Vincent awoke to one of the worst migraines he had ever experienced in his entire life. He recognized the disassociated haze of a bad hangover and the empty feeling of sickness in his stomach. When he opened his eyes and saw the walls of the inn, he groaned, a dry sound in his scratchy throat. His body throbbed from the beating it had received on the thread from the day before and he found he could barely move.

By habit, he reached to his left, expecting to find the table with his morning pills on it. But it wasn't there. Then he remembered where he was. If it hadn’t been for the hangover, he would have sworn. The only thing that stopped him was the migraine. It was slowly cracking his skull in half. It didn’t allow him the energy for foul, four-lettered utterances. Instead, he raised his hands to his snout, closed his eyes and pressed the backs of them against his temple.

“You are awake?” Slade’s harsh inflection made him wince. Though she had not spoken loudly, her words came across like the blare of a siren. Stars danced their way across his vision and the world tilted a little, as if some of the alcohol was still in his system. “Is your mind with you, Vincent Cordell?”

“I...” he rasped, sitting up and looking around, trying to shake the shrieking tinnitus from his ears. She stood by the wall, her triangular features striking a statuesque pose in the sunlight that poured through the window. His migraine seemed to intensify as he processed the creature’s existence. “W-what?”

“I asked if your mind is with you. Or do remnants of the spirit still flow through your blood? What were you thinking?”

He wasn’t ready for this nor did he have the energy to fight. Whatever was in that drink, it left him feeling like he had been run over by a bulldozer. He tried to answer. Instead, he felt a sudden queasiness grasp at his stomach. He bowled over and gagged, expecting bile to come out.

Fortunately, only a few specks of spittle hung from his snout. His bruised muscles protested as he seized over a second time, hurling strings onto the floor. His chest cracked and he wouldn’t have been surprised to see a rib pop out of his mouth and bounce across the room.

“I need that Triasat Xalix gave me,” he croaked after the gagging stopped, “please don’t make me beg...”

“Why?” she demanded.

“Whatever was in that stuff, it did a number on me,” he said, “I don’t think I can walk. You’ll have to drag me out.”

“Do not go back to sleep!” she barked as he leaned back and began to close his eyes.

The piercing volume of her voice caused a flare of anger to flame up in his chest. But before he could say anything, she had already produced the vial and thrust it into his hands. He unstopped it, carefully balanced a drop on his claw, and tucked it into his mouth. As the fire of the Triasat spread, he could feel his muscles relax as all the pain burned away.

He gently coughed up wisps of black smoke and felt the migraine leave him. It was not nearly as violent as the other times he had been “cured”. Perhaps to this world, schizophrenia was a far more profound “wrong” than a few bruised muscles and a bad hangover. It left him feeling refreshed like stepping out of a hot shower.

“You are well now,” she said, “now will you explain what you were thinking last night, and why I should not have you shackled from here to Meldohv?”

“You do what you want,” Vincent said, “but I think my motives were pretty obvious. That kid offered me free drinks and considering my circumstances, I had the sudden urge to get plastered. It’s as simple as that.”

“Plastered?” Slade repeated.

“It means to drink yourself stupid. That's what I did. You creatures make one hell of a concoction. Either that or this body must metabolize alcohol differently than a human’s and I misjudged my pace. Shit...I can’t even remember half of it, but I'm guessing from your reaction, that I must have made an ass of myself.” He sat on the edge of the bed, still feeling slightly off-balance. “Anyway, that’s the explanation. If it doesn’t satisfy you, then so be it. At no time last night did you say ‘Hey Vince, don’t drink any alcohol.’ So if you’re about to chew me out for that, just keep that in mind. But now I know.”

“I warned you not to make a scene,” she said, “last night, you made a fool of yourself. You–”

“–I know.”

