[Later that evening, the members of the Politi household meet to find a way to prolong the length of time Linnell can survive without the use of the thread magic.]

[Morrighu]
 
Morrighu stood waiting beside Geiren; she heard the song of the Politi's  threads growing - a music that was beginning to become familiar to her the longer she stayed amongst them. She had begun to sing a newly created song to complement the music of their threads.
 
When Kallin held out his hand Morrighu slipped from her shoes and stepped forward - the hem of her blue silk gown danced around her pale ankles.  Power rippled - ebbed and flowed beneath her cold feet; not quite alien but not hers either. Her countenance seemed to shift as she walked into the web of awakened threads - and by the time she put her frigid hand in Kallin's her beauty no longer belonged to the daylight, but had become as cold as frozen lakes beneath a full Winter moon, and as eternal as the Void from which she came. Only her blue eyes showed living fire.
 
[Kallin]

        The instant Morrighu had begun to sing, Kallin had felt the threads tremble, and the flows in the mosaic surged in surprise at the touch of unfamiliar magic.  An echo of questioning uncertainty rippled along the threads, and the weave shook.  ::Morrighu,:: he whispered, adding to the name an image of Gwion, her son, who had danced across the mosaic as if born to it --

                <morrighu>

-- and the weave wrapped itself around her, shimmering, tasting her colors and the coldness of her song --

                        <morrighugwionmorrighugwion>

-- the flood of colors had opened at her feet, moving in counterpoint to her singing, accepting her.  When Kallin folded his fingers over hers, a ribbon of burning blue twined about their arms, then fell away.

        <yes>

[Morrighu]

She met Kallin So's eyes, ending her song, and said, "I have become what will be needed - what I truly am - a guide." A small smile warmed her chill beauty, and she added, "But for now - you must guide me in what needs to be done."

[Kallin]

        "Walk the patterns," he said quietly, feeling the flows moving under his feet, trying to climb their way under his skin to soak into his bones, to wrap themselves around his heart.  Still holding her cold hand in his own, Kallin stepped away from the center of the floor.  Without looking, he knew that Lanaera had moved also, her movements in time with his, to balance the flows.

        "The patterns will find a place for you to stand," he said as they walked slowly, the floor pulsing beneath their feet.  Kallin could feel the channels shifting, seeking a way to accommodate Morrighu.  "The mosaic will not want to take Linnell."  There, that was the spot, down the floor halfway from the center to the far end, across from the point where Lanaera had started.  Kallin's blue eyes sparked fire as he paused to look at Morrighu.  "I will have to force it, rework the patterns to accept her.  You may need to keep the Void from swallowing her as I do that."
 
[Geiren]
 
Geiren waited his turn at the edge of the mosiac - his deep brown eyes watching as Morrighu walked across the shifting fields of power, listening to her song. Feeling it in his bones, in his chest, and in his soul.
 
He was shirtless and barefoot; wearing only black trousers. His exposed flesh, except for his head and face, were covered with deeply etched scar-glyphs. His black hair hung loose and laid down onto his bare shoulders. Tonight he came as the Hunter's representative - another guide of souls, and Morrighu's complement. Tonight the intricate sworls of the Hunter's patterns seemed appropriate.

[Kallin]

        Kallin turned from Morrighu and stepped back to the center of the mosaic, his arms half-raised and dripping with ribbons of light.  One hand, incandescent with fire, gestured for Geiren to step onto the floor.  As Geiren lifted one foot, the flows opened up -- the mosaic knew him already, knew his touch -- and the wood hummed in acknowledgment as he stepped onto the patterns.  Then, again, a murmur of surprise at the difference in him; the threads moved uncertainly around him, skittering across the scarred surface of Geiren's skin, touching the glyphs on his body --

                <geiren>

-- and moved to course, briefly, through the pathways created by the markings --

                <morrighugeirengwiongeirenmorrighugwion>

-- without needing to be told, finding the cords that bound husband and wife and child, curling around them --

        <yesyesyesyesyes>

        The flows did not even wait for Geiren to cross to Kallin, but nudged him gently where they wished for him to go, to the place that opened in the pattern to hold the mystery he had become.  Diagonally across from Morrighu, not far from Lanaera.

