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very event which caused the Great Darkness. But I didn’t
dwell long upon that portion of his poem, instead fixating
upon the word mother.
Almost lost to the endless train of questions that tumbled
from the utterance, my focus was regained by the sight of
others dressed as myself, though the newcomers stood far
taller than even my height. They carved through the drifting
black crowds with no small appearance of purpose. They
were looking for me, naturally.
Here the darkness was law, and as such, the powers of
the Deadworld were weak, which allowed me to move more
quickly than I was accustomed to. After I discarded the
apparatus obscuring my head, I raced beyond black gardens,
between statues hewn from cold anthracite, past sanctuaries
for creatures lost to the lighted world—until I finally drew
upon the legendary Night’s Orchard, whose trees spilled
over with the ripest, darkest fruits I’d ever seen. Here was
the real reason for my wanting to visit Unduur.
I quickly snatched a single fruit from the limb of a nearby
tree. It was not entirely unlike an apple, save that it was
dressed in the color of oblivion and possessed all the heft of
a whisper. I placed the black fruit in my pocket and prepared
to take my leave of the wonderful city.
Before I could make good my escape, dark shapes
discovered me. They initially kept their distance, as they
knew what I was capable of—or at the least, they knew
what I had done to their kinsman. Above me, knotting and
coiling their bodies into terrible shapes, were strange eel-
like creatures, apparently obedient to the gathering shades
that sought to end my role within the Shepherd’s Game.
Unlike the other creatures of Unduur, these beings were
bone-white, expressing their fondness for the darkness by
means of colorless flesh and eyeless faces.
After the Unduurians had gathered in sufficient numbers
to quell their fear, they began to drift cautiously toward me.
I made for a tactical retreat as our battle became a game of
202 | Mark Anzalone