“It reached the Necromancers, sisters.”

“Does it know about Forbidden Magiks?”

“It has seen how The Soulless used them against that Necromancer.”

“Its reaction?”

“Devastated.”

“Excellent.”

I looked up from the books when Chaele got up from her sleep. I was surprised the day had returned so quickly, yet I was also relieved, since this meant I could get out of here, away from that monster who lives in the center.

“Good morning, Chaele. How are you feeling?” I immediately asked when she got up. In hindsight that wasn’t my brightest idea, I should’ve let her get her bearings. For all I knew she wasn’t even a morning person, and her current situation wouldn’t have helped her mood if that were the case.

"Morning Kate. Doing better than yesterday,” she yawned and rubbed in her eye with her right hand, “Then again, doing worse would be impossible.” She added, with a still sleep-drunk smile.

“Have you been able to get any rest yourself?”

“We can’t rest while a friend is possibly in danger of losing her life.”

“Oh Kate, Valentina… You shouldn’t have. Really, in the grand scheme of things, nothing bad happened, not short-term, at least. But I presume you haven’t been watching me sleep the whole night?”

Valentina rapidly blinked red.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I let myself go with the books here.” I held up the book I was reading. The title was written on it in big, silver letters: Mortis Essentia: History and Importance.

During the night I discovered how creatures die on The Lands, and how Mortis Essentia is falsely proclaimed as “The Essentia of Death”, because it is just as much – if not even more – the Essentia of Life.

On the Lands, creatures are apparently made up of two parts: their soul and their body. When they are born, their soul is completely clear of all Essentia, yet their body is created out of a mixture of Bestia Essentia – which grows until their death – and a set amount of Mortis Essentia. Then, during their lifetime, the Mortis Essentia is slowly transferred from the body to its soul. Death is what happens when the body has run out of a steady supply of Mortis; from that moment, the connection between body and soul is broken, causing the two of them to split, leaving the body in the physical realm of The Lands, and the soul in the realm of The Ethereal Plane.

It is to be noted that when a creature dies of an unnatural death – being killed, for instance – the soul is ripped from the body instantly, leaving the Mortis Essentia still present in the body to leak out. Mortis which comes in contact with the atmosphere, will linger for a few moments – during that time it can be harvested – before being redirected towards The Tree of Life, the same way Primal Essentia react to the atmosphere of The Lands.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Chaele? I mean… If I understand correctly… This book… It says…” I tried bringing up the subject as subtle as was possible, though I’ll shamelessly admit subtlety was never my forte.

Chaele – now sitting upright on the bed – stared at her kneecaps with an empty gaze.

“It says my life has been shortened by a few more years. I know.”

She didn’t show any emotion while saying it, not visually, not in her voice. It was all just emptiness, giving me both a concerned and disturbed feeling.

She looked at her left hand again. It was coated in a bandage which I put on as softly as I could yesterday night. There was nothing to be seen of the horrible Magiks that took place the night before, nor was there any sign of blood visible anymore, with exceptions of little bits on her fingers above the wound, and maybe some spots under her fingernails.

“You might not have experience with applying bandages, but I’d say you did a pretty good job.”

“Thanks”, I chuckled at it, “but credit where it’s due: Val helped me through it.”

A subtle smile appeared on her face.

“May I ask you a question?” she asked after a moment of enjoyable silence.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“What were you doing in the forest yesterday, when… well, this happened?” She held up her bandaged hand.

“We were actually searching the help of the Necromancers. See, we need to find ourselves a way to The Ethereal Plane.”

“What for? If you don’t mind me asking.”

I came closer to Chaele now, holding my head just next to that of hers to whisper in her ear.

“The King of Dwarfs died. Nobody knows how or why it happened, and I was sent to gather information from The King himself.”

“I see…” She nodded. “Well, if it’s of any help: to get to The Plane – alive, that is – you’ll either have to find a way to get The Spirits so far as to transfer you there – they almost never do it though: it costs them a Mark – or open the Ethereal Temples once again.”

“Do you happen to know how to do the latter?”

“Hang on, I believe I have a book lying around here with the steps for the ritual.”

She got up from her bed and started looking through the rampage of books lying on the floor.

“Aha! Found it!”

She got up from her knees, holding the book in her arms, and made the intention of giving the book to me.

“Do you maybe happen to have any backpack I can put it in?”

“Sure thing.”

She took some kind of old bag from underneath her bed and put the book in it, after which she gave the backpack to me. I opened it again and wanted to place the bestiary from The Library of Infinite Knowledge and The Book of Love inside – both of them I had managed to get out of the Baby Black Hole by literally and figuratively groping in the dark.

“So it’s true then…” I heard Chaele say.

“What?”

“The Book of Love,” I assumed she had been able to read the title when I was putting it in the bag, “it actually exists. And you have it in your possession.”

“Indeed. It’s nothing special though. It’s just ‘lengthy and mundane’…”

“…‘and written many an Era ago’. Don’t lie to me, Kate. I know it’s an incredible source of power; I read books too, you know…” She sarcastically pointed at all the books lying around her small tent, “It’s a book imbued with Elder powers. Said to have written in it either past, present or future about one’s love. It gleams with power on so many levels.”

“Would you like reading it?”

Her eyes became at least twice as big, while I heard her gasping, and the previously fairly neutral stance of her mouth transformed into a big smile on her face. She started jumping up and down from excitement.

“Could I really?”

“I don’t see why not. But only if you could do me one favor.”

“What is it?”

“Would you mind reading it to me?”

“If that’s what it takes to read The Book of Love, I’d be happy to do so.”

When she said that, I handed her over The Book.

“Here you go.”

She excitedly pulled The Book from between my hands and opened it on a random page, as Feldir had done.

