"Pongo!" the emperor cried out, almost falling from his throne. Pongo approached the throne and bowed slightly.
"The years have been kind to you Emperor," he said slyly.
Emperor Zog stood up and extended his huge arms out to Pongo and squeezed him. "Tell me where she is Pongo or this time I will finish you off!"
Pongo chuckled lightly and then flashed another one of his debonair smiles. "Alright old friend, you got me. She's in you palace bedroom, asleep. She was quite tired after the hyperspeed ride from Planet Arate and at the thought of seeing you was just plain tuckered out."
Zog dropped Pongo to the floor and ran, stumbling a bit, of the room. Pongo just laid there on the floor laughing as Zog's footsteps got further and further away.
The Emperor threw open the heavy titanium door to his bedroom and found her laying upon his triangle shaped bed. He ran to her and sat beside her on the bed. "Tira," he whispered softly into her ear. She stirred a bit and then opened her eyes.
"Oh Zog!" she said, throwing arms upon him. He held her so close, closer than he had ever held her before.
"Tira," he said, stroking her face with his hand,"Let us never be parted again."
She smiled mysteriously and drew him close again without a word.
As she opened the door that was leading to the front porch, she picked up the letter. After tearing it open she read this "BY THIS TIME YOU PROBABLY REALIZE THAT THE DOOR TO YOUR HOUSE IS SHUT AND YOU DO NOT HAVE THE KEY, SO YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO MEET ME UNDER THE BIG OAK TREE IN THE FOREST I WILL EXPLAIN EVERYTHING." As Leila looked at the door it was shut thousands of questions started going through her mind. The one she worried about most was WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?...
The author comments, "ANY COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
This place had been advertised in the city paper as a summer rental. She had used one of her many aliases when applying for the rental. Here, she could change her identity and quietly fade into obscurity. She was a little curious why the place was being rented so cheaply. But she had decided that getting away from the city was more important then worrying about something to good to be true.
Well this little miss was in for a surprise. The manor was haunted and the resident spirit was looking for a new host to carry on it's macabre history. When the young lady arrived at the manor, a pair of disembodied eyes watched her from an upstairs window. It could smell her sin, and feel her fear. Its appetite whetted, he floated down to greet its new hostess. Boy, was it going to have fun with this visitor.
Gannon stood at the threshhold of an enormous cliff, his toes peering over the edge. He was awash with the golden light of the low western sun. Though the burning globe appeared massive against the sprawling countryside below, a huge form loomed in front of it, appearing as if it were trying to snuff out its light. It was a citadel, more closely resembling the groping hand of a demon than a physical structure built by his immortal enemy. Though the golden light was penetrating, the darkness emanating from the stronghold far outmatched it. They knew that he was here, standing in the presence of their dark sanctuary. Even now they were coming for him, the silhouettes of twisted creatures black against the failing light. Winged beasts, ready to seize their last enemy.
His mouth twisted in a faint smile which scarcely creased the fine features of his Elven face. A breeze softly touched his long, white hair and sent the small trinkets and pouches at his tunic swaying just a little. He stepped back from the cliff. The creatures were closing, faster now. His smile broadened.
"Fools," he whispered, his hand tightening around his sword in response.
Even now he could hear their screeching...
Beyond the window in the darkness lay fields strewed with the trampled husks and stalks of corn left behind by the machinery that noisily cleared them in early autumn. Still beyond those near the highway stood a small and time-worn church with its accompanying cemetery. Both patiently endured the last few years of waning use, having fallen in favor to newer and more adequate facilities further into town. In the pre-dawn darkness, he could sometimes detect their faint outline by the light of the autumn moon, or as dawn coaxed the world beyond the windowpane slowly into sight. He wondered often what it might be like to spend eternity in such a place as that. He found it simultaneously comforting and disturbing to imagine it. It provided him with a feeling of security in and of itself, now in the shelter of leafless, overarching boughs and the nighttime shadow of the quietly deteriorating church, but beyond that into the surrounding fields, uncomfortably open and exposed, where the coyotes competed on moonlit nights with the howling of wind past the rotting cornices of neighborless houses and through the missing slats of swaying fences.
