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<font face=1><br>
<DIV align="center">Milbereth and the Glass Kagouti
<p>
By Lopnigart the King
<p>
Part 2 Laire
<p>
<DIV align="left"><IMG src="Book/fancy_font/s_61x62.dds" width=51 height=61>kyrim in summer was not the frozen waste she had expected.  It was not unlike spring in Hawle with thousands of flowers in bloom.  She had read up about the place and knew well that there were problems with mosquitoes but repellent and a thin gauze cloth over face and head worked well enough to keep them off.  The journey had been tedious but accomplished without mishap.  Only now, as she asked for a ticket to the island did she hit a snag.  The Nord she needed to buy the ticket from was young and handsome with sparkling blue eyes.  If Milbereth had been younger she would have flirted with him.  She had seen too many women of middle years make fools of themselves over handsome young men!  When he tried to dissuade her from going, she snapped.  "What does it matter to you why I want to go there?"
<p>
"It isn't my business if that's what you mean.  The island has a reputation.  I wouldn't like to see anything happen to you."
<p>
Unsure which of the two irritating statements she should follow up first she continued:  "As if you had any reason to be worried about me!"
<p>
The young man smiled.  "My name is Rand Fedin.  I've always preferred people alive rather than dead.  Does that make me unusual?"
<p>
When she did not respond, he added:  "And we rarely get Wood Elves around here.  Their skills don't often stand them in good stead.  We Nords are a hard drinking, hard hitting people."
<p>
There was something mesmerising in his smile.  Milbereth shook herself.  "Tell me about its bad reputation."
<p>
"Perhaps the rumours are not true.  It's said many who travel there never come back."
<p>
It made her think.  Rumours were usually exaggerations but founded on a nugget of truth.  Perhaps someone had disappeared in this way.  She was not yet ready to meet such a fate.
<p>
She asked:  "Who lives there?"
<p>
"It's been uninhabited for years!"
<p>
 She frowned.  "Then why is there a ferry?"
<p>
Rand's grin was making her stay and talk to him.  She looked away from it.
<p>
"The ferry only runs when someone wants to go there.  Some like to research the island's reputation.  Some say there is a resonance of magic.  It's unlikely, given that we are in Skyrim, but who can be sure.  Still others say that the island has a great many noises that cannot be traced.  I have explored it.  I didn't see or hear anything unusual but I felt 'observed'.  I didn't stay there long."
<p>
When Laire and Roscyxa had visited the place - if indeed the latter had ever made the trip - there were inhabitants.  Rand referred her on to the local headman for information about them but he wasn't much use.  All he could tell her was that there had once been a family who preferred to keep away from the rest of humanity.  After receiving a sudden influx of visitors they had left.
<p>
"Left for where?"
<p>
The man either did not know or would not tell a stranger.  They had gone and were never heard from again.  It could have been something like that that had started the rumours about the island.
<p>
Milbereth wondered if it might even have been Laire and her employer who made up the influx of visitors but it was not even possible to guess.  The headman was very shaky on the time frame.  He said they had left but in truth they might have died out or even been killed for all he seemed to know.
<p>
Still, having come this far she was not going to give up at the first hurdle.  Rand had explored the island and survived it.  She would search it for the ruins of a house.  If she found nothing she was hardly any worse off.
<p>
Once again, when she tried to buy a ticket, Rand began to argue against it.  He said:  "I used to know a beautiful girl who looked just like you."
<p>
Milbereth dismissed this.
<p>
"Her name was Arminda.  In my dreams I married her.  I wouldn't like anything to happen to you."
<p>
She scowled at him, pointing out that she was old enough to be his mother.  A sad smile flitted across his lips.
<p>
"Why should age matter?"
<p>
That word again!  It was haunting her.  She refused to let him wear her down.  Then it transpired that he was the ferryman.  Perhaps he had simply been reluctant to make the effort.
