Down South, somewhere in the swamps a man searched for something.
The wind whipped through the holes that used to be the windows of a large house, into which he settled. The house was long abandoned. The previous owners are long gone. No one had lived in it for at least fifty years. At least it will be a modest shelter for this night. The house was made of iron-wood; otherwise it would have long been extinct in these marshy conditions.
He was alone, only his thoughts made him company. He has been in these areas for several months. Could it be that they were wrong? Maybe there's really nothing worthwhile here. He was no longer sure, but again experience told him that you could hide a great treasure in a swamp. Treasure, so big, that even the biggest coward would risk his neck for a little piece. He wasn't a coward by nature, but he didn't feel that feeling a long time, if it counts in human age.
At almost seven hundred years old, he was still young to be a wizard, a true prospect but still a beginner. A wizard of his type was considered to be of age at nine hundred and ninety-fifty years and two hundred and ninety-five days.
When he was a kid he always liked to read about the treasures of the Fordian, especially the treasures described in the "Treasures of the Undiscovered" by Trebor Notharin. Many critics thought that Trebor overdosed on the amount of treasure described, thus only nourishing the army of the treasure seeker.
He needed the fire if he wanted to survive the night in this environment. The house was not only a house but much more than that. It is not abandoned without reason. Fortunately for him, the furniture was already in pieces, so he simply pulled it together on a mantelpiece. The wood was too damp to light it with the usual means. He knew that he would draw the unwanted attention of the wraiths when he magically started a fire.
He thought of fire, like an old friend. At the beginning of the training, as he listened intently to what he needed to do to master the energies of the environment and direct them at his will, one of the older wizards showed him a little trick. He told him that everything was in his mind, all he needed to be relaxed and united with everything. All he has to do is see the red rose bursting inside his amygdala and then the swing of his hand and the fire will burn where he directed it.
The fire erupts and engulfs the damp wood, which is stronger than ever before. He always saw in the fire ... in the shadows too. A couple of volatile outlines he was able to interpret. The vision revealed to him the history of this place. Lovers were the strongest and most common image. She came to him, her beloved, before dawn.
She walked in quietly, trying not to wake the rest of her sleeping family on the floor.
The only sound that could be heard was the rustling of the silk nightgown against her naked body. The vision changed abruptly to the girl and her father. They argued violently, he was sure of that, prohibitions, prohibitions, and prohibitions. Yet the love was too strong. Later that night, she ventured out to stretch with him again.
"This is our last night together, let's make it count." they said together, heavy hearts.
This was their last chance.
They didn't know how right they were.
The wizard turned his eyes away from the fire, drawn by the vague force on the right. He had the feeling that something was watching him from afar, unclear and unknown, terrible in a way, with no clear intention about him.
Calmly he returned his gaze to the fire. The vision changed with her and the decor. A hugged couple goes down the road. High in the sky, the full moon illuminates the area around them. Something followed them in stride. Something sinister, huge, fast and quiet, too quiet for them to hear. Something deadly was on their trail. It was a werewolf. He was the embodiment of unbridled anger. On the way to their secluded place, they trampled his garden. The garden his wife made him plant. He didn't want to feel the jars of cherry jam again, she always knew where to shoot and she always hit the right spot, right in the bull's eye. Damn her aiming and constant anger. His anger is nothing against her hurricane temperament. When she was angry, which is almost always; she would throw at him whatever she grabbed with her paw, including his favorite, favorite coffee mug. At least he managed to preserve his other favorite mug, the tea mug.
The pain spread throughout his body to the mere memory of the shame he experienced on the full moon's annual feast. Coming with fresh, too fresh, bruises, he invented incredible adventures only to conceal that his woman had beaten him again two days before. It would be all right if he had no trace of roasted coffee in the thick fur and a few pieces of his (twitch) favorite coffee mug; which, of course, the crowd didn't miss, who sarcastically asked him through a salve of laughter if he did not have money to pay the innkeeper, so he was thrown out as a suitcase from the pub. The anger is free again.
The moon hid behind a cloud, the wind changed direction, masking his scent. The cold of the wind gave the illusion that winter was coming and that the snow was about to fall. He didn't care much, his fur would protect him. He could testify on several occasions when his terrible mother-in-law threw him out with his family outside. After years of hard work, he returned her the favor.
They were close, everything was ready. A basket of fresh food was still waiting for them, a jar of cherry jam was waiting to be opened, a bottle of the best Kairgon wine was already opened, a freshly roasted duck in cranberry sauce, two chickens, a very large salmon smelled seductively, and a pair of crystal goblets of the best Tyrrhenian crystal was placed next to the bottle.
They ate without order, enjoying every bite while the werewolf, in silence, watched from the bush. His anger reached its peak, getting even higher when he saw the jar of cherry jam.
In his anger, he started circling around them when suddenly the same jar hits him in the head. The girl jumped out of her darling's arms and looked in his direction. In a heartbeat, the werewolf had already grabbed them.
"I've had enough of you. Firstly, you step on my garden! Secondly, you hit me in the head with that jar!" the werewolf said, in a tone full of rage.
"It's not our fault!!" they said almost simultaneously. "This place was a secret."
"I don't care! You're coming with me!"
"That was his idea," the girl said somehow.
"Okay then, I don't need you."
With one stroke of his powerful paw, which was the size of a frying pan, he cut off her head.
