An Encounter with the Elder

January 4, 1603, W. Raleigh The queen is dying. I am once more called to serve... Nay, not to serve. To call my endeavour such would demean she who is the sky and stars of all England. I have a quest and, on its outcome, lies nothing less than the fate of our most sublime monarch, Elizabeth. Even as my pen mars this page, she withers Abandoned by the craven who called himself her husband. Oberon fled into the night like a thief. He left her naught but a trinket by her bedside. Bereft of Oberon, our queen wanes. Should he not return… It is beyond contemplation. I will find the Blaggard and bring him back, bound in chains and dragged by the keel if I must. She must be saved, elsewise England may be lost. Still, despite all, I cannot deny the exultation I feel with every sea-stained breath that fills my breast. The Ark Royal is mine once more. A Fae merchant, lately of Troy Town, informed us that the Summer Court has traversed the sea of Ahdyr not more than a few days prior. The gate is before us, and a stiff breeze alights on our backs. I will not fail.

February (smudged and unreadable), 1603 The bosun abandoned us last night. His post was found unmanned this morn, and the myriad stars scurried from the dawning sky above. Their dizzying patterns fading as the blazing maw of the sun took ascendance. He is the seventh this fortnight. With his departure, a full half of the crew has taken flight of our quest. Our passage should have been swifter than this. Did the Fae Merchant play us false? To what end? Though they share a semblance of our form, their ends are ever-shrouded to all but the mad. I expected losses. But abandonment by those pledging allegiance to the Redcrosse brotherhood, unthinkable. Still, it is best they are gone. Their weakness would doom us… Doom…her. What was her name? The woman with the hair of red? The sea fills the eye from horizon to horizon. It enfolds us. Its currents cradle us, carrying us onward. Her waves fill my ears. At times I would swear to Her winds carrying the barest whisper of my name. I would sail Her forever if I could. She is the skies and sun and the stars. She will carry me to…the consort… What was his name? It matters not.

My eyes have been opened! The stars are Her eyes. The wind Her breath. The currents the flow of Her very lifeblood. I hear her now. Not whispers, no, we are beyond such things. She has revealed, and I have followed. I have purged the unwilling, and She is pleased. Every one of Her eyes turns to me. I see them now in the sky, in the churning, everchanging lines of her face. The primal chaos of Her form moves me beyond love and terror infinitely in excess of the mortal perception to bear. My eyes burn from the sight. She is the Mother. From her spring the Undine, the Mer and the Siren. She is all things here, all beginnings and all ends. And God dies upon Her whim. We are seven now. The perfect number, the most magickal. We will obey. We will serve. But first we must be made ready. Our eyes will impede us for they only show us lies. Our ears will deceive us, so they must be rent away. Let the summer fools keep their petty prince. I serve that which renders him a nursing babe. All glory to Mother Ahdyr!