<p>
She had dressed sensibly, given that she did not know quite what to expect and had brought with her both dagger and throwing axe in case there were dangers she needed to defend herself against.  Rand looked at all this morosely as they crossed the small stretch of water but he said nothing about them.  As he helped her ashore he muttered:  "Sometimes visitors have other ways of getting back.  I'm not going to sit around waiting for you forever.  I'll stay until sunset and return at dawn for the next three days.  Then you are on your own."
<p>
She nodded.  He pulled out a book to read and she set out to explore.
<p>
The island was not large but the landscape was rugged.  That and the heavy growth of shrubs and fir trees meant that she lost sight of the boat almost at once.  This did not worry her.  The day was mild, the mosquitoes less insistent.  She thought, or perhaps imagined, all kinds of sounds but none threatening.  It might have been an effect of the wind but to her they sounded like the distant sounds of an orchestra; pleasant and reassuring.
<p>
She began by circling the shoreline until the ferryboat once again came into view.  This was easy.  When she tried moving inland it was harder going.  She could not see any paths and in an hour she had hardly penetrated beyond the forest edge.  Then she got lucky.  Impacted earth showed what must once have been a kind of track.  The trees had grown over it but the ground itself was clear.  By dint of crawling on hands and knees she could traverse it relatively easily.
<p>
It was not a comfortable crawl, with twigs continually whipping her face, but it was short.  She emerged into a ruined garden.  The grasses were so tall that she was swamped by them.  She could just make out the top of a roof in the distance.  She struggled on towards it. 
<p>
As she did so the vegetation became less rampant.  When she finally pushed clear of the tall grasses she was in for a surprise.  She had expected some kind of dilapidated ruin.  The house was perfectly whole.  There was not even a missing tile or broken pane of glass.  The blankness of the windows spoke of its emptiness.  The garden in front of the door was nothing more than a levelled weed bed notable only for the large dead tree in the middle.  A broad flagged path, she would surely have found it had she been less impatient, led away from the house through high hedges.  No doubt it led down to the ferry.
<p>
She was in for another surprise.  As she stood staring at the fa?de, the front door opened.  A man stepped out.  He was tall and smartly dressed in a black suit and shoes, with a white shirt and a rather jazzy neck tie.  The effect was rather spoiled, in her opinion, by the white socks.  He wore one earring.
<p>
"Hello, good morning, Albanic at your service, have you come to view?"
<p>
He came across to her at once.  That he was wearing a very strong perfume did not quite conceal the rather less attractive body odour beneath.  He flapped his hands excessively as he talked of the 'premises'.  His olive, oily complexion was something between Altmer and Redguard, though he was neither.
<p>
There was something fishy about him.  Or perhaps it was his trade that caused the problem.  She had met other men who had helped sell houses.  They were all oily, flashy and fishy.  Yet even if she did not like him it was opportune that he was there just then.  He had not taken the ferry.  How had he arrived?
<p>
"We have enchanted rings to get between properties.  Tamriel is a big place, you know!"
<p>
She did not follow up the 'we' but agreed she would like to see inside the building.  
<p>
It was a reasonable size if smaller than his sales patter would have her believe.  She was not really listening.  The ground and upper floors had no obvious places to hide anything.  The cellars might have more.  Not that she was expecting to find the kagouti, but it would be nice to have some evidence of its origins.  With no one left alive the only hope was a long-hidden written record.  It was all rather 'fanciful' but it was her last hope.
<p>
After he had shown her the house Albanic seemed inclined to want her to stay inside.  He had to remain there all day and was no doubt bored witless.  But she saw no reason to be his escape.  She made determined farewells and set off up the path.  She would return next day when the place was empty to have a proper look at the cellars.
<p>
As she walked past the dead tree there was a noise; a ghastly inhuman moan that made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.  There was no one there.  An island full of noises was fine as long as the noises were pleasant but this was quite the opposite.
