THE SHERWAINAUTS: THE THIRD CHAPTER.

THE THIRD CHAPTER:

I.                    The Half-Spick.

Now there lived in the town of Temecula one St Rafael the Roman Saint, and he was all so known by the name of the Half-Spick, not in the sense that Sir Trevor was a half-spick, but rather in the sense that people could rarely find a category to place him in, for he was borne upon a distant isle only dimly related to Mexico in lineage and in no way related to the West.
And St Rafael was all so a conjuror borne under the sign of the kozmik Scorpion, and his magick was that of Word. Besides that, he was known as a Witch-Boy, for he rode a broom with wheels appended to it. His chief companions were his dogs, and they were such vicious creatures that they alienated even the closest of his anthropoid friends
Once, whilst both mages were in attendancy at the Academy, Rafael and Phoenix were partnered in a battle of wits against two young Spiders. One of these was a witch, and she sought to obscure Rafael's knowledge of the Greek race by supplanting the Greek dignity. So she aspired to convince their overseer that only pale men were allowed to vote, yet she aspired to do this with a subtlety that would tread on the prejudices of the judge rather than a directness that would plant new prejudices or impart new knowledge. So she sought to count the pale males present in the chamber, and she stuttered in her delivery, for she could not decide whence to place Rafael. So finally she decided that he was not pale ENOUGH, and so Phoenix recognised in Rafael a mutable and shape-shifting identity at that instant, for all his life in fact St Rafael had been met with a diverse array of labels, and he could just as easily pass for Spick as for Pale.

Now it is said that in many cultures the most powerfull agent is the love of man for woman. It rests in Indian society on a rung just above friendship and just beneath relation to God. No other passion blossoms in the fruits of chivalry. Amidst the sexual positions none but that of intercourse allots the lovers a view of each other's eyes. So it is that love is past from Heaven to Earth, for in the earthly carnal act of love betwixt man and woman the force of attraction that minds matter to Spirit is celebrated and re-created.
The Spiders so loathed and feared this love, for it had torn down the hitherto impenetrable Tower of Power, that they sent the Witches out to put a stop to it. And the Witches, who hated men on principle, struck a truce with the spiders that had the semblance of love, but only superficially.
So soon the superstition spread that to speak of the love of man for woman, and to make no mention of the lower loves that might be shared within a sex, was to oppress those of an other persuasion. It was not, as the spiders had cunningly posited, that all men were charged equally by God, and women were to serve men, but rather that sex, from whence emanated love by their skewed reckoning, varied by individual.
So sex was severred from love, and it crawled into the remnants of the Tower of Power. And there it became Corrupt. For in place of intercourse sodomy was practiced, and whilst this sodomy might have established love betwixt lovers who had all ready past through the gates of intercourse, now those same lovers were condemned as "equal" to those sodomites for whom those gates never would open. And as is all ways the case with the hateful, they projected their hatred upon all that opposed them, insisting that they loved when really they transmuted the act of sex into a pastime.
Their crusade was swift. Soon sex was severred from birth. The spiders, and especially the witches, began where King Michael had left off, now aspiring not only to murder infants in the womb but all so to prevent their conception entirely.
And thus order was lost and dignity was detached for long after from sex and even the name its self of Love.

And it was ere this befell that Phoenix the Fisherman began again to hold the acquaintence of St Rafael the half-spick, who was a Spider in training.

Now Phoenix sought in Rafael much that he had sought in the Blue Jay. Rafael was partial towards dancing, and his heart lusted for feminine flesh, though he would not divulge it.
Many a Thor's day the two mages rode St Rafael's horse to Temecula, wherein a Farm House was host to a style of Balling the likes of whom Phoenix had hitherto yet to experience. And in the midst of those hours the passenger bestowed upon the pilot plaints about his heart-ache, and for the pilot was so secretive of his own heart he was seldom reciprocated an audience, yet he maintained the same secrecy about this sentiment as well. Soon the Phoenix began to suspect that the Half-Spick was not listening, so the Phoenix sought to test his loyalty.
It so befell that their first voyage to the Balling Barn was all so instance to the first feud betwixt these acquainted mages. For not long before Rafael had been betrayed at the same Barn by the arrogance of an old companion, a warrior by the name of Dick.
And it so happened that, to spite Eléna for her abandonment, Kristian for his disloyalty, and -- though he did not yet know it -- Rafael for his secrecy, Phoenix chose to act as the Warrior Princess had taught him: by abandoning his friend to the Ocean of lusty strangers upon arrival, tossing all fux to the caprice of the winds.
Now lest this appear harsh I must remind you that Rafael was borne all so under the stars of Scorpio, and there had been one instance whence Kristian had felt betrayed by Phoenix, yet such sentiments were arrogant of Kristian, and Phoenix indeed had felt betrayed by them and the ensuing Grudge that they had produced.
In this present case Rafael too responded with a rage much akin to the searing flames that Phoenix had grown accustomed to. Yet the boiling steam of the water-wizard would not sizzle the Fishermage that night. For he knew that he meant no harm by an act of deviance, and that he robbed Rafael of no opportunity, as had been the case at the shore of the Ocean many tears ago whence Kristian accrued his grudge.
It all so would dawn upon Phoenix that no harm had come to any one but Rafael, so Rafael's cowardice might have produced his indignation, and not the sort of chivalry that had compelled Phoenix to sever all ties with the Grey Lizard ere Eléna had been doomed to suffer. So it all so dawned upon Phoenix that he still loved Eléna, and though she had vanish'd from his life he sought to find her rather than to spite her, even if the pursuit seemed beyond a shade of Hope.
Finally Phoenix felt a deeper gratitude and longing for the Blue Jay, for ere that fellow had flown him to the Dancing Halls in the belly of the City never once did the pilot demand that the passenger remain close, as though by avenue of some debt. And it had all ways been illusory and abusive Debt that the Lizard had kept the Fishermage in his paracitic service.
None of this could Phoenix convey unto Rafael ere the two companions took their leave of the Ball during the Witching Hour. Yet the Phoenix retained his patience and calmness even as his rider fumed at him, for Phoenix now looked to a Higher Cause. He had made not the lasting acquaintance of any new woman that night. Yet his ardorous faith in Eléna, and not only Eléna but what she willfully re-presented, was restorèd.
And so that calm penetrated into sleep and dream ere that morning, and it continued to resonate, loth to yield, for ages. And Phoenix would think little of accusations that an injustice had been repeated or conceived, for one was simply remedied. Phoenix had all ways seen into Rafael's Heart and listened to the half-spick's evocations of it, even enough as to suspect a rift betwixt the two, though with a generosity sufficient to with-hold the suspicion. He saw the mount from the other's side, as the idiom reads, but he simply could no longer see it but through the lens of his own discernment. And this wisdom that was so coveted by those who had hated him for it, calling him myopic, would he never again be robbed of.

