shrike

 The step through The Door this time found my foot upon grass a color I could not speak. Fields of this verdant beauty stretched across gentle hills. Golden woods walked the low, dipping feet in dappled streams. A mountain crowned the horizon of this new land, the bridge of heavens. 

As I stepped upon the sward, the blades bent in a kindly submission, but returned my touch with an embrace. And as if under lover’s touch, the field sighed and sang with the voice of leaf. It was the song of remembrance ushering me through a life I never lived. With a name I never had. Yet the memory lived in these hills. 

The Song recalled to me the time of wandering hunger, alone in these hills. A melody of their nurture, a chorus of their care. The high of the hunt and the low of the Queen’s knight. The wonderful loneliness shattered by the Chevalier of Two Lions and his cacophonous guile. But the Quest of the Mount and the encaged Shrike. 

Verse of climb to spare the lark from armored lout came in joyous tale. The Three Beasts barred us two as did the River Sin. And the Beldam sent us storm and sun to wash and bake. My travail gave a road to dastard knight and with notes of tense triumph we ascended to the Fort of Folly and its seven riddles. Where I faltered, the felon’s cunning surpassed the wit of ancient cantrip and one gate of the hundred was open. 

The years of striving were a lilting chant, a breeze, to these leaves of song. But the recalled fear was tangible to my gut, the pains recut. Until our race brought us to the cage of Beauty’s tomb. A sepulcher sculpted with sorrow for the bird of stolen voice. The key to unbound the jail was a simple thing, common. We all have it. I had to give her my Name.

The land silenced in its expectation. 

Until music burst to tell of my gift and my curse. Bereft of name, I was cast to the unknown. I was lost to the land. I walked the gray halls of the Silence. To loose the chain, I was bound. Nameless and lost. 

But I had returned.

I looked back to tell the Magus of my home we had found to find her changed. My guide, my friend, my protection was the Shrike of my Name.