The fortune teller raised its head. “Are you going to harm me?”
“Can you not foretell this?” he asked, sitting down with his legs crossed.
“My future is opaque with your shadow,” the fortune teller replied, drawing its long-fingered hands out of its sleeves and putting them together, fingertips touching. “Well, are you?”
“No. I only came in here because there’s nobody else left in the town.”
“I am not as mobile as the rest of the villagers,” said the fortune teller, gesturing at the tent without separating its hands. The mortal wondered how much of the creature was buried beneath the ground.
“You weren’t here last time I came.”
“No. You did not need an oracle, then.”
“I don’t need one now.”
“If you are not here to slay me and you do not desire a reading, why do you linger?”
It was a good question. “Did you speak with my kinswoman, when she was here?”
“Aye.”
“Thought you might have.”
“Her journey was awry afore even she undertook it, and she came to me for guidance. But my guidance went unheeded.”
“Did she find what she sought?”
“If she sought a bitter and violent death, then yes, she did.”
“There was nothing here for her, after all.”
“I told her as much,” said the fortune teller. “But someone had already convinced her otherwise.”
He looked away. “Can you truly tell fortunes?”
“I can,” said the fortune teller. “If I am asked. Have you changed your mind?”
“No,” he replied. “But I have another question for you.”
“Ask, then.”
“Tell me, fortune teller, do fortunes truly unfold as you have seen?”
“If whomever has asked a fortune of me believes in my vision, yes.”
“And if the subject does not believe?”
“If they do not, they ought not to ask me.”
“Do your visions predict a predetermined future? Or are they just projections that come to pass, due to the beliefs of your subjects?”
“I am of the Faerie Folk,” said the fortune teller, recoiling as if from a slap. “We do not imagine; we are the imagined. The truth of my telling is entirely dependent upon the mortal to whom I speak it.”
The mortal pulled at his beard. “What is it about your vision that is so special, that it can shape a mortal’s future?”
“Nothing. I see on their behalf, through the lens of my own wisdom,” replied the fortune teller. “Power lies not in my ability to see, but rather in my ability to perceive.”
“I thank you, fortune teller. Your…insight…has been invaluable to me,” said the mortal.
“Are you certain you do not desire a reading?” said the fortune teller. “I am most curious to know what will happen next.”
“Thank you, but no,” said the mortal, backing out through the hanging drapery of the fortune teller’s tent. “I prefer to see things through by myself.”
4. The Playwright
Nentril Revallo had erected a small stage in the grove by the riverbank. He stood there on the boards, hopping from foot to foot with impatience, waiting for the arrival of the star. Behind him, a velvet curtain hung parted over a backdrop that was painted a solid black. There was no backstage.
Revallo had never suffered from stage fright, but a fear was upon him then. His players had fled, and there was no audience spread before him. The playwright waited alone for the show to begin.
Revallo knew the approach of his lead when the darkness intensified, though the light of the buckled moon remained undimmed.
The mortal ambled through the rows of empty bleachers, looking around him with evident curiosity.
“Welcome, mortal, to centre stage!” the playwright declaimed. He was pleased that his voice betrayed no hint of his trepidation.
The boards creaked as the mortal mounted the stage.
Revallo bowed low. “I am the playwright, Nentril Revallo. Perhaps you have heard of me?”
The mortal regarded him for a moment. “I have not,’ he said. “But you remind me of somebody famous.”
“You are likewise obscure to me,” said the playwright, “though you are the star tonight, and the lights shine full upon you.”
“The better to cast my shadow,” said the mortal. “If I am truly the star, I am one that has fallen.”
“Hero or villain, you are yet the protagonist,” said the playwright.
“True enough.”
“Tell me, protagonist: why did you first come to the Realms?”
“I came seeking the greatest beauty in all of the worlds.”
“An old-fashioned quest,” said the playwright. “How noble.”
“My quest was as base as any other. I pursued my obsession to the end of sanity and once I possessed what I desired, I destroyed it.”
“The experience transformed you.”
“It evolved me, playwright, but it did not make of me somebody new. It drew out my true nature.”
“Why have you returned to the Realms, mortal? Have you some new quest?”
“My kinswoman travelled here after I told her my story, and she was murdered.”
“Ah,” said the Revallo. “Revenge. That is always a plentiful source of drama.”
“It is an excuse. A storyteller’s conceit. I have returned because it is my nature to do so.”
“And what is your nature, mortal man?”
“I am a traveller. I seek new places, because I have no place of my own.”
The playwright was bold, and wise to the ways of Story. He believed himself a master of such, and he did not fear to navigate any plot; to embroil himself with any narrative. But the placid way the mortal spoke gave the playwright pause. “And why is that, mortal? Was your place destroyed? Were you cast out from it?”
