Between Worlds, Time is a function of Shadow, late April 2025
Avalon was not far from where I was bound.
A Shadow of a Shadow... I thought of silver towers painted gold by the setting sun, of the City of Cities... thy green and golden spires... thy palaces and pleasances-- of my mad flight through Arden forest...
The road forked before me, a familiar blackness in the horizon of the left-hand path, the thorns and briars of a shadow of the Black Road. Last time I was there, I had passed unharmed... But I had been the only creature I was responsible for, then. I turned, and took the longer road, recalling the travels through Shadow done less recklessly...
A stone cottage, nestled by a babbling brook... Away, away... It holds a dream I will not admit to remembering...
A forest of crystallized leaves, chiming in the wind...
Focus-- a piercing pain in my temple... Iago and Topaz whinnying and shying as their hooves skirt a bridge of opaque glass-- an unskilled rider yet, I calm one and hold the reins of the other-- and almost tumble over, then once more a plain of grass... A slow trot along the edge of a lake... One last burst of energy as I envision a clearing... a balmy night in the late Spring...
I set up camp in a glade surrounded by birch and willow trees. There soon was a bedroll unrolled, a small cooking fire gleaming. I took care of the horses-- and missed having staff, after all. Another comfort too easy to get used to and too difficult to reconcile with the values I held. Once the two gallant fellows were dried, watered, and covered, and myself out of travelling garb, I washed in the cold stream-- donned a change of clothes-- and burrowed into the blankets, teeth chattering.
To sleep... perchance to dream--
The scent of bergamot, gunpowder and burning autumn leaves. Desire through a dark mirror, then a fractured one...
I woke up shivering in the pre-dawn chill. Betrayed. Compelled. Betrayed by my own compliance.
A presence, then... a gaze that rested upon me like a blade...
Skin over bone, gauze over skin... a saint of the first Christian catacombs, buried in silk and jewels... I looked around, and found neither Topaz nor Iago. Just the wraith and I in the clearing, suspended in the hour of the wolf, the fire I had lit blazing an uncanny blue... the hue of the light of the moon, a pearl fox's flame...
I approached, then went down on one knee to kiss a skeletal hand. It extended with the fluency of silk, an illusion unburdened by physics. Her hair moved as though we were underwater.
No rattle rose as the bones shifted.
Her voice was wind over the Abyss, a chime of crystal leaves...
I stood, then, and looked into twin vantablack lakes.
The unreadable, eternal smile of a skull.
"I am called Whispering Shade," she replied.
"It is a beautiful name, my lady."
"Yours is... adequate, Wanderer."
She regarded me, circling, a courtly dance, perfectly timed...
"Do you fear I might work woe with your true name? I would gain nothing from it. The echo of your pain is enough. It will keep me warm for many waxings and wanings of the moon."
She spoke with a connoisseur's refinement and an addict's hunger. One seemed perverse. The other, obscene.
...But I supposed we all needed to eat.
"Was it you who sent the dream?"
"No. That curse bears the sigil of another. I only followed its echo. If my feeding had made it louder, I apologize."
His hand around my throat, my mother's gaze--
I let the image go, let it become her sustenance.
"Nevertheless, you have shown gallantry. I would offer recompense."
She could not avert fate. Could not grant what I wanted.
And so, I asked for nothing at all.
"My recompense was to behold you, Whispering Shade."
"Then I will remember you as one who gave without expectation."
She stooped, then, and touched my brow.
"The song forming in your thoughts... it pleases me."
No sound of footsteps on the dew-stained grass...
When I awoke the next morning, it was not on the cold hill's side. I felt light, and rested-- and the final stanza of the ballad took shape within my mind, a troubadour's rhyme twined around a sorceress' curse.
Topaz, Iago and I made good time that day, and reached the outskirts of Arden before the sun had set.
