Dragon in a Dream, page 9 ---"Upon the Steeple Tower"--- +Lady_Blaze+

"Now, about the book - " He commented, as I placed it between us. He promptly ignored it and opened the one he had excavated.

The book was a compilation of mysterious events to take place in the Gem, from farther back then even he remembered, nearly to the present. I had no time to wonder why the book, being so worn, could have been written earlier than the Foultann War, for the contents therein were invaluable to me and my search for the Dragon.

"Here," he said, his ragged beard dipping to drag across the blotted script, "we see three occurrences in one year, in which townspeople claim they saw a huge bat flying high in the sky. There is no mention of where; we have no date either, but it is clear that these were written together. See, how the ink trails off to link with the next paragraph? They were writing hastily, I believe. Would you happen to know that the Gem had regulations concerning what writings could be published? This type of book, one to create suspicion and fear in the hearts of a town's inhabitants, was banned around the same time we think the Dragon lived near the Gem. Our key here is merely that thread of evidence, that this person obviously wrote either in hiding away from the public eye, or I will eat my hat." He stopped to pat the cloth covering his head. "Why they bothered to write things that happened before and after their time is beyond me." He did not bother to explain, but continued to peruse the book, sometimes idly flipping a thin page. He asked me once for the Dragon Skein.

"If you could so kindly turn to...the eighty-fourth stanza, please."

I handed my book to him, thumb marking the page.

"Aaah, yes, here it is.." He did not speak for several minutes, only stared blankly at the prose. Then, in a slow sonorous voice that sent chills down my spine, he began to declaim the stanza:

=Ever after night

He fly by moonbeams bright

Always by the seventh

Upon the steeple tower

And others while they cower

Velvety fly'd seventh

Steel be not in dark

And make him not a mark=

I spoke after a while, nearly afraid of breaking the musty silence, but feeling an urgent need to ask a question. "You're sure it gives nothing of the dates for those occurrences?"

He harrumphed in a manner uncannily similar to Michelio - I suppose old men do many things alike - and replied, "I can see nothing in this that points towards a date. Perhaps the author knew he would be punished for his actions, so he refrained from adding dates, though he makes a point about it later on." Then he changed the subject.

"Ever wonder about why the death of the Dragon was never added or recorded in history books? Another attribute to our enigma.."

I looked steadily at him, my thoughts a teeming pool of eels. "The burning question," I said, "It is recorded in the Dragon Skein, though."

His eyebrows raised so high they were in danger of tipping off his hat. "And where have you muddled about and managed to find that?" I pulled the Skein to my side and was about to rifle through to find the section, when my fingertips skimmed over the stanza he had declaimed. A wave of heat shot up my fingertips and, realizing there was more to the verse than I could decipher on sight, I unconsciously closed my eyes and ran my fingers over the ink, saying in my head the verse I had read a thousand times before and had found no stimulation from it.

Upon the steeple tower...Upon the steeple tower...Upon - My eyes snapped open, and I asked the Rhymester, "Where in the Gem is the highest tower?"

He blinked twice, answering, "Why, atop the central chapel, just south of the heart of the Gem. I do think you are being a little too hasty for your own good, child. But, then again, I never seem to get things done in my old age because I deliberate over them too long."

As I hurriedly stowed the Dragon Skein in my pack, he muttered, "Aah, to feel young blood course through my veins again; so long ago.."



-- Hmm, things are just heating up... :)

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