“Forgotten… what?” Sessurea asked.
“Everything,” Maulkin said. His mane suddenly drooped, his colors dulled. “Everything except feeding, and shedding and growing. All else, all that is real and significant, he has forgotten. As I fear we all shall forget, if She Who Remembers does not manifest herself to us soon.” He turned abruptly, wrapping them both in his coiling embrace. They did not struggle, but took comfort in it. His touch sharpened their memories and cognizance. Together they settled slowly to the soft muck, sinking into it still entwined. “My tangle,” he said fondly, and with a pang Shreever knew the truth of it. These three were all that was left of Maulkin's tangle.
They relaxed in their leader's embrace. Soon only their heads remained above the muck. They relaxed, their gills moved in unison. Slowly, comfortingly, Maulkin spoke the holy lore to them.
“After the first birth, we were Masters. We grew, we learned, we experienced. And all that we learned, we shared with one another, so that wisdom ever grew greater. But no bodies are made to last forever. So the time of mating came, and essences were exchanged and mixed and deposited. Our old bodies we laid down forever, knowing we would take up new ones, as new beings. And we did. Small and new we emerged. We fed, we shed, and we grew. But we did not all remember. Only some. Some guarded for us the memories of all. And when the time was right, those who remembered called to us with their fragrances. They led us back, and gave us our memories. And we emerged again as Masters, to roam both Plenty and Lack, amassing still more wisdom and experience, to mingle it yet again at the time of mating.”
He paused in the familiar tale. “I do not recall, now, how many times that has come to pass,” he confessed. “Cycle after cycle, we have survived. But this last time of shedding and growing… has not it been the longest ever? Do not more and more of us forget that we are meant to be Masters? I fear we decline, my tangle. Did I not once, long ago, recall far more than I do today? Did not you?”
His questions probed the uneasy place in Shreever's heart. She tangled her ruff against his, daring the toxins that she might feel the sting of his memories and beings. Her thoughts came sharper to her.
“Once, I remembered far more,” she admitted. “Sometimes, I think all I remember clearly now is that you are the one to follow. The one with true memories.”
His trumpeting was deep and soft as he spoke. “If She Who Remembers does not come to us soon, even I may forget that.”
“Remember this, then, above all else. That we must continue to seek She Who Remembers.”
