R
red_dog
Guest
Well, just to get into the spirit of the thing, here is a story I wrote that I am particularly proud of. It was posted originally on Taverns of Camelot, and concerns events that took place on that storytelling/RP forum over several months.
Just so you know, although my character's name ingame is Ciian the Enduring One, I was posting in the Taverns of Camelot as Cian the Enduring One for nearly six months before I even purchased DAoC. By the time I got round to it, the name had been taken, so the explanation for the extra 'i' is that that is how the people of Connla pronounce it, which is, of course, where Cian finally trained to become a warden.(You gotta work with these things, doncha?) This story was originally done to mark my actually starting to play the game.
Anyway, read it if you have a care to...
Since returning from the frozen wastes of Midgard, Cian the Enduring One has been as a ghost haunting the Willow Tavern. Yes, he continues to carry out his duties for Grist Hoppingbung, cleaning, repairing and keeping the lurikeen pot-boys in line. But where once he was so full of life the pot boys enjoyed his company, even if he did make them do their least favourite thing, hard work, now they shun him, fearful of his terrible countenance and the stinging blows he metes out in near silence. Indeed, barely a word has escaped his lips since his return.
The reason for this change? It seems to be the ancient looking tome that he keeps constantly by his side, found by Lafala Arifel but studied intently by Cian, who seems to have some capacity for translating its words where others have failed. Every spare moment he has is taken up with perusing its pages, although the pot boys have begun to whisper that this is due to feelings of great guilt, since Cian has been unable to decipher enough of the text to help locate the lost nightshade Harawyn, despite his earlier confident claims that it would do so. He is wracked by an overwhelming sense of failure, they say, since the enduring one had thought the trip to Midgard, so obviously foretold in the text with it's references to a place of 'jaki' (or great cold as the tongue of the trolls of Midgard would have it), would lead to Harawyn, but it seems that this was not to be...
They say that I no longer sleep, tortured by the secrets of the book, endlessly repeating those words within it that I can understand.
But I do manage to scrape together a few hours of rest, here and there, when exhaustion overtakes me and I can no longer keep my eyes open. Even in sleep, however, there is no escape, for the voices in my mind, the rememberances of other lives that I had begun to quieten, now speak as if reading passages from the book, voicing those words whose meaning I have no hope of understanding.
My dreams also conspire to haunt me, for often I see a cave whose walls are covered with glyphs and symbols that seem somehow similar to the ones contained in the pages of the book. Harawyn is also there, but if I try to talk to him he fades away, lost to the darkness. The writing on the wall promises to help me decipher the book, but the letters there seem resist my attempts to understand them! Sometimes this taunting goes further, for just as I am about to uncover the meaning of just one part of the manuscript, I am forced awake, and the undeciphered passages in this book remain as lost to me as Harawyn is.
Yet the book remains, often clutched to my chest as I sleep, growing larger to my sight until it fills my vision, and I must look away lest it consumes me. But return to it I must, for I am compelled to learn the terrible secrets of 'the dragon' and the 'heart of darkness'...
They say that I have lost my mind...
It has been another night of turmoil for Cian, lost in the book that seems to have become a leech that sucks all the life-force from him. After hours of fruitless toil, the meaning of many of the book's passages still eluding him, the celt falls asleep on his bed, the book dropping to the floor as he loses consciousness.
Cian slips into a dream...
It was a face he recognised, a man's face, signs of great strain showing even as he slept fitfully. As Cian looked down upon the face, realisation slowly dawned that he was looking at himself, asleep in his bed. He seemed to be suspended in the air, looking down on himself, and realised that this must be another dream. He started to relax, realising that if this was a dream, and not some terrible magic, he had no form, just consciousness. All about him he could sense the sturdy presence of the Willow Tavern, feel every plank and nail as the building shifted slightly, as wooden buildings are wont to do. He could also feel the presence of every living being beneath its roof, most sleeping as his own body was, others awake but in their rooms, brooding over their own problems. When he tried to move, however, he realised that he could not, so instead he waited to see where this curious dream would take him.
