Author's Notes:

This is a (unfinished - is there any other kind?) story about two D&D characters (mine and KA's), which some of you may recognize from "Subtleties" here on fiction press account, and the journals we've posted on Deviant Art. This story is obviously set much, much later than either of those - in fact Seraph and Zojikoe, prior to the events of this story, had actually retired to their own little Pocket Plane where they intended to live happily ever after. They were doing a good job of it too. Alas, ever after is often shorter than you think.

I have every intention of continuing this (I am, in fact, halfway through chapter 2 at this moment), but like everything else, I have no idea when. :(

Also, I note you can't right-align text on FictionPress... boo for that. The centred text is supposed to be right-aligned, but whatever. Guess I shouldn't be so picky. ^^ Hopefully it won't be too difficult to read for certain resolutions. For those who'd like a .pdf of this chapter it's up on my DeviantArt account (ID: KA-Rose)

WARNING FOR THOSE WHO NEED IT: This is essentially a story about two men in love.

Hopefully it's worth the read!

Thanks,

Rose Zemlya

The Faerie Queene (Title TBC)

Prologue

“What?! Who is it? Who is it that approaches me with the wind at his back?” The old willow shifted and creaked, parting the curtain of his branches to peer out across the bright meadow. A small creature pulled itself out of the nearby river and up the bank, using the willow’s roots as handholds. Its arms trembled with the effort, and it lay for a moment on the shore, heaving and coughing, while slow, green droplets glittered and fell as it shook.

“Is it my dryad? Oh my dryad, is it you? Is it you?” The creature sucked in a laboured breath and rose shakily, swaying on unsteady legs. The willow crinkled its roots and sighed in his leaves. “No...,” he creaked. “No, not with hair so bright…not in this season…not my dryad….” He held his branches apart as the creature stumbled forward into his protective shade. “Who are you, young one?” He asked kindly, allowing his branches to fall shut at last, enclosing the creature within. “Where did you find the wind?” It stared up at him and the willow could feel its confusion. A tremor ran through its body and it seemed unable to speak. “Ah,” moaned the old tree sadly. “Ah, I see.’ He contracted the knots in his brow sympathetically and brushed a vine across its speckled face in a kind manner. “It is sad that those with purpose enough to plumb the depths of the Lethe are doomed to forget why they dove at all.” The creature put a hand to its head and its knees buckled. The willow shushed it with his leaves. “You may sleep, little one, you may sleep. I will guard your dreams while I wait for my dryad. She should not be long. She is late already. So late…” The little creature trembled again and fell forward, caught by the soft earth and cradled in the grass. The wind rustled against the shelter of the willow’s leaves and the tree groaned as he tightened his protective circle.

“Hmmmm,” he said. “Hmmmm….how curious. Your wind remembers, yes. It knows. It whispers now, little one, of your purpose and its own. Its voice is ice. Ice and sleep. No tree are you, though, you cannot hear it. How sad, how sad. If only my dryad were here. She could tell you. Oh my pretty one, where have you gone? The Lethe seeps into my roots and only your name preserves me. Mnemosyne, Mnemosyne! The wind is so cold…has winter come at last?”

Chapter 1

He rose from his slumber slowly. It wasn’t easy. He was weary down to his bones, down to his spirit; he felt as though he had been walking for a long time. He wanted to rest. He wanted to sleep. But something, some dire need, would not let him. There was something he was supposed to be doing. There was something that needed to be done. There was…

…wasn’t there?

He’d had it, for a moment, or almost, but it was gone again. His thoughts were hard to gather, slipping and darting around in his mind like a school of fish, glinting silver and bright in the sunlight, blinding and too quick to catch. He raised a hand to his head and the motion returned some sense of his body to him. His clothes were stiff when he moved; they had been wet, he thought, and dried in the sun while he lay there. When had he gotten wet? The grass beneath him was soft and sweet, and the sunlight flickered here and there between the canopy of leaves above him. He was lying between the roots of a massive willow tree, and as he righted himself carefully, cautious of any wounds, he paused a moment to stare up at the old tree and felt a brief sense of longing and homesickness.

