Preparing for the Dawn

Tonight we tend our equipment by the fire, mending torn surcoats, sharpening notched steel, re-linking rent chain. The air is alive with exchanges of encouragement between friends and the chatting of companions, the camaraderie of veterans. We camp outside the armory waiting to don plate and mail.

Before the armoring comes the barber. Some might envision Samson within the temple or mindless shearings at Birkenau. I see the Maid of Orleans defiantly slashing her hair, preparing to lead an eager, angry army to free her oppressed people. Copper tears of her tresses curl and drip onto the black apron as her locks bead and roll down its front before pooling on her lap. Her hair becomes an amber-orange halo woven with threads of fire and gold, little left for an enemy to grasp.

Over a borrowed mail shirt, she armors herself in breastplate and greaves polished to gleam in the early morning light, a beacon of the dawn. Serving as her squire, I strap a stout shield to her right arm, emblazoned with the bold colors of her crest. Her sword arm wounded in the last encounter, she chooses a banner for her left, a pennant slotted in her stirrup that shall neither dip nor waiver.

Once again mercenaries ride with us tomorrow, their captain-general accepting the bulk of anticipated swordplay. We her companions are to form a knot of housecarls, a tightly packed escort securing our hero's safety. We ride uncertain whether this raid will disperse our assembled enemy or merely reconnoiter their gathering strength. Either way, we intend to wound and unbalance the grendel before we retreat behind our fortress walls, its army closing around us. Ours is a final freedom of action before the interminable siege begins.

During the night we smuggled in an alchemist. The young, clean-cut mage has begun to bubble his warlock's brew of potions tailored to exploit his catalogue of grendel weaknesses, experience born of many campaigns against its kind. He relates how they can be aggressive, fierce and sneaky. Mines and trenches, raids and diversions along with the relentless siege engines we have sighted lie within their tactical repertoire. He advises deploying the potions first, Greek fire to be sown through their advancing ranks. Magical beams of radiation will act as our reserve, mopping up any remaining resistance once they break and run.

There begins the next battle. Tonight we focus on the morning. Gathering our horses before Matins, we will ride as a whispered prayer before dawn, our swords speeding the sun's blinding rays toward victory.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

Sentinel

Early this morning, one of three sentinels lit a watchfire, a warning of activity in the distance. Our clockwork mage divines an ambush, a grendel rising to raise an army, marching to avenge his excised mother.

Scanning from atop our well-stocked watchtower, we see engines of war approaching, catapults, ballistae, a troll-headed ram where we thought only a small horde might appear. Instead of enduring a simple siege until relieved by the force of radiation, now we must build counter-instruments, our own trebuchet ensconced atop the barbican to hurl back packets of death in the form of chemotherapy that will target the approaching engines before they have a chance to set, range and loose.

Monday at dawn a surgical strike team will sally from the main gate to scatter the attack before it has a chance to organize, a delaying tactic. We will sacrifice pickets in a blocking action across the winding approach to our castle, trading lymph nodes for time. More wounds to our hero are imminent, but her healing comes behind the stone of our keep as we feast upon the fresh provisions our allies have generously provided.

Our commanders, our mage-generals, are confident if cautious that we will endure this siege given time to prepare proper countermeasures and defenses. Supplies will be gathered, deep basements stocked, the moat cleared, a hoarding erected atop the curtain wall. After Monday's skirmish, there could perhaps be one other minor raid through the postern before our gates are barred, our portcullis lowered, our trebuchets loaded and ready to rain clay canisters of Greek fire upon our approaching enemies. The drumbeat of their impacts will serve as a nepenthe for our hero, inducing forgetfulness, a remedy to her pain and grief.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

Eve of Battle

Weapons have been sharpened, supplies have been laid in. Karen's mandated fast for clarity has almost begun. Now is the waiting time.

Were we a physical company, one with a physical camp, I would be performing a ritual I've performed many times before, wandering from fire to fire in the dark, burning restless energy by reassuring those who were apprehensive about the morning, accepting the conversation and reassurances of those who thought I might need them.

Then I was not responsible for the another, merely a leader elected by my peers, the anxiety of the morning the outcome of a competition, nothing of lasting consequence. Tonight, perhaps there would be a pair of us wandering. Or perhaps I would be sitting with Karen by a fire as others wandered by, reassuring both her and me as has been done through the exchange of electronic messages these past several days.

But we are only a virtual company, so tonight is somewhat different, harder in a way. This is my wandering, my burning of energy in anticipation of the dawn.

Three battles with the dragon have been laid upon our hero, one physical, another magical, the final alchemical. Tomorrow is the first time Karen enters the dragon's lair. The morning brings a physical battle, the battle of steel. This battle is the easiest, the most direct. In this one the dragon will be carved from its lair and slain without a doubt.

Naming it a dragon may be granting it too much power. If it is a dragon, it is a small one, not the white, English dragon of St. George or the red dragon of Wales. This is but a small, young thing, Grendel's mother as an adolescent girl, a thing easily vanquished by razor steel if our vision is correct. Unmolested, it would grow into a powerful beast in time. Time is an ally we mean to deny it. Its fertility is more in question than its survival, its eggs a greater threat.

