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A line of mountains meandered into view as the train
slowed, clouds tumbling down their eastern face like a
phantom avalanche. The next stop was listed as “Orphan.”
As the train came to a halt and opened its doors, I peered
out the windows intently, hoping to glimpse the species of
creature affording the city its strange name. While the train
lingered at the boarding platform, a tinny voice announced
a two-hour layover before resuming. I happily disembarked,
eager to explore.
Few passengers departed the other cars. Exactly twelve
people, all told, not a stitch of the remarkable about them. I
took to the shadows of the path we all followed into town,
not giving the small crowd a second thought. The town
itself was trivial and quiet, but the echoes of horrors past
still sounded within its neglected spaces, always reminding
those sensitive to such reverberations that past is prologue.
Yet beyond its connection to plague and death, it was a
quaint, only slightly haunted little hamlet.
There were sights in and around any city, if you knew
where and how to look for them. For instance, after
following a trail of old death into the woods surrounding
Orphan, I located a wonderful and well-hidden mass grave.
It had nourished a collection of the most monstrous trees
I’d seen since traveling the back roads around Autumn
City, near the infamous September Woods. A short while
later, I discovered a small smokehouse converted into an
art gallery. Something left over from the past must have
found a willing supplicant somewhere in the city, calling
upon them to recount their darkest visions in pig’s blood,
and to paint those images across the dried skins of deer and
bear. The gallery was fresh, as some of the paintings had
dried only recently. One piece caught my eye—a tall, gaunt
man had been painted against a background composed of
many hundreds of knotted serpents. He wore a dainty crown
fashioned of small snake bones. Above his head was written,
The Prince of Snakes. Despite the one mature work, the
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