STORIES In From The Mists A Glass Darkly The Chapel And The Ravens OTHER Game Log Who's Who Glossary Timeline

The following morning, Geraint, Frach, Rhuadh and Aaron wake to a cold, clear day and the muted sound of the winter chorus of morning birds. One by one they each make their way down to the kitchen of Colby manor to find Baron Colby wrestling with the Aga, battling to avoid burning the bacon and eggs which sizzle atop its grill. It has been some years since Douglas cooked for himself and he is not doing a very good job of it. But the Baron has given all of his staff the day off to try and recover from the night's ordeal and is insistent on fetching his own breakfast. Frach gives him a hand with the oven (he has overstuffed the furnace and the plate temperature is too high for cooking) and then the five men sit around and discuss the events of the previous night and their implications. Colby suggests that someone should have a word with Trevelyan St Clair at some point when the boy has recovered; if his father dies then he will be the new Baron St Clair and he too may be a target for assassination.

After that, Douglas goes off to talk to some of his staff members and the other four make their way down to the basement to examine the body of Peiter Iago. All the bodies from the previous day, 13 in total, are laid out wrapped in burlap sacks in the musty basement of the manor, in amongst the barrels of tar and bitumen, of pitch and whisky and casks of porter, the dried spices and spare roof slates and many other stores that fill the basement. Many of the bodies have small keepsakes that have been laid at their head or feet by those still living and when they open Pieter's sack they find that someone has spat on his face.

Searching Pieter's body they find his knife bandolier, which is cleverly designed with a reservoir that feeds poison to the blades, which are specially made with a grooved surface which draws the poison up onto them through capilliary action. Rhuadh takes the bandolier and Aaron finds in one of Pieter's boots an 8cm dracheneisen blade which folds into its own handle. The device is too small to be an effective weapon, but is obviously designed to be a shiv for popping open locks. Given enough leverage, most simple locks will give before it. They also find another unexploded grenade, with a small wax capsule at the tip of its fuse. What they do not find are significant clues to his identity or motives.

Rhuadh mentions that he thinks he could probably find his way back through the forest to the abandoned leprosarium that Pieter had been using as his base in the region. The girls have still not emerged from Henrietta's room, so the four men make ready to ride out alone. While Geraint is straightening his doublet in the mirror in the main entranceway, he is approached by Issie, the redheaded maid who serves Henrietta. She asks him if he thinks Pieter is Lord Magpie and, when drawn on the matter, admits that many of the staff are whispering that he is, but that she doesn't think so because she suspects that Miss Henrietta has met Lord Magpie on one or more of her rides and that, were he Pieter, Henrietta would no longer be alive. Geraint concurs with this and then Issie tells him that her real reason for seeking him out is to ask if they have found Domingo yet. She explains that as they were fleeing into the corridor from the grenade, Domingo siezed up as if in a trance, muttered something in Castillian and then raced off down the stairs, as fast as his injuries would let him. Geraint admits that the Castillian is still missing and decides to look for him after visiting the leprosarium.

En route to the leprosarium, Aaron spots the hoofprints of a horse left in the mud of last night's rains. Diverting to the stable they find that Geraint's horse, Laphroaig, is missing. Jack and Jim are able to tell them that they saw a figure whom they took to be Lord Magpie (but whom the group suspect was Domingo) mount the horse shortly after the explosion in the main house and then ride into the teeth of the storm.

At the leprosarium they find the rest of Pieter's things - the clothes and bell of a leper, a travel cloak, sleeping bag a mysterious leather-bound book in Ussuran and a number of small brown glass phials, similar to the arsenic phial found in the kitchens. The phials are colour coded. Aaron also finds Pieter's mule tied up in the crumbling back courtyard. The mule is very defensive and tries hard to kick him when he approaches it, but Geraint is pretty good with horses and manages to get it calmed down. In its saddle bags they find some string and other oddments, but still no real clues.