But if he had a home he couldn’t remember it, or any other tree besides the one at which he now stared.

A cool wind rustled the long leaves of the willow and he paused again, halfway to his feet. He thought he heard something, a voice, just a whisper,

Mnemosyne, Mnemosyne…!

but the next moment the wind faded, the leaves settled, and the impression was gone. He shook his head to clear it and moved unsteadily away from the tree.

He shielded his eyes as he pushed aside the curtain of leaves and stepped out into the sun. The field in which the tree grew was large and verdant. There were no flowers, but the grass was tall and swung lazily in the breeze. The willows roots, peeking here and there from beneath the soil, extended out in all directions, and held a nearby riverbank together. He paused, watching the inky water trip and tumble over and around the roots, the sun glancing off the little whorls and eddies in sharp, white flashes. For a moment its soft chuckle seemed to deepen and grow threatening; he almost remembered diving into it some other place, feeling the chill and weight of the water pressing in all around him; he almost remembered swimming downwards until the pressure threatened to cave his skull and he was sure his lungs would burst; he almost remembered drowning, still swimming downward, still silently calling a name, what name?

Zojikoe! Zojikoe!

He almost remembered…but then he didn’t. He shook himself and the moment passed and he turned away from the river.

He pulled his bag off his back and bent down to inspect it, unable to remember what it contained. He pulled the leather drawstrings open and pried wide the mouth of the well-worn bag. It was surprisingly large on the inside – much larger than the outside – and he wondered for a moment at the fact that he was apparently in possession of such a wondrous item. The contents within were in disarray; though he couldn’t remember what had once been in there, it was obvious that several things had been removed, and he was irked by that fact. He had no recollection of what the missing items were, or of giving them away, but he suspected that were their absence in any way legitimate the bag would not be in such a state. He had been robbed, then, but by who? And of what?

The rest of the contents of the bag were almost as much a mystery to him as the missing pieces. There was an assortment of bottles filled with various colours of liquid; a set of tools designed for the carving and shaping of wood; there was a set of small statues, probably carved with the tools at some point previous. Most were unfinished, but those of more detail than the others caused him to almost remember things when he picked them up and studied them, before setting them on the ground beside him. There were four rings, a set of intricate bracers, and a breastplate; all bore the same symbol, a line, curled into an almost complete circle, thick at one end but thinning to a point at the other, where they almost touched; three dots arranged in a triangle in the top right-hand corner of the circle; the circle hung suspended between two wings, simple and stylized. His fingers – rough and calloused he realized without surprise – traced the simple symbol and felt the same sense of longing he’d felt when he’d first looked at the tree. Finally, however, he set the items on the ground with the rest of it.

Digging deeper in the bag, he found a small tin box, in which was a carefully packed meal that, though cold, smelled delightful. He was particularly pleased with that find, as he was beginning to grow hungry and hadn’t relished the thought of trying to find food somehow. There were several items that seemed to suggest he had been on or was planning a long trip – a bedroll, flint and some tinder, all the odds and ends one needed to create a workable campsite. There was a cloak of a heavy, dark green material; it had a large hood and gold detailing on its borders; it had a golden clasp from which it appeared a jewel of some kind had been lost – or stolen. There were several parchments, scrolls and books, all of which he suspected were more artistic than magical. Stories or philosophies or ideas as opposed to spells or incantations. One, in particular, caught his eye.

It was the last thing left in the bag by the time he’d placed all of the other contents carefully on the ground around him. It was heavy and thick, hardbound in stiff black leather, and stitched together by hand. He opened it slowly, peering at the large letters scrawled in a slanted, graceful hand on the first page. He couldn’t read them. He thought…he was sure he should be able to, but he couldn’t. As he looked at each word he almost remembered it, but then it was gone, slipping through the fingers of his mind and leaving him frustrated.

