Blood. The knight awoke to the metallic tang of blood. She wiped the red fluid from her lips and gazed at it. Her own, it seemed.

She stood, shakily, and pain bloomed within her skull. Her vision reeled, skating over rocks and shadows. Gradually, the spinning slowed to a halt.

The knight-wanderer was on a ledge, overlooking a descent to depths beyond imagining. Above her, the walls of the crevasse blocked out most of the sky, and only a handful of stars were visible between them. Her guiding star, which she followed like a lamb, was hidden behind rock. Even so, she knew is direction, for she could feel its pull through anything. No stone, no blade, no ambrosia could ever sever her connection to the heavens.

Behind her, Sceadwian, her steed, laid unconscious on the rocks. She knelt by the stag-wolf, and ran her fingers along its black mane and spiraled antlers. More blood.

And then... high above, a beam of light swept the moonless sky. The lighthouse still prevailed, it seemed, though its false warmth was but a distant, bitter memory.

Before her was a cave. The stone mouth yawned wide with jagged teeth, wild as any beast. Although it was plainly virgin to hammer and chisel, the passage opened directly below the lighthouse tower. A secret route, perhaps, to the inner sanctum...

Starlight glinted on her owl-mask, and she delved into the dark, her brown hair flowing freely. Faint echoes in time reverberated within the cave as she entered, and half-dead, unborn whispers seeped out from the shale.

Three pale lights appeared ahead, hovering in the gloom. Halting and stuttering, their movements obeyed laws alien to her own. They resolved into three separate forms, all human-shaped.. but small. She stood on guard between the apparitions and her fallen steed. In one hand, she readied her sharp rapier, and in the other, her bladed riding crop.

None of her preparations saved her.

The ghosts--for they were indeed ghosts--opened each their hungry mouths and leapt at her as one. She swung at the first with her sword, and at the second with her whip. But the third, the smallest, was on her. Its tiny grey hands grabbed at her armor, and the ghastly thing clambered up with unnatural speed. Then, she felt its touch. Cold and damp and-- by-the-gods-- real!

Without another thought, she silently conjured a solid wave of light. The ghosts were all thrust back, and their little bodies hit the rocks with an audible crack. They cried out their piercing, callow pain, and as they fled her steady luminance, their screams preceded them deep into the dark.

Their call was answered. A low sound rattled the stone walls, as if a mile-long string was plucked by an unseen hand. She felt the reverberations in the ground, felt it shudder up her spine, and felt it breathing down her neck. Her mage-light, once confident and calm, flickered; it seemed magic itself was afraid.

A chill mist erupted from another passage. The light left her entirely, for her field had broke and fled. Soon, she could no longer see the mist at all, even as the coldness closed in on her.

The click-clack of claws skittered throughout the cave, echoes of a swift approach. A breeze swept past her--a whisper in her ear, a touch on her hair, the smell of heath--and the clawed thing came to a clattering stop behind her. It barred her escape to the ledge, and she spun about to face it. Against the weak starlight, a monstrous shape reared in silhouette--a strange chimera of mantis, lion, and heron. She leveled her rapier at it; there was no choice but to fight, for her helpless Sceadwian was beyond that lithe horror.

A shrill roar, and the beast pounced. Pure reflex guided her blade, and it would have struck--it should have--but the shadow-creature was not there. Like a ghost, the beast shifted between existence and insubstantiality, and by an intolerable paradox, it struck her with its pointed beak just as her sword cut the vacant air.

Barely a scratch penetrated her armor, but the bite was poison. Venom coursed through her, weakening every muscle. Her grip slackened, and the sword fell to the ground. Then, she joined it there, too weak to stand. The creature collected the knight in its insectile arms, and it clutched her tightly as it stole her away.

Still aware, she felt the passage over rocks, then a steep incline.. briefly, the measured rhythm of stairs, and they were in a dimly illuminated room. In a corner, the three small ghosts were huddled together, watching without eyes. About them were the outlines of strange machines and devices, including an ominous chair made of cold, hard steel. The creature deposited her in the chair, and it nudged her limbs into position, readying her for what purpose she could not tell.

The door opened, and a grey, sickly light poured in. A figure entered, tall and skeletal, holding a lantern with a twisting, unreal flame. The master of this dungeon, she supposed. The lighthouse-keeper. He glided without walking, and paused, frozen in each pseudo-step. Behind him trailed images of the motions he should have made, as though the gears of space and time were harmed by his intrusion on existence.

He fluttered through a gesture, invoking an unfamiliar, otherworldly magic. And then... the knight, already paralyzed, was rendered utterly defenseless. Her armor, her vestments.. gone. Vanished. All that remained was her mask. Anger and fear boiled with in her, but she could do nothing--nothing!--to protect herself.. or her honor.

The keeper leaned in closer. The air about him was charged, a roiling convection of potency. Filled, filled, it was--not the absence of life at all. Instead.. the very spark. Suddenly, another emotion arose within her, unbidden, unwanted--

"Y-you bastard," she hissed, not sure the words ever left her lips. From behind thick glass lenses, she stared into his eyes, where his eyes should have been; only inscrutable holes stared back. Yet.. the chilling sight was so incongruous to the flustering warmth in the air. That heat-- mere illusion, a trick, meant to confuse and ensnare.

Before the knight could gather what little of her strength remained--how she longed to end this uncertainty--at last, his motives were made clear. His hand swooped and halted, hovering just inches from her face.

Slender fingers landed gingerly on her mask, not once touching skin directly, and the goggle-mask was lifted from her.

And, immediately, she was blinded. A scintillating kaleidoscope of pure, brilliant light danced in her vision, even after her eyes had snapped shut. Such a blaze was not meant to be seen by mortal wretches like herself.

"I do not betray you," he said gently, more gently and she deserved. "Your lenses do. They show you shadows where there are none. Please, do not wear them in this land, my kingdom."

"You are King?" she asked in a whisper. Ashamed, the knight--the knave--turned her head away. She chanced opening her eyes, and the room was no dungeon at all, and.. that beast. In the light, it was no monster, but an awkward, fragile creature, all ivory and red and gold.

"Yes. And that is Aureus, my steed. My life thread and his intertwine, like you and your black beast. Be very glad you did not harm him."

"I--"

"My princes, on the other hand..."

"Princes?" A lead weight dropped in her gut, and she looked at the three little ghosts.

Not ghosts. Children. Children!

Three young boys cowered against the wall. The eldest, still a scrawny little thing, lay bleeding on the floor, while the youngest--two years old, at most--gaped in confusion and fear. The middle brother looked back at her, judgment flaring in his golden eyes.

She closed her own eyes, stricken by guilt. Hot tears fled down her shame-burnt cheeks.

"Ah! I repent!" A strangled howl from the defeated knight. "I repent," she repeated, thrice at least, each reprise a variation--regret, compassion, supplication.. veneration.

To her whispered reverence was one reply.

Silence.

He was gone. Without his light, the creature and the children disappeared. For a time, there was naught but darkness.

When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in a dungeon. The walls of existence were lined not with stone, but with books, and her head rested not on metal but on velvet. As always, the knight forgot her true name, and all that remained was the dampness on her eyes.

Abeline blinked slowly, noticing Khymarah--that ruby-haired princess--fast asleep in her bed. With a bleak sigh, she reluctantly remembered that she was not a knight at all. She was a healer, and her demons could not be slain with swords.