Chapter 8: The King of the Dead

(Return toArheled)

The weather seemed to be operating on a pendulum. Hot, balmy days alternated with cool, rainy ones, and thunderstorms were a matter of course. The wild roses faded out, but the laurels remained.

So school finally ended, freedom and liberty, and he no longer had to pretend to catch the bus and waste all day at the library (if his mom didn’t have work). The first day of vacation was a bright warm morning, the sun dawning hot and misty, with the promise of considerable heat today. “Can you put this out in the mail, Forest?” his dad called as Forest was finishing breakfast. He slipped on his shoes and headed over the bridge.

Ronnie Wendy was pedalling by at that moment and came to a staggering halt. “I need new brake shoes.” he complained. “Hello, Forest. How goes it? Any breaking news?”

“I saw the Lord of the Cosmos.” said Forest.

“That’s very interesting.” muttered Ronnie when he had pried out of Forest a stammering fragmentary account of the dream. “I wonder….”

“What are you doing today?”

Ronnie hefted a broad-brimmed straw hat from his basket. “Strawberry picking.” he said. “There are pockets all over Mad River Dam. Hey, ask your mom if you can come.”

Forest ran back and told Dad he was going on a bike ride. Dad was just setting off for work at that moment, as the College still had a few days of paperwork ahead before the final vacation began for him, and he said fine, but just be back by supper. Bell was going to the beach with yellow-haired Mindy, and the two of them were chattering happily on Split Rock, oblivious of everything. At Ronnie’s advice Forest fetched a baseball cap and sunscreen. “The sun can be pretty fierce.” he said.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“You don’t have any.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Sunscreen? I don’t burn very easily. Besides, I have my hat, my fine silk haaaat…”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I’ll go find a squash to sit on it.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“A great big squash just sat upon my hat,” Ronnie carolled, “a great big squash just squished my hat quite flat! It squished my hat it squished my hat it squished it flaaaat….”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Cuh-cooo.” muttered Forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">They biked up the shore road. The odd shambledown cottages, bungalows and lake houses, built all different times and in all different styles, clustered in a charming confusion one next to another. There were inflatable docks and floating docks, along with moored boats of every shape and size.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I rather envy you, living on Highland Lake.” said Ronnie. “You should call your island Esgaroth.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Esgaroth upon the Long Lake.” grinned Forest. “I like Wintergreen better.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">They passed the beach and boat launch and turned left just before the spillway, following Woodland St. The patch of woods which had once been lake-outlet factories ran along the right. A little level suburb of small square houses and shade trees lay on the left several streets branching off to intersect Boyd in its’ long climb around the unnamed double hill that lay north and west of the lake, between Cobble and Pond Hills. They came to an edge where the street plunged swiftly down, and the abrupt tossing heights of the Cobbles leaped upward, close and nearly in front of them, across a deep sudden valley: the west opening of the horseshoe of the Winsted valley.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Down several plunging streets, sometimes walking their bikes, Ronnie led Forest. Old placid tenement houses on the country edge of Winsted lined the roads. They went down Hubbard St and John St, and along the flat Meadow Lane, past pleasant shaded townhouses to the bridge over Mad River and the highway Rt. 44. Ronnie took the old cutoff loop that ran on into the woods above the Nanto Nenlë, but did not descend into the valley. Instead he followed the short section of concrete road until the long gorge of the spillway cut it off. A jeep path climbed on in winding loops up through lovely open woods, granite swells and forest-moss mingling with fern. The road being too rough to bike up, they locked their bikes up at the concrete road and walked up the jeep track.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“What you said about the galaxies flowing,” Ronnie said suddenly, “sounds a lot like that ‘dark flow’ I read about once. Or was that in your last letter?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“My letter.” said Forest. “Dad was telling us about it on the lake and I thought it was important.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I wonder,” mused Ronnie, “whether the galaxies were flowing east or west?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“They…” They couldn’t, because there is no E or W off the earth.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Yes, I know, east and west are relative.” Ronnie said impatiently. “That’s not what I meant. We both know that the World once had a single East and West. Even when the Ilurambar receded to an infinite distance and the universe expanded, that ultimate E and W still exist. What occurred to me is, are the galaxies being pulled toward the Doors of Night…or the Gates of the Morning?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“The Door of Night was in the west.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“And the Sign of Ward’s Hill indicated the star Murzim as the home of the Herald.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Chelendar had to travel a full age at probably way over light speed to reach the Doors of Night.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Yes, but what I’m getting at is that the plane of the Milky Way, extended through the universe, might form a sort of ‘horizon’ that corresponds to the surface of the ancient world. The galaxies are following this horizon—this ‘dark flow’. What pulls them, and to what end?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Murzim might mark true West, you mean?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“And it, like the Great Attractor, lies in the plane of the Milky Way. I wonder…I’ll look up some star charts at the library again.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">A break opened in the cliff on the left, and the road forked, one branch descending to the left and the rest climbing upward over a great stony shoulder of land which the spillway had been carven through. The fork plunged steeply down, emerging almost violently into stark white summer sunlight. Here too it forked, curving down to right and left to join a climbing jeep road up the floor of the gorge. Square-cut, with abrupt ragged rock walls, the gorge was maybe a hundred feet across, curving down from the Dike to end below Mad River Falls at the head of the Valley of Voices.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Wow, there’s a good patch right here!” exclaimed Ronnie. The close-cut herbage of the green floor was speckled with red: clusters of wild strawberries growing close together. They were unusually large for wild strawberries: some were nearly an inch, and many were half an inch. Ronnie unscrewed two old mayonnaise jars and put the lids in his backpack, then jammed the straw farmer’s hat on his head. With his lean brown face and brilliant eyes, it had a strange effect, half cowboy and half farmer, and half something else.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">The sun beat unremittingly down on them as they picked. Berries piled up in the jars with agonizing slowness. Ronnie seemed tireless, pinching the leaf-tops off the berry-crowns and picking more with a sort of concentrated intensity that mimicked patience. Forest was ravenously hungry by the time the patch began to peter away into straggling clumps and finally ended. They each had half a jarful.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Let’s have lunch by the river.” said Ronnie. “You did pack a sandwich like I told you?