A Time of Congresses and Reflections (Part II)

The New Eggenberg Palace, the City of Graz, the Crownland of Styria, the Empire of Austria, 1814.

The Fürstin Marie Luise von Eggenberg, sat quietly alone, in a private drawing room adjoining the palace's main hall, lounging on a reclining sofa with small glass of hot fruit punch in her hands. She had felt the need to take a few moments to compose herself after several hours of playing the role of the party's primary hostess before rejoining the fray. While the role of soldier and administrator came to her by a combination of inner nature, ability and inclination, the role of dedicated socialite did not. Marie Luise, all too often found the intensive and often superficial social interactions that aristocratic society demanded of her exhausting, frustrating and not infrequently boring in the extreme.

She tried to ease her stiff shoulders and neck, no easy task within the confines of her generalfeldmarschall's uniform and long red skirt hemmed with stiff gold wavy pattern lace decorated with trefoils of oak leaves. The same pattern of lace decorated both the high collar and deep cuffs and turn backs of her coat, all of which were the same snarling red as her skirt. She set aside her glass cup of punch and tried again, raising her arms above and behind her head and slowly rolling her shoulders to work the kinks out, once again with indifferent success.

The heavy, lacy cuffed and high collared shirt with it's close fitting black stock and heavy red velvet waistcoat with it's heavy gold braid, she wore beneath her white general officer's coat hardly helped. Nor for that matter did, the considerable collection of foreign and Austrian orders of chivalry, military decorations and medals and sashes that adorned her chest. She had received a virtual deluge of those following the Coalition's victories in the final campaign in France and the outbreak of genuine peace in 1814, following the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

She had also received with said tokens of commendation by various monarchs a great many annuities, pensions and assorted and valuable spoils of war, which she accepted with some personal misgivings: as a consequence of her arduous twenty years of military service in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and her own vigorous often desperate part in the recent battles of 1813 and 1814. Marie Luise was of mixed opinions about this sudden and to her mind excessive largesse from her own sovereign though less so from the other heads of states of the Sixth Coalition. Although the combined monies were welcome in rebuilding her badly depleted personal privy purse and the exchequer of her feudal estates, Marie Luise, felt very wary all the same. Particularly because it was so unexpected: Kaiser Franz I of Austria was normally one of the most parsimonious monarch's who ever sat on any throne and never went out of his way to praise or reward anyone unless he thought he would gain something personally, dynastically or politically by it.

Marie Luise, felt sure the Kaiser's actions in this regard, were meant as a bribe to retain her loyalty, a crudely material one admittedly, he was usually more subtle then this in his dealings with her. Kaiser Franz was probably concerned that he would loose considerable face with his military officers, the Hofkriegsrat and just as importantly from his perspective, his fellow monarchs if he acted with less publicly visible generosity then they were showing her. Marie Luise, reclaimed her cup of punch and sipped it thoughtfully. Marie Luise, was at this moment just as glad that she had chosen to retire - in triumph this time rather then disgrace - to her estates, their and their inhabitants prosperity and the rearing and education of her four year old son, Ferdinand Ulrich, was the sum total of her current and future hopes and aspirations.

Marie Luise pulled absently at her long, almost silvery white hair, faint streaks of her formerly blond hair were just visible. This was most outwardly visible "memento mori" of her "death" at the battle of Leipzig, aside from the phosphorescent green tinge that still coloured her eyes, nearly a year previously. Violent headaches, muscle spasms and nerve storms, which caused her to suffer alternating bouts of either wild, alarmingly maniacal energy or deep melancholic lethargy plagued her. There were of course the other chronic aches and pains that nearly twenty years of active military service had inflicted upon her in the form of assorted illness, various wounds not all of them minor and the physical, mental and emotional exhaustion that was part and parcel of active combat duties. Sometimes, Marie Luise, wondered if the desperate intervention effected by Graf Sonder and Eisen, that had lead to her rebirth, reanimation, whatever one wanted to call it, had been worth it.

