Lamia Thrall

I don't have the words for the state I've been in since I found out that Erynne is mortal.

I kept hoping I was wrong, but I talked to Grant. He really is immortal - I get the impression that maybe there's only one thing that could kill him. I think he said that his life is bound into a portrait and he can't die until it's destroyed.

(Of course, I don't tell anyone the things that could kill me, either. One tribe had a story that it could be done by destroying my heart - that was in a box, guarded by a fire-breathing dragon, under the highest mountain in the world!

I started that one. I'd rather they sent anyone dangerous off on a quest like that, instead of letting them experiment with weapons, or poisons. Of course, in a normal gig I'd be gone while he was booking his ticket! )

I didn't get any feeling that Grant was kidding, though and he'd know. I left after I heard that there's only one immortal werewolf, as far as Grant knows, and he's it.

Erynne is mortal. I should go, just go- I should never have got so involved. It's too late now, though. We have that empathic bond, too. It's a feedback thing - I'm as committed as she is.

I had to stop emoting and think!Any thinking creature must want to know what can harm it. We're all experts on ourselves. The Lamia would know her own name and her own weaknesses.

The Lamia uses wards, but she thralled Erynne to bad dreams and worse, night after night. If thrall can be sent in one direction through a ward, it can be sent in both. I'd proved that already. I'd given our enemy some entertaining nightmares in payment for what she'd done to Erynne.

After that the Lamia made no thrall attempts against my wife that I knew of. I'd left the Lamia alone, too, for the Little Wolf's sake - but if it had ever been a truce she'd broken it by sending Warfield after us. The hunters' moon is up - Erynne is wolf, under guard, now.

So once again I lay in the dark, alone, sending my mind questing out looking for the enemy. The Lamia is so claustrophobic that she sleeps in the open, now. She must have been lulled by the sounds of the night, or by exhaustion. When I found her mind was so open that there was no resistance at all.

Lamia Thrall.

Nothing now encloses you,

hear the nightwind's song,

Those who trapped you long ago,

are blowing dust, and gone,



Feel the breeze upon your skin,

Where no walls surround,

blowing through the branches,

with a gentle, rustling sound,



Let the nightwind sing to you

though far away your place,

think about the dreams you knew,

so far in time and space,



Listen to the whispering voice,

nothing's as it seems,

Nothing really harms you here,

what can hurt in dreams?



Think about the days of yore,

they locked you far away,

tell the night wind what they do,

dream-tell what they say...



under, over, slide the snakes,

watch each shining coil,

twisting, gleaming in the night,

shiny smooth as oil,



Follow back the path they made,

follow to the past,

twist and turn and coil and learn,

sing the truth at last,



Someone reaches from the past,

who you want to find,

Tell the name that we should call,

If you need your kind,



You can say in night, alone,

words of that dark spell,

binding you away from light,

shutting you in Hell,



under, over, slide the snakes,

watch each shining coil,

twisting, gleaming in the night,

shiny smooth as oil,



Follow back the path they made,

Learn the way they passed,

twist and turn and coil and learn,

sing the truth at last,



Listen to the whispering voice,

nothing's as it seems,

Nothing really harms you here,

what can hurt in dreams?

*****************

Then I waited, "listening" mentally.