Footsteps.
Hain stirred awake with a gasp and looked around himself. His eyes darted from side to side to catch the source of the disturbing footsteps.
When he couldn’t see anything through the suffocating dark, he peeked at the elf who slept soundly, snoring even, as though a beast lived inside him.
If it wasn’t Jhaan drawing closer, he thought, then who was? He rose on his feet and was about to wake the elf up when a strange noise cut through and chilled him to the bone.
It sounded… it sounded like something just creaked open. Then it happened again, that strange noise, slowly creaking and making a sombre tune.
He cocked his head as a realisation hit him. Something was swinging back and forth and creating those strange grating sounds. But how? Where did it come from?
Casting the elf a second look, he made up his mind to explore where the strange noises came from on his own.
The footsteps faded away.
As he followed the towering bookshelves that shrouded the magical library in deep shadows, he finally spotted the cause of the strange din.
There, somewhat hidden behind a draped curtain, stood a swinging door.
His heart pounded hard against his chest as he approached it. Was this the door the elf used to get down here? The one that led to Lárhus?
Creaking still in an eerie tune, the door beckoned him to close in and enter.
He grabbed the door and stopped it from its never-ending swinging. Then he waited. He waited for something or someone to push the door open from the other side and scare him out of his wits. But nothing happened.
As he stood there and waited with bated breath, a belated realisation dawned on him and took over his overthinking mind.
Someone had been here with them just a few moments earlier. It could be anyone, really, but what if it was that man? The one from the abandoned restroom?
No matter how he twisted and turned his head around the matter, it was obvious that someone who worked in Lárhus, either the teachers or the gnomes, would’ve stirred them awake and dragged them out of this place had they been down here.
Whoever lurked around in the darkest hour of the night was not from Lárhus. He was certain. And right now, they could be in great danger. They had to call for help!
He sprinted back to the elf and shook him awake with all his might.
“Jhaan! Jhaan, you gotta wake up! Hurry! Jhaan!”
The elf tried to shove him aside but failed bitterly, muttering indiscernible words, which sounded like something between swearing and telling him to shut it.
“We gotta leave! Right now! Come on! Jhaan, wake up!”
The elf rolled to the side. “Leave me alone…”
“There’s no time for this, Jhaan! Listen to me! We need to call for help! Now!”
The elf finally opened his as-heavy-as-lead eyes.
“You better have a good reason for waking—”
“Someone’s here! In the library or- or…”
Jhaan sat up in a heartbeat and looked around himself.
“What do you mean? Hain! Look at me and stop speaking gibberish! What do you mean someone’s here?”
“I… I heard footsteps and woke up! When I followed the strange noises, I found a—”
“It’s probably just the gnomes…”
“No, it’s… it’s gotta be someone else!”
“What are you talking about? Why would anyone but those tiny things come down here at this hour?”
Hain hesitated. Right, he thought to himself, the elf knew nothing about the man with the boots he and Elise saw back in the abandoned restroom.
“Spill the beans already! Go on! Both you and Elise are hiding something, aren’t you? You know something! I’m sure!”
“We- we don’t have time for this! Just know that we are – we could – be in danger. We gotta call for help!”
“Are you out of your mind! Call for help? Do you realise what’ll happen if the headmaster gets wind of—”
“We don’t have a choice, Jhaan! Please…! I- I can’t tell you what I know right now, all right? All I can say is that we’re no longer safe here!”
The elf gave in to his pleas. “Okay… okay, let’s do it your way, then. But if what you’re saying is true, we can’t leave the library through the door, can we?”
“You go out through the well and call for help and I’ll—”
“Hang on a sec! You’re not coming with me?”
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Hain’s eyes drifted to the mysterious book on the floorboards. “I can’t let the book get wet.” He then met the elf’s questioning eyes. “You said the door led to Lárhus, right?”
“What are you even gonna do with that book? Trust me, nothing good will come out of reading that thing!”
“That’s for me to decide, isn’t it?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know who Selmân is? Really? Have you lived your whole life under a rock or something?”
“We don’t have time for this! Hurry! You gotta call for help as soon as you climb out of the well!”
Before they headed for the trapdoor on the other side of the library, Jhaan cast a final glance at the mysterious book.
This was the first time the elf ever talked to him in such a genuine way, as though he was sincerely worried about him.
“Be careful, Hain. Don’t let that book get inside your head… okay?”
He nodded and helped the elf in through the floating trapdoor.
Much to his surprise, the mysterious door led straight to the dining hall, or rather, to a small hatch below one of the tables. It was no mystery that only a few knew where the secret library was – it was literally hidden between their legs!
He crawled out and looked around himself in the darkness. The torches were put out so that the entire dining hall was shrouded in shadows.
He could hardly see where he put his foot. That is, until his eyes got accustomed to the dark.
Determined to get out before something popped out of thin air and startled him to death, he approached the double doors as quietly as a mouse before coming to a sudden stop.
His expression hardened as soon as his darting eyes fell on the door handles, which twisted and turned repeatedly. Someone was trying to get in. He backed away without being aware of it and held his breath.
Could it be Jhaan? No, if that were the case, the elf would’ve said something to soothe his racing heart.
