I tried several more times to speak to the villagers. They would greet me pleasantly, then carry on with what they were doing. I couldn’t find the strength to stop them and ask any more.

At some point the sun began to set.

I felt that I had few options but to leave this place. But it would simply be too dangerous without any information. I only had one name I could rely on, albeit very faintly, I lamented. I would have to speak to Cris; she at least gave an impression of groundedness.

The village, Amsterid, had only one road that could be called an honest street. This cobble path forged its way through the centre of town, and at this moment a lingering group of soldiers were loitering their way through and past the rabble that stared and cheered for them. Four men in shoddy clothing, leading their horses which carried red-stained bags. Treated as heroes and clearly drunk on more than just that.

“You’ll stand out, staring like that,” said a voice from behind me. Leaning against an oak and cleaning her hands was Cris. She says that, but watched the commotion in the same manner that I did. I’d no idea where she had come from, but thankfully she seemed more approachable than earlier.

“I can’t celebrate something I know nothing about,” I said.

“It’s very simple. The Imperial Army tore down a major stronghold of the wicked Demon-kind proletariat. Especially for a border village like this, to have the worries of children and girls being kidnapped in the night, fires and plagues and calamities brought about, quelled so completely and suddenly, without warning… it’s a relief that nobody living here has experienced before.”

Cris maintained a slight frown, her eyes now glued to the dirt.

“A major city? Then there are others, and they will react…” at least this is how normal nations would function.

“The others?” Cris said with some surprise. “Well, that’s a bit complicated.”

I had assumed that retaliation was what Cris yielded anxiety about, but was I wrong? I was unable to ask before the commotion in the street switched tone abruptly.

A woman was on her knees in the path of the soldiers, her hands clasped together. Distraught, she pleaded to the men. “Please, look for my daughter, please!”

“Ma’am, please,” one of them began sheepishly. “We’re just passing through…”

I was too distant to hear much more than that.

“Come, Syco. I’ll have you help me with some work,” Cris instructed, and began to pull me away.

“Ah, r-right,” I said. As Cris stopped to pick something from the road, I saw the soldiers resume their march away, leaving the woman sitting forlorn on the street. So, they wouldn’t help… regardless, it wasn’t my business.

The work that I was to help with was a simple matter of clearing some fallen branches on Cris’s farm. How menial a task, I thought. These were trees, right? They would grow branches again, and the branches would fall again. That was what trees did. They monopolized space and created mess. There was no meaning to this. Not beyond repayment for food and a place to sleep, I admitted. But, more grandly; from the perspective of one who saw all things happening in this world, perhaps even past—though probably not future—this was greatly lacking in meaning.

That was what I thought, but I was surprised. I could grasp the branch of a tree in my hands, and tighten my muscles—my biceps swelled, and veins bloomed on my hands and forearms—and with a crackle like thunder, I could tear a limb from the tree with a brute twist of my arms.

All of that felt somewhat fresh, and incredibly satisfying.

Had I never done any such menial task before?

“Wow…” Cris let out. “You just broke that with your bare hands? You’re pretty strong.”

No, I suppose that can’t be right. No matter, thanks to this flow of events, I got a chance to ask Cris, and she informed me that there was a carriage that could take me to the city as soon as tomorrow evening.

I would take this trip, and carry out the task beset by my Mistress. Therein lay meaning.

I was invited that evening to enjoy dinner with Cris’s family, namely her mother and father.

“I’ve been so lost in thought that I forgot to realize that I haven’t eaten today,” I mused, seated at the dining table.

“Poor thing,” Cris’s mother cooed. “And with the state that you were in, I’m amazed you made it ‘till evening!”

“It’s no help that we passed over breakfast entirely,” her father added. “Whatever were we thinking, dear?”

“By Georges will, I don’t have a clue,” she replied. A strange phrase, I thought, which raised a question. It’s one thing to have no memories, but where lay the border between memory and knowledge? I have no difficulty with language, so I’ve retained some of what I presumably learned in my early life. Despite that, geography and the world; it all feels new to me. That phrase, have I simply never heard it before?

Food was served.

Cris’s expression was plain as it had been all day. Even as I praised the food, tasty and elegant as I had ever experienced, she barely broke a smile as she said “I’m glad.”

I supposed that I wasn’t dissimilar. Something was on Cris’s mind as well.

“Tomorrow, we will go to the poppy cellar,” Cris suddenly spoke. The room fell silent. “Syco,” she pointed at me, “included.”

Her mother placed down her utensils. “Dearest…”

“It’s my job,” said Cris, as firmly as she held her knife. “We won’t go too deep. Everyone will be there. It’s just to see if anything unusual stands out. There won’t be any danger. It’s the least we can do. It’s what we should do—what I have to do.”

Mother and father exchanged worried glances.

“Okay, okay, first of all, why drag along our guest…?”

“She’s stronger than me,” Cris said, as though that explained everything.

They all looked at me. My mouth was full of potato—I tried to chew quickly, but the conversation moved on without me.

“I know it’s work… technically,” said Cris’s father, “but you really don’t have to put yourself out there like this. With this victory, soldiers will surely—“

“If it were me missing, you would say it’d be too late to wait for help,” said Cris with finality. She stood and took her plate from the room. The sound of my chewing resonated far too loudly.

“It better not be you who roped her into this,” Cris’s father said to me. I shook my head vigorously, but he immediately sighed. “No, I’m sorry. This’s just how that girl is, isn’t it…”

Dinner came to a troubled end. But it was delicious. As I tidied up and left the room, I felt somewhat dissatisfied.

“I didn’t get to say anything…”

Before I retired to my own temporary room, the neighbouring door creaked open. Cris, already changed into a nightgown, came out and reminded me that I had no money or belongings. “I’ll give you enough silver to take a carriage all the way to the city. In return, come along for this job tomorrow,” she had said. A short trip out of town.

I couldn’t say why Cris wanted me to come along. Because I was seemingly fairly strong? Ah, perhaps I would be stuck carrying bags. Or maybe it was a hunt, and I would be hauling back the corpses. That was probably it.

I leaned my head against the window next to my bed. It was dark now, inside and out, and the ocean of stars, not one to be timid, shone defiantly against the peaceful black of night. Out there, did those ruins continue to crumble? Did any corpses continue to bleed, bloat, and decay? Or had everything already come to a stop…

I realized it only a short time earlier, that the swirling scraps of knowledge in my mind had stopped their dance on the wind. Or rather, the wind had died, and those scraps now lay in a pile. Scraps of paper with scribbled ink on each, but put together, a path certainly lay ahead.

‘Epitaph to the Goddess of the Forgotten’

I wrote this title by the minuscule light of the night sky, the moon and her million children. I had found some unused paper and a flimsy lead pencil on a desk in this room. The text that followed came naturally, as though by design. There was not much to write. Fortunate, as my eyes grew tired attempting to write in this almost non-existent light.

I was certain that this epitaph encompassed all that had been left to me, to lead me forward. In its lines I recognized a name or two. Darvaza. Imperial Capital, Catacombs. Though one part especially caught my attention, and that was the mention of an “Unseen Doll”.

However, I could no longer read the words I had written. As though a cloud was passing under the sky. Or I was exhausted? I fell into sleep.