"Good evening, your Ladyship," comes a smooth voice from behind you. You whirl around, catching a yelp of surprise before it escapes your throat. In the fog behind you is the man from a dream before(1)... Kelidno. The fog flows around him, seeming to exude from him, and it is difficult to tell exactly where it ends and his gray robes begin. Gray eyes gleam beneath his hood, meeting your own, and you find yourself unable to break their hold. Kelidno smiles, a cold and mirthless smile. You try to speak, and find that your voice is not forming.
"I suggest you try nothing foolish, my lady. This is my realm, and I decide the rules here." Kelidno slides through the mist toward you. You involuntarily step back, keenly aware of the peculiar aura of dark power this being exudes. His smile grows wider, and you know that he sees fear in your eyes.
"I have been watching you with growing interest, my lady. You intrigue me...and I have not been thus intrigued for a rather long time." He takes your chin in one cold, smooth hand. "Such a beautiful specimen. So like a rose. A black rose, I think, on red velvet. Beautiful...and fragile. Oh, so fragile." He withdraws his hand. "So like a child with a stranger, not knowing where its parents are." He looks into the mist, then glances at you out of the corner of his eye. "Of course, you wouldn't know anything about that...would you?"
Kelidno steps a few paces away, his body all but vanishing into the mist. You still cannot move. He does not look at you as he speaks. "I have watched you as you walk toward your crossroads. I am very curious to learn which path you will take. The path of the living...or of the forsaken." A curious image of black and red and shadows springs unbidden into your mind(2) . The wizard looks over his shoulder and smiles again. The bead he gave you at your last meeting, nestled in your pocket, becomes colder. You do not have to look at it to know that the fog within is swirling, just as it now swirls in Kelidno's eyes.
"Very interesting indeed. Like the decay of an apple. So easy, and yet so irreversible. And nonetheless possessed of its own curious beauty." His features begin to disintegrate, melding into the mists. "I look forward to our next meeting. I will be watching you..." His voice trails off into soundless mist, and you are once again alone in the fog, which seems to draw tighter around you. You are suddenly filled with the sensation of a child in the dark, the nameless terror of youth facing the unknown. And although you hear no sound, you somehow know that somewhere within the fog is the echo of mocking laughter...
Gideon stood alone in the swirling fog, keenly aware of the uncanny feeling that the mists seemed to be seeping into her veins. It penetrated her flesh, sank into her whole being. She was shaking with unfounded rage, but thankful that she was now able to move nonetheless. She shuffled the numbness out of her feet, and then whirled all around her, looking for a trace of the infernal mage. He was nowhere to be found. Nothing remained but the hateful fog.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" she screamed to the air, finding her voice returned with unusual strength. Her chin still felt cold where he had touched her, as if the imprints of his slender fingers would be there forever. "Like are the others, are you! Mind games and then you're gone, just like that silly dwarf(3) ! Come back here...come back here and answer some questions for me, you...you coward!" She began a spell, attempting a brief flash of fire to draw the mage's attention. Just as the archaic words left her lips, she felt herself blocked off from the magic.
"No!" she howled. "It's not fair...you're...not...playing fair..." Gideon's voice trailed off in a girlish whine. She sank to her knees, her voice now soft and broken. "Gods, what is happening to me?"
She awoke, in her bed at the Lord's manor(4) , her nightgown clinging to her in a cold sweat. She pulled a handkerchief from the stand directly next to her bed and mopped her brow. She sank against her pillows, breathless.
There was nothing she wouldn't give for one night of dreamless sleep.
It is a dark place, a lonely place, and one that is somehow familiar. A path through the woods, twisted and narrow and only still holding back the foliage out of habit, the black dead trees and thorn-covered shrubs around it clutching at you like skeletal hands as you travel its length. Thin gray mists trail among the trees. You move swiftly, not certain of the reason for your own haste but knowing only that you will miss something of importance if you slow down.