He felt like telling her he didn’t give a damn. But as soon as the words arose to the mouth, he looked at her, taking in the surreal sight of a reptilian creature scowling at him. He remembered their battle on the thread just the day before, it had been exhilarating, terrifying, and perhaps even wonderful. The surrealness of the situation took the momentum from his arguments. Also, he was lucky he wasn't shackled already.

She kept him on a short leash for the rest of the morning, never letting him out of her sight. He supposed he should have been ashamed of his behavior the night before, ashamed of being a drunken mess. But the winged creatures that roamed the town were too strange for shame, as if it would have been a waste to feel any sort of humiliation in front of such creations; he was too disassociated from them.

After they ate a short breakfast, Slade paid the innkeeper, and left Vincent outside by Holan. Then she went to talk to Kialla and Barban. Vincent didn’t catch their conversation because he was too distracted by the town of Teramin, now that it was revealed in the daylight. It was flanked on all sides by the jagged ebony mountains.

Spires of dark rock peppered the wide expansive fields between the citadels and the town, a moderate collection of homes built from rough stone and brick. They were not uniformly square or rectangular like the houses found on Earth, instead their edges were rough and irregular, yet colorful and pleasing.

A grim-looking Falian came to Slade, holding a cylindrical vessel covered in cloth. He said a few words to her, put the vessel on the ground and unveiled it. It was a large glass jar held in place by intricately tied ropes. Inside the jar was the corpse of a grotesque rodent. Its lips were curled back with the tightness of death, revealing a row of sharp, piranha-like teeth. But when Vincent saw that its legs were bent at odd angles, he wondered if it was the grimace of death or frozen agony. He followed the ropes to the top of the jar where they secured a round blue coin. He didn’t know what the purpose of it was nor did he care to ask.

Slade picked up the jar and the creature tipped over onto its side so now that its torso faced Vincent. Staring at him through a grotesque cataract of gray on the creature’s stomach, was an eye. Any other person would have flinched but all he managed to do was raise his brow a little. The winged creatures who walked by continued to glance at him. Whether this was because he had the eyes of a channeler or whether because news of the previous night's antics have reached their ears, he didn’t know. Eventually he found Slade, Barban, and Kialla walking toward him.

“Vincent Cordell,” Slade said, “you claim to lack the percipience shared by all channelers.”

“I claim it for a reason.” Vincent said as she placed the jar containing the deceased rodent on the ground in front of him. Barban came up to her side and crossed his arms.

“Even a fivendai with eyes like yours should feel the ill from this creature,” he grumbled, “you are the only channeler a day’s journey from here. How ill is this abomination?”

“Ill? It's dead,” Vincent said, gazing at the creature’s corpse. “So I’d say it’s pretty ‘ill’. You can’t get any unhealthier than that.”

He flinched at the loud noise Barban made, then settled down when he realized it was laughter.

“This one has a sense of humor,” Barban said, “I like him already.”

“Place your hand on it,” Slade demanded, “even a channeler with blunted senses should be able to detect the lingering malice.”

He waited for a few moments, looking down into the eye on the creature’s torso. To appease her, he reached down and placed his hand on the vessel. Nothing. He made a show of feeling the glass up and down, probing it dramatically, his claws clacking against the glass. The rodent rolled around as he turned it end on end. Kialla, Barban, and Slade waited in baited silence.

“Nothing. Still dead,” Vincent said as he handed the vessel back to Slade. “Sorry. You want somebody to sense the 'ill', find somebody who believes in that shit.”

Slade betrayed no reaction as she took it back from him. Kialla and Barban looked crestfallen perhaps. They covered the jar with the veil, and she stowed it onto Holan’s flank. As Vincent climbed up the massive beast’s side, he secretly thought it was a horrible idea to bring it with them. As if reading his mind, Slade assured him it was properly sealed.

“Yeah okay. Nothing could go wrong after saying that, right?” he murmured, “let’s bring the cursed rat with us.”

“Rat?” Slade repeated as Holan trotted down the main road, “is that your word for ‘mouse’?”

“That’s a mouse?”

