C17 Chapter XVII

AnaNakara pummeled the stretched skin with powerful, regular blows. Only the strongest Oas were capable of beating the big vertical drum with both sticks so the sound was not drowned out by the wild clattering of the smaller drums. The way her back muscles moved was accentuated by three long, thick braids that fell over her shoulders. She preferred to wear her hair in a single long braid over her right shoulder, but the rhythm made her body vibrate so much that her thick hair could not keep its shape. Three braids, then, though not exactly pretty: one on each side and one on the back. AnaNakara did not care much. She was not a vain woman. Three braids were simply more practical.

The drum’s rhythm appeared to new arrivals as monotonous. It was the most basic pulse of life, the heartbeat of nature that gave a reference point to all the other drums in the group. Two smaller drums to either side took the rhythm and played with it, each in their own fashion. They were set a little further, so that each drummer could see exactly what AnaNakara was doing. Even though the pulse remained the same, the beats could grow louder and quieter; the sticks could hit the skin in the middle or around the edge, changing the pitch, and even the angle of the stick imposed its own unique flavor on the sound. Once a change from the big drum had made it all the way to the smallest, it was a completely different tone.

AnaNakara let the last beat echo away and wiped her brow. Her headband, made of woven bast and dried moss, was drenched. She wore no jewelry except for a thin golden band on her arm that made the muscles on it stand out all the clearer. She was stocky, short, strong and wild, and yet, despite her ferocious appearance, there was no doubt that she was a woman - although not one to be trifled with.

Like almost all of her sisters, her father was a druid, but none of the others had as much of their father in them as AnaNakara. Most of her friends had light hair, silver or blonde, and often little more remained of their father’s looks than a slight red sheen.

Her name was similar to a bird’s call, she had been told. The story went that, after her birth, she had screamed louder than all the other babies, and ‘AnaNakara’ had been adapted from the brighthorn’s call. With its wide chest, thick beak and pompous plumage, the brighthorn spent its time mostly on the lower branches of trees, where it fended off other competitors for food with its loud screech. Even the cats avoided it.

Yet it had not merely been her name, her hair and her figure that had given cause for talk behind her back. She was not only strong, but wild, deft and brave; she enjoyed climbing up the tallest trees and never avoided a fight. She was popular with the builders, as she was not afraid of swinging an ax and shouldering a log. But her true notoriety came when she disagreed with a brulabar about a portion of honey. People whispered that she had grabbed it from behind, put her arms around its neck and broken it with just a slight tug. AnaNakara covered her ears at this nonsense. She explained that all she had done was leap at it from behind. That had frightened the brulabar into dropping the honeycomb and charging away. No one believed her, though. Who would be mad enough to pounce on a brulabar for some honey? Besides, it made for a better story. And AnaNakara was renowned for her love of fighting.

“I will never take a man who cannot beat me in a fight,” she would say whenever she was asked about family matters.

“You want to be careful,” her friends would say. “There’ll be none left in the end.”

And so it was. The passing druids had no desire to prove themselves against the plain woman for the right to bed her; after all, there were so many prettier, younger women, all of them more willing and less likely to break their jaws. Although she had never broken a jaw, all of her potential suitors left with bruises and scars as their only trophies.

And so passed day after day in the small village, until one morning a strange wanderer appeared by the forest’s edge, incredulously ogling the group of women. He was tall, with long legs and arms, and he did not seem to know what to do with his hands.

“I didn’t know that only women lived here. I hope I’m not intruding,” he said quietly. “I seek a fire to warm my cold feet and fingers and a place to sleep. And perhaps something to eat other than baked grass and greenleaf. Healthy as they are, they make me retch,” he joked. He pulled a face as if the mere mention of them made him feel sick all over again.

“Sit with us.”

The Oas’ hospitality towards men who did not come from Ringwall was almost boundless, but tonight there was a certain uncertainty in the air, and no one could tell where it had come from, why it was there and when it would go. Perhaps it was the young man’s odd appearance.

He stood there, his tall frame towering over them all in front of the meadow. He was skinny like the reeds that grew in the water and his hair was distinctively light, and so silky that it blew in the softest of winds. If the wind changed direction, his hair stood on end, and when the sun was in his back the silver color gained a golden shimmer and fused with his aura in a sort of cloak that gave the awkward young man a touch of the otherworldly. This only lasted until he moved, however, as his long, swaying arms and funny gait looked almost like a jester’s act. The man was not a druid. Quite apart from his looks, every druid knew the Oas or had at least heard of them. Druids and Oas were two parts of the same whole, like a bird and its nest, like dew drops and leaves, like clouds and the wind.

Nor was he a shaman. His clothing was too plain; and his open, somewhat dreamy gaze drew absolutely no comparison to a wild warlock. Unfortunately, it stood to reason that he was, indeed, a sorcerer, hailing from hated Ringwall.

In spite of this, the stranger was treated well. They listened to his stories with keen interest, although he did not have many to tell. No one tried to put sweetened berries in his mouth during supper or play any other sort of game with him. The girls did not accompany him to the river to wash, but only showed him where he could do so himself. He slept in the common house, like all visitors.

“He’s the one,” AnaNakara said, pointing her strong chin in the stranger’s direction, making her look even more determined and wild than usual.

“Who?” her friends chorused.

“Him. He’s stronger than me.” AnaNakara’s voice was quiet and sober.