        ::One more,:: Kallin whispered, and he felt a low question come from the mosaic, surprise that yet another stranger would be added to the weave.  The flows jumped, caressing his skin, hungering to slip into his veins and move through his blood.  ::Sue.::  For a third time, Kallin gestured, extending one hand to the slender elf-child.

[Sue]

Her pale, ice blue eyes were wide in her white face. Where Morrighu was icy marble, Sue was like the snows of her northern homeland. Hesitantly she stepped out of her borrowed slippers and onto the oak floor.

Another step towards Kallin brought her into the circle.

White light haloed her now, the holy flames of her religion burning from within. White, all colors and none in the silver that was Quallion.

[Kallin]

        Of them all, Sue presented the most complicated puzzle for the threads; during the days that she had spent among the Politi, healing their wounded and protecting the house, the threads had skimmed around her whispering to themselves in confusion.  Now she stood on the mosaic itself, afire with her own light -- with the light of her god, Lathander. The flows moved beneath her feet, humming with curiosity at the girl's presence.  But no hostility, merely an inquiring wariness at what she carried inside her, at what powers she could bring to her command.

        <sue>

-- the threads whispered, and again <sue>, shivering as they touched her and then darted away, to dance forward again and curl around her ankles.

                <sue>

        Bathed in her own fire, glowing with a potent beauty, Sue glided across the floor easily.  Kallin took her hand with a small bow to her, a white strand from the mosaic wrapping itself around them both.  The patterns moved before them, shifting to find a balance that would accommodate the weight of Lathander in the weave.

        When that had been done, Kallin returned to the center and lowered his arms.

        <fire>

The heat moving across his skin was almost unbearable, liquid light hungering to consume him, to pour into him and remake him.  Seeking to reweave Kallin just as he sought to reweave the mosaic for Linnell.

[Paul/Linnell]

        Barnabas Portnoy had dragged one of the porch rocking chairs into the kitchen for Paul Rustin to sit in.  Such provided a better seat for holding Linnell than any of the straight-back chairs surrounding the charred kitchen table.  Paul had carried Linnell downstairs only after Kallin and the others had entered the gallery; the girl lay in his arms unspeaking, trembling when she felt the mosaic awaken.  She turned her face into his chest but did not speak as he continued to rock her and stroke her hair.  His blue eyes studied the grey eating away the last of her colors, and though his expression was impassive, his heart ached for her.

        -Too young to lose herself to the darkness,- he thought.  Though, honestly, to him any in the house would be too young, except perhaps Morrighu, who perhaps had "lived" longer than he.  Too young to have the colors eaten away.

[Kallin/Lanaera]

        On the mosaic, Kallin So closed his eyes and breathed in the threads, allowing the flows of the mosaic to seep their way past the surface of his skin and soak into his body.  He could sense Lanaera's uneasiness, a concern born not only from her longing for authority but also from the thought of him allowing the mosaic to move into him.

        'It will seek to control you.' A warning spoken to him by his own Dominti, and words he had spoken to everyone he had taught.  'Keep your own patterns separate, or else you may lose yourself.'

                <yesyesyes>

--slipping in further, working themselves into his body, burning themselves in sinew and bone and blood, whispering seductively

                        <this>

        When he opened his eyes again, he saw the others in the room through a shifting veil of threads.  Not ones that spun themselves before him, but ones that had spun themselves <into> him.  Morrighu, a coldly glittering song; Geiren, whose skin glowed with carved designs; Sue, beautifully alight with the presence of her god.

        Kallin could feel his bones humming in time with the flows of the mosaic, his heart beating to a complex rhythm that was not his own.  And he realized as he felt the resonant movement inside his chest that if the reweaving failed, Linnell would not be the only one who would be lost. The mosaic would unmake him, the Void claim him --

                <yes>

        A thought arrowed towards Paul summoned the other mage to carry Linnell in and lay her upon the mosaic.

