After The Serpen Hunt

     Woodworking Hall
     A spacious and light building, the walls are made of light red
     coloured wood and have several interesting looking wooden shields upon
     them. At the left side stands a very long workbench filled with pieces
     of wood and half made carvings. Above it hangs a beautifully carved
     wooden rack with dozens of different knives, chisels and hammers.
     Around the shop several items lay finished, among them carved spears,
     shields and other, more ordinary things. There hangs a strong, not
     unpleasant smell of sawdust in the air, not surprisingly with sawdust
     covering every inch of the floor. In the far wall a small door seems
     to lead to a back room.

Cara stands in the workshop, praying. She has been there most of the night.

Cara says "Lady, they say that of all the gods of Crinos, you are the most
merciful. You heard me before, and I have fulfilled the promise I made to
you then. But now, I ask you to grant mercy to the woman and the Serpen
who were taken away by the other gods. Please, don't let them be tortured
eternally, lady. Let them die, and be done with it."

A booming voice fills the room, coming from everywhere and nowhere. "Why?"

Cara looks up. Seeing no one, she speaks to the moonlight coming through
the window. "Because eternity is too long. Because the greatest sin we on
earth can conceive of is limited, and justice sets punishment in line with
the offense."

Cara says "Because if the evildoer is gone, then the world is safe from
him...or her...and surely that is enough?"

Luna steps out of the moonlight. "But my consort's lieutenants feel that
she deserves more than death. You were instrumental in her thwarting, so I
will grant you this compromise: she will suffer for one hundred and one
days and nights before she rests, and she will not be told she is to die.
Is it enough for you?"

Cara drops her eyes, but immediately her gaze comes back to Luna's face,
as if she can't bear to look away. "In truth, Lady, I don't understand
this Way of Crinos. But I thank you, for setting a limit to her
punishment. And the Serpen, too?"

Luna looks down, and a tear rolls sadly down her face. "Alas, there is
nothing I can do there. I have no hold on them, he has already passed on."
She looks up. "But if I did, there is nothing you could say to give them
mercy. You know not what you ask."

Luna is quiet for a time.

Luna looks carefully at Cara. "You deserve something more for your help
and dedication, especially as you are an outsider. Ask."

Cara looks upon Luna's tears with wonder, and sorrow. "I did not mean to
give you pain. If the Serpen is gone, of course that satisfies me. You are
kind...please don't weep. Would...would you tell Nuada that we have slain
his slayer?"

Luna smiles. "I will weep when there is cause, child. I weep for my
children." She begins to shift and mold, and becomes less a figure of
light, more solid somehow.

Cara watches the transformation, her eyes wide.

>From out of the light a larger figure is formed, hair a black-red, eyes
amber... it is Nuada, yet he has no silver hand anymore.

     Nuada Airgethlam (Nuada Silverhand). Standing a little over eight feet
     tall, the man has the rugged black-and-red-striped hair of an animal.
     His eyes, which are set quite deep in their sockets, are an almost
     transparent amber. His face is slender with up-slanting cheekbones.
     This makes some of his expressions seem cold or cruel or even faintly
     animalistic. His green cloak is of a rough cloth, bearing faint traces
     of sawdust. A green loose shirt and trousers of the same colour which
     end in black boots complete his attire. Around his waist he wears a
     belt closed by an intricate forged buckle and with a long sword
     hanging from it. He looks about him with that easy going manner of one
     who knows how to defend himself. If you saw him before, you will
     notice one strange thing now. His silver hand is gone. Instead there
     is a normal hand now at the spot.

Cara rushes forward, her arms reaching out to embrace him. "Nuada!" Then
she stops, just short of him, staring up into his face, suddenly a little
shy. "May I touch you?"

Nuada smiles and doesn't speak, but instead embraces Cara.

Cara throws her arms around Nuada, and hugs him tight.

Nuada holds Cara at arm's length from him. He smiles then. "I saw what you
did for me."

