From: intraphase@gmail.com

On this day as every day Y-Clang the Tolltaker and Iguana the Soothsayer we’re readying themselves for another days crossing of the bridge by the residents of the country and city moving back and forth to conduct their business and shopping’s. The Soothsayer was an eternal bane to Y-clang and he

protested voluminously and with great rancor and displays of rage against the Soothsayer although never striking him and the humble folk of the countryside had long since judged Y-Clang to be a man of great evils and impromptu consorts with all manner of water spirits that frequented the raging currents below the bridge.
The citizens of means and wealth in the Great City felt that it was the place of a merchant man to display his superior position, while the beggars and

street urchins admired Y-Clangs cleverness for having secured the position of Tolltaker from the distant Overlords who had commanded the construction of the Bridge of Silence twenty years before. Only Y-Clang knew that it was the Soothsayer who had chosen the steadfast location of the bridge and had predicted the cataclysmic flood of the Great Gorge on the one occasion when an avalanche above had caused the glacial ices to first dam and then free the tributaries that ran into the upper gorge and then moved swifter and swifter until passing directly below The Bridge of Silence.
On that terrible day it was only seconds after clearing the bridge of
all traffic that Y-clang was seen screaming at the Soothsayer who walked off the last section of the Countryside plankings and on to the embankment in a deep trance. The Soothsayer sat down a mere three feet from the bridges edge and was almost swept away by the rising wall of ice cold glacial waters that had been suddenly freed and filled the gorge washing away the Bridge of Silence.
Only after the three day reslinging of the bridge and replanking of
its two small roads on either side of the dividing beam which held the
toll booth would the Sooothsayer speak again. When the bridge was rebuilt Y-Clang the Tolltaker had paid the young warrior who was now stepping onto the bridge from the Countryside temple of Bhagda to go to the distant provinces and report to the Overlords the destruction of the bridge blaming it all on the Soothsayers choice of location and reassuring the Overlords that he had been savagely beaten and driven from the provinces and dumped in a lonely gorge to be devoured by the buzzardry and vermin who were the only worthy consumers of such flesh. The Overlords had reimbursed the Tolltaker for his cruelty by paying for the repair of the bridge and the three days of tolls lost while it was out of service. Y-Clang had bought a small checker board table and wooden stool that was placed just outside the tollbooth door which faced the countryside of the bridge and let the Soothsayer put his tin offering cup under the table in a wide basket where the casually thrown coin would not roll away and fall through the plankings and be lost to the swift currents of the rushing waters below.


"Iguana my eyes are fuzzy from to much wine last night, who is it that seeks to cross the bridge on such an early journey"
"Evil Tolltaker Y-Clang your eyes may be clouded but surely you smell the disgusting stench of that filthy liar Bhagda Duder who is for hire to every evil mission in the province and spies for the secret temple of Bhagda and struts about like a great ox claiming to be a warrior in a boastful and braggart way causing his ancestors shame and defiling the sacredness of the Bridge of Silence."




Y-Clang rubbed his eyes to clear the films that were reflecting the sharp

rays of the ever rising sun that would peak over the high ridge of the Great Gorge and warm the bridge plankings and ease the pains and aches of his tired body which wearied of the debauchery of the Great City where he spent his money each night gambling and whoring and watching the cockfights.

"Bhagda Duder good morning to you, hurry across so that you might have a strong green tea on this fine day, come let us share a hot green tea
before the filth of the city begins to move across to the Countryside for its only fresh air and respite from the eternal din which is their fate and also mine."