S.S..;
I’ve tried to put as much as I know about the Kingdom in this book. It isn’t much but it matters.
Above all else, remember two things:
1. Never trust a gift.
2. Always demand a boon.
Even a place like the Kingdom has rules – ancient rules. Use them, but don’t let yourself be trapped by them.
Good luck; we’ll keep the inn safe for you.
P.X.

He offered the words an apologetic, unhappy frown, and flipped through the pages. Each contained a drawing – sometimes detailed, sometimes not – and words – sometimes many, sometimes few. Though the words continued to escape him, the pictures were of creatures and plants and even, here and there, a crude map. He paused in his flipping as he came to such a page.

There was a thick line on it, cutting in from one side of the page and winding its easy way in a rough diagonal, down to the bottom of the page with words written along the side.

Lethe

In the centre, beside the line, was a small picture of a willow tree and more words.

Mnemosyne’s tree
(she’s a dryad, and the keeper of the Gate of Lethe)

After the words was an arrow, leading to a picture which took up the larger portion of the page. It was of a woman, or a tree, it was hard to tell. Perhaps it was both. She appeared old and wise, but clever and quick. Though the drawing was simple and stylistic, he got the sense that the woman (or tree) was important and knew it; that she held some position or some authority. He looked up from the picture and the map and compared it to his current surroundings.

This, then, was where he was; or could be, at any rate, but he wasn’t sure how helpful that was. He frowned at the page, then set his elbow on his knee, his chin in his hand, and thought about his situation for the first time since he’d awakened.

He was in a field, by a river and a tree. He didn’t know how he’d gotten there, why he was there, or where “there” was. He could almost remember lots of things, but actually remembered nothing before the moment he’d opened his eyes. His entire life – whatever it had been – had been reduced to a collection of random items, scattered about on the riverbank in front of him; each an open ended question without an answer. He didn’t know why he was here – but there was something, there was a reason…wasn’t there? – or where he had been going, or how he had been planning on getting there.

The breastplate and bracers looked as though they would fit him – perfectly even. So he supposed he was a warrior of some kind. But if he was a warrior, where were his weapons? Perhaps they had been stolen along with the rest of the missing items. That made a certain amount of sense, insofar as it explained why they were no longer with his armour, but it begged another question: why had they not taken his armour? For that matter, why had they not taken his rings? If they were after expensive things, the rings looked valuable, and he was certain they were magic. Why not take the whole bag, as a matter of fact? A bag that was bigger on the inside than the outside was surely worth a pretty penny.

The woodworking tools were well used, but well taken care of. They were nice tools, good tools. Solid handles, sharp blades, they felt heavy and good in his hands. So he supposed then, that he was a carpenter of some kind, and that he had carved the little statuettes. What were they? Friends he’d made and places he’d visited? Or flights of fancy and daydreams? It disturbed him a little that he might have cared enough about someone to carve them into wood but could not now remember them.

And what of the colourful bottles? Fancy drinks or something more? He pulled a red one to him and uncorked it, sniffing tentatively at its contents then making a face and hastily corking it again. Definitely something more, or else a fancy drink gone bad. Potions then, most likely, but for what? He may have lost his memory but he retained some measure of common sense. Perhaps some day he would be desperate enough to drink one without knowing what it was, but not that day.

Which left the books. Not so many for him to assume he was a scholar. Not nearly enough for him to assume he was a mage. So what, then? Apparently he could read – or had, once upon a time, been able to – and he desperately wished he could now, if only to know what it was he liked to read. He knew precious little else about himself, and it seemed something one ought to know.

And then there was the picture book, with its inexplicable map and mysterious tree-woman. He was sure the map was where he currently was, but otherwise the page was useless to him. There was no tree-woman that he had seen. As far as he could tell he was alone in the field. He scratched his head and set the book down with the others.

So he was a warrior-carpenter who may or may not like to read. He was in a field with a tree and a river that had something to do with a woman who may or may not also be a tree. He remembered nothing. It was all very useful information, he was sure, if he could just figure out what it meant, which he couldn’t, so he flopped onto his back and stared in frustration at the wide blue sky until the lapping of the water at the ends of his hair annoyed him. He rolled over and paused, startled for a moment by the face in the water.