Cara's face is glowing with happiness. "You still exist! You even look
*happy*. Oh, this is better than any reward she could have given me."

Nuada nods calmly. "I do exist. Physical life ended, but that was all." He
smiles and holds out his hand, the one that used to be silver. "I even got
something back that I missed for a long, long time." Then his eyes get
serious. "Though I still miss you all..."

Cara nods, her smile fading. "We miss you, too. The first time I came
here, after you were dead, it hurt so much. I couldn't even sing, for days
after, till finally a song came to me about the sadness."

Cara says "When I sang it, I knew for sure that you were gone, and somehow
that helped."

Nuada tilts his head a bit and looks at you. "Will you sing it for me?"

Cara nods. "Yes, of course. But I think I should sing it without my harp.
I left the harp in Edward's room, in the Warriors' Hall. And I'm afraid,
if I go and get it, you'll vanish."

Nuada nods. "It is you who keeps me here now." He smiles. "Without a harp
is fine, your singing is always lovely.'

Cara sings, softly and sadly.

Cara sings: I am a chisel, hanging in a rack of tools
Cara sings: Above a workbench grey with dust.
Cara sings: And on my tip, I feel a darkness --
Cara sings: A speck of rust.

Cara sings: My master never would have let me look this way.
Cara sings: He always kept me bright and clear.
Cara sings: He would have picked me up and cleaned me.
Cara sings: But he's not here.

Cara sings: He used to walk the forest in the green of day,
Cara sings: And find new wood that we'd work on.
Cara sings: But then one day he met the Serpen,
Cara sings: And now he's gone.

Cara sings: Oh Lady Luna, can't you take me up to him?
Cara sings: His hand is where I want to be.
Cara sings: Perhaps he's looking down the moonlight
Cara sings: And wanting me.

Cara sings: Or does he have new tools, all made of moonlight now,
Cara sings: And brighter woods to use them on?
Cara sings: It seems that I must bear my sorrow,
Cara sings: Now that he's gone.
Cara sings: Where has he gone?
Cara sings: He's simply...gone.

Cara's voice dies away, a tear spilling from each of her eyes.

Nuada looks around his shop as Cara sings, a rather sad smile on his face,
looking at all the things he made, and all the things he used in his life,
also at his chisels.

Cara wipes her eyes with her fingers, and smiles wistfully. "Are you still
a maker, in the life beyond death? Can you carve the moonlight...or what
do you do?"

Nuada then looks at Cara and smiles. The smile is exactly the same as when
he lived and smiled at her. "Could you really envision me as anything else
than a maker?"

Cara shakes her head. "I have never been certain, until now, that you
still existed at all. What is there to work with, where you live now?

Nuada leans against the workbench. "Well, as you can see I still exist,
but as for where I live now, it's...difficult to explain with words." He
thinks a few seconds. "Let me try.'

Cara sweeps the dust from a patch of the workbench with her hand, and hops
up to sit cross-legged. She watches Nuada's face as he thinks.

Nuada says "It's like...living inside the process of creating. When I was
alive and carved wood, I felt...complete, different from anytime else."
He smiles, "As you do when you make music, I think. But there, it is as if
you are a part of the process. I create, but am also the part that is
created." He thinks some more. "In your case that would be as if you are
the composer of music, but also part of the music itself..."

Cara's eyes brighten with wonder. "What do you make now? Can you show me?
Is it something that I, still having a body, can see?"

Nuada smiles. "The soul has always been a mage... I can make anything,
with every material." He thinks and looks at his former instruments. "But
I'm not sure if you can see it."

Cara says "Will you try? Please?"

Cara says "I still have the Sight, that I cast on myself for the combat,
if that will help."

Nuada holds his hands out. On them lies something, but it's hard to
see. It looks like it was made of moonlight and shadows, but shadows
burning with colours, colours that seem to dance in the object. But at the
same time the object is made of wood, dark red wood. But it is made of
water as well...clear cold water...not so much the materials, but the
ethereal components of everything. It is hard to see what it actually
depicts, but it could be Luna...

