Straddleshade
04/02/1998
Some days my heart beats. Others it beats not at all.
I walk upon the tenuous path that exists between life and death, although I must admit, as the years pass, the days in which my heart stirs in my breast grow more and more rare. Perhaps one day I shall rise and realize that death has finally taken me, and that I may rest at last.
Perhaps.
Until then, I shall continue upon the path of the Straddleshade.
The people of the province in which I now travel call me Tot' an Lauf. A crude translation is "Moving Death," or "Death that Runs." Personally, I prefer Straddleshade - it has a nicer ring - but part of my fate is to bear whatever names are assigned to me, however crude they are. Tot' an Lauf, despite bringing to mind some sustaining, meaty dish, is not without its merits, though. These superstitious, baronial people say it with such rich fear and curiosity that some days my languorous heart needs only to hear a terrified whisper of "Die Tot' an Lauf!" to jumpstart it into a frenzy of beating. Usually, I must sit down and rest after this happens - the sudden surge of blood to my brain makes me giddy and prone to fits of uncontrollable laughter. In most cases, the whisperer goes running, terrorized by my insane - albeit harmless - cheer over being temporarily restored to the land of the living. But sometimes he or she lingers, drawn by the morbid curiosity of those who are mortal to that which is not. Such was the case with Lord Duncan Seth, the Sleepless King of Mammon.
I first met Lord Seth while riding down the Sheldsfarne Path on a chilly, rainy afternoon. My horse and I were sodden and miserable, the water weighing heavily upon us. Like me, Grey also treads the thin plane that intersects the realms of the living and the dead - how else could he stand me upon his back? I am thankful he is not given to the same fits of mirth as I. The most he ever does is grunt, or flick his moth-eaten, tattered ears, while his heart gives one or two lazy thuds, then lies still again.
Thus, when Lord Seth's greeting surprised us, I fell into one of my trademark fits while Grey grunted in annoyance over this disturbance of his placid blood.
When I recovered, I wiped tears from my eyes and gave the splendid lord a respectful - if somewhat unsteady - bow. Grey rolled his eyes at Seth's huge, snorting Shire with the disdain only the dead can hold for the living.
"Good day, Lord," I said, smiling. Blood had rushed to my face, filling it with color. My legs, so recently my blood's repository, felt light and weak and empty. "Lovely weather we're having, eh?"
Seth seemed surprised that I was capable of more than maniacal laughter. He straightened up, raising an eyebrow. "The rain is fine autumn stuff," was his hesitant reply. "Twill be winter soon."
"Aye." I looked him over while his guard was down. Duncan Seth was about forty, a hale, well built man who bore a striking resemblance to the huge horse he rode. A swooping moustache held up his large, blunt nose, while similar brows pressed upon his dark eyes. Underneath his deep green riding cloak, he wore a heavily embroidered waistcoat that covered what appeared to be a fine linen shirt. His breeches were dark, embroidered as well, and tucked into high black riding boots. Around his throat was a thick twisted torque of copper and brass, capped with the heads of straining horses. The Seths of Mammon had been a rich, long line of horsebreeders, and it had even been rumored that they had once traded in undead steeds, the Dimhar, such as my Grey.
What interested me most were the Lord's eyes. Nut-brown, they burned with the inbred arrogance the aristocracy likes to pass off as superior intelligence. They were also rimmed with red, the flesh surrounding them bruised and purple. Haunted eyes.
"Know you who I am?" he asked imperiously, the rain dripping off the hood of his cloak to hang upon his moustache. Impatiently, he wiped it off with a gloved hand.
"Aye, Lord." I did not comment upon the fact that his gauntleted hand was shaking quite badly. "Thou art Lord Duncan Seth, Stablethane of the Horse Herds of Mammon. One cannot travel these roads without becoming familiar with your oft mentioned name."
"Knowest thou my other name?" he asked in a soft voice, much unlike his previous tone.
"The Sleepless King," I answered.
"Why do you think I am called that, Lady Tot' an Lauf?"
I laughed; the blood was still in my head and it was making me silly. "Because you can't sleep?"
Lord Seth nodded with such gravity my giddy mirth faded. Grey grunted again and shuffled his feet in the mud, holey ears twitching. Patting him, I watched as the massive Shire extended his blunt muzzle towards Grey in an odd gesture of reconciliation, which Grey returned. I was surprised. It was not often that the living and the dead made such overtures to each other.
"It seems our mounts would be friends," said Lord Seth.
The gravity of the moment was clear. "Perhaps we should follow suit."
"I would hope so, Tot' an Lauf." The nobleman adjusted himself in the saddle and looked down the twisting, muddy path to the soaked fruit orchard that lay at the bottom of the hill. "Would you ride with me to the orchard? I have need of your services."
"Surely, Lord." More puzzled than anything, I allowed the stately nobleman to lead the way. It had been years since anyone had called upon my skills; so long, in fact, that I wondered if I still possessed them. The last time I had walked within the Shadowrealm, my heart had beat strongly in my chest, missing only now and then. I felt a quick pang of doubt over the intactness of my abilities, but shushed it in respect of the Lord riding his giant steed before me. Approaching a Straddleshade was never a pleasant task, and was never undertaken lightly. Whatever was keeping sleep from Lord Seth was no mean thing, and I knew not to disrespect it with my own foolish doubts.
Grey showed more life than he had in years. Tossing his head, he pranced about where the path opened onto the flat expanse of the orchard, unwilling to go further. It could mean only one thing.
