> The Affliction takes its toll on a man, even a man as used to suffering as Galen Knighthawke. He was still alive, he knew, mainly because of the small, but strong, strain of Elven blood that ran through his veins.

> �Well,� he would often think, �that and I'm a tough [censored].� It is after all, he would remind himself, not everyone who can endure the tortures of the Unholy Triad of Montor, with the true form of the Harrower itself looking on.

> Yes, Galen did have the Affliction, a gift from a woman whose name he did not know, but whom Galen's arrows left wounded, crippled, beaten when she assaulted him. It was, Galen suspected, mainly his wounded pride that would kill him, not the Affliction itself. When his assailant had stumbled through the Moongate on the one good leg she had left, her arms both dangling and for the moment useless, her associates dead, Galen had assumed he had won. Sadly, he was wrong.

> He left for Europa, and could not explain the weakness in him. He could not explain to his wife, the tamer Isabele, why their expeditions to Felucca were shorter and shorter. He managed to forget his own illness when hers, a more common ailment known as cancer to some, struck, and he surely had enough strength to mourn her when she died. But, he slowly discovered after burying her, he had strength for very little else. Still, he carried on, by will alone, by that formidible will that had allowed him to stand up to the powerful in the name of the weak.

> He knew what was wrong with him now, he recognized it. And he knew that not even the considerable knowledge contained on Europa would be enough to help him. He was not sure that he wanted to live, not at all sure. But, he was sure that he did not want to let that bitch who apparently had afflicted him kill him.

> Which is why he came, in secret, back to Lake Superior. He was weak now, very, very weak. He brought with him a considerable fortune earned from dealing in �antiques,� from Doom and Ilshenar mainly, and he supplemented it with hunting bounties. On occasion he saw Singlarad at the Yew Moongate, but did not approach him. Not even he was sure how he stood up, let alone how he kept fighting, kept hunting murderers and monsters. He had found a home in Jhelom, Felucca, many there remembered his fighting in Court, on behalf of the beloved Emily Conner, and it was there, in Jhelom, Felucca, in what was once Emily's bed, that he succumbed to death. In what he thought was his last act of defiance, he succumbed not to the horrors of the Affliction, though they did hurt him, haunting his dreams, but to simple pneumonia, caught from the rain and his own weakness. He smiled as he died, anticipating either a reward, or a blessed, black silence.

> But neither was fully to be.

> Oh, there was peace of a sort.....He was somehow made to wander in the woods, and they were indeed very peaceful. He saw little of the darker side of human or animal nature, saw very few orcs or lizardmen, very few human prisoners tortured or violated by these vile beasts. Some, but few. Mainly he found homself enjoying his un-death, to him very surprisingly unimpacted by his lack of ability to effect the world around him.

> But, there was not rest. Galen felt compelled to move, to wander, to absorb, to learn. To what purpose he was made to do so he could not and did not wish to guess, but the compulsion was undeniable. He watched fights, and slowly came to learn many things he had done wrong. He sat �over� someone reading a book, at the Lycaeum or the new Library of Knowledge in the Shadowlands, and read along with them, discovering that his new form did not need spectacles. He watched the occasional act of evil in the woods, and relearned the hatred he had for it, he watched monks in the new lands of Tokuno live in peace with their environment, evil and all, and thus learned something he had never learned in his previous life: That one man alone cannot do everything, that all men need some peace sometimes.

> But one thing he did NOT do was visit the halls of politics. He did not visit any High Council meetings, he did not check up on the Royal Guard. Be it in life or death, he was for the moment through with that.

> Then, one day, he stumbled across the Shrine of Spirituality in Trammel, and saw people. It had been a long, long time since he had seen people at a Shrine, so long he was beginning to think that people had abandonded the word of the Virtues, that Chaos of a sorts had taken hold. But here, there were people. One, he did not recognize. She was a pretty, but plain girl with cerulean blue eyes, filled with hate, anger, and sadness, a look that Galen knew all too well from the mirror, and the dress of a Jhelom Pit Fighter. The other he recognized as Emily Conner.

> Galen had wondered if it was possible for ghosts to feel astonishment, for he had not felt this since his transition. He now knew that they could.

> The girl was talking to Emily, but Galen now realized that Emily was a ghost like him. They had freed her from whatever torments Nominus, that shrimp of a so-called Demon Lord who served someone far less powerful then himself, but had not restored her to life. He was too far away to hear what the girl was saying to the young scholar, but somehow he just felt, KNEW, that she was saying goodbye. A long goodbye to be sure, but a goodbye, unmistakably.

> Galen wished only that he could talk to her, that he could somehow apologize to her for failing her.

> He watched them for a long time, until Emily finally began to fade to what Galen hoped would be her reward. The girl left, and Emily finally faded.

> It was then that, somehow, Galen knew the world was not done with him, and he likewise not done with the world. Emily's ghost, appearing suddenly before him and providing further confirmation that even as a ghost he could feel astonishment, concurred.

> Her smile, and her kind words, further surprised him. �Thank you, Mister Galen,� she said. �I know you tried hard.�

> �I.....Emily, I failed you.�

> She shook her head, her smile bright, perfect, angelic. �You tried, Mister Galen. You tried hard. That's all anyone can ever ask of another. I could not have asked for more.�

> �But........�

> She silenced him with a kind look, the kind Galen rarely received in life from anyone but his guild and immediate family.

> "You tried." She'd looked curious. "And you're not done now, are you." It was half a statement and half a question.

> Galen agreed that he was not.

> The quest she gave him was long and arduous. Galen was prepared for every trial, and between his own extensive reading, reading had long been his comfort, and Emily's extremely detailed instructions and advice, he succeeded, and, in this manner, was his life restored.

> His form was naked, his scars more pronounced, and the toll the Affliction had taken on him was somehow sill obvious in his worn, gaunt, but muscular form. In addition to his life, his quest had granted a black horse the like of which he had never seen before.

> �Let us see,� he thought, �what has changed.........And what has not.�

> And he and his mount headed for Ilithien. As good a place as any to start.

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