Returning to the stables, they check the mule in and Geraint borrows Blackfell, one of the Baron's horses, to ride. They follow Domingo's trail east across the valley and into the gorge cut by the river Jarl as it flows west to the sea. Eventually, the river snakes across their path and they come to a ford. Here Aaron Flynn dismounts and admits that he cannot cross running water. There is some debate and eventually Rhuadh climbs the cliffside, throws a rope between two trees back aways and Aaron climbs over on this rope bridge. On the far side of the gorge they find evidence that Domingo came off his horse at this point but that he then remounted and road on.

At the far end of the gorge, behind a line of firs, lies the town of Caer Einion, the tower of whose small chapel with its Vaticine cross mounted in brass atop it can be seen over the tops of the trees. By this time, they are aware of numerous ravens flocking over the town. Other than the raucous calls of the birds, there is total stillness. Not a sound, animal or human, disturbs the quietude of the afternoon. Dismounting, and tethering their horses in the empty square, they begin to explore the town. Houses stand empty with candles burned out. Half-eaten food is strewn about. A solitary grey cat hisses malevolently at Aaron and Rhuadh from beneath an abandoned cart in the town square.

Domingo's tracks lead up to the chapel of St Pellaeus. Sir Frach lets himself inside. From the crosswall, an enormous round window throws the fiery gules of the image of St Pellaeus, a crusader, across the empty, dust-laden pews in a collage of crimson and azure shades. At the far end, near the altar, a solitary figure kneels in a burlap robe, apparently praying. The figure gives no sign of having heard the knights enter. While Frach walks down the aisle, towards the figure, Geraint makes his way down the aisle at the far side, passing through a door at the end into the sanctum at the base of the tower.

In the sanctum, Geraint beholds twin images facing one another. In the north wall the Second Prophet is pictured, arms spread, either dividing or uniting Vodacce and Castille, depending on one's point of view. Between his feet, tiny crusaders dot the sands of some distant desert kingdom. And above his spread arms lie the green fields of Avalon, lined round with faerie flowers and tiny sprites. Facing him, from the south wall, a knight bends the knee beside a great Avalonian lake, from which rises the figure of a woman, clad in samine and with a look of sadness and wonder in her deep blue eyes. Taking this figure to be the Lady of the Lake, Sir Geraint lights candles for his late father and his lost lady Moira and mutters a prayer to the Prophet and the Lady to protect their souls. It must just be a shift in the angle of the sun, but for a moment its rays catch perfectly in the crystal tears set into the glass depiction of the lady's face, casting rainbow spears across the praying knight.

With the kneeling figure still ignoring him, Sir Frach lays a hand on the man's shoulder. The figure leaps up in start, or tries to, being rather too old. Frach beholds an aged man with a dumpy nose and bristly white eyebrows and watery brown eyes. When the knight attempts to speak to him the man produces from inside his robe an enormous brass ear trumpet through which he attempts to listen. But even with this aid he proves to be totally incapable of understanding anything said to him. He is, in fact, stone deaf. Nonetheless, Frach is able to gather from him that this fellow woke up this morning to find his wife, and all the other townsfolk, totally absent. He seems most upset about his wife; who, he asks, will cook and clean for him now?

Outside, Aaron has found more interesting tracks. After visiting the chapel, it appears that Domingo rode away to the north. In fact, the churned and muddy ground bears indication that the whole town headed north at some point recently, probably still during the rains. Moreover, the tracks loop and curl with a peculiar rythmn. It almost appears as if the townspeople had been dancing as they wandered from their homes out into the night and storm. Disturbed, Aaron returns to the chapel.

Rhuadh, meanwhile, has let himself into the chapel and taken the door behind the pulpet, climbing up to the top of the tower. He passes through a small library and kitchen on the first floor and comes to the Priests' quarters on the top floor. From the window, a large raven regards him with one beady eye. Drawing his dagger, Rhuadh shoos it out the window and it circles away, crying. In the Priest's quarters Rhuadh finds two beds with the covers sprawled off them, as if their inhabitants left them in haste, and a candle which has burned down entirely, overflowing the tray of its holder to cement itself with wax to the table. Gazing out the window to the north, the Hebridean's keen eyes spot a small cloud of what he can only take to be frost or steam over the forest. To the south he can see that one of the houses of the village appears to be smouldering, as if on fire.