[Darmon]

        Darmon awoke from his dream suddenly, sitting bolt upright.  He took a moment to remember where he was.  Realizing he was still with the Politi, he found now that something else was not quite right.  Before him at the end of the hall there was a bright glow.  Darmon rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with his fists, then pressed his fingers to his eyes drawing his hands down through his beard.  He had long ago gotten used to the feel of a beard on his face, one that half of his kindred could never grow.  He looked again down the hall and saw once again the multi-hued bright glow of magic.  It would have to be powerful magic to be glowing so brightly.

        He quickly woke himself up fully, climbed out of the couch, and rearranged himself as he stood.  He took stock of the situation.  He sniffed the air and comfirmed the presence of people on the mosaic, a few in the kitchen, Paul and Linnell and traces of Barnabas' pipe.  He could tell now that Barnabas was outside.  Glancing outside through a window, he saw the peculiar sight of a child battering herself against the magical wards that surrounded the place.  -Barnabas will take care of it-, he thought.  Darmon moved quietly to the kitchen and noticed Linnell and Paul there.  Linnell was in Paul's arms.  -Best not to interrupt them-.  Darmon moved stealthily into the kitchen, making no noise.  Once there he slipped into the shadows and looked on.

[Paul/Linnell]

        Paul glanced up briefly as Darmon slipped into the room, simply nodding in acknowledgement but not speaking.  Most likely, given her condition, Linnell would not have been disturbed by any conversation; however, Paul was focused on what was happening in the gallery.  When Kallin's summons came, he stood smoothly, still cradling Linnell against his chest, and made his way to the swing-door separating the two rooms.

[Morrighu]

The Bean Nighe had picked up the song she had begun as she crossed the mosiac to Kallin; the rhythms and tempo of her music moving with that of the mosaic, and she could feel Kallin's life force throbbing with the threads. Just as the Politi were bound to the mosiac she was bound to those who came under her protection, and so the life rhythms of those in the house wove themselves into her song.

[Geiren]

Concern glittered in Geiren's brown eyes - the only expression on an otherwise shadowed and grim face. He knew what it was to be re-made from the soul out, and in watching, feeling, the magicks weave themselves over and through his friend he could tell that for Kallin such a fate could be likely.

[Sue]

Always there was a song. Morrighu's lament seemed to sing more of death passage than of life. Quietly Sue sang her own song, a harmony of sound that strengthened the pulse of life in the mosaic.

[Darmon]

        Darmon watched as Paul carried Linnell into the bright glow of the next room.  He decided not to follow.  He did not quite fit in to this group, at least not yet.  He knew there was much going on that needed immediate attention.  There had been little time for pleasantries.  He wondered how Deanna and Silverfox fared and breathed a silent prayer to Paladine for their and all the rest of the people's safety who had gone to Jord.  -Such is life-, he sighed inwardly.

        Darmon knew there was not much he could do to aid anyone on the Mosaic.  He would help if asked but was not expecting such an invitation.  He climbed the stairs silently and watched from the balcony above.  Hearing the haunting music, Darmon was tempted to take out his flute and play a counterpoint or harmony to it.  Being unsure as to whether that would help or hinder, he took it out of its pocket and held it as he hummed a prayer for Linnell quietly to Paladine, and some other Gods who might listen, for her.

[Paul/Kallin/Lanaera/Linnell]

        The door separating gallery from kitchen swung open as Paul backed through it, his arms holding Linnell's slender form under knees and shoulders.  The girl's hair hung unbound, and one white hand curled over Paul's heart; she was barefoot, garbed in a grey shift as pale as the colors around her.  The mage stopped at the edge of the mosaic and blinked, waiting for an opening in the patterns, watching how the weave had worked itself around the unfamiliar magicks borne by Morrighu and Geiren and Sue.

        Paul stepped onto the shifting colors of the mosaic, and felt the flows immediately jump in response.  The threads spun towards him, whipping across the floor eagerly, humming in anticipation.  The flows surged, ebbing in his direction while still pushing their way deep into Kallin.  There was no direct path to take, the patterns moved so that Paul could not move in a straight line towards Kallin; hardly noticing the weight of Linnell in his arms.  Yet he could see the grey growing even in those moments, leaching away the last of her colors, bringing the Void closer to her.

