“Denmark,” you say as you leave the players to their work. The light is fading as you return to your horse and swing into the saddle again. “That’s where we’re going. To lift Prince Hamlet’s melancholy.”

Ahead of you, the trees are growing thin. If you strain your ears, there is a distant cry on the wind that might be sea birds. You can’t remember whether Elsinore is beside the sea—but you remember the name Elsinore with a sharpness that’s nearly painful. You grasp at the fragment of memory, straining to bring it into the clear light of recollection.

If memories were objects, perhaps they could be taken out and examined at leisure. If memories were places, they could be explored, canvassed, and mapped so that they might later be traversed safely. It would be a fine thing to write across a memory, Here there be dragons and to know one need never look further.

Elsinore slips away from you.

You work a coin loose from your coin purse and flip it. You are not entirely surprised to see the king’s face in your palm.

Continue to Elsinore.