Cian did not have to wait long, for suddenly his whole perspective changed, and he was seemingly hundreds of feet above the tavern. Looking down, he took in every detail, from the very slates on the roof he had repaired that day long ago when Aran had also sought sanctuary at the very top of the tavern following a prank that went wrong, to the shed he had to rebuild when it was demolished by the troll shaman Dozigden. He felt happy as he looked down upon the Willow, for he had truly made it his home.
His viewpoint shifted slightly, and Cian took in the surroundings of the tavern, the green fields and mighty trees of Hibernia. The land was dark, but his vision seemed to be equal to that of the eagle, for he could see for many miles. He was reminded of a conversation he had with Harawyn once,
"This land, Harawyn, it calls to me! From the very earth below to the skies above, from the mighty trees to the rushing rivers, I hear its song, and my soul seems to sing out in response. And every step that I take within this land makes me stronger, not those whose lives I have shared, or he who took this name before me, but me! Maybe it is because I come from an uncertain past, where I could not even claim my memories as my own, but I am starting to feel a deep…connection with this place, where every glance is rewarded with a sight of beauty, where the people are both brave and fair, and where I can shape both my present and my future.
And just as we derive protection from the land, so too does the land deserve our protection from those who would rob it of its treasures. I cannot say that I understand fully the nature of the wars being fought on the borderlands, but if the battle is to preserve what I have seen in the few short days that I have been awake in this world, then I feel that it must be a war worth waging. Everyone deserves a home, be they from Hibernia, Midgard or Albion, but not if it is at another’s expense…"
As these words returned to him, Cian's mind seemed to range across the entire realm, from the darkest forest to the tallest mountain, from the fairest city to the wide expanses of the sea, and he saw areas of light amongst the gloom of night, where elves and men, lurikeen and firbolg, sought to create something of goodness, either through their actions or their words.
But he also saw patches of a deeper darkness within the night. One such patch was very close to the Willow Tavern, which in Cian's mind's eye seemed to take the form of a tall figured swathed in shadows, whose intentions to those inside the tavern were decidedly ill-favoured. Another area of darkness seemed far beyond the horizon, in the area of the cursed forest, but it was a darkness so all-consuming that he feared to look into it, lest he also succumbed to its evil.
As he looked about him from this lofty vantage point, Cian began to fancy that he heard a cry upon the wind, so faint that it was almost beyong his hearing. The more he looked about him at the land of Hibernia, the stronger and more insistent the noise became, seeming to his ear to be somewhere between the cry of a child, the sound of the wind amongst the uppermost branches of a tree, the roar of the waves upon the shore, and the lonely screech of a hunting bird. He looked in all directions for the source of the cry, but it was in vain...
Then, Cian heard the rushing of a great wind in his ears, and the scene began to shift rapidly. From his position hundreds of feet above the Willow, he was suddenly launched forwards, and he began to fly across the night sky of Hibernia as if he were an arrow shot from the most powerful of bows. He looked down, and the landscape was flying past beneath him faster than any bird could fly. Woods, streams, rivers and mountains all flew past, and soon he no longer recognised any of the terrain. Yes, it was still Hibernia, but a Hibernia that was beyond his own experience.
With some trepidation he also noticed that the further he flew the closer to the ground he got, and he began to fear that his non-corporeal state might suddenly disappear, and he would be dashed on the unyielding landscape below. Looking ahead, it seemed that his trajectory was arching towards a dark forest, and before he knew it the gnarled branches of ancient oaks and hornbeam were reaching up as if to snatch him greedily from the sky and smash him to the ground, where he belonged. Cian flung up his arms in an attempt to protect himself as the trees rushed towards him, and he cursed whatever powers had allowed him to usurp the realm of the air, were only birds might rightfully roam...
He opened his eyes, and found himself standing amongst the tangled darkness of the wildwood. This was no carefully managed woodland, where the hand of man had pollarded or coppiced the trees and harvested them for the wood. No, here the natural habits of the tree could be seen, since whilst mighty oaks, alders and hornbeams towered above him, other trees had rotted at the base and come crashing down, or else been knocked down in a storm and continued to live horizontal to the ground, to form criss-cross lattices of impenetrable forest. All about him, tangled shrubs and saplings covered the forest floor, and he struggled to see clearly in any direction, so close about was the mass of undergrowth.
