Michael Williams - Galen Beknighted

As we joined hands and slipped between brush and high grass to the place and circumstances she had in mind, she whispered to me words that told me the deeds I had dreamt of were preparing to come to pass.

"If you breathe a word of this, to anyone, I'll kill you."

My story ends back at the castle, on a winter night in my firelit chambers.

Tomorrow some of my companions head west, Brithelm back to the mountains, where he will search for his scattered followers-for meteorological old women and insomniac captains and the beautiful night visitors. Together they will raise his abbey yet again and lure down the birds for omens.

Of all things, Father will join his middle son in the life contemplative. The clerical robe seems ill-fitting, ridiculous upon him. But then, my armor looked so on me not a month ago.

Father seeks monastic life, having left the moathouse to Gileandos, of all people. It seems there was an oath that the old man uttered somewhere beneath the foundations of Castle di Caela-something about gladly giving up all his holdings to see Gileandos again. Whatever the circumstances, the old scholar departed two nights ago for the moathouse, intent on returning to his library and his alembic, both of which smell of juniper and must.

I hear he was having trouble sitting in the saddle.

Something, no doubt, that took place underground.

As for me, I shall stay here at Castle di Caela for a while. Bayard is still confined by his injuries, and the Lady Enid will soon be confined under more delicate circumstances. Brandon Rus is gone on his pilgrimage, strangely lighter of heart, and Ramiro is packing his belongings (and the energetic Plainswoman) for a trip back to his castle in the Maw.

Someone will have to run this place in all the absences.

Sir Robert and I have a plan, you see, regarding horse races in the huge bailey yard. There is room for dogs in the restored grounds, and the servants have been put to work gathering up mechanical birds from storage.

Given a couple of months in which nothing dire happens, we will have this place back in order-a proper place in which the heir of Bayard Brightblade and Enid di Caela can grow into his or her inheritance.

Or so I think tonight, as the winter wind swirls around the castle like water or the Namer's smoke, and I prepare to continue what started at the Telling on the Plains of Southlund. It is time, you see, for my nightly journey, swaddled in blankets and desire, into candlelight and perfume and endearments and the presence of the incomparable Dannelle di Caela.

An adventure not without its own wonders and dangers.