Beasts, Voices, Curses, and Mystery…
(39 Akroeg 378)
I’m certain much of what has occured is unknown to me, but we must start somewhere. There are those nearer to the matter that have information locked in their minds, but too much is madness in them. I do not have such keys. Not yet.
In Undershard, voices gather and whisper. Wir Dinego slip through the dark sometimes. Rumor comes that perhaps, if you listen, sometimes they talk. And a cloaked figure roams, begging for help…
Not long ago, as spoken of in other articles, cold fingers rummaged the minds of mages and men of the Gods both. We do not yet know what was sought, nor quite why, but that cold touch brought back to the forefront of many’s minds things that had lain quiet for some time.
We know this much, and perhaps even some of this is suspect: That there was a man named Morisidh, who meddled in dark places and went to a place where perhaps mortal men ought not to have gone. That he knew Feolne (or did he call her Tilci?), that strange, dangerous woman split in two and torn between acts of kindness and acts of abomination.
He knew her, and there was love, and then there was Naranis. Of her, we know she was a Mountain Elf. She was a gambit by the Court to keep an eye on Morisidh’s activities, but perhaps, unexpectedly, she found love with him. Feolne found out. And she changed them.
Picture for a moment the curse of being trapped in a body not your own. Perhaps even its mind is different and it is hard to even think like you once did. To know, somewhere within you is knowledge of stars, and magic, and how to dance, but all there is left to you now are teeth and snarling and pain… He was trapped as a great snakelike beast of white with red eyes, and she as a crocodile, colored the same.
The Mountain Elves worked to free them of this, perhaps feeling some responsibility for the situation. Yet the results appear to be mixed. The curse itself may be removed, but ‘side effects’ are said to remain. For one, the lady remains nigh-mindless. For another… whispers are that Morisidh slips back to the beast.
Yet is it the curse, or is it that old terror, that mysterious door and its residents deep in the dark? We know that Morisidh spent many years within what place it hides, and perhaps it has a piece of him still. The door calls for him. And he now wanders, seeking release, seeking a way to seal the voices away and break their connection to us.
Passengers they are, parasites. Perhaps they are linked to what happened to Tilci? I believe it was Tilci first, and Feolne came later. There is one that might know, but again, he is mad. I must try.
The door calls for any hand to come and try to open it. I don’t know how long we have until someone succeeds. There are men who believe that treasure awaits them, there are others that believe it holds a great power, one that might even allow a tyrant to be overthrown. But none remember that the door is dangerous, a mad thing. To touch it may show you dire things, to touch it may call the wir dinegos to, hrm… touch you back.
It ought be sealed. But is the keyhole without, or within?