Wednesday November 18th IC 1428
Celeste - The bleached wooden planks of the train station deck reflected the pale sun's light under-lighting everything and everyone. Shadows were nearly absent in all but the most guarded of places. Desolation was painted across a wooden shingle hanging from the eves of the depot's roof. How accurately hell directed the names of its landmarks to the emotions evoked in the traveller. All around us was a sea of bleached white sand and shale. The horizon too had been stripped of features, leaving nothing for the eye to fall upon for comfort. Even the wind could barely muster the energy to reveal its character.

Silverhawk confirmed what we all knew. The Tailor had been here and had departed on the only train scheduled for the day. Our efforts to close the distance between us and our quarry thwarted by the service schedule of the infernal express. Now our hour and a half deficit would increase by at least a day while we waited for our turn to board the train.

Small talk and idle pursuits claimed our conscious and unconscious thoughts. Enzo launched into another of his attempts to add his fertile humor to a parched soil. In the end only depositing dung on a dry landscape. Perhaps it was an attempt to salvage some of the lost attempts at humor, but he turned the conversation to our betrothal. His attempt to compose a ceremony at the Spade plantation were thwarted to a degree that the memory was still difficult to digest.

Just as we were settling in for the long wait our solace was shattered. A crack of thunder from a dry sky announced her coming. She wasted no time in letting us know who she was and her nature. The images she forced into our heads were horrifying and sickening. A wave of nausea doubled me over at the waist. The images of slain cherubim and Seraphim stung my head like tiny knives pressing out from the inside.

When I was able to open my eyes I looked out across the open wastes to see the form of our attacker. She was beautiful and terrible at once. Her pale skin starkly contrasted with her black wings and minimalist raiment. The black leather bands that criss crossed her torso and legs formed a web that covered her with enough modesty to suggest distain for the effect on those who looked upon her divine features. Her wings told the whole story. She was one of the fallen, Lucifer's coterie. Her blonde hair sailed on a wind of her making. Behind her and above, storm clouds gathered. Her power and majesty were beyond doubt. At her side she wielded a length of steel that ran from her elbow to the ground. Across her back a bow and quiver completed her arsenal of physical attacks.

With each mental impression she forced into my head I became less resistant to her incursions. The strain of resisting the images threatened to steal my consciousness at stars formed at the edge of my vision echoing the pain I felt pressing from within and without. Annisette was her name and she meant to irradiate us to allow the machinations of the father of lies to run their nefarious course. Though the blur of my semiconscious state I could hear someone shouting. Like glass shards tumbling in a wooden drum My head clouded the message at first. It was Calais' voice. he was pealing off his weapons and casting them to the ground. Had she bewitched him? WHat was happening? His words came in torrents. Charging Annisette with the crime of becoming was she despised. Her divinity and omniscience had not spared her from the folly of becoming what she sought to destroy. She deflected each verbal assault with her own tainted wisdom. With each thrust and parry of conscience she moved closer with sword in hand. I was not powerless to move any longer, but I was grounded by the weight of Calais challenge. If I were to move I might spoil the spell he was casting, somehow undoing the carefully crafted snare of logic. With that I was compelled to remain an observer.

The fallen angel now towered over Calais supplicant form. Though he assumed the position of obedience he was positioned nearer the high ground. Annisette stood with the hilt of her sword raised high and the point aimed at Calais. As is to punctuate the shift of power she drove the blade into the ground before him before collapsing under her own failed assertions. Now it was Calais' turn to rise. Nobly offering a hand in friendship to the Fallen.

Though she rejected the offer to join us in our travels she showed us the measure of the power she had not unleashed on us. Raising a hand to the sky she grasped the semblance of the sun and moved it in a arc across the sky. When her arm completed the circle a day and a night had passed ant it was now mid day again. In the distance the screams of the train whistle bellowed.

Once aboard the train we soon slipped out of the brightness of the wastes into the blackness of the void. The twilight atmosphere inside the train was soothing and the rhythm of the rails lulling. I allowed myself an unguarded moment as I lay agains Enzo's chest. I awoke to a dim red light entering through the windows. Corman was up and moving around the cabin. He wad been invigorated at the meeting of the Fallen. He too added to the dialogue, hefting needed wood on the fire of conviction. Now he seemed pensive. He, like the rest of us, can sense how close we are to the end of this quest. His encounter with his god has given him new energy. How strange is must be to explore the underbelly of another faith's punitive antithesis.

