Also, expect to see some minor changes and updates to the blog as a whole.  I realized it has been quite some time since I updated the notes, overviews and other information for my stories.  There shouldn’t be a whole lot new, but keep your eyes peeled just in case.

As you can see, I have changed the layout of Ink Raindrops once again.  I apologize for the schizophrenia, but I am finding it difficult to locate a free blog design that does everything I want it to.  My knowledge of web design is from a much earlier era, and thus the CSS and web skills it would require to modify these into something perfect for me, is sadly elusive.  Short of expending time on learning these things, or finding someone willing to help me out, I’m stuck switching each time I find something that appeals more to me than my latest choice.  I prefer to keep my focus on writing for now, so there you have it.  I would, at some juncture, like to have something more unique and professional though.  Covers shouldn’t sell books, but unfortunately they do all the time.

I (and Way of the Dragon) will see you on the first!  Enjoy the final month of summer.  Personally, I’m eager for fall.

I hope you enjoy this month’s update.  It’s longer than most of my chapters, particularly for WotD, but the weaving and necessary information were all too tight to separate it into two.  I guess you can consider it one and a half!  Things are moving at last for Master Mikhail’s students, but not in a direction that any of them expected…

I have the funny feeling I’ll be revisiting WotD next month as well, but we’ll see what the votes say!  Oh, and my apologies for not having a chance to announce the winner this month as I usually do.  I got an announcement up on Facebook, but didn’t have a chance to get it here before a combination of impending vacation and sickness got in the way.  Someday I will have this blog organized so that perhaps such things can be visible to everyone, rather than to just my friends.  For now, it’ll have to do!

In the end, the voice that spoke stunned us all, perhaps most because it was not mine. If Nana had ever broken a silence before that moment, we had never known it. “What has happened, Master? You said we must know.”

Her brave words, spoken in her usual dream-like monotone, convinced Master Mikhail to cease his hesitation and let out his breath in a huge sigh. “You are correct, Nana. Though I have thought long and hard on how best to spare you from this, I cannot escape fate.” A bare suggestion of a wry smile crossed his face as he turned back to the rest of us. “Your Dragon, of any of you, knows best how I feel at this moment. I wish to breathe fire, and yet I am choked by the duty I have to myself, and to you, not to.”

I frowned as Nana and Raimen glanced my direction. It was obvious to anyone that I knew something of breathing fire. Master Mikhail knew I had no hope of holding it back!

“Does that mean you’re angry with us?” Raimen spoke this time, his hands searching with poor aim for his pockets. He, more than any of us, had reason to fear that! Had Master Mikhail noticed his excessive reading habit at last?

Master Mikhail shook his head. “I fear I have been angry with you for the last time, my students, and that is what troubles me so. Had I known, I would have made it count.” Our full attention rested on him, then, and on his words. Even Nana no longer looked beyond him.

I was the first to recover from the shock. “What do you mean, last time? We’re barely into our training, you can’t just leave us! We’ve come so far…” Had we at last pushed his patience too far? Myself, with my foolish challenge? Raimen, with his clandestine practices? Nana, with her lack of participation?

His eyes clouded over with an emotion I could not place as either grief or rage. “Rest easy on that, at least, my Dragon. I would never leave you by my own choice. Your weaknesses, though they are many, make me love you all the more. But the world will not see them that way. It is the world that must see them now.”

The door opened behind us with a loud creak, and Master Mikhail’s hand jumped to his blade’s hilt as the three of us whirled to greet the intruder. I did not need to glance at the others to know that they shared my immediate and intense dislike of the stranger. He was tall but muscled, twice the width of Master Mikhail, and the thick, greasy manes of black hair and black mustache he wore served to make him look bearlike. His clothing was simple but well made, in the familiar blue and gold of our own Kouda Empire, and bore a great many complicated designs and badges on the shoulders. Whoever he was, he was high-ranking military, and where he walked, oceans trembled in his wake. He did not deign to hide it from us, children that we were, let alone from Master Mikhail.

Master Mikhail greeted him, if his words could be called a greeting. “I believe I requested some time to inform them, Master Grimm. I have had but a moment.”

Master Grimm sneered beneath his mustache. I imagined I could smell his foul breath between his yellowing teeth. “A moment is all you need. You were always long-winded, Mikhail. Maybe if you’d talked less, they wouldn’t be here now.”

The absence of the “Master” honorific when addressing Master Mikhail could not be mistaken for anything other than an insult. I bristled, and Raimen took a step forward, but Nana made no motion, her veiled gaze now locked dead with the stranger’s face. He was not immune to her charms, teenager though she was, and it was with clear disgust that he looked away from her and back to Master Mikhail. “Taught this one to make eyes at gentlemen, have you, Mikhail? That’s bad for her, pretty thing as she is. Where they’re going, I won’t be able to babysit her like you do.”

Again, Nana surprised us all by speaking. “Baby me at your peril.” We stared at her, stunned by the offensive comment to anyone, let alone a powerful military officer. Was this the same Nana who had ignored us for years?

Master Grimm laughed, a loud, obnoxious bellow that made us all want to punch him just to remove the source of the noise. He moved toward Nana with more speed than we had expected from such a hulk of a man, and his grubby hand shot out to grasp her pale, skinny arm. When he pulled, it was like pulling a child’s doll off of a bed. Nana stumbled and fell, Master Grimm’s power the only thing keeping her aloft. Her lashes ceased to veil her eyes then, and the look she gave him delved deeper into hatred than any of us had reason to see before. He himself paused, uncertain, before smiling a gap-toothed grin at her. “It would seem, missy, that your Master hasn’t taught you to respect your elders.”

Master Mikhail’s sword was halfway out of its scabbard by the time Nana stumbled. When he spoke, there was an edge of warning in his voice that went beyond the ones we had heard as punishment over the years. “Master Grimm. Your orders are clear, and I will obey them without question. However, invading my home and mistreating my students is an abuse of power that will not go unpunished. I came here to do as you wish. Unless you want further trouble, I suggest you allow me to finish. This will take far longer, and will be far more difficult, if you do not.”

