Of Magic and Memory

This was where my memory began – in fact, where my life could be said to have begun - winking into existence, cold, alone and scared, deep in a thicket of thorns on some unexceptional scrubland.

Maybe I’d bumped my head and forgotten everything?

I sat up, cautiously running my fingers over my scalp then yelped in surprise. My head was fine, but my left hand was twisted and numb, its fingers feeble.

Under the circumstances, my hand seemed the least of my problems.

I had to think. Who am I? Why am I here?

I had no clues. Right, stay calm... What’s the last thing I remember?

Nothing.

I gently probed my face. Wispy stubble poked through soft skin. I grabbed a handful of my straggly hair, neither surprised nor reassured by its light brown colour. I looked hopefully down at my dull britches, plain leather boots and drab tunic.

No help there either.

My head gave me nothing to work with, my mind was blank, my memory a clean slate. I saw grass, sky, rocks and clouds, and I recognised them for what they were. Who I was though, and how I fitted into this world around me remained mystery.

It was then I spied the young man in the distance through the foliage. He stood alone a hundred yards or so away, one hand on hip, the other cupped at his forehead keeping the wind from whipping his blond hair into his eyes as he scanned the moor.

Was he searching for me? Hunting me? If anything, he appeared as much of a lost soul as I was, but unlike me, he seemed intent on doing something about it.

He hadn’t spotted me, hunkered down low and peeking out from the confines of my patch of undergrowth, and my natural reaction was to stay hidden, content to continue observing him.

Well, as least that answers the question about the kind of man I am, I thought grimly. I’m clearly a coward.

Despite my desperation to call out to him for both reassurance and answers to fill the gaping hole that was my memory, something held me back. I bit my tongue, as he confidently strode off away from me along a faint path across the moorland. Walking slightly downhill, his outline shrank as he made towards a thin haze of smoke just visible on the skyline above a copse of scrubby trees.

Don’t lose him! I thought, carefully extracting myself from my thorny refuge. My fears of being left alone now suddenly outweighed those of what I might find outside the safety of my brambly nest.

Hurrying to join the path I’d seen the young man take, I managed just two steps before stumbling over my left foot, which had curled in underneath itself in my boot. I crashed down, sprawling face first into the springy moss and heather. Not the most auspicious start to my efforts as a tracker.

More shocked than hurt I scrambled quickly back up and brushed myself off. My left foot was as twisted and feeble as my hand, and hardly conducive to speedy and stealthy ground coverage. Every part of me felt constricted and slow, my clothing weighing me down as though my pockets were stuffed with rocks.

Can’t think about that now, got to keep moving... I found to my relief that by concentrating I could actually walk on my crippled foot, but only with a shuffling, hobbling gait that I hoped didn’t look as ridiculous as it felt. Fear spurred me on to quickly pick up the young man’s trail again, following him at a safe distance until the smoky haze he headed for materialised into the bonfires of a tiny hamlet.

Nestled as it was on the outer edge of the moorland we’d crossed, the hamlet consisted of little more than a collection of shabby huts around a central, grassy area. Vast woodlands reared up to meet the sky just a stone’s throw from its perimeter, with a few bedraggled chickens pecking around in the dust between the huts to complete the scene. There was a well-worn cobbled road running past the back of huts, empty save for an elderly woman trundling away from us on an ancient trap, pulled along by an even more ancient pony.

Wow, if this was where I’d come from, no wonder I’d tried to forget it.

I left the path, creeping up close behind the tatty mud daubed wall of the nearest hut, arriving just in time to see the young man I had followed hailing and hollering madly at the pony and trap as it rolled up the track into the distance. He was just too late though, the aged driver remained blissfully unaware of his efforts as the old trap rattled away up the road.

Undeterred, he wandered back into the hamlet’s centre, cheerily greeting the well-tanned skinny man in a wide-brimmed hat who emerged from a hut opposite to see what all the shouting was about. Although I could see them perfectly from my vantage point, their conversation was muffled, save for the odd word, but the gist was as I suspected. ’Help me, I’m lost’.

The villager stopped abruptly, the bundle of kindling he’d been carrying spilling to the dirt around his boots with a clatter.

“Are yous crazy?” He hissed glancing around and forcing me to duck briefly behind the hut wall.

I watched, astounded, as he frantically tried shooing my quarry away.

“You’ll get us both in troubles comin’ round sayin’ stuff like that!” He then repeatedly referenced a couple of names – something like ‘Hedrin’ and ‘Orca’ - becoming ever more nervous with each mention. By the time he got to ‘local militia’ and ‘new king’ he was manically waving his arms around and really quite upset.

I had no recollection of a new king recently taking the crown. Then I suddenly realised I had no idea who the old king was either, and a fresh wave of bewilderment shook me. Ignorance, in this case, was most certainly not bliss.