It was silent in the wildwood, as if some blanket had been lain across the normal noise of animal life that one would have expected to hear there. Then, the wood was pierced by the same cry that Cian had heard earlier above the Willow Tavern. This time, it was close, and Cian found that his physical self had returned, for he had to push his way through the undergrowth towards the source of the sound. As he did so, he noticed that a silvery light was beginning to permeate the dark wood, the light growing stronger with every step he took towards the noise.
The tangled wildwood soon gave way to a mossy clearing, where only a few bog oaks stood, their feet surrounded by damp earth. The light that Cian had seen appeared to be cast by the moon, and it illuminated the entire clearing. However, as he looked about him, Cian realised that rather than simply finding its way down through a gap in the dense foliage of the surrounding trees, the moonlight was being drawn to a single spot in the clearing. Indeed, the distinction between the dark gloom of the wood and the incandescent pool of moonlight at the centre of the clearing was so great that Cian was afraid he might be blinded, and shielded his eyes with his hand. Even so, the enduring one was drawn towards the light, his feet sinking into the boggy ground with every step he took, until he was wading knee deep. Still he was drawn forward, in no more control of his actions than the tiny twig floating upon the raging torrent, and soon he too was enveloped by the light.
He could see. Still the clearing lay about him, and still the moonlight streamed down from above, but his vision had cleared. Nearby, Cian saw an enourmous shape, dark and hulking yet drawing the light towards it. He began to be afraid, when a voice came to him. Whilst it emanated from the huge shape, it also seemed to reverberate from the surrounding forest. And yet it did not actually seem to reach Cian's ears, but instead welled up within him so that he felt rather than heard it. It was not a human voice, for it contained all of the sounds Cian had heard in the earlier distant cry, and now that he was close to its apparent source, he noticed that it seemed to incorporate so much more, a millions sounds, a million voices, the sum of many millenia.
"We meet again, little one", boomed the voice, and as it spoke Cian began to see that the figure was that of an enormous bear, its fur dark as night and its teeth and claws as sharp as razors. As it turned to face him, he saw that its eyes held a dreadful and ancient intelligence, and it seemed to see straight down into the very core of Cian's being, leaving nothing hidden from its sight. Cian suddenly realised that he recognised the bear, for it was the very creature that Myronael Angethal had summoned the night that the dark one had sought to wrest the locket of Tir from Lafala, threatening to murder every single occupant of the Willow until he was given what he wanted. Both Myronael and the bear had eventually been driven off, with Cian seeking to avoid any further innocent blood being shed by urging his friends to scare the bear away, rather than kill it simply because the evil Myronael had seen fit to include it in his wicked plan. Enormous as it had seemed at the time, the bear now towered above Cian, filled with a vitality that had not seemed likely to regain last time Cian had seen it, given that the creature had been covered in wounds, not only pierced all over by Aran's arrows, but still carrying Morwen's spear in it's back as it had retreated to the forest.
"You and your friends showed great presence of mind that night, human, for your peril was great. None shrank back from the task of protecting friend and family, hearth and home, despite the fact that any one of your lives could have been forfeit. It was a true test, a trial by fire, and all came through it well."
The bear shifted on its haunches slightly, and Cian gasped with surprise when he saw that still embedded near its spine was Morwen's spear, the intricate designs along it's shaft picked out by the moonlight.
"Ah yes, I still carry a token of that night, for the story started then has yet to reach its conclusion. But we will speak of that matter in due time. First..."
Suddenly the bear reared up onto its hind legs, dwarfing Cian. It let out a terrifying roar, the force of which made Cian fall to his knees clasping the sides of his head, lest his eardrums burst. The wildwood all around seemed to echo and amplify the roar, and the very stars in the night sky appeared to reverberate with its force. Tears sprang to Cian's eyes as the bear fell back down on all fours again.
"I am older than the sun and brother to the stars. I have seen the seas rise and fall, and witnessed the cataclysms that forced the mountains to arise. I remember the time before, and have drunk from the glacial pools when ice once covered this land. I know the names of all creatures and have nurtured the roots of every plant and every tree that the earth has spawned. I have seen them rise and I have seen them fall. I was here at the beginning, and I will be here at the end..."
