Azi breathed a sigh of relief as Lexi left with little argument. Perhaps she was finally learning her place in the family and the League. She smoothed her robes over her knees in old habit and looked at Crispian. Up until now she'd been fine, but his voice was so full of concern that she felt the tears she'd been holding back stinging her eyes.


"How am I?" She clenched her jaw as pain shot through her shoulder. "Well enough, but worried. You received my letter and the rubbings?"

Crispian nodded, his close shorn hair flashing golden in the sunlight. "Aye, Tannir fetched them up and has them, ah, secure to say the least. Toby went straight away to the archives to do some research." He rose and paced, his thick shoulders rolling as he swung his arms to ease his tension. "Azi, this could be a grave thing coming upon us. A dawning of blackest events."


His strides were clipped in the small room, but even still he could not ease the throbbing in his left shin, momento and reminder of any event not long ago in his life. "But we shall overcome this foe."


He set again, intentionally trying to still himself. "ou said Judan is unwell still?"

 

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Azi looked at her father, smoothing his yellow-gray hair gently as he lay unmoving.


"es, Crispian. You're right. I can feel it like a chill fog drifting over us all. Something is not right, something evil is coming." Her sapphire blue eyes flashed to Crispian, then to the armor in the corner, still radiating a chill from inside the packs.


"As for Pappa," she turned back to Judan, shaking him lightly and wincing again at her shoulder, "he won't wake. Something has touched him, which is why I was praying Tobyas would come with you.


"He was smithing in the Falls, Cris." She shivered as the images of that place flashed before her, then nodded to the packs tucked in the corner.

His gray eyes swept around the room, resting at last on the sleeping smith. Resting, not sleeping. Crispian recalled one night, nearly half a year past now, when he had been gripped by another presence, another being. The foul tendrils of the memory he most oft kept pushed deep in his pysche, not wanting to venture into the abyss that opened slowly there. The steel resolve of battle-field slaughters was all that kept his face from showing what his mind touched.


"The Falls are home to those we were never meant to face so," he said, his voice dropping low. "I dread going there even fully armed and readied, but to be taken," he shook his head.


"Cris, it was as if he doing his life's work there," Azi said, hands rubbing her arms against a pervasive chill. "He was content to just work, but he wasn't Papa." Her voice trailed into silence.


Crispian sighed, rubbing his neck with one hand. "We'll have to seek out Toby's council on this. Is there someone we can call to sit vigil? Perhaps a monk you know?"

 

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Lexi knew Azi was upset... so she felt it best to do as told. She was surprised to see Crispian there as well, but the two always talked... but she was desperate to know what had happened in the falls, so instead of going down to the shop she settled herself against the door, silently listening to the two talk...

Azi looked down at her father again and sighed.


"I can send for someone, I suppose, though I hate to leave his side now..." It was all too familiar. She'd thought the days of having to worry about her father were over. Even through his years of cursed madness he'd been strong for her when he could. When it was over she'd rejoiced in his freedom more than her own, and now this... "Sister Elaydith used to care for him. I suppose I could ask her again."


She crossed the room, wrote a quick note, and handed it to Crispian. A faint smile crossed her lips as she thanked the Almighty for giving her such a friend.


"Would you mind fetching her while I stay and dress? She should be at the church this time of day." She shivered again in her thick robes and unconsciously took a step away from the corner where the packs were.

The force that lay dormant in Arcalan stirred as she rode North. The barriers between worlds were being broekn down. Avalon could be reached once more, and in other realms the barriers grew thin and broke. The Inconnu began to creep forth into Albion, and strange new races from the other lands were seen meeting at the high courts of those realms.

The force she held inside her stretched and turned, ripping through the walls that held worlds apart. Arcalan herself caught a glimpse of a world where all races lived in harmony, and one where Albion turned on Albion in perpetual bloodbath and warfare. All these things this force was now spreading out it's tendrils to touch, it knew no limit in space nor time, and she exulted in it's power. It was a sign that the Rebirth was coming.

She rode the beast harder, faster, not caring if it was lame by the end of this journey. She had to hurry, the end was in her reach!

Crispian sighed. So much was again happening, after a long wait and build up. He likened it to the end maunevers in battle. You spent hours, days assembling your force and gear, trying to move when it would least be expected. Then, in one mad hectic rush that rarely if ever resembled the carefully laid plans of all the leaders, action was taken. They were nearing that time now, and he would find out if all the efforts toward and around Arcalan had been worth a damn.


He ran his hand through his shorn hair again, the glint of gold catching in the light, and a sliver or two of silver as well.


"What's the pack, Azi?" he asked quietly.

 

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Azi swallowed, moving her eyes to the packs in the corner, slowly turning her head to follow. Of course it wasn't obvious to Crispian. She wondered if he even felt the chill the way she did. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked at Crispian. This was taking a toll on him as well, she could see. She wondered if he had any way to link it all to Arcalan, for Azi had had plenty of time to think on recent events and knew she had something to do with it all, but could think of no proof.


"It's what he was working on," her voice cracked slightly, and she cleared her throat and swallowed again. "The rubbings that I sent were taken from them.. You may have a look if you wish, Ayslyn was here and had a look.." She drew her arms tighter around herself, suddenly aware that she was trembling, lowered herself again to sit beside Pappa.

Crispian's gray eyes seemed to shutter off the normal inner spark for a moment as he considered the packs. A kind of terror gibbered at the edges of his sanity a moment, as it had during those first moments of confrontation with D'Vena and Mirth. While true he had struck the final blow, he had never told anyone involved the extent to which Tobyas had been invested in that battle. Could he do this alone?


He walked to the pack and slowly opened it up. He looked at the marvelously wrought work, fingers hovering just a whisper above the metal, not wishing to touch it with bare hand. Chilling radiated from the metal yet his hand was warm. It was his soul that felt chilled. He swallowed hard against a rising tide of fear and loathing, self-doubt and indecision.


"Azi, w-w-where did he make this?" he choked out.

 

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