II.                 How Kristian Had Become Catsup.

Now it shall be explained how it came to pass that Kristian would forego the glorious gifts of God for the degenerate egoism of Catsup. For, you see, it so befell that one day, as a gloom hung heavily over his abode, Kristian was confronted with a dilemma. He had been immersed with in a quarrel with his sweet-heart, the Witch of Woe, and had chosen to with-draw into Solitude.
Yet the breath of solitary life did not soothe his nerves. A corrosive rage burnt in his gutt, one longing to quench its self in vindication against his lover. Yet the conflict drove him to madness betwixt this passion and the desire in his Heart that she should come to no harm.
As his desperation grew, so did his contempt towards his own self, for it could find no other target for its poisonous arrows to pierce. And deliverance then came in only one remaining passion: A will towards Power.
He appeared at the cross-roads of two paths: One of fore-giveness and release, and the other of domination under the subtle GUISE of forgiveness. And the former would hurt an all ready precarious pride. He dared not risk such a rapture, and so the Divine Vision was lost to him. For years he sought what Silly Simon the Fungal Spirit had shone unto him. Yet his heart was forever from thence forth torn betwixt this desire to manipulate and that longing for trans-
cendancy.
Only Phoenix saw through the ruse, and only Phoenix could offer him guidance unto the Gates of the Gods. Yet the path was steep, and Catsup was burdened by a heavy heart.
He was loth to accept the guidance of Phoenix the Fishermage. Yet when it was offered the Lizard of St. Bernard Ranch pretended to take Phoenix by the Land, for it was easy to pretend towards a Spiritual yearning when it was so akin in semblance to his rabid curiosity. Yet the curiosity was but a servant of the aggressive will towards lordship over the magickal realm. And so the Heart of the Kristian Xavier shut under the pressure of Catsup's ego. The mage imagined his self to have barely escaped madness, for so close had he come to the annihilation of Catsup. Yet Catsup remained, and his tower grew to a foreboding and piteous height.

III.               How the Spiders had Woven their Web.

Now there had been one Spider by the name of Ali. And he was a member of the Ørder of the Learnèd. And once the out-
going pirate imparted upon the Fisherman this dictate, in the form of a pro-
clamation: That to Love one's Self one had to love first the Øther.
Yet the Spider-scholar was of course foolish in his Learnèd wisdom, for in deed there WAS no Other, and neither was there a Self.
Once before Phoenix had come to such a realisation, and he did not hesitate to run his finding to two local mystics that would lounge regularly outside the Clock Tower at the Academy.
Panting before their gently jeering faces, Phoenix demanded innocently: Sir Daniel! Are there any Others?!
And Sir Daniel the Mystic, grinning, said: 'Yea! Veritably so!' and beside him Sir Jordan quoth and qualified: 'I'm Jordan!'

Now ere Ali had bestowed his wisdom upon Phoenix the Fish Phoenix became puzzled. For he had never thought to segregate Self from Øther hitherto.
Yet when it so befell that Phoenix broke away from Rafael at the Barn, the Fishermage recalled a Genuine, Spontaneous Solidarity upon that Ball Room Floor that he had known since childhood. And so he was freed from Ali's spell. Self and Other were again one. And the Other, Rafael, who now took the form of the Self, for within him were still harboured feelings of duality, was immensely disgruntled.

IV.              The Lady of the Lake.

If thou doth but what thy wilt.

That is not how Love is Built.

For it is the Love of Power

That ensnares and doth devour.

And determines whether what I wilt

Is to be favoured over yours.

And that is not how love is built.

That is how one starteth wars.

But we may will a Common Good

And that spells the hour

When our kinship’s understood.

And is not undone by Power.

And those who preach that Good but who

Secretly covet domination.

Never shall undo

Us who see through this imitation.

And those who do forego that Good

For fear of tyrants in the dark.

Only reveal that fire in their wood

In trying to assuage a spark.

And those who try to cage the mind

By claiming goodness nebulous.

Conceal what with their passing age they’ll find

To be a treasure measureless.

Now St. Rafael loathed above all else two styles of personality: the psychic vampire and the man who deplored the Church of Satan.

Ere he and Phoenix rode one day into the country, Rafael spoke to him of both.

Now this peculiar day was in Oktobre, within vicinity of the Roman Saint’s birth day, and they made to visit a seeress known simply as the Lady of the Lake. Across a vast country they rode, under a soft and blaring Sun that had several hours to go before it set, and despite their speed St Rafael narrated at a pace as soothing and level as the desert country-side.

The psychic vampire, Rafael explained, was a being who could not produce its own energy. All beings were vessels of energy, and to the degree that they possessed and were possessed of Will they could avail their selves of energy by various avenues. Most could, by Rafael’s reckoning, produce their own out of Nothing. This Phoenix was hesitant to believe, for it had been conveyed unto him by Eléna that energy could not be created nor destroyed. It could simply be channeled. But the Fisherman so loved the half-spick that he accommodated the difference of opinion in favour of what they shared in common: that energy traveled by avenues.

Now in fact people who are Givers channel energy by avenue of the Life Force of the Universe. It had been intimated once by the Green Jew, unto Phoenix, that Phoenix was seen doing precisely this by the Green Jew’s paramour of the time, who was a young intuitive by birth.

People who are Takers simply channel energy by avenue of other people. And these paracites were loathe`d by St. Rafael the Roman Saint.

The Church of Satan was founded upon a rejection of Our Gospel and a subversion of the principle of altruism and social order. Its tenants were the service of the Self, and by St Rafael’s reckoning they were correct in their assertions that their opponents were simply trying to play the fox on the religious publick. For their opponents were the Church, embodied in what Lord Kristian had once called the Path of the Right Hand, an expression that Phoenix had brought to their conversational attention one day, though his meaning for it was entirely removed. Satanism was the Path of the Left Hand, based upon a line in Scripture that warns us against allowing the left hand to know what doth the right (or some thing to that affect). Satanists assert, quoth St Rafael the half-spick, that both paths lead to the same place, but that the followers of the right-hand path seek to ploy and swindle uninitiated people into their way for their way is less decorous by nature. So Our Church was in St Rafael’s view a perversion, rather than the Church of Satan being such, borrowing its name from the antagonist of the Bible and never intending to return it, for Our Church preaches a one-sided view, whereby the Church of Satan cunningly persuades followers that either view is adequate, and thus leads them along its path by avenue of this seductive amiability.