Oh! He thought to himself in surprise. Oh, it’s me!

He cocked his head to the side and studied his reflection. He had high cheekbones and a square jaw without even a hint of stubble. His complexion was pale, but generously dusted with freckles. His hair – a bright orange that all but glowed in the sun – was on the short side, hanging down only to his ears at its longest, and otherwise fairly uniform around; his ears tapered into rounded points at the top and were unadorned. His eyes were on the large side, and shaped a little like almonds; the irises were a bright green and looked almost like molten candy as the water played with his reflection.

Wow, he thought to himself, folding his hands beneath his chin and staring mournfully at his reflection. I don’t even know what I am. It was, all in all, a rather depressing end to an unfortunately futile chain of thoughts.

The afternoon sun was warm on his back, counteracting the chill bite of the breeze that cut briskly across the little field. Frustrated and unhappy, he allowed it to lull him to sleep, cradled on the riverbank, listening to the lapping of the water just beyond his fingers.

***

The wind was a howling fury, tearing across the open waste of snow with undisguised violence. It whipped his hair back and forth and tore at his cloak and pushed him forward, always forward. It bit and slashed at him, cutting through his thick clothes and armour and froze him to his core but it did not sap his strength or slow his pace. It fuelled him, drove him on; it screamed his purpose at him, over and over, though he had forgotten how to understand what it was saying.

He stopped – for just a moment – and the wind lashed him for it; he turned anyway. He wanted to see.

Behind him the expanse of snow continued; the drifts of white were like ghosts, sliding eerily across the ground, only to disappear, or be consumed by a larger one. He could see footsteps in the snow – his own, he presumed – deep and unobscured by the wind’s wrath. They extended as far back as the horizon, and perhaps beyond, he couldn’t tell.

He turned around again and surveyed the land before him. A frozen river lay across his path. Beneath the shifting snow he could see the solid green ice that would bubble and froth and rage come spring. Now it was still, and cold, and thick. It would hold his weight, he was sure of it, and yet he did not cross. He willed himself forward to no avail. Not even the wind could push him onto the ice.

He frowned darkly and turned around again, peering behind. He didn’t know where he was going, but this was definitely the direction he had been headed. At no point did the footsteps behind him falter. At no point did they swerve from their intended course. This was his direction; there was no denying that.

He turned around again and bent down, pressing one knee into the deep snow and reaching forward with a thickly-gloved hand to brush the harassed flakes away from the ice. He was able to touch it, to lean on it even, but again, when he moved to try to cross, he found he could not.

Perplexed he got to his feet, brushed off his knees, and straightened, then gave a startled yell and stumbled backwards through the snow. The wind began to scream even louder, throwing the snowflakes into the air in a shield between himself and the figure in front of him, cloven hooves hovering just above the green ice. The wind’s frantic howls turned into a wail as it tried to tear at the figure, but seemed unable to touch it. No snow coated its horns and shoulders; no ice hung from its tail or brow; its face, handsome and beautiful and chiselled, was not burnt by the wind and cold; but though it was not a face he recognized, and he could recall no particular wrong,

I know him for my enemy, and I hate him.

“Come no further, Sia’lo.” His voice was deep and angry, and seemed to come more from within than without. “You are trespassing here. You are not welcome.”

He could not remember the words with which to respond, but his face said it for him. His eyes were slits of green, his mouth a thin, hard line; there was no fear in his face, and no warmth, and no quarter.

I come for you. I’ll kill you.

The wind shrieked with approval and buffeted the stranger, whose beautiful face twisted into something hideous and wrathful. He raised a taloned hand and spoke a sharp, angry word, and was gone.

The green-eyed man still couldn’t cross the river, however…and, without warning, his lungs seized and he found himself unable to draw in a breath…

***

He came awake with a desperate gasp, his mouth and nose filled with something that tickled the inside of them; he opened his eyes but the action changed nothing; he still couldn’t see. Something warm and heavy and soft was blinding him and covering his nose and mouth, suffocating him. He flailed blindly.