“Him? I’d wager my bracelet that you can see every rib on his chest when he gets undressed. You could fold him over like a reed, pour syrup on him and eat him for dinner.”

“Her heart’s the only thing making her weaker than him right now.” “She’ll come round.” “Our sister’s in love!” “About time.” These and many other jokes were made by her friends, but she did not care. She gazed at the spot where he had been standing.

“He’s strong and powerful. A giant unlike any other. Even the Metal beasts with their scythes and sickles would run screaming.”

Her friends tittered. “I think your eyesight is waning, sister. He’s not big, strong and powerful, he’s long, lanky and gawky.”

“Don’t even try. He’s mine.” With her teeth bared, AnaNakara looked positively frightening.

“Don’t worry, dear, don’t worry. I don’t think anyone else is after him. None of us would be crazy enough to take a sorcerer into bed.”

It did not occur to AnaNakara to introduce herself to the stranger in the common house that night, and her friends kept clear as well. The stranger had expected no less, for he did not know the Oas or their traditions. So he sat, the only man amongst the women, at the fire, eating his meal with the children, mothers and eldest. AnaNakara sat silently beside him, and he said nothing either – he would not have known what to.

After a long, shared meal, AnaNakara asked him suddenly: “What’s your name?”

The stranger looked up from the wooden spoon onto which he was vainly attempting to coax a smoothly cooked root in the soup. His eyes found hers and he frowned, as if remembering his name was causing some trouble behind those eyes. After a while, he answered slowly: “Sedramon-Per.” He looked a little confused and repeated it a few times silently, like in some absurd lip-reading game. Then he nodded vigorously, as if to emphasize the meaning of the word and said it again out loud. “Sedramon-Per. That is my name, and you may call me that if you wish.”

AnaNakara looked satisfied. She seemed to like the name. She did not give her own, and Sedramon did not ask for it. The young sorcerer stayed with the Oas for a long time, much longer than he had initially planned. AnaNakara told him about the drums and the kind of magic she felt in them, but she avoided all other questions about the Oas’ magic.

“Our magic is simple and rests on three perspectives: one down, one up and one on ourselves. I personally don’t really believe in it much. You’d be better off asking the elders, or better yet, the wise women.”

And so Sedramon asked the elders and the wise women. The answers he received were all similar: “The Oas’ magic is not meant for sorcerers. It would only confuse you,” and other such sentences met him everywhere he asked, accompanied by an understanding smile.

Sedramon and AnaNakara grew closer, despite the many warnings and raised eyebrows in the village. AnaNakara cared nothing for the village gossip and it did not take long for the two of them to be spending every waking moment with each other. In the night, they always returned alone: he to retire in the common house, she in her own hut. Three full moons passed until he disappeared as suddenly as he had arrived.

“So does anyone know where he went? And what happened to AnaNakara?” Nill asked breathlessly. The story had quite an impact on him.

“What do you think happened?” the Oa said. “She stayed here and bore the scorn of an abandoned mother. She spent more and more time in her hut. Drumming was the only thing she had left. I wasn’t very interested at the time. My friends and I spent our days collecting flowers to weave into wreaths. You should really ask Lianina if you want to find out any more about AnaNakara.

“And the sorcerer… no one knows where he went. No one was that interested. Had he gone waterwards or metalwards, we would have seen him. The path toward earth is difficult to hide on as well. The most likely explanation is that he vanished in the forest or left for the Mistmountains. Although both are still unlikely, as the way to the Mistmountains is dangerous, and that’s just in the parts where the path still exists.”

“Well, he could have passed through the Mistmountains into the Fire Kingdom,” Nill suggested.

“Why would he have done that? The plainsroad is a much easier way.”

Nill did not know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

“Speak with Lianina,” she said as she stood up. “She’ll be able to tell you a lot more than I can. Good night to you all!”

Sedramon had indeed crossed the Mistmountains, and was resting under the last tree before the vast open plain of stones, sand and bleakness. The sun was at its peak, causing the landscape to lose its usual yellow and assume a blueish gray similar to hammered iron. This was not what Sedramon had expected. His eyes sought yellow and red, the burning fires he had seen on his flight through time. With a sigh he picked up his bags and walked on.

He did not know how long he traveled. To his left, there was stone; to his right a wide, dead wasteland; and ahead of him sand, rubble and every now and again large patches of grayish white salt. Suddenly, he stumbled into a depression, where a body was hunched in silent suffering.

Sedramon leapt down the sandy slope in hugged bounds and bent over the man, gently patting his bony back.

“The poison has taken control. Let’s see if we can’t change that,” he muttered softly.

The back began to stretch, the cramped muscles relaxed and the blue shade on the man’s face lost a little of its menacing darkness.

“Too much Earth isn’t good,” Sedramon said. “Neither is too much Metal, especially when there’s a lack of Water. You will have some pain for a while, my good man. I have strengthened the Fire and made the Wood loosen the Earth. But now, you must drink.”

Sedramon held a shallow bowl of water to the man’s lips which he had found under a nearby stone from which water dripped.

The man tried to resist and mumbled something – Sedramon caught only the word “trees” – but he was too weak. Ignoring the coughing and spitting and rattling breaths, he forced down sip after sip into the dry throat until the bowl was empty. It was quite a large bowl, despite its shallowness.