Marie Luise's immediately imagined Sonder's and Eisen's reaction to that sour but understandable thought. Sonder would have promptly told her to not be such a confirmed pessimist even if she was an Austrian! She chuckled despite herself at that mental imagine. Eisen would have given her one of his silent, searing gazes and probably cuffed her head over ears to try knock some sense into her. Certainly Ferdinand Ulrich, her beloved son and her family's retainers, feudal subjects and many friends and relations that had supported her through thick and thin, had been relieved by her unexpected and unlooked for survival in the circumstances. the muffled sound of music and the heavy murmur of numerous simultaneous conversations penetrated the closed door to the drawing room, bringing her mind back to her present surroundings.

The Great Hall, at this moment was crowded with what seemed like the better part of an infantry battalion's worth of military officers, officials and dignitaries from the more then a dozen member states of the Sixth Coalition. In truth, the party she was hosting for the evening, in her new suburban palace in the city of Graz was not really that large by the standards of such things, being only several hundred people all told, certainly not a very large affair by the grand and ostentatious standards of Vienna and the gigantic and imposing Imperial palaces of Schönbrunn and the Hofburg. it just seemed that way, given the considerable noise and genuine gaeity of her many guests, Marie Luise reflected wryly.

Nor was this particularly surprising, given the soothing prospects of an evening where the primary features were nothing higher then good music, good company and good food and drink. Which in and of itself was a welcome change from the overheated, often highly tense political parties, meetings and soirees that many of her guests were accustomed to for the past weeks. Quite frankly, Marie Luise was quite happy not to be involved other then very peripherally in the matters of high international politics and national agendas that had dominated Vienna and the other great capitals of Europe, since Napoleon had been defeated by the Sixth Coalition and subsequently agreed to go into permanent exile on the Island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Archdukes Karl and Johann, as had many of her extended family, friends and relations, had kept her abreast of political and military developments within the Congress. The military campaigns of 1812, 1813 and 1814 plus her hard earned feldmarschall's baton had successfully rehabilitated her in eyes and good esteem of the Austrian Empire's people if not Kaiser Franz's, so she had a fair idea of how things stood between the various nations of Europe.

Kaiser Franz's feud with her continued unabated though rather less publicly then previously and her enemies in the Imperial Court now treated her with greater circumspection then they had previously. Both had nearly driven her to suicidal despair in 1810 and 1813. Kaiser Franz, especially when he had curtly informed her in a private meeting before the battle of Leipzig, that he would never allow her to marry her beloved Karl. That unexpected although not surprisingly vindictive blow had nearly killed her there and then. Both, she and Karl had quietly entertained hopes of a morganatic marriage up to that moment as her military and political reputation was once again on the rise.

That Marie Luise had unexpectedly "survived" being mortally wound at Leipzig trying to stop Napoleon and the Grande Armee's escape from Leipzig had threatened to derail Kaiser Franz's plans in that regard. Franz I being Franz I though, was patient and cunning and arranged Karl's marriage to a princess of the Grand Ducal House of Nassau. This had devastated both of them, particularly as there was little they could do about it without storing up still more still trouble for themselves both politically and socially.

A wicked smile touched Marie Luise's lips, the Kaiser had spectacularly overplayed his hand in the matter however. He had not reckoned on the personality and character of Princess Henrietta von Nassau-Weilberg. Henrietta had not only fallen thorough in love with her new betrothed but had a spirited mind of her own, refusing to Kaiser Franz's face to convert from her protestant faith to Roman Catholicism as he had blithely assumed. Both Marie Luise and Karl had both been raised to be good Roman Catholics without thinking too much about it but both were largely devoid of any deep rooted religious bigotry and dogmatism which marked them both out as something atypical amoung Christians, given the frequent and often bitter sectarian conflicts that had marked previous centuries.

Henrietta being barely seventeen, her actual marriage to Karl had been deferred until sometime in 1815, had looked to the more experienced and worldly Marie Luise as a friend, confidante and guide. Which had astonished Marie Luise, especially since Henrietta was well aware that she and Karl shared a long romantic and physical relationship. Marie Luise had discovered that this was due to the intervention of two people. Johann, who was determined to throw as many spanners into his elder brother's intrigues against her as he could and her childhood friend Natalie, who had been unexpectedly appointed as Henrietta's chief lady-in-waiting.