“It’s a story!” She screamed happily, “Maybe a fable?”

“Is there also a title?”

“There is! ‘The Lambs in Chrysanthemums’! Wait… Should I read it?” Doubt began to appear in her eyes, it now hit her how this could both be something good as well as bad, and the last thing she needed now was something to bring her mood down.

“That’s up to you, Chaele. I just know we both would appreciate it if you read it out loud – if you read it in the first place.”

She stood there a few seconds waiting, silently debating whether to read it or not.

“Alright. I’ll do it.” A smile appeared on her face again.

“Great!” I said, eager to hear the story. I could see Valentina turn yellow besides me.

“Here goes nothing…

The Lambs in Chrysanthemums

This is a story about a lamb and a wolf, both standing at the river banks. Their relationship was highly remarkable: the wolf had found the lamb when she was only just born. And though he had eaten both her parents, he let the lamb live, raising her as his own child.

The lamb never knew anything else: she had lived by the rules of the wolf her whole lifetime, doing whatever he asked of her, obeying everything he demanded, yet she never knew the truth about the wolf and what he had done.

This day by the river banks, the lamb saw a field of pink chrysanthemums on the other side of the river, in it were other small sheep happily prancing. She desperately wanted to join them; she wanted to finally meet another lamb, but the wolf forbid her to do so. He told her that if she ever were to cross the river once, he would remind her of the ‘Survival of the Fittest’.

After days of coming by the river, she couldn’t resist anymore. As soon she passed by a bridge leading to the other side, she made sure the wolf wasn’t looking and crossed it, to play with the lambs in the chrysanthemums.

The wolf found out about this rapidly though, and from the moment she crossed that bridge to join the wolf again, he would immediately bite her in the middle of her back. She would be bleeding viciously; she would be in severe pain; she would scream loudly, but she wouldn’t die, because the wolf knew she could still be of use later.

Days and weeks passed, and the wounds had almost fully healed, so she reckoned she would dare and try to sneak out again towards the chrysanthemums, naïve and young as she was. But the same thing happened; she returned to the wolf, and he bit her on the same place. Making her lose more blood, making her scream even louder, reaching until the end of the forest, making her weaker still.

The lamb could now barely walk the first couple of weeks, and after just a month she thought to have fully recovered. She was bound to try it one final time, but this time she wouldn’t return to the wolf; she didn’t dare anymore. So that day she ran one final time into the fields of chrysanthemums, playing and prancing with the others of her kind.

But nothing gold can stay, and the wolf made sure of that this time. After enough time had passed, he realized she wouldn’t come back, so he went over there himself. Upon his arrival, all lambs fled the fields. All lambs but ours, for she presumed he wouldn’t kill her, since he never had done before. And thus, the wolf bit the lamb, for the third time, in the same spot in her back. She was now bleeding more vividly than ever before. She was now screaming for the other lambs to come and help her, as the wolf had now left her to rot in the fields. She screamed so loud that even the owls in the forests on the other side of the river could still hear her, but no lambs showed up.

After hours upon hours of horrifying screams of the lamb, she stopped. She stopped in every way possible. She lay there, motionless – soulless – between the chrysanthemums.

And the wolf? The wolf returned to the forest, seeking out another lamb, while humming along with the silence of what was once his own.”

During the whole story, the entire tent had been silent. The only thing we could hear was Chaele’s voice, dragging the words of the fable towards us. Valentina’s yellow color faded to a light blue color during the story, and my mood – and I assumed Chaele’s too – shifted in the same way. 

“That’s a really sad tale, Chaele… I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” she said with a face which didn’t reflect a clear sense of emotion. “You had no idea, neither had I. But this doesn’t need to be a bad thing, right?” She lied to herself.

“It doesn’t?”

“The Book of Love is cruelly honest in what it shows you, yes, but it is also known to be very vague about it. Could I maybe ask what was written for you in The Book?”

“Nothing. Not one single word.” I said with a slight hint of sadness reflected in my voice.

“See? At first sight that would be terrible, right? It would seem you have no chance of loving or being loved.”

“Thanks for your condolences…” I cynically said.

“But it doesn’t need to mean that,” she continued, “There may as well be something written in there, but it won’t reveal itself to you, reflecting how you haven’t found what ‘love’ really is. It could reflect the disappointment you had when opening The Book, only to find empty pages. It could try to convince you love will come as a surprise for you, like it was a surprise this thick book was completely unwritten. It could mean so many things!”

“But what is the real reason then?”

“Your guess is as good as mine… Only time will tell – or maybe it already has.”

“But what do you think your story means then?”

“It’s a direct metaphor for…” Her voice cracked with sadness, probably the most heartbreaking sound I have ever heard in my life, and I could see her cornflower eyes tearing up, “… for what happened to Laegyn…”

I’ll admit it: I had a strong urge to ask what happened to this Laegyn, but I reckoned that wouldn’t help her mood any more. Instead of asking further about it, I floated next to her and put my arm on her back, gently brushing it up and down while she started sobbing.

“Shhh,” I tried comforting her, “I understand, Chaele…”

“You don’t!” She screamed at me with watery eyes, “You don’t understand how it is to have the only person who you ever loved – and apparently will ever love, according to The Book – suffering right in front of your eyes! You don’t understand how much pain I had when I saw him slowly but surely dying every time he was drained, little by little! You don’t understand what it is to stand there, not doing anything out of fear you might face the same fate if you did! You never understood, and you never will!”

Her sadness had now made place for a burst of anger and rage, which – I assumed – had been building up underneath her skin for quite some time now.

Immediately afterwards she realized what she had said, and apologized:

“I… I’m sorry. I didn’t… I just…”

“It’s alright,” I took her in my arms, “I don’t blame you.”