"A lonely road, indeed, my lady," says a soft voice suddenly. Kelidno is at your side, walking in perfect step with you. He is untouched by the black thorny branches, tipped in red from your blood, that tear at you as you move even faster, trying to outpace him on the narrow trail. With no perceptible effort, he stays resolutely at your side. Fog follows him in a thin trail, flowing from the hem of his gray robes. You try to ignore him, but his voice slides into your brain, seeming cold and fluid within your mind.
"And one so seldom traveled. I'm only the second to visit it in recent days-- but you've hovered near it. Always you hover near it in the day, but never dare to step on its trail. Now, in the domain of the night, you are powerless to avoid it. And I find it amusing to follow." He smiles his disconcertingly calm smile. "For one who walks it so seldom, I see you know its courses well. Do we near its end, my lady?"
You realize that the end of the path is approaching, and cold grips at your heart, a realization of the destination of the twisted trail. You stop suddenly, unable to move ahead. Kelidno peers ahead down the trail, then fixes you with his hypnotic gaze. "What's the matter, my dear? Afraid to go the rest of the way? But we're almost there." Almost against your will, you turn and take a few more steps.
Ahead the path opens to a small clearing. It is occupied: two figure wait there, dimly defined by the moonlight. A chill runs through you as you recognize the form of one as your own. And the other...you try to turn, to run away from the madness before you, but Kelidno places a firm hand on your shoulder, freezing you in place. With a languid brush of his other hand against your face, he turns your gaze back to the scene before you. You see yourself hand a small bundle to the other figure, tall and gaunt. It takes the object and looks up. Beneath its tattered cult hood(5) you see pinpoints of light, unholy crimson fire, glowing in its empty eyes, see its desiccated lips twist in a sinister leer. Then the stillness is broken by the eerie siren-wail of a child in distress from the bundle in its arms....
You break free of Kelidno's grip and turn to face him-- but he is not there. The clearing behind you is gone, as are its occupants. The trail on which you came has faded away, surrendering to the encroaching forest. The trees move in closer, the thorns grow tighter, clutching at you. The ground seems to suck at your feet, which sink, leadlike and cold, into its sudden murkiness. The moon dims as a cloud slides across its face. You are conscious of a numbing vertigo as the world seems to tilt crazily around you, whirling impossibly even as you stand still, the trees swaying in an unseen wind, the black thorns rustling with the movement of unholy life. You cast about frantically, seeking any escape, any hope, and find only shadows and twisted branches. And over it all is that loud, plaintive mewling cry, on and on and on, broken only by the sound of Kelidno's laughter as you find yourself trapped in the prison that is so familiar to you, the one you only pretend to escape by day....
Footnotes:
- Gideon first encountered Kelidno as a silent observer in a dream sent to her by the mad bard Aragon Saramon . She approached him and asked who he was and what he was doing there; Kelidno gave his name, said he was there to offer a gift, and gave Gideon a glass bead containing a tiny cloud of fog. When she awoke, the bead was in her hand.
- Aragon Saramon engaged in an extensive and ultimately successful campaign to drive Gideon to the brink of madness. As part of his plans, he romanced her in the disguise of a red-and-black clad bard named David, whose ultimate betrayal of Gideon pushed her over the edge.
- This dwarf, played by Chuck, was an illusion conjured by Aragon in the guise of his former adventuring comrade, SOL Blackstar of 2nd Group . The false SOL goaded Gideon in several dreams constructed by Aragon and watched independently by Kelidno.
- All of these dreams took place on LAZ's campaign world of Ronlin, before Gideon ever arrived on Galon or met Sycron the Collector. Kelidno's ability to shift from one world to another in the dream realm has never been officially documented, since his victims seldom have the opportunity to compare notes with other victims from different worlds and planes of existence. The lord in question was Aeseon, a high-ranking member of the cult which bedeviled Gideon and a close friend of her father.
- The lich to which Gideon gave the child was actually the original founder of the cult which was previously alluded to. If you want more details about this incident, you'll need to ask LAZ or Kristin.