“Is that a threat, Mikhail? You must keep plenty of blackwine in that cellar of yours. You’d have to be drunk on something, to challenge me after so many years nursing babies in the forest.” Master Grimm laughed, and thrust Nana away from him as if she were no more than a sack of meal. As the only one not in the immediate path of the brewing storm, I found myself forced to catch her. She did not want my help; she pulled away from me as if my touch burned her, and stood tall and proud before her attacker again. I knew what it was like to feel the heat of my anger manifest, but for the first time in my life, I felt as if I could hear the wind howling like that of a monsoon storm, enraged and proud, ready to destroy everything it touched. If I weren’t still pretending to know better, I would have called it proof that the Voice of Nature did indeed have multiple Voices.

At last, I found my voice. “Get out!” Nana’s anger, and Master Mikhail’s, were becoming infectious, and I wasn’t about to be the last one yelling at this oversized monster! “I don’t know who you are or what you’re here for, but Master Mikhail was trying to tell us something important. Those marks on your sleeve are pretty, but standing in line is something that we all do, not just those of us without uniforms.”

He glowered at me, and might have resorted to violence again, had Master Mikhail not stepped forward and blocked my sword arm with his body. “Silence, Dragon.” He did not look at me; his eyes were for his fellow Master alone. “That goes for you all. What I have to tell you concerns Master Grimm, and now it has become even harder to tell you.” If looks could kill by themselves, Master Grimm would have ceased to concern us in that moment. “Master Grimm, wait outside until I have done what I must. I will keep you waiting no longer than necessary. If you suspect me of treason, so be it, but I will not have you entering my home like a common criminal, whatever your rank may be. If you leave now, the Emperor will not hear of your misconduct this day.”

Master Grimm shook his head and turned his massive back on us all, heading for the door. I half expected him to walk through it, reducing it to so many splinters, but he did not. Something about his face when Master Mikhail called me “Dragon” seemed to change, but he did not allow me more than a moment to notice. With no further word, he opened the door, took his leave and then slammed it behind him, the force of the slam making our heads ache and our bodies tremble. Beast though this Master Grimm was, the power he commanded had to be envied; at least I thought so. The others were glad to be rid of him, and little else.

Master Mikhail sighed, at last resigned to his duty. Before a moment had passed, he found the strength to continue his speech to us.

“Master Grimm, as you can see, is very high up the chain of command in the Empire’s military. He and I are of equal stature, in fact, though he lives at the side of the Emperor and I choose to live here in the forest with you as my students. He has trained a great many children in the Way, just as I have. Most no longer live. The ones that do are great warriors, destined for the blessings of the Gods.”

He paused. “You know that my teachings are not what other Masters expect. They have run counter to the Emperor’s expectations for a great many years. It seems the time has come for my incorrect teaching to end.”

“Incorrect?” My voice was louder than I expected. “We’re the best! Sure, we make mistakes, we’re nowhere near a team, but… but…”

“You are behind.” The sadness in his voice betrayed him at last. “Or so they would have you believe. You know that other children your age have seen their first war, and still others have died in it. The world is a fearsome place, and with each day that dawns, new enemies come to our great Empire, seeking glory or riches. They believe that battle is the only thing that matters. I wanted…”

His voice broke, and it frightened us all more than anything he could have said at that moment. “I wanted you to know you were not alone in the world, before you had to face that reality. On each other you must rely to survive, not just in battle, but in life. That is why I held you back, why I never pushed you as hard as the Emperor demanded. Now, you must survive in a world that will not look kindly on you for my choices.”

Raimen’s hands were shaking. I watched him clench them in his pockets to ward it off. “So you will no longer be our Master. Instead, we are to go with that man.” It was not a question, it was a statement, and Master Mikhail could do nothing but nod in affirmation. “He will fix the mistakes he sees in us. What then?”

Nana answered him, but in her usual, emotionless way. “Then we go to war, with the enemies of our Empire. We destroy them so that we may live.”

Master Mikhail’s voice was growing more quiet by the moment. “Nana is correct. They will ask you to fight, and die, for this Empire that you love so well. As followers of the Way, they will expect you to have powers that you do not, and skills that you do not. They will teach you all that you need to know in how to kill a man, or a woman. For Anri, and for Nana, these days will be dark indeed. The Emperor knows that war games are not for women. I have indulged you too far, by his eyes. You must prove to him that you are worth training.”

At that moment, I realized that everyone’s eyes were on me. Uncomfortable with the sudden attention, I tried to figure out if I had spoken out of turn or moved to follow through with some action. Instead, I realized my cheeks were wet with tears. Embarrassed, I dragged my sleeve across my face, but the wetness remained. I had to admit, if only to myself, that I was terrified. Not only were we losing the man I adored as a father figure in my life, but chances were good that we would all be separated. Raimen, the last person I would have chosen to stay with, and Nana, the strange girl that I would never understand, were not friends, but they were all I had known in life. To lose them was to lose all that remained of my history. I still had so much to learn; I wasn’t ready to be on my own! And it was obvious that Master Mikhail’s heart was breaking as much, or more, than mine was. But what could we do? The beast still lumbered outside, awaiting his call to take us away, and Master Mikhail could no longer keep us.

“They won’t take us.” Raimen’s voice was harder than I had ever heard it, and looking up at him then, I caught a glimmer of the man I had seen the night before, when he healed the wound in my hand. The foolish boy was gone, and in his shoes and clothing stood a man of no small power and no small intellect. I could not sort out in my mind whether his voice made me want to hate him, or to follow him to the ends of the earth. “We escape, of course. That brute looks to be all strength. Most of us here aren’t. There must be a way to get free and follow our own path back here.”

Master Mikhail was a man divided at these words. At once his face shone with pride, and then fell in an instant back to despair. “If you choose that path, my Breaker, know the dangers you face. They will hunt you. They will always hunt you. The war they lead you to will rage, with or without you, and your hands will not be able to join them. Right now, you may not believe there will be a reason to fight and to die. That may not always be true. War is always the last resort, but there are things in life that are worth fighting for. Joining the military after such an act will be impossible.”