“There,” Sedramon said, finally happy. He did not add anything, but rather let the man sleep as he prepared a small meal for himself. He placed the bowl back under the dripping spring. He had enough water for himself.

When Sedramon woke up the next day, he noted that the hermit had been up for quite some time. He watched the old man carry the bowl to the roots of the trees; his dragging feet left long gouges in the sand. The first bowlfuls must have been the hardest.

“I am the keeper of the spring,” the man explained when he noticed Sedramon’s inquisitive glance. “The trees are my children, my task and my fate. Call it what you want, it’s all the same to me. But you – I owe you my life.”

“I’m sure you’ll save mine if fate sees fit,” Sedramon replied calmly.

“I will spend my entire life here,” the hermit said.

“I will be moving on soon.”

“Then I must give you something other than the promise to be there for you in times of need.”

“I need nothing more than information.”

“Very well, ask.”

“I seek a place of fire, heat and embers. The flames rise high in the sky, touching the clouds.”

“No such place exists. It must be in the past, or yet to come.”

Sedramon sighed. “You’re very probably right.”

“As I cannot help you with your question, allow me to make you a different gift. I have no possessions apart from the clothes I wear and the bowl in my hands. But if you so desire, I can teach you how to read and write.”

Sedramon gave a faint smile. “I am a sorcerer. Reading and writing are part of my education.”

The hermit reached for a frond and drew a line in the sand. As though Sedramon had not spoken, he explained: “The rune of beginning. Extend the basic line to get the rune of the end. If you then connect the two, beginning and the end are one and the same. This is the secret of the script.”

Sedramon grew curious. Like all sorcerers, he knew many different scripts, but he had never seen symbols like these before.

The hermit showed him rune after rune, explained their meaning, their relation to other runes, how collections of them were read and what “rune-family” meant.

“Every message contains a second one, a hidden one, for there are always several ways of saying something; the choice of runes has as much meaning as the words you speak.”

So the hermit taught the sorcerer until Sedramon knew, by the ninth day, every single rune.

“You have my thanks,” he said. “Your debt is repaid, and I must move on.”

“If you leave now, everything you have learned might as well be sand in the wind and will be lost, just like sand in the wind. In the beginning, there are the runes, then you must understand the secret of the message within the message. All this means nothing without the stories, without the tales the runes tell, and the true meaning behind them. The tales are teachers, but they only speak to those who let them. We will never have much time for the stories; the evening wind comes early.”

Sedramon did not understand, but he watched the hermit scratch symbols into the sand all the same. He only paused briefly to water his trees. The sun was low in the sky when he spoke again. “This is the first tale. Read it and copy it tomorrow. The night wind will give you a blank space to write on.”

Sedramon stayed for many more days than he had ever intended. He read one hundred and twenty-eight stories while he was there, and each story had eight different versions. They were told like this, then like that; from one perspective, then another. They all were tales of the creation of the world, the separation of beast and man, the birth of magic as man knew it today, all the way to the first banishing of the arcanists and the wise. Sedramon read about the magic of Nothing and learned of the pulse of life.

“These are all my stories, sorcerer,” the spring-keeper said finally. “I have none left to tell.”

“You have more than repaid your obligation. The fire, the roaring flames I sought – they were you,” Sedramon-Per said, in equal parts thankful and awestruck. “The fires of truth burned bright in your tales, and they contained all the answers. Now all I don’t know are the questions that belong to them. It’s a strange turn, isn’t it?”

Sedramon’s gaze turned inward and spent quite a while in his own amazement before returning to the outside world.

“But now I must go. My path leads onwards. Earth, Metal and Water still lie before me. Only once the circle is complete will I know what lies in wait for me.”

“How can you leave?” the hermit cried, crestfallen. “You have become my student, as I was to my master. Fate made it so and led you to me!”

“I told you that I must continue, and you know you are the one to stay. We have known this from the beginning. Farewell. You will always have a place within my heart.”

“You would have been the right one. Now that you are going to leave, the hopes will die. I will be the last keeper.”

“The spring’s story is not mine,” Sedramon said, and the words sounded harsher than he had intended. “Someone else will come. Be sure of it. My fate lies not in Water, but in Fire, between great trees. That is all I know. I have found the Fire, now I must find the trees. When I have written all the runes you have taught me, I will go.”

Sedramon had a quill, but no parchment nor ink. So he unsheathed his knife and pricked his arm, dipped the quill into his blood and drew a symbol on the inside of his cloak. He wanted to put the first rune in a corner and fill the cloak from there, but his hand did not obey. He ended up placing the rune of beginning right in the middle of the cloak’s back. The blood was not enough for more than one rune, and so he pricked his other arm as well. By the end of the day, both his arms were red and raw, and the inside of his cloak displayed several somewhat lost-looking brown symbols whose placement had been decided by something other than his own will.

The hermit had watched silently with a stony expression. On the second day, as Sedramon was looking for a part of his body he had not cut yet, the hermit stood up, watered the last tree, took the knife off Sedramon without listening to his protest, grasped him by the hair and cut into his scalp. He caught the blood in the bowl.

“The head’s blood is thin and copious. Now write,” the hermit growled.

The evening fire of the Oas was a place of great hustle and bustle. Women came and went. It was a long time before Dakh managed to find Lianina.

