Page 41 of Blacktail

Blacktail started a little. “What is this place? Am I dreaming?”

“That is difficult to say, exactly. Yes and no. You are asleep, but this is not a dream.”

“I don’t feel like I’m asleep.”

“Well…perhaps it is not sleep exactly, but it is close enough.”

“What, then?”

“Do you remember my saying that I wished you to take a short journey with me? That you agreed?”

Blacktail’s eyes narrowed as he concentrated. “I suppose,” he said. “Vaguely. But I thought you meant around the other side of the mountain or something like that.” He sniffed the air. “What is that?”

“That is the sea, Blacktail. You have heard of the sea?”

“I have. I’ve eaten a few gulls in my day.”

“Yes, I imagine so. Your hill was much closer to it than the valley where we met.”

“Oh? Is that where we are? Near my hill?”

“No. In some ways we are farther now from your home than you have ever been. Your hill lay near the western sea. What you smell now is the sea of the east.”

He goggled at her. “How is that possible? The land is very wide. No one I know has even seen the eastern waters, or talked to anyone who has.” His eyes narrowed. “This is some sort of spell, isn’t it?” That seemed to remind him of something, but he couldn’t recall exactly what.

“It is, but you have my word that it is harmless. It is a spell of showing, not of traveling. This is not a place, Blacktail, but a memory.”

“Whose memory?”

“Mine, after a fashion. I am its keeper, at any rate. The beasts who made it died long ago.”

“Beasts? What beasts?”

“All manner of them. The sights before you were seen by the eyes of crows. The scents are from the memory of a pack of red wolves. The sounds were heard through the ears of rabbits. If you choose to taste, you will taste through the mouth of a locust.”

He pawed at the earth. “It seems real enough.”

“It is real,” she said. “…enough.”

“Hrm. Well. There you go, then.” He sniffed the ground, then wagged his tail in resignation. “Why are we here?”

“This moment holds a great lesson. My coven has preserved it over the many seasons. I wish to show it to you.”

“Show me what?”

She looked over Blacktail’s shoulder at the moon. “To show you that.”

Blacktail followed her gaze. At first he took what he saw there for a great storm cloud, but something about it did not seem right. “What is that?”

“Birds,” she said. “Crows, to be precise.”

“Birds?” he asked, squinting. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Gracious,” he said. “There’s quite a lot of them.”

“Indeed. That is the flock of Karakaa, and many others besides. All the flocks of the eastern lands have gathered here this night.”