Songs of the Dying Earth

He crawled along the passageway and up through the rewswolley into the open air. It was dawn. A rim of deepest red, drowning in purple ink, edged above the eastern horizon. The great expanse of dark blue sky overhead verged upon black, but faint ruddy light silhouetted the tall hives of the vanished Xence Xord. Before him dipped and flowed the rounded irregularities of the Xence Moraine; protrusions brushed with reddish haze, the hollows lost in blackness. Beyond them, invisible as yet, loomed the naked bulk of Porphiron Scar.

He cast a wary glance around him, but glimpsed no undulant forms. The giant worms of the vicinity had presumably fled the rising sun. Drawing a deep draft of chill morning air, Farnol set off across the Xence Moraine.

For hours he hiked north, pausing briefly at midday to consume a lunch of grasscake, dried stringeberries, and black sausage skinny and shriveled as a mummy’s finger. He encountered no man, no predatory beast, hardly a sign of animal life beyond the occasional bird or winged reptile gliding overhead. Neither incident nor recognizable landmark marked his progress across the Moraine, but certain interior changes signaled the passage of time. The warmth in his belly was spreading. As the hours and miles passed, the formerly compact spark expanded, infusing his core with heat too pronounced for comfort, but as yet no source of real pain; less disturbing for what it was than for what it promised.

There was little profit in the contemplation of imperiled viscera. He fixed his attention instead upon the surrounding terrain, with its soft swells and dips, its rocky debris lustrous as palace statuary, its subtly-shaded mantle of grey-green scourvale. Before him the land ascended by degrees to a distant ridge crowned with thick vegetation, black against the indigo sky. There rose the High Boscage that clothed the steep bluffs overlooking the River Derna, and toward the forest Farnol directed his steps.

He walked on for the rest of the day, pausing along the way only as often as need dictated. By sunset, the High Boscage had drawn appreciably nearer. Darkness fell, and progress halted. He ate, allowing his thoughts to dwell upon the lost pleasures of Kaiin, while devoting a corner of his mind and a measure of his senses to vigilance. No sinister presence made itself known, but for safety’s sake, he donned the Chameleon Mask. The heavy fabric of the magical appurtenance wafted an evocative odor. A sense of powerful alteration rippled his perceptions. The world about him vanished in darkness, but he sensed a twisting of reality, and knew upon instinct that he was well hidden. He slept.

In the morning, the ineffably alien weight of the Chameleon Mask woke him. He rose and gazed about. Early light played dim and tranquil upon the Xence Moraine. No danger manifested itself, and he stripped the mask away with a sense of relief. His journey resumed.

Afternoon, and he walked the quiet shade of the High Boscage. Presently, he came to the summit of a steep bluff, where he stood gazing down upon the River Derna, its impetuous waters the rich color of rusted iron. Then on along the bluff, following the course of the river channel, until the tingling of his nerves told him that he was nearing his destination. A colony of pelgrane is known to infest the region north of Porphiron Scar, Tcheruke had told him, and the creatures might be anywhere. He kept a wary eye on the sky as he walked, while often scanning the ground for bones or remnants capable of housing the headstone that he sought.

Hours devoid of discovery passed until, at the close of the day, the sight of an airborne form threw him to the ground. There he crouched motionless, jaw clenched. From that vantage point, he studied the winged creature above, noting the batlike form, the curved snout, the ponderously adroit flight; a pelgrane, unmistakably. Fear welled, its ice momentarily quelling the heat of Uncle Dhruzen’s poison.

The pelgrane passed across the face of the sun and vanished. Farnol’s breath eased, and his hopes stirred. He had come to the right place. Here the pelgrane lived, and here presumably died. Where they died, their headstones must lie.