And had it been one of the gnomes, surely, they’d have a key to this place? So who was this, exactly? He gulped hard. Could it be the one who was down with them in the secret library?
Hain knitted his brows as whoever lurked beyond the double doors let go of the door handles. But it did not last for long.
Before he knew it, the person or people on the other side, tried to force their way in by repeatedly pushing against the double doors.
Before the double doors gave in and exposed his whereabouts, Hain got down on four legs and crawled under the table closest to him and did not stop crawling until he reached the other side.
With his back against the wall, he waited for the doors to swing open with a bated breath. But nothing happened this time, either.
The banging stopped. Whatever or whoever was beyond the door gave up and left.
Hain breathed out in relief and slumped forwards in place. He couldn’t wrap his head around why all these things kept happening to him. Was he really cursed?
These harrowing thoughts, however, were short-lived. Something cracked. Something cracked behind him and disturbed his train of thought. The spine-tingling din came from the wall. He turned around.
The wall cracked; the fissures grew bigger and darker, turning into a haunting painting.
Something dark and grimy trickled down each crack and pooled under the table and between his hands. It smelled like iron.
He squinted to see better.
The bloody painting turned into a woman. Her neck was unnaturally twisted to the side. His eyes grew wide. A rope appeared around her broken neck. It was tied to a tree made of hundreds of fissures.
The woman flung her eyes open and came alive. Startled more than anything, Hain hit his head on the table as he jumped up and crawled out.
Her shrill screams reverberated throughout the dining hall, blaring with no intention to stop, and made his blood run cold.
He baulked in front of the double doors, shivering from head to toe, unable to calm his heart down. A whisper he knew all too well replaced the bone-chilling scream.
But this time, it wasn’t only the whispers that spoke to him. Everything did. Everything…
The torches turned on and off, the tables and chairs moved in an erratic dance, and a sudden storm picked up outside and carried with it the rolls of death.
Hain doubled over and covered his bleeding ears.
“YOU’RE NOT HIM!”
“YOU’RE NOT HIM!”
“YOU’RE NOT HIM!”
He screamed at the top of his lungs, desperately trying to drown out the harrowing whispers taunting his thoughts and stop his ears from bleeding from the inside.
But no matter how much he screamed or told the whispers to shut it, they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t!
The double doors flung open.
Hain collapsed on his knees, too drained to carry his own weight. The whispers let up like they were never there and everything turned silent.
Logan walked in with the elf right on his heels, grabbed the boy and turned him around in one go. His eyes and voice shook with rage.
“What are you doing here!”
Hain looked up. It was the headmaster. His weary eyes then landed on the elf beside him. A lopsided smile appeared on his sunken face as a thought took over.
Out of everyone you could ask for help, you asked the headmaster? As if Jhaan could read what went through his mind, the elf dropped his head with an apologetic smile.
“This is it! First, you lured my precious daughter out to the woods and now you dare to sneak around in Lárhus! This… this is gonna end today! You’re expelled!”
The elf, “But Headmaster—”
“You! You stay out of it!” The headmaster crouched down and repeated himself, loud and clear, so that there was no room for misunderstandings.
“Don’t come back, ever, and stay away! Do you understand!?”
Hain couldn’t say a word. The tears welled up before he could hinder them.
“Do you understand, young man!?”
He nodded.
Logan pulled the boy up and dragged him out of the dining hall. As he cast a final look inside, he knew something was amiss.
Something happened here, something that drained this kid out of breath and turned him as pale as a ghost.
Although he could tell that the boy wanted to become a wise man despite his human roots, rules were rules.
If words spread that he broke his own rules and became too lenient, his reputation as the headmaster would go down the drain.
Moreover, strange things kept happening around the boy for some reason he couldn’t decipher. There was something about him that drew the attention of the evil spirits roaming around Sawoldor.
Those wicked things never dared to enter Lárhus, not until this kid arrived here a week ago, that is. At this rate, the boy would bite the dust before he ever graduated.
No matter how he thought the matter over, the best course of action was to let the boy go and ensure his safety far away from the evil spirits.
As the boy crossed the bridge and entered the woods, Logan tailed him from a safe distance and made sure he reached the vibrant meadow on the other side of the woods, which led to the Western borders.
Logan looked upwards. Two ravens flew high up in the dark sky and cawed in the direction of the Western border.
Ravens? In Salwodor? How was this possible? But these thoughts did not last. Beside him appeared the elf, whose distressed eyes begged him to reconsider his decision.
What the headmaster did not know was that the cursed boy needed not to be watched over. By his side lingered two companions that would protect him from the mortal and immortal alike.
“Please, Headmaster!”
He turned around and took the lead back to Lárhus. “You stay out of this Jhaan.”
“But- but he wasn’t alone! I was with him!”
“I know…”
“Then… then why are you expelling only Hain?”
Logan took a deep breath and looked around himself. He was right, after all. Along with the boy faded away the evil spirits.
The fish no longer whispered sinister tunes, the wind no longer whistled the return of the unspeakable, and everything returned to normal. For now.
“Don’t breathe a word about this to Elise. I’ll tell her myself when the time’s right.”
“But- but—”
“This is not a request, Jhaan!”
The elf dropped his head. “Yes, Headmaster. I… I won’t say anything to Elise…”