this is for aliasse and special thanks for insp. to inmyocean (yep, suze that means you, thanks!)
also some of the usual suspects have had their (unwitting) influence so thanks to Sibilla Luna, Yu and John, uncle tom cobbley, regina and all. hope it's worth a read and a smile.

apologies for earlier proofing errors!
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Of Cerimon and what he discovered:

 - What perhaps was affectation; the charcoal shift he wore of coarse linen that billowed about his ankles and scratched the skin of his chest and the white hairs upon it. And what of his staff, that hard varnished cane with the elaborate Egyptian headpiece. What of that? Watching him scrat about the shoreline, the rocky coves and inlets, he could taken for a madmen or eccentric priest and neither of these impressions would be false for he was certainly more than a little strange.

Hard to imagine then that this wild haired loner, this sackcloth wearing academic and practitioner of the hermetic arts, was, in fact, just as much at home within the plush apartments of the courts and palaces of Ephesus with their wide verandas and avenues of marble, their deep pile rugs of Persian design, their ornate fountains, groves and temples both cloaked in a haze of honeysuckle, herbs, spices and the musky incense that smoked and spat from every brazier.