Litany of Heroes

Disclaimer: If you recognize it from Dave Duncan's fantastic works, then I don't own it (except in paperback).


072. Fixed.

The moment cold steel slid through his chest and back out again, Dog remembered. The flood of memories left him disoriented for a moment, but his classmates were more than willing to blame that on the fresh binding. He didn't know how he knew they were memories, didn't know how they could be, because he had never even met the king's daughter, who had married the king of Baelmark almost three months previously.

It took him two weeks at the palace in Grandon, trying to sort through the not-memories before it became clear to him what had happened. Stories from his childhood floated back to him about conjuries and time travel, and plans to go back in time himself began to unravel as he learned more about the future he already had and never would have again.

He remembered enough from that other past (future?) to know that things had gone terribly wrong. He could remember the betrayals and the heartaches and the losses. But he remembered soft skin and gentle kisses, books of poetry and tender looks.

He felt the tingle of magic across his skin on the night that marked the end of that other timeline. He had held his secrets close leading up to that moment, his own special not-quite-fantasy that kept Sir Dog from falling prey to his own darkness.

But in that moment when the universe seemed to snap! the memories slipped away like water in a sieve, and Dog couldn't help but think that he was once again being given what he deserved. Happiness was not to be his, even in fantasy, and with the lingering taste of sweet lips on his own, the world was set to right.


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