<p>
For a while she stood there, frozen to the spot.  She was almost inclined to think she must have dreamed it when it came again.  It seemed to be emanating from the tree itself.  She moved closer to it uncertainly.  It was very dead and probably very old.  There were stories of tree spirits but Milbereth had never believed in them.  In any case even in the stories the spirits died with the tree they lived in.
<p>
She put her ear against the smooth, white trunk.  There were sounds.  Something was moving inside.  She thought she caught a spoken word 'proopser' clearly not the local language.  Perhaps this was a revenant from some long dead race.  There was only one way to find out.  The throwing axe wasn't the kind of weapon to split the trunk of a living tree but it ought to work on a rotting carcase.  She threw it with all the force she could muster.
<p>
Wood elves are skilled with ranged weapons.  The trunk cracked from top to bottom.  A slender, wraith-like slip of a woman emerged and threw herself at Milbereth's feet.
<p>
"Proopser, at last, you came."  Perhaps noticing that Milbereth's serviceable leather boots were not what were expected she looked up sharply.  "You're not Proopser!"
<p>
Milbereth acknowledged this, explaining who she was and asking the woman what she was doing in the middle of a tree.
<p>
"Oh, it's a long story.  My old mistress locked me up there as a punishment.  It's not the first time.  Last time it was Proopser who got me out.  He thought then my mistress was dead.  He was wrong!"
<p>
"But how long ago was all this and anyway, who are you?"
<p>
"My name is Laire.  It's no good asking me how long ago it was.  I have no way to track the passing of time.  It was - a long while - several hundred years I should guess.  I don't know how my bladder has stood up to it.  Talking of which, I'll be back shortly."
<p>
Laire disappeared around the side of the house leaving Milbereth more confused than ever.  So the witch had travelled here and for some reason locked Laire up inside a tree.  But what had she come to the island for?
<p>
Laire, on her return, was considerably less edgy, if no less garrulous.
<p>
"Why did she come?  Because of that wretched glass kagouti.  The man who lived here supposedly knew all about it and he wouldn't tell.  At least he wouldn't tell me.  Her efforts at persuasion caused him to drop dead.  For that she blamed me!"
<p>
Laire eyed Milbereth askance.  "Aren't you going to demand a whole series of totally extortionate conditions for not locking me back up in the tree again?"
<p>
"You're free to go."
<p>
"I must say you are more reasonable than Proopser.  He was a damned tyrant and I was his only subject - conjure storms here, ensorcell people there - I was probably better off in the tree, apart from the plumbing.  Still, that's all past history."
<p>
The woman was suddenly uneasy, demanding to know who else was on the island.  Milbereth mentioned both Albanic and Rand Ferin.  Laire rolled her eyes.
<p>
"Albanic is bad news.  So now he sells houses for a living?  It doesn't surprise me.  I always knew he would come to a bad end.  He's gibbet fodder, you mark my words.  But Rand, that is odd.  He was all over Proopser's daughter.  You couldn't keep them apart.  Mind you?"
<p>
Milbereth had guessed Laire was a chatterbox from the tone of her missives to Roscyxa.  The information meant nothing to her yet she knew better than to interrupt.  More information on the glass kagouti might yet emerge.  Laire had however run out of steam.
<p>
"Mind you?" Milbereth prompted.
<p>
"Well, Arminda had never seen any men apart from her father when she first met Rand.  Proopser is an aged, stagy sort of fellow, much given to talking to himself and prancing about with a large wooden staff that had no effective purpose.  He used to pretend it was magical but in truth if he needed any tricks done it was yours truly who had to arrange them.  What I'm getting at is that he was not an example of masculine good looks.  Rand is.  Arminda was attracted, unsurprisingly.  But then there was a shipwreck and, I won't go into the details but Arminda saw other men.  Oh it was love at first sight with all of them.  She had never seen 'such people'.  But looking at them was not where it stopped.  No wonder Rand gave her up.  Pity, he's a nice guy if a little na?e.  I fancied him myself, but on the few occasions I was allowed to show myself I had to masquerade as a man - don't ask me why - and so a declaration of interest on my part would have been awkward.  Then they all left except my mistress who had kept herself hidden all the time Proopser was on the island.  He made a gesture of freeing me from his servitude as he went.  It was a meaningless action as he was leaving anyway but it made him feel good.  My mistress will never free me."