All this rang untrue to Phoenix, except insofar as it was true that St Rafael believed it to be so. For he was reminded of Kristian and how he had lured Eléna away by offering her an easy path of self-service, and vilified Phoenix as though Phoenix had in fact been equally self-servient, yet to be disreguarded because he had been out-voted. And he thought of the fear that Kristian was prone to kindle in the hearts of his followers for any sort of Moral Absolute, for he foresaw in it naught but the exact fate that had befallen Phoenix at his own hand: the subversion of a well-meaning minority in service of a majority that deem’d its self to be Equally Well Meaning, but of superior importance. For the altruists rarely in their generosity thought the self-serving to be self-serving; they had only ever sought to correct their errors as a favour to the virtue of the erring.

Kristian, and all other members of the Church of Satan, including the half-spick Roman Saint Rafael, simply were the wolf that lead children astray down a short path through the wood, that they might devour those children. And in time Phoenix would intuit that they were none other than the psychic vampires, the Takers of Enyrgy, that the half-spick so loathed and protested publickally against in his own Satanik hypocrisy.

Now there was one Sara of the Mire, all so known by the Admired One, or Sara the Pure, who had gone by one other name, and that was the Snitch, or the weasel. For once a troupe of young politicians not unlike Rafael and Phoenix, for they all competed under a common banner, made way to a tournament in yonder land abroad, and Sara was one in their company. And ere night befell the contestants sought to defile every dictate that had been placed upon them by the Academy of the Learne`d, for they were all, despite their being allied by this passion, possessed of self-interest.

Only Sara was in their midst who was innocent and of pure heart, and for this she suffered many ills of the Soul. Some among her peers would later claim, with characteristic and exasperated indignation, that they had done all that they could to nurture Sara’s Soul, that it would not aspire to leave her Body, but Phoenix knew these indignant fools intimately, and he was unimpressed by their Grudge, for he knew that they too suffered a Soul Sickness that they battled with futility, for they resisted aide of any sort that they had not their selves proscribed.

In the midst of these fools Phoenix was oft challenged in his authority, even over his own life (for of course it was as all lives are entertwined with all other lives), for he was dismissed as the same authority that he his self opposed, and it was ensinuated that he harboured the same hypocrisy that Power was heir to, simply for the fact that he pre-tended to authority whilst con-demning it.

And of course Phoenix tilled the excrement expertly, for he began to see in the eyes of his peers the same authority and the same hypocrisy.

Only Sara had been pure of Heart ere Phoenix met her. And with her he had no quarrel and even no contention. For they were akin by virtue of a common innocence. It would never have occurred to him to con-demn her for such a light yet heavy Heart, light of sin but heavy of gloom and fore-boding misery. Neither could she be blamed for seeking counsel for her woes in what few friends she had made in the Learne`d Professors, for they had all ways offered her more solace, guidance, and wisdom than had her peers, and certainly their ears were more open to her plaints than those of her de-baucherous fellows. And so, by virtue of a contract held betwixt these role models and the Academy, the deviants were banished, and Sara was in secret branded by her peers a Snitch.

In her Phoenix found a companion in dialogue with whom to spend whole hours in the Academy Watch Tower, known all so to be the Tower of Ivory. And though their meeting was only once, that very fact cemented his fealty, for she was not thus a friend by habit but a Soul that met him in a way that her peers could not fathom, and that in their cynical self-entitlement to-wards Equality they could only underscore their ungenerous temperament.

Sara had been generous, not in good or service, but in that rarest and purest form of generosity: in her Attention. And so Phoenix had found not only a friend, tucked into the blanket of time atop a sheet of intimacy as though she were a newborn babe, but all so a Hope to act as pre-cedent for his prolonged kinship with an other sensitive and tormented Soul: Eléna.

The desert sky grew sapphire, torne by clouds of cyrus, ere St. Rafael and Phoenix arrived at the door of the Lady of the Lake. They were well come into her abode by an attendant with his hair tied back into a tail.

A primordial Calm and Serenity overtook Phoenix, as though he had returnt to the warmth of a womb.

Rafael paid twenty five pounds for each of them, and he was soon invited into an ante-chamber to meet with the seeress. Phoenix, a guest without agenda, simply felt thankfull for the radiance that seemed to emanate from the tomes and statuettes that adorned this haven, lending light to it from within as an exciting night, now more exciting than foreboding, set in. It felt as though a page had been turnt upon a long chapter of misery, and a new chapter loomed enshrouded in a mysterious Indigo Sky.

At the completion of fifteen minutes, which neither dragged nor rushed but rather occurred on many disparate dimensions at once, Rafael found Phoenix perusing a book or a sculpture.

Phoenix beheld his companion, wondering what might he have heard or borne witness to, as he came down the aisle betwixt rectangular tables that displayed statuettes of Heathen Gods and Daemons, adorned with plaques to signify their role in the Divine Danse. (Which was of course hokus pokus superstition and lore.)

The time had come, Phoenix resolved his self, to confront the Oracle: the Lady of the Lake.

Now Phoenix was of sturdy and genial count-enance, for he knew in his Heart, however befuddled might have been his mind, that his Soul was Pure and might withstand the witch’s scrutiny.

Yet it was precisely this guard, for he was loth to be fooled again as Kristian had done, that might have caught the sorceress of the Lake off her own.

Many were the gifts that the seeress bestowed upon Phoenix that day ere the two sat in the confined yet cozy quarters of her scented anteroom, beside a veil that was never cast aside but behind which nothing foreboding ostensibly lurked. Her portly countenance was steadfast and generous of pity, for she might have sensed in Phoenix a guardedness borne of pain and deceit. They spoke little of Rafael, for she knew that Phoenix would confer with his companion soon, who had once before attended her home. The sorceress, seated across from the Fishermage of St Diego by a table and clothe`d in a garment of rosy silk and several necklaces of beads (that Phoenix surmised to have been possessed of an enchantment), read his cards of Tarot. It was the first instance ere Phoenix had encounter’d such objekts direktly, and his appetite for knowledge fought heroically (but, as the Lady’s motherly eyes seemed to suggest, needlessly) with his skeptikal gait. Phoenix feard that she might have found fault with him as had Eléna, who had once concluded that the mage was so absorpt in pain that he waved a blade of contempt about in self-defence, and all too frequently. Yet no such judgment attended the lips of this seeress, who simply read him the meaning of the cards that he drew.

Her portents accorded with his own Intuitions: he stood upon the eve of Leave-Taking. His journey had reached a crux and from this fork forth would neither endure in fashion nor repeat. The third card that he had drawn – the Thirteen of Death – meant the passing of a friendship.

She offered to explain to him her intuitions. But he dared not hear them, for fear that they would come true of no accord but her own, and with his own consent. He feared that he should have to surrender his friendship with Eléna of the Clouds. So he politely refused any more information, his defences overtaking finally his curiosity.

