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[Kingsdawn(?)]
Part 1

Haunted voices rising into the void and falling onto the miles of surrounding moor, infecting the heads of farmers' children with a longing which they will never be able to put into words. Resolute city walls under the motherly gaze of the Keep—the ancient structure which had homed the Lords and Ladies since the Time of Becoming. It is not a night for gray, silent stone. The night is color: the crimson flames-- matching the banners they illuminate--, the violet robes of the revelers, the perfect white of the stars, burnt into their homeplaces above.
With the voices, rises an orchestra of plucked strings, each playing its own tune in the face of the others and blending into a cacophony punctuated by laughter as one tune ends and those who sing it slap the backs of those nearby and fill their drinks. For seven days the red banners had been draped over the city walls, heralding the revelry which had gripped the city in its jowls and shaken like a dog with a little furry thing. The festivities were now in the second night and the citizenry were drunk with both blood and wine. Mystics mingled with rich men, magic and music were performed, the people drank the sweet red wines which had been stored for years. All for the sake of the death of a Queen, the coming of the third dawn, and the birth of a King.
At the fall of night on the second day, I am entering the gates of the city under the eyes of the guards (drunk in their armor) and the newest of the stars are winking in the west. Heavy air, a maliceless crowd of wine-soaked spirits fill the street before me. Rising over the voices, the sound of a reed pipe blowing shrill, the crowd singing along like members of a choir at mass. The song is a strange one, the notes in no sort of key I've heard of before; lost somewhere between major and minor like an angry father who knows that he should be gentle. The tune sets my nerves on fire.
I step into the crowd, staring into their faces while they rapturously beat their chests and cry and hold their cups to the sky and sing as if their very lives depended upon the fervor with which they shout the words.
Ah, but the words.
The words are in the old language of this country, and I don't know it. There are no consonant sounds, only a vague vowel-moaning in different pitches. It is a language which is only sung. The great drone rises and falls, hastens and slows. I stop under the flapping red canvas of a tent, watching. The different musicians and singers, who had been singing all different songs all over the city, are coming here, to this one piper. Singing as they walk, joining the communion. Those in the tent with me, tending wine casks, abandon their charge and join the throng, slipping their voices into the choir.
The song is an old one, I think to myself. It has to be a very old one, because I know what they are saying even though I don't know the language. I begin to be able to pick out words from the tonal wailing:
“Release...the Red...Dead...Silent King...”
I feel the tears then, not out of sorrow, but out of fear. This song, this revelry, this night... It is not for good.
Able to listen to no more, I shoved through the singing crowd and came upon a split road: the path on the right led around the city wall, the left led further up (further in) toward the keep. Both roads were filled with revelers, mad with delight. I took the road on the left, because I saw that the far end of the road was not lighted, and was mostly abandoned.
Emerging from the choking throng, I breathe easier. The stone buildings to my left and right unlit and empty, they follow me with soulless eyes. The singing behind me comes to an end, and I turn. The eyes of the crowd are upon me, and the moment I see the terrifying gaze, they shift and look elsewhere. They resume singing their disconnected tunes. But they had been following me with their eyes, and I feel afraid once more. I hasten away from them, up the cobbled road.
The road veers left lazily, meandering around unlit homes and shops, the greased windows now nothing more than dark mirrors. Around the bend I am out of view of the throng, obscured by the stone homes. I walk on through this, the only silent quarter of the city. I find that it is not as abandoned as I had hoped.
Shapes in the dark—cloaks flowing behind—footfalls and breathing.
“Hello?” I say into the dim.
There is no response, the shapes only scatter and reappear in other shadows.
“I bring no evil, and wish to find none,” I say.
“There is no evil here, for it has passed on,” a voice says.
A flame springs to life in the hand of a figure, emerging from the space between two homes. I stop in the road and watch as more follow, coming from everywhere, surrounding me. They all wear black and have no faces.
“Witches,” I say.
They stop their shuffling and the first witch, the one carrying the fire, stands before me.
“Witches we are,” she says. “What are you?”