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Forgot water.” said Forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Ah well, there’s a spring or two down there you can drink from.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">It was good to be in the shade again. Ronnie went for a swim but Forest was content to splash his face and arms. They rested on the moss and ate their sandwiches slowly.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Funny thing, I was at the beach last evening in swimming with a girl I’d made friends with, and I was joking about things and laughing, and she thought I was high on something.” Ronnie remarked. “Isn’t that weird?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“They don’t know how to laugh anymore, so they take drugs to remember how.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“It’s pretty sad when the only way they can induce the high spirits of normal men, is to take artificial stimulation and drug themselves to laugh. I mean, normal people when they have fun, can laugh and jest, but so empty and sad are the young folk of Winsted that they have to take drugs to get themselves to laugh.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“It’s pretty scary.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“She wasn’t empty, though,” Ronnie mused, “not Carlee. I liked her. She had a fine keen handsome face and a good-natured, hearty way of laughing. We floated out on tubes, me, her, her boyfriend, and we talked about the stars and the Fish and the signs of the Nine Hills. She’s one of those who can see, although only dimly, but if Arheled called I think she would listen. She lives in Winsted.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Forest made some kind of grunt.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Carlee said an odd thing,” Ronnie murmered, half asleep. “She asked if people fornicate in this water. Not ‘have sex’. Fornicate. I thought I was the last living person to use that word.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I use it.” mumbled Forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“So does Bell.” Ronnie seemed to be already asleep. The white and green dapplings on the leaves were so restful that Forest followed suit. It seemed only an hour later when they woke and headed back up the spillway gorge, but the entire gorge was in shadow.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">It turned out the first patch was the only one on the gorge. They climbed over the big concrete lip that crossed the head of the spillway, and Ronnie found another patch along the edge of the woods. This one had deep grass all through it, which was still blooming in one or two places, but Ronnie and Forest both held their breaths and waited for the yellow dust to settle when they banged into the stalks.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Do you have a girlfriend, Ronnie?” Forest said all of a sudden.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Me? Ronnie Wendy, the creep with scary eyes? Ha ha. No,” and he suddenly looked very weary and very sad, “I don’t. Nor have I ever.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Why?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Ronnie shrugged. “I ask, and I ask, but I always hear ‘no.’ I just have really bad luck with women. I did actually go on a date, a couple weeks ago—and she turned out to be a witch.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Forest snorted with laughter. “Really?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“She was in Wicca, at any rate. The pretty librarian, down at Beardsley, you know? Nerissa Meritta. I don’t know what made me ask her, or her say yes, but we did. It was a really weird experience.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I want to hear it.” said Forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Ronnie’s keen eyes became remote and absent, as if seeing things far away and long ago. “It was June 11th, which by no coincidence turned out to be the Sacred Heart—oh sorry, the feastday on which we celebrate the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A day of great grace and power, Forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">I biked to the library as they were closing. She wore a dress with bright pink and yellow flower-starburst patterns, like a laurel blossom. I rode in her car as we drove off to get gas and then pizza. We had the most fascinating conversations.” He chuckled. “The first thing that emerged was that she was, of all things, a witch. This being a date, she was exploring our religious standpoints and when I said I was a Catholic she said there was no way I’d be allowed to marry her—because she was a witch.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Forest was grinning. “I know,” Ronnie nodded, “I was laughing my head off at my crazy bad luck. She’s not exactly of the worst sort, the necromancers and old lady Filley; she defined herself as ‘white’ and a ‘magic practitioner’. We had a big discussion on the nature of magic and what might have been possible in ancient times, and how the light of the Church has made magic no longer lawful—maybe not even possible now. The things of the darkness, even those that were not evil, have all passed away before the light, unless they could align with it.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“That’s—“ That’s what Arheled was saying.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Yes, I remembered what you told us of his words.” said Ronnie. “I mean, in Ireland the fairies cannot bear to face a priest, yet in Europe we hear tales of fairy godmothers and fairies attending christenings, and getting pretty mad when not invited. Evidently the fays of those lands found a way to meld with the Light.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">His voice grew solemn and dreamy. “Now all things have chosen sides that before did not have to, and all who are not upon the side of Christ are against him, and open to if not already under the sway of Hell, and hence I explained the danger of magic and why good men are no longer able to work it. And I then forgot to buckle up, and she whacked me upside the head for it. ‘Anyone who gets in my car and forgets to buckle up gets whacked.’ she said. Of course later I forgot again and got another whack.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“We got pizza and I paid for half of it, but she forgot to ask for napkins so we stopped at one of the Burrville stores. I was going to pinch some napkins from the dining tables—it has a deli shop—but she insisted on buying an entire package. Then we parked partway up Burr Mt. Rd—just above Burrville, where the road loops straight up a cliff beside a cascade—and there’s a tiny parking spot at the brink of the descent where a dirt road goes up to Burr Pond. So we walked up that, me laughing and both of us talking. It was late now, almost sunset, and too chill to swim—which put me out a little, but I made the best of it. We ate pizza and talked instead.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“There’s a little point, right beside the beach, open and wooded with short sparse little maples and small white pines. Some brush, mostly on the shore, but the rest is turfed with moss and close-cropped grass, picnic tables all around. We sat at a table near the beach. We were the only ones there; it was a Friday evening and cool out.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“She told me of some things she’s written, and we talked of ghosts and magic and God, and miracles, and saints, and the Church, and she seemed all this time to be aiming at something or leading up to something, until she told me that she has a gift—she called herself an ‘empath’—a gift for diagnosing and feeling the ailments and sufferings of others. I was filled with this weird Chestertonian impulse to divine levity, and as she was telling me this I led her off among the trees. “Serious subjects should always be discussed with the proper amount of humor and levity.” I said, and swarmed the nearest tree. She had that bright plump smile of hers at my antics.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“ ‘Do you think this gift is from the devil?’ she asked me, ‘because when I went to St. Anthony’s long ago they called me demon-child and told me all such things were of Hell.’