The sorceress then heard his account of his recent dreams, which he had brought into her abode enscribed upon a writ. He recalled the eagerness with which his half-spick friend had brought him, and his trepidation whilst he offered that she might interpret the Fishermage’s dreams, and the mutual excitement that had seemed to hang betwixt the two travelers before this ominous Uncertainty.

In deed it might have been that this dream-reading was their first order of business during those fifteen minutes that Phoenix had spent before the Seeress of Temecula, but in retrospect Time had been so absent in this cramped hall of Eternity that the order of the events paled before their Totality.

Ere Phoenix took his leave, notified that their fifteen minutes had elapsed, he asked only for counsel. She looked upon him with her same firm pity, not as though he was ridiculous for what the counsel would signify and for having asked for it so late, but rather that (Phoenix only dimly wondered that it would seem so) he even thought to ask.

“It would please me that ye use more description of thy AFFECTS in thy records, and less of a poetic strain,” quoth the Seeress with finality. And so then Phoenix took his leave, contemplating whether the “plea” had been a statement of regal entitlement to such a course, or whether it had been quite the obverse: a polite cession of Authority unto HIM, for only her pleasure could compel him to follow any course, and her pleasure was of secondary significance to his own thirst.

V.                 The King and the Bard.

When you have to climb the stairs of doom

Inebriated on your own.

To reach your bleak apartment room

Where you shall be alone.

More bristly than cactus

And more burnt than ol’ Tim Leary.

Satanism: not so good in practice

As in theory.

When your friends betray you for the world

For you betrayed them for a girl.

When your crusade it comes unfurled.

And into shades of numbness hurled.

You’ll have no one to tell just how to act as

Though you would reciprocate sincerely.

Satanism: not so good in practice

As it sounds in theory.

When the world’s in bloom it will be doom

For hearts consumed in greed.

From each according to ability to each

According to her need.

You will be guaranteed your share

But only if you prove you care.

Improve your station. Take a breath

Of freshest air. Then give it right back there.

Because the cynics only wallow

In their selfish misery.

And pain’s a bitter pill to swallow

But I shalt for thee if thou wilt not for me.

And doing what thy wilt.

Is how the good men come to wilt.

And dry up like a cactus

Recycled to see the way more clearly.

Satanists. They’re not as good in practice

As they are at theory.

Now there dwelt in Escondido a bard by the name of Matthew Rivers, and here was a personage cloaked in mystery, be the myth urbanite, suburbanite, or rural, for this traveling young sage made his pilgrimage about the entirety of this country, settling in places few and far between, and seldom for long, though he was seen in his home towns oft. And Matthew was named Matthew Rivers, it is fabled, for the mats of mud that border the Great Rivers that course through this land, and all their tributaries and all the streams that branch from them and empty their selves into the Ocean. And it was equally fabled that Matthew was borne of great magickal prowess in the Musical Arts, knowing how to play the guitar the moment that he sprung from his Mother’s womb, for he was so gifted by Our Lord.

Now ere Rafael and Phoenix rode home from the Seeress of Temecula a searing Sun cut the bleak clouds that coloured the skies of a cold desert country-side. And Phoenix confided in Rafael what he had heard, though he could not convey the entirety of what he had felt and intuited, for so much of it was yet to crystallize into sense within his own mind. And Rafael spoke little of his own experience and awakenings, for they seemed to haunt him and even to irritate him in the most minute sense. He too seemed to be labouring with a quandary as pertained to their meaning, though his struggle was more direct. All that Phoenix could gather was that the Oracle had warned him against growing so attached to his growing powers that they might devour him. And then he spoke no more.

Phoenix spent that night in Rafael’s home, cautious of the half-spick’s dogs, which had to be removed to an other chamber, for their frivolous “play”, as the Roman Saint called it, posed an imminent threat to the Fisherman’s general health and testicles. The following morn the two mages made for the ville of San Marcos, whence the Academy of the Learned was located, and they attended there a gathering of their comrades in rhetorical arts.

As day began to wane and night fall the two made for Escondido, and there they attended a weekly Mage’s Guild. They made a display of their respective Arts, bolstred by the wisdom given unto their Hearts by the Seeress of the Lake. And there Phoenix beheld their companion, the Bard Matthew Rivers, adorned in his archetypal traveler’s hat and garb, smiling toothily and with the sleight of a fox, the teeth of a rodent, but the eyes of a loyal dog. And he rolled for them several cigarettes of mixed tobacco and cannabis, and these were smoked ere day faded. And the smoke prolonged the dying rays, lending a charm to the dying azure hues of the sky that made them sparkle with novelty as they would appear to the mind’s eye of a child.

Now there lived all so in Escondido one King Salomon the Vivid, and whilst he was not King of Escondido he was certainly Lord of the Guitar. And he too was a mage of surpassing skill, and he played last that night, for it was his first performance there, and the crowd was charmed by the wisdom and poetry conveyed by his strumming arpeggios.

And ere night fell the crowd gathered there, mages and watchers alike, dispersed to pursue what pleasures lay in store about the village. Yet Matthew Rivers did not join the throng, and neither did Phoenix, for Phoenix could not appeal for an invitation, and Matthew seemed to resist invitation. Instead the wandering Bard, whose eyes were glazed, professed a desire to “turn the city upside-down”. Before Phoenix could resolve this most curious riddle, the Fishermage had conveyed it unto Sir Michael, the third Michael to fortuitously wander unto this narrative, of the Kettle Guild, and Sir Michael explained, with a most common-place and unsurprised expression mingling irony with pity, that Matt Rivers, Bard of Escondido, meant to take a hammer to his own head. And this was of course a metaphore for the indulgence in liquors and other spirits at the tavern across the way. So Phoenix made to find Matthew Rivers there-in.

Now the proprietor of this tavern was unfriendly to the wandering mage, for the mage had little to spend and an all-too-generous eye for the proprietor’s lady. Yet subtly the Fishermage wound a path through the boisterous crowd, and verily he found his quarry situated at the back of the tavern, in an adorned and cozy patio clearing at the end of a narrow corridor that ran along one side of the building.

Phoenix emerged onto the cobblestones lit by a yellow lantern overhead. There sat Matthew Rivers at one of the several tables that preceded the open gate that was to be an easy exit or a secret entrance. Beside him sat his fellow mage, a lady by the name of Cloud, though she bore no semblance nor kinship to Eléna except in profession and ambition. Her gait was harsh and guarded as would decorate a hawk, yet she was welcoming of the wandering mage, who trembled smilingly into their midst.

Before them stood several bottles, many of whom were vacant. Liquor seemed to roll down Matthew’s reddened face, though of course the water was in greatest part tears.