        An unsteady, elliptical orbit around the central fire that was Kallin, the strands of light growing every brighter to the Politi mages. Lanaera paced him, mirroring his movements, balancing the patterns.  Paul glimpsed the others through the thick curtains of threads as he moved, catching brief snatches of Morrighu's song, seeing the times when the threads would twist in imitation of the scars etched on Geiren's skin. And he could hear them whispering in delight at Sue's aura, confusion at that part of her which was Lathander standing on the mosaic.

        But he focused on the Politi magicks, moving in an uneven dance with Linnell in his arms, spiralling in towards Kallin So.  After what might have been hours, or merely minutes, Paul stopped to lift his gaze to Kallin's.  The other man's skin writhed with threads, the flames pulsed in a thousand colors behind what were normally blue eyes.  When Kallin spoke, his words echoed with the thrum of a thousand voices.  "Geiren, please." And he set the patterns to moving to make a path for Geiren from where he stood to the center of the mosaic.

        Paul thought that if Kallin had not looked away, he would have been unable to break the stare.  But the other mage did drop his eyes and step back to make room for Morrighu's husband.  Paul released his breath as he turned towards Geiren.  "Hold her for us," he whispered, nodding downwards towards the unresponsive girl in his grasp.  "Do not let her touch the floor until he has cleared a circle in the center, else the patterns will destroy her."

[Geiren]

Geiren took Linnell into the cradle of his arms, and let her head rest  against his etched shoulder. He could feel the heat of the threads playing along the glyphs on his ankles, but in his arms cold radiated out from the maiden.

He felt words stir within him - of a language that he now knew in his soul but had never been spoken on his tongue. He gave them release and he began to softly chant rough, long-gone words that whisphered of the forest and the seasons and joined with Morrighu's singing. He leaned his head close to Linnell's and chanted his rhythms of protection.

[Kallin/Paul/Lanaera/Linnell]

        Linnell did not react as Paul transferred her to Geiren's arms, merely lay unspeaking and unmoving as Paul stepped away.  The flows of the mosaic still moved under all their feet; Paul, and Lanaera directly across from him, lifted their arms at the same time to seize the threads and move backwards to stand at either end of the long axis of the floor.  Kallin was a torch waiting off-center until the other two mages stopped.

        Then he began to unweave the mosaic, stepping carefully around Geiren and Linnell and raising the flows of light upwards from the oaken floor until they poured over his arms and wrapped themselves around his body.  The burning rainbow that had rippled under Geiren started to dissolve, leaving a steadily growing bare circle that was nothing more than wood.  Kallin fed the strands out, to wrap them around the framework Lanaera and Paul had stretched overhead, leaving the threads to writhe formlessly in the air.

        Spiraling out, Kallin danced, and unraveled the mosaic as he did so.  The usual hum quickly was replaced with a note of disquiet as the patterns fought to maintain coherence.  The flows moved away from the center, away from the ragged edges of unweaving -- pushing into Kallin in distress.  Paul held his breath as he saw Kallin flinch in response, a visible shuddering through the threads that shook all the Politi there.

[Darmon]

        Darmon was shocked to see the elements of his dream take shape so soon after he had dreamt it.  He had suspected the dream was a warning or vision of sorts but had expected it to be more difficult to interpret.  He saw the different glowing paths that moved of their own accord. He saw also how Paul could not take a straight route to Kallin as he had not been able to reach Linnell in his Dream.  He watched as the threads began to wrap around Kallin as he had wrapped the tangle of threads  around Linnell.  Darmon hoped the end result would be the same as in his dream and somehow knew it would be.  His hope now was that no one else would pay the price for that.  Darmon continued to hum, although somewhat louder.

[Morrighu]

Morrighu felt the need to be near Geiren, though she knew that it would be extremely dangerous for one unfamiliar with the mosiac to move - particularly with it being so greatly aggiatated. The urge was strong and she let her music guide her within.

The threads she stepped through writhed beneath her feet, and it was like treading through heavy fire.

