[...continuation of events #205]

...And so the night swallowed the sun and the moon as foretold upon the
battlefield of Nishnatoba when the world was young, and the soul of the
male unicorn was released. As Thoth had cautioned, however, the creature
was not as Valnurana had known him. He appeared instead under an
enchantment as the fearsome nychtaur, a raging bull-demon rampaging
through the cities of Sapience and killing indiscriminately.

The souls of the unicorns in the Dreamrealm sensed the soul of the
Nychtaur and tore away from their world, pulled to the creature in the
realm of mortals. So too was the nychtaur pulled to the unicorns, and
between them, fountains across the realms erupted with blood. At the
site of these fountains small tears between the Dreamrealm and ours were
opened through which the unicorns entered, manifesting within our world
as ebon-maned nightmares, ethereal steeds who imparted all those they
passed with peculiar waking dreams.

Many days passed, each as dark as the nights. Like the moon in the sky,
shadowed by the triune planetary eclipse of the sun, the goddess Ourania
had not been seen to mortal eye since the advent of the darkness. Then
one day, nearing summer in the first year of the eclipse, the three
Visages of the Goddess of the Moon were found knitting at the oceanside
entrance to the temple of their Lady. With rapid, rhythmic precision,
the sound of needles striking together 'click, click, click-click'
sliced clearly through the air.

Feeding the matronly Verthandi's rapidly moving needles several tendrils
of thread, the maiden Skuld tugged and twisted on the impossibly fine,
silvered lengths. Light spread from her fingertips and into the
material, causing it to glow with a pale luminescence. A gentle 'tick',
'tick', 'ticking' echoed from Verthandi's swiftly moving hands. Wielding
a pair of glistening scissors in one hand and a line of thread in the
other, the crone Urdu snapped the blades shut over the thread, once,
twice, three times, severing the lengths.

Thread. Knit. Cut. Thread. Knit. Cut. Entirely absorbed by the work, the
Visages began to sweat visibly as they increased the tempo of their
creation. Then as suddenly as they had begun, the Visages stopped.
Skuld's thread ran out, Verthandi's needles were rendered silent, and
Urdu's scissors ceased to snap and cut.

The three leaned over to inspect their work lying upon Verthandi's lap.
Satisfied, they closed their eyes resignedly and began to chant, their
collective voices barely a whisper at first. The whisper grew louder,
though their words remained incomprehensible. As those gathered watched
on, the Maiden's ivory skin started to turn a sickly grey, and her voice
cracked and faded. Soon she had become entirely still.

As her jet-black eyes faded to grey, a vision of a shadowed beast
surrounded by tendrils of green fire surrounded the lunar maiden. The
heatless flames flickered wildly, partially obscuring her from view. An
instant later, Skuld collapsed. Yet instead of flesh and bone, broken
stone crumbled to the ground until there was nothing left of the Maiden,
while the fire that had surrounded her raged on. The two remaining
sisters continued their indecipherable chant.

The Matron exhaled a quiet sigh. Ever so slowly, her limbs hardened,
turned to grey, and began to crack and splinter apart as her body turned
also to stone. With a dry rasp, these words escaped her throat: "Coax...
charge... capture... the moon." Verthandi's mouth froze open
mid-sentence, her ossification complete. Her rotund body crumbled to
dust shortly thereafter, and the Crone retrieved the glowing net from
the remnants.

Urdu's aged voice continued to chant in sonorous tones, and the weaving
grasped in her gnarled hands began to glow and pulsate. The Crone cast
the net into the ethereal green fire that blazed where the Maiden had
been. Her chanting ceased as her body rapidly turned to stone, and then
dust, as well. The flames surged, then finally subsided, leaving the
silvery net upon the ground.

In unison, three voices whispered from the shadows, "Six times submerged
in water to capture the moonlight, and six cities voyaged to end the
beast's fiery reign. In the witching hour won, the night's curse to be
undone."

Swift as ever, the dwarf Skye snatched up the Visages' creation from the
ground. (It has been theorised that this particular dwarf's proximity to
the ground aides her in such deft manoeuvres.) She willingly
relinquished the silvery net to the followers of Ourania there, however,
at their request.

Deciphering the last whisper of the Visages proved no easy task. Skye,
Elizabeth, Apollodorus, Kaixis, Ayrh, Seilyn, Timotheus, Kalehiur, and
Jaizsur, among others, puzzled over the execution of their instructions.
Finally, Ayhr entrusted the net to Apollodorus, beseeching him to travel
to the city-state of Ashtan. "Now go," she bade him. "Find water."

Apollodorus journeyed to Lake Balaton in the far northeast of Ashtan and
there laid the net across its waters. As he did so, the night sky
reflected in the water suddenly showed a reflection of the moon, and the
tiny crystals adorning the net pulsed, absorbing celestial energy. He
returned triumphant.

Kaixis and Elizabeth took the net then, and in each of the remaining
cities, the net was laid across a body of water, and each time it became
stronger. When the net had been fully charged and radiating with the
power of the celestial bodies, the brave party sought out the demonic
nychtaur in New Thera, and it was Kaixis who flung the net over the
bull-demon.

As the net sailed through the air it expanded dramatically, landing over
the head and back of the mighty nychtaur. The nychtaur's eyes, wild and
full of fire, glanced around frantically as an ear-piercing scream
ripped from his mighty throat, cleaving through the air. The body of the
beast within the silver net shimmered with a brilliant inner light, the
massive form wavering like a mirage.

The legs and neck of the nychtaur lengthened, as simultaneously his
torso slimmed and his snout extended and narrowed. The scales on his
body smoothed into a sleek black coat, leaving standing before Kaixis a
stallion black as night with a mane like emerald-coloured flames.

It was then that Valnurana, the Goddess of Sleep and Dreams appeared.

Years before the eclipse, the Goddess of Sleep and Dreams had retreated
into the depths of the Dreamrealm, far from mortal ken. Stirred by the
exodus of her nightmares from her realm, however, she had awakened. The
lifting of the enchantment upon the nychtaur, allowing her to recognise
the one unicorn soul that had been kept from her all these years, had
been the final impetus for her to awaken once more into the material
world.

All through the land, the ethereal whisper of Valnurana could be heard
as she called upon the God of Death to fulfill their ancient pact. The
cold, silken voice of Thoth, God of Death resounded in response: "It
shall be done." And with a sudden chill and a whisper on wind, the
phantasmal form of Thoth formed before Valnurana.

Ceremoniously, the God of Death formally bequeathed the soul of the male
unicorn to Valnurana, rending apart invisible chains that still bound
him. The Goddess of Dreams turned to her long-awaited charge and
welcomed him, then gave to him the task of gathering the nightmares in
the material realm and returning with them to the Dreamrealm.


Thus a divine prophecy has met its end, and a divine pact become
consummated, the final promised soul relinquished. Yet still the night
has swallowed up the sun and the moon, and there seems to be no end to
the darkness in sight.

Penned by my hand on the 18th of Valnuary, in the year 427 AF.