“I just…I changed, and I felt that I did not belong there anymore,” said the mortal. “Soon others came to feel the same way. And so I left.”
“And so you came here,” said the playwright.
“Eventually,” said the mortal. “I went to other places, first. Now you answer one for me, playwright.
“That is only fair.”
“Tell me,” said the mortal, “are all of your stories about mortal travellers in the Realms?”
“They are,” said Revallo. “Left to our own devices, we Folk do not change, and our stories are fixed. Mortals are the only true source of new tales here.”
The mortal just smiled. “You are a curious one, Nentril Revallo. You are a Faerie creature. Your kind do not dream. And yet here you are, a playwright, seeking stories to make your own.”
“My stories are pale and indulgent things. I understand the structures and the strictures, but, unlike a mortal, I cannot create tales that are truly new. Mine are stolen things, retold to the best of my ability and comprehension.”
The mortal cocked his head. “The same is true of mortal storytellers; do not let their hubris deceive you. You may find true greatness yet.”
“How so?” replied the playwright. “How may I find such a thing, when my fate is prisoner to some mortal’s awful story?”
“I am not yet certain,” replied the mortal. “But I believe that I can free you, and all of your kind, if you will but believe in me.”
“Why should you need such a thing?” asked the playwright. “I wield no magic. I command no armies. I am but a playwright, master only of my own threadbare troupe of players.”
“You are a storyteller, Nentril Revallo, and stories are everything in this place. If I am to have my way I need others to see the world as I do. For that, I would have the storytellers on my side.”
The playwright was taken abac
k. “If you would do this for us, you are indeed a hero.”
“I fear not, Revallo. The times to come will be harsh, and few will thank me for them.”
“Why, then, would you spend your mortal days on such a cause?” said the playwright. “Deny it as you would, your heart is noble indeed.”
The mortal laughed. “My heart is just an organ, Revallo—but you are an inveterate flatterer. You ask what’s in it for me, and I can tell you only this…” The mortal looked around, suddenly self-conscious. He scratched behind his ear and said “Sometimes I just get sick of hearing the same damn stories, over and over again.”
5. In the Pass
The shadowphage did not know exactly what a mortal was, but it knew one when it saw one. Concealed and compressed into its crevice, it watched him clamber up the steepening mountain pass. The shadowphage did not care to correct its ignorance; it cared only that it was hungry.
When it believed itself to be within range of the mortal’s senses, the shadowphage seeped out of the darkness and stepped into its proper shape. It was tall and narrow, with skin the colour of old bones. Shadows hung thick in its eye sockets and amongst the cleavage of its breasts.
“Hello,” said the mortal.
The shadowphage smiled at him. “Why, hello,” it said. “Are you a mortal man?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Either you are, or you are not,” the shadowphage said, as pleasantly as it could.
“I am a mortal,” came the reply, “Though I am not, exactly, mortal.”
“Have you a soul?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are a mortal,” said the shadowphage, its smile spreading. “I knew it. Are you dangerous?”
“In my own way.”
“Of course you are.” The shadowphage stroked the hooked, bladed instruments that hung from its belt with twitching fingers.
“You mean me harm,” the mortal said. “You would consume my flesh.”
“I cannot ingest anything but darkness and shadow,” said the shadowphage, its bloodless lips parting. In its mouth there was no tongue, just ring after ring of teeth. “I am a shadowphage.”
“Yet still you mean me harm.”
“I must open you up, if I am to have the shadows out of you.”
“I fear that would be a grievous error.”
“Oh, aye?” said the shadowphage, its darksome grin fading.
“Come, then,” the mortal replied, touching his sternum. “Look upon me, as I have looked upon you. Let us see whose insides are the darker.”
The shadowphage blinked, and looked at him again; and the mortal returned its regard. There was indeed a darkness visible through the holes in the mortal’s face, and that darkness was blacker than the shadowphage could stand to look upon, much less to eat.
The shadowphage backed towards its crevice; paling into translucency.
“Stop,” said the mortal. “I am not done with you, yet.”
“Please,” said the shadowphage. “I will give to you all that I possess. I will serve you; I will cherish you. I will please you in any way you desire.”
“I don’t wish you ill,” the mortal said. “In fact, I think you’re kind of cool. Recognize that you are mine and promise to attend me when I call for you, and you may remain otherwise free for all your days.”
“I am yours, now and forevermore.”
“For ever more,” the mortal repeated.
“Thank you,” said the shadowphage. “Thank you for the gift of your patronage. Thank you, bless you—”
“Nothing is given that cannot also be taken,” said the mortal. “Now give me your silence and retract your company, before I reconsider.”
The shadowphage drew itself back into the crevice without another word.