But at last she made her way to the open space of wood flooring, and took up position opposite Geiren. She had a strong suspicion they were going to be needed to hold the winds of the Void at bay.

[Sue]

Sue slowed her heartbeat to match that of the mosaic, of Linnell and the others, chanting in time to her rhythms and those of the others.

[Kallin/Paul/Linnell/Lanaera]

        Kallin paused briefly to draw a deep breath, feeling the influence of four songs on the mosaic.  The half-elf Darmon stood on the balcony above adding his own melody to the unweaving.  The threads <shifted>, echoing with the rhythms added by the unfamiliar quartet.  And burned, like fire, through his blood.

        Kallin So danced, and the other Politi danced with him; as he unpieced the patterns of the mosaic, Paul Rustin and Lanaera Koltke caught up the unlaced strands and held them aloft, lessening the weight that he carried.  Even then, the heft of the flows wrapping around him in protest slowed Kallin, making him yaw momentarily.  Only when the last binding was loosed did he stop.  Standing on the far edge, Kallin paused to draw an unsteady breath and consider the empty floor beneath their feet.

        Linnell still lay huddled in Geiren's arms, and Morrighu stood nearby, her banshee's song combining with her husband's chanting.  Sue stood alone, and the melody she sang rippled through the threads overhead, a bright cascade of life.  And on the balcony above, the half-elf Darmon added the music of his low humming.  Kallin glanced up at him, blue eyes taking in the flute the other man held in his hands, and nodded in acknowledgment.

        "Place her on the floor," Kallin whispered to Geiren, knowing Linnell could not stand (could barely move), and winced at the sound of his own voice.  The flows moved through him, and their humming echoed in his tones.  He closed his eyes and waited, feeling Lanaera and Paul waiting with him.  Feeling the unwoven mosaic trying to unravel his own patterns.

        Kallin danced again, even more slowly and carefully.  And the first thread he picked up was that which once had measured the rhythm of Linnell's heart-beat.  Once a tensile wire that pulsed with her living blood, it lay silent and slowly shriveling, sliding towards the Void, solid grey and cold.  The mage moved in one wide circle around those in the center of the floor, looping the ragged line, and cast

                <out>

-- to Geiren, and Morrighu, and Sue.  To hold the girl to this world, undead as she was to bind her to the realm of the living.

[Geiren/Morrighu]

Geiren lay Linnell in a fetal position in the center of the mosaic, gently smoothing her dark hair, and took a step back. He looked across the girl to meet Morrighu's ice blue eyes.

Morrighu took the living thread of Linnell's lifebeat into her cold hands and her song began to change. The Bean Nighe began to sing of her centuries as spirit and the love that had called her back to the living realm. She sang of the becoming - of will and desire coalascing to create a physical form. Of what it meant to again feel the night air in her lungs, and the snow beneath her feet. To feel the warmth of a living hand on hers. She sang of the interweaving of friends and those who became kin. All of this she sang around and into Linnell's thread.

Geiren too held Linnell's thread in his hands; what little light it shown with playing over the glyphs on his palms and fingers. He chanted to it - his rich, roughened voice low, much as he would sing to a newborn.

In the Hunter's ancient tongue Geiren told in intimate detail of the soul's journey back. He sang of the reuniting of spirit and flesh. Of the pain and glory of rebirth!

His chant carried with it the change of the seasons. Moving from the  frozen ground. Moving, turning, changing as the Suns were called back, bringing with them the warming light - who impregnanted the sleeping seeds and called them forth to Life.

Then husband and wife, two halves to an ancient whole, joined their song/chant together - a warding against the encroachment of the creeping, numbing, freezing Void. The Cycle had moved from Death to Life - and they would guard while the living gave of their strength and song for the sake of Linnell.