“Then we fight alone.” I wondered if Raimen had lost whatever remained of his mind when he chose to continue his argument. Despite the fear we could all see in him, he was not to be dissuaded from his newfound goal. “The three of us. We’ll make it work.”

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, and at the sound he flinched as if I had struck him the way I’d wanted to for years. Frustration won out in the end, however, and he rounded on me with every ounce of courage he possessed. “What choice do we have, Anri? Either we get caught up in this trap that’s been laid for us, or we run and try to find our own way. Neither option is best, but do you want to be a slave? If they control us now, they control us the rest of our lives. I can’t imagine you a slave for long.”

He was right about that! The future, however, I had not stopped to ponder much beyond the eventual necessity of needing to form a team under Master Mikhail. The things that were being spoken of – war, control, death in battle – had never been concrete ideas in my mind until now. The tears on my cheeks were more than enough proof of how terrified I was; I needed not tell Raimen the truth when my heart betrayed it for me. The other option, though, was to trust my life, such as it was, to this boy, this Breaker, whom I could not look at without consequence; or the girl that seemed never to see me at all. Even now she looked through me, as if trying to hone in on a tiny speck on the wall somewhere behind me. What she was looking for, I would never know, but if I placed my life in her hands, I would have to help her find it. I had enough problems of my own!

“Consider this as well, my students.” Master Mikhail broke our silence for us, which was just as well; I had not formulated a response that suited me yet. “The Voices that speak to each of you have not done more than whisper as yet. You know this as well as I do. Without training, the first Words She speaks may destroy you, to say nothing of your own first Words.” His eyes rested on Raimen then, which made both of us shift in place. Raimen had a sudden urge to scratch his head and look downward while doing it. He knew! “You grow in power every day now, but without proper guidance, you may not live to use the full extent of your abilities. Under the Emperor, you might.”

A thought came to me then, a dangerous one that I dared not speak aloud. If we learned to use our powers, could we not then use them to put an end to those that forced our hands into such decisions? If the Emperor wanted us, he could have us, in a blaze of fire.

“No, my Dragon.” Of course, Master Mikhail knew what I was thinking! “You may think this is the Emperor’s doing, and it is, but he acts for the good of us all. He is not your enemy. The world is your enemy; this world full of fear and suspicion and danger between men, women, children, animals and even the ground you now walk on. His path is to find unity between them all, and what he does, he does to this end. Right now, his hand has put you all in a dangerous place, and I suspect he knows not the full extent of what he has done, but this is not aimed at us. I cannot believe that, not while I know him and serve him.”

A voice interrupted our thoughts from outside – it seemed Master Grimm had tired of waiting again. “Finish your goodbyes, Mikhail, or I’ll finish them for you. I’ve been more than patient.”

“We have to decide.” Raimen’s eyes, blue as the ocean, were as black as a stormy sea. “We can’t stay here any longer.” Before Nana or myself could react, he knelt down on the cabin floor in front of us and bowed his head. “Master Mikhail has taught us to stand together in the face of danger. Whatever we decide, we must decide it as one. What will you do? Anri? Nana?”

I bit my lip almost in two. How dare he put all the pressure on us? How dare he insist that we were to choose? It was true, he’d given us all his thoughts already, but still, how many times had he played the “older and wiser” card, or the “man chooses” card in our past to his benefit? Then I knew, and the knowing came deeper than it ever had before; the time for childish games was over. This was not Raimen the boy, taunting us, pulling hair and threatening to marry me for the billionth time. This was Raimen the growing man, reaching out to us as equals, as partners, in a moment of weakness. He was right – if we didn’t stand together, we had no chance and no choice in what followed. I would never follow him for the sake of following him, I would sooner die; but could I, should I, follow him because he was right? Or was there another way that none of us had seen yet?

I had thought Nana would flee, if forced to rely on either of us. She had not given us any indication that she trusted us or would protect us, if need came. Neither of us had expected much from her, once we had graduated past Master Mikhail’s influence. Yet in the end, she was the first to reach down and rest one of her dainty white hands on Raimen’s head without so much as a flinch. “I will not give myself to a man like him.” We knew she meant Master Grimm, even if she would not speak his name herself. “I fear no Emperor, but if he wished my consent, he would not send such a man. Perhaps in time he will understand.”

It was the largest number of words I had heard from her. In her own way, she was as serious as Raimen was now. That left me, and I had yet to find my own answers. Master Grimm’s heavy breathing on the back of the door, and the movements of his giant shadow beneath it, seemed to mark each second of my indecision. It wasn’t that Raimen or Nana’s arguments lacked sense. It wasn’t that I thought they were wrong. It was the finality of it all; the saying farewell to the only man I had ever trusted, and walking away into the sunlight as my own woman. I was only thirteen years old, and the others not much more than that! What had happened to the peace we so cherished, the time we had to learn and to grow, as Master Mikhail promised us? Somewhere, the world had changed, and robbed us of that. In our solitude, we had not known until too late. Even Master Mikhail knew it, from the look on his face. He had lost us far sooner than he meant to; he had failed.

At those thoughts, I understood, or at least I believed I did. Master Mikhail had told us that the world was our enemy. The enemy that controlled the Emperor’s hands, and Master Mikhail’s, and even Master Grimm’s, controlled ours as well. Whatever had happened, we needed to discover it, and choose for ourselves what to do about it.

The door burst open then, and Master Grimm thundered in, his massive sword drawn and clenched in his giant fist. “Time’s up. Hand over the brats, Mikhail, or…”

I acted without thinking, much as I always did. A kitchen knife from the morning’s breakfast still lay on the table nearest us, and I almost grabbed the blade end first in my haste. Master Grimm’s onslaught paused just long enough for him to register the small drop of blood trailing from the new glancing slash across his bicep, and then come face to face with the impetuous brat that caused it – me.

Master Mikhail looked furious; Raimen looked stunned. Nana, I could have sworn, wore a hair’s breadth of a smile. I glowered at the towering Master with all the ferocity of the Dragon I had been named for, and stepped forward, putting my friends and former Master behind me. Though I was not sure, as Raimen was, that we could make this work between the three of us, I was not willing to hand myself over to the horrid man in front of us any more than Nana was. He stood in the way of the time we all needed most, and for that, I would delay him further.