The four decide to investigate the burning house first, not wishing the village to be incinerated in their absence. It seems, however, that the fire here happened many hours ago, probably still during the storm, and that the fury of the rains kept the sparks from setting light to other buildings. The inside of the house, however, is gutted, with everything reduced to a mess of glowing embers. Leaving the deaf old fellow to mutter to himself, the four men mount their horses and ride north into the forests. En route, Sir Frach asks Aaron Flynn why he can't cross running water and what would happen to him if he did.

They ride north for an hour or so, at first following the beaten mud road through the forest, but soon turning off to follow the tracks into the depths of the woods. It is about this time that things start to get colder and they realize that ahead, there is thick frost on the ground. Examining the crushed grasses, Aaron concludes that they were first trampled and then frozen. They pass spiders' webs clad with ice-beads and ferns gilt in the armour of frost before they come to a great clearing, where overhead ravens circle.

At the far side of the clearing, a small brook falls twenty feet or so down an outcropping of rock in a little waterfall, forming a teardrop-shaped pool before it wanders away to the west. Strikingly, the waterfall showers out from the rock at an unnatural angle about halfway down, and they can see a human figure standing in the middle of that waterfall, with something the colour of flame about its head. More amazing still, they find Domingo Esteban midway across that pool, frozen motionless in the action of wading out towards that figure in the waterfall. Domingo is sheathed in ice, and radiating out from him in all directions is a great snowflake, superposed on the pool, central to the vale of frost that lies over this part of the forest. Men and horses alike, the group notice their breath steaming.

While they ponder this scene, Geraint's horse, Laphroaig, comes trotting up to them. He has been ridden here barebacked by Domingo but seems to be unharmed and content, albeit a little nervous. About this time, Aaron and Geraint start to hear a distant but compelling music - as of fiddle and pipes - coming from the direction of the waterfall. Impulsively, Aaron takes Geraint's hand and the pair begin to skip along the bank towards the falls. Frach also hears the music but it has no particular effect on him. Indeed, he feels it rather plain and crudely played. However, he can see that it is having an enchanting effect upon his comrades so he rushes after them and slaps them back to sanity, literally. Rhuadh McCodrum does not hear the music. Indeed, as they have journeyed further east and further inland he has been feeling more and more landsick and nauseous. He realizes that he can no longer feels the tempo of the swell and subsidance of the sea and it greatly disturbs him. However, he resolves to muster himself to help out how he may.

Sir Frach addresses himself to the lady - for such she is - who stands within the waterfall and asks if this is her doing. She answers in a voice like the sounding of many silver bells, saying that indeed it is not. A cruel lord has arranged to trap her here within the waters, having abducted the townsfolk of Caereinion and played some trick upon the Naiads of this place to get them to cooperate in her incarceration. Frach asks if she swears that she speaks honestly, and she says she does. Then he asks her if she deserves such ill treatment. With a quaver in her voice, she admits she does.

The group then resolve to enter the cave behind the waterfall and try and free the townsfolk and, if possible, the lady. Frach goes first, imitating the skip of the possessed, with the others following him. Coming up out of the waters he enters a great round cave in the side of the rocky promontory, its walls all lit with a shifting aquamarine light. As he skips down this tunnel, he comes into a great round chamber with a central pool containing a bubbling fountain. All the townsfolk of Caer Einion are sitting around, some eating faerie cakes or drinking wine from gourds, others sitting and dabbling their muddy toes in the pool, while behind them on a raised shelf of rock two little goblins make mad music on fife and fiddle. The fiddling goblin is skinny as sinew with a long, hooked nose and discoloured tufts of hair which sprout at random from his head. The fluting goblin is squatter and faintly greenish in colour, with a neck which bulges and bloats like a frog's while he plays. He wears a scarlet cap with white spots like a mushroom's. Behind them on the wall hangs a crude leather tapestry sporting a leering goblin face. The others have also entered the tunnel, a bit behind Frach, having found a narrow ledge that allows the to duck under the waterfall and slink along to the entrance.