Tomorrow we cast a divination to reveal whether this dragon is attempting to spawn a reptilian brood. A simple sentinel will be interjected into our story, a clockwork mage to alert us if the perimeter has been breached. If the alarm is raised, the eggs will be excised in the lymph chambers where they lay.

Those eggs will the goal of Karen's second entry into this cavern, this time armed with a potent spell for a battle of magic. An enfeebling ray, a word of power that stuns or kills when repeated like a mantra, egg by egg, so that no future grendels grow to hatch. But that encounter is weeks farther down this road during which Karen will have time to heal from the wounds she will sustain in the morning, however minor they might be. That battle will be one of endurance, a fatiguing day-by-day affair, a campaign of weeks rather than mere hours.

The third battle, if required, mandates the greatest power and, as such, the greatest ally. Before that encounter, we will seek out a powerful alchemist, one who can brew us a deadly potion potent enough to seek out and destroy any remaining eggs no matter how deep in the cave they have been secreted. But that is another battle, weeks distant, one we need not prepare for now, one we may never need to fight if tomorrow augers well.

Those are my musing by this electronic fire as Karen chats with kindred spirits online, stroking her familiar cats. The ethereal voices give her comfort. Soon, it's time for sleep: our day begins before the dawn.

I will send out an update tomorrow once we're home and settled.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

Message 1

A brief preamble: You are the people who have asked to be kept informed of what is going on with Karen. I'm not sure this message will be the norm or how many like it will follow. Certainly, there will be information-only messages and updates, the less fanciful, normal traffic you might expect.

Karen reminded me this morning to write, just to put pen to paper and see what came out. For those who don't know me well, this is how I cope, by writing, reshaping reality with metaphor, carving understanding in allegory. For those not comfortable with my analogies, nearly every work of fiction, however mundane, uses much the same structure and many of the same terms. But ignore that man behind the curtain.

Most people who write about cancer and treatment portray it as a journey, a path none take willingly but many find themselves stumbling along. Me, I see Karen and I as starting out on an adventure. Not the "company of companions out to save the world" variety of more successful writers than myself, more the hero cycle of myth and legend, a classic quest. Some dark and chaotic lich lord has laid a geas upon my wife, setting her a task, a dragon to be slain as it nests in its dark, deep cave awaiting the hatching of its evil brood.

In this casting, Karen is the hero, the central figure, the focus. She is the Celtic warrior queen, the Norse shield-maiden, the Greek amazon in a classical, left-handed sense. This is her quest. Regardless of the guidance we give her and protective spells we weave around her, the final battle is hers and hers alone. This victory, like most, requires intelligence and endurance as much as or more than sheer strength.

I enter as her sidekick, her constant companion, in my case part warrior, part minor mage and not a small part pickpocket and thief, one not above fighting dirty to win, with sharp knives in the dark if necessary. The one who won't leave her side, the one who always guards her back. A Norse skald, a Celtic bard. The one who commits her deeds to paper and, hopefully not literally (for you and me), to song.

Among other roles to be cast are mentors and guardians, shield men and spear carriers, heralds, companions, confidants, perhaps the odd minstrel to be eaten later, each as important as the other. Along the way there will be side adventures, dead ends, ambushes, backtracks, switchbacks, distractions, danger, anxiety and boredom, a lot of anxiety and boredom. Unlike the heroes of screen and page, we don’t have the luxury of skimming past the parts where we're hungry, cold, wet and alone on the road listening to unidentified predators snuffling through the last of our food outside the tent that partially collapsed two hours before in the wind and rain, the bulk of what real-life adventures are made of. That and blisters.

Not all who set out with us will arrive at the destination. This I understand from experience: people, unlike characters, have their own lives, their own crises, their own adventures to face. More will join us along the way, some we've never met before, others long away. All are welcome for as long as they are able to stay.

As with all adventures, we begin by gathering equipment, stocking supplies for uncertain days ahead. With our focus elsewhere, we prepare as if for extended absence or siege. There is rarely time to shop or complete even minor repairs once the ravening hordes encamp outside your door. We settle the house in a way reminiscent of both anticipating a trip and preparing for a hurricane short of locking the doors and boarding the windows. From basics to specialized equipment, pastimes to quick and simple meals, we try to anticipate our needs on the road ahead.

Before setting out into unfamiliar territory, we consult a variety of sages, fellow adventurers, rumor mongers, mercenaries, artisans, apothecaries and cartographers hoping to discover the lay of the terrain, the trials to be faced, the obstacles to be overcome. We consult tomes, some well thumbed, others quite dusty, in search of a weakness in our enemy, perhaps the incomplete portion of a map. Divinations in the form of lab tests are cast, bribes as co-payments are paid, drinks in chatrooms are bought to loosen reluctant tongues.

Armed with knowledge, good portents, a sharp knife and a stout walking stick, we armor ourselves for this long, perhaps dangerous path, dressing for both comfort and protection, shielding ourselves behind both hide and mail, remembering comfortable shoes. After all, the journey of the thousand miles begins beneath our feet.

I hope you walk with us a while.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III