"Your fruit dragon must be about, Lord," I said.
Surely enough, the sounds of munching soon became audible over the steady hiss of the autumn rain. A dozen or so rows into the orchard there came a great rustling, and then Lord Seth's fruit dragon reared its filigreed head and stared at us with its quadruple eyes.
"Gom!" it said, surprised to see us.
"Greetings, Tangled One." I affected another bow, pulling hard on Grey's reins. I could feel my horse's thick heart beating irregularly in his chest; undead horses and fruit dragons had never been the best of friends. "Easy, Grey," I soothed. "Lord Seth's dragon means you no harm."
"Gup fuhm?" The dragon swallowed the mouthful of apples upon which it had been munching and walked forward on all fours. It repeated the question again, but this time with a different inflection. Not understanding much of dragonish, I turned to Lord Seth for an explanation.
The Lord reached up and patted the reticulated snout. His tired, careworn face was lit by a happy smile as the huge, knobby dragon licked his glove. "She asks if I am well, is all," he said, stroking the twisted crennelations that fanned out around the beast's cheekbones. "She is a good steward in my stead, even if a little gluttonish at times."
At this, the dragon snorted and hooded her eyes, clearly embarrassed over having been caught eating the fruit she had been assigned to protect.
"Get ye gone, then," Seth said to the dragon, not unkindly. "Your presence disturbs Lady Tot' an Lauf's horse, and I'd have you eat no more of my apples, lest I have no autumn harvest, ye great greedy beast." Playfully, he swatted the thickly scaled flank as the dragon turned her sinuous, horselike body back towards the compound that sprawled beyond the far edge of the orchard. Watching her go, I wondered if its resemblance to Lord Seth's steed was more than just coincidence. Cross-breeding between horses and dragons was not unheard of.
"Lord Seth, what would you have me do?" I asked, dismounting. My blood had begun to pool in my legs once again, imbuing them with their familiar clumsy heaviness. A drop of rain fell on my head; a sluggish shiver wandered up and down my spine in response. I drew my sodden cloak close, but only out of habit. Temperature had ceased to bother me years ago.
The nobleman also dismounted, leading his Shire by the bridle to stand under the nearest apple tree, out of the rain. I joined him, Grey following, his milky eyes aimed in the direction of the dragon's retreat. As if to comfort, the Shire nuzzled him, whickering softly, its tack jingling.
"Your horse is not completely dead, Lady," Lord Seth commented, watching the two animals.
"Or else yon great steed would have nothing to do with him, correct?"
"True. Beltari is a Lifeseeker Horse, one of a breed I have struggled to maintain over the last two decades. I am failing, though. Lifeseekers are hard to keep." A great shadow passed over his brow as he said this.
I nodded, knowing the frailties of the seemingly sturdy breed. "They die easily. Some say it is their ability to bear the presence of the dead and the not-yet-dead that makes them so fragile. However, that is just speculation. No one knows truly, not the living, the dead, or the not-yet-dead."
The nobleman looked hard at me. "So what are you, Lady? Dead, or not-yet-dead?"
Lord Seth's manner was blunt, almost rude, but after having lived for so long, I found such questions refreshing. Patting my chest, I said, "My heart beats occasionally, such as when you startled me on the path. I can still feel the desires of the flesh in my blood when I am particularly excited. Food still has some taste, flowers some smell."
He reached up, plucked a fat apple from a low hanging branch, and offered it to me. "So you are not-yet-dead?"
I bit into the apple, which had a faint, sweet taste, like that of the distant springtime. I smiled. "Correct."
"Would you like to live again, and fully?"
I regarded him shrewdly. This was not the first time someone had offered me such a thing. In fact, since contracting the disease which dooms its sufferers to the life of the Straddleshade, I had been faced with the same offer many times-and had always turned it down, feeling what had befallen me an unarguable destiny. I opened my mouth to refuse, but the look on the Lord's face stopped me.
"Lady," he said with grave earnest, "long have I known of you. Ever since I was a boy, it has been rumored that you have travelled the lands of Mammon. In my foolish youth, I always sought to catch a glimpse of the fabled Tot' an Lauf. Yet, you are harder to spot than one would guess. You are like a shadow. Just now I almost passed you by on the trail, and would not have called to you, had I not seen the sigils embroidered so discreetly upon your cloak. My supposition is that many dead and not-yet-dead walk among the living, so quietly that we never notice."
"The living seek the living." I shrugged, and took another bite of the apple. I wished I could taste it more. "That is how it has ever been."
"But I seek you." Lord Seth was clearly desperate for my attention. Beltari, Lifeseeker Horse, his head raised, was appraising me with huge brown eyes that looked almost as intelligent as his master's. Between the power of their stares, I felt my sluggish heart struggle with its beating. Somewhere within me, it found the power to increase its pace. While not enough to sustain even the sickliest human, the slow throbbing made me feel more alive at that moment than I had in a long, long time.
"You have found me, Lord Duncan Seth, Sleepless King. I am Lady Tot' an Lauf. What troubles you so that you would offer me return to the land of the living if I should help you?"
"To understand that, you must come to my stables. Will you?" The eyes of the Lord and the Lifeseeker rested heavily upon me, full of hesitant hope, so alive. I nodded.
"Let us go then." And Lord Duncan Seth, Stablethane of the Horse Herds of Mammon, more lately known as the Sleepless King, began to lead the way through the orchard, while I followed behind.