Phoenix spoke to them with the subtlety of a cat walking a tight-rope. As Matthew Rivers collapsed in tears his friend nurtured him in an embrace, looking upon the rambling mage that sat across from them with mixed pity and encouragement. Phoenix was not well-versed in the magick of healing, but he knew that once or twice he had succeeded in this Art before. He thought of his old friend Ember, now lady of Saint Francis, and he wove a tale merging her early adventures – which she had recounted unto him countless years prior, as though in a lost innocence tucked away between the folds of time – with an account of that very present moment. And as the mirror grew, mirroring an other mirror in the past and forming an aeternal corridor that pierced through time, it enveloped the realm of space, so that what Phoenix had imagined Ember’s encounter to have been proved to have been a premonition of this very moment, and the young mage was his self transmuted and transfixed by his own handiwork of lore.

Matthew Rivers paid the mage many compliments and thanks that eve, in exchange for those that laced the Fishermage’s narrative. And of course Phoenix insisted that this gift was too generous of Matthew Rivers, for the praise that was bestowed upon the Bard was wholly due, and only travesty could have barred him from it. And ere the Fishermage spoke of the dignity of the Artist he too was awakened to the fact that he spoke of his own self. And the narcissism of innocence did not place a weight upon his Heart, which in severe pain shared through a genuine commiseration was elated and lightened of karmic load. This, Phoenix beheld, was the true artist before him, and a mirror for his own integrity as Artist. And Kristian paled in comparison and by contrast, a Grey Lizard exposed, a White Wizard unthroned, a Pale Criminal caught. For never, for all the pain that Kristian the Scorpion King had professed, might Phoenix have felt EMPATHY with him, but only a feeble sympathy that would serve the purposes of the Lizard King.

Matthew’s tears were not of jealousy, conceit, or hatred. They were of friendship, of love lost, and of a sorrow that he did not hide as selfishly from the world as he hid his joys. And neither did he hide his joys, so though he hid both equally, it was only because he hid neither. And Kristian hid both equally for he hid them nearly entirely. Phoenix knew Kristian to suffer for Phoenix could feel it. But his empathy could not take the place of Kristian’s responsibility. Kristian preferred that empathy should only be a partial window into the Soul, and so it became for him. Phoenix could only empathise to the degree that Kristian permitted. It was still more than the Grey Lizard would have liked, but it was not yet enough to satiate Phoenix’s own Soul.

Yet Matthew Rivers was open to that degree that Kristian was not. Matthew of the Rivers, Matthew of Escondido, Matthew of Many Places, was a book written in many languages, hard to decipher but easy to read. He was all ways open; only one’s own limitations and one’s own ignorance barred access to Matthew’s Soul. And Phoenix happened to have been gifted, as Matthew had been gifted with the skill to play Guitar, with the tongue to read this small chapter of the Great Bard’s long life, a life all ready long then, even for his age.

Now so it befell that Matthew the Bard of Escondido extended unto Phoenix an invitation, that the mage might attend a merry gathering of his fellows on the Eve of Halloween. And so Phoenix, having made the acquaintenance of King Sal, received by horse-back a ride into the neighbouring hills the night of the party, and after some navigation the two mages found the Bard’s modest lodging. And there much ale was drunk, and so was Phoenix, for he made to impress two fair maidens by playing the Bard’s make-shift stand-up bass, an instrument composed of a tin washing board  in the shape of a Mongol’s Helm and a rod that had been taken from the body of a broom. And that night they sat in a ring of guests, and one of the ladies spoke unto Phoenix of the Tarot and other mystical wanderings of the mind. Ere the ladies took their leave Sal commended Phoenix for his boast, for he held no jealousy, and Phoenix continued to entertain long into the morning hours.

VI.              The Beggars.

Now it so befell that Phoenix might have headed home the following morning, but first he preferred to pay a visit to his friend Kreb, a dweller-vagrant at the foot of the Church that over-looked the Escondido River. For Kreb was his dear friend, the Sunday morning had not yet surrendered the Sun to the day, and the buzz lay too heavily upon his brow for the journey home. Bronze Sunlight spilling as though be accident over the buildings merged in his mind with the waning wine ere he altered course in Search of Kreb.

Ere night had fallen Phoenix stood under an overhanging roof.

Rain was falling, and Kreb the Beggar sat huddled and shivering astride the cobble-stones. Before them both stood Sam Dirt, the wandering mystic poet and retired Academik. And he lectured and professed thus onto Phoenix:

Be not ‘disillusioned’. Be not ‘disenchanted’. Be not ironikal. But rather find thy Self. Find the Truth. And find God.

So it befell that soon a youth wandered by. Sam had gone, allowing Kreb to breathe word of reproof. And this youth was a psychic apprentice, and he foretold that Phoenix would not die alone, but the identity of his ultimate mistress was un-known to the wand’ring youth.

Very adamant of Spirit had been all his guides during this Quest, and but a few are here enscribed. So one can with ease surmise the irony and dejection with which the wandering mage beheld Ali the Spider-Lord upon return to the Ville of Caramel Mountain. For then it was that Ali be-wailed and begrudged all the followers of the Spirit, which had never offered him any solace as had the devices of the Intyllect. And yet Phoenix beheld the old tricker of his own profession to be the crowning jewel of the Quest.

For to hear this man deny the followers of the Spirit when Phoenix had encountered so many of them, as though they had been a stream of ants, only served to indicate the Miracle of the Spirit. For were such people many then Ali denounced a benevolent populace, and were they few then these encounters, including this final confrontation with the Learne`d Skeptik, must have been, as had been-intuited by the Seeress, fated. And Ali, simply by his denial of these incidents suffused with meaning, only re-enforced the latter, and stronger, thesis.

VII.            The Astrologician.

Now the Spiders ere they held dominion over the Tower of Power erected a monument to their own pretense. For the monarch King Michael had been loth to level with any of his subjects, and only his Queen and daughter were to be his Equals. So he ordered that a wall be erected, that no false rumour might penetrate the temple of the King, and nor would any of the King’s Wisdom spill unto the masses of his Court. And this wall was not to be horizontal, for he so hated the thought of allowing his subjects their privacy, to stand tall ere he sat, and to plot behind closed doors. Thus it was to be erected along a horizontal axis, and it was to rest beneath his feet. And his chief architect appointed was Lord Antonio of the Spicks, for his charismatic machismo was fabled to be so sharp and so unyielding that it could cut one’s head off from the remainder of one’s body.

So Antonio ordered that the Great Hall be split in two along this axis. And the King erstwhile retired into his bed-chamber, that he might gnaw upon the tapestry of his Queen.

So it was that the Hall was reformed, and a ceiling hung over the heads of all the subjects, one so low that any one but a dwarf was required to box, as though the whole floor of this Hall were a Little-Ease. Thus Lord Kristian preferred never to stay long in the castle, for he forbif his self to pass through any of its doors during this Reign of King Michael, that he might not fall ill by the Castle’s Enchantments. And thus it was that the Scorpion King, Lord of the Dicks, developed a humped back during long nights of Feast.

