I'm breezily clunking my way down the scarred and nine-tailed roadways My gentle steeds, though battered and old as well March on with a certain enviable grace and disdain What do I see? Dark dressed flabby oafs stalk their prey Headlights breathing down my neck Wailing sirens leave me chilled The jingle of metal looses fear down my spine and I recall the reoccurring image of the drunken judge; "I am but a jester of your kingdom seeking counsel with my lady, your highness, My Queen" but the beast cannot speak he growls anf grunts in a language of fowl belches that singe my inner cilia and leave me nauseous And the boar-formed bipeds stare blankly letting saliva slip down their ingrained frowns And the terrible beast that calls itself libra Gives the grunt for the boars to take me elsewhere They motion their fat fingers down a long dark corridor Down which I can still hear faint murmurs of the Echoes of eternity And though I do so seek to see the young girl, lead so softly by fear, yet centered with courage I have other pressing matters to attend to The boars have waddled just far enough along to point their grubby gestures elsewhere to a room with a large sycamore door with a handle of rusted brass The patterns in the wood slide against eachother like oil against water And I assume that my counsel is available I open the heavy gates and peek my curious sight into the shadow that seems to be the room's only occupant Until I hear the soft words of your highness slide from between her young pink lips into the void of darkness and to my heavy ears "Oh my fool, is that you?" A spark is followed by soft candle light that somehow gives light to all corners of the chamber and I see my Queen's beautiful face lift from sorrow into smile Knowing that I am now seen, I softly smile and nod my head ... We sit in quiet conversation under glow of melting wax Her polite hands resting on a stack of papers riddled with seemingly strange symbols until she asks me, "My sweet Magician, how is it that thou art lacking the lines of stress and countless sleepless nights that so plague the rest of our haunted kingdom?" And left answerless, I slyly slide a meager grin and reply, "For a man who knows well the furnace of future and fate seldom lingers in the toils of the obvious present" Once again sweeping a smile over her weeping face she gives me the words I came here expecting and we sweetly part presence... I'm back on tortured road, my steeds no longer so steady, as hampered by the setting of Orion on this late winter night And my head, so filled with things beyond my running mind, is throbbing in sincere agony Wondering, wondering, wondering...

The trees are more honest when not draped in foliage The winds whispering ancient chants into their bare ears When your fears most look to be crystalyzed, then they are probably, indeed, not. Is this what they tell them? I fear not. Clouds are rolling in from the North Screaming battle cries as they approach Children hide their faces away While solemn parents jest in mocking As rain and thunder tear through the sky My carriage is slipping Forced to stop, I light a lone candle And proceed to let my mind unravel on paper... I remember staring at the blue sky And all the willows dancing in the breeze I can feel Echo's gentle hands Rooting through my tangled hair She's telling me something, a story of some sort, But my mind is lost in other thoughts Why didn't I listen to her? What story did she tell? Her voice is a soothing melody Like a smoky dancer reversing its flee from the ember of my ears It seems I was lulled into slumber of comfort As the next sight I see is an old wooden cabinet intricately designed with ancient tales carved into its husky skin It sits on the opposite side of an unnaturally long room The only other materials present being a feather on the windowsill that pours in dimmed light from the overcast day and the chair I can feel beneath me My eyes are transfixed to the cabinet its designs its stories decoded too well but my mind attempts to read nevertheless Suddenly, the doors are shaking, then stop and the knob turns and oddly familiar fingers peek out curiously and slowly open the container An arm, a shoulder, and then a face A face plain sight in light yet shrouded in enigma and out emerges a slender woman clothed in animal hides cloaked in purpose She softly lays her bare feet on the wooden floor seeming to glide on a cloud up to me For a moment, I'm sitting in the corner watching my face as she approaches but it's a smeared image no details of my expression visible Now back in the chair, she strides up to me Holding out her hands as if asking to dance I give her my hands, and she tugs them to lift me From the seat I still not have seen And glares deep into my eyes Watching hers, I see they are blue but just as I notice, they begin to fade into green I want to say something but I've been rendered mute She lifts her arm and puts her wrist in my face So that none else is visible And on her wrist is tattooed VI I'm swept back into the morose carriage to the sound of something strange amidst the rain I collect myself, feeling my throat is now sore Thus laying a hand around my neck The other trembling its way to the coarse curtains All is utterly dark After waiting a few minutes, I resume my writing The dream has fled and my head no longer in Echo's lap but half buried in dirt the princess herself I hear screaming in the distance and lift my dizzy head just in time to see horses descending the other side of the meadow out of sight I lift a weak hand and feel warm blood running through my hair where Echo's hands had just been beginning to weep as the sun shines on Another clap pierces out through the storm and the bumps on my arms tell me to investigate But I think it is only falling branches Back to the paper The trees are more honest... CLAP...fear...silence...waiting... When your fears most... This time I leap into the air at the sound of knocking on my carriage door The