2.CAMAEL

”His name means "He Who Sees God". Camael appears as a warrior dressed
in a red tunic. He wears green armour plates, an iron helmet and has
large green wings. Originally the God of War, Camael personifies
divine justice and governs Heavenly singing. He grants Power,
Invisibility, and invincibility. Camael is responsible for holding in
check Leviathan, the monster of evil who will swallow the souls of
sinners. Camael brings to mankind the gift of Godness,
the Holy that exists within all women and men.”

Ondine Ninetails felt the light of the moon before she saw it.

She lifted heavy eyes from a deep sleep and forced her vision to ascend toward the source of the startling light. The dark was approaching She knew this. And the largest moon she had ever seen was rising over the horizon, as the last hint of daylight seeped away

Blood orange and intense was this vision: Something to drop one to their knees.

A rush of awareness surged through her dragon form and she remembered where she was and how she arrived.

She scanned the deck of the rotting vessel and looked at the glimmer of lights at the far end of the half submerged stern of the boat. Scattered over its deck, half hidden, half blatantly mirroring the orange red moon, were gems and coins the size of sea urchins.

Other than creatures of the forest and the sea, precious metals and gems were a favorite food on those rare occasions that a dragon might stumble across them. And indeed this was a rare occasion. The more she ravenously consumed the more she found to be piled in haphazard mounds in the corners and niches of the ship.

It had been a long time since she had gems to place in her hidden horde of treasures far to the mountains in the east. She decided that it was time to replenish her stock with what she could carry in her crop like a bird. But first ,now that she had fed on precious metals and gems and drank of the rain water pooled in the barrels bound to the mast, she decided to take better note of her place and what signs might continue her journey in the right direction.

The ocean also mirrored the great Moon over a sea that shone as solid as the marble courtyards of Solomon. It looked as if she could walk the water if she had a mind to do so. But she knew illusion. And she knew delusion. And neither served her well in the past.The glare of the stillest waters inspired her to trust only the elements and astral beings that had proven their worth: proper gnosis for those things useful.

Her mind wandered back to the promise of a gem beyond all other gems .The one said to be resting beneath the castle of Sylvhara. She new it would take the skills of a master mage to even approach such a gem and laughed out loud, “And to think that the drow Dorian that though it would be so easy to possess.

Her own voice bellowing across the stillness startled her to fearful caution as she felt with her dragon senses something stirring.

Said I

“If found
Should then I change the mask I wear
Or cover mirrors on the walls
Close windows
Cower in the dark and weep?

They come
Those hungry reapers of the heart
And call me to their side
Those generations of the heart
Steeped high in mer mory
They wake!

Thirsty begging for the nipple of lost tides
And siren song
Leviathan lullabies
And screams of bliss in bloom
Re membering
Those former noisy silences we chimed together
With our drunken bawdy songs
Sending tremors through desire
Under tuggings of the moon

Troubadours
They were
They are
With cause to see this through
To witness
One more Fisher Queen's demise
While I
A single breath
A remnant of the past
Hide waiting
For the echoed howls and
Hunted by the hound of God

If found
Should I relent and fall to final swoon
The tinctured thrall of
Chalices and thrones
Release and cry to all the worlds that wait..............

Or follow down this path alone?”