It was fated that King Michael should abide astride the top floor, the anterior side of this dividing wall. And so a hole was carved into the stone, from whence descended a ladder.

Yet ere the King emerged, having been summoned to behold the Spick Lord’s work, he was still beneath the Wall. And this did not please him in the slightest.

“Why hast thou erected this Wall over my Dome?” the Good King Michael demanded.

And to that the Mexican replied: “My liege. Had I known that it would not please Your Majesty, I would have requested that you wait upon a Higher Floor!”

And yet King Michael was clever.

“And yet,” quoth his Majesty, “you would not dare to demand that I seek any room but my royal bed, is that not so.”

“That is quite so, Your Majesty,” replied the now-trembling auburn vassal.

“And it would follow thus that you made DELIBERATELY,” persisted King Michael, “to subjugate me by building the Wall I had commanded not only over the heads of my Subjects, but over Our Own Head.” And by the plural first person he meant of course His Own Majesty.

“But my liege! We have erected a ladder for you!”

“A ladder for a King! How insulting to My Benevolence and My Physical Fitness! It shall be a Ladder that THOU shalt never cross!”

And so Antonio, as well as the remaining subjects of King Michael’s Court, were banished to the First Floor. King Michael ordered that he be lifted unto his proper position on the second floor. A score of men and women were appointed to this regal task. Then King Michael’s Queen joint him astride the newly erected wall. King Michael leapt at her sight, and to ensure the sturdiness of His Wall. And so it was, for he heard not the plaints of those below who trembled ere it crumbled beneath His Greatness.

And thus he ordered that the passage betwixt levels be sealed. So, trembling, the Spick Lord watched ere his builders moved Stone and Wood to cover the gaping hole. When the last stone was set in place the Hall was submerged in Darkness. And then screams were heard.

For the Represse`d Love that had been beaten into submission and disfigured long ago by the Spiders had taken shape, and its form could only appear where it could not be Seen. The Dark had invited the Monster of Power, a sort of ogre in the shape of an amphibious creature, whose snot-coloured brown flesh was saturated with pores. And each orifice was the size of a vagina, and the Beast breathed through these nostrils, and it spurted sap that contaminated the skin of its victims, and its Mouth was a phenomenon upon its skin, whencever enough of these pores opened in unison so that the skin between them broke and only a cavern remained, wide enough to consume a man in one bite and to digest him in the stinging sap. And then the mouth would close and again become a body of skin suffused with these orifices.

Thus came the Spick Lord of Power to meet his Doom.

Now ere the Tower was demolished and then transmuted into O’Harlot’s it was said that the Beast had been foregotten. It was rumoured to have fled under the Sun. Yet in fact any who knew of the position of the Wall would have known that the Phoenix’s Strike had fallen above the Tower. So the Floor remained, as it had all ways, but now it was simply that all lived above it. Or so at least it was rumoured.

Ere Phoenix had made his return his first order of business was to visit his friends at O’Harlot’s. And there he was greeted by Sir Allen of Burns, the tender of the bar, with candour and fealty. And that eve Sir Allen’s Lady, the fair Lady Juniper, was in attendance, and so was an eccentric wandering monk named Sir Jeremy of Determinus, who was of mixe`d Eastern and Nordic lineage, and so was present an anonymous hawker of musical records.

Now Lady Juniper was both fair and wise, and Phoenix had taken kindly to her, not knowing yet why. He had surrendered Hope in finding his own Eléna again, but the company of this other Lady bestowed upon him a comfort that might all most have rivaled the comfort of Eléna’s Presence. And this comfort endured many drinks, though not all.

Many things were discussed that night by the present company, and much ale and wine were poured. And in the midst of tremendous discourse the Lady Juniper confided in Phoenix a professed interest in Astrology. Now Phoenix had once been loth to entertain this science, for Antonio had once called him a Fish, and he was offended. Yet the Lady harboured not the resentment of the Spick Lord, and so she earned the trust of the Fishermage more easily.

And so it was upon that night that Phoenix learned of his identity as a Son of Pisces, for that was all so the identity of Sir Allen, and he learned too of the Lady Juniper’s identity as a Daughter of the Ram, which he believed now for so too was Eléna Daughter of this Sign. And in later months he would all so come by the knowledge that Sir Allen’s Mother too was borne under the sign of Aries, as was Phoenix’s mother, and that both men shared Aries as their Moon Sign, not by virtue of their Mothers of course but by virtue of incredible Chance.

Lady Juniper, who was all so studying to be Learne`d, and in none other than the same discipline as was Eléna’s profession, had lifted, as she had herself stated, the Veil of Ignorance from the eyes of the Fishermage. Andere he beheld his Divine Identity he saw therein too a mark of Hope for understanding and reconciling his conflict with Eléna of the Clouds.

Much song was heard that night, yet the gathering was not wholly merry. Phoenix was hurt to learn that Lady Juniper carried a dagger with which to defend her self against assailants, for he had never thought to live in a society where that would be conceived as necessary, especially for a Lady.

Ere the bar closed for the night, Phoenix asked the Determinist if this did not trouble him, for the Determinist was a follower of the Buddha, an eccentric oriental crank and recluse.

And smiling Sir Jeremy explained that they lived in the Latter Day of the Law, that the End Days were upon them, and that the followers of the Buddha would have to adapt to the spirit of the times. And Phoenix thought to ask how this was to be done, in the Determinist’s opinion, if all Life were involuntary? Phoenix demanded that Jeremy admit that this was a confession of the presence of a Will. And Sir Jeremy of Determinus, smiling, simply replied that it might be so, but that this Will could be conceived of in its absence as well as in its presence, and that by either avenue one ought to find Peace.

VIII.         Departure of St Rafael.

Now I have said that the Foul Beast of disfigured Love was produced only in the wake of Phoenix’s invasion. Yet all so I have professed that this Beast consumed the Spick King during the dominion of Michael the Yellow. This conflict of narrative is a paradox even more puzzling to un-riddle. Some have rumoured it that the Beast had lived, if such a fiend could be said to be-Alive, long before the Reign of the Yellow Lord. Others have posited that the Spiders had forebodings of their own down-fall, and the Beast was produced in preparation for this Bitter End. These quandaries and others enshroud the Hate-full monster in mystery, the same veil that enshrouds all monstrous fiends that are not of this World of Time and Space, but wander into it un-beckoned as though they were Kings re-turned to their Wicked Throne from Combat.

Now there was one by the name of Capricorn. And he was the ally of Phoenix in the Academy of the Learned. In the wake of the Scorpion’s treachery, Phoenix found refuge only in these competitors that twisted reality into disparate forms with their voices. And so it befell that, ere their carriage made for home, Phoenix was seated beside Capricorn, the Goat of St. Marcus, and they shared a brotherly sentiment of defiance.

