“I only know legends, prince.” Grimalkin picked his way over the ground, avoiding puddles and mincing his way through the mud. “I have never been to this so-called town myself, but there are very, very old stories about a place in the Deepest Wyld where the fey go to die.” I stared at the cat. “What do you mean?” 148/387
Grimalkin sighed. “Among other things, the town is known as Phaed.
Do not bother telling me you have never heard of it. I already know you have not. It is a place for those whom no one remembers anymore.
Just as stories, belief and imagination make us stronger, the lack of them slowly kills, even those in the Nevernever, until there is nothing left. That giant we saw? He is one of them, the Forgotten, clinging to existence by the thread of those who still remember him. It is only a matter of time before he is simply not there anymore.” I shivered, and even Puck looked grave. Deep down, that was something we all feared, being forgotten, fading away into nothingness because no one remembered our stories or our names.
“Do not look so serious,” Grimalkin said, hopping over a puddle, perching on a rock to stare at us. “It is the inevitable end for all of Faery. We all must fade eventually. Even you, Goodfel ow. Even the great and mighty Wolf. Why do you think he wished to accompany you, prince?” Grimalkin wrinkled his nose, curling his whiskers at me.
“So that his story would go on. So that it would spread to the hearts and minds of those who will remember him. But everything he does is only a delay. Sooner or later, everyone winds up in Phaed. Except cats, of course.” With a sniff, he leaped down and trotted along the riverbank with his tail held high.
A ragged mist began to curl along the ground, coming off the water and creeping through the trees. Soon it was so thick it was difficult to see more then a few feet, the river, the woods, the distant horizon completely obscured by the blanket of white.
The Wolf suddenly appeared, coming out of the fog like a silent and deadly shadow. “There are lights ahead,” he growled, the fur along his shoulders and neck bristling like a bed of spikes. “It looks like a town, but there’s something strange about it. It has no scent, no smell. There 149/387
are things moving around up ahead, and I heard voices through the fog, but I can’t smell anything. It’s like it’s not even there.”
“That is the problem with dogs.” Grimalkin sighed, nearly invisible in the coiling mist. “Always trusting what their nose tells them. Perhaps you should pay attention to your other senses, as well.” The Wolf bared his teeth in a snarl. “I’ve been up and down these banks more times than I can remember. There was never a town here.
Only fog.
Why would there be one now?”
“Perhaps it appears as the ferry does,” Grimalkin said calmly, peering into the mist. “Perhaps it only appears when there is need. Or perhaps—” he glanced at me and Ariel a “—only those who have died or are about to die can find their way to Phaed.” The riverbank turned into a muddy path, which we followed until dark shapes began to appear through the mist, the silhouettes of houses and trees.
As we got closer, the town of Phaed appeared before us, the path cutting straight through the center. Wooden shanties stood on stilts above the marshy ground, leaning dangerously to the side as if they were drunk. Tired gray hovels slumped or were stacked atop each other like cardboard boxes on the verge of falling down or coll apsing with a good kick. Everything sagged, drooped, creaked or was so faded it was impossible to tell its original color.
The street was full of clutter, odds and ends that appeared as if they had been dropped and never picked up again. A fishing pole, with the skeleton of a fish on the end of the line, lay in the middle of the road, causing the Wolf to curl his lip and skirt around it. An easel with a 150/387
half-finished painting rotted in a pool of stagnant water, paint dripping into the pool like blood. And books were scattered everywhere, from children’s nursery rhymes to huge tomes that looked completely ancient.
The fog here was thicker, too, muff ling all sound. Nothing seemed to move, or even breathe.
“Nice place,” Puck muttered as we passed an old rocking chair, creaking in the wind. “Real homey. I wonder where everyone is.”
“They come and go,” said the rocking chair behind us. We all jumped and spun around, drawing our weapons. A strange creature with blank white eyes stared at us where nothing had been before.
As with the giant, I didn’t recognize this creature. It had the body of a shriveled old woman, but her hands were gnarled bird claws and her feet ended in hooves. Feathers stuck out of her gray hair and ran down her skinny arms, but I also saw tiny horns curling from her brow. She regarded me with a dull, tired expression, and a forked tongue f licked out to touch her lips.
“Oh,” she said, as I took a deep, slow breath and sheathed my weapon,
“newcomers. I haven’t seen a new face in town for…come to think of it, I’ve never seen a new face.” She paused a moment, peering at us, then brightened. “If you’re new, then perhaps you’ve seen it. Have you seen it, by chance?”
I frowned. “It?”
“Yes. It.”