Preface

My name is Inanna Shadowlore Smith, and I am of the Southern folk, those near the Cape of Heroes. My primary trade is that of the smith as is evidenced by my last name, but that is not who I am.

Who I really am is a story related to how I took the name Shadowlore, the woman that I took it from and why I keep her tongue locked in a chest of iron.

Fourteen years ago when I was thousands of years more naive than I am now, I went to see a witch about a love potion. I had a crush on a boy in my village and he hadn’t noticed me. The witch was a woman that filled a role, not one of the few that has a gift for one of the arts. Who knows what she saw when she looked at me, probably just another copper in her pocket. I guess then, this is a story about love, magic, and the terrible price we pay for knowing both.

The air was muggy and filled with the incessant buzzing of flies when I pulled aside the overgrown gate leading to her property. There were rumors that she had taken the property from a family that had called her a fake. Apparently she told them that they could believe anything that they wanted, but fate believed in them. Shortly thereafter the family all died when an undead attacked them in their very home. No one wanted the property, no one that is, until she moved in.

As I walked toward the hovel that had once been a nice home I noticed that the ground festered in living things. Bugs of all types scattered as I walked and I was leaving perfect grassy footprints behind as though the creepy crawlies avoided my very essence. The normal sounds of wind and tree branches rustling had been overcome with the sound of wet earth being tilled by billions of grotesque bugs all gathered as if in worship of this house.

I noticed that what was left of the porch was clear of the pests and that it seemed clean of any vestiges. Either the witch was extremely diligent in her housework or the swarming vermin avoided the actual house as much as the rest of my village did.

“Hello” I said, my voice timid for all the heart that I had. “Is anyone here?” There was no-where else for her to be and yet my heart was glad for a moment when I heard nothing. “Anyone?”

The crone or what was left of a crone pulled herself around the corner of the door and looked at me in disgust. A tattered shawl was hanging from her shoulder as if it had been discarded there eons ago. For all I knew it might have been. Her one good eye peered incredulously from beneath an eyebrow so overgrown it looked as if her rats nest of hair had glued itself to her forehead. I started to stammer out my reason for coming when the witch spoke.

“Ye’ have come seeking the heart of a mere boy, whence thou knoweth no’ even thine own heart. For if thy did, it would be a blade ye’ be searchin’ for instead.” With that she snatched my hand from my side and held it in a grip of steel in front of her. Looking at me as if daring me to move she drug my hand into the fading light and glared at it as if it would give up secrets foretold by the gods. A heartbeat went by as she peered at what only she could see and I remembered the potion that I had come for. Working up the courage to take back my hand I had just started thinking about what I wanted to say when the witch let out a moan as if she were in terrible pain. She swayed back and clutched her hand, and thus mine to her breast as if it were a lifeline.

“Child ye’ be stricken” she said in what passed for the Kings tongue. “And there be not a single creation that can do anythin’ about it.” With that she let go suddenly and I fell backwards with surprise as her eyes clouded over. Her face contorted and her body shook as if she were possessed. Looking around in terror I expected to see the very denizens of hell crawling from the Earth. My head snapped around though when a raspy mans voice fell from her throat. I stepped farther away as if the possession could be catching.

The witches head had lolled back and she was staring sightless at the sky as a coarse drunken manly laugh rolled over her without moving her body.

“Inanna, you will be known by many names” said the spirit. “But not one will know what you really are, the conjuration of forces beyond a mortals comprehension. You will languish on this mortal coil forever entwined in the fates of those around you, never able to touch those that would care.” With that the spirit seemed to release the old woman and her body hung as if she might fall at any second.

Nerves shattered in this brazen encounter with the dead, and head filled with the prophecy just related I stammered out a question to whatever spirit had assumed residence. “Is my fate sealed? Is there no hope?”

Paused for a moment in time was the creatures reply. If I had understood its full meaning when spoken I would have killed myself then. With an eye still gone sightless, seeping a single bloody tear, the crone said in a voice a combination of the spirits and hers, “You can have no fate other than this, for yours is not a mere fate, no, rather it is the fate.”