Thus it befell that Capricorn would be disciple to Phoenix, so that the apprentice might learn from the mage how to dis-construct the tenets of feudal buildings. This was all a part of the Water Mage’s enterprise aaimed at the destruction of the Tower of Power, for it was not long ere the Bewildered Wizard divulged by Vision the location whence Eléna was held.

Yet it so came to pass that one evening Phoenix lodged in the home of Capricorn, and this was a lodging of bare adornment and sparse food. And it so happened that Phoenix was to make a bowel movement, but there was no roll of kerchief-parchment available to him, and Phoenix had learnt by then to respect his own bodily vessel, so the mage had to take his leave of Capricorn, advising him to find a sort of confidence for change that the mage could not, for all his magickal guile, convey unto him.

Now it so befell that Rafael, Capricorn, and Phoenix made their way into the North, that they might behold the City of Angels and to take part in a tournament of wills. And it had been arranged that they were to be a team of three, for Phoenix had had Capricorn as his protégé, but during the absences of the Wizard on his quests Rafael took the place of Phoenix as Capricorn’s companion. In truth, Capricorn and Phoenix had never stood beside one an other in conflykt, and this was because despite the ardour with which the mage had pushed for the alliance their Captain was tentative to approve of it. And this tentativity was reciprocated by the Fishermage, whose absence was said to speak more loudly than his presence that season.

Now it so befell that when the Fishermage made a publick invitation to join the team that he had raised the half-Spick Roman Saint consented, but the consent that he gave was a begrudging one, for in private he harboured a resentment for the Fisher-mage by this junction.

And only to add to this sentiment was the sudden publicity of the invitation, for the half-spick of Temecula was so deeply loth to break his secrecy at any juncture.

So the Fishermage was thus twice betrayed by a son of the Scorpion, for though the half-spick had once protested his partnership with Capricorn to Phoenix in the privacy of the roads to Temecula, that was only to serve his earlier purposes. Come the end of the season, the Scorpion had in private retracted his offer to exchange Capricorn for Phoenix, and in place of it he extended his Stingéd Tale.

What tales the half-spick of Temecula had bestowed upon Capricorn the Phoenix of St. Bernard’s Ranch never heard, but the latter began to subtly notice the degression of his friendship with the Goat of St. Marcus. The Fisher-mage’s suspicions were not roused against the half-spick Scorpion, for he was yet in the habit of blaming his self for his own conflicts with other people, except where he knew from direct conflict that he was in the Right. The black art of Gossip was the Fishermage’s Heart so cleansed of that its methods were yet un-known to him, and its consequences had yet to be divulged unto him.

So ultimately it came to pass that, after an arduous day on the eve of the Tournament, the Company of Three were gathered in the abandoned home of the half-spick’s family. In the absence of his family, who had settled in an other home, the two companions had cleaned the floor, as well as the yard, given only stale packaged provisions from the Dungeon to consume, but the Fishermage had a quiet protest.

Ere the Sun set they rode to the new home, inebriated by hunger but timid to protest, and in their carriage the mage produced a song of poetry, devoid both of melody and light, that portended the destruction of the world, and made clear the Scorpion’s dream to devour the Hope that remained dwindling in Man’s Heart. And only then did protest rise to the Fishermage’s throat, but it fell on deaf ears to the Goat and could not penetrate the darkness of the Roman Saint’s domineering heart.

At the lodging of the half-spick’s mother their appetites were spurred by the presence of food that lay upon the kitchen’s mantel bar, but neither of its visitors dared either to ask for it, to demand it, or to pilfer it. And it was not long before Skid, known all so to be the fingerbane, for it was a beast prone to bite, ran to greet them with clawed paws that had terrified the Fisher-mage many nights.

A minor confrontation betwixt Phoenix and the Lady of the Home, whom the former came to call privately the Swamp Priestess, for her eyes were like ghastly mires, had as its resolution that the younger of the two wolf-dogs would ride with them in their carriage, to stay at the Old Home. Only by virtue of the Fisher-mage’s protests was Skid left at home.

The three companions thus shared a vessel with a young dog for company, as well as several of Rafael’s pipes that burnt precariously over an aging spill of syrup that had accumulated in the crevasses beside the seats that had once held water jugs and ale mugs. And the friends ate their sandwiches under the watchful gaze of the beast, as well as its slobbering tongue and frisky young paws. And to add to the strain upon the Fisherwizard's Heart was that the Scorpion had been drinking spirits purchased for him by Capricorn, under illegitimate auspices as a favour and a token to attribute to their Loyalty, a forced kin-ship from whence the eldest of the three friends had been deliberately excluded, even in the depths of his isolation.
And whilst Phoenix would never come to covet so forced a bond, envy and even a filial jealousy still panged his Heart: the all-too-familiar Sting of the Scorpion's debtorous hand.

During their treck there were brief breaths of time whence Capricorn and Piscean were alone long enough to speak plainly and openly.
Storm and stress weighed upon the Fishermage's heart, for he was yet one loth to confess, even to his self, that the Angels that he had glimpsed in the Hearts of Men were not stood watch over as prisoners of Diabolikal Daemons.
Yet in the cold night air of a market sheltered by an open cave reprieve came by conversation with the Goat.
Capricorn spoke plainly and with detachment but not without sympathy. It was divulged that in private Rafael had called the quite malleable Fisher-mage 'dogmatik' and had foregone fealty unto him. The honesty of the information was well come to the Mage's ears, but as they stood before the rows of food, illumined by enchanted white gems and nurtured by winds that traveled by mikroskopic mountain capillaries, Phoenix battled openly with his indignation at the words, and it was with this same indignation, turnt into a weapon, that the Fishermage would go on to wage battle that evening with the half-spick of Temecula.

Back home at the Ølde Dwelling, a fire was stoked and many ales consumed. The mage conjured the voices of many angry and maddened, inebriated poets whose rage boomed through the vacated halls that had been cleaned by his friends to suit his liking. The dog was removed to an other room, as to befit the Fishermage's demands, yet still sleep was unavailable to Phoenix. And so an arduous battle of wills broke out over beer before long, and it was as though a volcanik crater had ruptured to divulge a brewing caldera writhing underneath.

It was thence divulged that the half-spick had called Capricorn 'arrogant' in the same shroud of secrecy that had shielded his intent ere he called Phoenix 'dogmatik'. The words were a sort of magick meant to be punitive towards the friends for their boldness, for he had intended to lead the Weak and not the Strong of Will.
And in spite of this Capricorn, yet not so arrogant as to be unimpressionable, laid bare his suspicions that Phoenix had abandoned him. These suspicions were rationalised by the Half-Spick Roman Saint, and with the passing of the following Moons it became painfully and piteously trans-parent to the Fish of St. Bernard that this same twisted 'reasoning' had been employed to seduce the Goat into the contrived sentiment of loneliness and estrangement that was at that moment given light.

