9/18/02

After the unexpected calm of the 'Mountain/Repose' reading of a few days ago the confusion that had been the norm in this alien world returned to the uihe twigs. Unsurprisingly, they had become yet more obscure as Leodan and his companions reached the blighted town of Ossington. Yesterday morning 's reading, taken at the farmhouse, had been as incomprehensible as this morning's, and no wonder: the situation in and around Ossington was, in the words of Leodan's learned Abbot, 'backside foremost.' Perhaps the unnatural silence of the woods in the region unerved him, but whatever the cause, Leodan felt his connection to the Boh was as tenuous here as it had ever been. He sat quietly reviewing the reading, puzzling over the pieces of the local puzzle and scratching his lately shaven head.

In the calm of his mind, Leodan spun time backwards to the earliest thing that he knew had happened in the civic life of Ossington: the installation of the stone circles. Knowing nothing about the history of this world made this question quite tantalizing. To what end had these stones been erected? If the end were an evil one, could they be effecting the town today with past malignancy? From this endpoint in antiquity time sped forward to within 7 months of this day. At that time, Dyson's mentor, Olwane died. Like Dyson, he had been a reseacher into obscure magical techniques. Had he also been ersatz prefect of the town? What had his studies lead him to, and why had he carried them out in such a backwater town? Perhaps his studies and the latent effects of the standing stones had ill combined. Time sped forward again against the backdrop of Leodan's timeless self. Three months ago Dyson and Tully had arrived in the town. At this same time, the Horseman as well as the wood-elves had begun to harass the town. What could explain this coincidence if not that Dyson and Tully were behind the chaos? Dyson certainly seemed to be doing well, he had neatly landed in a power vacuum, albeit one of limited outside influence. It would do him little good to become master of a ruined town where no one plowed the fields without dying under attack from aggressive elves.

There seemed little hope for the town at this point. If the crops were not in the ground soon, there would be no harvest to speak of. As things were, the people were starving. Yet, three things made the question irresistible to Leodan's curiosity. The ghostly Horseman who could be injured but not killed. He knew that there were verses of the liturgy which spoke upon the point of ghosts and such, with Zalde's customary wisdom, no doubt, but he could not recall them precisely just then. The Horseman did not behave like a ghost at any rate. Barbaric Elves was preposterous. Elves were highly civilized for the most part. The wood elves here seemed almost as if they were defending themselves rather than trying to oust an incursion, which anyway had begun hundreds of years ago (longer if you counted the stones). Such a span was an eyeblink to elves, but still... Strangest of all, though, was the silence of the woods and the apathy of the townsfolk. These struck Leodan in a very strange way. Whatever had the power to still the voice of the night and to cow people into ignoring the planting schedule was a thing of great and misused might. It was almost as though the entire region had come under some dire enchantment. To straighten out such a kink in the flow of the Boh would be great work indeed.

But where to begin?

Just then a morning bird lighted upon a tree branch over Leodan's head and sang it's morning prayers. It was the first sound of its kind that he had heard in days and it pleased him greatly. He sighed and let the matter rest for the moment, returning to his friends to see if any were yet awake and ready to break fast.