Rendezvous

[Anja]

As Dianelopa spouted Canticles of the Diana priesthood and grew weak in the knees, Puck moved closer and put his hand to her back. Being an old man, there was little he could do to soften her eventual collapse, but he felt obligated to help. He stood over her with concern as her consciousness faded, and he bit his lower lip in consternation. After a moment or two of silence, he spoke slowly in the Greatweaver tongue. "That... was unexpected."

The hoarsely rattled Canticles were Latin, but Puck, despite his skill in linguistics, could draw little from the girl's words, other than that they were somehow related to the little-known divine being Diana. They came too fast, and he was too preoccupied with figuring out what was wrong with Dianelopa. Anja, for her part, crouched over Dianelopa and studied her face for a moment before retreating back into her hair and growling. "It would seem as though we still have secrets to unravel regarding our new employee. I will leave this matter in your hands, Puck."

[Dianelopa]

Once Anja's gaze with its strange power was withdrawn, Dianelopa regained consciousness. She found herself laying on the floor with Puck staring worriedly at her. "What happened?" she murmured. "Why am I laying on the floor? Where is Anja?"
Although still feeling confused - Dianelopa did not remember uttering the incomprehensible words - she did note that her chest seemed to be burning. She raised her hand to the spot and felt the black jade necklace which was still very hot. She pulled it away from her skin and held it up. Once again, as she had noticed on a previous occassion, the carved jade cat charm which hung on a woven band around her neck, had turned to a shining gold color. "What is this thing?" asked Dianelopa. "Why is it so hot?"

[Anja]

Puck managed to fetch a glass of water from the Parlour before Dianelopa came to. When she awoke, he pointed to the mass of hair and webbing in the corner. "Anja is still here, you weren't out for very long. Please, drink this."

He knelt next to her, gathering his robes about his ankles, and offered the glass. "You began speaking in Latin, you know. You recited a stream of words about the goddess Diana. Does this make any sense to you?"

In the corner, Anja crouched in perfect stillness, brooding and listening. This is most interesting. And perhaps more than a little dangerous...

[Dianelopa]

Dianelopa sat up and took the glass of water. "Mmm, now I feel better", she said. She glanced at Anja who again was mostly a pile of gossamer hair and frowned. "I don't remember that I said anything. Latin? Diana? Dianelopa is my name. Maybe it's myself I was talking about. Did I say Dianelopa? Is that Latin?"

Suddenly Dianelopa jumped up in excitement. "Puck, the magic reading book. It tells you almost everything if you ask it. Did you know that? Maybe it knows the answer." Dianelopa scurried back to the door she'd come through to the parlour where she'd last had the book. The iron door was closed and when she tried to open it, it didn't seem to budge. "Come on," she growled at it. "Let me in." The door did finally slowly start moving. When it was open a little more than a crack she slid though into the parlour and found the book where she'd last used it.

She opened it to the question page and wrote, who Diana. The book as always was obliging. "Diana Queen of Witches; witches - wise women healers. Diana goddess of the hunt, associated with wild animals and woodland, and also of the moon. Accompanied often by a stag and hounds. For witches - followers of Diana - the cat is sacred. Diana is called mother of cats. Diana, goddess of the moon has a dark side like the moon itself. Witches use black cats in order to perform spells.
Diana's cult - witches chant the Diana canticles:
Diana Lucina (helper in childbirth) Diana Aventinensis (of the birds) Diana Caelistis (of heaven) Diana Nemorensis (of the woods) Diana Omnivaga (protector of wanderers) Diana Opifera (aid bringer) Diana Venatrix (huntress and protector of wild animals) Sing to Diana. She will protect you. "

"Puck, come here," Dianelopa shouted. "The book is saying these things. You have to hear."

Then, as it did not offer any more information about Diana, she nervously wrote something else in the question box. Dianelopa. Nothing happened. "Oh," she said disappointed. "It doesn't know this."