Dancing close enough, Frach suddenly draws forth his Dietrich blade and slashes out, slicing the fiddle in half and nearly taking the musician's arm with it. Immediately, the fat goblin whips out a small vial from his doublet and tosses it on the ground, filling half the room with a terrible slate-green cloud made of innumerable biting gnats. The gnats sting Frach's flesh all over and he can feel the wicked blades of the goblins slide off his Dracheneisen breastplate as they try to disembowel him. Simulatneously, with the music stopped, all of the townsfolk who had eaten or drunk the faerie provender fall into a deep slumber, like puppets with their strings cut. Several collapse into the pool and begin to drown there. The others, beset by the stinging cloud and terrified by their sudden displacement, begin to panic and to run randomly to and fro. Rhuadh, who was close to Frach gets caught in the cloud and stumbles into the pool. To his surprise, its waters both clear away his stings and serve to revitalise that part of his soul which misses the call of the waters. In the tunnel, Sir Geraint is shouting to the villagers to move towards him, trying to herd as many as possible out to the waterfall and the waking world. Aaron Flynn, meanwhile, concentrates his Glamour magic through the legend of Thomas and reaches out to shut down the Goblin cloud.

Suddenly, the gnats vanish and Frach finds himself face to face with the skinny goblin, which seems to hang in the air in mid-leap a moment, a wicked curved dagger en route towards his throat. Frach freezes and it is only the timely intervention of Sir Geraint that saves him, as the Avalon throws himself across the intervening distance to smack the goblin full force with the edge of his rapier. Of course, the steel blade cannot hurt even a lesser Sidhe, but the creature goes flying off the wall and scurrying away into the crowds. The fat goblin, meanwhile, gives Frach a nasty cut to the leg, although missing the tendons of his knee, and then goes scurrying between his legs, impelled by a swat from Geraint's rapier, straight into the arms of Rhuadh, who has risen from the waters to strike at him. With unpredictable speed, the goblin leaps over Rhuadh's Seelie blade - of which it is definitely terrified - and runs into the crowd. Frach dashes after it and shouts for Aaron to stop it. But Aaron meanwhile has seen the skinny goblin riding past him, atop the shoulders of an old lady whom it is spurring forward like a horse, digging its bony heels into her flanks. When Aaron steps within striking range the creature ducks his first swing and then produces a strange gourd, like a fingerbone. Blowing on the gourd it shoots a stream of viscous black liquid across Aaron's face and Aaron can feel countless maggots begin to eat into his flesh. He drops to the ground, hands pawing at his face.

In the press of the crowd, Frach gets ahead of the fat goblin, running past the fallen Aaron, and stations himself on the narrow ledge beneath the waterfall, ready to block the creature's escape. A fat blacksmith blunders into his way and Frach pushes the man out, into the waters. Then the goblin rounds the corner and leaps impossibly, passing over Frach's head and just beneath the streaming waters. Desperately, Frach clutches after it and, catching the trailing end of its belt, flips it out, over the pool. In mid-air the goblin begins to scream, and when it hits the pool a great whirlpool roils around it, washing the creature apart as if it were so much jelly, sprayed with a hose. Its colours run out into the circling waters and are swept away.