There was also Henrietta herself, she had a warm heart and real integrity allied to an iron will all her own. Further Henrietta was the product of a small provincial German principality court, that of the Grand Duchy of Nassau and it's integral semi-independent duchies and principalities, and despite her youth, she well understood the intense and vicious game of intrigue, gossip mongering and innuendo that reigned, within the administration and courtiers, of such places. The basic rules of the great game of intrigues and feuds that went on in the Imperial Court, were in and of themselves no surprise to her, only their scope and consequences and players were unfamiliar. With Karl, Johann and Natalie's help and guidance though she was rapidly learning how to deal with her unexpected transition from that a minor German States princess to that of Imperial and Royal Archduchess and she was even spreading her wings in her own right.

At her invitation, Karl, Henrietta, Johann and Natalie were amoung tonight's guests of honour as were others of her inner circle of friends, family and acquaintances and numerous military and political luminaries. Another sip of the punch followed and Marie Luise's thoughts turned down other channels unbidden. While it was usual for a man's mistress: former mistress in her case, to have an adversarial or at least severely strained relationship especially in the case with a husband who happened to have a young and inexperienced wife, Henrietta and Marie Luise were developing a shy, very cordial friendship which did not cease to surprise Marie Luise the more she thought of it. This development had been another surprise development and an unpleasant one at that, as far as Kaiser Franz and the Imperial Court in Vienna had been concerned.

Marie Luise took another slow sip of her punch, as her thoughts again turned down other avenues. Finding she had drained the small cup, she reached for the bottle of punch, resting in a charcoal heater beside her couch and refilled it.

Marie Luise admitted that she was troubled by current events in France now once again under the rule of the Royal House of Bourbon. King Louis XVIII seemed determined to rule France as his ancestors had done in the past, though to his credit he was prepared to accept some constitutional limitations - in the form of the Royal Charter of 1814 - upon the very real autocratic royal authority he wielded. Marie Luise was skeptical that the old style absolutism that the great dynasties of Europe had long been accustomed to wielding was now possible. Particularly in light of the drastic social, economic and political changes that had happened within much of France and that Europe itself had undergone via the trials of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Marie Luise sighed softly aloud to herself, there would be another insurrection or revolution in a few years time within France, if Louis and his Heir presumptive, the Comte d'Artois, the self-styled leader of the French ultra-royalists and ultra-conservatives were not careful. Unfortunately the Bourbons had a well established reputation of forgetting nothing and forgiving nothing. Having actually met Charles de Bourbon, who personified this expression, a number of times during his long exile in the foreign capitals of Europe and again during the first days of the Bourbon Restoration in Paris.

Given the negative opinion she had gradually formed of Charles's moral character: he didn't have one, being a shameless philanderer and coward, he had been the first member of the Royal Family or Aristocracy to flee from France for his own personal safety when the revolution had broken out, general ability: he was incompetent in both military affairs and his own personal financial affairs, being a complete spendthrift ridden with debts running to the millions of francs and judgement: his ability to evaluate past and current political and social affairs as well as the moral character or general abilities of the people around him was abysmal. Marie Luise was dismally certain that he would do something outstandingly stupid when and if he ever got himself onto the royal throne of the Kingdom of France. He was already doing enough damage to both his own and the King's popularity by obstinately and tactlessly trying to turn back the clock socially and administratively, to return France to the so-called glory days of the L'Ancien Régime.

That last thought made, Marie Luise consider the bundle of letters she had received that morning all with the postscript of Portoferraio, Elba. Marie Luise felt her mood darken at the thought of the letters possible contents. A gentle knock sounded at the doorway, shortly followed by one of the armour plated, ornate warden automatons, moved into the room.

"Yes?"

"His Imperial and Royal Highness, the Archduke Johann, and His Excellency Generalfeldmarschall Prince Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov, wish with your permission to be admitted."

