Paying the Piper

Handel W. Care

Faded light, just on the edge of leaching colours out of the surrounding ferns, lent a surreal cast to the brook as it wended its way down through the lightly wooded forest. Grey and black stones it passed blended easily with the occasional green and blue ones, while lighter hues looked ghostly, like eyes dotted amongst the behemoth mass of the banks.

Above, the layers of canopy progressively delineated zones of activity for varied animals, birds and insects. Beyond them all a promise of greater illumination poked through the highest curtain of trees. Leaves fell now and then, wandering through air currents to become part of the mulch or to continue their travels as a sailboat on the waters below. Past miniature rapids, over sharp inclines and around boulders they voyaged until they came to a pool under twilight skies.

Amid the scent of oak and willow, pure waters and the absence of man one leaf came to rest against yet another grey cast obstacle before moving on. Slowly it wandered out of the shallow pool before finding the more turbulent waters of narrow places. Behind, beneath the twilight gaze of ancient trees, the grey form lifted its face from the shallow pond, water running from its beard.

With an unnecessary grunt Handel pulled himself from the liquid embrace and stood. Since he had been in Jamaica, the morning had continued to creep up on him despite his best efforts to leap ahead of it. Caerns, chantries and hidden places raced through his mind along with the faces of lost friends and old allies. Time seemed to be a rare necessity at the moment and he'd pushed himself to prepare for the eventualities that would soon come to claim him. An immortal without enough time - it seemed far too trite a statement, but was true enough. The cusp of old and new allowed for little in the way of last minute cramming it seemed. All the same, past and present were now mostly cared for and the future could flow as it would.

From a little way beyond the trees of the pool came a haunting trill, enticing the vampire to gain dry land and follow the sound. There was little doubt in his mind that its call had been for him, as he sensed no other active presences in this place. Blissfully ignorant of how or why he had come to this place he passed through the willows, then the oaks and on into a grotto among the trees. Within was a pair of gates, formed of living boughs and shifting as if alive in a more than simply organic sense. The air was rich with the force of life, the smell of vegetation and the palpable presence of the Fae.

A shadow beside the gates set aside its pipes and became distinct. Hoofed goat's legs rose to meet a human torso swathed in a silken garment somewhere between a shirt and a robe. Old eyes stared out of a noble, young seeming face and calmly noted the undead thing's presence.

"Greetings, Rasa Womanbane. It has not been long enough."

Taken aback, Handel did nothing but gaze in reply for a moment. His opposite number merely stood as if he could outlast mountains, waiting for a response.

"Keleb. So you are a Keeper now?" Sight able to pick apart a man's soul swept over the Fae, checking his intentions, power and limitations. Humbled by the peace he found, the Malkavian let his vision drop and sighed.

"I'm sorry about your sister. I never intended anything of the sort. Kila was very dear to me, you must know that. What I am took me away from her, hid me from her and from myself as well. Only just recently have I even remembered her as more than a dream."

Nodding, the Satyr admitted this as true. "Aye. It was your thoughts I felt in my dreams some nights back, then. I thought as much. Now, with your rampant world hopping, you've worn yourself out and paused on the stepping stone. Though you've paid the price of passage again and again, I wonder at your sense, now you know."

Gesturing beyond the grove, Keleb held himself still to listen as a mournful wail of immortal loss sounded from beyond the range of mortal hearing. Regret burning in his eyes he faced Handel, to observe dark tears sliding down into the vampire's beard and an answering look of sorrow.

"Every time?"

Keleb nodded. "But she will never find you until your ending. So much of a taste she has had in the last passings that it will be some time before she quietens. And you will return, as I know you must, changed again, no doubt."

Troubled at the truth of the fact, Handel pondered aloud. "Ignorance may often lead to wisdom, I'm afraid. Though I have to get used to the wealth of the latter my repeated use of the former has given me. Perhaps this would dampen things a little?"

Without further words Handel stepped to the gate, which writhed all the more at his approach. Limbs became straighter and less rounded, leaves more elongated and linear. Vertices became apparent and finally a metallic sheen covered what were now obviously doors.

"Be well, Keleb. Mayhap we shall again have a glass or three after the dark times are past." He caught the surprised Fae in a rough hug and stepped through the opening doors, returning to his own duties.

Once the Lift doors had closed and the gate returned to its former wild state, the Keeper retrieved his pipes to pick up his place in the tune. "Keep your eyes open Handel," he said quietly before he brought them to his lips.

At the edges another wood, one just as beautiful in places as that left, though dark with true night and not blessed with the absence of man, doors opened onto a frosty night. From nowhere they came and to nowhere they went, leaving nothing in their passing but a tired old man in a young man's seeming. Shaking himself of the new found weight, Handel stepped down the hill towards the distant city lights. A tune, unmindful of mood, sprung to his lips and fled from them into the world of men as he walked.

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