“Lianina, my dear, we have been cruelly left with half a story with no end and the promise that you know it. Tell us, what became of AnaNakara after the sorcerer left her?”

Lianina, as slender and lithe as the plant she was named for, lost her smile in an instant. She looked as though she would rather never remember what had happened.

“It’s not a story worth telling. It is a tale of fighting, broken hearts and hurt feelings, of disobedience, stubbornness and finally a flight, or a chase. It’s a story of the past. And that’s where it belongs.”

“One of the broken hearts was yours.” Dakh’s voice was gentle, almost crooning, and his eyes were round and innocent. “The weight of the past grows heavier the longer you are forced to carry it around. Share it with us; we are only here for AnaNakara and had hoped to meet her.”

Nill and Brolok exchanged glances. They had never heard Dakh tell an outright lie before.

“You are right, druid. One of the broken hearts was indeed mine. AnaNakara was my best friend. We shared every secret, every wish. All that ended when the sorcerer arrived. From one day to the next… oh, how I wished for him to go. And I was so glad when he did. But it was not the same. The AnaNakara he had left behind was a changed woman.”

“And then he came back,” Dakh prompted.

“Yes,” the Oa said, “he came back. Twice, actually. The first time was about three or four springs later. He must have traveled far around the world and he had all sorts of strange things in tow. Again, he did not stay long before leaving. If I understood AnaNakara correctly, he went to Ringwall to become a mage. I thought that would be the end of it, but four or five springs later he was here again – this time, for the last time. He was only here for a few days, then he was gone. This time, AnaNakara went with him. I’ve never heard anything of either of them since.”

Nill listened to his beating heart. He had never been so close to his parents. But who was this sorcerer? Sedramon-Per or Perdis? Or were they one and the same?

“There is another thing I must ask. It is very important to me, you must understand. It is… well, I mean, it looks like I’m poking my nose into things that have nothing to do with me. But that isn’t the case. How to explain…”

Lianina looked at a stuttering Nill with friendly eyes. He felt even more uncomfortable at this, and, inside, he was writhing under her gaze.

“AnaNakara’s child. What happened to him?”

It was out. Dakh and Tiriwi looked up.

“She did have a child, but it’s a sad story,” said Lianina. “I don’t want to talk about it, really. A very sad story. The child did not live long. The poor boy died young. It happens all the time, to everyone, when the bridge between sky and earth is not built quickly enough… it breaks.”

Nill could not believe his ears.

“But I heard she left the village with Sedramon-Per and a child.”

Lianina nodded. “That was her second child.”

Nill was at his wits’ end. He thought he had only just found his parents, and now they were sliding away from him.

“The second child, what was it? A boy or a girl?” Nill had to make one last desperate attempt at solving the riddle, but Lianina could only shrug.

“I don’t know. The child was shrouded in mystery. I never liked that. That was the reason AnaNakara grew more reclusive and never allowed anyone to come close anymore. That was when our friendship ended. But it’s all so long ago. It’s like a story from another lifetime. Not good to bring it back up.”

She gave Nill another encouraging smile and rose to her feet, then she left with long, swaying strides.

Nill stared after her, dumbfounded, then turned his head so quickly to Dakh that he cricked his neck. Dakh was chewing on a blade of grass, as was his habit when thinking hard.

“Do any of you know what to make of this?”

“Perhaps,” the druid say, “but what’s more important is what it means for our future. The more we ask, the more people come to the forefront. It’s almost as if fate does not want to rely on a single person. More and more I’m convinced that neither the figure from the mists nor the chosen of destiny exist.”

“But King Sergor-Don destroyed Ringwall, as the prophecy foretold. Fire, smoke and the sounds of battle were the dominant parts of the magon’s visions. It all fits.”

“Yes, from the mages’ perspective. But I have spent many winters searching for Sedramon-Per, and now I learn that he actually had a child. For a moment I dared to hope that you were that child. Everything would have been so much easier. That would have been the connection I have been looking for all this time. Father and son find the Books of Prophecy. But the child died. What role, then does Sedramon-Per play in this? And you? And why do the books connect you?”

“He could still be the chosen one,” Nill said with little hope, thinking of Morb-au-Morhg and the conversation they had shared on Ringwall’s battlements. “Detaching oneself from fate,” the old mage had said, and that was the reason Nill had escaped Ringwall before its fall and was now sitting in a small village at the foot of the Mistmountains.

“No, Nill,” the druid said. “The mages are the ones who have been waiting for the figure from the mists, because they believed that fate only picks special people to weave new magical patterns. We druids aren’t even sure whether this figure exists.”

“So why have you been searching for Sedramon-Per all this time?” Nill tried to understand. But he had known the magon and had been granted a glimpse into his visions. The figure from the mists existed, and smoke, fire and the sounds of battle heralded its coming.

“We druids see things from another point of view. Like the Oas, we see the patterns in the world and we believe that special patterns produce special people. Sedramon-Per is not chosen, but simply part of the pattern we don’t understand. Yes, Sergor-Don destroyed Ringwall, but still…” the old druid stopped suddenly. “What I don’t understand is why Sedramon-Per abandoned his beloved AnaNakara. He must have traveled far and wide – what in the world was he looking for? Gathering experience doesn’t mean gallivanting around all of Pentamuria.”

“It will have been the books.” Nill looked a little upset. “They never let go once you know about them.”