<p>
The kagouti had not been mentioned again.  Everything Laire had spoken of appeared to have taken place after the death of the man who was said to have known about the glass kagouti.  There would be no point following that line of conversation.  Milbereth instead told Laire that her mistress had finally died.
<p>
"Roscyxa dead?"  Laire exploded into laughter.  "Did you see the corpse?"
<p>
Milbereth of course had to answer no.
<p>
"She is a textbook witch, ugly as a daedroth, and looks very like one except when she's using spells of illusion.  Witches don't die.  They sometimes transmogrify.  She's not dead.  I'd know.  And now I am free of the tree I have a feeling she won't be long in coming!"
<p>
"You'd better leave with me," Milbereth advised.
<p>
"She will find me wherever I go.  She is utterly relentless in chasing this artefact she has fixated upon.  For some reason she believes I must be hiding something from her.  Hence my continued punishment."
<p>
"The glass kagouti."  Milbereth stated it flatly.
<p>
Laire stared at her.  Eventually she said.  "Is that why you are here too?"
<p>
On hearing that it was, the wraith-woman shook her head slowly.  "You are done for!"
<p>
Milbereth had a plan.  "If you say the witch will come here and will lock you up in the tree again, why don't I hide?  Then I'll be able to get you out again at once."
<p>
Although this elicited no more than another shake of the head Milbereth elected to do it anyway.  While she knew none of the people in the drama, it was unfair that a woman, or whatever Laire really was, should be imprisoned for what she did not know.  She would keep the plan a secret from Laire.  She excused herself, saying that she needed to get back to her lodgings, and set off down the path away from the house confidently.
<p>

訳文 Edit

<font face=1><br>
<DIV align="center">Milbereth and the Glass Kagouti
<p>
By Lopnigart the King
<p>
Part 2 Laire
<p>
<DIV align="left"><IMG src="Book/fancy_font/s_61x62.dds" width=51 height=61>kyrim in summer was not the frozen waste she had expected.  It was not unlike spring in Hawle with thousands of flowers in bloom.  She had read up about the place and knew well that there were problems with mosquitoes but repellent and a thin gauze cloth over face and head worked well enough to keep them off.  The journey had been tedious but accomplished without mishap.  Only now, as she asked for a ticket to the island did she hit a snag.  The Nord she needed to buy the ticket from was young and handsome with sparkling blue eyes.  If Milbereth had been younger she would have flirted with him.  She had seen too many women of middle years make fools of themselves over handsome young men!  When he tried to dissuade her from going, she snapped.  "What does it matter to you why I want to go there?"
<p>
"It isn't my business if that's what you mean.  The island has a reputation.  I wouldn't like to see anything happen to you."
<p>
Unsure which of the two irritating statements she should follow up first she continued:  "As if you had any reason to be worried about me!"
<p>
The young man smiled.  "My name is Rand Fedin.  I've always preferred people alive rather than dead.  Does that make me unusual?"
<p>
When she did not respond, he added:  "And we rarely get Wood Elves around here.  Their skills don't often stand them in good stead.  We Nords are a hard drinking, hard hitting people."
<p>
There was something mesmerising in his smile.  Milbereth shook herself.  "Tell me about its bad reputation."
<p>
"Perhaps the rumours are not true.  It's said many who travel there never come back."
<p>
It made her think.  Rumours were usually exaggerations but founded on a nugget of truth.  Perhaps someone had disappeared in this way.  She was not yet ready to meet such a fate.
<p>
She asked:  "Who lives there?"
<p>
"It's been uninhabited for years!"
<p>
 She frowned.  "Then why is there a ferry?"