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Swinging upside down from the tree, I said, ‘Does it bear good fruit? If it bears good fruit—if the results that come about from using your gift are good—then it is from God; but if it causes bad results, bad fruit, then it is of Hell.’

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I dropped to the ground. ‘It certainly seems genuine and from God,’ I said, mentally asking the Holy Spirit for help, as she had told me the fruits were good; and then I told her about the charisms. You see them sometimes among the charismatics, even among you Protestants: gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues, or prophecy, or reading of the soul, discernment of spirits—there are many gifts, some very odd ones, like the one Samson got.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“ ‘You’re a strange kind of Catholic.’ she said. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard from other Catholics.’

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“ ‘Well, then those Catholics must be fools!’ I retorted, convulsing her. ‘That is what the Church is for, to discern between true and false spirits and true and false gifts and to help all men to Heaven, and what a pity many of Her members have forgotten it.’ “

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Wow.” said Forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Yeah, I think that made an impression.” agreed Ronnie. “Well, then we ate some cookies I’d saved for the occasion and headed back to the car. She says I’m an ‘earth elemental’, by which she meant I have a kinship with stone and trees and earth. She’s one too.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“We drove up the steep ways under Case Mt, back in the south end of Winsted by Pratt Hill, she intending to show me a way into the Robbers’ Caves from above, but she missed the road.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“We went up an incredibly steep, narrowing road, and then the pavement ended and we reached the top, and beyond the last house gravel descended onto a tableland upon the back of Case Mt. Then even this ended, and we came out into a dark clearing, sad and gloomy in the evening light. One rugged maple stood up in the middle. The road was dirt, dark marshy earth. We were joking and Nerissa was even laughing, when quite abruptly she went dead still.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“ ‘We’re getting out of here.’ she said.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“ ‘What’s wrong?’ I protested.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“ ‘I’m getting a feeling about this place.’

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Well, I didn’t feel anything eerie about it myself, but she told me she felt it was a departing-point, or a meeting point of evil ways. We backed around and headed up the gravel road.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“As we got onto the asphalt, a reddish-cranberry car passed us, heading to the very clearing we had left, and that spooked her even more, for she knew it, and knew the people in it: members of an enemy band of witches. From her talk I learned, Forest, that under the surface of Winsted lurks a subculture of many kinds of dabblers in the occult, who haunt the lovely glens and infest the strange places to work their dark sacrifices. She’s Indian on her mother’s side and Norwegian on the other, and apparently a lot of her relatives are involved with the shamans. Particularly her grandmother. She said it would be really interesting if I and her grandmother met, and in the same breath that it would be something she’d really not want to see. I gathered the old lady is a real witch indeed, not a misled fool like Nerissa. She said that her people, considering themselves ‘white,’ were foes of the necromancers and such, and would preform cleansing spells in the haunts of their foes, ‘to make them safe to walk in.’”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“How can Satan cast out Satan.” murmered Forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Exactly. She’d seen occult symbols traced on a wall in the Caves, and she’s been on Temple Fell.” said Ronnie. “I told her about what is really there. What causes the strangeness. I hinted in dark words about Arheled and his Road.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“We drove up to hike in Rugg Brook area. I showed her the False Tree and she didn’t believe it was false. We parked near the meeting of Rugg Brook Rd with Rt. 44, where the road does a U loop down over Mad River; there’s a parking lot there and a long open mead, a firebreak maybe, or the head of the flood control area. A dirt road goes down it. She dug up a lovely bit of quartz and gave it to me. I told her this was my first date and she didn’t believe me.” he chuckled.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Ronnie, you shouldn’t have accepted a gift from a witch.” reproved Forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“It was given in good faith as a mark of friendship, Forest, not in hate or the will to harm. The power of a magic or accursed item stems from the will to harm on the part of the giver, linked to the devil as operative principle thereof. I’ve blessed it with holy water, so it’s not dangerous.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“We walked past the little marsh, which was actually drained for once. Then we went up a jeep track that climbs up a wooded hill, the feet of Temple Fell rising sudden and mossy on the left. It angles right and runs along level until it joins Rugg Brook Rd.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I decided it was a good time to roast my marshmallows, so I randomly lit a fire from an old beer carton, to her great amusement. When I do things I scramble madly about in utter chaos but I still get them done. She called me a pyro. We toasted the marshmallows and of course they got all over her fingers. But not on mine. It was fun. I was leaving stuff here there and everywhere and then scrambling to move it in my usual crazy way while she laughed at me.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“We descended to Rugg Brook Reservoir in the fair clear evening, the sun just having set beyond the Norfolk hills, leaving the west sky aglow in gold. The tall pines along the road as it wends past the blueberry patch and the dam, give it a strange, remote wildness of atmosphere, and with the pink whiteness of laurel and the lush green of fern and tree it has a beauty like no other. It feels Northern. We came to a place where lake-head and valley-dip lined perfectly, dark green hills to either side, so that lake pointed to valley between walls of fringing green, faint lilac clouds above. Pines and pink and faintest purple.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“We went on the dam. Nerissa refused to jump off it. I looked across, to where beside the deep canal that drains the bogs west of the lake a laurel in full bloom glowed pink. Not white and pink, but a pink like her dress. I waded the spillway and floundered through the jungle on the far side.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“The west shore of the reservoir is a wild secret country. Green, rich and lush, yet tangled and fern-spiced, sphagnum moss soft underfoot and hemlock mixing with pine: jungle, but northern and not at all tropical. The rich complexity harbors a tangled secrecy in its’ very overflowing of growth. The alders, young white pine, hemlock and shrubbery form impenetrable tangles, dead pines rising high above them. I came to the pink laurel and picked it, wading back to where Nerissa stood like a laurel bloom herself against the dark green. I gave her the flower with grave courtesy. We sat and looked at the splendour of the evening lake in silence for a while—about the closest to a romantic moment on that whole wacky date.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“As we walked back she asked if I’d ever walked a labyrinth. We went down the hill below the dam as I told her I don’t walk them.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“ ‘They’re a journey into yourself to find God at your center.’ she said.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“ ‘I’m already in myself,’ I retorted, ‘I see myself all the time. I look out of myself, trapped in my own thoughts. The Christian wants to get out of himself. His journey starts inside him and proceeds outward in search of God. The Christian labyrinth should start at the center—maybe by a covered bridge from the exterior—and find the way out.’