“A swarm of them were found outside of Teramin in that direction,” she pointed with a wing, “that is where the storm we encountered the previous night passed through. You heard Barban speak of them last night.”

“Yeah, they skeletonized three landriders,” Vincent said, “glad he fought them off.”

“He did not,” Slade’s voice dropped to a near-whisper as she turned over her shoulder, “Teramin’s fighters would not have been able to protect it from the swarm. They were many in number, far too many.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Then how–” Vincent began to ask.

“–They devoured each other after finishing with the landriders,” she interjected, “nobody knows why. Mice attack crops, they devour stored food, they are aggressive when they are provoked. But they do not act as these did. You described those kelta as ‘afflicted’. That is an apt term. Something afflicts them. I am bringing this with us, so that somebody in Meldohv with a channeler’s touch can discern the nature of its transformation. Kialla and Barban have already burned the rest.”

Vincent shook his head but didn’t say anything more. But now that Slade mentioned it, he did detect the subtlest hint of smoke in the air. But all thoughts of the mouse vanished as they raced through fields, Vincent watching as the columns of volcanic rock rushed past them.

The valley they found themselves in was more like a half-pipe than a pass with steepened sides. As the day proceeded, the grasses lost their reddish tinge and yielded to the more familiar yellow-greens seen on Earth.

Once he became accustomed to Holan’s cadence again, his mind began to wander. As they coursed through alien geometry, he began to think about his life back on Earth. The gaps of amnesia lay on his mind like a malicious fog. Images of gray, muted colors held within them meanings just beyond his grasp. Hints of pain teased at his senses, whispers of forgotten memories. What he could remember, his academics, his pursuits, his struggles with bureaucrats and the system, haunted him.

By comparison, the world he found himself in was alive with color. It was new...it was wonderful. It was a strange place with a new life, a new sentience. He had survived a battle on a bridge that defied gravity, spoke to creatures who would have been at home in a trippy 80s fantasy. He had performed an unknown magic. He felt he had been given a taste of Falius’ potential, given a hint of its wonders.

“No,” he said aloud, his voice drowned by the wind.

He could remember enough of his own life despite the partial amnesia, enough to know that he could not afford to invest in a world like this. Its beauty was seductive, and its inhabitants were enchanting. The confrontation with the Devourer and the subsequent thrill he felt, his drunken spree in Teramin were evidence that he was slipping. He was letting Falius get to him.

Gulls began to follow behind Slade’s mount, feasting upon the insects the beast kicked up.

“Logic,” Vincent whispered to himself, “that’s what I deal with. Logic. My brain is damaged. Blood loss from the crash also caused a loss of memory.”

The peaks sparkled with the sun’s captured light. He thought he could feel their warmth pouring down upon him.

“I am dreaming. I am Vincent Cordell, schizophrenic, my condition is neurological. It can’t be cured.”

He could feel his life pulsing through the vessel he now inhabited. He could feel the air, warm and inviting, rushing between the loose folds of the wings on his back. He suppressed the alien impulse to undo the strap that held them down and let them spring loose. Perhaps he would launch into the air just as Slade had. What was happening to him?

I am human, he thought. I am Vincent Cordell, 25, electrical engineering major. I am in a hospital. None of this is happening. Body dysmorphia, spinal injuries. They can create the sensation of extra limbs. A deer impaled me, it nicked my spine. My nerves are misfiring.

He continued to run these phrases through his head as a defense against the beauty that surrounded them both. As they passed from the Teramin Valley, the mountains on both sides began to recede, giving way to softened foothills. The foothills eventually gave way to rolling lands that were pockmarked with dimple-like ripples. The worn dirt path intersected other roads, populated with the occasional caravan of landriders and wagons. He was stuck in another age, another world, a world of magic and myth. No, it wasn’t real. He tried to grasp onto his evasive memories but all he got was smoke. He was defenseless.