<p>
Rand's grin was making her stay and talk to him.  She looked away from it.
<p>
"The ferry only runs when someone wants to go there.  Some like to research the island's reputation.  Some say there is a resonance of magic.  It's unlikely, given that we are in Skyrim, but who can be sure.  Still others say that the island has a great many noises that cannot be traced.  I have explored it.  I didn't see or hear anything unusual but I felt 'observed'.  I didn't stay there long."
<p>
When Laire and Roscyxa had visited the place - if indeed the latter had ever made the trip - there were inhabitants.  Rand referred her on to the local headman for information about them but he wasn't much use.  All he could tell her was that there had once been a family who preferred to keep away from the rest of humanity.  After receiving a sudden influx of visitors they had left.
<p>
"Left for where?"
<p>
The man either did not know or would not tell a stranger.  They had gone and were never heard from again.  It could have been something like that that had started the rumours about the island.
<p>
Milbereth wondered if it might even have been Laire and her employer who made up the influx of visitors but it was not even possible to guess.  The headman was very shaky on the time frame.  He said they had left but in truth they might have died out or even been killed for all he seemed to know.
<p>
Still, having come this far she was not going to give up at the first hurdle.  Rand had explored the island and survived it.  She would search it for the ruins of a house.  If she found nothing she was hardly any worse off.
<p>
Once again, when she tried to buy a ticket, Rand began to argue against it.  He said:  "I used to know a beautiful girl who looked just like you."
<p>
Milbereth dismissed this.
<p>
"Her name was Arminda.  In my dreams I married her.  I wouldn't like anything to happen to you."
<p>
She scowled at him, pointing out that she was old enough to be his mother.  A sad smile flitted across his lips.
<p>
"Why should age matter?"
<p>
That word again!  It was haunting her.  She refused to let him wear her down.  Then it transpired that he was the ferryman.  Perhaps he had simply been reluctant to make the effort.
<p>
She had dressed sensibly, given that she did not know quite what to expect and had brought with her both dagger and throwing axe in case there were dangers she needed to defend herself against.  Rand looked at all this morosely as they crossed the small stretch of water but he said nothing about them.  As he helped her ashore he muttered:  "Sometimes visitors have other ways of getting back.  I'm not going to sit around waiting for you forever.  I'll stay until sunset and return at dawn for the next three days.  Then you are on your own."
<p>
She nodded.  He pulled out a book to read and she set out to explore.
<p>
The island was not large but the landscape was rugged.  That and the heavy growth of shrubs and fir trees meant that she lost sight of the boat almost at once.  This did not worry her.  The day was mild, the mosquitoes less insistent.  She thought, or perhaps imagined, all kinds of sounds but none threatening.  It might have been an effect of the wind but to her they sounded like the distant sounds of an orchestra; pleasant and reassuring.
<p>
She began by circling the shoreline until the ferryboat once again came into view.  This was easy.  When she tried moving inland it was harder going.  She could not see any paths and in an hour she had hardly penetrated beyond the forest edge.  Then she got lucky.  Impacted earth showed what must once have been a kind of track.  The trees had grown over it but the ground itself was clear.  By dint of crawling on hands and knees she could traverse it relatively easily.
<p>
It was not a comfortable crawl, with twigs continually whipping her face, but it was short.  She emerged into a ruined garden.  The grasses were so tall that she was swamped by them.  She could just make out the top of a roof in the distance.  She struggled on towards it. 
<p>
As she did so the vegetation became less rampant.  When she finally pushed clear of the tall grasses she was in for a surprise.  She had expected some kind of dilapidated ruin.  The house was perfectly whole.  There was not even a missing tile or broken pane of glass.  The blankness of the windows spoke of its emptiness.  The garden in front of the door was nothing more than a levelled weed bed notable only for the large dead tree in the middle.  A broad flagged path, she would surely have found it had she been less impatient, led away from the house through high hedges.  No doubt it led down to the ferry.