Bhagda slowly walked from the countryside onto the north side lane of the bridge heading westward towards the Great City. On this day he did not have the toll and knew the Tolltaker would be profoundly offended if he even offered and would begin begging the Bhagda Temple warrior not to force him to take it while invoking the names of the many evil river spirits that would rise up again and try to sweep away the bridge or try to follow him to his small house on the outskirts of the Great City and possess one of his many children. It was the sharp forked tongue of Iguana Hagawanna he feared this beautiful morning. The Soothsayer of the Bridge of Silence who berated him endlessly accusing him of being an evil spirit in the body of a warrior sent to lure the unwary into false and blasphemous speech against the ten thousand deities of the Great City and the lesser deities of the Countryside. It was thru this tirade that the Soothsayer often forced Bhagda to pay the toll into the Soothsayers cup thereby negating the generosity of the kindly and honorable Y-Clang the man of the merchant classes.
Bhagda wished the Tolltaker and Iguana would stop this silly game and just let him pay the toll or give him credit now and again. The price of wondering what was the protocol of the day seemed an extra fee added to the usual toll. Bhagda presumed it was the way of a merchant class man to keep a foul besotted beggar from the Countryside who sat about and pretended to be a mystic and Soothsayer around the bridges premises to scare the rich citizenry of the Great City into paying a double toll as they passed over the bridge on their way to the Countryside to exploit the noble peasantry. All in all Bhagda felt that to pay the toll but once instead of twice was an achievement even if it was a dubious one. On this day though Iguanna Hagawanna would have his sharp tongued way if the right words of power were not used to silence his blathering. He gathered his wits as he moved very slowly and determinedly across the northern side of the bridge heading to the Great City and its rising western slopes in the near distance. It was great to be alive on this day.

"Good morning Tolltaker who is this fool you have by your
side with the ways and odors of a lowly beggar"



Cry-Chang-E Chorus

Who is that elegant silk robed Dark Eyed Lady who runs so swiftly from the Great City to the western edge of The Bridge of Silence and begins the crossing of the bridge with such rapid and graceful determination.




The first crossers of each day’s opening of the bridge were always the most vexing to Y-Clang the evil Tolltaker. They were the ones with important business and transactions that would actually occur on the bridge mostly unbeknownst to the casual watcher or gawking citizen watching the traffic on the early morning crossings from either side of the bridge.

The Dark Eyed Lady had passed on to the bridge in her smoothly flowing
silks and swiftly gained more ground than the Bhagda Temple warrior in her approach of the middle point tollbooth. Within a two second striding her gently flowing form would pass the evil Y-Clang who was the only one to notice her presence so far because of the Soothsayers eyes being fixed upon Bhagda and the temple warriors gaze being determinedly averted in a display of required casualness out across the river that swirled and stretch swiftly northward.
Iguanna the Soothsayer was so intent upon his prey that he did not at first take notice of the Dark Eyed Lady passing the tollbooth on the north side heading to the Countryside. She was not on the proper southern lane but the northern lane on which Bhagda was coming. She was moving directly toward Bhagda on the northside foot plankings. As she passed evil Y-Clang the Tolltaker she glanced briefly with hooded eyes blinking once and then crossed over the center beam to the proper southern lane side of the bridge running from the Great City out into the eastern Countryside. As she did a rider suddenly turned onto the Bridge of Silence from the downriver dirt trackings of the Countryside approaches from which Bhagda had come but did not turn onto the northern lane which Bhagda was walking but chose the opposing southern track which was reserved for the Great City to Countryside traffic.

The beautiful Dark Eyed Lady moved with graceful panther like prowess
in her flowing silken pastel garmentry continuing down the bridge approaching the speeding rider whose head was bowed down staring through the plankings at the rushing river below. In full hard pedaled deep breathing thrusts toward the center of the bridge and the evil Tolltakers booth he counted the beams which held the handrails in place as if in a trance. Within the briefest of moments they would have passed if the Dark Eyed Lady had not once again chosen to cross over to the other side. For a moment suspended in time all eyes were drawn to her presence as she stepped directly in front of the hurtling rider. Y-Clang the evil Tolltaker always watched the precision of the exchange. He was payed to make sure nothing went awry on this particular exchange.
In a delicate pirouette the Dark Eyed Lady was facing the rider as her silken robes opened slightly above the breast line revealing a dark green jade pendant framed in gold and diamonds that hung on a strong silver chain by a hook that was not closed but open to the tiny circle at the pendants oval peak. Hanging like a fish on a hook the pendant rocked threatening to be loosed from its moorings on the silver clasp. The rider seemed to never lift his head but sensed knowingly her presence and was drawn to a stop as if the Dark Eyed Women was a thick grey cloud which caused him to be slowed like a great soft sponge absorbing all his momentum not in one sudden crash but in three feet of slowing from a hurtle to nothing. The foot dragging on the plankings was unseen by all but Y-Clang the evil Tolltaker.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)