“I don't know,” I say, truthfully.
The Fire Witch looks me up and down, from my bare feet to the brough servant's clothes which cover me. Though she holds fire, only her eyes are illuminated under her cloak: refracting that burning red, dancing and dying.
“You look a prisoner, yet act a knight,” she says.
“Titles are for the living,” say I.
Her eyes gleam. “Yet, we be witches?”
“Yes.”
She comes to me and touches my face.
"Your King is not as you think," she says.
I look up at the Keep, knowing that I must reach it. It doesn't matter what the Fire Witch says.
She allows her gaze to linger on me a moment longer. A wave of her hand, the fire is gone, her cloak folds back into the mass of witches, and they disappear among the empty homes.
I ponder the witches for only a moment before continuing on the street.
Light creeps back into the homes; there are more revelers on this side of the city. They are the contended kind; the kind that do not set my fists to clenching and my veins pumping. Rather, these folk are the solemn sort. The sort that stare wistfully into the faces of those around them and smile and say, “Yes,” or, “Indeed.”
There are a small number of these quiet revelers around a fire, and not thinking of the cursed witches and their unholy fire, I approach. Coals like mirrors, shining the red heat of the city's fervor.
“Cold, it is,” says a woman across the fire from me. “Cold, especially for one dressed as such.”
She is right; the cold has descended, and from where, I know not. Was I not heated to a sweat upon entering the city? Had the day not been sultry, even at morning? How then the cold? How came I here? What is this place?
I shrug at the woman. “I cannot feel it.”
“Your flesh calls ye a liar,” she says.
Indeed, the goose-flesh had risen and taken wing across my forearms, as the light of the flame revealed.
“Flesh betrays mind, mind betrays flesh,” I say, trying to stifle my shivering.

The woman smirks at a man beside her. The man wears a wolfskin over his back, the dead head of the beast resting on his shoulder, empty eyes and flat face.
“You sound like one who's taken the counsel of witches,” he says.
I do not like the look of the people at the fire anymore. I leave them and move on up the street, past other similar groups huddled around similar fires.
Not far from the winter revelers, the street is engulfed on both sides by a cemetery. There are no names on the headstones, only the slightest traces of snow accumulating on top. I peer up at the once-clear night sky and find my vision of the heavens obscured by great clouds and a slow, drummeting snow. I notice that I am directly under the Keep now, its dark shape standing resolute amid the falling flakes.
I do not know why I am drawn to the Keep; or why I knew since I walked through the city gates that this was where I was going. Perhaps it is because I'm called there for some high purpose. Or perhaps it is because that is what we are meant to do: to find our way to the center of things when we are able. And the Keep is in the very center of the city, is it not?
I approach the heavy wooden doors and they open in anticipation of my entrance, as I know they will. No torches or flames, but a convalescent glow seeming to come from everywhere; every seam between bricks, under every door, even from the mottled windows, though I know it is night. Promises of warmth from the cold, day from the night, rest from the weariness. I enter the Keep.
Creaking hinges as the doors shut slowly behind me. They do not shout that I am trapped, but whisper that I am home. Before me a grand stone staircase, at the top, the Queen. She is dressed plainly (for she has died tonight, and no one expects much poshness from the new dead).
“You've come to see my boy?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I think so.”
“Do you think him worth the revelry?”
“So much more.”
She nods then and descends.
“He is the Lion Returned; the Stoned Sword; the Waking Dream,” she says. “None can come to Death but through him.”
I nod. I know none of this, but somehow in my blood, I've known it all forever.
“And who are you?” I ask.
She smiles then, only for a moment.
“I am the Shade. I was there, now I am here. When you leave, I'll not remain.”
I mount the staircase and begin ascending, my only shadow the Queen's eyes. It is warmer; warm like a hay loft at sunset. Sleepy. I struggle to keep my senses as I complete the stairs. There is a great hallway ahead of me now, but I know which door is the one I'm to go through. I pass many doors then stop, leaving many more doors ahead. I push the heavy oak and enter the darkened room. I see the infant King in the center of the room: he sleeps.