Chapter 3 (Tale-Spinner)

Paedur "landed" safely on the stone floor where he had begun his telepathic journey, his near-black eyes opening immediately. He stood quickly, his hook scraping along the wooden beams holding the roof up until it caught, steadying his tall form. Mental exhaustion disoriented him, and it took more than a moment to get accustomed to his enhanced senses again.

The bard's sensitive ears caught sounds of his companion waking. He dislodged his hook from the wood and went to her side.

"Katani." he said quietly, as her white-blonde lashes fluttered open. She stirred slightly at his voice, then sat bolt upright.

"Bard! What happened?"

"I sought the aid of the gods." He replied. "You are healed."

With a heavy sigh, Paedur slid to the floor with his back to the wall, knees bent to his slumped shoulders. As his thin, sharp-featured face tilted towards his chest, the hookhanded bard fell into a catatonic sleep.

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Katani sat quietly, polishing her sister swords, looking at the sleeping bard from time to time. As she laid aside her short sword, finished, she turned once again to check on Paedur, and started in surprise. The bard was staring back at her.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked, turning back to her sword polishing.

"Since dusk," he replied, looking out the window at the grey sky of twilight. Katani remained silent for a moment.

"Why did you tax your strength so much, bard? You could have been killed!" she exploded suddenly. Paedur did not seem at all surprised at Katani's total lack of gratitude. He had brought her from the Silent Wood, and could read her as well as any of his scrolls.

"Yes, that is true. However, I do have trouble staying dead." he said, what may have been taken for wry amusement dancing in his shadowed eyes.

Katani glared at him. This man, no, creature- he had long ago ceased to be a man- laughed in the face of his own destruction. The description Death himself had given fit Paedur uncannily well: "Cold, unhuman, and more than a little mad." The warrior woman frowned, sheathing her other sword. She supposed the bard didn't worry about his damnation because Deathgods continued to expel him from the realm of the dead. The hookhanded storyteller seemed to cause an unwanted stir wherever he went- even to the Silent Wood.

The Katan Warrior shook white-blonde hair out of her face, trying to clear her mind of these dark thoughts.

"You are troubled." Paedur commented. He apparently was sensing this rather than seeing it, for his head was tilted down, his fingers absentmindedly tracing the runes on his hook. He still didn't know what they meant.

"Yes, I am." Katani replied. It disturbed her to think so deeply. During her first life, she had needed to contemplate her decisions very little. Ever since she had joined the bard, her thoughts had become more complicated, and black ideas plagued her consciousness with indecision and yes, sometimes fear. She needed something to keep her mind occupied.

"Bard!"

His head snapped up, fixing her with those terrifying, mirror-like eyes. Katani suppressed a shudder.

"You are the shanaqui, the Tale-Spinner. Tell me a tale."

He contemplated for a moment, as if unsure to carry out the order that bound him to his craft.

"Very well. What would you have?"

"Tell me of the founding of the Katan Sisterhood."

Paedur regarded her, and had he betrayed an emotion the look would have been quizzical. "An odd choice. I would have thought you knew it."

However, he continued, the smooth, trained voice of a Bard Master spilling into the room like sound made liquid.

"The story of the Katan Sisterhood began long ago, just after the Cataclysm." Paedur began, mentally calling up his Bardic Voice as he spoke.

"A young girl, by name Fand, grew to womanhood in a small
fishing village that sprung up on one of the nameless Arrow Isles.

Raised in poverty, the girl nonetheless grew to be quite
lovely, and she attracted the attention of a youth, the youngest son
of a travelling tinker. They were wed in secret, but when their child,
a daughter, was born, Fand's father (who was a cruel man), had her
husband killed.

Fand was heartbroken, and embittered. Training herself in the
skills of battle, she brought up her daughter to be a woman warrior, a
fierce fighter who could defeat all who opposed her. Fand herself had
gone slightly mad with the years of living with the burning hatred of
her father, and had sharpened her canine teeth to resemble that of
some wild animal. When her daughter was of age, she did the same, out
of respect for her mother's pain.

Fand forbade her daughter ever to marry, bidding her instead
find a man who was her equal in battle and gain a child from him, but
not to allow him to join the already growing group of woman warriors
Fand and her daughter taught. The group began to call themselves the
Sisterhood, following Fand's practices, and when the woman finally
died, her daughter took over the role as leader. She was a great
leader, fierce and brave, and much preferred over Fand, who had begun
to lose her wits completely towards the end of her life. Fand's
daughter herself was eventually killed in battle, and her survivors
named their Sisterhood 'Katan,' in the woman's honor. Fand's daughter
kept the rites and teachings of her mother, and the Sisterhood grew in
strength and number, becoming the most feared group of warriors ever
to go into battle, until the last Battle of the Sand Plain."

The bard's voice died away like the ripples of a pebble thrown into a calm pool. Katani's eyes stared off into space, obviously still hearing the bard's tale in her head. When a Bard Master tells a tale, everyone listens, and the warrior-maid's reaction was a great tribute to Paedur's storytelling.

"What was the name of Fand's daughter?" she asked suddenly.

Paedur looked at her, a slight smile lingering on his thin lips.

"Ah, I wasn't sure you would ask. You see, Fand's daughter was your own namesake. Her name was Katani."