Kthaahthikha

XII - 0000

I raised my musket to my shoulder, sighted, and fired. The crack of the discharge sent the deer's head flicking in surprise even as the ball shattered its spine.

I examined the carcass, and brought it back down to the lack to butcher it. It was my hope to attract the catfish by throwing remnants and offal into the water, and so I set to work skinning the deer with my jack-knife. It was a young buck, of one of those species that hover on the border of being antelopes. It had two minute horns that I had to wonder at the purpose of, and the pelt went I lay it out was extremely thin and delicate. I regretted having no means of tanning it.

Having completed the skinning, I removed the innards, and these I threw into the water. I could see the swirl of the creature moving beneath the surface, and faced that I saw another set of ripples cutting across from the far side of the lake.

Unfortunately, I was unable to tease any of the creatures back to a surface exposition, and so comforted myself by building a fire and organising a spit. I roasted the deer slowly over the flames, burning the outer flesh but consoling myself with the knowledge that the inner layers would be delicious. I dined on venison and a small quanity of wild blackberries that I found nearby.

The sun began to fall, as is its want, and I lay beneath my lean-to, on the shore of the lake, watched as the star burnt away in clouds of gold and purple vapours. The moon began its way up out of the horizon, following the course of the shadows that had heralded it, and the sky turned to a cool purple shot through by golden pin-pricks. I lay beneath the frosty light of the hemisphere and looked out across the lake, watching the stars reflecting in its preternatural surface. An unusual reflection, the colours changed, the water somehow more beautiful and real than the sky above it.

I began to feel myself drifting away, and amused myself with fancies about the city. I imagined, lying there, that the walls and towers of some great baroque castle stood amongst the trees swaying on the thither bank, and that music drifted to my ears in acompaniment to the rich odours of a thousand thickly-seasoned feasts. Windows shone down upon the lake in large, segmented rectangles, and boats set-out upon the water bearing shimmering beauties on pleasure-rides whilst bards strummed delicately upon lyres and guitars. The catfish, emerging from the waters, drifting about the boats, seemingly lulled by the beauty of the music.

Images of Spain and Germany and the Far east, all of these flooded my mind as I gave sway to imagination. Men and women with almond eyes and cinamon skin, who dressed in the English fashions of a century ago. And what of Mu? Of this I dared not delve. But I painted images of gay promenades and fireworks loosed to explode with the clash of cymbals and drums.

I thought, perhaps, that a boat drew up upon the shore, and it was only as I observed the hand extended to accept my own that I realised that what I saw was not fantasy, but real, and before my very eyes.

The woman had deep brown eyes, and creamy skin pale and beautiful. She seemed, almost, to clow with an inner radiance, although depending upon how I looked at her she seemed to shift to absolute solidity, until she fell into the background further than any ordianry person might. It seemed that she shifted constantly between aethereality and hyper-realism, and the whether or wither depended in whole part upon the on-looker.

She said something, in what sounded like a french Patois. I could not understand, but replied in Parisien.

'Ah, welcome,' she said, as I rose and bowed before her. She was dressed entirely in pearl-grey Regency attire, and her accent was perfect to my foreign ear. 'My name is Clothilde Delacroix. What brings you to Ville du Lac Bleu?'

'My name is Charles Eriksson,' I replied. 'I am not entirely certain what brought me here, save it be curiosity and chance.'

Clothilde smiled.

'The greater number of things in life can be attributed to curiosity and chance,' she said. 'Come, we shall go to the city. You may accompany me in my boat.'

I followed her - she led me by the hand - and we climbed aboard the small white boat as it drifted, unaided, across the waters.

'What propels this?' I asked, amazed.

'I am not certain,' she replied, 'but then, there are many magics about this place of which I am ill-informed. best to ask Maldino, for he is well-versed in such subjects due to his lengthy stay herein.'

'And whom might this Maldino be?' I asked. I imagined at once the lord who resided over this castle, and thoughts of ghosts once more flooded my mind. I felt it impolite to directly ask, although I had a burning urge to do so.

'Maldino, it was he who built this place,' she said, 'or at the least constructed the first of the many buildings to go into its current make-up. He did not erect the walls, not the palace, but rather the small keep that was the foundation of it all'.

What's this cheesey smell emenating fromthe mauscript? Most queer.