The storm. Where had it come from? Why did he remember Deonte when it passed over them? He tried not to think about it too much, but the more he avoided it, the more it persisted. It was silly to think that a storm could unlock memories, and yet Vincent found himself in the body of a dragonoid. He needed to reevaluate what he considered “silly” and “logical”. Falius was a fantasy he could not indulge in, but he was left vulnerable without his memories. He needed them and he needed to find a way to recover more of them.

Eventually, Slade brought Holan to a slow and they both took a quick break at a watering hole. He lowered himself down and stretched as he paced around the perimeter. Slade, who was watching him from the corner of her eye, was sharpening one of her daggers. He suddenly remembered the shryken she had lent to him. He reached into the pockets of his garments and found nothing. Of course, she must have taken it away at some point while they were staying in Teramin, probably when he had passed out.

Sighing, he took a seat underneath a tree next to the watering hole. He meant to lean his back against it, but the tail got in the way. It was like having a rigid pillow propping his lower back out. Scowling, he tried sitting on top of it so that it curled out from under him. But that put an uncomfortable tension on his back and it looked ridiculous. He muttered several silent profanities when he saw Slade watching him, one of her brows raised slightly.

“Humans don’t have tails,” he explained, “this would not be a problem for me back on Earth.”

“You are an outsider,” she said, after a few moments of silence. “This much, I have come to believe. Whatever happened in the waters of Lorix’s Eye, it has left you confounded. Perhaps your memory has left you with no recollection of who you are.”

“I know who I am,” he said, “but I guess that’s progress.”

“You are a puzzling creature.” Slade stowed her knife.

Ironic, Vincent thought.

“Your actions,” Slade continued, “both on the thread and after, demonstrate this. I was expended and my judgment had lapsed. You could have harmed me while I was unconscious, you could have left me to die. Yet you did neither. In the short time I have traveled with you, I have seen mannerisms unlike any other. I am coming to believe you are a truly clueless fool.”

“I...don't know how to respond to that,” Vincent said, “yet you’re taking me to be interrogated. Look, if any of this is even real, and I’m not on a hospital bed dreaming all this up, then you have bigger fish to fry than me. Let’s assume that magic storm didn’t just affect those kelta and ‘mice’. If this is the case, then there are probably a lot more mutated freaks running around eating your people. Hell, who’s to say your people aren’t affected by it? You could have a bunch of dragon zombies running around eating each other.”

Immediately he thought of Tuls and the others and wondered if they had encountered any more of those things.

“Dragon...zombies?”

“Forget it. I'm just wondering if it infects your people.”

Slade shrugged. “Teramin and the nearby villages are under the protection of Meldohv,” she said, “if the need arises, we can mobilize enough forces to protect the biggest cities and villages from attackers while others are evacuated. Even Thal’rin will do battle to protect his people.”

“I keep hearing that name,” Vincent said, “I take it Thal’rin is a big deal?”

“Thal’rin is the Diac of Meldohv Syredel, one of its leaders and of Mid-Admoran. If he is needed in battle, his wrath is said to be enough to quell fleets and devastate armies. Being a true conduit-wielder, his fury is a thing to be feared.”

“I thought that uh...the shryken was a conduit,” Vincent said.

“It is a false conduit,” Slade corrected, “inside the handle is a script of liacyte runes, which in turn create a language of biddings and forbiddings that emulate abnormal reality. Do you recall that I spoke to you of these things?”

“Yeah, I remember. But where I come from, we have nothing that can do that.”

“Thal’rin’s conduit is a true conduit created from Weaverfire itself,” she continued, “it came to him when he saved Meldohv from an enormous wave that threatened the city. It uses neither liacyte nor commands. But its power is far greater than anything created by a false conduit.”

“I’m sure it is,” Vincent said.

He imagined a grizzled dragon with a flowing white beard and pointed hat, standing on top of a tall tower, dressed in regal robes and holding a large staff from which flames spewed forth. So Thal’rin was this world’s great wizard. He had heard enough.