“Mighty mages and extraordinary druids have spent their entire lives looking for them. And you’re saying a young sorcerer like Sedramon-Per found two of them in just a few winters?” Dakh looked skeptical.

“I’m younger than he was, and I’ve found two as well,” Nill said simply.

It was not the books that Sedramon was looking for. He was full to the brim with the old stories the spring-keeper had written in the sand for him. And he felt the magical power of the old runes. Suddenly, he saw the world differently; everywhere, nature seemed to speak to him. He saw magic in every spot, even where there was none, for it is difficult to tell what is and what is not, what are things and what are wishes; for man sees what he wants to see, not what he should see.

From the spring he had set out metalwards. But on the eve of his first rest he entered the Other World and dreamed of Earthland. He left the Plains of the Dead and found himself somewhere in a desolate, brown and yellow wilderness.

That’s certainly an easier way to travel , he thought. Waterwards I should find a settlement or two.

Sedramon had traveled through Earthland, spoken with its people and learned their legends. But never before had he had the idea to search for traces of an ancient magic within them. He was a sorcerer of Ringwall, and not a very good one. He knew the magic of the Five elements and had a little experience with the Other World. He had heard of the powers of the Cosmos and the might of Thoughts, but he had never learned any more about them. Never – not once! – had a mage mentioned ancient magics from ancient times.

Sedramon-Per had leapt back from Earthland to Woodhold, where he sought the legendary Ironwood: a wood so hard and heavy that it sank in water. It was there that he spoke with the trees and learned from them that the Oas’ magic had come from an older, simpler magic. In the Waterways, the sun and light shared their knowledge with him, and in conversation with the water and light he found the Book of Mun and read in it how the mages and druids had reached the magic of the five elements. He found magical symbols in the spiral shell of a water snail; he learned to read the foam at the tips of the waves; and on the border to Metal World he stumbled across a mysterious mineral that covered the inside of a small cave in fist-sized chunks. As he chipped one of them off the wall, he was surprised at its weight. He cracked it open and found it full of crystals, but these were not like the sparkling rubies, sapphires and emeralds that were commonplace elsewhere. Yet they had their own beauty, full of glamour and magic, because Metal and Water were inseparably united within them. Nothing was as it first seemed.

In Metal World, Sedramon collected rokka-nuts and encountered the kingspider and the nightcrawler and found an abandoned place of prayer. Fragments of nuts, spider webs, chunks of Water ore and many other curiosities found their way into his bags. When he finally returned to Woodhold, he knew that he had traversed all of Pentamuria. He had followed his mother’s advice and had played with magic daily. He had become a strong mage, but it was still possible that the magic overwhelmed him. The question of master and servant was far from answered for Sedramon and his magic. One day, he was standing again in the small Oa village in the shadow of the Mistmountains, wandering around a little bashfully between the huts. He drew a deep breath and made for the hut where he had, so long ago, spent those wonderful days with AnaNakara.

Although we were outside more often than not, he thought, wondering as he did where the thought even came from.

The door was ajar and Sedramon leaned forwards, pushing it open awkwardly. It creaked mercilessly and in the darkness a small child began to cry.

“Awake again? I’ll sing you a song.” And, in the same breath: “Come in and close the door. Be quiet.”

Sedramon stood in the restricting doorframe, long and dark, his head bowed in order not to hit the ceiling. He barely dared to breathe.

“I must have been gone for too long for you to seek comfort elsewhere,” he whispered. The baby could not be more than half a harvest cycle old.

“No,” AnaNakara whispered back. “It’s different. Everything is different, and everything is terrible. Will you help me? I need your help. Please!”

Sedramon-Per crossed his long arms and legs and listened silently to AnaNakara’s story.

Dakh, Nill, Ramsker and Brolok departed early the next morning. Tiriwi stayed behind and would not be swayed otherwise. “I am needed,” she said. “Grimala is waiting for me.” Nill made a few more half-hearted attempts to convince her, but Dakh finally spoke up.

“Leave it. She is right. The Oas need every arcanist they’ve got to keep the bridge from breaking. Don’t forget that Tiriwi is the only Oa who knows the five elements along with her own magic. Her place is with her people.”

Tiriwi and Nill shared a long, tight hug. It was as though neither ever wanted to let go, but their minds flitted back and forth between the tender memories they shared and the uncertainty, secrets and challenges that lay ahead until their bodies could take it no more, and the hug itself began to ache.

“Take care of yourself, Nill,” Tiriwi said. Nill said nothing; he swallowed and nodded. The lump in his throat did not want to go away.

They had been walking for a while, and Nill was still hanging onto his thoughts. It took some time before he noticed that Dakh kept stopping to sniff the air, looking around warily.

“Something stinks,” he said.

“I can’t smell a thing. Apart from the smelly old ram and all the plants,” Brolok said with a smirk at Ramsker. Ramsker was not amused.

“At least you know what kind of smell I mean,” Dakh said. “The air in the village was clear. The air here stinks.”

Nill’s eyes wandered across the treetops as he freed his right sleeve from a thorn that had got stuck there. He closed his eyes. “I can’t smell anything either, Dakh.”

In that moment, a woodfiddler began to sing. Its high, clear song was accompanied by a humming sound that the bird made by pulling its tail feathers across a horn on the back of its feet.

“Looking for a lady love, brother?”