[Darmon]

        As Darmon watched the events unfold before him, holding his flute, he saw Kallin nod to him as if encouraging him to join into the strangely beautiful melody of all those already singing.  Darmon began to play a haunting melody he had known as a child, improvising it as he went along to sometimes counterpoiint and othertimes harmonize with the songs of the others.  As his notes carried, he painted a picture of his own with the tones, expressing his own feelings.  He incorporated in his song images of nature and his home.  He thought back to how he lived alone for so long, two halves of different cultures but a whole of none.  He remembered being alone and knew how Linnell must feel.  He remembered the dream that he had and how it had ended with the threads finding Linnell.  He now changed his focus, showing the glory of the world and of its creatures.  He added an element of hope and the feeling that comes from friendship.  And he continued on.

[Kallin]

        After that, Kallin reached for the other untangled flows of the mosaic; he lifted them free of the scaffolding Paul and Lanaera had constructed and allowed them to leap towards him, <into> him.  His entire field of vision was filled with light, and only the faint rhythms of the other two mages kept him moving properly.  The threads blazed through him as he wove, pleaching them into an intricate lattice from the edge, spiralling inwards.  The previous weaving had contained no place for what Linnell had become; he sought to create a pattern that could accommodate her, that could and would sustain her.  That would not reject her and seek to destroy her.

        Step by slow step, Kallin moved, vaguely aware of how Lanaera and Paul moved with him, and of how the other two mages wrestled with the flows to control the speed with which they spun themselves towards him. The roar of the mosaic and the threads drowned out the voices of the others -- Morrighu's and Sue's songs, Geiren's chant, Darmon's melodies.  Kallin knew only the liquescent fire of Politi magic, and behind it the cold ice of <between> waiting.

        ::Here,:: he whispered, and the threads answered

                <no>

        ::Here,:: Kallin insisted again, forcing the flows into new channels.  Step by step, lacing the threads together, adding in the rich yellow that had marked Johanna's life-line, and the crystalline blue that had been Wyland.  ::Here.::  And with every new binding he added, he could feel the flows yanking at his own patterns, seeking to rework him, to remake him.  To spin him <out> and <into> the mosaic itself.

        When he breathed out, Kallin breathed out pennons of blinding light.  When he breathed in, the thickness of the threads in his throat left him gasping.  So close, the edge between the heat of the mosaic (everything that was life to a Politi mage) and the chill of <between> (the nothingness of ... not death, but unmaking).  From step to step to step, he moved from the warmth of the gallery into the suffocating cold of <between>, the greyness sliding past his eyes in brief flashes.  Weaving the threads into a fine lace that settled reluctantly into the floor.

        Kallin pulled the threads

                <in>

and spun them

                        <out>

until he had rewoven the patterns of the mosaic, until the oak floor beneath all their feet shimmered with a new webbing of fire.  Until he stood unsteadily near those gathered about Linnell in the center, drenched in light.

        With a touch, he set the patterns to moving, and watched as the magicks of the mosaic flowed into the new channels.  The strands <shifted> around everyone on the floor, sliding past Sue and Morrighu and Geiren, tasting the Politi.  Taking no notice, either way, of Linnell -- neither greeting her as one known to the patterns, nor rejecting her.  Kallin almost felt Lanaera's slow exhalation of relief as they saw the mosaic settle into place without moving away from the pale girl at the center of the floor.

[Darmon]

        As he continued playing, Darmon watched the events unfold beneath him.  More over, he watched the rections of those involved.  The reactions of two people in particular he watched more closely.  He noticed that Lanaera was quiet as she maintained pace with Paul.  They circled the mosaic manipulating the thread, or flows of magic as he saw them, with small deft movements.  He made a mental note as he played to make sure she was alright after this ordeal was over.  He watched also as Linnell lay still on the mosaic, breathing shallowly while those around her literally wove a spell for her very existence.

[Kallin]

        Kallin left the other two mages to finish the final bindings of the mosaic, sinking to his knees near Linnell.  "Thank you," he whispered to Morrighu and Geiren.  He caught his breath as the flows surged into and <through> him again, wrapping themselves around his heart and squeezing.  He reached <out> and caught the threads, pulled them to him.  Pulled them <in>, until again every inch of his body burned with it.  Leaving the Bean Nighe and her husband to hold to Linnell's life-thread, Kallin slipped one arm under her shoulders to cradle her against his chest.  ::Two hungers,:: he sent to the others, ::two things she thirsts for.  The threads, and for blood.::

        Trembling with exhaustion, Kallin turned his other wrist up and held it out to Geiren.  He did not have the breath to ask -- the threads had stolen any air he had left in his lungs -- but his eyes asked for the other man to use a blade on him.  So he could feed Linnell, and drive the grey from her colors.