<p>
She was in for another surprise.  As she stood staring at the façade, the front door opened.  A man stepped out.  He was tall and smartly dressed in a black suit and shoes, with a white shirt and a rather jazzy neck tie.  The effect was rather spoiled, in her opinion, by the white socks.  He wore one earring.
<p>
"Hello, good morning, Albanic at your service, have you come to view?"
<p>
He came across to her at once.  That he was wearing a very strong perfume did not quite conceal the rather less attractive body odour beneath.  He flapped his hands excessively as he talked of the 'premises'.  His olive, oily complexion was something between Altmer and Redguard, though he was neither.
<p>
There was something fishy about him.  Or perhaps it was his trade that caused the problem.  She had met other men who had helped sell houses.  They were all oily, flashy and fishy.  Yet even if she did not like him it was opportune that he was there just then.  He had not taken the ferry.  How had he arrived?
<p>
"We have enchanted rings to get between properties.  Tamriel is a big place, you know!"
<p>
She did not follow up the 'we' but agreed she would like to see inside the building.  
<p>
It was a reasonable size if smaller than his sales patter would have her believe.  She was not really listening.  The ground and upper floors had no obvious places to hide anything.  The cellars might have more.  Not that she was expecting to find the kagouti, but it would be nice to have some evidence of its origins.  With no one left alive the only hope was a long-hidden written record.  It was all rather 'fanciful' but it was her last hope.
<p>
After he had shown her the house Albanic seemed inclined to want her to stay inside.  He had to remain there all day and was no doubt bored witless.  But she saw no reason to be his escape.  She made determined farewells and set off up the path.  She would return next day when the place was empty to have a proper look at the cellars.
<p>
As she walked past the dead tree there was a noise; a ghastly inhuman moan that made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.  There was no one there.  An island full of noises was fine as long as the noises were pleasant but this was quite the opposite.
<p>
For a while she stood there, frozen to the spot.  She was almost inclined to think she must have dreamed it when it came again.  It seemed to be emanating from the tree itself.  She moved closer to it uncertainly.  It was very dead and probably very old.  There were stories of tree spirits but Milbereth had never believed in them.  In any case even in the stories the spirits died with the tree they lived in.
<p>
She put her ear against the smooth, white trunk.  There were sounds.  Something was moving inside.  She thought she caught a spoken word 'proopser' clearly not the local language.  Perhaps this was a revenant from some long dead race.  There was only one way to find out.  The throwing axe wasn't the kind of weapon to split the trunk of a living tree but it ought to work on a rotting carcase.  She threw it with all the force she could muster.
<p>
Wood elves are skilled with ranged weapons.  The trunk cracked from top to bottom.  A slender, wraith-like slip of a woman emerged and threw herself at Milbereth's feet.
<p>
"Proopser, at last, you came."  Perhaps noticing that Milbereth's serviceable leather boots were not what were expected she looked up sharply.  "You're not Proopser!"
<p>
Milbereth acknowledged this, explaining who she was and asking the woman what she was doing in the middle of a tree.
<p>
"Oh, it's a long story.  My old mistress locked me up there as a punishment.  It's not the first time.  Last time it was Proopser who got me out.  He thought then my mistress was dead.  He was wrong!"
<p>
"But how long ago was all this and anyway, who are you?"
<p>
"My name is Laire.  It's no good asking me how long ago it was.  I have no way to track the passing of time.  It was - a long while - several hundred years I should guess.  I don't know how my bladder has stood up to it.  Talking of which, I'll be back shortly."
<p>
Laire disappeared around the side of the house leaving Milbereth more confused than ever.  So the witch had travelled here and for some reason locked Laire up inside a tree.  But what had she come to the island for?
<p>
Laire, on her return, was considerably less edgy, if no less garrulous.
<p>
"Why did she come?  Because of that wretched glass kagouti.  The man who lived here supposedly knew all about it and he wouldn't tell.  At least he wouldn't tell me.  Her efforts at persuasion caused him to drop dead.  For that she blamed me!"