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“The utter contrast in our viewpoints made me laugh all of a sudden: it was so much like a pair of Chesterton’s characters, each a personified idea, clashing. I forgot to buckle yet again, this time on purpose to tease her, and she said ‘Forget it, you’ve been warned, you can go ahead and die.’

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“That made me think of X from Dark Horse Comics and I started saying, ‘All who are whacked twice die; No one who’s whacked twice lives; this is the law of X!’ We laughed. We drove back. She said she’d had fun. It was a peculiar experience, not exactly ‘fun’, but certainly pleasant and interesting.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Anything you do is sure to be interesting.” Forest retorted. “But her grandmother: what was she like? Did she say?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I seem to recall,” Ronnie said slowly, “her describing her as stout, reddish hair with glasses…I can’t seem to remember anything else.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“The Witch of Winchester was stout with glasses, and her hair was kind of red turning grey.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Oh yes, you saw her last Halloween. That’s eerie. I don’t know what I would say if I met her. Makes me cold just thinking about it.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“It is cooler out.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Ronnie looked around. They were practically done with the patch. As they had picked and he had related his story, the tree-shade had stretched farther as they slowly advanced down the patch and their jars grew heavier. Now the sky above them as glowing red with sunset, and a breeze made the leaves above them murmer and sigh. The heat, and much of the warmth, had gone from the air, and a fresh pleasant coolness came on the wind, smelling of warm grass and forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">As if compelled by powers they could neither see nor feel, Ronnie and Forest rose slowly to their feet, a curious blankness on their faces. They knew they had to get going, and had a long way to go: all other thoughts left them. The pink evening sky slowly faded as they walked down a rent in the steep woods. They came out on the abandoned concrete road, the great Dike rising on their left, the small deep lake where Mad River halted reflecting red and pink the sunset sky. The pinkness died out as they turned their backs to the Dike and walked up the endless road. Mosquitos whined and wailed in their ears.

<p style="text-indent: 0.5in; margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">On, on, on. The road climbed up out of the valley, and Ronnie crossed the river on a bridge of a curved section of steel trestle, lying tumbled over as if from a washed-out bridge, yet still spanning the river. On the other side was a narrow grassy jeep track between wild rose that led out into an open firebreak meadow at the rim of the Dike’s flood zone. They headed across this and up a dirt road that climbed into a beech forest: the same one Ronnie had walked with Nerissa. The steep flanks of a high mountain drew near on the left: Temple Fell. But they felt somehow it had no business with them tonight, and walked steadily onward.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">The dirt road bent right and passed on through the forest, and the gloom deepened under the large oaks. They descended a yellow-baked cut onto a curving asphalt road, and Rugg Brook Reservoir across and below the street glinted through the trees.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Walking faster now they came to a fork leading right, and took it, pausing to drink from a spring issuing from an old rusted pipe. The pavement was left behind, replaced with white gravel. This road led them deeper and deeper into the forest, and in the grey gloom the mils suddenly seemed to fold in on themselves, so that it was with a dull surprise that Forest realized they had left the Waymeet of the Three Haunts behind and were partway up Green Lady Rd. Fireflies blinked on and off, spangling the dark woods with a myriad tiny stars.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">It seemed only a little farther before the Pit of Countless Cans opened on the left, in their strange stupor of mindless walking. The grey dusk was making shapes indistinct; the road was a pale ribbon, featureless and unvarying. So dark was it now they could not see the puddles and frequently plunged ankle-deep in warm soupy water, but still on and up the side road they plodded; and it was as true night slowly settled onto the hills that they sighted the pale round shape of the Skull.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">The spell dropped from them as if by a bolt of lightning. The eyes of Forest and Ronnie seemed to burn in the gloom as they stared at that stone, the only thing that could be seen at all in the dark forest. What had brought them here? What power had dragged them here, up the many long miles, to this place? Warily they advanced, wading through ferns and invisible dead branches, until they stood beside the rock.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I have been waiting for you.” 

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Unfolding itself from the paleness of the round stone, a greenish-white shape rose slowly to its’ feet. It formed a man of matchless stature, tall and majestic; but the neck ended abruptly at the shoulders. He wore fringed robes and a great white mantle drawn about him, but there was no sign or trace of his severed head anywhere nearby him. His arms were folded.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Who are you?” demanded Ronnie. “Why have you called us here?”

