Celebhir

The geese are departing from the north. From my single window I see the skeins in ragged formation arrow across the evening sky. Behind them the moon is newly risen - this season, this moon ... impossibly far away from this dark place, and what happens in this place, a great house is flooded with light and music.

Under the richly decorated ceilings,within the tree arbors festooned with lanterns, the brightest host is dancing. Maidens in gossamer dresses tip their faces up to radiant lords - shy, coy, merry, proud. The flower of elvendom gathered to celebrate autumn.

The farmer, Ted, hands me a bag of food. There is a note of regret in his eyes as he turns away. He knows he has got the work of two men from me in payment for his straw-scented hospitality, aware that he is unlikely to see such a tireless farmhand again.

Hard, physical work. Take up the wood, bring down the axe hard. Split the timber. Repeat. I let myself go into the repetitive work. Fill my senses with the actions and the scent of the wood. Hold my attention on the feel of my muscles, so swiftly refreshed after the un-natural ravages of the stone.

The man brings out tea and thick cut cheese and bread. I eat. Taste the cream that lies in the butter. Wipe sweat from my eyes. I work.

There is an old saying - a story has no true beginning, no ultimate end. Stories are rivers, we tumble into them for a time, then drag ourselves onto the bank. We may be angry, or suprised, or shake off the water like a happy dog. But the story-river does not care, it runs its own course, stronger than anything or anyone cast into it. I am in the river - and I am drowning. Celebhir, born of the sea-elves, washed ever on towards the mouth of the river, to be lost in the sea.

The world is a game - and how I love it. My fingers pick up and place each pawn. See the elven maid Celebhir wither in the high tower, the Rook's emprisoning rookery. This northern Woman, a Queen in my hand. The second stone discovered - my Dunlander's quest - like a Knight in a tale.

My Poppinjay clicks his piece down upon the board, pulling me from my distraction. He smiles, a slow lazy pleasure. He knows I will not chide a man for using his intelligence. The word slips from his lips, his eyes dance with the rare moment -

'Check'

Shut the walls away, close the eyes and dull the senses of sight and sound. There is nothing here in this room, this place, to comfort me. Nor in memory - I push Araenion and Vallandur away in my minds-eye. I float, aimless, like petals on water, spindrift. Foam riding on the ebb and flow of the sea.

Weeks have passed. Months. Seasons. I feel time passing beyond the solid walls of my prison. But this room is as changeless as pondwater - I know the exact number of all the stones in each wall, have counted every stitch in the single tapestry.

I no longer look through the thin, slim-slit window. The sight of the stars and the sun amongst the free clouds pierces me like a cold knife - the wound of imprisonment deep and unhealing. I weep dry-eyed and soundless now, inside. I am weary of weeping, but it does not end.

His chair stands empty in the corner of my prison.

I see the high back, covered in tooled red leather. A suggestion of his form remains firmly pressed into the cured skin - thigh, muscled back, a shoulder. The graceful arcs of the wooden arms are covered in a  rich pattina from long use, polished by the repeated caress of his dark skin.

How many days in this chamber?

I watch the thin golden sliver of sunlight move as slow as honey across the walls. Each moment an age, watch the tiny motes of dust caught in its light, dancing as innocent and ephemeral as may-flies in a summer evening. Gold gives way to silver, and the dimmer light of the moon traces time over the same tracks. The same and same and same.