“I…do not remember,” the giant said, frowning as if such a thought pained him. “I am sorry. I do not remember.”
“You won't get anything useful out of him, Goodfel ow,” the Wolf growled, standing up. “He doesn't even remember why he's here.”
“I was…looking for something,” the giant mused, his large eyes going glassy. “In…the river, I think. I forgot what it was, but…I'll know it when I see it.”
“Oh.” Puck looked disappointed, but only for a moment. “Wel , how about a boat, then?” he went on, undaunted. “If you've been here awhile, you must've seen a boat f loating down the river once or twice.”
The Wolf shook his head and turned to stalk down the riverbank, obviously fed up with the conversation. But the giant frowned, his huge brows knitting together, and nodded thoughtful y.
“A boat. Yes…I remember a boat. Always going in the same direction.”
He pointed with a pale white finger in the direction we were headed.
“That way. It makes one stop, just one, at the dock on the river's edge.”
I looked up sharply. “Where?”
The giant's furrows deepened. “A town? A settlement? I think I remember…houses. Others…like me. Lots of mist…” He blinked and shrugged, which looked strange because he had no shoulders. “I don't remember.”
With a final blink, he turned away, as if forgetting we were there, and none of Puck's continued prodding seemed to reach him.
“Do you know anything about this town?” I asked Grimalkin as we continued down the riverbank. Farther ahead, the Wolf had stopped again and was looking back in annoyance. I would've asked him, but he looked ready to snap someone's head off.
“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-cal ed 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?”
Grimalkin sighed. “Among other things, the town is known as Phaed.
Do not bother tel ing 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 kill s, 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 stil 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 eventual y. 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 smel . There are things moving around up ahead, and I heard voices through the fog, but I can't smel 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 tel s 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 fal ing down or col apsing with a good kick. Everything sagged, drooped, creaked or was so faded it was impossible to tel its original color.
The street was ful 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 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 dul , 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.”
I felt something odd in the air around her, a faint pul ing sensation, like water being sucked through a straw. “It… what?” I asked cautiously, facing the old faery again. “What are you looking for?”
“I don't know.” She sighed heavily, seeming to shrink in on herself. “I don't remember. I just know I lost it. You haven't seen it, have you?”
“No,” I told her firmly. “I haven't seen it.”
“Oh.” The old creature sighed again, shrinking down a little more. “Are you sure? I thought you might have seen it.”
“So, anyway,” Puck broke in, before the conversation could go in another circle. “We'd love to stay and chat, but we're sort of in a hurry.
Can you point us toward the docks?”
The creature's tongue f licked out, as if tasting the air around Puck.
“You're so bright,” she whispered. “Al of you are so bright. Like little suns, you are.” Puck and I shared a glance, and started to back away.
“Oh, don't leave,” the faery pleaded, holding out a withered claw.
“Stay. Stay and chat a bit. It's so cold sometimes. So…cold…” She shivered and, like mist dissolving in the sunlight, faded away. An empty rocking chair, stil creaking back and forth, was the only thing left behind.
Puck gave an exaggerated shiver and rubbed his arms. “Okay, that was probably the creepiest thing I've seen in a while,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “Who else is for finding this boat and getting the hell outta Dodge?”
“Come on,” the Wolf growled, eager to leave as well . “I can smel the river. This way.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and padded down the street.
I looked for Grimalkin, not surprised to find he had vanished as well . I hoped that didn't mean there would be trouble soon. “What do you think she was searching for?” I asked Ariel a as we continued through the silent town, fol owing the Wolf 's huge silhouette through the fog.
“The creature on the riverbank was looking for something, too. I wonder what they lost that's so important?”
Ariel a shivered, her expression haunted. “Their names,” she said quietly. “I think…they were searching for their names.” She drifted off for a moment, her eyes distant and sad. I felt a twinge of alarm at how much she suddenly resembled the faery in the rocking chair. “I could feel the emptiness inside,” Ariel a continued in a near whisper, “the hol ow places that consume them. They're like a hole, an empty spot where you'd expect something to be. That creature in the rocking chair…she was almost gone. I think it was just your and Puck's glamour that brought her back, if only for a little while.”
Figures were starting to appear through the mist now, strange, unfamiliar creatures with the same dead eyes and empty faces. They stumbled through the town in a daze, as if sleepwalking, barely conscious of their surroundings. Sometimes they would turn to stare at us with blank eyes and detached curiosity, but none made an effort to approach.
A booming roar broke through the muff led silence, and a scuff le ahead in the mist made me draw my sword and hurry over. The Wolf stood, teeth bared and hackles raised, over a figure with tiny hands growing everywhere from its body. The creature's arms, as well as its dozens of hands, were thrown up to protect it, and it cringed back as the Wolf bared his teeth and went for its throat.
I lunged forward, slamming my shoulder into the Wolf 's head, knocking him aside with a furious yelp. He turned on me with a snarl, and suddenly Puck was there, daggers drawn, standing beside me. Together, we formed a wall between the Wolf and his intended victim, who scurried away on multiple hands and vanished under a building.
The Wolf glared at us, eyes blazing, the hair on his spine standing up.
“Move,” he growled, narrowing his eyes. “I'm going to find that thing and rip its head off. Get out of my way.”
“Calm down,” I ordered, keeping my blade between myself and the angry Wolf. “Attack one of them and the whole place might come after us. It's gone now, so you can't do anything about it.”
“I'll kill them all ,” the Wolf growled, his voice gone dangerously soft. “I'll rip every single one of them to bloody shreds. This place isn't natural.