He heard a startled hiss, something sharp and pointed tore at his cheek, and suddenly the sky reappeared above him. He sucked in a great, gasping breath and sat up abruptly, clasping a hand to his stinging cheek and whipping his head around to see what had been smothering him.

A small cat sat nearby – safely out of arm’s reach – swishing her tail back and forth in a manner that belied her current, dignified air. She was coloured in a way that made it look as though she wore a black cape and cowl, with a chest, forepaws and muzzle of the purest white. She tilted her head coyly at him, revealing a black patch in the shape of a triangle on the underside of her jaw. He glanced around but saw nothing else. Pulling his fingers away from his cheek he saw a speckling of red on them.

“Technically,” the cat informed him pertly, “I’ve done you a great honour.” He blinked and turned back toward her, startled by the sound. She swished her tail to the right. “To have marked you as I have done.” He looked from his fingers to the cat and back again, and for a brief moment was overcome by the intense belief that none of this made sense, though he could not say what would have. At last he offered her a hesitant nod, unsure of how to proceed. A deep purr erupted from her chest and she got to her feet and approached him, taking a much closer seat on the grass. He regarded her helplessly, wondering where she had come from, and why she had tried to suffocate him.

“I was guarding your dreams,” she informed him, cocking her head to the side. The sun caught and reflected brightly in her golden irises. “Or was trying to. Whatever you dreamt was powerful. I was unable to prevent your trouble, and I could not wake you – believe me when I say I meant no harm. You may pet me, by the way,” she added helpfully, and her tail swished again. “If you wish.” He didn’t really, but he didn’t want to offend the little creature either, so he reached out with a tentative hand and gently stroked her back. She purred approvingly and arched into the stroke. After a moment, he opened his mouth to ask for her name, but realized with a start that he had no words with which to ask.

“Oh,” said the cat, as though bored with the subject before she had even brought it up, “you won’t be able to speak again until you’ve seen Mnemosyne.” She shoved her head roughly into his hand, encouraging him to continue rubbing her ears. “You’ve entered the Kingdom through the Lethe Gate, I’m afraid, and have forgotten everything you’ve ever known, including the words with which to speak.” She pulled herself away from his hand with an effort and sat to regard him closely. “That’s why you can understand me, by the way. Normally a creature such as yourself would not be able to hear me over all the noise of knowing things.” She flipped her tail in what he was sure was the cat-equivalent of a shrewd smile. “In forgetting how to speak, or so they say, one remembers how to listen.”

He gave her a curious look and gestured hopefully at himself, and she considered the unspoken question. “Well, I can’t say I know for sure,” she admitted at last, “not down to the exact classification – there are a great many mortal races, you know, and no few of them look the same to me. But I would say that you are – at least in part – of the Sia’lo; you smell of wood and earth, and that’s what that race was created out of, ages and ages ago when they were of the Kingdom. Elves, I think they’re called in your home realm, which is a silly name, really, and as a cat I know a thing or two about names.”

She got to her feet and held her tail in the air, sniffing dramatically at the space between them. “It’s not just wood and earth, though. You are of the Sia’lo but I don’t think you are one. I also smell fire and time on you; an odd combination. It is a rare Sia’lo indeed that smells of fire, and no Sia’lo at all that smells of time, though it touches them like all mortals.” She padded closer, punctuating her words with sniffing – at his hand and his tunic and the objects on the ground. “You smell of other things too – things having little to do with your race. You smell of…of hardship.” This she said decisively. “Yes. And loneliness, and home sickness all together. Also of determination and loyalty and…hmmm…stubbornness, I’d say. A fine, proud streak of it.” This apparently pleased her, for she purred approvingly and moved into his lap. She braced herself on her hind paws and sniffed up his chest and along his jaw, and despite the unexpected invasion of his personal space, he held himself very still so as not to startle her – his personal space be damned, if she knew what or who he was he wanted to know. “You smell of anger and of love and of sadness.” She cocked her head to the side and blinked at him, her eyes large and startling this close to his face. He felt, for a moment, as though they held a world all their own, and if he looked long enough he could fall in and never find his way back out again. He almost remembered – almost – another set of eyes, the same colour. He almost remembered falling into them over and over and over again, and never wanting to get out,

Zojikoe…

but, as always, then he didn’t.