In the cave, the panic is beginning to subside. With fat black worms tunneling into his flesh, Aaron again calls on the legend of Thomas to disbelieve and annul the goblin evil. Reaching up, he peels the entire layer of blackness, dead-worm-ends and all, off of his face like a shed layer of skin, leaving his countenance unblemished. Rhuadh, meanwhile, is rescuing the drowning villagers from the pool. Sir Geraint pulls down the ugly goblin hanging to find that it conceals a door of beautiful riverblue crystal, from behind which a thin cackling may be heard in the sudden silence. Swinging the door open, he finds a third goblin, labouring under a hunch nearly as big as the rest of its body, in the process of torturing the pair of naiads that call these falls their home. The naiads, who appear to be young girls with bodies formed entirely of water, are chained in bonds of cruel cold iron, while the goblin heats a poker in a small brazier fashioned from the impossible shells of gigantic roaches. Disgusted by this creature, Geraint tosses the leather hanging over its head then, while it is still confused, gathers up the corners and knots them into a bag. Muttering a stream of oaths against all creatures of Unseelie kind, he marches straight to the now-empty pool and tosses the bag in. There is a high thin scream and goblin, bag and all burst into a tremendous cloud of steam that fills the room a moment or two before the cool and liquid bubbling of the waters is restored. Aaron uses the dracheneisen shiv he took from Pieter to pop open the locks to the iron chains and the naiads are free. However, they still cower in terror, mumbling that "he" will not be pleased by this turn of events.

From the mouth of the cave, Sir Frach calls to the others. Most of the villagers who are still conscious have spilled out onto the banks by the pool, but now the skies over the glade are thick with a gathering of dark birds. As the naiads and the others make their way out to the waterfall, the birds come together in a great dark knot. Then, suddenly, they part, all rising to thicket the branches of every tree. Where their knot was densest is left the figure of a tall man, clad all in a great swirl of absolute black, with black eyes, a cruel face and a great mane of silver hair. He is Alleander, the Lord of Ravens and a high prince of the Seelie court. He demands to know what these mortals think they are doing, interfering with what he refers to as his "rightful vengeance." When pressed, he explains that the Sidhe lady in the waterfall is his wife, Nephrindel, who has been cheating on him with the human, Domingo Esteban. For months now the village of Caer Einion has been their trysting place. To punish her, he had the goblins lure the villagers here and when she followed the naiads trapped her in the falls. Then Alleander himself lay in wait for Domingo, whom he knew Nephrindel would call to for aid. When the Castillian arrived, Alleander turned him to ice, so that the helpless cuckold could watch her lover slowly melt while she stood helpless.

Again, Frach asks the lady Nephrindel if this is true. And she, with a quaver in her voice, admits that it is so. However, she adds, poor Domingo is innocent, for she never told him that she was trothed to another, and she begs them to save him if they can. Geraint then speaks to Alleander, flattering him, and suggesting that perhaps a worse punishment for Domingo would be to be allowed to go free, knowing that he would not see his lover again and that she was helpless at the mercy of the one she had betrayed. Alleander is convinced by Geraint's words, but warns that if Domingo ever returns to the glade he will destroy him utterly. Unwilling to break Elaine's truce with the high court and mindful of the many vulnerable townsfolk, Geraint agrees to this. Alleander gestures and the ice heaves and cracks, and suddenly Domingo goes limp and sinks into the waters. Rhuadh dives in and drags him out; the Castillian's skin is cold as ice and his pulse is weak but steady. He will live. Then of a sudden the ravens all cry greatly and swoop down to a great dark mass of feathers and motion around Alleander. Then they break for the sky in two great coils, which unravel into flocks, departing for east and west and leaving the green gladeside empty and still.

Within the walls of her watery prison, the lady Nephrindel breaks down in sobs, alternately cursing the men who saved her love and thanking them. She makes them promise that they will not permit Domingo to return to this glade, and warns them that he will try. Frach tries to speak with her further but she turns on him, hissing "Go. Just go." Gathering the many weakened and unconscious villagers, and their horses, the men turn and ride back to the road and the abandoned village to the south, while the Sidhe princess's sobs, intermingling with the cries of the last straggling ravens, gradually become lost in the thickness of the woods behind them.

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