LINFAL

Or in the scripts she invented...

 Linfal is the Kaan of the Moon and the Kaan of Wisdom. Sister to wild Sashang, the shifting ocean, she is very different. In shape she assumes the form of a centauress, but silvery white, like a unicorn.

In the Undying Lands, at first she helped Sagin for the love she bore Sashang, in showing him many things which he used in his quest to usurp C'Don. Finally, though, she realized what he was doing, and should have told C'Don right then and stopped all aid. The love she had for Sashang, Sagin's lover, made her vacillate, and finally betray a secret C'Don had only told her. After that, she relented, both with her wisdom and her guilt, and went and came to C'Don, and begged forgiveness.

He granted it, but when Sashang defied him and railed against the injustice of Sagin's imprisonment, and he pronounced a doom of her children being less than Kaan, and lesser with each succeeding child, she said, "What Sashang did for love, I did for love...love of a sister. That doom must fall on me, also. Indeed, my penance should be greater, because I bear the most wisdom...but allowed my love for my sister to overcome my judgement."

C'Don said,"It is not a mistake to listen to love. Where you erred...where your wisdom was less than mine, and your love less than mine...was letting what Sashang willed to be confused with what Sashang needed."

"Then my penance must be greater than hers. This is not your doom, C'Don. This is my own. I will wander the sky observing, rather than stay in a settled place. I was the keeper of books and knowledge here, but I ammassed it in one great library..."

"A fine library it is."

"But not enough. I knew the booklearning, but not true wisdom. I gathered, but did not observe and experience. Now I will do both." She took a black cloak, and encased her silveriness, until only a small sliver of the silveriness shone forth. "And I will wear this as a mark of my shame. And I beg to accept the doom of my sister, also. Her shame should be my own."

"Whether you wander the skies or cloak your beauty is your own decision, though it saddens me. That doom affecting your offspring is mine to give or withhold, however. I will grant it...under one condition."

"Name it."

"That for part of the time, you will not cloak your beauty. That Wisdom can be seen as it should be, shining in the sky. That you will wander, for a time, in the sky as you are now...and then reveal more and more--and then, for a span, dispense with the cloak altogether. For I have forgiven your offense, because you have asked. It is you who will not forgive yourself.

"But though any children you have will not be Kaan, they will be of great beauty and a joy in the coming world. Nor will the succeeding children be lesser than the first, although their grandchildren might be. That also I grant you, unasked, because of my love for Wisdom, and the gentle Lady of it."

Linfal's decision caused Angusin much pain, for he loved the Lady of Wisdom. When Tu was created, Linfal kept her decision to wander the skies, and so moonlight first graced the fields. Sometimes she would go nearly cloaked, and men would talk of a new moon, but slowly, as she promised C'Don, she would reveal her full beauty, cloaked less and less, until the full moon showed in the skies.

Sashang, touched by the loyalty that Linfal showed, often reached in sympathy towards her. Thus the tide follows the moon.

Angusin would often talk with Linfal, glad of her counsel. And sometimes, during the day, she would rest for a span with Angusin in Chialta. Their children were less than full-fledged Kaanho, but immortal and shining like their mother, though assuming a humanoid and martial aspect like their father, and are the Star-Warriors.

Between the Star-Warriors and Tuao the Sun-Dragon there is emnity, and it grew in this wise. Linfal advised Sashang that Tuao, who favored a terrible dragon-form, was not a fit mate for the Queen of the Ocean. Tuao heard this, and attacked her in his anger, blooding her and about to violate her, when driven off by the many Star-Warriors. No one Star-Warrior is a match for Tuao. But hundreds ARE, and many are the children of immortal Angusin and Linfal, and the grandchidlren and great-grandchildren fill the night sky. The emnity between Tuao and Linfal makes Sashang mad at both of them. Mostly the battle is between the Star-Warriors and Tuao. Yet occasionally Tuao will blooden Linfal, and men say the moon is having an eclipse. Occasionally Linfal will use her dark cloak as a snare for Tuao, and men with fear will say the sun is having an eclipse. Tuao still hates her, not only for her contempt of him but for the secrets she still has hidden, secrets that only she and C'Don share, and which Tuao suspects contains great power.

Her first son, Klaschi, descended to Tu one night and slept with a mortal woman. Their child took on the characteristics of their grandmother and became the first centaur. Centaurs are wild at first, but if they live long enough, they take on in mortal form a lesser, but still great, wisdom. Old centaurs make wonderful teachers.

Those interested with comments, suggestions, things I have forgotten, things I messed up, contact me at... E-Mail:a l.schroeder@nashville.com

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