"I roamed this realm long before man and firbolg had learned to walk and not fear the sun, and it was I who welcomed the elves and the lurikeen when first they emerged from behind the Veil. Those who the Celts call gods are my charges, for my roar was heard long before the time of Arthur-king, and long before the coming of the legions from the south, who marched under the banner of the eagle. I have many names, but they called me 'Ursa', and they learned to fear my coming and avoided my path. I am the land and the sea, the mighty river and the tiny brook, the plains and the forest; I am all things."
The roaring stopped just as soon as it had started, and the great bear approached Cian, nuzzling him with a tenderness that seemed at odds with the ferocity it had just recently displayed.
"I have called you here because it is time for you to make a choice, little mortal. You are not of this world, yet through your actions and your words you have professed great love for Hibernia. It is not a love that should be spoken of lightly, for the land is unforgiving. There is no tenderness or caring in nature, human, only the need for respect. Without that respect, you will die, as surely as all mortal works will fade and rot away. But in stating that you seek to make Hibernia your home, you must make a commitment to it, and go out into that world and live. There will be many dangers, both to you personally, and to those you call your friends, but for the land to flourish, man must play his part, or at least die trying. Will you take up this challenge?"
Cian nodded mutely. Any words he could say seemed feeble and stupid in the face of this force of nature. Equally, he knew that the bear could see deep into his soul, past the crowded memories of previous lives, to his very essence, and it would instinctively know what answer might be found there to its question.
The bear did indeed appear to know Cian's thoughts even before he did, for after staring into his eyes for what felt like an eternity, it seemed satisfied with what it saw within the man known to those at the Willow Tavern as Cian, the enduring one. It started to address Cian again, turning slightly so that the shaft of Morwen's spear was pointing towards him.
"There are many tales left in you mortal, not least the one told by that face you wear, but more important matters demand your attention just now. You might not know it, but all that is shrouded and hidden from you will soon become clear. For the moment, I demand that you make a sign of your commitment to move forward from this day you will never regret embarking upon, no matter how terrible the consequences might seem. Take this spear from my flesh, open up the wound that has healed around it, and with my blood seal this pact. If you do not wish to do so I will let you leave this place with nothing to bind us, and nothing to bind you to this land. But if you return the weapon to its rightful owner, you will set in train a sequence of events that you will never regret embarking upon, no matter how terrible the consequences might seem."
Cian looked down at the shaft of the spear, and couldn't help smiling as he recalled Morwen's almost childlike anguish as her favourite weapon had been carried away. But his recollections were soon overtaken by the task that had been set, and grasping the spear firmly in both hands he pulled with all his might. As the bear had foretold the wound on its back opened with the attempted removal of the spear, and the creature roared once again, this time in pain. The ground shook with the force of its pain, and Cian had to struggle to keep his footing. The noise was so great that Cian was wracked with pain, blood spilling from his nose and ears as if his very body was going to be torn asunder. His pain and the bear's pain was one, and it's source lay in his own hands as he pulled at the spear, twisting it one way and then the other so that the head came out cleanly. But with every turn Cian was wounded too, so much so that his own cries of anguish mingled with those of the bear's, and threatened to bring the very stars tumbling down upon their heads.
And then it was over. The spear was firmly in Cian's grasp, the bear's blood coating his hands and forearms as it had gushed down the shaft, whilst the bear itself sat a little distance away, licking at its wound for all the world like an ordinary bear, albeit one of gigantic proportions. Nothing more was said, and as Cian looked down at the weapon in his hands, the moonlight faded. The wildwood and the bear disappeared, to be replaced by the more familiar surroundings of Cian's room. He was back in his own body again, sleeping the same fitful sleep he had been having earlier in the night.
A dream, all a dream, he thought as his mind returned to the problem of the book, and as the voices that were constantly with him began to speak as one, reading passages from the book whose meaning had escaped him.
All a dream...
But when he awoke, the Enduring One would find that his feet were covered with a dark, peaty mud that is only found at the heart of the deepest, oldest forest, whilst the dried blood of some animal stained his hands. And in the corner of his room, propped up against the wall, Cian would find a familiar carved spear, where none had been when he had gone to sleep...
