Epilogue – Li

Regaining consciousness, I knew I was in the Demon’s Vial. Part of me could remember that cursed instrument from the days of the Wilding War, but the rest of me made do with inference. My head was on fire.

No, that was only a fractured skull.

I sank within myself, listening for the music of creation, the many chords of a single sound. It was a familiar search and this time, like all those before, I found the one true note.

It rang in darkness and I was healed.

Gradually, my vision returned. I lay on a bed of moss in the mouth of a shallow cave. With my healing came a price. I remembered. Abigail! There was a twisting in my gut at the thought of the fate I’d condemned her to, but it would not be forever. All I did, I did for her - her and the damned Gates. If she ever forgave me, I would not deserve it.

Rising out of the cave, I surveyed the environment. Behind me was a sheer rise of impassable stone and ahead, a thick jungle of fevered verdancy. Far to the right I saw a drop and a horizon filled with a different sort of green; a forest of evergreens hedged beside the jungle like a mad jigsaw puzzle on a lower level board.

In the Demon’s Vial there is no space save the space of the minds that are bound within. They create the dreamscapes they inhabit, knowing or unknowing. To whom belongs the jungle?

I was sure I should remember. But the memories of a Unicorn are unlike the memories of any other creature. We are tied to the Gates; and through them, the Great Story. Time is not a river. It is a tale already told. Past and future are merely chapters, and they cannot be changed, not since the Gates were closed. But they need not be read in order.

I’m sorry, Abigail. I’m sorry.

Our memories are not perfect, quite the opposite. I am subject to all the usual foibles and failures, coupled with the fact that I have twice as much to forget, or ten times, or a hundred. The farther out in either direction I go, the harder it becomes to recall, even what I am supposed to recall. So much is always tantalizingly close, truths of manifold number concealed behind a darkling veil.

Some things though, I cannot forget. My own death, to the hour I remember. But it will not be here, and not for a while yet.

I know I had to let myself be taken. There is something Abigail needs that I will find in here. The details though, escape me, as well as the identity of whoever dreamed this jungle.

Sometimes, given all the rare and extraneous information I am privy to, it is upsetting how bewildered I generally am. One head can only hold so much and most of it useless.

But I hide it well.

A wolf howls far below and another answers from the escarpment. That would be the Totem brothers, half of them, explaining the evergreens, but not the jungle.

Abigail, I have waited for you from age unto age. You think I have abandoned you, but all I have ever remembered for certain is that my life belongs to you. The rest will crystalize in its own time.

Now, into the woods.

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