The frightened villager’s tirade ceased, but his jutting jaw and hands-on-hips posture suggested his viewpoint was not open for negotiation. I watched as the chastened young man stole a glance over at the open doorway of the villager’s hut. Following his gaze, I too saw the trio of small, dirty faces peering around the shabby doorframe and my shoulders slumped. Begging and pleading would be no help to him here. This poor, scared family man just desperately wanted to avoid trouble on his doorstep.

The young man I'd followed mumbled an apology before stepping quickly away from the unexpected confrontation. He looked deflated and stripped of some of his self-assurance as he re-joined the now deserted cobbled road behind the hamlet. The old lady on her ancient pony and trap had, by now, long since trundled away out of sight.

Beside the road and under the branches of a gnarled hawthorn tree, were a pair of crooked stone way-markers that he wandered over to read, before looking thoughtfully left and right a couple of times. He suddenly swayed for a moment, then grabbed hold of one of the markers as if he were about to pass out. Concerned, I almost ran over to help him, but again I dawdled and the moment was gone, and he had shaken his head and regained his composure. I watched on as he chose his route and strode off at pace again, his sense of purpose renewed.

Keen as ever not to lose sight of him, I broke cover and scuttled over the stones to read their inscriptions for myself.

Hmm, what a choice.

This hamlet, called Gallowstone according to the sign, had Tully 3 miles to the left via a path that disappeared through the huge foreboding forest, and Windsmore back over the stark moorland 17 miles to the right.

Tully. Something had shifted inside my head when I read the word. It was as if a tiny door had opened, spewing a flood of thoughts and images into the empty rooms of my memory. Suddenly, I knew Tully intricately. I clutched at the stone way marker to steady myself, just as the young man had just done, my head swimming and knees threatening to buckle as my mind struggled to process the torrent of information now flooding into it. I could picture Tully’s streets, its markets and parks, the river with its filthy, bustling docks, and the gigantic looming presence of its castle to the north. But all too quickly the torrent of information dried up, and there were still no memories of me anywhere in this map. It was as if it had all been described to me in a story.

My vision steadied, along with my composure in much the same way I’d seen occur for the young man before me. As it happened, I had no better options than his choice of direction, so hurried off after him down the road to Tully.

Right, it’s now or never, I thought, knowing I couldn’t hobble after the young man at this speed for another three miles. Besides, the road was about to leave the moorland and dive into the semi-darkness of the woods, and the thought of making that walk alone set the hairs up on the back of my neck.

Plucking up my courage, I yelled out a greeting.

He stopped in the road, before turning slowly to face me. “You took your sweet time, stranger,” he shouted back to me, a look of amusement on his face. “I thought you’d never show yourself!”

Relief and no small amount of embarrassment flooded over me upon realising I was not quite the stealthy follower I had hoped I was.

I approached him, excited. This was it; surely the moment where I greeted an old friend and my memories flooded back…

Our eyes locked. BOOM! I felt like I’d been simultaneously dropped down a deep hole, punched in the stomach and slapped repeatedly around the face. My throat constricted, the insides of my head suddenly felt too large for my skull as my eyes bulged and throbbed in their sockets.

I know that I know him, but how? And from where?

Another of those strange doors in my mind teetered tantalisingly on the verge of opening, but just wouldn’t quite do so. This one felt like a huge door too, one that held back a vital flood of information and memories that could nourish my poor starved mind. It twitched, bent, maybe even shifted a little on its hinges, but refused to budge, and when my mind had settled back down I slowly slipped blinking back into the present, lumbered with the same feelings I had before.

From the stunned expression on the young man’s face as he stared back at me, and the steadying arm he put on my shoulder, I knew we’d just experienced the same rush of feelings.

“Wow,” he said wide-eyed and startled, finally letting go of my shoulder with a small apologetic smile. “What the whole wide Tristate is going on here?”

“You’re asking me?” I blustered. “I woke up earlier today with no idea who I am, wedged in some of brambles on a hillside I don’t recognise, wearing clothes that might not even be mine and with a hand that I doubt I could have even dressed myself properly with”.

“Oh,” said my new friend, looking a little embarrassed and flashing the disarming smile I’d grow to know so well. “Well then… if that’s the case, seeing as we don’t even know our own names, then I think that would be the proper place to start. And seeing as we just met on this moorland, I reckon it only right that I name you ‘Heath’“.

“Fine”, I retorted, calming down a little and rapidly warming to his easy-going style. “Then it’s only fitting that I shall call you ‘Dale’”. His smile broadened into an infectious grin that I couldn’t help but join in with. And, with that, our friendship was re-launched.

As we set off together along the road to Tully, chatting and walking at a gentle pace that I could handle, we realised we at least had some common ground, so vowed there and then to make it our mission to uncover the truth about our pasts. Having regained enough composure to converse properly, it felt a little easier to deal with the waves of terror of the unknown. Or, maybe it just felt easier to ignore them for a while longer. Either way, I was now no longer alone, and with a new companion in the same predicament as me, I was optimistic of quickly discovering not just my past, but why and how I’d ended up where I did.

Tully awaited ahead, as too did the possibility of those answers.