Fragments from the Balkans (Part I)

The Royal Palace, the City of Sofia, the Grand Principality of Bulgaria, January 1889.

Grand Prince Alexander I of Bulgaria, worked through the piles of documents, reports and civil or governmental legislation before him steadily. Much of it was of an entirely routine nature, transcipts of important parlimentary debates, new legal decrees or ammendments to older laws or legislation, administrative or financial memorandum and special concerns raised by various ministers and officials and the like. Much of it required his personal review and/or his active involvement and signature. There were times, when Alexander wondered why the Bulgarian Grand National Assembly had invited and subsequently elected him the First Prince of Bulgaria back in 1878, and equally Alexander wondered what had possessed him - a member of the Princely House of Battenberg, a non-dynastic cadet branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt - to actually accept the nomination.

The work of being the monarch of the reconstitued autonomous nation of Bulgaria, and making the difficult transition from that of subjugated vassal state of the Ottoman Empire which it had been for some four hundred and eighty-one years, had been challenging for both him and his subjects. He and they had made mistakes, often honest ones through a total lack of experience or knowledge in statescraft and the real difficulties of nation building but on the whole Bulgaria was charting a geniunely progressive course forward. There was not always total agreement about either the pace or direction, Alexander ruefully admitted, that Bulgaria was taking. There was however general accord on the essentials that needed to be addresssed and what needed to be done within the nation and it's government and national institutions to achieve the desired results.

Many of his Bulgarian subjects had been bitterly resentful when the nation which had finally been recreated out of the trials and tribulations of the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-78 and previous unsuccessful Bulgarian revolts against Ottoman authority was cheated of the material gains, the Treaty of San Stefano worked out between the Russians, the Austrians and the Ottomans that had ended the 1877-78 war had given them. These important gains especially in terms of expanded population, resources and territory had been subsequently taken away from them by the political and military interference of the other Great Powers of Europe, principally Great Britain and France which did not wholely desire a greatly diminished Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, except on terms that were ultimately advantageous to them alone, of course. Both countries had also aimed at an expanded territorial position for the Greek Kingdom of the Hellenes at both Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire's expense to further their own interests in the region.

Due to this, Bulgaria had lost the formily Ottoman provinces of Macedonia, Western and Northern Thrace and the island of Thasos which placed it's western and southern borders along the borders of the Ottoman province of Albania and as far south as the River Haliacmon in the Ottoman Hellenes, as well as granting commerically important access to the Aegean Sea and the wider Mediterranean Sea via the Thracian and Macedonian territory, and the great port of Salonika. Bulgaria had at least established workable and stable borders with Roumania and Austria and developed useful economic and political links to both countries as well as Russia due to the San Stefano Treaty. The formerly Ottoman province of the Dobrudja which had been unified with the Kingdom of Roumania (which gave the Roumanian provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia important and expanded access to the Black Sea) following the 1877-78 War had been a regretably contentious issue between the two governments as soon as the Russo-Ottoman War had ended as both Roumania and Bulgaria claimed it for what was to both countries important historic and economic reasons.

At Austrian and Russian urging, a viable compromise had been worked out with Bulgaria receiving the Southern half of the province, while Roumania recieved the northern half. Agreements defining the equally contentious Austrian and Bulgarian borders had been relatively amibly worked out, although the union of the Bulgar inhabited Vidin province (which had been part of the Austrian Empire since the remanant of the Tsardom of Vidin had been re-conquered from the Ottomans by the Holy Roman Empire and Prince Eugene Francis of Savoy-Carignano during the Austro-Ottoman Wars) with the Grand principality of Bulgaria was for the immediate future refused by Austria. That being said however, the Austrians had not ruled out a permanent settlement of that issue at a later date if the matter could be settled in such a way as to be advantageous to both Austria and Bulgaria.