“We choose, together,” I growled between my teeth. “We choose Master Mikhail.”

“No.”

The voice behind me was Master Mikhail’s, but it was quieter and sadder than it should have been, after such a statement. Master Grimm, trembling in rage from my insolence and the injury I had dealt him, prepared to put me in my place, but Master Mikhail put his hand on my knife arm, and I found myself powerless to lift it again. I tried, straining all my might against it, but my arm refused to obey my orders. The knife, useless now, clattered to the floor beneath me. It occurred to me then, for the first time, that I had never known what Voice Master Mikhail heard. From the looks on the faces of the others, neither had they. Until now, he had never had reason to use his power against us, when he could manage us so well with mere words.

He forced me backward with a gentle but firm sweep of his arm, and stood between Master Grimm and the three of us, radiating a silent authority that not even Master Grimm dared to interrupt. Then, when we were well behind him, he drew his own sword. Master Mikhail never, ever drew his sword unless he intended to fight and die, just as he had the night I challenged him. The sight of it left all of us breathless.

“You have chosen, my students. I am proud of you, though I grieve for what must come now. Be strong. Find in each other the strength you found in me. Know that my teaching, and my heart, will follow you as long as you keep them in your memory. You have been all that I wished, and hoped.”

He set his jaw then, and the rage that filled his face and his body forced me to look away; Raimen pulled me close and I did not even think to stop him for the first time in my life. Even Nana took an involuntary step toward him for protection. Master Mikhail wasted no time on customary battle preparations or honorifics; he held his blade at the ready.

“Go now, make your choice known to the world! My choice, in this matter, is to give you the chance to do so.”

Then, with a deafening crash of steel meeting steel, Master Grimm and Master Mikhail began to fight. It was a good thing that Raimen held me close; my head thundered not with the mere sounds of battle, but of two Voices. The familiar one spoke in heated, raging letters of fire, but the other was unknown to me. Almost silent, it spoke in deep echoes, but the strength therein was louder than even the power of Raimen’s crashing waves or Nana’s breezy whispers. I could not understand the Words themselves; they were another language, from another time and place, perhaps a billion years before my own birth. They called to me as if I were a child, but refused to answer the questions that built in my soul.

The building pressure on my mind and in my head grew in rapid bursts as the battle continued. I felt Raimen lift me onto his shoulders at the same moment that I began to fade in and out of consciousness.

What followed was a blur of scenes that all seemed disjointed and random when I tried to recall them later. Trees and time flew by us unnoticed. We stopped, in a dark place, alone. There were panicked flights from the beasts of the wild. Nana, with bleeding gashes made by something’s claws. Raimen, cooking something over a fire.

Last but not least, a larger fire that swept over the forest sky, in the distance, engulfing everything it touched. I remember only the scream of fury unleashed by the Voice of Fire; though Her exact Words eluded me, the intent could not have been clearer. It was this Voice, and this fire, that began my journey into the future.

I’ll keep it short and sweet.  Onward to July’s update!  And do let me know if the poll isn’t working as expected, or if anything else goes wrong.  I’ll keep an eye on it as best I can.

The silence and the dark overwhelmed Sam’s delicate senses. She couldn’t tell the difference between having her eyes open or shut. Around her, the scent of rain, rust and ink began to smell more like blood than either of those three. If it was paranoia, speaking from her previous encounters with her neighbors and the vile creatures outside, she had no way of proving it, and the unknowing was far worse than any truth. The one classic fear she managed to avoid throughout her life was claustrophobia, and now it was doing its best to add itself to her list. The lack of visuals suggested that she had moved, somehow, out of the street. Even that assumption was dangerous. Perhaps the world had just gone dark for the final time instead. If the bloody remains of the creature she had slain lay just inches from her own body, she would never know.

She had killed it. There could be no denial, and no excuse would make the act any less of a sin. She wanted to cry, and apologize, and beg for forgiveness now that the deed was done, but her heart and mind refused to give in. Whatever twisted menace came upon her, it was not just another innocent life. It was an abomination, a filthy abstraction of the truth that governed nature, and it deserved to die. That was the only possible answer left. If another beast attacked her, it would die too. The rules, in her mind, had changed forever, and they were far simpler than any of her previous rules. For once, she thought perhaps less thinking might be beneficial to her continued survival.

With false bravado, she lifted her hand to begin exploring her surroundings, and failed. Her wrists were bound, and the rest of her as well. She lay prone, unable to move more than an inch or two in any direction. Her mouth, too, was bound, and the unforgettable taste of rancid leather became apparent as soon as she realized it. More straps, more confinement, more delay in the progression toward her freedom. What deranged mind demanded that she remain in this place? One step forward, two steps back, and the world around her was turning black. The words, to her mind, sounded funny, but she couldn’t laugh. Was she back in her room, again, then? Or had she visited some new hell, instead?

The silence around her ended with an echoing flurry of heavy pounding beats that made the slab beneath her tremble. It repeated itself again, followed by a third and fourth time. It took her until the end of the third to realize what it was: knocking, or pounding might have been more accurate. Someone, or something, wanted access to her, and it wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer. The vibrations echoing off the walls seemed to suggest a space no larger or smaller than her previous room; she was almost certain that she had somehow returned to her original location, strapped into her bed like the worst kind of mental patient. She couldn’t even deny that the treatment might very well be what she deserved.

The yelling began in the spaces between the thuds of the fourth pounding sequence. Sam did not need to think for long on its source. “Sam? Goddamn it, Sam, I know you’re in there, I saw you go in. Stop shitting me and open the door. I know you hate me, but I need to show you something, it’s important. I think it might be a way out.”