horses have not stirred an ounce.... I clamber to the door and loudly query "What is your business?" as the Fool i am "YOU STUCK IN THE MUD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?" I open the door slightly and candlelight shows a young man quite visibly drunk he smiles his yellow teeth, in thick accent, "Why don we get you the fuk out ta here?" "What of my carriage and horses?" "They won be getten far", followed by a kind of scoff "You ca' com back i the mornen" Half shaken into death I agree and step out into the complete darkness Lead only by the audible waddle of the drunkard My hands find his carriage, and we ride off with the man at the reigns "BEAUIFUL WETHER!" he attempts to belt through the shell of the cart Seeing no solution but to sleep the long ride out I find a mildly comfortable position in the cramped space and begin to drift... I'm standing in the hall the long hall many doors, all closed the boars are no longer present and I hear her its faint, but so obvious I'm all alone The hall looks as if it goes on into eternity fading into a sightless black And spiraling from within... "Where am I? Where have I been taken?" I begin running, for I know it's the princess but it dwindles to a jog, then walk The hall stretches into forever Then from the darkness Emerges a female figure It's Echo! I'm sure! I rush to her, but before I can see her face She turns and faces the darkness I cry as I run, tears upon tears But as I come near I see the symbol on her back VI As I have almost reached her She slowly starts pacing away "Echo!" I cry "It's too late..." she murmurs "No! I'm here!" "It's too late, you've been looking in the mirror, I know it." "What mirror?" but my voice is running low She is being enveloped into the abyss "Echo!" All I hear is her name, bouncing down the hall off the doors the handles the walls the ceiling and floor I look down and in my hand rests a daffodil I look back up, and the boars emerge into light "Sir, what exactly what are you holding?" They can now speak? I'm unable to reply The same boar steps forward, taking the daffodil effortlessly I'm motionless "Looks like we're going to have to take him" the other states Each takes one of my arms and begins to lead me down the opposite end from the abyss and I'm left staring blankly into it dragged into the light with VI burnt into my sight

The storm still echoes in my mind... After waking, I found my curious savior a refreshed, polite young man With a heavy hangover I ate a meager meal with his modest family And we were off to return me to my carriage It was a short ride for as long as a dream I had And we found my carriage sitting in the sunlight But things were amiss The first of these I notice is that my horses are gone Beginning to panic, the man calms me We then investigate We find that the reins have been cut clean No tear visible Chills run down my spine DId it have anything to do with the noises I had heard? We then look about the rest of the carriage to see if anything else is amiss The latch is stuck at first, but the door opens All is in order Except... I look at my paper on which I had written To find my words buried under a mess of a thousand strange symbols At first we are baffled Why would someone enter my carriage in the middle of a storm to simply scribble symbols? But a morbid veil falls over my mind They are the exact same symbols I had seen on the papers in the Queen's room I'm dumbstruck, but attempt to ask the man if he knows what they mean He says he does not Left utterly confused We leave my horseless carriage still on the roadside As he offers to give me travel to my destination In light of these events When we arrive into the depths of the city Gray cobblestone seems all that is visible even the people I direct him to the cathedral and leave him with all my thanks It's time to receive answers Walking up the massive steps to the door I am confronted by a man in black robes He asks me of my purpose But I have no time for such inquiries And I rush past him Entering into the main entrance, I brush past the scores of people waiting for salvation and I enter a long, narrow hall the hall becomes darker as I go but something on the walls catches my eye Symbols the same symbols as before only neatly spaced and lining both walls with plated brass mystery the hall then empties into a hollow room with a glass ceiling another storm is building in the sky On the other side of the room is a door guarded by two more cloaked figures I ask them if I may pass They stand motionless, speechless I walk up to the door and they grab me and throw me to the floor "We've been expecting you" they say As I'm Feeling a club fall on my head and I'm lifted from my wakened mind Lowered voices wake me And I find my hands tied above my head Tethered to the wall of some new room There is a circle of hooded ones Saying something indescribable And in the middle is an unconscious Echo I scream at them to let her go But they continue their chants I watch Echo's still body lying on the floor And I see something emerging from her body It's a mirage of some sort or perhaps a ghost But it begins to take shape as it emerges and solidifies into a woman clothed in animal hides The chanting silences The woman stands motionless almost levitating And asks for them to bring her the prisoner I'm untied from the wall And lead to a throne of bones I'm too dizzy and dumbstruck to resist They sit me down The woman is facing the throne Ans stares into my eyes from afar She begins walking to me Seeming to go slower as she gets closer Her face goes down to mine And as I feel her lips Warm blood rushes through my head in a wave of heat And a memory takes over my mind I'm in the carriage Writing furiously without looking I look down I had been writing symbols I throw down my pen and grab my knife I go out into the rain Cutting the reins of my horses Freeing one, and getting on the other's back I ride into the heart of the storm With a VI cut into my chest