I.i
The Violet Flame
Sorin Rosa’s journal (fragment)—5th May 743.
The earth was warm and rich and easy to dig with my bare hands. Fat pallid worms wriggled away, and what I guessed were spiders’ eggs fell from my palms like raindrops. What was left was treasure—gold sovereigns that had been hidden less than a foot underground, their pouch or bag long since rotted away. Other items too: a small gold letter-opener, its hilt shaped like a roosting bat, and a heavy gold signet ring adorned with a bat …
If I hadn’t been so cold, so scared … and so hungry for both food (and gold) then I might have paused to reflect on the fact that these weren't the first bats I had dug up this night. But there was another violet flame beckoning to me not more than a mile away, and the moon appeared from behind heavy clouds to briefly show me the way: down a ravine then up a steep wooded slope to a flat rocky outcrop.
I brushed the coins clean and tipped them into the open saddlebag. Whilelmina, my mule, gave me a sad look as her burden increased. I unwrapped an old dry carrot and let her bite off half, then gnawed on the rest myself. We hadn’t planned on being out here in the Wild for quite so long, but each small horde I had dug up had led to another … and then another …
Impatiently, I led Mina down the ravine. We were six days out from the nearest village; if either Mina or myself threw a hoof or an ankle then we may as well have been a hundred days out. She carried both the treasure and our food; there was no way I was returning to civilisation without either.
There was an icy cold stream at the bottom of the ravine, and a lot of sharp rocks, all hidden by thick undergrowth. Low twisted oaks provided plenty of handholds, but were also reluctant to let me pass, snagging my belt with gnarly fingers, or dragging a grasping bough across my cheek. Mina plodded on stoically, while I spat and cursed at this empty—yet malevolent—land.
But Mina’s pack was not even half-filled, and my once immaculate greatcoat (bought for a pretty price on Drapers Lane, Amaranthium, back when I imagined wearing it for simply swanning around town, giving but the impression of a travel-worn adventurer) had plenty of pockets. Perhaps the next flickering ghost light might signal a greater horde.
Battles had been fought, won and lost in these now lonely territories, and as castles were sacked and fortunes changed hands, the land had become a safer vault than a dungeon. Indeed, these riches would have remained concealed forever, had it not been for the unearthly glow of the spirits mourning over the spoils of war they were destined never to spend.
The spirits of my homeland. My deathly ancestors wander this inhospitable land, oblivious even to the likes of me. Would they know or care that my family once owned a castle here that towered over the Endless Forest for centuries? Or would they see me as just another monster or thief, ravenous for food or riches?
I dragged Mina up the wooded slope. As always in life, the closer the object of your desire gets, the harder it is to conquer. Surmounting the rise meant navigating a maze of spiky brambles, and just when I had finally discovered a relatively clear path and hastened my ascent, I felt the sharp pain of something entering my foot via the sole of my boot.
I fell to the ground in head-splitting agony. A thorn the size of a paring knife had pierced the arch of my foot. I am not sure what I grieved for more: my flesh or my beautiful black boots, which until now had proved very comfortable, warm and waterproof, and from this day on would be none of those things.
Mina licked my ear. I patted her bristly neck. ‘I fear, my love, that this may be the point at which we turn back. You might have to carry me.’
Up ahead, the violet flame beckoned.
‘Damnation!’ I vowed to attempt one last scramble to the rocky summit, where the ghost light danced invitingly against the deepening gloom and lowering clouds. I left Mina and scrambled over and up jumbled rocks using two hands and one foot.
At this point it began to rain.
Perhaps I should never have returned to this land. While diminished, I would not have been exactly destitute back in my adopted city. Perhaps I should have turned back now with what small fortune I had so far gathered. Either way, my life would have taken a different path, and I would not be now writing this journal while resting under sumptuous bedding in an outsized bed.
But let me not get ahead of myself! I am a thorough man, and wish to record every detail of my journey for posterity, and for those who may follow me and find this journal. So then … for the record, I had walked the Long Road east from Amaranthium for five-hundred miles before striking north, and then spent at least another month making my way from village to village, roughly following what I was told was the River Mere, and then one of its nameless tributaries. The people of the last house I stayed at had no name for their village either, and I believe that had there been any less of them then they would have done without names for themselves too.
They were rustic folk of few words. The oldest villager, a toothless grandfather of a somewhat manic disposition, tried to warn me off my intended path by alternately pointing north then joining his thumbs and spreading his fingers. ‘He fears … a great evil,’ his daughter told me quietly. I had seen acolytes of the Dragon make that sign in city temples, and was rather warmed to know that the same superstition still kept locals from the deeper woods and the biggest treasures. I assured my host that I would try to at least survive until lunchtime in order to enjoy the enormous sandwich she had packed for me. When I did stop to eat, I found the thin strips of lamb were slathered with a heady mush of garlic and salt. I fed most of it to Mina.
So it was with a near-empty stomach that I now heaved myself up onto the flat top of the great rock. There was no shelter up here from the rain, and no view to behold—just endless swirling moonlit mists. The violet flame danced in front of me—a six foot tall flickering beacon. Like all those before, it vanished as I approached, perhaps to grumpily watch me from a distance do what it couldn’t: dig up its treasure. I knelt down in its vacated spot, brushing my hands over the smooth weather-swept rock. Now this one was a puzzle!
As if to hurry me along, a cacophony of wolf howls rose up from the invisible forest. Bats, dragons, and now wolves! I feared for Mina, tethered some fifty feet below me, more than for myself up here. I had better find my prize and get back down. I wandered to the opposite edge of the rock, poked out my head as far as I dared, and looked down. The rockface seemed to curve inwards, out of sight from the overhang. Surely there was a cave below me—the perfect place to hide a great hoard!
Greed got the better of me then, I am obliged to admit. The thought of arriving back in Amaranthium a rich man, settling all my debts, treating all my friends—regaining my position in society and resuming my many business interests and leisure pursuits: my head was full of all these fantasies as I lay down on the rock and let my legs swing out into nothingness. Arms aching, I lowered my torso, kicking out below, searching for a foothold.
Perhaps I should have brought a rope.
I jammed the fingers of my right hand into a crevice, while my left hand groped about, finally grasping a thick and secure tree root. All I had to do now was let go with my other hand and swing down to the treasure. A rumble of thunder gave me pause, then a flash of lightning above me hastened my plans. As the rock above me exploded, I plummeted downwards, tearing the tree root from the rockface as I went, until—some twenty feet further down—I smashed against a sheer cliff.
And that is where I found myself not three hours ago, my broken body hanging in the rain, the thin stretched tree root having miraculously twisted around my arm and bound itself to me. The mists lifted then, revealing (to my horror) a vast valley below me, where a hundred wolves snapped up at me from a hundred feet below. Mountainous peaks spiked up like fangs on the far side of the valley, riddled with thick pines and caked with snow. And in the centre of the valley—a fast tumbling river that carved its way through the landscape, making jagged left and right turns as it fought with the land. The river split and encircled a great island of granite, to the sides of which stone dwellings clung.
And on top of which, a great tower rose.
Through the red lens of the blood that ran from a gash in my forehead, my gaze followed the tower upwards, past battlements and turrets and spires, to the long tapering point of its roof, where a pair of enormous black wings unfurled and launched themselves in my direction …