The following day the three were ex-hausted by lack of sleep and fealty. Rafael the half-spick took his leave of the tournament early, refusing to take Phoenix home to St. Diego that the latter might serve as a volunteer at a gathering of younger competitors.
Beg as the Fishermage might, he could not move the Scorpion of Temecula from his stance.
Capricorn did little to help, retaining his polite impartiality.
And then it was that Phoenix last beheld the Goat, a dimly witted ally of Rafael the Third Roman Saint.

That night, having cried his Heart light of woe, Phoenix finally found their Captain, the Shark of Wisconsin. And this was a personage at once gentle and foreboding, for he too was borne under the sign of the Fishes. And never before had he heard this General curse.
Yet this was what bubbled up to the old Learnèd mage's mouth ere Phoenix conveyed unto him news of the Scorpion's leave, for such leave had not been granted. The Shark demanded that he avail the use of Phoenix's messenger bird to find Rafael and to command him promptly to return from his indecorous departure to confront the Wrath of the Wisconsan Shark. The old mage explained that should even so much as one wheel fly from the departed carriage, the Shark would be evicted instantly upon News of this event from the Akademie of the Learnèd. And thus did the Fishermage's eyes widen innocently, harbouring the less innocent secret behind them that Rafael was probably steering the horse drunkenly, and that even the steed was probably inebriated.

IX.               The Long Winter.

Now the departure of the Half-Spick and the conclusion of the Season afforded our hero a long-foregotten solitude and solace that Winter. The family of Dela Mancha made to visit their Mother Land on the Asiatic continent, and thus their eldest son was left in the charge of the house.

And so a somber but joyous fortnight past in isolation for Phoenix Dela Mancha of St. Bernardo.

And his solitary companion was Squash, the Pekingese dog, most noble of a race bred for imperial domain, named so for the pale bronze hue of its regal hair.

Many games were played with Squash, and many adventures of the mind taken through portals in to an untarnished childhood. And ere night fell the quests were interrupted that the mage might employ the inspiration gleaned from the games to aide in the composition of ornate and unprecedented works of Musical Magick.

So the Fishermage came to love his solitude, yet the weight of time still grew upon his Heart, for he knew not yet if he would manage the sort of recovery that he needed within so short a time. The longer that the holiday seemed to stretch before him, the greater the risk, he knew, of complacency setting in and the end of the season bringing heartache and turmoil once more.

So it came to pass that upon the sixth day of his family’s absence, upon the first day of a new week, Phoenix paid visit again to O’Harlot’s Brewery. And there dwelt one Antonius of Aquarius, who had come from the border of the provinces of Capricorn and Aquarius.

And he greeted the Fisher-mage as an olde friende, commending Phoenix for what both men perceived to be a fresh fountain of aura flowing from his breast, a deep cerulean blue in hue.

Now there was one Saint Lucas who frequented this alehouse, and he was the youngest regular patron.

And he was called the Saint for he possessed a moral knowledge that surpast even the wisdom of the olde warriors.

Lucas had engaged Phoenix in friendly dispute once regarding matters of the utmost religious seriousness: the distinction of sex and gender.

And for all the Fishermage’s guile, his clever research, and his adamant Learnéd skills in persuasion, to speak naught of the vintner’s spirits that had leant Phoenix his charisma, the Young Saint was of such surpassing charm and balance, so well-informéd in the most recent of news from the most Learnéd Authorities, that the Fishermage simply sat in awe of this precocious adolescent, a youth bold as a seasoned warrior or warlock, yet humble by virtue of the fact that his knowledge was ubiquitous and thus not, by his reckoning, in his own solitary possession.

And of course Saint Lucas was of a common order to the late King Michael that once had been the proprietor of these Halls, for both men had been borne into the House of the Scales. And as renowned was the balanced fortitude of the Yellow King, so did this young Saint share in the dignity and renown.

Now there was one Shelby of the Powegians. And she too was of the House of the Scales, yet her charm was a world removed.

When the Fishermage first made Shelby’s acquaintenance, she wore about her neck a mystikal stone, the better to aide her in channeling the spirits* that past through her corporeal Being in this tavern.

And this corporeal Being was of a very plentiful, poised, and promising sort. So it befell that she befriended the Fishermage, and he was taught by her the game of pool. And thus had the past season, even in Eléna’s absence, not past entirely in loneliness, nor in paranoia.

*See the Appendix.

Yet this eve in Winter found phoenix sitting at the front corner of the tavern bar, a single seat segregating him from the Maple Saint. And towards them approached Shelby of Poway, poised but not untroubled, for her face was coloured by a treachery made possible by frivolity. At first the Fishermage did not recognise her, except by her scent and charm, for her hair had been tuct neatly back from the plait she had worne when first he beheld her moons ago, and eyeglasses rested upon her timid yet childishly unapologetic nose.

Greeting the Fishermage, she swiftly took the seat betwixt him and Lucas. And it was not long before the maiden was engrossed in dialogue with the Young Sainnt, who had all ways harboured an eye for her, and his face was smug if not apologetic.

Ere night turnt to mid-night Phoenix found Antonius again.

The seasoned artist sat at a table beside the front gate, rolling silverware in dinner cloths.

The young mage asked him why he could never make such music as to appeal to the crowd. And the wizened player simply eyed the young mage with coy significance, whispering that he would part with such advice as he had held upon his tongue, ostensibly for long, but only with the asker’s permission.

Phoenix gave this consent, and Antonius explained:

That the human mind was divided into two sects, called the hemi-spheres, and the one of these two governed the Reason ere the other took care of the Passions.

And of course the young mage was familiar with this yogik and psykologikal dichotomy, citing the concept of ‘emotional intelligence’.

And at those words the old player’s eyes were grim and soft, ere he professed that ‘emotion’ and ‘intelligence’ doth not belong to a common sentence.

And so Phoenix learnt that night that he had developed the habit of commissioning his Passion only to serve his Reason.

Yet what the Aquarian offered him now was a release from this monarchical bondage. Though the Reason knew that the body was to be a demo-cratic entity, it had grown hypocritical by excessive exposure to other hypo-crites, who had fashioned it in the image of their own hypocritical and monarchical Reason. And it was only by avenue of this political corruption of the mind that the destructive seedlings of the manipulators could find refuge in the Innocent Mage’s Heart, and there sprout into devouring briar that, as an ancient Oriental poet attests, strangles the other faculties as briar strangles flower.

Phoenix Dela Mancha of Saint Bernard’s Ranch was thus re-borne.

X.                 The Return of Antonio.

Dm.A.A.