From: prauda@dol-guldur.hut.fi (Kristiina Prauda)
Subject: Castle: KATHREA'S STORY (PART 1)
Organization: Helsinki University, Finland
Date: 9 Oct 92 19:29:29



All right... here we go... 

<deep breath>

I present you... The Story of the Three. 



Kristiina 
Official FireDancer of the RFA
prauda@dol-guldur.hut.fi



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They had gathered  to hear her speak, as she had requested, and it was 
time. She sat on a low stool in the middle of the great banquet hall 
of the Castle of Romance, and the people of the Castle sat all around 
the room, their faces fixed to her in curiosity and expectation and 
wonder. She seemed unnaturally calm and composed, and yet her whole 
body vibrated emotion - emotion spilling over like bittersweet wine 
from a goblet, spreading towards them and over them. Her whole existence 
was a sharp cry that reached out to them, pleading, demanding reaction,
response, compassion - demanding them to love and hate and grieve and 
rejoice with her. It was a plea that was almost impossible to resist, 
and yet there was nothing magical in it... but it was an enchantment 
just as certainly.

To their surprise, she was all dressed in black now - heavy black 
velvet that covered her neck and arms completely and fell from her
waist in black waves like the sea in a dark night of autumn. The 
black made her face even paler than it generally was, and even her
reddish-dark hair seemed strangely colorless, subdued. Her only 
ornament was the three-petalled golden brooch at her throat, its 
magnificent jewels - diamond, ruby and sapphire - living flames in
the otherwise somber picture.  

When she began speaking, her voice was low and level, expressionless.
All the emotion was elsewhere, in another frame: hanging in the air,
pulsing in their minds, making their hearts beat for the rhythm of
her words. 


"I do not know where to begin and what to explain to make you see 
the whole story. What should I tell? And what was the beginning, such 
a long time ago? Sometimes I feel that I have lived eons and seen 
everything there is to see of mankind... and sometimes I feel that
I have just stopped; that it happened but a little while ago, and
all time after it has been meaningless, flowing past me as I wait
for my own time to resume its part in that flow...

This is the story of the Three, but that is not all it is. There is
heroism in the story, yes, but there is also need, and stubbornness, 
and the inability to yield. This is the story of strong will and a
desire even stronger, dominating the will. This is the story of 
bitter learning, and of suffering. And then again, perhaps it is the 
story of something else altogether, or in addition. I do not know. 
There is much that I do not know, and I would wish to know even less. 

But before I go to what I think of as the beginning, I will show you.

Behold my demons."

And their mind's eyes opened - or was it just an image in the middle
of the hall? They were not sure. But their vision was filled with 
a grey mist, mist like countless years descending on their memory. 
They seemed to be looking into a time or place beyond their world
and their knowledge, another world but so far away that there was at 
first nothing to be seen. Then suddenly, the mist parted and was 
blown away in a stormwind, and in the storm, shapes began to appear. 
They saw a bird rising from flames; another bird: a giant eagle diving 
towards them with spread wings; and a tornado, a whirl of storm. And
the bird became a woman on a golden horse, the eagle a slender man
in grey robes, the tornado a man with a swirling dark-blue cape. And
the images danced, changed again, melted back into the storm. 

The storm was washed away and replaces by darkness, as if they had
been gazing into a bottomless black abyss. And there the images 
reappeared: the faces of those previous three shapes, now clear
and close and yet insubstantial, separated from them by a wall of 
frozen anguish, and together as if not totally whole and independent
at all. And, as they might have anticipated, the woman was Kathrea. 
A different Kathrea, stronger, not yet weary, but also full of tension, 
her expressions even more of quicksilver than they now knew. 

The male faces were very different from each other, even though they 
both had the same coloring: dark-blonde or sandy hair, fair skin, 
black eyebrows, more or less blue eyes. The one on Kathrea's left
was very slender and narrow, with clear-lined, perfect bones, a sharp 
nose and very thick eyebrows over eyes of changing grey-blue. Those
eyes were very deep, sharp, yet tired, full of wisdom far beyond their
apparent years - for he did not look much older than Kathrea. The 
other face was wider and rounder, with an upturned nose and yet, in
contrast, a strong jaw, a small almost contemptuous smile, and
enquiring eyebrows over dark-blue eyes. His age, too, could not have
been more than a couple of summers over twenty. All the faces appeared 
calm, and yet there was tension between them, a net stretched like a 
web of storm, unbreakable, always there, created and bound by them, 
binding them into itself... 

There were other images, too. A king, old and gray-bearded, and his
queen. A family of dark-haired blue-eyed people strongly resembling
Kathrea: a wide-shouldered man, a small neat woman, a young man with
a sincere expression. An old wizard, bent, his clean-shaven brown 
face full of wrinkles and yet proud, almost haughty. A girl with short 
brown curls and round honest eyes in a round face. A tall, golden-haired 
young man wearing the circlet of a king upon his brow, and an older 
woman with such a great likeness to him that she had to be his mother. 
Curiously enough, the young king bore a vague resemblance to Baron 
Silverwind. And there were others, mainly wizards - a great assembly 
of wizards in robes of all colors, wizards both young and old, but with 
one similarity: their grim and defensive expression.

And it seemed to the onlookers that the earth trembled and turned and 
swallowed many of those people, and fire rose in a raging inferno and
took some, and a great stormwind came down and wiped away some. And 
finally, a huge wave of water rose and washed over them and took the 
two men on both sides of Kathrea's image, and she was left alone. Tears
were flowing down her cheeks, but its expression did not change, as if
it had been imprisoned into stone. The unworded despair in her eyes 
hurt in every throat, burned in every eye... but it could not get out, 
could not be unleashed. 

The vision faded. They were in the great hall again, and there in the
middle of the hall Kathrea still sat, quietly, her hands in her lap, 
her face weary. They stared at her in confusion, guessing at the 
significance of the vision, but even now unable to find answers to 
her mystery. 


"Yes, this is the Three. And this is the story. It began a long time
ago in another world, one that is not familiar to you, and in a 
land that is now lost and forgotten, not even a memory or a legend
any more, even in that world. But it was a beautiful land, and rich, 
and its people were at the height of their power and wisdom, the
leading people of the great continent... A land of green meadows and
sparkling lakes, of forested hills of pine and rowan, birch and fir, 
and of fertile valleys of golden crop and many-colored gardens... 
And there were cities, too, and roads between them - long roads,
for my people were never very numerous. 

Oh yes, my land was beautiful. And my people were proud and independent,
and had achieved much in prosperity and in wisdom. By the time when I 
was young, they also had peace. And it was all lost in one night, 
one single night of madness...

I was niece to the king, the only daughter of the youngest of his
three sisters, and lived in the court, in the warm winds of the west 
coast. I was separated from my parents and my siblings there, since
my father was the Prince of the Northern Hills far away to the cold
north. As this story begins, I was eighteen, and one of the Queen's 
maids: not a wizard by then. No-one expected any kind of magical 
ability from me, as my life consisted of the usual duties of a court 
lady: song, harp, dance, needlework, court talk. Thanks to our good 
Queen, I was not totally innocent about the matters of the world 
either: she arranged priests, magicians and counsellors to give us 
girls at least a passing knowledge in history, theology and politics. 
Very passing, though - as I came to see in the Academy of Magic. 

But my magical abilities were dormant, simply because I did not 
believe I would ever have any... until Soron came and saw everything
that I was and could be.