Since the Forgotten History, no Fay had chosen to be born in flesh- until Chap.
One moment-or one eternity-he was with his kin, singular and many, all in one. In an instant, the first measure of time in his new awareness, he was a wet, squirming pup struggling against his siblings for a place to nurse from his mother. His birth was his own choice, for once again the Fay needed one of their own among mortals.
Unlike his brothers and sisters, he was fully aware of who and what he was. His first emotion was loneliness. His second was fear in isolation. Though flesh made him one of the litter, he was apart from them in his awareness. And apart from his kin, the Fay, lost in a prison of flesh.
Gone was his "touch" upon the essence of any thing in existence, to both know and be all that it truly was in its innate nature. He had only this body now. Gone was also his awareness of eternity as a whole, and he lived in "moments," one after the other. Even memory of his place among the Fay became mute and cloudy. For a living "mind" could never hold full awareness of all that was the Fay.
At first his small body seemed so useless. It took many days and nights before he understood the "how" and necessity of walking on legs. Then he was running before his siblings stopped falling on their snouts. He gained his first reprieve from grief and panic over all that he had given up.
He learned the delight of whipping grass and wind, the joy of mother's tongue on his stomach, and the comfort of sleep and food. There was also wrestling with his brothers and sisters. He learned compassion when he tried not to exploit his greater sentience by winning too often.
Memories were a thing for the living, limited and fragile. Not like the awareness within the Fay that Chap just barely… remembered. Like anyone's memories of an earlier past time.
And Leesil hid from his.
Chap stood alone outside the smithy, his frustration mounting. Part of the purpose he carried into flesh was to bring Leesil to Magiere, to save her from the Enemy. But what of saving Leesil?
Intimacy of body and spirit bonded them, but the bond now grew fragile as Leesil stepped farther into the past. Perhaps Magiere was all there was to keep him from being lost in the past he struggled against. Chap was uncertain how to foster this. And how much could Magiere herself face of what she learned of Leesil in this place the humans called the Warlands?
Something tugged on Chap's tail, and he jumped, startled.
A smudge-faced girl with bone-thin arms grasped at his switching tail with a wide grin. Chap turned about, sticking his nose into her. Beneath her burlap dress he felt the ridges of tiny ribs and the swell of a bloated belly. Prolonged hunger had begun to deform her.
Chap glanced once down the main way, but Leesil had not returned. He pushed at the little girl with his head, herding her toward the smithy's front door and the busy preparations for a hot meal.
CHAPTER FOUR
As Magiere pulled Port and Imp to a stop outside of Venjetz, she wished Leesil had warned them of the markers lining its outer wall.
Heads in varied states of decay were spitted on regularly spaced iron spikes high on the stone. One iron crow's cage hung from the rampart upon a chain, the body within rotted and pecked down to exposed bone. The dangling cage was more unsettling than the other warnings. A dead man's head on a spike was still a dead man. Anyone locked in a crow's cage would still be alive. For a while.
Leesil sat silently beside Magiere on the wagon's bench, as if the heads were common things not worth noting. She looked away from the crow's cage but found herself staring at one skull, denuded of flesh, with hollow black holes for eyes and jaw dangling low.
This is the world my Leesil was born into.
Wynn choked as she averted her face. Magiere wasn't one to coddle the sage, but she reached back to pull Wynn's hood over her eyes.
"Don't look up," she said. "We'll be inside soon."
"Traitors," Leesil said, watching the crow's cage spin slightly in the low wind. "Or those he accused as such. Cold weather keeps the stench down. In summer you can smell it before the walls are in sight."
Magiere knew the "he" Leesil spoke of was Darmouth. She kept up her calm front, though she still worried over Leesil's strange withdrawal since entering this land.
"Pull your hood forward, around your face!" she told him. "Maybe no peasants have mentioned your eyes, but there may still be a guardsman or two left alive who'd remember a half-elf."
Chap whined and shoved his head across the wagon's bench between Magiere and Leesil.
"Get down," she told the dog. "You attract almost as much attention as he does."
Chap dropped back into the wagon's bed, turned a circle, and curled in the corner below the bench. He lifted his head with perked ears, looking to Wynn, but the young sage had her own head down. When he whined again, she looked over at him. She was strangely hesitant, but then crawled across to cuddle next to him, burying her hands in the fur of his back.
Magiere braced herself to enter the warlord's capital. When she clucked to Port and Imp, and they rounded the curve of the city wall, there was a line of six carts and wagons waiting to enter. As they drew up at the back of the line, she caught sight of vehicles waiting inside to exit. The two-wheeled cart in front of her was filled with grain sacks.
"Venjetz is the center of trade within this province," Leesil said, his face hidden inside his hood. "They buy or sell almost anything here, but you need to show reason for entering. Written permission from the military is required to set up residence. Artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters- anyone with tools and a skill-are accepted. Peasants aren't allowed in except to trade their harvest. They're given two days to finish and get out."
"Why is this?" Wynn whispered.
"The city would be overrun with refugees, more so now, I'd guess. There aren't enough necessities to support thousands with no skills. If you can contribute, you're accepted. Otherwise you're leaving… one way or another."
He fell silent as Magiere drove their wagon up to the gatehouse. A young guard in a leather hauberk with no crest or surcoat approached them. He eyed Port and Imp briefly, running his hand through Port's lush coat.
"Fine horses," he said. "What's your business?"
His tone was short but not rude, and Magiere held up an empty canvas sack. "Passing through. We need to resupply in your market."
Leesil had told her what to do. She opened their money pouch to show the guard its contents. Leesil had removed most of the coins before they arrived, especially any gold that was left. Commerce bringing currency to the city was welcome, but too large a coin purse would be suspect.
The guard glanced into the purse, nodded, and waved her through. And so they entered the city where Leesil grew up.
Magiere wanted to take his hand but let him be for now. In the last few nights he'd barely touched her as they fell asleep. His thoughts were lost somewhere here in his past. She could follow him to this place, but she couldn't find where he hid inside of himself-hid from her.
They passed a large stable on the left. Straight ahead was a row of eateries, inns, and two taverns, all positioned to be found easily by travelers. Most folk either walked about or traveled in wagons. Motley-garbed soldiers patrolled on foot in twos and threes, while only a few with better armor rode horses.
Venjetz had grown over many decades upon a plateau among the hills. To the city's northeast side, Darmouth's square-block keep rose into sight above the rooftops. The most heavily populated cities, like Bela, were settled upon rocky rises of land with the castle and grounds dead center at the top, towering above all else. Here, Darmouth's keep rested offshore in a large lake, with its front portal connected to the shore by a fortified stone bridge. It would be a hard place to siege.