“Odd combinations all, but there you have it.” She released his gaze – for which he was intensely grateful, as the almost-remembering it invoked had been uncomfortable – and dropped back into his lap. She stared up at him again. “That is what I can tell you of what you are. Who you are is between yourself and Mnemosyne, for none but she can release the Lethe’s grip on you, and for that I am truly sorry.”

He leaned back on one arm and frowned at her, not understanding the apology. She offered him a very cat-like shrug and hopped off his lap. “Mnemosyne is missing, you see. Taken, most believe, by the Corvids to the west. They have long viewed this corner of the Kingdom as theirs, and her presence and power here offends them. It is assumed they grew tired of courting her for this land and its gate and decided to force her to relinquish it – as though it was hers to give!” The assumption apparently offended the cat badly, for she lashed her tail back and forth indignantly. “Alas, the King favours the Corvids, for they are dark and beautiful, like him, among…other similarities.”

He furrowed his brow and let his eyes drift from the tiny cat to the land far to the west of the meadow. Three fat, rocky mountains broke the horizon, aligned side by side. Strips of white cloud drifted between them, and their grey, stolid faces seemed serene from this far away. On each a dark spot marred the otherwise idyllic picture, shifting slowly near the peaks. They were too far away to make out what they were, but they caught his attention and he tried to study them. They moved like shadows, or dark clouds, but with substance, billowing out and contracting in again. The cat followed his gaze and her purr died off.

“Aye,” she said, misunderstanding what he was looking at. “The mountains are their home. Each of the Corvid Princes claims a peak, and there they stay, sending their legions into the world to kill and take through guile and trickery and cleverness. Rapacious, opportunistic devils, the lot of them.” She sniffed contemptuously. “No, I’m afraid you will have to do without your memories. Were I you, I would leave now, before the parliament and all the trouble that comes with it. Mnemosyne yet lives, for her tree still stands, but that is surprising in and of itself. They will kill her, and kill her soon, and then this meadow will have none to guard it against them. They will come in droves – in murders, and conspiracies, and grand parliaments indeed! And all that remains here will be cleansed. This meadow will be as a field of white bone and cold dust.”

He shook his head uncertainly, eyes still on the dark spots (seeming ever larger as he watched). The cat blinked. “You wonder that they kill when the corvids you know from your home are scavengers!” She regarded him closely, surprise bright in her eyes. “Easily answered, my friend. Without Mnemosyne to guard this meadow and keep the Gate, all that live here are little more than corpses anyway. That aside, the King has been teaching the Corvids some new tricks – as though they hadn’t enough.” Her eyes narrowed and grew deeply curious, and the intensity of her stare was enough to pull his attention away from the fascinating spots. “Harder to answer is how you know that at all.” He pulled back uncertainly under her scrutiny. “When you dove into the Lethe, you sacrificed everything you ever knew. Your thoughts, knowledge, and understanding about everything, from what the colour gold looks like—,”

…skin, and eyes and a laugh like molten gold; like nothing I am
good enough to have, and everything I’ve ever wanted…

“—to the way fear feels—,”

…a leather sandal, a lifeless barrette, and a spilled bushel of oranges
are all that’s left of him…

“—or about the eating habits of black birds.”

