From merrie@umich.eduTue Mar 21 18:37:55 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 17:39:22 -0500 (EST) From: Merrie Haskell To: thari@umich.edu Subject: Laughter's Diary 10 Along about 4 years ago, the working theory on my life was that if you took away my sword I became nothing, because I was nothing. That changed more than a little when Foster stepped in, in so much that you just had another thing to take away from me before I became nothing. I'm not liking this thought process. I'm standing in the tiny little conference room in the barracks. Captain O'Connel makes his report-- weird monsters and missing people, but mostly the shadow is intact. Exactly what you would expect to come through in a shadow storm. At least the folks I need and care for most in this shadow got out. The running of the country will not be impeded in the least by this most recent event. Captain Laioghaire begins speaking. His florid face and flaming hair and crooked teeth hold me spell-bound. I can tell he's put a little glamour on his hair to make it less gray. I wonder at this streak of vanity in a man who probably won his wife because he probably enacted the equivalent of a military campaign to attain her love-- in other words, he's not pretty. Images come to me. Visions or sendings, almost.... First is Foster, stepping onto the Pattern, with Felix looming large in the background. Around the Second Veil, he stops and falls, and the sparks of the Pattern flare up around him and soon his body is gone. Felix's face is a masque of pain as he turns and mounts the stairs. Second: Sequence, in a pool of lava, struggling to ascend, but unnable; twisting and writhing in a way no blade can, and a high-pitched keening to accompany the vision. Third: the shadow storms ripping through the land, and Beauty being caught and jostled and coming to land in a shadow with packs of wild dogs or something appropriate. Fourth: entering a shadowy room, and seeing Mother on an altar, arms folded, as though simply asleep, but with Brand, standing over her, weilding a knife as he cuts her throat. Fifth: being trapped for eternity in a Xenos' spell, watching Bart's face as I am incapable to do all but strive towards him, my daggar drawn, and blood on my mind. Sixth: watching as Mandor, with a flip of his wrist, sends Foster away... just "away", to horrors I imagined for Sequence. Seventh: watching the na si riding into my land through a fresh Gate. These are my nightmares, though they come to me by day. There is a hand on my shoulder, and Senlin's white-bearded face looks into mine. "Laughter," he says, and I don't collapse or anything, but I do reach out and hug him. My younger days are only 7 years into the past, but all there is of them is Sequence, and Caitt, and Senlin. And Caitt fears Amber, and Senlin has no love for it, and Sequence is my only link between the worlds. Is it no wonder, then? I lift my head, and the gleam catches my eye. Amethysts and emeralds. What happened? When did I grow so incautious as to allow my sword to be taken away? I should never go about without a spell on my lips, but these last few years, things have gotten too comfortable. Well, they can no longer be so comfortable. I have to be guarded, more than ever before, and I have to be careful how I guard. There is more than just me to think about; there is now also a child to come... I stiffen my neck and return to the Manor and sit for a while with Beauty and Caitt in the library, and wait for Foster's call. There is a manuscript Caitt is writing, a treatise on herbs. The familiar names are a comfort, as is Caitt's neat handwriting, and my daughter's hand in my own...