Nill could not see the bird. It was visually unimpressive anyway; its song was the most distinctive thing about it.

“The woodfiddler wouldn’t sing if there was something foul afoot,” Nill said.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Dakh grumbled and led the way.

“We’ll avoid the smell as best we can,” he said as he pushed his body through two stubborn branches.

For the first time, Brolok and Nill learned what the word forest truly meant. Nill, who had grown up in the hills of Earthland, had never known such silence. A forest is no place for the wind with its seductive whistling. The forest is the kingdom of silence, only broken by the occasional bird call. A group of plants big and small, thick and thin, tall and short had gathered here, feeding and breeding with each other. They were all one great tangle of roots and branches, playing sometimes, fighting at others until only one remained, which could now enjoy air, sun, water and food for its roots for a few more springs until it, too, fell.

Even the animals had difficulty navigating this thicket. Some crawled along the ground, but most of the larger animals lived just beneath the treetops, where they were safe from aerial enemies and had the space between the branches to move in.

Dakh-Ozz-Han talked twigs into bending, branches into moving and old, long-dead climbers into hugging their trunks again.

“Without magic the only option’s a blade in here,” Brolok said, earning him a glare from the druid.

“I like it here,” he said. “It’s so full of life, of smells and odors. And the silence – it is a language unto itself. It is full of implications, and even its silence says something.”

They stopped for a moment and enjoyed the quiet that was only interrupted by falling droplets of water and birdsong.

“We should keep moving.” Brolok grew impatient, but Brolok was not nearly as receptive to Wood magic as Dakh and Nill. It took a few days for them to reach their goal, where the impenetrable green finally gave way to a sliver of blue sky above.

“Finally!” Brolok cheered. “A clearing up ahead! I was beginning to feel like the grip around my neck would never loosen. Not much longer and I’d have gone green myself.”

“It’s not a clearing,” the druid countered with twinkling eyes. “It’s the great tree.”

“You’re joking,” Nill said. “Air and light ahead, that’s supposed to be the great tree? And all this around us is probably just some shrubbery, right?” Nill indicated one of the giants nearby.

“You’ll see,” Dakh promised. “Until then, I’d advise you to enjoy the sky. This is the only place you can see it from.”

The forest was breathing. The trunks grew further apart and the overgrowth retreated. The ground poked its nose inquisitively into the air and had even gone so far as to decorate its face with a few flowers.

“This is the edge of the clearing that isn’t a clearing.” Dakh took a deep breath. “Can you feel the magic?”

Brolok shook his head and took a few steps forward, then stopped dead. Baffled, he stared at the dark brown wall before him, whose ancient furrows were only interrupted by even darker holes. Where in the name of all demons had the sky gone?

Nill slipped.

“Careful. We’re going down here. This,” the druid announced, “is the great tree. Some call it Grandfather Tree, or old Creakhorn.”

His voice was solemn with a hint of humility that the two boys were not used to from the old man.

Nill understood now why the tree was called the great tree. It had never bothered to grow to the heights other trees aspired to, but its circumference more than made up for it. The tree was wider than Nill could ever have imagined. It was so huge that up close he could not even see it curving.

The bark was a rock-hard set of armor, cracked under the brutal fist of time. Tears and cracks widened to entrances; these caves had walls that reminded him of Ringwall’s foundations. And yet, beside the stony armor, the walls were so rotten that Brolok had no difficulty in plucking wood straight from them with his hands. Healthy strands seemed to have the effect of carrier beams in the soft duff, giving Nill the impression that he had just left a forest for another, much darker one. He put an illumination on the tip of his staff to give enough light to see anything at all, for inside the tree it was pitch-black.

“The tree is wider than it’s tall,” Brolok stated.

“Yes; it grows from the inside out. Where once was its core, it is no more. The Nothing has taken its place.”

“Damn it, Nill. You always ruin everything,” Brolok attempted to joke, but he regretted the words immediately. Brolok, shut up , he told himself. Especially in a place like this.

Nill had not been listening. “The center must be about there…”

Something cracked dully and Nill was gone.

“Nill?”

“Down here. Be careful, the ground isn’t stable.”

Brolok stared down through the hole. “How deep?”

“About as deep as I’m tall.”

“I’m coming down.”

“You can’t!”

The warning came too late. A small avalanche of wooden splinters and mulch, and Brolok broke through the ceiling and knocked Nill to the ground.

“Where are you?” Dakh called.

“Down here between the roots!” Nill called back. “I’ve got earth under me, roots on all sides and Brolok with his luggage on top of me.”

“We’re coming down,” the druid announced, but he was the only one who came. Ramsker refused to jump into the dark unknown.

Nill, Brolok and Dakh found themselves in a maze of thick, tangled roots, bearing the colossal tree’s weight on top and digging further down into the rocks below.

“The legend says its roots go into the very core of the world,” Dakh said.

“Creakhorn is hardly a tree anymore. It’s a lot of trees now. What’s the difference between a root and a trunk if the root is as thick as ten of us put together?” Brolok asked.

“It’s dying,” Dakh said. “Trees don’t last forever. But before it leaves Pentamuria behind, it allows one seed to grow. It’s like the firebird that burns out when it dies and rises from the ashes.”

Brolok caressed the petrified roots.

“It makes me sad to see something so mighty, so sacred, dying without a fight.”

