Years before...

Dark: an age where the wild woods weave tapestry patterns on shadowed hills.

Light: a rust-red sun, rising sleepy, spilling out its crimson rays on a wet countryside.

Dark-light, dark-light, patterns within the pattern.

Melusine's mind brimmed to fullness like the stone well against which she now leaned.

Knowledge of the future is a dangerous fruit to taste. The flesh is sweet, but the seeds harbor a sickly poison.

In front of her, the trees rose, steep green knives. Behind her, the trees rose, steep green fangs. From the trees ahead, a pale horse came.

What did Saint John write?

A rider in green-gold threads hunched forward over his beast's neck. Hair of beaten gold hung down over his face, obscuring it. Melusine did not need to see it to know that it was mournful.

"It is some wandering knight," said Eleanor the maidservant.

"It is, assuredly," agreed Diana, named for the virgin goddess.

"Bring him here," said the lady. "I desire to speak with him."

And so he was brought. Diana approached him, bringing the greetings of her mistress. The horse slowed to a halt. It's rider made no answer.

A moment passed. Diana hesitated, frightened. But her mistress had bade her bring the man to her.

Bring him here. I desire to speak with him. Never have I seen such sorrow before. I desire to claim it for my own.

With trembling hand the maiden took the leather of the rein, and with slow steps guided the horse to the Woman in the Wood.

"Only a mad man does not greet three ladies when he rides past," said the lady.

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Only a mad man.

Slowly, the head rose. His lips were pink and soft, round like a little flower bud. His eyes were sickly green.

How delightfully monstrous!

"I'm sorry," he said, voice little more than a stony whisper. "I am so sorry."

"Even murderers can be forgiven."

The man shuddered as though struck.

"Your hands are red," Melusine observed.

It was true. Arterial crimson stained his hands in splotches, as though the palms had been pressed furtive against some gushing wound, the fingers struggling to keep the blood from slipping through them, straining like a fisherman's net, near to snapping from the force of the wellspring of the deep and all its nameless, horrible life.

"Yes," he whispered. "I...was hunting a boar with my uncle."

His head lowered, his shoulders slumped.

Ahh, my knight of the wood, you look away. Tell me, would you be able to look away if I asked you to? Or would you insist on seeing my wound as well, seeing the origin of all life? Life comes from the deep, you know...and it is monstrous.

"Where is your uncle, dear rider?"

Nothing. Again, nothing.

His hands dripped.

"I am sorry."

"I could've saved him."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Tragedy is unavoidable."

"And if I could have avoided this?" He looked up at her with sudden fury, his eyes burning coals. "What would you call it then?"

"Life, dear Raymondin, as unpredictable as ever."

"How do you know my name?" He demanded.

What a curious question! How do I know his name? Ahh, mother, is this all part of your game? Cast mine eyes down the corridor of time so that they might alight on...what? What is this Knight in the Wood, the not-so-gentle Raymondin?

His body was tense now, hands gripping at the reins like a sailor clinging to a final lifeline. Diana shrank away from him, Eleanor looked at the ground. Even the pale horse stamped a muddy foot.

"I suppose it must have been revealed to me by God," Melusine answered.

"God?" Raymondin looked doubtful. "You believe in God?"

"Everyone believes in God, Raymondin. They're just usually lying when they say which one."

"I'd guess you were some sort of a witch."

"Oh, no, Raymondin, something far worse."

"What's that?"

"A woman." She smiled, light dancing madpattern jigs in her eyes.

"You're toying with me." He said. The words were accusatory, but he had relaxed a little now. The danger had left his visage.

"I suppose I am. Don't hold it against me, gentle Raymondin."

"What do you want from me?"

How excellent he is at asking wise questions!

"Obedience, Raymondin."

He laughed, a short, cruel sound: "Obedience? And what will you give me in return?"

Water: a sluicegate opens and the flood comes streaming down, a serpent-tail rises, flick-snicks in the air, a tumbling of belly and loin into the sea of scales, a writhing dysforming, a scream of the insides, a boiling of the self like salt dissolving into water, water, water, a harpy-throated shriek of pleading to look away with those damnable damnable damnable eyes.

"Clean hands, gentle Raymondin. If you can keep them."