Just so you know, although my character's name ingame is Ciian the Enduring One, I was posting in the Taverns of Camelot as Cian the Enduring One for nearly six months before I even purchased DAoC. By the time I got round to it, the name had been taken, so the explanation for the extra 'i' is that that is how the people of Connla pronounce it, which is, of course, where Cian finally trained to become a warden.(You gotta work with these things, doncha?) This story was originally done to mark my actually starting to play the game.
Anyway, read it if you have a care to...
Since returning from the frozen wastes of Midgard, Cian the Enduring One has been as a ghost haunting the Willow Tavern. Yes, he continues to carry out his duties for Grist Hoppingbung, cleaning, repairing and keeping the lurikeen pot-boys in line. But where once he was so full of life the pot boys enjoyed his company, even if he did make them do their least favourite thing, hard work, now they shun him, fearful of his terrible countenance and the stinging blows he metes out in near silence. Indeed, barely a word has escaped his lips since his return.
The reason for this change? It seems to be the ancient looking tome that he keeps constantly by his side, found by Lafala Arifel but studied intently by Cian, who seems to have some capacity for translating its words where others have failed. Every spare moment he has is taken up with perusing its pages, although the pot boys have begun to whisper that this is due to feelings of great guilt, since Cian has been unable to decipher enough of the text to help locate the lost nightshade Harawyn, despite his earlier confident claims that it would do so. He is wracked by an overwhelming sense of failure, they say, since the enduring one had thought the trip to Midgard, so obviously foretold in the text with it's references to a place of 'jaki' (or great cold as the tongue of the trolls of Midgard would have it), would lead to Harawyn, but it seems that this was not to be...
They say that I no longer sleep, tortured by the secrets of the book, endlessly repeating those words within it that I can understand.
But I do manage to scrape together a few hours of rest, here and there, when exhaustion overtakes me and I can no longer keep my eyes open. Even in sleep, however, there is no escape, for the voices in my mind, the rememberances of other lives that I had begun to quieten, now speak as if reading passages from the book, voicing those words whose meaning I have no hope of understanding.
My dreams also conspire to haunt me, for often I see a cave whose walls are covered with glyphs and symbols that seem somehow similar to the ones contained in the pages of the book. Harawyn is also there, but if I try to talk to him he fades away, lost to the darkness. The writing on the wall promises to help me decipher the book, but the letters there seem resist my attempts to understand them! Sometimes this taunting goes further, for just as I am about to uncover the meaning of just one part of the manuscript, I am forced awake, and the undeciphered passages in this book remain as lost to me as Harawyn is.
Yet the book remains, often clutched to my chest as I sleep, growing larger to my sight until it fills my vision, and I must look away lest it consumes me. But return to it I must, for I am compelled to learn the terrible secrets of 'the dragon' and the 'heart of darkness'...
They say that I have lost my mind...
It has been another night of turmoil for Cian, lost in the book that seems to have become a leech that sucks all the life-force from him. After hours of fruitless toil, the meaning of many of the book's passages still eluding him, the celt falls asleep on his bed, the book dropping to the floor as he loses consciousness.
Cian slips into a dream...
It was a face he recognised, a man's face, signs of great strain showing even as he slept fitfully. As Cian looked down upon the face, realisation slowly dawned that he was looking at himself, asleep in his bed. He seemed to be suspended in the air, looking down on himself, and realised that this must be another dream. He started to relax, realising that if this was a dream, and not some terrible magic, he had no form, just consciousness. All about him he could sense the sturdy presence of the Willow Tavern, feel every plank and nail as the building shifted slightly, as wooden buildings are wont to do. He could also feel the presence of every living being beneath its roof, most sleeping as his own body was, others awake but in their rooms, brooding over their own problems. When he tried to move, however, he realised that he could not, so instead he waited to see where this curious dream would take him.
Cian did not have to wait long, for suddenly his whole perspective changed, and he was seemingly hundreds of feet above the tavern. Looking down, he took in every detail, from the very slates on the roof he had repaired that day long ago when Aran had also sought sanctuary at the very top of the tavern following a prank that went wrong, to the shed he had to rebuild when it was demolished by the troll shaman Dozigden. He felt happy as he looked down upon the Willow, for he had truly made it his home.