“Yes, but remember that every end heralds a new beginning.”

Nill was not listening to the conversation. He gazed up at the black, matted ceiling, enjoying the strong smell; he looked around at the pale white walls that had lost their color with the contact of the roots, and he cautiously kicked against the black earth with his heel.

“Black, white, black,” he murmured. “What’s it saying? I know the symbol. Where from?”

“Can you feel something?” Dakh asked.

Nill turned to his companions, but it was Brolok who answered. “Nothing except for a bit of Metal under my feet.” Nill shook his head.

“Are you saying you’re not feeling anything?” Dakh rumbled. “The air is thick with Wood magic, the tree is breathing Wood, the Earth has hidden beneath Wood and the ground we’re walking on is soaked with Wood. Did you learn nothing in Ringwall?”

“That’s not it, Dakh,” Nill said thoughtfully. “The time of Wood is over. I wonder whether the tree will ever be reborn.”

“Of course it will. It always has and always will,” Dakh attempted to convince him, but his words rang hollow, more a formality than an honest answer.

Nill could not have said what troubled him. Black, white, black – it had woken a memory in him that he did not understand. It kept slipping away just as he was about to grasp it, leaving him confused, then it came back and wagged around his head only to escape again. Nill walked mechanically onwards, not knowing whether he was leading or following, while more and more blurry images crossed his eyes. Leaves, wildly thrashing branches, broken bark and two eyes, a nose, a mouth in the old trunk. He blinked and the face vanished. What he had thought to be an eye was merely the scar left over from a broken branch, the nose a mere bump and the mouth no more than a trick of the sunlight. Nill rubbed his eyes. What was this? He was standing in the middle of a cave underground, in a maze of roots, far away from the green leaves and sunlight. And yet the face came back, and this time it did not leave at his blinking.

“What’s wrong, Nill?”

“Can’t you hear it?”

Dakh listened, his head tilted slightly. For a moment all was quiet. Then he shook his head. “No, nothing.”

“The tree is speaking. In thoughtspeak. Difficult to hear.”

“What’s it saying?”

“It’s greeting us.”

“And what’s it doing?”

“It wants me to greet someone.”

Brolok tipped a finger to his forehead as if to show his doubt at Nill’s mental health.

Nill listened closely to the voice that seemed no more than a far distant rustling of the leaves, the creaking of trunks bent by wind. And underneath it all was a vibration, coming from the ground as if the roots were banging on a great bell.

“I give you my name in case you meet him in the Waterways or in Earthland. Traveling.”

The old tree’s huge eyes were serious and piercing.

“Please treat the name with care. Do not lose it.”

Nill promised to pay good attention, even though he did not quite understand what the creature wanted.

“Here it is. Listen closely.”

The lips of the broad mouth pouted and blew pale bubbles. The plump hands threw bits of branches and leaves through the air and its left foot drummed an irregular rhythm on the ground.

“That is your name?” Nill asked.

The tree nodded with its branches. Only Nill could see the nod, but Dakh and Brolok jumped when they heard the sudden rustling of the leaves.

“But how am I to pronounce it?” Nill asked.

“With your heart or with your spirit, with a handshake or a deep look in the eyes. My friend will understand. All that matters is that you remember him and that nothing breaks off him. Otherwise you can never get rid of him and he will be a part of you forever.”

“I’ll pay attention,” Nill said, only just realizing that what he had just agreed to was more than a small favor.

“Who is your friend, Grandfather Tree? How will I recognize him, and what do you want me to say?”

“You will know him when you see him. Just tell him my name and give my farewell. Tell him Haimar is entering a new time.”

“Who is Haimar?” Nill understood less with each passing moment.

“Haimar is the name of the world. Haimar is what you call Pentamuria, and yet it is so much more.”

“And the new time?”

“Read the prophecy.” The tree smiled one last time and Nill felt a gentle embrace and the tickling of leaves on his neck, a warm breath of spiced air and the smell of farewell without sadness. And then:

“There is no firebird, Nill.”

“What happened? What did Creakhorn say?” Dakh had felt the connection between Nill and the old tree, but that was all.

“He told me there was no firebird, and that we must read the Book of Prophecy. Then we would understand, he said. Come, we have to reach the book.” Nill’s voice was hoarse and nasal; despite his swallowing, the sound got stuck in his throat.

“We live in wild times indeed if certainties are no longer reliable. But still. The legends say that Master Arhk, the dragon and the firebird control time. And now, the firebird doesn’t exist?” asked Dakh. Nill nodded, but did not understand why the druid suddenly looked so concerned.

Nill squeezed through a gap in the soft wood and found himself in a small room. Framed by two slender branches, leaning up against the pale wall and dimly lit by the green twilight stood a stone tablet.

“That could have been easier,” Brolok said, “but who could have guessed that the cave has another entrance?” Dakh and Nill left him to grumble and huddled around the stone. “Arun. I can’t believe it. The runes are ancient, difficult to read. That one might mean ‘human.’”

“Hey, Creakhorn!” the druid shouted. “Why did you never show me this tablet?”

Even in the dim light Nill could see Dakh’s face go purple. Nill was concerned.

“What’s wrong?”

“The swine,” Dakh blustered. “The bandit, thief, cheater and jester of fate. Oh, I love him.”

“What did he say?”