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Who   are   you?”   demanded   Ronnie. “Why   have   you   called   us   here?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             The   phantom   laughed,   a   sad   hollow   sound   that   came   from   the   air   above   his   neck. “I   am   the   King   of   the   Dead,   O   Hill   of   the   Road,   and   you   are   here   because   I   say.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “No.”   said   Ronnie. “We   are   here   for   another   reason. We   are   here   to   demand   the   release   of   the   Green   Lady,   whom   you   hold.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “She   shall   not   be   released.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “In   the   Name   of   Jesus,   she   shall   be!”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             The   spectre   held   up   a   deprecating   hand. “Please. You   are   no   priest. You   have   no   authority   to   utter   the   only   words   that   can   cast   me   out. You   cannot   speak   the   exorcisms. You   have   no   power   to   compel   me.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “But   I   can   call   down   the   Road   upon   you.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “But   will   it   answer? Is   the   Warden   at   your   beck   and   call? Do   not   the   necromancers   sacrifice   on   Temple   Fell   itself?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “I   am   the   Hill   of   the   Road. I   challenge   you,   O   King   of   the   Dead,   for   the   freedom   of   the   Green   Lady.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             The   spirit   laughed   again. “You   were   not   called   here   to   challenge. You   were   called   here   to   be   enspelled   for   the   jaws   of   the   Father   of   Dragons.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “You   have   been   challenged. Do   you,   then,   yield   your   rights?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             The   King   of   the   Dead   had   a   grim   respect   in   his   voice. “Arheled   calls   his   sons   well.”   he   said. “I   do   not   yield. I   answer   your   challenge. What   mode   shall   it   take?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Permit   us   by   riddles   to   win   her   release.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The   King   of   the   Dead   replied,   “Do   you,   then,   have   knowledge   of   such   breadth   you   would   take   on   a   ghost,   and   bind   yourself   to   answer   whatsoever   he   may   ask? None   the   less,   your   challenge   is   accepted. Answer   my   riddles,   and   I   will   answer   yours.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “And   if   we   lose?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             A   mirthless   smile   lurked   in   the   hollow   voice. “Then   I   take   your   heads.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “If   this   is   the   only   way,   we   accept   these   terms.”   said   Forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Ask.”   said   Ronnie. “And   may   the   Spirit   give   us   wisdom.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             The   King   of   the   Dead   unfolded   his   arms   and   spoke:

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“She   is   older   than   he, ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">but   he   is   her   elder; ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and   he   is   also   she, ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">but   she   is   likewise   he.” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   Ronnie   said,   “The   Moon   was   made   before   the   Sun,   but   the   Sun   was   conquered   by   the   god   Apollo,   and   Urwendi   the   Lady   of   the   Sun   is   possessed   by   him;   while   Silmo   the   Moon   was   cast   from   the   Moon   by   the   goddess   Diana. And   Apollo   is   the   son   of   the   Planets. Have   I   answered?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “You   have. Now   you   may   ask.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   Ronnie   said,

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">   “I   saw   a   peacock   with   a   fiery   tail, ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">   I   saw   a   crimson   sky   droppit   down   hail.” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             The   ghost   frowned. “The   peacock is   no   cock,   but   a   Phoenix,   who   flies   out   of   the   mouth   of   the   vanishing   of   Daslenga.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“Where   is   the   place ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">that   I   passed   before ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and   a   chain   of   speckled   fire? ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">That   place   was   bright,   it   hurt   my   sight ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and   that   did   rouse   my   ire.” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   Ronnie   said,   “That   is   the   River   Daslenga,   for   angry   is   he;   and   Daslenga   flows   eternally   in    the   country   of   the   Gods,   but   the   sign   of   Daslenga   he   flows   through   the   stars,   and   the   Mad   River   of   Winsted   is   linked   mystically   to   him.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“I   saw   a   Venice   glass   16   foot   deep, ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I   saw   a   well   full   of   men’s   tears   that   weep ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">I   saw   their   eyes   all   in   a   flaming   of   fire.” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   the   ghost   answered,   “The   well   of   burnt   tears   is   buried   and   lost,   but   though   all   try   to   hide   it   it   is   doomed   to   be   found.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “You   are   riddling   in   your   answer. Is   this   your   next   riddle,   or   do   you   not   know   the   answer?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “One   assumes   the   asker   knows   the   answer   to   his   own   riddle. But   lest   you   claim   victory,   I   will   speak   plainer. It   is   buried   in   the   Lost   Caves.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “I   agree   that   you   have   answered. Now   ask.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   the   ghost   said,