His viewpoint shifted slightly, and Cian took in the surroundings of the tavern, the green fields and mighty trees of Hibernia. The land was dark, but his vision seemed to be equal to that of the eagle, for he could see for many miles. He was reminded of a conversation he had with Harawyn once,
"This land, Harawyn, it calls to me! From the very earth below to the skies above, from the mighty trees to the rushing rivers, I hear its song, and my soul seems to sing out in response. And every step that I take within this land makes me stronger, not those whose lives I have shared, or he who took this name before me, but me! Maybe it is because I come from an uncertain past, where I could not even claim my memories as my own, but I am starting to feel a deep…connection with this place, where every glance is rewarded with a sight of beauty, where the people are both brave and fair, and where I can shape both my present and my future.
And just as we derive protection from the land, so too does the land deserve our protection from those who would rob it of its treasures. I cannot say that I understand fully the nature of the wars being fought on the borderlands, but if the battle is to preserve what I have seen in the few short days that I have been awake in this world, then I feel that it must be a war worth waging. Everyone deserves a home, be they from Hibernia, Midgard or Albion, but not if it is at another’s expense…"
As these words returned to him, Cian's mind seemed to range across the entire realm, from the darkest forest to the tallest mountain, from the fairest city to the wide expanses of the sea, and he saw areas of light amongst the gloom of night, where elves and men, lurikeen and firbolg, sought to create something of goodness, either through their actions or their words.
But he also saw patches of a deeper darkness within the night. One such patch was very close to the Willow Tavern, which in Cian's mind's eye seemed to take the form of a tall figured swathed in shadows, whose intentions to those inside the tavern were decidedly ill-favoured. Another area of darkness seemed far beyond the horizon, in the area of the cursed forest, but it was a darkness so all-consuming that he feared to look into it, lest he also succumbed to its evil.
As he looked about him from this lofty vantage point, Cian began to fancy that he heard a cry upon the wind, so faint that it was almost beyong his hearing. The more he looked about him at the land of Hibernia, the stronger and more insistent the noise became, seeming to his ear to be somewhere between the cry of a child, the sound of the wind amongst the uppermost branches of a tree, the roar of the waves upon the shore, and the lonely screech of a hunting bird. He looked in all directions for the source of the cry, but it was in vain...
Then, Cian heard the rushing of a great wind in his ears, and the scene began to shift rapidly. From his position hundreds of feet above the Willow, he was suddenly launched forwards, and he began to fly across the night sky of Hibernia as if he were an arrow shot from the most powerful of bows. He looked down, and the landscape was flying past beneath him faster than any bird could fly. Woods, streams, rivers and mountains all flew past, and soon he no longer recognised any of the terrain. Yes, it was still Hibernia, but a Hibernia that was beyond his own experience.
With some trepidation he also noticed that the further he flew the closer to the ground he got, and he began to fear that his non-corporeal state might suddenly disappear, and he would be dashed on the unyielding landscape below. Looking ahead, it seemed that his trajectory was arching towards a dark forest, and before he knew it the gnarled branches of ancient oaks and hornbeam were reaching up as if to snatch him greedily from the sky and smash him to the ground, where he belonged. Cian flung up his arms in an attempt to protect himself as the trees rushed towards him, and he cursed whatever powers had allowed him to usurp the realm of the air, were only birds might rightfully roam...
He opened his eyes, and found himself standing amongst the tangled darkness of the wildwood. This was no carefully managed woodland, where the hand of man had pollarded or coppiced the trees and harvested them for the wood. No, here the natural habits of the tree could be seen, since whilst mighty oaks, alders and hornbeams towered above him, other trees had rotted at the base and come crashing down, or else been knocked down in a storm and continued to live horizontal to the ground, to form criss-cross lattices of impenetrable forest. All about him, tangled shrubs and saplings covered the forest floor, and he struggled to see clearly in any direction, so close about was the mass of undergrowth.
