Excerpt Book II

Tarl found Ostheri's dislike of him most flattering, and he pressed his luck,

"Short runt?  Your husband is named Short runt?"

-- "Runtshal!  Runtshal!  it means, 'Prince of a Line of Heroes', damn you!  I know your type and I abjure thee, worm fire canker, you."

Tarl sat against the edge of the heavy kitchen preparation table, covered in flour and dough trimmings; pie tins and edgings scattered about.  As he shifted, a piping bird tipped over with a thud, and rocked back and forth.

"Alright princess--"

-- "Lady!  Lady, am I! -- and you are little but a hired killer, you lout!  Get out of here, never speak to me again!"

Tarl began to complement her on her bosom, then he saw her upraised hands aglow and her hair lifted high as teal light shone through the stones all about them.  The very stones beneath their feet shifted and threatened to burst upwards and out of place.  Her eyes were amber gold, lucent limpid pools of very power,

-- "You shall never again speak to me save to warn of danger or other import. -- You rogue, canst not speak again to me save those words that give warning.  I have you bond to me in my rejection of that very thing you are, dog.  Heel, and then get you from my presence, cur!"

Silver fire in glassine cubes encircled her head all about and their tumble alone entranced him.  Tarl, strong of mind, could this witchcraft not withstand, for it was from The World itself derived.  'though he had the inscectine priests reviled and undone, 'though his 'dam was Eastern Witch herself, he -- Tarl ...could not overcome.

In walked a man in blue tabard, his hand upon a  blade, barely drawn, which shone with the same Earthly light.  Bracken and fireflies surrounded Tarl, fiddleheads bound round his thews and in a muffled, green-choked cry he was dragged through eldritch forest out the door.  All the while, this goddess looked on with such pernicious malice and a wickeder and wickeder smile at his removal. It chilled Tarl's heart more than any early morning Winter's mist.

Pale and desiccate runners languidly climbed the walls, and the amber fireflies in mid-cinder intermittently buzzed about even as Master Harren entered; their wane, abayed, and instead thrived again, pulsed with very Life in his presence.  Harren looked about, averted his eyes from the goddess, and with a bowed head to Sir Runtshal, left the direction his friend had been dragged.

Under Her spell, Runtshal drew Mired Steps and the Earthly light only grew as the bracken and sedges, fireflies and fiddleheads of feathery flames shaded and encompassed him and his wife; entwined them both.  They travelled in this vital green space, everpresent in so many ways: expressions in tessellated triangular spirals across the galaxy, and beyond?  Clothing unravelled again to fibres, and leather back to animals afrolic in the Greenway as the couple were deposited atop their bed; he in her, and they in Her, and all in all: One.

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