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“Why   do   they   veer ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">from   the   vended   way ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">those   dancers   fine   and   fair? ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Their   gowns   are   gauze, ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and   glister-jewelled ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and   still   they   step   unsteered.” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   Ronnie   answered,   “Those   are   the   galaxies,   and   they   veer   as   they   flee   outwards   because   the   way   of   the   Road   draws   them   aside.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“There   was   a   man   of   double   deed ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">who   sowed   his   garden   full   of   weed…” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “That   man   was   the   Prince   Angar,   who   sowed   dissension   in   the   Stars,   and   he   was   of   double   deed   for   he   let   into   his   heart   the   lord   of   Chaos.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“What   is   that   shape ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">so   shaken   firm, ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">that   was   flat,   then   round,   then   rolling?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             Ronnie   gave   him   a   wary   look. Forest,   afraid   Ronnie   might   answer   wrong,   said   quickly,   “The   Field   of   Arda   was   created   flat,   but   then   globed,   and   now   both   rotates   and   orbits.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The   King   of   the   Dead   turned   slightly   towards   the   boy. “That   was   a   wise   response.”   he   said   in   an   interested   tone. “You   may   ask.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Ronnie   nodded   to   Forest,   and   Forest,   suddenly   tense,   said,''   “What   is   the   reason   the   Road   chose   the   Fell?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">And   the   ghost   answered,   “Because   this   was   the   heart   of   the   land   long   ago,   and   upon   that   very   hill   did   the   Trees   of   Gold   and   Jewel   once   grow.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">   “What   is   the   sign   of   the   simple   way ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">That   shunts   aside   the   stars? ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   is   the   name   of   the   sign   of   the   Road?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   Ronnie   said,   “A   fish   is   the   sign,   for   the   Fish   rules   the   Night,   yet   the   Fish   is   bound   into   the   stone   and   cannot   free   himself.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   is   that   one ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">who   was   live   before ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and   hunted   through   the   stars? ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">His vessel   was   silver,   and   bore   a   bloom: ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   is   the   fate   of   the   Lord   of   the   Moon?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “He   fell   to   earth   upon   his   back   and   became   the   mountain   known   ever   after   as   Prone   Man.    

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“They   had   a   home ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Who   now   are   gone ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">And   hated   humans ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">yet   hunt   beside   them. ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Who   are   they   and   whence?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             Ronnie   said   nothing.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             Forest   looked   at   him   in   alarm. The   ghost   bent   slightly   forward. All   at   once   Ronnie’s   eyes   gave   a   faint   reddish   sheen,   and   he   said,   “The   land   we   stand   upon   was   once   embedded   across   the   world,   until   the   Bending   tore   it   loose   and   sealed   it   here. And   the   people   who   inhabited   it   had   silver   hair,   and   they   hunted   beside   the   Morkû   when   they   made   the   Stone   of   Death. Now   answer   this:   '' ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“Gold   it   gleams   yet   is   no   gold ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Nor   any   woven   metal; ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">One   thing   alone   do   it   and   gold ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">hoard   and   share   with   all.” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “The   hair   of   the   Houldu-folk   was   gold   in   one   people   and   silver   in   the   other;   and   these   hold   in   common   with   metal   only   their   hue   and   beauty. What   they   share   with   all   is   their   glory   of   light   and   color.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“The   dragon-doors ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">of   darksome   Night ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">stand   eternally   silent. ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Yet   one   word   will ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">those   portals   open: ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">what   is   that   secret   word?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             Forest   surprised   himself   by answering,   and   even   more   by   the   clear   bell-like   tone   of   his   voice.    “Arheledenvendonwendo    is   the   word   that   will   open   the   dragon-headed   doors.    

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“The dragons deem   them   dreadsome   gods ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">yet   they   themselves   are   held   in   bonds: ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">To   whom   bow   they,   who   bow   the   East? ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Who   is   the   master   of   their   feast?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   the   ghost   said,   “Chaos   is   the   master   of   the   Father   of   Dragons,   for   it   was   by   his   command   that   he   took   that   form   and   it   was   with   him   that   he   bred   the   race   of   Dragons. Now   answer   this:'' ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“This   word   makes   yawn ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">the   Doors   of   Night: ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">but   gibberish   is   it   to   sight ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">yet   in   it   meaning   may   be   sawn.” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   Ronnie   said,   “The   answer   is   that   the   word,   Arheledenvendonwendo,   is   not   gibberish   but   has   meaning,   and   that   meaning   is:   By   the   life   of   the   way   of   the   lofty-noble   crystal. Now   tell   me   this: ''   who   was   it   that   forced   the   Warden   to   declare   his   own   name?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             To   their   amazement   the   ghost   visibly   hesitated. They   waited,   breath   drawn. Suddenly   he   spoke,   and   there   was   a   grim   smile   in   his   voice. “When   the   Six   were   called   to   Temple   Fell,   Ronmond   it   was   whose   challenge   caused   the   Warden   to   name   himself   Arheled. Now   since   we   seem   to   be   uttering   hard   questions   instead   of   riddles,   answer   this:

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “What   is   the   word   that   the   Sun   utters   each   day   at   the   Gates   of   the   Morning?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             Ronnie   burst   out   laughing. “That’s   a   trick   question. She   no   longer   utters   that   word,   for   she   no   longer   passes   through   the   Gates.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“What   name   does   she   bear,   who   sails   the   morning? ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   does   she   fear,   who   forever   is   mourning?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   the   ghost   replied,   “Her   name   was   Urwendi,   but   Apollo   holds   her   now   and   him   does   she   fear.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“One   thing   she   said,   who   sailed   the   morning ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">One   word   she   spoke   as   she   passed   one   way: ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   was   the   word   that   she   uttered   each   day?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             Then   Ronnie   said,   “That   word   was   the   same   as   at   the   Doors   of   Night,   but   it   was   reversed:    Odnewnodnevnedelehra.   Now   answer   me   this:

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“In   stone   he   sleeps,   is   yet   a   sign ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Though   dead   he   be   he   shall   unwind ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">In   twofold   places   and   two   names: ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Who   is   he,   and   why   his   sign?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   the   King   of   the   Dead   answered,   “He   is   the   lord   of   the   Nine   and   the   holder   of   their   ring,   and   he   is   asleep   in   stone   though   he   rules   the   Night. ''   What   is   the   name   of   the   Lord   of   the   Cosmos?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             Ronnie   was   silent. He   opened   his   mouth   once   or   twice   and   closed   it. The   King   of   the   Dead   leaned   forward,   his   headless   form   gleaming   with   a   fierce   light.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             Forest’s   head   fell   back. His   mouth   worked,   bulging   as   if   expelling   something;   and   out   of   it   came   gigantic   sounds,   huge   syllables   and   chunks   of   sound   that   tore   out   of   his   throat.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Mânawenûz!!!”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             Before   the   King   of   the   Dead   could   say   anything,   Ronnie   interjected,

