Date: Mon, 7 Jul 1997 08:09:50 -0000 From: RainiMadden Subject: INT: Return to the Keep >As soon as it was down Christian charged accross, his sword drawn. >Raini grabbed a second sword from the coach and ran after him, Norgoth >waddling behind her. > >"Wait m'lady!" Raini turned and leveled the point of her beautifully-engraved rapier at one of Norgoth's many chins. "Did you or your people have anything to do with this?" "No, M...M...Mistress," he squeaked. "Then, stay back," she ordered and continued toward The Keep after Christian. The front door was already flung open. Christian had already gone inside. "Damn it," she whispered to herself. "He never waits for me." She ran to the outside of the massive oak and iron doors that opened into The Keep. She listened. The wind blew her long hair into her face. Leaves skittered across the steps. Inside...all was quiet. She heard nothing...not even the usual creaks and groans of stone on wood on metal on stone. It smelled musty...old. A chill creeped up from her toes to the nape of her neck. Not a good chill, like when Christian would kiss her there...a shudder of dread and alarm. She thought she heard a growl and glanced back toward Norgoth, thinking that she would wave him inside. The gnoll was gone. The coach was gone. Only two giant animals, chained on either side of the door, were there. "What the...?" she whispered. Cerebus and Fafnir were long dead...or, actually, hadn't been born yet...whatever, they weren't supposed to be in this time. The chill became a tremble. Cerebus resembled a doberman, with black, sinewy limbs and savage, dripping fangs. It looked at her with blazing, red eyes and salivated. He was easily six feet tall at the shoulders, and if not for the twelve inch steel chain attached to a truncheon inside the walls, he could leap the twenty foot moat with ease. On the other side of the doors was Fafnir, a black wolf, at least as big as the first, only this one had long hair and green eyes. He also was salivating in her direction. They both pulled at their chains, trying to reach the intruder, trying to reach Raini. "For some reason, they don't know me," she thought. She gasped when she saw that Cerebus had all four of his paws. Slipping inside the doorway, she waited a moment until her green eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. No torches had been lit. She looked for any sign of which way Christian had gone. Of course, he left none. But, something was different inside, too. Something was terribly wrong. The Keep didn't look like home. It looked as it did that first day...the first time she visited... Once inside, her eyes started to adjust to the low light. Small rodents ran about in the shadows. The interior was no warmer or drier than the outside. She longed for central heating, but knew that wouldn't be in keeping with the mood. On the floor, giant oriental rugs were spread out, covering most of the stone. On the walls, medieval tapestries hung, threadbare and faded. Raini shook her head and looked around again. Her heart fell. The Keep was back as it was. "No," she whispered. Tears welled in her eyes as she desperately wanted to see Christian, wanted to know that he had not reverted... "Hello," Kolban rasped. "Enter of your own accord." Raini jumped. When her breath returned, she looked up at the tall, gaunt man who had served as Christian's doorman before. "Don't you remember me?" She received no answer to that question. Kolban was...well...Kolban, but he seemed colder somehow, more distant, more mechanical. He didn't act like he knew her either. "The master is waiting for you in the Throne room," Kolban said, gesturing towards a colossal stone staircase that wound about a gargantuan stone column. Raini ran up the stairs. She reached the top of the stairs, entering a long hallway with stone archways on either side. As she walked down, she saw massive rooms on each side. One was veiled in darkness, the other contained a long, thin table with a hundred skeletal knights, their armor covered in cobwebs, gathered for a non-existant feast. At the front of the room, under a coat of arms which showed a gryphon and a lion, there was a raised platform. On it sat a throne, and on the throne sat...the brooding Master of the Keep. He was wearing what Christian had been wearing when he ran into The Keep, but something had possessed the body inside the clothes and armor. The loving look in those blue eyes was gone, replaced by an emptiness, a longing that Raini hadn't seen since he carried her to his bedroom and made her his Queen. "No!" she cried aloud as her rapier tilted and slipped from her trembling hand and clattered on the stone floor. The Master frowned ever so slightly and seemed to want to say something as he got up and moved toward Raini. For a moment, he seemed to recognize her. Then, that brooding mask fell back across his handsome, strong features. "I'll have Kolban show you to a room that I think you'll like," this other Christian said. "I'll show you around after you've had a chance to settle in and change." Raini could only stand there and stare at this man who had stolen Christian's face and body and replaced it with a cold and empty shell. Had it all been a dream? No. He was wearing the clothes he'd worn this morning. Those touches and caresses. Those kisses and passionate evenings. They were real. This was not. She began to calm down and start thinking. Something was wrong. Someone was trying to manipulate Christian...because he was happy? She looked at the stone walls and damned The Keep. There had to be a way to stop this. Another look of notice passed across his face, but he only shook his head and added, "Syrilyn will be pleased that we have a new visitor. Good with a sword, are you? Perhaps we can hire you on after the wedding."