<p>
Laire eyed Milbereth askance.  "Aren't you going to demand a whole series of totally extortionate conditions for not locking me back up in the tree again?"
<p>
"You're free to go."
<p>
"I must say you are more reasonable than Proopser.  He was a damned tyrant and I was his only subject - conjure storms here, ensorcell people there - I was probably better off in the tree, apart from the plumbing.  Still, that's all past history."
<p>
The woman was suddenly uneasy, demanding to know who else was on the island.  Milbereth mentioned both Albanic and Rand Ferin.  Laire rolled her eyes.
<p>
"Albanic is bad news.  So now he sells houses for a living?  It doesn't surprise me.  I always knew he would come to a bad end.  He's gibbet fodder, you mark my words.  But Rand, that is odd.  He was all over Proopser's daughter.  You couldn't keep them apart.  Mind you?"
<p>
Milbereth had guessed Laire was a chatterbox from the tone of her missives to Roscyxa.  The information meant nothing to her yet she knew better than to interrupt.  More information on the glass kagouti might yet emerge.  Laire had however run out of steam.
<p>
"Mind you?" Milbereth prompted.
<p>
"Well, Arminda had never seen any men apart from her father when she first met Rand.  Proopser is an aged, stagy sort of fellow, much given to talking to himself and prancing about with a large wooden staff that had no effective purpose.  He used to pretend it was magical but in truth if he needed any tricks done it was yours truly who had to arrange them.  What I'm getting at is that he was not an example of masculine good looks.  Rand is.  Arminda was attracted, unsurprisingly.  But then there was a shipwreck and, I won't go into the details but Arminda saw other men.  Oh it was love at first sight with all of them.  She had never seen 'such people'.  But looking at them was not where it stopped.  No wonder Rand gave her up.  Pity, he's a nice guy if a little naïve.  I fancied him myself, but on the few occasions I was allowed to show myself I had to masquerade as a man - don't ask me why - and so a declaration of interest on my part would have been awkward.  Then they all left except my mistress who had kept herself hidden all the time Proopser was on the island.  He made a gesture of freeing me from his servitude as he went.  It was a meaningless action as he was leaving anyway but it made him feel good.  My mistress will never free me."
<p>
The kagouti had not been mentioned again.  Everything Laire had spoken of appeared to have taken place after the death of the man who was said to have known about the glass kagouti.  There would be no point following that line of conversation.  Milbereth instead told Laire that her mistress had finally died.
<p>
"Roscyxa dead?"  Laire exploded into laughter.  "Did you see the corpse?"
<p>
Milbereth of course had to answer no.
<p>
"She is a textbook witch, ugly as a daedroth, and looks very like one except when she's using spells of illusion.  Witches don't die.  They sometimes transmogrify.  She's not dead.  I'd know.  And now I am free of the tree I have a feeling she won't be long in coming!"
<p>
"You'd better leave with me," Milbereth advised.
<p>
"She will find me wherever I go.  She is utterly relentless in chasing this artefact she has fixated upon.  For some reason she believes I must be hiding something from her.  Hence my continued punishment."
<p>
"The glass kagouti."  Milbereth stated it flatly.
<p>
Laire stared at her.  Eventually she said.  "Is that why you are here too?"
<p>
On hearing that it was, the wraith-woman shook her head slowly.  "You are done for!"
<p>
Milbereth had a plan.  "If you say the witch will come here and will lock you up in the tree again, why don't I hide?  Then I'll be able to get you out again at once."
<p>
Although this elicited no more than another shake of the head Milbereth elected to do it anyway.  While she knew none of the people in the drama, it was unfair that a woman, or whatever Laire really was, should be imprisoned for what she did not know.  She would keep the plan a secret from Laire.  She excused herself, saying that she needed to get back to her lodgings, and set off down the path away from the house confidently.
<p>


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Last-modified: 2011-03-16 (水) 22:58:32