“The ‘awk,” she says, tapping a pale finger on the card in question,
“is you, and that is good. A ‘awk seeks the living, but a crow, she seeks
the dead – that you are one and not another should give you ‘ope.
But a ‘awk is a lonely bird, mon ami, and the road stretches before ‘im
like a ribbon that never ends…”

He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, as though the gesture could keep him from almost remembering things, or else coax the fleeting insights into tangible thoughts. The cat curled her tail around herself and watched him, purring once again. “How curious,” she murmured. “Either Mnemosyne’s absence weakens the Lethe itself, or your purpose is so great that not even the river could wipe it entirely from your mind.” She shivered as the wind ruffled through her fur; it twirled around her feet in whorls and eddies like water and even then it took her a moment to recognize it – it had been so long since she’d last felt it. Her eyes went wide, and she bared her teeth in a feline grin. “Or perhaps,” she mused aloud, watching the son of the Sia’lo struggle with his broken thoughts, “some other’s purpose is enough to have protected you.” She raised her face to the wind as he shook himself and opened his eyes again. He blinked when he realized the dark shapes that he had noticed near the peaks of the mountains to the west had grown larger still – or more accurately, he realized with a start, they had not grown larger but closer.

Oblivious, the cat drew a deep breath of the wind, as though drinking deep from a cool pond. “It smells of…yes! Of ice! And snow!” she exclaimed. “And the earth’s cold sleep. Oh, my little Sia’lo! What a marvellous thing you’ve found!” He raised a hand to shade his eyes against the sun and squinted into the distance at the black shapes, something hard and unpleasant growing in his gut. “I believe this changes things. I had thought, before, that the Corvids stole from you because they are opportunistic thieves – an unconscious Lethe-swimmer is the perfect victim for them – but now I see it a bit more clearly. This wind of yours marks you, Sia’lo, and marks you clearly. If they possessed the knowledge that you bring with you the—what? What is it?” She cut herself off, startled as his face suddenly went pale. He pointed behind her and she turned quickly, rising to her feet.

In the distance the black spots had come close enough to take shape. They were not spots at all, but veritable clouds of large black birds of alarming size and speed; even from here he could see their talons, curved into razor hooks, and their beaks open wide and hungry as they approached, shrieking their battle cry into the wind.

That cat went rigid, almost frightfully still. “Run,” she managed, her breath abandoning her in a rush. “Run now.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. He turned and lunged for his bag, hastily snatching up the items he’d placed on the ground and throwing them into it.

“What are you doing?!” The cat shrieked, finding her volume at last. She threw herself between him – his arms full of books and bottles – and the bag, her hackles raised, her lips pulled back over her teeth. “Leave it! We have to go! Now.” But he scowled darkly at her and reached over her to snatch his bag up and put his armload into it. These things were all he had of who he was. If he lost them…he wouldn’t lose them. “It doesn’t matter!” she insisted. “You don’t even know what these things are! And you never will if you let them catch you! You’re not in your own realm, and these are no mere fowl! They are the Unkindness! They will kill you!” But he continued frantically picking up his things, seizing the little carvings and throwing them into the bag. She rolled her eyes and her shoulders in an almost human expression, and hissed angrily at him, then, much to his surprise, started to help. She picked up the smallest items – those she could fit in her mouth – and dropped them into the bag, so he switched to the bigger items.

Behind them, bearing down with nerve wracking speed, came the Unkindness, and he forced himself to work faster. He briefly, passionately wished he could remember if he had had weapons in the bag, and more passionately yet that he had them in his hands.

Within moments the contents of the magical sack had been replaced, if haphazardly, and he threw the bag on his back even as he got to his feet in a single, fluid motion. The cat did not wait for him to be ready – she was already off like a shot, heading east and away from the cloud of birds. They were so close now he could hear the beating of their wings, like thunder in the hills; the sound was perhaps the most terrifying thing he’d ever heard – insofar as that had any meaning with little to no memory – and fear added wings to his heels.

He took off at a dead run, following the trail the little cat was leaving in the long grass behind her. He had no trouble keeping up with her – a realization both startling and ill-timed – and he found himself wondering again just what, exactly, he was if he could keep up with a terrified cat running for her life.

As fast as he was, though, it wasn’t fast enough, and wings on your heels don’t beat wings on your back. The Unkindness was directly behind him now, a deafening cloud of caws and shrieks and tireless, beating wings. He struggled with panic as the first of the birds dove at him, claws out and screaming.