[Anja]

As Dianelopa pushed against the door, Puck looked at Anja from the entrance to the room, and tossed his head at the girl, indicating that she wanted to pass through the door. Anja lifted up a spider leg and waved it in the air, causing the door to lift up. She had webforged a series of heavy iron doors soon after moving into the sewers, and bound them to one leg, which sported a series of Bridler's Marks across its hairy surface. It was always this leg that gave out under her when she stumbled.

Puck followed Dianelopa into the Parlour, and his eyebrows shot up at the words the book spouted. "Dianelopa, those words are very nearly the same words you uttered before swooning. Are you sure you've never heard of Diana before?"

[Dianelopa]

"I don't know who Diana is, no I can't remember anything. But why do you suppose my name is Dianelopa? Do I have something to do with Diana? I never of heard of anyone with that name before. Did you? What does lopa mean?" She paused trying hard to see if her mind would come up with something. Her eyes landed on the book again. "It didn't know Dianelopa. Maybe it knows lopa."

"She-wolf," said the book.

Dianelopa laughed. "I knew that already. I'm part she-wolf. Aaaaand," she sighed. "Maybe I'm part Diana. What do you suppose that means? Maybe I'm supposed to be one of those witches. But why? Puck. Why?"

Dianelopa was silent for a while. It seemed all too confusing to her. All these absolutely strange revelations. She couldn't even begin to imagine what it meant. Her mother and father, the people who brought her up, were a very old farming couple who never did anything except farm. Although.... Dianelopa thoughts meandered suddenly to the last words her mother had said to her before she left Shim, words she'd pushed to the far corners of her mind during the last few hectic months of her life.

We are not your parents. Your mother brought you to us when you were two years old and asked us to bring you up as our own child. She was in great danger at the time and she wanted you to survive.
She left one thing for you. She told us to keep it well hidden and never let anyone know about it, but to give it to you when the time came.

It was the black jade cat pendant. Dianelopa remembered how it had become warm then as she had taken it in her hand. She also remembered her father being upset about it, calling her mother a witch.

"Whoa," said Dianelopa outloud. "I think my mother was a witch." But the thought was disturbing and Dianelopa once again was silent, switching these little shoots of insight off. It was all to incomplete and somehow seemed to demand a responsibility that Dianelopa did not feel she was ready to accept.

"You know," said Dianelopa finally. "When I came to Marn my mother gave me some cakes that she baked. She never baked those cakes before and they tasted really really good. But when I ate them I had these dreams, it was like it was real. I mean totally real. I dreamt about wolves. Yeah, it was all about wolves. There was no Diana and no witches. But I only ate two of them and had two dreams. I gave all the rest of the cakes away. I was just thinking that maybe these dreams really happened. I mean, now knowing I've got this wolf part of me. Puck? Does that mean my real parents are wolves or witches?"

[Anja]

Puck had been stroking his wispy beard throughout Dianelopa's musings. A wrinkle of a smile crouched in the corners of his mouth as he watched her play detective, and when she asked her question, he bowed his head and leaned forward in his chair.

"Well, I know very little of the Diana priesthood, only that they originate somewhere in southern Eyropa. But I doubt very much that they are shifters or weres, as a rule. I would guess that your mother was a priestess, and your father a werewolf. Quite the combination, really."

He brought his pouch out and packed a pipe with Sandwheel's tobacco. Unlike Benjamin, it wasn't very often that Puck smoked, but now seemed like a good time. "I do wish to apologize for the fright Anja gave you. I know she isn't exactly pleasant to look upon. I suppose I might have warned you better..."

[Dianelopa]

"Hmmm," said Dianelopa. "Well, I guess that's all OK. I mean if it's true I can't change it anyway. Puck, maybe you can find out what a priestess does and if this black cat I have has something to do with it." She pointed to the pendent which had cooled down by now and was back to its normal hue.

Dianelopa was feeling a bit tired in the head after all the excitement. And she'd almost forgotten Anja's existence since the strange creature hadn't followed them into the parlour. Puck's mention of her, however, drew Dianelopa back to the present.

"I'm not scared of Anja," Dianelopa said. "But when she looked at me with that blood-filled eye, it reminded me of something. It was something so awful. When I was a child. I know it was. But what was it? I think it's something I don't want to remember."