Calais and Silverhawk sit in the half light a few rows down from me. Her half-elven eyes reflect what little light is in the train car, giving her a preternatural nocturnal aspect. Calais, vigilant even in the safety of the train checks his equipment and rations. the two of them preparing for the confrontation with the Tailor. I sometimes envy their wild unbridled natures. owing more to circumstance and surrounding than conflicts of heaven and hell.

As the train began to slow the two of them climbed to a position to observe the next station platform. I gave Enzo a nudge and he was awake in a moment. We moved to the windows and looked outside with interest. Suspended in defiance of the laws of gravity a rusty steel platform clung to a vertical wall that appeared flexible like an enormous curtain. The platform was a hundred feet square with no place to conceal oneself or take cover. Here we would have our showdown with Hell's Tailor. Here we would end the unbidden quest of the last few weeks. We filed out of the train with a certainty of purpose we had not felt in a while. Calais spotted the Tailor across the platform. Though he looked like a man in a flat brimmed hat with round spectacles Calais assured us that the image he presented was far from the truth. My senses confirmed that the individual that we faced now was worthy of our scorn. The evil wight on his soul was crushing. What evils had he performed in the service of his office? To accrue such a dearth of malignancy he was well past due for extinction.

We moved on him like a pack of wolves. Our distain for this place and our extended journey though hell mounted in us all. We were like wild animals knowing that this kill would sate our hunger and give life to the long suppressed dream of freedom. Freedom from this emotional winter. The bite of our blade and our combined fury proved too much for the harbinger of the apocalypse. As we stood over his body Calais bent down to claim the sheers he intended to use to open the barrier. As he placed his hand on the enchanted sheers a wave of negative energy lashed out at all of us. On last back of defiance from the dog of satan.

Hell wasn't beaten yet. The armies that were waiting to charge through the cut in the barrier were fast approaching. Our only salvation was to cut through the barrier to make good on our escape. In doing so we would invite the forces of evil to follow after us. Making us the agents of evil that we sought to destroy.

The thunderous approach of the four horsemen and their armies seemed to unravel all that we had fought for. Were we to martyr ourselves after all? I looked down at my blooded blades then glanced at Enzo. His face reflected my heart. If he wanted to live out our lives together, he was going to get his wish. Here on this rusty slab of metal we would fight and die. I nerved myself toward the edge of the platform to look down at the fate that was closing in on us. Before I could make my way to the edge a hand grasped for purchase on the edge of the platform. In a moment it was up and facing us. It was a resident of hell, but not one bent on our destruction. It was the half angel from the crow cages.

He moved toward the barrier. Using his hands he opened a small hold in the barrier. Using his foot he stretched the hole open from the floor to the top of his head. As he strained against the will of the barrier to close he motion for us to pass through. We did not question his offering. One by one we entered the hole.

We awoke on a barren plane once more. But this one was recognizable, at least to some degree. Behind us were the ruins of the Irontrees Estate. Ages of sand and wind had reduced it to nothing more than a series of mounds with the occasional cornerstone. We were in the right place, but were we in the right time?

Casper used his magic to teleport us to the outskirts of Eldred's Cross. We would soon know if we were back home in our own time.

Calais lead us to the front gates of Lord Eldred's Keep. We were granted an audience and shown to his meeting room. We confirmed we had returned to our own time, with a few exceptions. Lord Eldred remembered that we were to take Crux into the dessert for a remote execution an burial. That was because he had never heard of Irontrees estate or Irontrees prison. Corman asked if he knew of a family by the name of Heisenburg. After some reflection he recalled that a family in good standing had established a small mission and trading post half way between Eldred's Cross and the Castillian city of Torregidor.

We concluded our business after rejecting offers to utilize lodgings in his keep. Calais suggested we pay a visit to St. Michael's. Upon arriving we were soon greeted by Vicar Cenzi. He tidied up matters at the church explaining that some strange occurrences had transpired since our meeting in the Hardlands. We moved out into the evening light of the city and made our way to a local pub to catch up.