6. The Sinewed
Forest
The mortal walked down out of the mountains, passing through the regions where the rock-face was marbled with mirror-glass and living meat, and where gravity recast its direction at whim. He walked on through the Sinewed Forest, where the fleshtrees bore rotting, overripe babyfruit. A river of amniotic milk gave nourishment to all the beasts that lived upon the land and in the trees…but those beasts were scarce now.
He saw none of the pigbirds that had so delighted him when first he had ventured here. Perhaps it was the season: the foliage was red and yellow and purple and black, and the trees crackled like arthritic fingers when the wind pushed them. Perhaps it was some doom more permanent than winter.
The mortal walked on, paying the sights little heed. He had passed that way before, and all of his wonder was already spent.
7. The Ruined City
on the Plains
Desolate, the Sea People of the Plains lingered amongst the ruins of their fallen city.
Before their Queen had perished, their capitol had been a great, luminous place; risen from waves of verdant grass; set firm against a sky that had flowed blue and ebbed black, as the days and nights made their cycle. Now the grass grew sparse and yellow, and the ocean of sky had receded to a bed of pale silt. Now the city was broken and rotting, rimed with the misery of its inhabitants.
The mortal came over the dunes, his lengthening shadow marching behind him. The Sea People watched him approach with eyes still raw from their protracted grief. Their pastel-hued skins had bleached to the palest of greys; their sun-white hair was stained nicotine-yellow. He could not tell if they recognized him or not.
The mortal went up to one who stood leaning on a rusty halberd. There was no desire for vengeance, nor even justice, in its cracked and clouded eyes.
“I know that I am the cause of your mourning, and I am sorry for that,” said the mortal. “But it is a shame to let this glorious place fall to ruin.”
“Our Queen is dead,” said the halberdier. “What choice do we have?”
“Could you not instate a new Queen?” asked the mortal. “Are there no heirs?”
“They, too, are in mourning,” said the halberdier.
“Come now,” said the mortal. “The Realms are changing. Soon you will be free from the shackles that have bound your Folk for all these long centuries.”
“No freedom can fill the pit of our despair.”
“If you would have your Realm restored, all you need do is name yourselves mine.”
“We do not wish to be restored,” the halberdier said. “Our only wish is that you leave us to our dying.”
“You are immortal faerie folk,” replied the mortal. “Dying is not a process to which you are subject. You are either alive or you are dead, and you will not perish unless you are slain.”
“Thus we are shackled, as you have said. If you can truly free us, you will allow us the death that we desire.”
“Grant I your allegiance. Name yourselves for me and I will see to it that you get what you desire.”
“Can you grant us mortality?” said the halberdier.
“I cannot give you a mortal soul. That is something you must earn for yourselves,” he replied, “But I am certain that I can deliver you a fitting death.”
“Then we are yours,” said the halberdier. “We are yours until we perish from existence.”
Shaking his head, the mortal left the Sea Folk of the Plains to husk out in their washed-up city. He had offered them a sea change, but all they wanted was a slackening tide.
8. The Three Warriors
The three warriors came to the mountains with the dawn. They came swiftly and silently, sweeping every pass, every trail, every way that the mortal could have taken on his way to the Sea City on the Plains.
In the pass between the tallest and the shortest of mountains, the scarred warrior knelt in the dust and examined the mark it found there.
“This boot-print is the mortal’s, no question,” said the warrio
r in the bloody jerkin, coming to stand by its scarred companion.
“How?” asked the swordless warrior. “Even without rest, he cannot have passed through these mountains so many hours ahead of us.”
“I don’t know how, but the spoor is clear,” said the bloodied warrior. “It’s him.”
“We should separate,” said the swordless warrior. “We must try to get ahead of him.”
“Her Majesty has forbidden it,” said the bloodied warrior. “We are only to pursue.”
“I believe that some magic is preventing us from catching him, though I cannot fathom its nature.”
“That is because you are a warrior, not a magician.”
“We cannot succeed if we continue in this way. We should separate. Her Majesty will brook failure worse than insubordination.”
“I don’t know,” said the bloodied warrior. “Our orders were quite explicit.”
The scarred warrior finally spoke. “You two go on ahead. I’ll continue to follow him.”
“Those are not our orders,” said the bloodied warrior.
“If I remain on the mortal’s trail,” said the scarred warrior, “then elements of our unit are still following him, and we are still operating within the parameters of our orders.”
“I agree with this plan,” said the swordless warrior, making it a consensus of two against one.
The bloodied warrior regarded its comrades quietly. The three of them were special warriors; none of them had rank over the others. “Harm the mortal if you must,” it advised, “but remember: it is her Majesty’s prerogative to slay him.”
“I will wreak harm upon him,” said the scarred warrior. “You may rest assured of that.”
9. The Magus
The mortal’s footfalls were light and his strides were long as he followed the opalescent river through all of its meanderings. It felt as if the gravity of the Land was too weak to keep him properly earthbound. His progress was swifter than he would have credited.
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