Subject: Re: IC: Wolves Glen Pub From: Jeff Huo In article <20010716175910.02623.00000411@nso-cn.aol.com>, malada2@aol.com says... > Jeff Huo writes: > > >" Likely, however to be a few centuries > >before Global Warming returns itself to > >normal, and thank heavens it wasn't worse > >than it has ended up to be!" Alex notes. > > Pearl rubs her temples. "Well at least you got > it before it ran away." "Through no particular credit to our own," Alex replies. "The Concordat had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing..." "And like so much in Britain's history, that too was Mara's doing." Alex sits up, leans forward, as she talks: "You say that in your world New England *did* rebel against the Crown; same with Cordelia's world. I don't know the details of either, but I know in my world hot-heads on both sides were itching for war, and that only Mara's authority managed to hammer out a solution which, in retrospect, seems obvious..." "At multiple points in our history, when emotions ran high and the worse parts of our nature threatened to lead us down the wrong road, Chancellor Mara stepped in to set us right. It would take a Deux Ex Machina for a nation to keep making the right decisions for almost one-thousand years. It would take a miracle --and Mara was and is it. She has been our conscience, our guide, our muse and our minder. Any casual student of history --any scholar for that matter-- would instantly pin her down as how the British Concordat has prevailed where no other dynasty or empire has lasted even half as long..." "It was Mara who swung the decision of the Concordat to come to the aid of the Cherokee, when many were more than willing to overlook the treaty violations for the gold the Cherokee lands harbored...it was Mara who made the Concordat draw a line in the sand regarding demanding an end to Slavery...it was Mara who created the Concordat all-together --created the Inci--" she indicates the stone octagonal badge she wears on her breast, and to which her right hand has grasped the entire time she has talked-- "that are as much a foundation of our nation as the laws that defined it!" "I have said before there is no magick in our world; but that does not mean there are things that science cannot explain. Among those things is Mara, our Chancellor, and the Mother of our nation..." "She first appeared over a thousand years ago. Aethelwulf, father of Alfred the Great, first king of Britain, stood with his war-band against a host of Viking raiders, covering the retreat of a band of villagers. Aethelwulf and his men fought bravely and well, but in the end they were vastly outnumbered and overwhelmed, and soon Aethelwulf was the last of his men standing. As the surviving Vikings steeled themselves for the final charge, Aethelwulf cried out for a miracle..." "And Mara answered him." "The Chronicles record that this was when Mara first appeared into our world. Mara, who could run faster than the stag and fly like the eagles; who could lift a thousand stone and shrug off sword and spear like her skin was made of iron. No fire could burn her, no chain hold her...her beauty was like something from legend, her skill at arms even more so. She appeared from nowhere onto the field of battle and when the sun set, Aethelwulf and her were the only living warriors left standing." "Aethelwulf tried at first to worship Mara as an angel sent by God to deliver him, but she firmly corrected him. She was no angel, she said firmly; merely a warrior from another place and time with much to answer for, and a heavy pennance to pay; from that, comes one of her titles, 'Lady of Sorrows.' " "But what that pennace was or where she was from she did not tell, nor has she in the thousand years hence. Not even what she was, for certainly she was not mortal human or of our world. Modern science is no closer to unlocking her secrets than long before --she has willingly submitted to x-rays, CT, MRI, BEFS, nothing ever reveals a thing. I've read a review article where they even stuck scopes up and down her passages, and nothing distinguishing came up --well, except that the lining of her GI tract could break the sharpest blade. But I get far ahead of myself..." "She became Aethelwulf's most trusted counselor. When Aethelwulf had a son, Alfred, she became Alfred's tutor and teacher. It was by her tutelege that Alfred became a learned scholar of the arts of scholarship, the dances of diplomacy and the crafts of war. Alfred took his father's kingdom and led it to victory after victory --helped in no small part by Mara's invincible strength, certainly. Alfred too introduced many reforms to his kingdom --equitable land distribution, trial by jury, crop rotation, public hygiene just to name a few-- wisdom from the fallen Roman Empire and other places that no doubt was of Mara's suggestion. She was Merlin to Alfred's Arthur, Gandalf to his Strider." "Under his rule and her guidance England prospered. When Alfred allied with Wales to throw off the Danes at Edington and gave birth to the United Kingdom, certainly Mara's hand was in the Magna Carta that founded it. When Alfred the Great made his glorious last charge at Tettenhall and his son Edward became the first elected High King, certianly Mara was there behind him. From Clontarf to Hastings, from Antioch to Constantinople, from the siege of Jeruselem to Yorktown and Waterloo, Mara was there. Cannonballs, Greek Fire, machine guns, even the Day of Infamy when the French dropped a nuclear bomb on the peace conference at Dresden only a thousand paces from her, nothing could harm her." "One of the great unspoken fears of our nation is the question of what will happen to us beyond the terrible day Chancellor Mara is no longer with us...will the Concordat long survive her? Certainly she has tried to do much to ensure that it can and does, but still..." "Are we worthy to rule the world on our own?" Alex pauses, staring somewhere far away. "Julia had mused that her world was entering Winter...my Britain is undoubtedly in it's High Summer." "But all Summers come to an end, do they not?" > -Pearl -Alex -- Jeff Huo | jeff@spundreams.net.nospam (remove nospam) U. Michigan Med | http://www.spundreams.net/~jeff New to the group? Welcome! Please visit http://www.pepin.demon.co.uk/wolves/ IC Character sheets at http://www.spundreams.net/~jeff/wgpatum.html