by G. Deyke
~*~
The witch tells us that we have no time to dally, so we leave at once. Therrin puts the map away in her satchel, and we follow the old woman from her cottage, to find the one who will help us come nearer the necromancer.
Therrin is glad to save this world of which we know so little. I am glad to help her as I can, for she has been kind to me, but I cannot bring myself to care whether we succeed. Whether it is saved or not, this place can never be home. It is broken and horrible and dead. But for now I have no home, no other place to go, and I will be alone wherever I spend my time. I may as well stay here, and help her.
The witch's help is a great wolf, large enough to carry the three of us easily on his back. It seems he too has eaten some of the true food of this world, for he speaks to us and asks us whither we would go. Therrin shows him the forest we seek on her map.
“Is your first treasure there then, Princess?” he asks. His voice is rough and deep. He sounds and looks and feels and smells almost real, but there is something missing, as there is something missing from all this world. Maybe it is only his name. I do not know.
“No; but that is whither we travel. Will you help us?”
“Yea, I will. I will leave you near the edge of that wood and come no further. Now climb upon my back and let us run.”
He lies down, and we clamber onto his back. Therrin waves to the woodland witch, and thanks her for her help, and bids her farewell.
“I will help this world as I can,” she promises. “You shall have your dragons.”
“Make haste, and do not fail,” the witch replies.
Now the wolf leaps up and runs, and we are carried with him. I hold fast to the great beast's warm fur, and close my eye, and I wish I had something I could hope for. I do not love this strange world, and yet – when Therrin has done what she must, I do not know whither else I can go. I cannot even think of it.
I whistle to Snake and I wait. I wait, always I wait. There is nothing else I can do.
“How is it that you speak the shared tongue, now that the food of this world no longer grows?” Ty asks as we ride.
“The woodland witch gave it to me – she has kept a store of it.”
“She is your friend, then?” asks Therrin.
“Yea; but there is no one in all the Unnamed Lands who does not respect her, for she has given up her rightful death to help us all. Without her living to guide the Princess, the dragons should sleep eternally and never wake, and the Unnamed Lands turn all to even stone. We few who live long for the joy of that living, yet we can only fade away.”
Now that I have grown more accustomed to the bleakness of this world, I can see faint touches of color within the gray. The bark of the trees is not gray but brown-gray, and the vines are not gray but green-gray, and the stringy moss which hangs from the branches is indeed yellow-gray. And whatever is missing from this world – it is not only the color. I have seen gray before and it was as real as anything. There is something else, some vague thing wrong with all this world, something gone. I cannot understand it.
All these shades of gray pass by almost before I can see them, for the wolf runs very swiftly. One day's run for him might well be a week's journey for us on foot, perhaps yet more. The curse runs beside him: its legs grow long and thin and deformed, so that it may run with a long, leaping stride that keeps the pace easily.
I whistle to Snake, wishing it might fall behind.
As always when it walks, it seems to move forward too quickly for the length of its strides, so that it gives the strange impression of gliding over the ground without touching it. And yet – aside from its hideously deformed legs – it looks so like her that all this seems immaterial. Even to glance its way twists my stomach with fear and sickness.
I close my eye again and turn my head to face the other way. I mustn't look at this thing which shadows me. I mustn't.
“Tell me,” says Therrin: “do you know anything about the Wind People?”
“Nay,” rumbles the great wolf beneath us. “Nothing. They do not much care for creatures of the earth.”
At length he asks: “And what is this black shadow which follows you and runs with me now?”
“Nothing,” I whisper into his fur, so quiet he may not hear me. “It is nothing, nothing.” It is not there. It is not there. I will not think of it. But I know that I am lying.