Out? Sam’s body tried to sit bolt upright, and it tried hard enough to make the bonds restraining her cut into her skin. If Miles had found a way out, she had to take the chance! Every wasted minute was one more that she didn’t have to suffer! Then, over the elation of renewed hope, came the realization of his other exclamations. He had seen Sam enter the room and shut the door. If this was her apartment, as she had thought, then the first creature she had encountered had broken the lock. If Miles couldn’t get in, then that implied a new, perhaps stronger, lock. Yet another way to hold her back and keep her from leaving! Whatever wanted her to remain had options at its disposal. Might it even know that Miles succeeded in finding a way past its defenses, and was acting to counter his newfound wisdom?

Sam felt a growl rising in her throat. She had never understood religion; she was unprepared to face the possibility that all of her countless flaws were deliberate acts by a careless deity. At the same time, she had begun to think of the twisting world around her as having a host; a puppeteer, playing at invisible strings that moved her where they pleased. It was too well planned, too detailed to just be a handful of coincidences. The marks of fear that could only trigger her unique psyche were too deliberate. That puppeteer was a sick man, a monumental bastard, and she had killed once, already. It was not so hard to think of doing it again, if it meant she could find her way back to reality. Be it a God of something wicked and vile, the God that lived in churches, or just a man or a beast, she could end it. She would end it. She would go home.

First, she had to get up. Miles, of course, held the key to her door, if her previous play for freedom was any indication. He had forgotten that, and instead assumed that she was capable of opening her own door. He said he saw her go in, but that was impossible – after her violent encounter in the street, she had lost consciousness, and regained it only after the door was already locked! What, then, had he seen? A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach reminded her of the other traumatic experience she had had while traversing the streets outside her apartment. There had indeed been a creature, but there had been someone else, too. Poe, and the unexplainable mirror image of herself. If the other Sam had brought her here and locked her inside, it would explain everything.

The fact remained that the real Sam couldn’t move. The strap serving as a gag prevented her from speaking. She couldn’t reach Miles, and couldn’t yell back for help. It was infuriating enough to be trapped there, like some kind of rat in an unwashed cage, but to know that help, and freedom, were just beyond her reach, made her crazy. On top of that, the knowledge that she would have no choice but to reach out for help beyond her own hands pushed the limits of what she believed she was capable of.

Miles had helped her by mistake the first time, and she had been willing to accept that. This time, it would be asking him to help her; asking him to go out of his way for her. Knowing he was interested in being more than just friends, knowing that his child might be forever lost, never mind the state of his own health, only added fuel to the fire. She wanted to break something; to scream, to destroy, to lash out as she had that day at her psychologist’s office. Something, or someone, had to pay for stranding her here, in the arms of people she could not – or would not – trust. She would rather have lived in the filth and decay forever than reached out for another’s aid. It was too much. It was beyond too much.

Fury took her, then, and she couldn’t quite remember what she did next until after it happened and the red-tinged haze of rage subsided. She set her jaw and clamped her teeth down like a wild thing possessed, twisting and grinding and tearing all at once. The taste was magnified five hundred times, and she could swear she tasted blood – her own, or something else’s, she could not be sure – but she bore down, relentless in her pursuit. She lacked the strength to tear free of her other bonds; it would have to be this one, if she wanted to go home. There was only one chance, and necessity, Sam was discovering, was the mother of insanity as well as invention. Her jaw ached with the pressure, and her mouth filled with unspeakable thick liquid, but she held on as if that strap were her last remaining hold on life. As far as she was concerned, it was.

Just when she thought she could hold on no longer, and her jaw muscles began to tremble and weaken, the strap snapped. In the span of a split second, it divided and sprang apart, tearing itself from her mouth and flailing across her face. She could feel the ends slap her, and the raised lines that formed in their wake, but that was a secondary concern. Her first concern was ridding herself of the unspeakable fluid in her mouth, which she did between gasps and chokes of fear and disgust.

“Sam? What’s going on in there? Are you all right? Look, just open the door, please, I’m begging you!” Miles had heard her. “I’ll get you out of this, just let me help you this once more. You’ll never have to see me again.”

Her voice cracked and failed twice before she got the words out. “I’m here.” She couldn’t bring herself to say his name. Even if she hadn’t been fighting nausea, she wouldn’t have managed. “I’m tied down.”

“Tied down?” Miles paused a moment. “Like before? How did you…” She imagined him shaking his head in confusion. “That’s funny, Sam. I could have sworn you locked yourself in there. I heard the key in the lock.” Another pause. “So, if you tied yourself down, maybe, I dunno, maybe you should untie yourself and get the hell out here?”

The irritation was clear in his voice. Sam had never liked angry people. Her temper flared in kind before she even meant it to. “Think what you want. The fact remains that I can’t get up. Either you go back and let me out, or we sit here until we die. Your choice. I can’t…” She choked on the threat, but managed to get it out anyway. “I can’t go out for drinks if I’m dead, you know.”

The sigh from behind the door was loud enough that she could hear it without trying. Miles didn’t respond; he stomped off into the distance, which was also loud enough for her to hear for the first few steps. Then, she was alone again in silence. Had he stormed off to let her die? She wouldn’t put it past him, after how nasty she’d been, and how she’d left him alone to rush after a foolish attempt at escape. She hadn’t even given a second thought to helping him get to Melissa. Yet, a part of her wanted more than anything to trust him; he hadn’t abandoned her, despite everything. If he loved her, he wouldn’t walk away and leave her to the creatures of the night. But maybe he didn’t love her. Maybe he just thought he did, like most of the boys that had tried to get into her pants over the years. The quiet ones never said no, or so they thought. It hurt her twice to have to hit them.

Without warning, lights from overhead flickered on, then sputtered and dimmed, almost fading again into full darkness. Sam flinched, expecting the worst; from somewhere down the hallway she heard a thud and a very coarse word shouted loud enough to wake every creature in the entire world. It seemed that Miles had hit the wrong lever. It was a useful mistake, however, and she took the opportunity to look around. As expected, she was in the twisted Nightmare variant of her apartment, and very little had changed. The things that did change, however, left her breathless.

The night sky outside the broken window was pitch black, as if a thunderhead had managed to press itself up against her window. It did not shed a single bit of light into the room, the way a normal night sky would. That was the minor problem. The major problem was at her feet, and growing more complicated with every minute that passed.