Alexander and his government had later managed with Austrian and Russian support to recoup at least some of those lost territorial gains with the unexpected Eastern Rumelian Revolution of September 5th, 1885. The broadly successful revolt resulted in the Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia separting from the Ottoman Empire and unifying with Bulgaria much to everyone's surprise and consternation, it had to be said. The Great Powers of Europe had not been at all pleased by this unexpected development and had tried unsuccessfully in various ways to put a stop to it. It's most immediate consequence had been a mercifully short but bitter war with the Ottoman Empire, which Bulgaria had been more then fortunate to narrowly win, again with Austrian, Russian and Roumanian military, economic and diplomatic help.

In broad terms the 1877-78 and 1885 wars had reinforced Bulgarian unity at the national level, and strengthened Bulgarian civil and military institutions although at a staggering cost in blood and treasure, which would take years to mend. Diplomatic and military relations with Austria-Hungary, Russia and Roumania had also been reinforced and even improved to a great extent, and while their were still disagreements over a range of issues affecting the four nations, there was a real willingness to reach or workout compromises and accords on matters of common consern. The chief concern that confronted all four nations, being the Ottoman Empire, which despite considerable territorial losses in the Balkans starting from the begining of the 1800s until the present, was undergoing an astonishing rapid economic and military resurgence with regards the rest of it's considerable territorial empire. This was extremely worrying to Alexander and his cabinet, as much as it was to the governments of Tsar Alexander II, Kaiser Franz Josef I and King Carol I and a conference was planned for later in the year in Bucharest for serious discussions between the four nations to formulate effective plans for the future.

What cause particular apprehension in the cabinets, foreign officies and war ministries of Bulgaria, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Roumania was a developing twofold problem, the possiblility of another major war (which no one had any appetite for) breaking out in the Balkans which offered no immediate or easy solution for any of the four nations. The Ottoman Empire in all probability did not desire another war for some years as they were much too busy, reintrenching and redeveloping their positions, installations and institutions in North and East Africa, Asia Minor, the Orient and Western Asia.

The Ottoman Empire's economy fuelled by the extensive development and export of Petroleum products and tolls collected from Suez Canal was surging forward at a frightening rate, as far as the Four Nations were conerned with heavy investments in their civilian light, medium and heavy industries, reforms to their tax system and it's collection, which was raking in ever increasing revenues. Steady nvestment in a new system of improved road, railways, canals and harbours was also paying handsome economic dividends. This was having increased effect on the Ottoman government's military spending, which was no great surprise to anyone, who looked at the Ottoman Empire's current situation with an analytical eye.

The Kingdom of the Hellenes, had become increasingly expansionistic and belligerent particularly over the last decade. It's economic and military power steadily swelling, resulting in numerous border incidents and wars against the Ottoman Empire. Sometime Greece operated alone as in the 1820s, or alongside Bulgaria, Roumania, Russia and Austria in various Balkan Wars since Greece's liberation from Ottoman rule or in more recent co-ordination with other powers such as Great Britain, Italy and Portugal in the 1882 Anglo-Ottoman War. Hellenic power was being driven by steady programs of internal developments within Greece, fueled by the immense personal wealth of it's Wittelbach kings, sound economic planning and the increasing influx of capital and people from the worldwide Greek Dispora. There were probably many times more Greeks outside continental Greece then were in it, and a great many of them were steadily coming back to their ancestral home (or at least directing their own surplus of funds and resources into the hands of the Hellenic Kingdom, if they were not relocating back to Greece themselves) to swell the Kingdom of Hellenes population, it's workforce and its military formations bringing with them much needed industrial and professionsial skills of all sorts.

Greek war aims had consistently striven for new conquests or advances into the Ottoman Aegean or Eastern Mediterranean islands or into the Ottoman Balkans proper striving to reach the Adriatic Coast in the northwest, the Austrian crownland of Serbia in the north and the great port city of Salonika to the northeast. Salonika would set the stage for Greek conquests of the Thracian provinces and Asia Minor, and the Imperial City of Constantinople. Greek patriots also eyed the historic Greek lands of Pontus and Néa Ionía (located on the Ottoman Anatolian Penisula's Black Sea and Eastern Aegean coasts respectively) as prizes to be seized from the Ottoman Empire's grasp. Greek progress with regards to these ends had been agonizingly slow, counted as often as not in mustard grains, but they still keep trying when the opportunities presented themself, and that was all the more worrying.