It was enough warning to throw himself to the side at the last minute, altering his trajectory but keeping the cat’s trail in his peripheral vision, almost more afraid of losing the only creature he knew than of the roiling, murderous mass behind him. Three large birds dove through the spot where he’d been, and he suddenly, poignantly understood what the cat had meant when she’d said they were no mere fowl. There was something greater than that about them, and not just because of their size; something in their eyes and in their talons spoke to a primal part of him and triggered every single instinct he had for panic and fear. These were not scavengers. These were predators. And he suddenly had no trouble believing the cat when she said they could kill him.

Another set of screeches from behind him, and he was forced to zig-zag so violently he almost lost his footing and was now even further away from where the cat was headed, moving perpendicular to her trail. At first he was strongly of the opinion that this was not ideal; however, a split-second later he realized that the entire mass of birds was still following him – him and not the cat. Though the fact that they were apparently after him (perhaps he would make a better meal, and that was the long and short of it) did not, precisely, make him happy, the chance to lead the Unkindness away from the tiny animal and give her the opportunity to escape was not one he would turn down.

What sense was there in both of them dying?

But that was as far as he managed to get in that particular line of thinking. The next instant the Unkindness caught up to him, and he suddenly found himself embroiled in the shrieking, clawing mass. Curved talons raked across his back, leg and chest, stopping him in his tracks, even as a sharp beak tore a chunk from his shoulder and another from his arm. The impact threw him backwards to the ground, and for a brief, dizzying moment he realized he was in the eye of a storm of birds, swinging in a vicious funnel around him; he could see the sky, blue and bright above them and in the split-second he lay on his back, he memorized the image, knowing it would be the one he took to his grave. Then he frantically rolled over onto his chest and buried his face in the grass, squeezing his eyes shut and throwing his hands over his head in what he knew was a futile effort to delay the inevitable.

And yet, the inevitable never came.

The shrieks and calls and rasping caws fell away until the only thing he could hear was the beating of avian wings and his frantic heart. He did not open his eyes or remove his hands; he didn’t move, terrified it was some kind of trick. When he finally got the courage to peek out from under his elbow, he could see that the funnel was still there. The Unkindness kept him trapped within their ring, but they no longer attacked.

Before he could determine the meaning of this change in his situation, a polished, pointed leather boot struck the ground between his face and the birds and before he could react or pull away, someone roughly grabbed his hair and wrenched his head up, prompting a gasp of pain and surprise from him.

A man held him, of a race he naturally didn’t recognize. The stranger had a square face, adorned with a prominent nose and unreadable, beady eyes of a solid black. His lips were long and flat and twisted into a wide grin that was somehow more frightening than the Unkindness still reeling around them.

“Hallo,” he said, shoving his square face so close to the Sia’lo’s that he could smell the grease in his long black hair and the stale blood on his breath. He almost remembered some action he was supposed to perform, some thing he could do to break the man’s grip—

…I press my fist against his knee and let my rage explode into it, shattering bone and
tearing ligament with the force of the blade’s creation. While he rears back, screaming,
I gather my legs beneath me and leap into his chest, driving him to the ground, and…

—but if the Lethe’s grip wasn’t enough to keep the memory from him, the terror generated by the stranger’s proximity was. His arm twitched, muscles responding to a physical memory stored within them, but he remained firmly in the man’s rough grasp, unable to pull back or struggle free or even move.

“I hope you’ve got some nice clothes in that bag of yers,” the stranger said, and each word brought a wave of nausea up from the Sia’lo’s stomach at the noxious smell welling up from his throat. “Because ye’ve been invited to our little soirée, and the Rook don’t like it none when people don’t show the proper respect fer the Parliament.” He laughed crudely and shoved the red-haired man’s face back into the ground as he got to his feet.

The Sia’lo started to push himself to his feet as well – to do what, he wasn’t certain – but the gesture proved useless. Before he even made it to his knees, the stranger made a violent, slashing gesture with his hand and spoke a sharp, ugly word. The last thing he saw was the stranger’s frightening, hideous grin before awareness bled from his body and everything went black.