Beneath her disgusting bed lay a pool of dampening filth. The ink, rain and rust she had found so overwhelming had good reason to bother her; it was growing. No longer draining into mysterious grates that she could not find, it instead rose up the walls of her room. An inch, she guessed by sight, already covered the floor. She watched it run down the walls and into the pool in a kind of trance, unable to believe what she was seeing. If Miles didn’t hurry up and find the right lever to free her, she would find herself in over her head.

The thought of being body deep in the muck was horrific enough, but a new fear began to override that more obvious one. Sam couldn’t swim. She had refused all lessons as a child, fearing the chemicals, the other children, and the potential for said children adding their own “personal” brand of chemicals to the deal. Her mother was mortified at having to rescue her squalling child from a group of peers laughing and splashing away. Her father wasn’t surprised. She had wanted to learn, as an adult, but the fear still lingered, and the chance was never safe or good enough to take. Countless teachers and college professors had promised to go with her, for moral support, but each time she found some excuse not to go. She had not expected to need such skills in the defense of her own life! Even at the beach, she stayed well clear of the water.

“Miles?” Sam’s distracted mind allowed her to form the name for the first time out of necessity. “The water’s rising.”

Silence greeted her shout. As far down the hallway as he was, even her loudest scream might go unnoticed, and he was so focused on his task that her chances of success were even lower. Fearing the worst, Sam’s mind jumped to her one remaining secret weapon: the Stone of Promise. She might be able to use it to save her life, but there were so very many reasons why that was unlikely to work. She could, at least, try and see what happened. After all, she was the writer; why shouldn’t she be able to break the rules any time she pleased? If a figment of her imagination existed where it should not, then how much further down the path of madness did she have to be to assume she could affect it, somehow? It was a risk, a foolish one, but unless she took it, she might not survive long enough to try later.

Gritting her teeth, Sam realized that she would have to be able to reach the Stone to use it. Her back pocket was the single most impossible location on her body for her to reach. She had put her entire effort into freeing her mouth to ask Miles for aid, but she had not considered what she would do if he could not, or would not, help her. Now the weight of that decision threatened to crush her. Miles couldn’t be trusted; nothing in this forsaken world could! Wherever he was, he couldn’t save her now, and she lacked so much of what she needed. Her keys were in her backpack, which of course was across the room; she lacked the long nails that so many of her fellow students wore, and she was no contortionist, to be able to bend down and chew through her other bonds. There had to be some way to get to the Stone! Her previous faith in action over thought was starting to dwindle.

At last she seized on an idea, and began to make tiny shifts of her body up and down in her bonds. The Stone might come out of its own accord if she did things right; her bonds would serve as an aid in pressing the Stone up and out of her pocket. Never the athletic type, and forced into making awkward movements, she found herself tiring almost before she began. No matter how hard she tried, there was always something ready to push back; to slow or stop her every move.

As Sam’s body began to falter and fail beneath her struggle, a thought registered in her mind. Her attempt to get to the Stone was a good one, she still believed that very much. But there was a certain lack of weight in her back pocket that she had not noticed before; there was no lump pressing into the back of her butt the way there should have been as she lay on a hard surface. Instead, the same cold slab that stood in place of a bed sent its chill beneath her jeans and into her skin without interruption.

Her last hope was gone. Somewhere, during the trials and tribulations of her flight from the apartment, she had lost the Stone. Was it while she was fighting the creature? Or while she had been sick at the deaths of her neighbors? Or had she lost it in the room, in the midst of her thrashing about, and hadn’t noticed? A quick search of the floor put that thought to rest with ease, unless the Stone had already been covered by the running filth – which had risen another inch since her struggle began. Somehow, deep in her gut, she knew that it wasn’t just out of reach; she would have noticed if it had splashed to the floor below! That alone sealed her fate. Unless Miles returned, she would die a miserable death, drowned by the foul rising liquid that was anything but mere water.

Panic took her, then, as it had not before. Being faced with her own inevitable death was more than her overwrought mind could handle, but death by something she feared as much as drowning was beyond cruel. She would rather have been torn to pieces by creatures; at least the pain would end. Now, she would have to feel the air being wrenched from her lungs, feel her body begin to struggle for more that it had no chance at receiving, and at last, the moments where she did not have enough, and her body shutting down one cell at a time. It was better to scream for Miles, better to kill herself fighting her bonds, than it would be to suffer that kind of end.

Tears ran down her cheeks and fell away, joining the rising muck beneath her, as she began to scream for Miles at the top of her lungs. Whether she liked it or not, he was her last chance at salvation. There was no time to think of regrets; she could have been kinder, and she could have stayed to help him, and she could have done more than walked away when faced with the admission of his love, but none of that could be changed now. Maybe he would think she had a change of heart only to save her own skin. She deserved that. But she was a fool, and she had known it all her life; these were not the first mistakes she had made, nor would they be her last. She hated herself for them, wanted as few of them as possible, but they were as much a part of her as her name and her face. Death, to pay for them, was appropriate, but she wanted a chance to set things right. As young as she was, she had a whole lifetime to change, and grow, and learn – but only if she survived.

Between sobs of fear and terror, and screams of the name she had only earlier found too uncomfortable to say aloud, Sam found the words that she had wanted to say all along in a whisper too soft for any ears but her own.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The knowledge of the missing Stone continued to haunt her as she begged for her life. The very real possibility that she had taken it from herself was all the more reason to get free of this place as soon as possible, and get home to the few things and places that did make sense. Only then would the confusion and pain cease at last.

Oh yes – some business, while you have a moment.  It has come to my attention that my World of Warcraft fanfic, Shadow and Flame, rarely receives votes.  When it does get them, it’s from my husband, who will admit to these things if pressed.  I suspect that most of my current readers aren’t involved with WoW, and that may be part of the reason.  In a fit of egotism, I also choose to consider the possibility that my original concepts are more enjoyable and interesting.  (Correct me, at length, if my assumptions are false.)  This, combined with the massive overhauling of the game itself via the next expansion, will render pretty much everything I have written nonexistent.  It will be a peek into WoW’s past, but I can no longer accurately look at what I am writing once that happens, and I fear that will impact my progress.