Moments later, they were back on Holan, coursing across the land. They passed more and more caravans. Some of them attempted to wave with their wings as Slade passed them by, but she was going too fast to return the greeting. The foothills softened and the circular depressions in the ground began to grow denser. Colorful wildlife scattered and danced across the meadows, creatures with three legs, birds with four wings, enormous worms the size of logs probing the air for scents. Slade didn’t stop to heed any of these. To her, they were all “normal”.

The sky began to burn orange when a forest with enormous trees appeared on the horizon. Large leaves hung lazily off the treetops, swaying gently in the wind. Winged lizards the size of squirrels leapt from branch to branch with effortless agility. Slade followed a path into the forest until they came upon another waypoint. Charred chunks of wood marked the place where the previous campers had made their fire. After spreading the sleeping mats for the night, Slade ventured into the woods, killed two of the lizards, and returned to cook them.

“We find ourselves at the edge of the forest of Molan Tierre,” she gestured toward the woods with a wing as she handed him the skewered, roasted creature. He gave it a sniff and cringed. But when he saw its pointed snout and scales, he began to crack a smile as a morbid thought came to his head. Slade was a winged lizard eating a smaller winged lizard. It seemed like cannibalism. Perhaps the creature was Falius’ version of a monkey? “Tomorrow we will make our way along this path. It will take half a day, and then we will find ourselves joining the Gelen Highroad, which leads straight into Meldohv.”

“That was the guy in the story Clayde told. Molan Tierre, I mean,” Vincent said as he emulated Slade, breaking away the creature’s head. It helped if he thought of it as a lobster. The meat he peeled off its bone was not as bad as the smell, but it was gamey like undercooked venison.

“After Tulian of Ranga, his love, was murdered,” Slade said, “Molan Tierre was blinded by the same people who killed her. His eyes were ripped from their sockets and his prized instrument was broken in half.”

“Damn...” Vincent said.

“He was left alive out of spite, wandering in darkness with only the memory of Tulian’s murder to accompany him. He was bitter and he cursed the world. His cael, the only thing that would have brought him joy, was broken, its necks snapped off.”

“Okay?” Why did she suddenly feel like telling this story?

“But it is said that in his grief, he recalled the memories he shared with Tulian. She brought light into his life and her dedication to the Naikiran Way was strong. She faced her death without fear. And so...he was driven to face life the same way, though he longed to join her in death. He drifted away from the cities, scrounging on the scraps left for him by passersby. In isolation, he followed the Naikiran Way.”

I don’t know what that is, Vincent thought. But he didn’t want to ask. This world’s lore was a snare.

“Years passed him by,” Slade said, scraping the meat off the lizard’s bones. “People forgot his name. He was just this strange, blind hermit. But one day...he stepped out of the woods with an instrument on his back. It was his conduit, created from Weaverfire itself. Using the Naikiran Way, he had contacted the Flow of Falius and channeled its power. He spent the rest of his life wandering Admoran, carrying his cael on his back. He spoke to nobody. He let his music do the speaking. Wherever he played, he wove his music into the land. That was his conduit’s power: it ingrained the lands he walked with the memory of his cael.”

“Ok. Good story,” Vincent said, “I’m not sure what the point of it is though.”

“These forests are his legacy...they are imbued with his mourning. They are his answer to Tulian's sound mirrors. Or so that is what the legends say.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“When we pass through it, you will see.” Vincent thought he detected a very subtle grin on her snout. “It is claimed these woods are the same ones he had lived in for many years. It is one of the many wonders of Mid-Admoran. Unless you are as immune to beauty as you are madness, it is a place that deserves respect and reverence.”

In other words, Vincent thought, none of my snark.

So instead of speaking any further, they both sat in silence and watched the fire die. Eventually, she suggested they both get rest. So he claimed a warm patch of grass and lay down the sleeping mat. Slade continued to stare into the flames, her snout, unreadable.