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“You   stand   before   us   without   your   head, ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   did   you   do   to   wind   up   shed? ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   is   the   sin   of   the   King   of   the   Dead?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   the   ghost   frowned,   but   he   answered,   “The   King   of   the   Dead   once   ruled   in   the   living,   and   he   desired   victory   over   his   enemies   and   great   power   besides. And   he   worked   a   magic   rite   that   drew   his   foes   to   the   mound   that   covers   the   secret,   and   in   the   name   of   what   lies   there   did   he   slay   all   that   night,   taking   off   their   heads   and   laying   them   on   the   mound;   and   this   is   the   sin   of   the   King   of   the   Dead.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“You   seek   to   free   her,   fair   and   green ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Yet   her   own   name   to   you   is   unseen ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">How   can   you   face   her   and   not   her   greet? ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   is   the   name   of   the   Woman   in   Green?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   Ronnie   answered,   “Elizabeth   Palmiter   is   the   name   of   the   human   ghost   who   haunts   the   other   cemetery   of   the   Green   Lady. The   ghost   you   hold   bound   up   here   is   not   a   woman,   but   a   lenna.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“A tree, a   host,   a   mongrel   crew ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">One   alone   was   not   of   them ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">All   winked   shut   and   slept   from   men ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Who   is   that   one   and   what   its’   name?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             The   ghost’s   voice   was   grimly   amused. “She   stands   by   the   grave   of   Mary   Croft,   because   her   own   name   is   Maricrondo,   and   she   is   of   the   daughters   of   the   Stars.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“The   mountain   stands   beneath   the   moon ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Yet   it   has   feet,   and   knees,   and   shoon ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">We   know   this   hill,   we   know   not   how: ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   is   he   whose   name   we   know?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   Ronnie   answered,   “The   Wild   Man    of   Winsted   is   Mid-Venda,   and   his   nature   is   drawn   from   the   mountain   that   he   guards.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“The   blue   unblue   is   live   and   dead ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">For   once   it   stood   and   had   a   head ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Or   so   we   guess,   we   cannot   tell: ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   is   the   cause   of   the   shape   of   the   Skull?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   the   ghost   answered,   “When   the   last   of   the   Giants   was   fighting   with   the   Gods,   he   was   slain   by   the   cast   of   the   Hammer   of   the   Gods,   and   his   head   flew   like   thunder   from   off   of   his   shoulders,   and   it   fell   here,   and   stone   it   became.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“This   witch   wears   white   and   is   a   sight ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   others   flee   she   has   no   fright ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   others   seek   shall   make   her   shriek ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">And   in   the   end   pay   for   her   peek.” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   Ronnie   answered,   “She   is   human   at   the   moment,   though   not   long   shall   she   be;   for   she   is   doomed   to   be   consumed   by   the   hunger   of   a   wight.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“Why   does   the   King   of   the   Dead   have   on   no   head?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             And   the   King   of   the   Dead   answered,   “Because   he   took   off   the   heads   from   all   that   he   slew   upon   the   Battle   Mound,   his   own   was   taken   from   him   when   he   was   appointed   by   the   Nine   as   the   King   of   the   Dead.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">“She   has   a   name,   but   has   no   name ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">What   others   call   her   be   her   shame ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">''<span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Of   old   she   lived   and   lives   on   still: ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px">

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and   in   the   stone   seat   saw   her   fill.” 

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Are   you   asking   who   she   is,   or   what   her   name   is?”   Ronnie   said. “Because   both   are   known   to   me.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Her   name,   then.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Filley   is   the   name   of   the   Witch   of   Winchester,   for   she   forsook   her   Christian   name   when   she   became   a   witch,   and   no   record   of   it   remains. ''   Why   is   there   no   rest   within   your   breast?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Because   it   bears   no   head.”   answered the   ghost. “That   is   no   riddle. I   grant   you   a   second   try   at   a   riddle. If   you   cannot   think   of   one,   I   claim   victory.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             A   terrible   smile   crossed   Ronnie’s   face. ''“What   is   the   thing   that   is   all   that   the   King   of   the   Dead   can   say?” ''

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             The   white   ghost   hesitated. His   form   began   to   flicker. Doubt,   frustration,   and   mounting   rage   shimmered   in   his   apparition. Long   moments   passed.

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Do   you   have   the   answer?”   Ronnie   pressed.

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             White   and   green   fire   spouted   up   from   the   Skull,   wreathing   the   ghost,   as   he   grew   huger,   tossing   his   arms   aloft   with   a   howl   of   fury   and   defeat.