So here’s my thought.  I don’t want to remove it from the site, since it’s good writing and something I enjoyed doing.  However, I’m not sure that there’s any merit in keeping it available for votes when it doesn’t seem to be a priority for you all (or, really, for me.)  Unless there are any firm objections, I’m planning on taking it the way of Blank Slate – that is to say, I will leave it up, but only for posterity.  There will not be any further updates or continuations unless I someday decide to change my mind.  That is, after all, what it is currently doing.  If you like the number four, I guess you’ll just have to vote for a new story…  otherwise, the usual suspects are lined up and ready to rock!

Madam Maraude Morrist, hedgewitch extraordinaire, and diabolical mastermind, sole heir to the palatial House of Morrist, was bored. The feeling was not one that she was accustomed to, having spent so many years in pursuit of anything and everything that could torment her granddaughter. She had thought that freedom was what she wanted; the chance to be rid of an ancient and incessant drag on her coattails, and a painful reminder of a day in her lovelier years when someone else had ridden on her coattails. In the eyes of his child, that someone was reflected and magnified twice as large as life, as if he had somehow risen from his early grave to make amends. Maraude knew that Melody would never begin to understand how her every move shed further searing light upon the shadows in Maraude’s soul. The only person who had lost anything, with Ronald’s passing, was Maraude; what did an old woman have left but useless memories? Those memories were better buried with the subject that haunted them.

The first week had been nothing short of pure bliss. True to her word, she had lifted each window to let in the warmth of the sunlight, and danced as naked as the day she was born, just to spite the world and everything and everyone in it. She threw pots and pans; she knocked over bookshelves; she sat with her feet up in Ronald’s best chair watching the insides of her eyelids for hours. It was all hers, every scrap of silence and dust. Melody’s tears and fears and weak-minded simpering were as much a memory as Ronald’s face, and were easier to forget in the long run. She had thought that she could live the rest of her remaining years with ease in just that fashion.

Then the boredom set in, just past the first week. Her newfound freedom was beginning to take on irritations that she had not thought of before. Being busy was not so bad, after all, as long as one’s hands were not idle for lack of thought. With Melody gone, her only challenge came in the form of figuring out how best to cause mayhem to Ronald’s beloved estate. It wouldn’t be long before she found herself out-of-doors, tormenting the local populace for lack of a more available target. Though payment in kind for their years of disrespect and disinterest and general noise would be pleasant, she might just try their patience to the point where they asked her to leave. Oh, the fun she would have then, but it would come at the cost of her only lodging, and that just wouldn’t do. She was too old for a lifetime of tents and campfires, or strange inns with stranger company. There was, of course, the option to witch them all into her good graces, but that would be too much work.

Maraude sat before the roaring fire she had built in Ronald’s fireplace, his grand plush chair pulled up too close for safety. Every bone in her body drank in the warmth like soldiers in the desert heat might drink their last remaining water. It gave her strength and security, a chance to relax, and to free her mind from the general sense of emptiness that it had been suffering for days. Within that freedom came new ideas, new challenges, and new interests that warred between themselves for her attention. She was, after all, a witch. What benefit could come from allowing her talents to grow as complacent as she had?

Slowly, she opened eyes that had closed against the brilliance of the flames. She had held off spying on Melody and Armer, wanting instead to bask in the success of ending their failed union, but it had been a losing battle. Her desire to see what she had wrought in their miserable lives was too great, and it would be good, after all, to determine the degree of her success. Someday, perhaps, she could use this enchantment as testimony in regard to how gifted a witch she was. Of course, that was what she told herself. It was more polite than calling herself a nosy busybody with too much time on her hands. If there was one thing Maraude Morrist demanded now that she was free of Melody, it was politeness!

Pulling a flask of liquid from her belt, Maraude took a deep drink, only by practice managing not to choke on the foul stench that accompanied it. It was best not to think of what went into it, she’d found long ago. Holding her breath only got her so far, and the more she breathed, inviting air and warmth into her aging lungs, the quicker the spell would reach its full potential. Sitting back in Ronald’s – her – chair, she continued to watch the dancing flames as her vision blurred into a comfortable nothingness. Her final thought before the vision of Melody took hold was of how much easier it was to change one’s attitudes and dispositions via magic, rather than the alcohol and herbal drugs that the nobles favored!

The outline of Melody’s body appeared in the fire, but something seemed wrong at first. Maraude nearly broke her own concentration and lost the apparition trying to figure out what the problem was. The girl had been dressed to kill when she fled Maraude’s company; now her curled hair was flat and ragged, and the gown that Maraude had worked so hard to craft to perfection was gone. In its place was the rough brown wool of a servant girl – a barefoot servant girl at that. The scent of grass and fouled straw grew on her to the point of nausea; then a pattern of sounds that could only be a voice broke into her thoughts. She could not hear him, but she could see him amidst Melody’s skirts; a young boy, barely five years of age, towheaded and adorable. He seemed to be asking questions of her, questions that she did not want to answer, from her guarded posture and bowed head.

What had the foolish girl managed to do to herself? If Maraude didn’t know any better, the scene before her would suggest that Melody had sold herself out as a common hireling! Farm work, for Ronald Morrist’s daughter? Maraude spat into the fire. She had taught the girl so much better, and this was her repayment? She had been right to get rid of her, more right than she knew! What waste, what utter squandering of all the time and energy Maraude had put into her! It was enough to make an old woman want to scream.

Unfortunately, she was wrong in thinking that nobody was around to hear. A polite knock on her door following her caterwauling screech of frustration, followed by someone’s polite “Excuse me, is everything all right in there?” collapsed her vision in on itself, leaving her staring at a fire that was beginning to make her head ache. She barked obscenities at the visitor, and it wasn’t long before the sound of dissipating footsteps took the place of the concerned caller. Did nobody have any thought to privacy anymore?