Cara merely sits, very quietly, looking at it. Even her breathing is
quiet, controlled, as though she fears to disrupt a thing so fragile and
fluid.

Nuada speaks very softly. "What do you think?"

Cara speaks without taking her eyes from the object Nuada is holding. And
her voice, suddenly, has the sound of a peace deeper than happiness. "I
think that for you, death has not been a diminishment, but an
augmentation. And I will continue to miss you at times, but I will grieve
no more."

Cara says "True grief, I see now, comes from the fear that the lost one no
longer exists, or is not happy. Thank you, my friend."

Nuada leans over and kisses Cara on the forehead. "Death is but a
door. I will miss you all, always, but death is not something to fear, or
grieve about." He smiles. "Nothing is lost forever, once I will see you
all again."

Cara smiles at the kiss, and looks up curiously. "Even if I die on some
other world...in Amber, or in the Courts of Chaos? Even then?"

"Distance... Worlds, they're all illusions," Nuada says. "As long as you
want to be found I will find you."

Cara nods happily. "Then you will. I will come, and sing of the things you
make, and of the worlds I've seen in the meantime. When I am dead, perhaps
I will be able to sing the way the sky changes over Amber Beach before
sunrise...and to truly *know* the things I sing of...oh, it's almost too
wonderful."

Nuada holds up a hand and smiles. "Ehm, now don't go *longing* for death,
it has its bad sides as well." His eyes become sad. "Never again will I
see the Crinos jungle, or hunt in it at night, with only Luna to light my
path..."

Cara frowns, and reaches out to touch Nuada's hand. "I won't long for it.
But I won't fear it either. I'll think of it as something to be prepared
for, by living now as much as I can."

Nuada holds Cara's hand and nods. "That is the best you can do, yes."

Cara says "Would you like to go for a walk in the jungle now? Can you
leave this place if I go with you?"

Nuada shakes his head. "I don't think so. It was this place, my place of
creation, where I made all my creations, plus your emotions and Luna's
power that called me to here. I do not think I can leave here."

Cara nods. "She is so kind, and so beautiful, and she's given me so much
already."

Nuada says "Have you met her consort?"

Cara says "That would be Lord Sol? No, I haven't. Do you often see the
gods, beyond death?"

Nuada shakes his head, "Not really...we could, if we wanted to, but even
they are...disconnected from the dead somewhat." He smiles. "Though it is
always a pleasure to see Luna herself."

Cara smiles, with an edge. "Yes, it must be...although not, I suspect,
quite such a pleasure for those who harm her children. I would not like to
see her in *that* mood, would you?"

Cara says "But you were, and you still are, a good man. And so you see her
good side."

Nuada nods, his eyes suddenly colder, more...animal, "Yes...the War
Moon, that is not something many like to see."

Cara nods thoughtfully. "If it's like what I felt in the battle tonight,
though, it's good. I learned about myself, tonight. I learned how very
much it is possible for me to desire the death of another...and how it
feels to do everything in my power to bring about that end...and also the
limit of my hatred. I know how far it goes, now, where before I feared it
might have no limit."

Nuada's form begins to waver ever so slightly.

Cara says "Nuada, must you leave me now?"

Nuada looks at his form as it slowly becomes translucent. He nods sadly.
"I fear so...it begins to get harder to stay here now."

Cara jumps down from the workbench, and puts her arms around Nuada again.
"I won't try to hold you back, then. Farewell, and be well, until I see
you again."

Nuada holds Cara tight as his form begins to shimmer before her eyes.
Slowly it melts back into the moonlight it came from. The last thing in
that light that can be seen is Nuada's smile, and his words, "Goodbye,
Cara..."

Cara whispers, "Goodbye, my friend."

The moonlight is back to normal now, everything is empty once again...