Part I Missings and Memories

Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things that are decisive. ~Mao Zedong

Where one door closes, a window opens. Isn't that what is said" Now, perhaps, whoever said this was not speaking strictly of losing what was becoming a futile obsession for another long since passed, but in this case, it might just work, and work well.

Sun knew the "Father" had returned to Rhy'Din, she felt that much. But, she had yet to encounter him, and Gem was becoming increasingly slippery; the female wasn't stupid. Though, of course, this usually just made the game all the sweeter. Still, she had just about all the trophies one could gather that didn't involve body parts or fluids, and unless things changed drastically in the very near future it seemed the time had come to bid temporary adieu to this little corner of Neurotics Row.

Trinkets and treasures gathered about her while she slept in the day " like some gaudy burial shrine " strewn across the four-poster in her tower room, something caused lifeless lids to flutter before the sun had even dipped from its zenith. With effort she pried her eyes open, scanning the dark enshrouded room and lying there like a lump while she listened for whatever had pulled her from the death sleep. It had to be important, in these hours she was literally dead to the worlds.

Lethargically she shifted up to brace against pillows and headboard, pretty much still in near coma-like state seeking the source for what had roused her. It wasn't Family related; she'd have been up and out already if it was. Daylight be damned! But no, all threads for those she held near and dear seemed intact and undisturbed; status quo as they'd been for weeks upon weeks now.

Worry darkened her brow; sharp nails making crescent moons on snow-white palms as teeth nipped at the corner of blood red lips. It was too quiet these days, here and at the manse. Even in the sunlit hours, slumber came hard. Oh, it still came, but not without a struggle akin to those who do dream with sleep. Perhaps" perhaps she should begin a search, check on those links personally' Just as soon?

Fighting the losing battle to remain conscious, a single thought filtered through the haze - precise, clear, lucid - just before she succumbed to the darkness.

The shifting sands of the high desert. Scetis.

Part III Following the bread crumbs"

Within the confines of the Nether, time runs oddly. Still, it didn't seem long before Sun stumbled into a pile of memories that were connected to the life she was looking for. Throwing wide trunks and boxes, baskets and bric-a-brac falling by the wayside, she spied an ornate dresser off to the left. "Ah ha!" Rushing over she tossed aside clothing and material from off its top, her smile wide at what lay beneath. "There ye be!"

It was the size of a small chest, about seventeen inches tall and just a bit more than that wide. Carved in Gothic-fashion, it was not as old but a remaking of that style. A retro piece she'd fallen in love with when she'd come across it at some open-air market sometime near the beginning of the last century. It was a jewelry chest made to resemble an ancient building, replete with jointed arches and the requisite gargoyles. Though she always did favor the architecture, this was not what had caught her fancy on this particular object.

Reaching behind the chest, she flicked a mechanism and the strains of the tune she'd been humming played forth even as a maiden came out from the right side of the building followed shortly by a robed skeleton wielding a scythe. Both figures stood upon a circular track that ran around the structure as the music played, out one side and into the other. And standing there, hands on the dresser watching the scene, something clicked inside her mind. This was playing in her head before she was awakened by the sound of her own scream this night, but why"

For a moment more she listened to the tune, humming along, then gently opened the spired lid. Moving partitions and drawers about, she was about to give up when lying in the bottom-most tier she discovered a small rectangle of paper. Picking it up and turning it over, Sun gazed into her past. A life lived in Montparnasse, a bohemian artist community of Paris on the left bank of the Seine, counterpart to Montmartre on the right.

It had been in the decade of what came to be known as the "Roaring Twenties" that Sun, having lived the last century and a half as male due to influence afforded the gender and more years allotted the male form in aging to add to the span of one of Sun's lives, abruptly left her last life and travelled to the City of Lights. There, caught up in the decadence that permeated the Ann"es Folles (the Crazy Years), she became an artist's model, and a photographer in her own right.

The sepia-toned print brought back a flood of memories as she turned it over and over again. Geishas in the drizzle of a Paris night.

Sitting there, ruminating on the picture in a fog of near-forgotten memories, once more the wheels of her mind began to turn. The picture back to its safe place, jewelry chest turned off, bare feet moved her through the ankle swirling mists deeper into the Nether and more lost lives.

It was the Meiji Era of Japan, a period when that country made a grand leap in economic structure and production to become a world power in a small matter of forty-five years. Sun, then living life as a man, came to that beautiful, mystical isle as a o-yatoi gaikokujin, a "hired foreigner" in the specialist field of Natural Sciences. For a short moment in an already expansive list of lives, she remained in the enchanted country a dozen years until the last one of the nineteenth century.

Kneeling beside a large trunk, she took a deep, unneeded breath and opened it. The scents of over a century past assailed heightened senses, her face coming down to bury itself into the fine silk of exquisite kimonos. A single word "Mineko," breathed out into the stillness of her Nether with the raising of her head.

Mineko. Crimson haze was wiped from her eyes, a delicate hand running the surface of the embroidered fabric in loving gesture. Mineko had been geisha, and the male guise of Sun her danna, Mineko's patron who supported the geisha's lavish expenses and lifestyle. Mineko had been her sanctuary, her rock in the chaos of storms. But, why was she here, now"

Down and down she dug into the large trunk, talon-like nails scraping, finally, against something. Fingers curled about it and brought it from the sea of colorful fabric. A parasol. Handpainted with traditional red dragons, the slide was pushed up and an object fell into her lap.

What was all this leading to' Eyes of ash looked over the ancient silver hair ornament, holding it up to the strange, weak light that filtered through the mists. She knew this! And, with a quiet reverence she closed Mineko's trunk, sprinting off further into the depths of lives long gone.

Stumbling over a stack of papers, she fell in front of the very box she was seeking. Marked with the Celtic knotwork of twin, interlaced horses, it matched the hair ornament from the parasol. It felt so close, this mystery's solution. One great wrench and the top was off the box to be tossed by the wayside. Atop a bed of packing straw lay a bundle of rough, brown fabric tied with a hempen cord.

A monk's robe. Old and decaying, the cloth disintegrated in places as she unwrapped it. A time near the beginning. A time of bloodletting and rage. Inside the bundle, wrapped carefully like some great secret, a miniature replica of a jewel-hilted sword.

Sword of the Dracolich.