The visitor gone, Maraude settled herself back into her chair, taking deep breaths to re-establish her previous level of calm. Whatever Melody had done to herself, it was clear that she was no longer in a place that Maraude recognized. One farm was as good as another as far as she was concerned. From the look of things, Maraude wasn’t certain whether anything she could do with her own hands could turn out worse for Melody anyway! What would Armer think of his beloved now, with her filthy hands shoved deep into the earth and her lovely face smeared with sweat and red from the unceasing sunlight?

Armer had to be living a more interesting life. That thought led Maraude to dive for her miserable flask a second time, with a glee that managed to erase at least some of her annoyance at Melody. It was possible that the boy had managed to get himself killed, if he hadn’t yet mastered his newfound ailment with a safe amount of agility. She had scried into the minds of the dead before; they were always so much more interesting than the living! Except, of course, for Ronald…

That thought was a bad one, and she settled instead for focusing on the fire. It wasn’t long before an image of Armer appeared. This image was less shocking than Melody’s by far, and brought Maraude to fits of giggles that would have been more becoming in a girl half her age. The young fool was at a table, surrounded by other men and the scents of alcohol and cigars. Spread across the table were cards of varying persuasions; she did not know enough about such illegal and mundane pastimes to judge whether they were any good. From the pile of gold amassing on Armer’s side of the table, she presumed that her gift had somehow given him some kind of advantage in this particular game.

Ronald had spoken of poker before, she thought she remembered; a game in which the player was at the mercy of his cards and the other players at the table. If Armer couldn’t even trust his own face and reactions, how could anyone else? She had not considered any way her punishment might have been beneficial before now. The realization that he was playing cards instead of searching for Melody had elated her at first, but further study indicated that he was making quite a successful business of taking money from unwitting men who were greater fools than he. The pile before him might well have served as a lesser noble’s paycheck from his king.

If Armer managed to earn enough money, it was possible that he might be able to use that to fund an effort to find Melody. Maraude couldn’t be certain of whether Armer had any intention remaining to rescue the girl; scrying would never tell her the full truth the way a real person would. It was a nasty – and careless, but that was not polite – trap she had laid for herself. If she did nothing, then perhaps Armer would find himself a new position as a card shark, or a prisoner of the kingdom. On the other hand, he might rise from the ashes to emerge victorious. If she acted, though, she could use his newfound situation to her advantage, and make certain that Melody would be the last thing on his feeble mind. Doing so, however, would mean an end to her hard-won freedom and personal wish to wash her hands of anything to do with Melody Morrist and her devil-taken father.

Maraude’s head was beginning to ache worse than it had after seeing Melody in the flames. If she didn’t know better, she might have believed that some outside force was testing her, forcing her to her tired and unwilling feet for some form of trial. She had wanted her freedom for so long; the chance to live her own life after sweeping her son’s bitter ashes beneath every rug he owned. It was possible that his spirit lived on, and resented her treatment of his daughter; but what right did he have to punish her? Hadn’t he punished her enough by making her witness to his broken body, and leaving her a child she had never wanted in place of the one that she had? If he thought he was going to win this fight, he had another thing coming, indeed. She could have verified any of this, had she wanted to, but the anger that it brought left her desiring action more than sanity. She would not remain in Morrist’s house a moment longer. Just being near the area of his influence seemed to be fraying the tattered cloth that served as her mind.

A flash of inspiration struck her, amidst the clamor of her denial and rejection of the possibility of her son’s involvement in the situation. She had wanted to get rid of Melody so much; had groomed her to be the perfect, irresistible bride. She knew what it took to craft a noble out of mere clay; there were natural gifts that aided the girl, but beyond that it was all the same magic in the end. With her witchcraft, it would be possible to craft an enchantment to set aside her age and decay. She had never done so before because she enjoyed being the crotchety old woman that forced everyone to their knees, but perhaps there could be some merit in a second childhood. And Armer had said he would love her, in the end…

She could make certain that Armer never gave Melody a second glance. In so doing, she would ensure her continued position in the little game she had crafted. She would never suffer from the boredom she had unwittingly inflicted upon herself again – and if she did, well, wasn’t it natural for a lady to play hard to get? This, more than anything she had done before, would be the ultimate success.

Maraude got up from Ronald’s chair, stretched to the best of her ability, listened to the resounding snap of her bones for what might be the last time for quite awhile, and nodded with satisfaction. It would not be an easy task to transform herself from an ugly crone to a beautiful swan, but with enough time and attention, by the end of the day, anyone who saw her would be happy to fall at her footsteps and beg for her favor. It would be nice, she had to admit to herself, to have them do it without threatening them first.

Melody could have her little farm, and whatever brat she had stumbled upon in her quest for survival in a world that no longer wanted her. At least, with Armer, Maraude could continue to watch the fruits of her labor, and place him with ease into positions that showed it off well. If Armer’s path ever intersected with his beloved’s again, she would be there to make certain his choice was even less clear than his ability to react.

How is a raven like a writing desk?  I don’t know either, but I’ll be thinking about it until I see you next month.  Onward to May 20th!

Still pondering how to get the word out.  I know most people do this kind of thing by being active in the writing community and various forums and websites online, but as I have been focusing on completing projects and actually WRITING rather than spending a lot of time browsing the digital distraction field (hereafter referred to as the DDF, or just plain Internet) I have limited resources in this regard.  Plus, I’d feel silly joining up just to pimp my own ride.  I may be a good writer, but I prefer the kind of attention that comes from readers stumbling across my site and finding a good place to hang their hats, not the kind I have to strong-arm my way into.  There’s a lot of detritus in the DDF – surely there must be some way to get mine more noticeable without handing out resumes links to websites I don’t even frequent.

Also, as an aside – I hate spam.  Most of it is quite obvious and I don’t waste time on such things.  However, there are often messages that are so close to believable that I run the risk of losing potential readers/comments to my spam filter.  If you have ever tried to comment and it hasn’t shown up, please do send me an email at brasspetals@gmail.com (don’t use the comments, obviously!) and tell me.  I want to be sure that I’m weeding out the bad but keeping the good!  If I bite anything or anyone, it’ll be my spam filters, not you.

See you on the 1st, ladies and gentlemen, with Liar’s Dice in tow!