[Anja]

Puck gave her concerned looks, through thick bodies of smoke, as he puffed at his pipe. He nodded simply when she asked him to look into the priesthood and the pendant, and his crinkled eyes took on a relieved light when she reduced the uncertainty of the past few moments to a simple childhood terror. "I don't suppose you'd be wanting to try again, would you?"

Down the hall past the iron door, Anja's eyes opened into two crafty slits, and her head shifted upward. Focusing, she opened the iron door with her mind. In the Parlor, Puck paid little mind to the clamour of its ascent. He continued smoking, and studying Dianelopa. "It would seem as though Anja would very much like to see you again..."

[Dianelopa]

With the sound of the clanking door, Dianelopa knew the strange creature called Anja would appear in a moment. She steeled herself for the sight of the blood-filled eye. But she couldn't stop the whirring in her head. The seconds seemed to stretch out, engaging all of Dianelopa's will power to keep from losing her balance.

"It was Pihoe," she burst out suddenly, the picture of the dog she'd once loved above all else flashing in front of her, the dog that had been her first friend in the new home she'd been deposited into. The dog that had grown up with her. And then been shot in the head, the blood flowing over and out of his eye. The horror, her screams, and then everything going black.

[Anja]

Puck fixed Lopa with a look of bewilderment. This farmer girl was one of the most confusing people the old elf had ever met. The poor girl's thoughts were a veritable whirlwind, everywhere at once. But then he, at his venerable age, couldn't be expected to remember the tumult of emotional upheaval that was youth, and Dianelopa was the first person under the age of thirty that he had spoken to in quite some time. He had even avoided direct conversation with Maeve and Chezak, instead hiding behind his newspaper when he could.

"What was Pihoe?"

Down the hall, Anja's ears perked up. In the echoing spaces between them, her ears found voice and meaning, and she waited for the gullible farmer girl's reply. It was always good to be aware of the troubles and traumas of others, the better to hold them under one's thumb. And this young one placed herself under Anja's thumb so willingly, so guilelessly...

[Dianelopa]

"I don't remember it very well," said Dianelopa. "I wasn't very old. In fact, it's the first thing I remember anything much of at all. We had a dog and his name was Pihoe. He was a big dog, black and gray, the kind of dog that looks sort of like a wolf. He was my playmate. I know that. I loved him very much and he loved me very much too." Dianelopa paused, looking as if she were trying to transport her thoughts back to remember something that happened a long time ago.

"We were out chasing rabbits. We did that together, you know, just for fun mostly, except when we got really hungry, then we caught them. Pihoe was running toward me that day and..and..bang. I heard this loud noise and Pihoe was still running toward me and his eye looked..just like Anja's bloody eye. And then.." a tear rolled out of Dianelopa's eye. "And then, I don't remember any more. Just later at home and I'm looking for Pihoe and I couldn't find him. And my father said something like, "that was a wild dog. Too dangerous. Almost like a wolf. It wasn't good for you to run around with him out there."

[Anja]

Puck nodded at the story. His age had smoothed over most of the psychological inconveniences associated with negative childhood occurrences, but he tried to sympathize as best he could.

"I imagine it was a quick death," he said gently but awkwardly. He wasn't sure if he ought to pat her on the shoulder or some such. To break up the odd moment, he glanced at the open door. Down the hall, Anja smiled a grim smile.

[Dianelopa]

"Yeah," said Dianelopa trying to push the sadness away that the memories were bringing back. She shook her head as if to throw it off and said, "Why hasn't Anja come? I thought she was going to."
The door was still standing open so Dianelopa took a few steps toward it. She wanted to get this over with.

[Anja]

Puck followed Dianelopa toward the door. "I, ah, believe she is expecting us to join her once more."

Anja didn't like to move about much at her age, but there was no point in revealing the extent of her frailty to Dianelopa. His decades working for the old witch had made him savvy to the arts of cautious business, and he knew that it would be better to let the young girl perceive the whole thing as a show of throne-room power, rather than a practicality designed to spare Anja's old legs the walk.