"It's your beloved! A miserable imitation of love! Nothing is eternal."
His eyes shinned in the moonlight.
"What now?" the man asked.
The werewolf stood up, tall as a spear, twice as tall as he was. His eyes were yellow, cruel in appearance.
"Now, let's go buy the flowers you trampled and plant them again. And one more thing, the shovel is eternal and whores."
"By shovel, you mean gravedigger?"
"No. Everyone dies, even them. The tool is eternal."
"When, let's not go anywhere. Lead, sir," the man tried to follow his speed.
There was nothing else that he could do.
The vision ended there, the wizard did not find out what happened to the young man. Nothing good, he suspected.
It was time to go, the rain, outside, was falling heavily and finally stopped.
The area of interest to him was large. There were no signals that could be traced or traces left by the treasure hunter's predecessor.
The wolf people of the area knew how to use the environment to their advantage. The last members left this area some five hundred years ago. There were various ways to use the environment. His mentors knew the wolf rites, one of them showing him how to summon the souls of the first wolf-wizards.
There was a more difficult method, where the caller went into a trance-like state. In these conditions, it was too dangerous.
The words of incantation echoed in the quiet of the morning. The rising sun was gradually breaking through the forest, giving it a supernatural appearance.
The wizards' spirits gradually began to materialize. It was up to them to determine whether he is worth their help or their knowledge.
"Go where the hike began," three votes united as one.
They were tall and translucent.
Why everything must be from the north, including women, he thought,
I would need the spirit to fulfill my desire. Only one.... Only one...
What would his friend do? What would a troubadour Alirian do? It's kind of a man that gets what he wants. He will never change.
He had been waiting for him for a long time. There is no station nearby. They were the only transport to the capital.
There were three options to the capital, the first by road; the second was shorter but more dangerous, the way lead across the mountains. The third options was the longer but at the same time the shortest, the trains needed only a few hours to get to the capital from only place, no matter where.
If he took the road every ten miles, one to two fights would wait for him. He wasn't in the mood for nonsense. He knew that the mountain road was rarely used. At least they won't have these problems.
Once upon a time there was a station in the mountains. He wasn't sure if it was in use anymore. It was worth the risk.
He was near the mountains that seemed to reach the sky.
It will be a long, arduous journey, he thought, I've seen worse. It's not worth it for me to stand and wait, the mountain won't move even though I ask her to.
To his delight, they made stairs leading up to the cave. He always hoped that they will make the stairs.
The stairs were not solidly made. Only the bravest ones climbed along with them.
Snow was falling significantly from two hundred steps above the starting area. He chose the worst possible mountain range to cross in hopes of finding a functional station.
He didn't want to think in case the station didn't work or the train was late.
They were always at least an hour or two late in these areas, if you're lucky. He heard stories where people waited ten hours each. When the controllers came they had to take them off the ground their frozen boots were station. A large number of them were left without boots.
He stepped forward with steady steps.
The path he walked was rarely used nobody dared to go, especially today, on Samhain.
October thirty-second, he thought. I will be arriving at this pace by the end of November, some thirty-seven days. The second of December is Findar. A holiday we all have to respect. The thirty-eighth of December is the New Year.
The road was so rare that even the bandits abandoned him, especially when they made a new detour. In this region some twenty-five years ago the first trains appeared. Other areas in the region have gradually followed the same example.
A couple of houses were all made in these mountains. Most abandoned because of the harsh climate, a climate that has benefited him. The houses here, unlike the swamps, did not break down so easily. He just needed to find one.
The snow had paved the way he planned to go. The shelter gave him a recessed part of the ravine.
The recesses were just large to push into. The snow was not the same from the inside recess, something was behind. He hit the ice layer with his boot. He was right. There was something really behind, a tunnel leading somewhere. He wanted to know just where it leaded. He wasn't sure. He had heard stories of people making homes in such recesses. He managed to find one.
The tunnel led to a door that was locked, strange symbols adorning the door he could not make out because of dust that was two fingers thick. He wipes the cobweb with his hand; the symbols emerge, big and small, diverse. A door of stone, most doors were from iron-wood. The doors had a different mechanism, so they just slid into the made notches. The house would be spacious, exuding hospitality. The armchair was at the other end of the room with just a bookshelf, which immediately caught his attention, especially the two books that were side by side: Pocket Guide of the Empire by Ferleven and Beauty of Nevrasta, he managed to clean them, but the color was faint. They interested him; he took them from the shelf, sat in an armchair and started to read them. They were a rear site.
He took a magic pen out of his pocket, which only wrote if there was a fine Irtier paper nearby, fortunately it was in abundance.
The pen jumps, for the paper it jumps. They just start writing a pen:
Follow the river, turn away at the big oak, and pass the dark cliff through the cliff, if you get the other way you come out. Natural triangles, many secrets are hidden in them. Remember what's up, it's down now, and what's up is turned sixty degrees. The fortress looks north, the magnificent forest surrounds it. The river is slow flowing, sharp and mountainous. The trout in it are juicy. The capital, colorful in color, greets each morning cheerfully. Buildings to buildings in a row stretch in all directions. It's weird even for Ferleven. Everywhere the view of the houses is the same. Trees, neatly pruned, grow everywhere.
He knew where he needs to go. He needed a holiday. But still he wondered what his friend was doing far away.