Memories of Past Conventions 2024 - Continued

Lord Worthing and Lord Hood,paying a visit to an installation in the company of R2-D2 somewhere in Star Wars Galaxy, Toronto FanExpo.

Lord Hood in conference with the Mandalorian Mercs, Toronto FanExpo.

Lord Hood and professional cosplayer Bansheequeencosplay (Sylvanas Windrunner/World of Warcraft), Toronto FanExpo.

Lord Hood and Lord Worthing with professional cosplayer Snackmira/Miramancy (Psylocke/X-Men), Toronto FanExpo.

Lord Hood and our friend Stephen Thomson with professional cosplayer Strangecatcosplay (Nightcrawler/X-Men), Toronto FanExpo.

Lord Hood consulting with yet more Mandalorians, Toronto FanExpo.

Lord Hood (Steampunk/Victorian Era) in serious discussion with his alter ego, the Red Hood (Modern Era), Toronto FanExpo.

Lord Hood and Lord Worthing with professional cosplayer Cowbuttcrunchies, Toronto FanExpo.

Lord Hood with professional cosplayer Pretty_Nerdy_Crystal (The Joker/D.C. Comics), Toronto FanExpo.

Lord Hood contracting a Mandalorian for a particular assignment, Toronto FanExpo.

An Ending and A Beginning (Part III)

Artwork by Pelycosaur24

“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her; but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.” ― Voltaire

The man, everyone on the great, empty plain that surrounded the colossal engine, called the Commandant, sat quietly in an improvised armchair as he always did, gazing up at the great engine, pondering it's workings and meaning. It glowed and seethed with strange and magnificent fluttering lights and titanic sparkling energies in the form of a gigantic halo, slowly and inexorably revolved like a gigantic, glacially turning water wheel. Surrounding the halo's lower edge was a sprawling city or what seemed like a city to those that gazed upon it from the plain. It consisted of vast walls, courtyards and towering structures which seemed to combine the aspects of vast towers, colossal cathedrals and gigantic castles.

These structures and the city as a whole seemed to have the express purpose of controlling, stabilizing and directing the titanic energies of the glowing halo. Although that was merely conjecture by the inhabitants of the plain, as no one who had entered the city ever returned to the plain.

The sole inhabitants of great engine, were almost as strange and fantastical as the sprawling city and the great slowly revolving halo itself. The inhabitants of the plain, all of whom were, as they had discovered from talking amoungst themselves, people who had died through the accidents and trauma of human warfare whether they were soldiers or civilians. To date, they had only observed four of the peoples who dwelt within the walls.

The first and most commonly seen were what many called the Maidens of Mercy, by the lost souls, came and when between the city and the camps that surrounded it, bringing food, medicine and building materials so that the souls living on the plain could be comfortable while they waited. They took the form of beautiful, angelic and cloak shrouded women. The second type was the towering metallic, completely armoured warriors, that the souls called for lack of a better term to describe them, the Knights, they seemed to be guardians and provosts of the city. They kept the horrific wraiths and other monstrous entities that inhabited the haunted forests and escarpment well away from the city and the vast sub city of camps that surrounded it, they also helped the maidens and those souls designated by the commandant, who was appointed by them and the heralds to over see a degree of order and organization amoungst the souls on the plain, who number easily in the millions if not the hundreds of millions.

The heralds the third of the peoples, interacted with the souls at certain times, and while they were solemn of manner and their appearance disturbing, they took the form of heavily robbed skull faced monks or priests, they were also polite and dignified and the souls generally felt reassured by their periodic presence. Generally, they explained the rules of conduct within the camps around the city, and explained what the souls were waiting for: which was a chance to step into the great halo and be reborn, reincarnated in a new life in another time and place then the life they had been originally been born into. The Heralds, explained, that all the souls gathered here, we people the celestial order had decided were deserving of another chance or people who had some unfinished business to resolve for themselves. They had already died, so they could not start anew, where they had been from but could make a completely fresh start some where and some when else.

