he knew something you don’t know
Ellen Ripley, Weilder of a Topaz Stone, is troubled. “Great Mother, we have a guest whom we cannot heal.“One evening a fortnight ago with the seventh hour just begun,
a well-preserved faerie man came to the Sturdy Castle as if
from the air or Moonbeams. He was weeping and smiling, so at
first the sisters who know of the faerie expected some trick
was about to befall us all, and they smiled and looked within
for strength.“But then, hear me, this Faerie, although he refused to speak,
did no harm. Weeping all the while, he permitted us to heal
him of the Faerie sickness, the kin curse, the Plague of
withering. He seemed amused, but aided the sisters to preserve
his life. When asked about his tears he would only shake his
head and shut his eyes, and tremble from his grief. We could
not inflict such pain, so they stopped asking. The sisters
cured the blisters from his feet and the hunger from his belly,
but we could only put a pillow beneath his head. Sleep did not
stop his tears, but in fact freed his voice to cry out loud.“Forgive me mother, for saying the name, but the faerie man
cried for ‘Isis [to] preserve [him],’ and ‘oh my friend,’ and
I am told once he said, ‘what is the pleasure if the sacrifice
costs our most vast potential?’ The faerie man slept only that
once in the fortnight he has been among us.“From the next morning this faerie man followed the sisters and
brothers of the order from shrine to shrine within the lands of
Dolbadarn, for a fortnight helping them preserve the Eressene
way among the people of Dolbadarn. He continued to hold silence
even when one of the brothers noticed the Faerie man held a staff
which would not burn or break under duress. Then one of the
brothers noticed the clasp on his robes, and they brought him
to me. he did not resist, but he clearly was not pleased.“Good Mother, I saw him and I knew his staff, his clasp, and his
robes from my own pathways of healing. We have a mage of Roke
Island among us, weeping. I made as if to touch him, and he
withdrew from me, revealing an amulet like unto my own, but
serving another power. Grey Lord preserve us, but I might
have used the Stone against the will of its sister's weilder!“Mother, he opened his mouth and spoke your name as if he did not
expect you to be here, or even alive. I told him Troy’s power
has preserved you and Dolbadarn through all the tribulations,
and this Faerie man, he smiled through his tears, and wiped his
eyes, and asked me to take me to you.“Also he asked me if you had ‘preserved his sword for him throughout
these empty years.’ Do you know what he means, what horrible sword
could make a faerie man weep so to be without it?”all rights reserved
