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The seelies came and went as migratory birds, fluttering through the lakeside valleys in the summer before departing as the days shortened. To the novice Ratnik, fresh from the city, they were easily mistaken for the legendary blue flame, but far more keen to guide towards a decrepit ruin all but sunken in the marshland than relative safety. Illuga did not mind them: they were pretty, and hummed in the dusk—the saddest song he'd ever heard—but he could tell why his older compatriots at their lonesome stations in the north might sigh when nights began to flicker firefly-gold and seelie-blue. He could not say why, on this particular evening, he was drawn towards them: perhaps curiosity finally won; perhaps he was thinking about his friend on his lonely isle: perhaps he was lonely himself.
It was a clear halfmoon night, and he would not be seeing a bunk for a few more days. A procession of seelies had drifted along the old road at the periphery of his vision, oddly subdued amid the crickets and owls, and distant wolves. Where the road diverged from the forest, leading towards the eventual moors, they meandered one by one deeper into the pines until they were naught but pinpricks. A soft breeze ruffled his hair.
"Aedon," he murmured, and the nightingale swirled to life from the beam of his lamp. Illuga dug in his pocket for a tube of mandragora paste—a Kipumaki staple—and slathered a thin stripe on each tree they passed. Aedon kept close to the ground, so that Illuga would not trip and wrench another ankle. The shadows cast by the pines were dense, almost as substantial as their counterparts, and not easy to see through. The scent of their sap almost overtook all others: as he limped deeper and deeper, and the ground sloped further and the trees drew larger, it began to feel as though these were the ancient trees of the Nod-Krai of antiquity, those ancestors of ancestors of trees, whose branches bowed not beneath the weight of greater beasts and guided the moonlight into waterfalls. But there was another which lingered, honey and ozone, the strange not-there scent of seelies. Needles sifted beneath his boots.
"Young man!"
Illuga started. He spun around, despite the stab of pain up his leg, spear at the ready. But it was only a woman, or the visage of a woman, staring at him with hands at her hips. She was clad in sky blue and pale cloud, fine cloth lined with ruffles, and golden hair tumbled past her shoulders: he was reminded, oddly, of spiderwebs blowing in the wind. But it was her face which struck him and rendered him temporarily speechless: although he could clearly see her—high cheekbones, hooked nose, the bemused curl of her mouth—she seemed to be shifting, in places, resembling more and more the people he loved: here was the permanent furrow in Nikita's brow, and there was the mole near Cook's blind eye: glimpsed between the part of her lips was Ivar's silver tooth: above her high collar, the birthmark splotched on Dragana's neck: Illuga thought he could even see beneath her skin the mangled faces of those lost Orioles from his dreams and their jaws torn in twain, and perhaps even deeper, like silt beneath rolling water, the clouded paranoia of his mother: then he blinked, and she was only the stranger he was encountering in these nameless woods, but there was still something about her, out of grasp, which was unerringly Flins. His nose was burning, and his ears buzzed with the whine of static.
"Young man," she repeated, less startled this time.
"Ah, I'm sorry," he said, hastily scrambling all the way from reverie. "I wasn't expecting to see—anyone, really, begging your pardon, ma'am."
"It's quite alright, and consider my pardon given. But you oughtn't be out and about alone on a night in Nod-Krai, this far from anywhere. The nights tend to stretch longer than they should, and—while you're safe here with me, I am headed a different way from you—of course, I could accompany you, and in fact I would be delighted to—but I am loathe to abandon this forest on this night of all nights. You see, I have made it a point to attend for many years now, yes, many years indeed, and it means a lot to all of us."
"I am a Ratnik, ma'am, but I thank you for your concern." Privately, it felt like it should've been obvious from his getup, but he supposed—perhaps she didn't get out much, or she didn't spend much time in Nod-Krai, on this night, of all nights. He wondered if she was a former Ratnik who served under Sigurd, and thus did not recognize him: or if she was a warrior from a distant land. He could see no weapons on her person, and she might've been one of those who fought with the aid of elements alone, but that did not mean a knife or three wasn't concealed, or some unseen or miniscule technology. "I wasn't aware there was a—celebration—going on here. I'm sorry to intrude."
"Ah! No need for apologies, sir Ratnik. I admit, I do not get out much." She winked at him. Illuga didn't get the joke, but he offered a smile in return. "In fact, now that you are here, I must—I simply must—extend an invitation! It has been so long since one from the land of the living joined us. Will you attend tonight? You know what this is, don't you?"
"I'm afraid I don't, but—"
"I was only joking," said the stranger, in that same unchanging tone, if bells spoke words. "No one remembers what this is anymore. Except myself, of course, and my few and fractured sisters, and all of these souls, my sisters, too." She paused, and her starlight gaze cast away. Illuga felt the flutter of warmth as Aedon settled on his shoulder. He realized, then, on this summer night, in the depths of the trees, that he was rather cold. "You understand, yes? What it is to suffer paradoxical loss?"
"I don't believe there's a paradox to loss, ma'am," he said. "May I ask what 'this' is?"