“‘Why should I?’ he said, as if I wouldn’t have been able to read the symbols anyway. If he wasn’t so much older than me, I’d…”

“Sedramon-Per was able to read them, and I think I can, too.”

To the druid’s amazement, Nill laid a hand on his shoulder, pushed him gently aside and began to read out loud.

When the humans believed that the magic was too simple for the many miracles of life that surrounded them, they tried to change the world. As there was dawn and dusk between darkness and light, taking color from things; as there was a mid-realm between this and the Other World that stopped the here from colliding with the beyond; as there were plants, humans and beasts living between heaven and earth, the humans were sure that the magic of hard and soft, light and shadow, high and deep could not be all the magic in the world. Mountain ridges and valleys meet in slopes, sea and land fight along the battlefield we know as the coast, and the bushy heads of branches and the gnarled bare roots are connected by the clear, straight trunk. Here and there, and whatever is in-between – that is the three.

The realms of the Third Circle will give the world no peace as long as the third power is unknown. What one cannot feel becomes a matter of faith, and so the kingdoms will wage war upon each other and in the name of the third power kill everyone who sees the world through other eyes. The period of change that follows the realms of the Third Circle will be the only one that is redemption rather than destruction and will remain an exception in our future.

Nill and Dakh stared at each other. Dakh indicated two lines at the foot of the stone that had been written by another hand in a different writing. Nill began to spell it out with difficulty, and this time the druid took over reading duties.

“I found these words on a stone. But when the stone saw me, it was frightened and crumbled. Here I have written what I have read and what remained in my memory. The rock broke faster than I could read and the light was bad. Perhaps another wanderer may find another stone and finish my tale for me. Hrafwijk.”

“So this is supposed to be the Book of Arun.” The druid’s face showed boundless astonishment. “I should have imagined something like this.”

“Are you saying this isn’t Arun?” Nill was horrified. The idea that he had been running after a shadow was more than he could bear.

“Who can tell?” the druid sighed. “As old as the stone and the words on it are, it is no more than a fragment of the prophecy. Either the Books of Prophecy never existed, and there was never more than these few sentences, in which case we will never know what our future holds; or, they might be in another place.”

“And who is Hrafwijk?” Nill asked.

“I don’t know. There have been many holy and great people in our long history and no one can expect to be remembered in legend. The name bears resemblance to others in the Waterways. Perhaps someone there remembers him.”

“The other books I found looked similar,” Nill said, his interest in the unknown author disappearing as quickly as it had come. “In the Book of Wisdom it said that the Book of Eos was given a guardian of Fire. I met this guardian. Eos is in the Borderlands of Fire and its text is not much longer than this one.”

“Then perhaps there is no more than the message of the realms coming and going. But has that not always been so?” Dakh-Ozz-Han was disappointed.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Nill murmured. Suddenly he remembered what the black, white, black pattern had roused. “The magic of light and dark. I know it. It’s what I felt back in the Forest of Unhappy Trees when we crossed through Earthland for Ringwall. I found it again there, guarded by the falundron. It was the magic that ruled Pentamuria before the kingdoms of the Third Circle rose, and there is a gigantic hall in Ringwall, supported by pillars where light and shadow oppose each other. The hall is full of symbols and messages, and presumably full of wisdom, too.”

Nill swallowed hard as he remembered his pitiful attempts at reading them.

“Dakh, I think I know part of Pentamuria’s future. The collapse, the Great Change everyone fears, is a change in magic. The same way the realms of the Third Circle overtook the ancient magic, they were replaced by the magic of four elements. If we find the Book of Mun or can ask Sedramon-Per about it, then we will learn that the magic of five elements rose from the previous one. Air was no longer a force, and into its place stepped Metal and Wood.

“The kingdoms that come and go are not the important thing, Dakh. It is the magic that changes, and the realms follow it.”

Dakh gazed deep into Nill’s eyes.

“It takes a young fellow like you to tell an old man what a mule he is. We should swap roles; you should be my teacher.”

Nill lowered his eyes, abashed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Sorry, sorry,” the druid flared up. “Don’t you understand what you have given me? All I need now is quiet and some patience to think about the things you have just told me. The magic is what causes everything, and a change in magic changes everything. Understanding that is not easy. I think I won’t like a lot of things. Not at all.”

Nill looked questioningly at Dakh.

“The Oas, for one,” Dakh said, rubbing his nose. “If what’s written here is true, which I don’t doubt, then the Oas must be a remnant of truly ancient times. I never thought they were so old, because the druids and the Oas are bound together, just as we share a common past with the mages. But we druids are no older than the five elements. What were we before then? And how did we get together with the Oas if their people are so old?”

Nill listened intently.

“It’ll have to wait,” the druid said gruffly. “For now we need to move on. I suggest we rest here tonight and travel waterwards tomorrow. Straight through the forest until we reach the coast.”

“Why the Waterways?” Nill wondered. “We only just came from there. It’s not the most hospitable place.”

“Would you rather traverse the misty forests and pass through the mountains to end up in the Fire Kingdom? Do you think there’s more than one book there?”

Nill shook his head silently.

“But that means you’re taking us to the Borderlands!” Brolok did not like the sound of that at all.

“No, not quite.” The old druid smiled. “It’ll be a surprise. I do not intend to roam the marshes on my own on the way back. In the Waterways you need a guide to travel comfortably.”