Variations on a familiar theme...

Steven

A mad cackling is heard above.....

Which is quickly followed by a blast of lightning that barely misses me, causing my hair to stand on end!

Battle comes and goes almost before I can do anything about it!

True, by needs I must drop the girl I had just caught in midair, unceremoniously dumping her to the ground (where I hope she'll be safe enough, if bruised). But while perhaps some may consider that impolite, the act of me dropping an unconscious woman to the ground, let the fool say it to my face! Neither I nor any other Gunslinger ever grow to old age by being lax on our guard. Indeed, the possibility that the lass falling from the skies might have been a ruse of some type while would be assassins wreck havoc or perhaps not, but whatever the case it's easier to apologize afterwards to the living while one is alive!

My revolver clears leather as I hear the crack of gunfire (some from revolvers and some are barks from quickshooters on "single shot" to the left and right of me) and some the swish of spell bolts, a cipher out later. Then.....silence as I pivot and fire up at the target over our heads! I see the flash of gunfire as my shot flies up and hits the falling, smoldering figure in the throat, severing the head from the neck in the process (and ending all messages still being sent from the head to the rest of the body). I find it ghastly, in reflection, that the thing that had been so grievously wounded should still be able to move....

No matter. My and several others (most notably that from the elder Roland and his friend) drill several dozen bullets into the still grimacing head (still trying to spell out some kind of magickal curse, no doubt), ending it. Overhead a....tear in reality slams close, cutting off a view to yet another world (this one in it's fall season, I wont) rather loudly, according to those outside this eldritch cone of silence. Later, I shall learn that the silence is due to a spell thrown by the one "Draconian" known as Kang. He had done that with the idea being that a magic user, which uses magical gestures and words to cast spells, wouldn't be half as effective while mute. Sound enough practice on his world, I wont, but unfortunately the target was proficient in the use of spells with no somatic components! Well a day, the other magi about, along with the dozens upon dozens of bullets (some honest lead....some made of some kind of arcane silver alloy called "Dragon's Bane") was enough to destroy this necromancer!

With what I can only guess is a vile curse, Jarlath makes a mystical gesture and the sounds flow back. With another one, the corpse begins to burn with a very intense, but localized blaze.

Hmm, they say that ghosts are tied to the world through their old bones. Spirits can linger if not properly given due burial.....or at least proper disposal. Incineration may be just the thing called for here.

"Even necromancers don't come back when their earthly links are destroyed," he mutters, seeming to confirm what I had just remembered, "Just hope....ah, there it is!"

A shouted phrase, and a slightly glowing (and somehow malignant seeming) ruby shatters where it lays next to the now burning body.

"What the Hell was that?!" the one known as Eddie Dean asks pointing at the enraged spirit that wafts up from the shattered gem....and then disappears. The gun smoke, I see, hasn't had time even to dissipate, for it is still wafting up from the revolver that......looks VERY familiar!

What in the name of the Gaurdians of the Beam is that man doing with my.....

I blink, looking down at my own revolvers (the ones I shall soon be handing over to my son), then over at Roland the elder....and the revolvers (one old and one new) he carries.

Duplicate Rolands, I wont, means duplicate revolvers and all that.

Will have to ask, politely, sometime just why he has chosen to give one of his revolvers to that had been handed down through the generations instead of to his son (either his adopted one or the one that is yet to be born) to Eddie.

Right now, I hope to get a few things "sorted out" before it becomes even more tangled!

There is much to untangle, you see. I have a boon to ask of either Jarlath or Andrea. I have a boon to ask of the Draconians (who have a magical mirror that may shed some truth on a murky situation). That and I will know just WHY the girl I had caught in my arms (who's only indication of an odd nature is some kind of gem in her forehead)....is now some kind of white....horse?.....with a golden horn on her head!

Took some doing, but finally we are able to get something together.

Moments later, inside Castle Deschain....

I glance over at Annafrid, who's looking at a black and white "fotergraf" (I think she called it) that some Old One who had accidently taken when her group had come through that Door. If nothing else, it is striking.

http://terraprimedatabase.com/Pictures/Arsk3.jpg

1. "Now, first what is a unicorn?" I finally find myself asking Jarlath (despite myself), looking over the table at Jarlath and the still dazed "Hannah" (who's back in "human form").