its shade, his faithful hound dozing on his lap, nudging his
fingers for a scratch behind its ears. He always obliged.
On full moon nights he did not sleep, staying awake in bed.
On the night of the fullest moon, in the hour of moonrise, in
the corner of his chamber there would manifest a figure –
not dragon nor steed nor hound but man – strong of build,
pale blue of eye and dark of hair, once a knight, before a
wizard’s spell had