"Of course! Maybe it will ring a bell. It's the Festival of the Terrestrial Mysticeti."
"I can't say I've heard of it."
"A shame, really. But will you attend? Oh, it's not like how it used to be—our wings would be adorned with charms and baubles, and how the echoplankton swam through the air—but my very dear and wise friend insists that mourning the past only leads to totalitarianism. I promise it will be a sight you've never seen before—and I can actually almost say the same for myself—I only attended it once, and I was very little, and Nabu was holding my hand—I remember how the light rippled on her horns—the seelies remember the celebration, and in their eternal regression, it's remarkable that they remember it at all. It seems there are less and less arriving every year—they fizzle out eventually."
"I accept your invitation, ma'am, but I fear I cannot stay long. I'm due back home, to Piramida." A quarter's worth of reports was stuffed in his bag, and he'd be returning with provisions. "Also," he added helplessly, "If you don't mind me asking, what's your name?"
She beamed at him. "You may call me Miss Memory-Witch. Come, now. And you can turn your light off, if you'd like."
He did with some reservations, and saw, then, how she wavered with her own light: he thought of a freshwater cave he'd ducked into once with Egle and Rollon, with fish that glowed a gentle green, and teethed like wolves: but what occurred to Illuga, then, as the witch turned suit and plunged into the pines, was how her mouth had not moved once to speak: he hurried after her as best he could, using the blunt end of his spear as a cane.
The witch moved as a will-o-the-wisp upon the marshes. This is a bad idea, he thought. Still, Illuga followed her. Aedon whirred, flapping near his wrist. She had spoken truly: there was no sign and scent of the wild hunt, though he would not let his guard down. The trees were now wide as boulders, and he glimpsed the silhouette of great antlers and light gleaming off eyes, before it ducked away.
"Tell me about yourself," said the witch, prancing over a gnarled root. "Are you brave? Foolhardy? Prone to fits of anguish and guilt?"
"There's not much to say, in all honesty, Miss Witch," Illuga said, clambering over the root.
The witch hummed thoughtfully. "Humble! And polite. Have you any friends, or do you always travel alone? Do you miss anyone?"
"Well, we can't all leave the post. And I have friends—there is one I miss very much. I haven't seen him in a while, and I worry about him constantly."
"Excellent! Cherishing friends is a fortuitous quality—I can even empathize."
As she spoke, a soft blue light was growing in the distance, wavering like air around the kuuvahki forges, into which she began to disappear, eclipsed by the shadows, which sat heavy on his shoulders, nearly forcing him to stoop. He felt like Flins in a doorway, or Nikita in his old kitchen. Illuga fumbled for his lamp before nearly losing balance, hissing in frustration, and groped out blindly for a tree trunk, but his palm brushed against something feather-soft and warm to the touch. Aedon chittered. A seelie, red as dusk and small as a pebble, unfurled fern-like. It fluttered away to perch on the blade of his spear.
"Come, come," sang the witch. "Be not afraid. It is not nighttime here, and never day."
Illuga limped towards the light. He could see nothing, smell nothing but the amber and sweet-ozone, and the drone of insects was drowned now by that sad sad singing, and as he stumbled from the trees the shock of wind dried his watering eyes.
Before him was a small lake—turquoise and sparkling, its reflection held the stars, except the pines bowed over the surface so much so that any sky was hidden: and all around were seelies, swaying and whirling, azure and crimson and pearl and violet, and there were so many that he could barely see the ground, and he could barely see through them at all: but it was not the brightness that made him weep, but the music, the humming which had become in collective a wailing, a whistle, high and bereaved, and Illuga fell to one knee, still clutching his spear, gasping for breath: his vision swam. Someone briefly clasped his shoulders. The witch stepped by him, her garments aflutter around her, and began to sway with the seelies, her arms lifted from her side as wings, twirling with the bitter pine wind: he had heard nothing else but the song of the seelies, and it felt like oblivion: he saw in their myriad dizzying glow the apotheosis of all wastelands and his own, the murky flame: he wept until he could barely feel it, tears streaming past his lips, sounding words he'd never hear, clutching his jacket, spear long forgotten beside him on the rippling grass: he thought, for a moment, that he was living in that split-second space between life and death where all tangible things fell away and regrouped into endless labyrinths and mirrors, beyond him, reflecting him, knelt with saltwater pouring from his reddened bleary eyes: as the wailing crescendoed, the surface of the lake began to rise, and rose further, straining for the very trees, and then a great spout of water burst from it. He was knocked back.
When he stirred, the sun was just rising over the sea: disoriented, he leaned forward, and fell out of the chair with a thunk: the transit wires wobbled in the wind. One of his feet caught on his spear and it toppled on his back, slightly cushioned by his bag: relieved that it was the pole part which hit him, Illuga rolled over, wincing: high above him was Piramida. The sprain was gone from his ankle. A Ratnik who he did not recognize leaned out of the dock station, gaping at him. A golden feather landed lightly on his cheek.