Typically the Heralds would leave the city via one of the great gates set into the vast city's walls and call the names of one thousand individuals, who would be escorted by the heralds and some of the knights and maidens, who explained the mechanics of what was about to happen to them. These souls were never seen upon the plain again by it's inhabitants, and the halo would always seethe and flare brightly with titanic energies, as each soul departed to wherever and whenever they were going.

This involved the last observed of the inhabitants of the city, perhaps the strangest of the four, that the souls had seen in their time in this strange place, which they realized was a form of limbo, or waiting place rather then heaven or hell. Most of them agreed they had already been through a form of hell, by their lives and deaths in humanity's endless wars, and while naturally apprehensive about the challenges of being reincarnated and finding their footing in a new life, many were actually looking forward to it.

The fourth of the peoples, were referred to as choir or band masters by the other three denizens of the city and the halo. Their music could often be heard drifting from the top of the walls and towers, and ranged in also sorts of styles and instruments some of which the souls recognized and others they could not fathom. It was explained that this individuals, none of whom any of the souls had ever seen, assisted in the process of reincarnation, as they understood and could guide safely the souls to were and when they were destined to be going and give them helpful or necessary hints or advise on how best to proceed in their reincarnated lives.

Time had no relevance in this realm of eternal night so no one felt any sense of impatience or boredom in their wait which could have taken a few minutes or a few millennia for each soul for all they knew or cared. In any event, the Maidens and Heralds provided them with food and drink to their respective tastes and games and reading materials or education in any discipline of science or the arts, as struck the souls needs or interest.

Copious clouds of tobacco smoke drifted lazily around his head and face, as he puffed contemplatively on his long stemmed pipe. The bright moonlight that flooded the plain, caused the ice and snow that enshrouded his body and clothing to glitter and sparkle. One of his elbows rested on a barrel beside the armchair, which was further occupied by a couple of upended mugs and two bottles of red wine.

His heavily gloved hand reached for the one mug that was turned upright, which was more then half filled with dark red wine, then suddenly froze in mid motion. He swung round in the chair, his bicorn hat, shedding particles of ice and snowflakes, as his empty eye sockets and frozen skull swiveled towards the distant, haunted escarpment which all those who now dwelled upon the plain feared and dreaded. He sensed the calls of the forest patrols hunting horns, even before the sound of the horns could even reach the Great Engine so distant was the escarpment. Such however, were the powers granted to him by the great engine as they had been granted to each serving commandant of the plain, in their turn.

He stood abruptly, his skull faced visage visible to all around him as he discarded his still smoldering pipe. He rummaged in his frozen, bullet ridden overcoat for his telescope, quickly found it and snapped the collapsing sectioned tube out to it's full length as he brought it to his hollow eye socket and aimed it at the distant escarpment. The watch fires along the fortified lines that guarded the only safe way down the escarpment were glowing brightly as usual, and he could sense that the shadowy wraiths were gathering within the edges of the dismal, haunted forest in some strength, their maleficent hatred and terrifying hunger was all but palpable, even at this great distance.

The sound of various types of hunting and military horns, trumpets and pipes echoed through the haunted forest, snapping Marie Luise violently out of her shocked examination of her skeletal features. The Indian soldier drew a short stemmed, belled muzzled British style hunting horn from his satchel and sounded three ringing blasts upon it. This was shortly answered by similar blasts of sounds from various directions, some nearer and some farther away, it seemed to Marie Luise.

Suddenly a deep voiced musical instrument, that reminded her of the the great mountain horns, the Alphorn or Alpenhorn, popular in many mountainous lands such as Switzerland and parts of her native Styria, sounded. It spoke with a deep, thundering dirge like note, that echoed and re-echoed throughout the forest and reverberated through her whole being with an astonishing force that was as much physical as spiritual. Her companions stiffened when this sound reached them and hurried to leave the clearing, gesturing for her to join, them with some haste. Marie Luise realized as they began to run, that this was some sort of agreed note of recall or retreat.