcery!  The heathen!  We must
burn her to save her soul from her own evil!  She profanes the greater good
of This God, That God, and the Other God!  We must grant her a fair trial
and then burn her to ashes to be scattered in the cleansing breeze of the
pure heavens!"  Kalirya pointed an accusing finger at the other woman.  "You
act shocked?  It is easy to live among humans . . . if you adopt their ways,
pay lip service to their cults, and kowtow to all of their little customs and
prejudices which say all other creatures are obviously inferior!"

"And demons are better?" asked Azzar rhetorically.

"By me . . . yes," hissed Kalirya.

"I see," said Azzar, somewhat uncertain what to say.

--Great comfort ya picked for yourself there.-- said the voice of Sornulakh
sarcastically in her mind.

{For once I agree with you.} responded Kalirya, rising from the log.

Azzar looked up, somewhat confused and frustrated that she would not learn
the rest of what had driven this woman half-mad.  "You are leaving?"

"Why not?  You have demonstrated that you are not understanding thus far..."

"I sympathize with your troubles . . . if not your means for dealing with
them," offered Azzar.

Kalirya smirked.  "You know not even the half of them thus far."

"Then tell me," said Azzar.  "We're going to be working together, we don't
have much choice, we may as well find out each others' dark secrets so there
aren't any surprises when we suddenly start running around screaming with
no clothes on."  She hoped Kalirya would recognize this as a jest.

She was rewarded with a smile from the other woman's lips.  Kalirya sighed,
sat back on the log.

"I learned the whereabouts of the man who had led the assault upon my
mother's tribe from these forces you would consider to be demonic," said
Kalirya.  "I went to that place to find this man, struck against him,
and cut him slowly, catching him in a holding spell while I slowly
skinned him alive, every moment of his agony punctuated with a reminder
of why he was dying this way."  Azzar was feeling both revulsion and
sympathy at once, knowing from the way the stony eyes were watering that,
though the woman had willingly done this horrible deed, much had happened
to drive her to it, and she did not recount the memory fondly.

"His companions came up the stairs of the inn before I was finished with
him.  I was forced to end it more quickly than I had hoped.  I used my
arts to hide from them, listening in on their exclamations of horror as
they found him," said Kalirya, a tear falling upon one cheek.

"If you thirsted for revenge so much, why does it pain you to remember it?"
asked Azzar, confused.  "From what I know of you, you seem the sort to take
great satisf--"

"There was something that the demons did not tell me!  Something about him
that was kept from me until his companions cried his name aloud!"  Kalirya
shrieked in impotent fury.  Azzar stared at her, still not understanding.
"His name was . . . Haladane."

Azzar thought she felt something lurch within her.  The thought of the whole
ordeal . . . she turned from where she sat and had to maintain an effort
not to be violently sick.  Kalirya watched coldly for a moment, her eyes
beginning to dry, stood and turned away from the other.

--I hope you're happy.-- said the voice of the imp.

{Were you when I killed him?  How much did you know of his identity?  How much
did your master know and deliberately not tell me?}  The imp did not answer.

"Now you know," said Kalirya.

Azzar coughed.  "But that doesn't explain . . . the elf . . ."

"I will not suffer my mother's fate," said Kalirya.

Azzar froze, confused for a moment.  Then . . . "Oh."

"They will not have the opportunity to do to me what my father did to my
mother," Kalirya nodded, seeing that the other woman understood.

"What of Thrud?" asked Azzar.  "Why do you keep him with you?"

"What of Thrud?" Kalirya repeated.  "He was cast out by his family as a
child, perhaps had no family at all, lived the life of the urchin.  Somewhere
along the way, I think, he found his head in contact with a horse's hoof or
some such," she added, pointing at her own head and making confused
expressions in rather brutal imitation of her companion.  "He found his way
into numerous dungeons, on to the slave block to serve penance for his
misdeeds."

"What did he do?" asked Azzar.

Kalirya shrugged.  "The magistrates were never quite clear on that, and
Thrud himself has no idea.  My guess is they found an excuse because he
was undesirable, and locked him up.  Human justice is like that at times."
Kalirya chuckled.  "I saw the look of despair in his eyes when I saw him
on the block as I passed by.  No one else was willing to risk their money
on someone who looked that stupid, and it wasn't clear what his fate would
be if he were not sold.  They most likely would have impaled him and left
him on the city walls to rot."

Azzar frowned.  "It is not so bad as . . ."

"Have you ever been in trouble with the law?" asked Kalirya.  "Been considered
`undesirable'?"  She looked Azzar over with an eye that looked a brutal
imitation of the average boorish leer.  "Somehow, I doubt it.  For those that
are, it can be a very rough life."

"You are not so `undesirable' yourself," said Azzar, looking closely at the
other woman's appearance.  "Did you not show the look of the Grim Reaper,
I think some would find you quite attractive."

Kalirya shrugged.  "Which meant I would have wound up as a slave girl in
some fat human lord's harem, instead of the outcase."  Kalirya seethed a
moment.  "I will not abide a cage, even if it be gilded."

"I cannot blame you," said Azzar quietly.

"You have some knowledge of such, then?" asked Kalirya.

Azzar sighed now.  "I suppose it is your turn to hear my story."  She looked
at the other woman.  "You have quite earned it."

+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+
+     The [Y't] thread (who or what is "Y't"????  Who knows??)    +
+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+
+       . . . scribed by the Stilt Man and Tanya Olsen,		  +
+      stiltman@teleport.com or tolsen@leland.stanford.edu	  +
+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+