It was silent in the wildwood, as if some blanket had been lain across the normal noise of animal life that one would have expected to hear there. Then, the wood was pierced by the same cry that Cian had heard earlier above the Willow Tavern. This time, it was close, and Cian found that his physical self had returned, for he had to push his way through the undergrowth towards the source of the sound. As he did so, he noticed that a silvery light was beginning to permeate the dark wood, the light growing stronger with every step he took towards the noise.
The tangled wildwood soon gave way to a mossy clearing, where only a few bog oaks stood, their feet surrounded by damp earth. The light that Cian had seen appeared to be cast by the moon, and it illuminated the entire clearing. However, as he looked about him, Cian realised that rather than simply finding its way down through a gap in the dense foliage of the surrounding trees, the moonlight was being drawn to a single spot in the clearing. Indeed, the distinction between the dark gloom of the wood and the incandescent pool of moonlight at the centre of the clearing was so great that Cian was afraid he might be blinded, and shielded his eyes with his hand. Even so, the enduring one was drawn towards the light, his feet sinking into the boggy ground with every step he took, until he was wading knee deep. Still he was drawn forward, in no more control of his actions than the tiny twig floating upon the raging torrent, and soon he too was enveloped by the light.
He could see. Still the clearing lay about him, and still the moonlight streamed down from above, but his vision had cleared. Nearby, Cian saw an enourmous shape, dark and hulking yet drawing the light towards it. He began to be afraid, when a voice came to him. Whilst it emanated from the huge shape, it also seemed to reverberate from the surrounding forest. And yet it did not actually seem to reach Cian's ears, but instead welled up within him so that he felt rather than heard it. It was not a human voice, for it contained all of the sounds Cian had heard in the earlier distant cry, and now that he was close to its apparent source, he noticed that it seemed to incorporate so much more, a millions sounds, a million voices, the sum of many millenia.
"We meet again, little one", boomed the voice, and as it spoke Cian began to see that the figure was that of an enormous bear, its fur dark as night and its teeth and claws as sharp as razors. As it turned to face him, he saw that its eyes held a dreadful and ancient intelligence, and it seemed to see straight down into the very core of Cian's being, leaving nothing hidden from its sight. Cian suddenly realised that he recognised the bear, for it was the very creature that Myronael Angethal had summoned the night that the dark one had sought to wrest the locket of Tir from Lafala, threatening to murder every single occupant of the Willow until he was given what he wanted. Both Myronael and the bear had eventually been driven off, with Cian seeking to avoid any further innocent blood being shed by urging his friends to scare the bear away, rather than kill it simply because the evil Myronael had seen fit to include it in his wicked plan. Enormous as it had seemed at the time, the bear now towered above Cian, filled with a vitality that had not seemed likely to regain last time Cian had seen it, given that the creature had been covered in wounds, not only pierced all over by Aran's arrows, but still carrying Morwen's spear in it's back as it had retreated to the forest.
"You and your friends showed great presence of mind that night, human, for your peril was great. None shrank back from the task of protecting friend and family, hearth and home, despite the fact that any one of your lives could have been forfeit. It was a true test, a trial by fire, and all came through it well."
The bear shifted on its haunches slightly, and Cian gasped with surprise when he saw that still embedded near its spine was Morwen's spear, the intricate designs along it's shaft picked out by the moonlight.
"Ah yes, I still carry a token of that night, for the story started then has yet to reach its conclusion. But we will speak of that matter in due time. First..."
Suddenly the bear reared up onto its hind legs, dwarfing Cian. It let out a terrifying roar, the force of which made Cian fall to his knees clasping the sides of his head, lest his eardrums burst. The wildwood all around seemed to echo and amplify the roar, and the very stars in the night sky appeared to reverberate with its force. Tears sprang to Cian's eyes as the bear fell back down on all fours again.
"I am older than the sun and brother to the stars. I have seen the seas rise and fall, and witnessed the cataclysms that forced the mountains to arise. I remember the time before, and have drunk from the glacial pools when ice once covered this land. I know the names of all creatures and have nurtured the roots of every plant and every tree that the earth has spawned. I have seen them rise and I have seen them fall. I was here at the beginning, and I will be here at the end..."