[Geiren]

An ancient look was in Geiren's gaze as he gently took Kallin's upturned hand into his own. From his belt Geiren pulled free a dagger, and with one quick slash - set Kallin's blood flowing.

Then the Hunter's claimed waited - ready to pull his friend free - should the girl, or the threads, be too hungry.

[Kallin]

        Kallin could feel the girl shudder in his embrace as the smell of his blood reached her, could feel Linnell turning almost instinctively to the open wound.  Her face, drawn and death-white, turned towards the scent, and as quickly as a heart-beat she had taken his forearm in her hands and pulled his wrist to her mouth, pressing her lips on either side of the slash and drinking, deeply, of the blood that poured out.

        And with the hot rush of blood across her tongue came a twisting, swirling strand of threads, moving from Kallin's veins into Linnell's throat.  The fire sluiced in his blood, bright pennons of light rushing out of his body and into hers, soaking into her, weaving themselves into sinew and bone.  Kallin allowed Linnell to feed from him, allowed her to draw the blood out of him.  And allowed the threads to move <in> to him, so that he could spin them <out> and push them into Linnell.

        The mage watched her colors as she fed, watched the infusion of blood and magicks push the grey back.  The threads remade her aura, and brightened it, never completely banishing the grey, but weakening it.  A flood of blinding colors moving <in>, filling his lungs, stilling his heart and restarting it, coursing through his veins, pushing into Linnell, drawn by her.  And behind the veils of fire, the greyness of <between> drawing closer, sensing his weakness, reaching for him.  Linnell continued to feed, and he could not push her away.

[Geiren/Morrighu]

Geiren gave over Linnell's life thread to Morrighu's keeping. Paul had shown him how to seek Morrighu's thread - so now Geiren took that knowledge and sought out Kallin's. Kallin's - which was mixed with a thousand others, in patterns that were far too complicated for him to disturb.

His chanting grew harsher and stronger as Geiren knelt beside his friend; the ancient tongue warding against the cold Void, telling it <notnownotnowheisnotyours>. He began to pull Kallin's wrist free from Linnell's grip.

The Bean Nighe's song wrapped itself around Linnell's thread - protecting it while Geiren pulled Kallin free.

[Kallin/Lanaera/Paul]

        Paul Rustin and Lanaera Koltke moved as opposite poles to one another around the mosaic, weaving the final bindings, both sensing what happened at the center and knowing they could do little to intervene.  Only when the last knots were tied could the mosaic be freed, and until then others would need to watch over Kallin and Linnell.  And others did.  Linnell cried aloud as Geiren pulled Kallin's wrist from her; her mouth and the front of her shift were stained crimson with his still flowing blood.  But she had fed, and fed well, and the threads moving in her were more than enough to sustain her.

        The cold had started to unravel Kallin, pulling apart his patterns, unmaking him.  But the rhythm of Geiren's chant caught the ragged edges and pieced them together again.  The mosaic shifted, and the threads spun free, spun round, spiralled in.  And remade him, leaving him shuddering with fire on the floor.

[Geiren]

Geiren took his bloodied dagger and cut free some of Kallin's grey sleeve, which he then wrapped around his friend's bleeding wrist.

[Linnell]

        Only half-coherent, if that, Linnell scrambled back, appalled at the taste of Kallin's blood on her lips, aching for something she could not name.  For the rich pulse of life she had felt in Kallin.

[Morrighu]

The Bean Nighe knelt and caught the girl, gently holding her, murmuring soft reassurances to Linnell.

[Linnell/Kallin]

        ::Blood,:: Linnell whispered, ::Kallin's blood,:: such a hot, rich taste on her tongue, burning with the colors of the threads.  She huddled into Morrighu's embrace, and wept.
 

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