Back in the days when it was still of use to dream, I dreamed of wandering through the lands eternal, seeing the world as it never was and yet as it will ever be. I dreamed the dreams of magic; I dreamed of becoming all whim, all fate, all soul.
So I learned the magics that would let me wander, from the world of ordinary life to the realm where all tales are true. I stepped from the ridges of the dragonlands into a sparkling, endless ice, and to a palace floating high above the white world, guarded by a handsome roaming knight. The knight had only sought the lands of dreams in passing, a stop along the journey of his love. Long ago, he said, he loved a man for many years as a brother-in-arms. Then he met the man's daughter, and a great romance blossomed between them, and they ran away to marry. But her father had never forgiven my knight for this, not for all of his pleading.
I got to know the knight, in my roaming, for he was a lonely soul-- as was I. The knight was courtly and gentle, and beautiful as the sun among the oak trees. His manner was as strong as his countenance, and his spirit shone like the winter sun. I loved him, Reader-- for how could I not, in a land of all emotion? But alas for me, his love belonged only to his wife and child, who were still safely stowed in the lands of elvenkind. He spoke at length of his wife's beauty and faithfulness, and of his spirited little daughter, his spitting image, the joy of his life.
***
At last, among our travels, we reached the Caisléan Artannaegh, the frozen castle of the Queen of the Night. We wove through the pillars of ice, snuck past the portraits of Fools and Warlocks past, rounded the Altar of the White Queen. We saw her prisoner, just as the knight had guessed, chained in the sunken cells of the palace.
He held the grimoire of Telwyth-Teg, and took its horrible instructions, though it was clear to all that this pained him. Each time he ignored them, he withered away. He was old and shrunken, far older than time should have allowed, for he had refused its pull as best he could and paid its toll.
My knight, my beloved knight, strode up to the Queen of the Night and begged for the release of his dear friend. He was a great diplomat, and a greater warrior. He debated her fiercely. He challenged her to a duel. He spent weeks, months, years pleading for the release of his friend.
But the Queen would not relent, and with my knight in these courts the prisoner cast the tome aside. He withered and died from the pain, his spirit blown away on the wind, never to return. Before the ashes fell, the Queen had claimed my knight as her own fool, bound to the same dreadful Grimoire.
The dreadful deeds the tome requested were abhorrent to my noble knight, who had sworn for so long to do good. He refused them each time he could stand it, though his body was wracked with pain. Other times, he found ways to invent deeds that satisfied Telwyth-Teg, but caused no harm to others. But the day of the Queen's greatest power came around once again. He bundled his sword in his cloak, pressed it into my hands, and bade me leave forever. He whispered the address of his wife and babe into my ear, and told me to take to the portals once again and give them his sword and his love.
And so I leave these sparkling courts, borne once again towards Autumn and the Dragonlands beyond. I know not when or whether I return. All I know is that I must complete my knight's final request.
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