Wars of Conscience (closed to Redford)
There seems to me,
In that regular night time activity
Under stars and shadowed heights and beams of lunar luminosity ,
Of ancient wants unceasing,
Of deceptions begging sweetly,
Of wonders bright and olden fights and terrors more than fleeting,
I dream.
And there are truths in dreams.
“John…”
He knew that voice.
He longed for its owner night and day for years, ached to hear it again, and now he was hearing it. There was only the voice. Nothing else, but the voice: no sensation of reclining or standing; no indication of where he was currently; no perception of the size or type of quarters he found himself in; not even, for the moment at least, whether he was clothed or not. There was only the impact of sound upon the ear, his ear, merely the presentation of auditory stimulus of a specific form and quality. It was a familiar resonance.
“John…”
It was closer now, he could be sure of that, if ought else, and it was clearly, most certainly, utterly her. He could identify the possessor of that particular brand of warm lyrical speech in a crowded room. His ears would be drawn to it, for she was the one woman in the entire universe, and the various attendant plains that comprised it, that completed him like no other.
“John…”
She was amused now, there was that silken feature that her utterances always wore when she was smiling, the brightness of her tone seeming to grow greater, which always happened when she was trying not to laugh. Was she playing a prank on him? She did play those on him from time to time, and then she would make a game of his trying to catch her, the words she used to tease him with coming out as graceful as her movements as she dodged his grasping hands. She was drawing nearer. Soon she would be close enough to touch.
Still his mind seemed to warn him that something was amiss, despite the ferocious beating of his heart. Despite the greater gladness of his reunion a worm of anxiety was creeping into his mind. He couldn’t truly grasp hold of this concern, for it continually eluded all attempts to catch hold of it, his thoughts moving slower than a man traversing the bogs of Uroda after the winter melts. Well, whatever it was, he would take hold of his beloved at the first opportunity, and shield her against whatever so uneased him. None could say that Sir Cromwell didn’t know how to fight, he was strong and he was quick and he had beaten many a foe on the practice yard.
“John?”
The joyous feeling that had so filled him fled like wine out of a skin that had been used for archery practice. As sudden as the snuffing as a candle. She was so close one moment, then painfully distant the next. What was more, his Kat sounded frightened. Cromwell hated it when she was afraid.
He finally opened his eyes to find himself in the massive lavishly decorated four posted bed of House Loriol’s guest room, with scarlet ribbon wrapped around all four of the white pine and soapstone walls. They had spent their first anniversary in this room, and that night in this bed, which had been more than ample enough for the pair. Several of the room’s lavish paintings hung askew, which was queer, the fact that the doors leading in from the balcony being open even more so, both facts combining to amplify his dread. All the rooms other finery and baubles and Knick knacks were of little consequence as Cromwell’s gaze swept the room seeking his wife.
He didn’t see her anywhere.
“John!”
It was a terrified pained wail several rooms off, its sound like icy daggers to his heart. He knew then that something terribly wrong was afoot.