"I roamed this realm long before man and firbolg had learned to walk and not fear the sun, and it was I who welcomed the elves and the lurikeen when first they emerged from behind the Veil. Those who the Celts call gods are my charges, for my roar was heard long before the time of Arthur-king, and long before the coming of the legions from the south, who marched under the banner of the eagle. I have many names, but they called me 'Ursa', and they learned to fear my coming and avoided my path. I am the land and the sea, the mighty river and the tiny brook, the plains and the forest; I am all things."
The roaring stopped just as soon as it had started, and the great bear approached Cian, nuzzling him with a tenderness that seemed at odds with the ferocity it had just recently displayed.
"I have called you here because it is time for you to make a choice, little mortal. You are not of this world, yet through your actions and your words you have professed great love for Hibernia. It is not a love that should be spoken of lightly, for the land is unforgiving. There is no tenderness or caring in nature, human, only the need for respect. Without that respect, you will die, as surely as all mortal works will fade and rot away. But in stating that you seek to make Hibernia your home, you must make a commitment to it, and go out into that world and live. There will be many dangers, both to you personally, and to those you call your friends, but for the land to flourish, man must play his part, or at least die trying. Will you take up this challenge?"
Cian nodded mutely. Any words he could say seemed feeble and stupid in the face of this force of nature. Equally, he knew that the bear could see deep into his soul, past the crowded memories of previous lives, to his very essence, and it would instinctively know what answer might be found there to its question.
The bear did indeed appear to know Cian's thoughts even before he did, for after staring into his eyes for what felt like an eternity, it seemed satisfied with what it saw within the man known to those at the Willow Tavern as Cian, the enduring one. It started to address Cian again, turning slightly so that the shaft of Morwen's spear was pointing towards him.
"There are many tales left in you mortal, not least the one told by that face you wear, but more important matters demand your attention just now. You might not know it, but all that is shrouded and hidden from you will soon become clear. For the moment, I demand that you make a sign of your commitment to move forward from this day you will never regret embarking upon, no matter how terrible the consequences might seem. Take this spear from my flesh, open up the wound that has healed around it, and with my blood seal this pact. If you do not wish to do so I will let you leave this place with nothing to bind us, and nothing to bind you to this land. But if you return the weapon to its rightful owner, you will set in train a sequence of events that you will never regret embarking upon, no matter how terrible the consequences might seem."
Cian looked down at the shaft of the spear, and couldn't help smiling as he recalled Morwen's almost childlike anguish as her favourite weapon had been carried away. But his recollections were soon overtaken by the task that had been set, and grasping the spear firmly in both hands he pulled with all his might. As the bear had foretold the wound on its back opened with the attempted removal of the spear, and the creature roared once again, this time in pain. The ground shook with the force of its pain, and Cian had to struggle to keep his footing. The noise was so great that Cian was wracked with pain, blood spilling from his nose and ears as if his very body was going to be torn asunder. His pain and the bear's pain was one, and it's source lay in his own hands as he pulled at the spear, twisting it one way and then the other so that the head came out cleanly. But with every turn Cian was wounded too, so much so that his own cries of anguish mingled with those of the bear's, and threatened to bring the very stars tumbling down upon their heads.
And then it was over. The spear was firmly in Cian's grasp, the bear's blood coating his hands and forearms as it had gushed down the shaft, whilst the bear itself sat a little distance away, licking at its wound for all the world like an ordinary bear, albeit one of gigantic proportions. Nothing more was said, and as Cian looked down at the weapon in his hands, the moonlight faded. The wildwood and the bear disappeared, to be replaced by the more familiar surroundings of Cian's room. He was back in his own body again, sleeping the same fitful sleep he had been having earlier in the night.
A dream, all a dream, he thought as his mind returned to the problem of the book, and as the voices that were constantly with him began to speak as one, reading passages from the book whose meaning had escaped him.
All a dream...
But when he awoke, the Enduring One would find that his feet were covered with a dark, peaty mud that is only found at the heart of the deepest, oldest forest, whilst the dried blood of some animal stained his hands. And in the corner of his room, propped up against the wall, Cian would find a familiar carved spear, where none had been when he had gone to sleep...