<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 1em 0px 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">             “Go!” <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">   the   King   of   the   Dead   roared. ''“You   have   won   the   riddle-game! I   free   the   Green   Lady. Go,   and   take   your   heads   away   from   here!"'' <span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Ronnie and Forest whirled and hurried away. In the dark forest it was impossible to run, but they walked as quickly as they dared. Branches scratched their faces and they collided with logs and the occasional rock. Whenever they looked behind them they could still see the Skull, glowing now so bright with the rage of the King of the Dead that they could see it like a beacon, towering over the forest.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“We’d better get out of here before somebody calls the police.” said Ronnie. A pale ribbon suddenly appeared as they stumbled into an open space: the Green Lady road.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I don’t like it.” said Forest, looking back at the pillar of greeny-white flame and lightning shooting up from the Skull. “It’s too much like a signal.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Of course it is.” said Ronnie. “You think he was serious about letting us go? That’s a distress call.” He looked behind them and cursed. From the direction of the cemetery headlights were coming, wavering and bouncing: the lights of a car driven at top speed up a bumpy road.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Sightseers from the Green Lady Cemetary.” he muttered. “Wait. I have an idea, Forest. Stay invisible. I might be able to beg a lift.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">The lights drew rapidly nearer. Ronnie walked into the middle of the road and threw out his hands in the most compelling dramatic gesture of stop that Forest had ever seen. The SUV hit the brakes so hard it skidded on the gravel. In his straw farmer’s hat Ronnie looked, in the headlights, not unlike some bizarre apparition himself.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">The driver and his passengers piled out as Ronnie ran up. There were two men around 30 and a girl half that, though she was so made up in Goth style with heavy black mascara it was hard to tell. All of them were dressed Goth, black and silver clothes with fluttering strips and metal jewelry everywhere. Metal jewelry with occult symbols and shapes.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">They were babbling like crazy as they pointed to the beacon, while Ronnie was babbling back in the same mannerism that they really didn’t want to know, that it was scary-bad stuff and they had to get out fast cause the cops were coming.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Cops?” bawled the driver. “Well, get in, man! Let’s get crackin!”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Ronnie scrambled into the back, Forest squeezing next to him on the right door side so that the girl pressed against Ronnie on the other side. There was a queer stuffy reek of pot and beer and something queerer, like incense. Forest kept his eyes down and was, so far as the others knew, not even there.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“So, like, what was that, anyway?” the driver shouted over the car radio. “We were over at the Buryin’ Ground tryin’ to see the Green Lady, we even tried a séance, but we couldn’t raise nuthin’, no EVPs, no green lights, and then this beacon—“

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Ronnie glanced at Forest, who was frowning at the floor. The glance showed him something else out the window: the glow of flashing red and blue, far off still, a mere halo around corners, up Preston Av to the right. They had reached the intersection.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Parking lights only!” he barked. “Douse the headlights! Cops on the right! Go straight!”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“OMG, this is so crazy-mad!” the girl was squealing.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">The driver turned off his headlights and in the yellow glow of the parking lights they plunged down the steep curving hill and came to the Waymeet of the Three Haunts. Ronnie made the driver park and kill all the lights while they waited. The sinister flickering of red and blue flashers faded slowly above the ridge, black against the green-white beacon still beating up from the distant Skull. Ronnie gave the “all clear” and, still using parking lights, they drove on down Old Waterbury Rd towards Rugg Brook Rd. Once a police helicopter thundered by some distance on the right, making them kill all the lights again. Ronnie told them of the King of the Dead—an edited account—as they pulled onto Rugg Brook Rd. Sirens grew louder and four police cars wailed by in succession, one after another, all going down the way they had left.

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<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">Upon the top of the ridge the rotating column of ascending fire, green and white mingled, shed a light like a second and ghastlier sun. The mighty figure of the King of the Dead stood underneath it, his great sword drawn.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">There appeared with a crash of red and gold fire a creature huge and serpentine, a brilliant gleaming red, and two immense wings of gold were folded on his back, and on long and snakelike necks seven heads craned and peered about in every way.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I see the beacon, Ouleout.” the monster said in a voice like scorched thunder. “But I do not see the cause.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Do not play the fool, Father of Dragons.” answered the ghost. “The Green Lady is freed. Two of the Sons of the Road were here. They cannot be far off.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“You were supposed to hold them for me. Are your spells so powerful as to summon them here, and so weak they cannot hold them when they come? And why is the Green Lady free?”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Have you forgot in your years walking as man the rules by which I reign?” the headless ghost’s voice, dripping with scorn, made answer. “They challenged me. They won the challenge. By the rules, I had to let them go. So I lit the beacon to call you, that you may apprehend them ere they get too far.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“I do not see them.” answered the Father of Dragons. “The only humans that stir in this forest are a carload of necromancers interrupted in their arts. They run howling of ghosts and of cops. I think your captive Star has removed her rescuers.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“She is a ghost!” snapped the King of the Dead. “While the Stone of Death is whole, she can never be anything else!”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Temper, temper, Headless Horseman.” laughed the Father of Dragons. “If they are still in the forest, my servants will find them. But it is not important. I know who they are, and I can nab them when I please.” A speculative gleam entered the burning yellow eyes. “And as far as that goes….the freeing of the Star may yet be to our advantage.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Douse the lighthouse. Let another ghost story add itself to the ones that already float about this place.”

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<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">A rather sober carful of eccentrics disembarked at the abandoned loop road beneath the Nanto Nenle. They shared a beer with Ronnie as they continued talking, while Forest, unseen, sat under the trees and swatted mosquitos.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“So, you mean this King of the Dead guy was holding the Green Lady prisoner?” the driver was saying. “That’s so creepy. I didn’t know ghosts could do that.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Yeah, it’s messed-up, dude. Well, thanks for the lift, man. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t come along.” said Ronnie in his best ghetto imitation. The girl shyly waved and goodbyes were said all round, and then they had driven off.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“That was a strain.” said Ronnie.

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“Aided in escaping the police by a pack of necromancers.” muttered Forest. “I don’t think we should have gone with them.”

<p style="margin: 1em 0px"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman', 'serif'; font-size: 12pt">“They were covering us.” Ronnie answered. “If the King of the Dead—or whoever he was calling to—cast his eyes abroad, he would see only magicians and dismiss them from his mind. It was no chance that put them there, Forest. We’d better go. There’s a long ride ahead, and I don’t know what your folks are going to think. They’re likely worried sick. I’ll call ahead from the gas station.”

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