Drip, drip, drip.

In the darkness, she waited. There were not numbers enough to enumerate how many had fallen since her captivity had begun and along the line she had stopped hearing them as they fell. She knew it continued but her mind now only registered it as ambient noise, as some might the beating of their heart through the course of their lifetime.

Drip, drip, drip.

What holds a life bound to the earth? There must be something that connects soul to body. Some trigger, hook or lock to break and release. No matter how she had searched for it, it could not be found and she had given up on that as well.

Katjiya did not even allow herself to be tempted by what little breeze made its way through the cracks in the wall; she knew that to be enticed by the scents of life outside that it carried would lead nowhere. It was better not to dwell, she told herself. Nothing was accomplished by it; it only delayed the inevitable slip into obscurity that she so desperately craved.

The purpose that had once burned within her to seek revenge on her enemies and fulfill her duty to Izeha, had like everything diminished with time, until it too felt like a distant memory of a time long past that only she could remember.

Have all forgotten?  Have the sins committed against law and nature somehow been forgiven and discarded in light of more important desires? But what of her anger? What of the resentment and betrayal that her transgressors had yet to satisfy? 

This could not be all that there was. She had been promised more than the years spent rotting away in this cell. Katjiya’s eyes zeroed in on the door to her prison, a feeling of frustration filled her. The door could only be opened by one, that she knew but she couldn’t stop herself from launching at them and pounding away with all of her meager strength infusing the blows with what power she had managed to keep stored within during her imprisonment.

The effort of her short-lived rage, left Katjiya weak, raw knuckled and the doorway as it was before. The pain, she could ignore as she sunk to the cold stone floor limp but the sight of the unmarred doorway taunted her and her agitation remained peaked. Words, that she had believed forgotten and was by many in the outside world, spilled from her mouth on every harsh release of breath from her heaving bosom. With heavy eyes Katjiya lifted her gaze to the slit within the exterior wall willing her message to escape her cell on the unnatural wind that had begun to circle around her.

As the final syllable left her lips, taking with it what little strength that remained in her. Katjiya closed her eyes and fell into the darkness that had been trying to claim her for these many years.

Kalo’s sense of dread had been growing ever since his conversation with the Priest. The visions and the dying man’s words looped in his mind on an endless rotation until, he figured no peace would be had until he had solved this most disturbing mystery. So he had set out on this journey, the young boy following on his heels along with his feline unaware of the danger that pressed against their heels as they made their way into the lush lands of the Eastern Kingdom. 

It was only a few more hours until dawn and they had managed to escape with their lives from the forest where wild beasts roamed. Kalo was no fool, he had heard the rumors of the massive canines that had made the woods their domain but he had been surprised that they managed to encounter them as close to the road as they had made their camp that night. It was most unusual but little had been usual since he had started this accursed journey. That is when he had heard that voice, singing words he had never heard before. Enchanting him and enthralling his very being. Then the feline collapsed.

“Kalo, something is wrong with Lycia!” Kit shouted as he rushed to the feline’s crumpled body where it lay on the road. Noticing that Kalo remained where he stood with his eyes affixed into the dark distance, Kit yelled out to him again, “Kalo!”

“What is it?” he responded distractedly.

“Come quick, something has happened to Lycia!”

Kalo hastened his footsteps over and crouched down beside Kit over the feline’s body.

“What happened?” Kalo asked peering around them along the road ensuring that no one had stumbled across them.

“How would I know? We were all just walking and then suddenly you and Lycia stopped and stared off into the distance for a while,” Kit spoke in a rush of words as emotion overwhelmed him, “It was as though the two of you had fallen into some enchantment. I was calling out to you and that is when Lycia just collapsed to the ground.”

“Lycia and I, you say? What about you? Did you not hear it?”

“Hear what?” Kit asked innocently as he stroked the feline’s fur and she moaned softly.

“Never mind that for now.” Kalo said with a dismissive wave his eyes moving along the road before standing over the young boy readjusting his satchel on his shoulder, “You will have to carry her for now, we must keep moving.”

Kit gently scooped, the unconscious feline, folding her body into his arms as he raced to catch up with Kalo’s much longer stride. Kit couldn’t imagine what could have caused Lycia’s sudden illness but he was sure that it was somehow connected to Kalo’s urgency to reach this secret destination. With a new found determination, Kit adjusted the feline’s body into a more secure position within his arms and prayed his own legs did not give out on him before they reached.

Back in his cottage nestled amongst the easternmost wood, Mordan sat before his hearth searching the nothing vast space that made up the world for some trace of her but, as usual, there was none to be found. He had heard her words, as he traipsed the final mile to his door, riding the wind to him.

He had beenThe Hermit was thrilled to finally have made some contact with her but as the melody grew more hauntingly familiar, the Hermit recognized it for what it truly was and the ill it bode for the journey that was to come; for him and his unwitting companions.

Katjiya’s song was not one that Mordan had not heard for many an age, it had passed into myth by those who studied the dawn of filled with sorrow and rage a song that spoke of an oncoming battle that one would fortify themselves against facing with the coming of the new day. A call to arms as it were. There should have been more time, it was all happening too quickly, and there was not a moment to lose. A hell on earth would be unleashed, if any they should stray from the course. Mordan did not know how he would accomplish the task laid before him but it was now all the more imperative, that he see it through. There was no other alternative.

The sharp cry of a raven broke into the night air and jarred the Hermit from his dreary contemplations and a dreary heaviness settled over his mind. It wouldn’t be long now, he thought to himself, feeling all the forces of the world moving around him and with it a most urgent presence looming in the darkness that surrounded the Hermit’s humble cottage in the woods, waiting and watching.

Time, that fickle friend it seemed was no longer on their side.