The filthy well was a haunting graveyard full of bird cadavers and sticky feathers. Not to mention dark and suffocatingly tight. There was no room to breathe or move his arms.
It was so cold too! The dirty water was not frozen, but it felt like it was. His whole body shivered from the ice-cold water the moment his foot nudged it. And he was supposed to dive into it?
Regretting his decision, he looked up in the hopes that he’d see Elise and Jhaan there.
But all he could see from this deep into the well was profound darkness and a narrow string of light. He bit his lips and swore under his breath.
He couldn’t just climb back up after coming this far down. Firstly, he was too drained and, secondly, it would be easier to hold his breath and reach the bottom of the well than climb up. And most importantly, he’d be able to stay in Salwodor this way.
So he dived in.
Out of everything Elise said, one thing was right. The well was not deep. It took a while to see through the dark body of water, but his eyes grew accustomed to it in no time.
There it was, in the corner, the trapdoor. It was so small he almost missed seeing it the first time around! But as soon as he pulled the door handle, he knew something was amiss. It wouldn’t budge.
Try as he may, the trapdoor refused to heed his pleas and stayed locked.
His eyes widened as the seconds passed and the air in his lungs dissipated. Panting more than he should, in utter distress, he ran out of air and would drown any second now.
This couldn’t be it, he reasoned as the air bubbles left his mouth and reached the surface of the filthy water, this couldn’t be the end! He fixed his eyes on the trapdoor one last time and grabbed the door handle.
The trapdoor swung open.
The world turned upside down in a jiffy, and he hit the ground with a loud thud. When he snapped his eyes open, the gaping trapdoor exposed the still water right above him.
Surprised more than anything, Hain rolled to the side, afraid that the water would pour over and suffocate him. But it did not. It just… stayed still.
The trapdoor closed.
He stumbled on his feet and looked around his surroundings. Before him materialised a massive library with towering bookshelves in all directions from thin air.
The earthy smell of ancient books wafted through the air and left him gaping wide. The entire place was covered in a thick layer of dust as if the library hadn’t seen the light of day for many, many years.
Above each bookshelf were engraved symbols and figures that reminded him of the ones he saw on the double doors that led to the dining hall. But these were different, more ancient and shrouded in mystery than anything he’d ever seen before.
Especially one of the symbols looked eerily similar to the one he saw back in Lárhus. It was a circular engraving of a cross between a raven and a human.
But what about this symbol was so special? He couldn’t help staring at it.
He let his hand glide over the book spines on that particular bookshelf so that his finger collected all the dust and cobwebs on them.
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Like this, slow and steady, he arrived at the other end of the massive bookshelf and found himself looking upwards.
A single torch lined up the peeling wall and flickered to the cadence of his wary footsteps. There was a small window right above it.
It was closed tight and too high up, near the lofty ceiling, for him to see through it.
He turned around with a bated breath. Something fell despite no gust of wind existed here. His eyes became narrower. On the floorboards lay a strange book.
Unsure of how it managed to land in front of him, he picked it up and brushed the dust off as much as he could.
There was nothing written on the cover, not even the name of the author or a title. Flipping to the first page, he expected to see some kind of written text at least, but even the pages were oddly blank.
A book with nothing written in it? How strange, he thought, and was about to put it back on the bookshelf where it belonged when the necklace tucked under his cloak came alive and glowed.
Before he knew it, letters appeared on the blank pages one after the other.
He stumbled backwards. The mysterious book fell through his grasp. On the cover appeared the name of the author and the title with big silver letters.
The Chronicle of the Emniths by Selmân. That was the author's name and title. But how was this even—he gasped and turned around. Someone tapped him.
It was the elf. His green eyes drifted from his startled expression to the book on the floor. “What’s that?”
Hain snatched the book before the elf could, flustered to see him.
“Why- why are you here? How… how did you get in?”
“There’s another entrance through Lárhus. I know, I didn’t expect to come down here, either. Elise forced me! She kept droning on about—never mind, what are you hiding? A book?”
“That…?” Hain asked, flustered still. “I’m… I’m not really sure… It’s kinda strange, the book I mean.”
“Strange? It just looks like a book to me.”
“I don’t know how to explain it. At first, there was nothing written in it and then the letters just—I know how this sounds, but you gotta take my word for it! Look!”
Jhaan raised his brows as Hain handed over the book, perhaps wondering what his deal was, before twisting and turning the book for several minutes.
“There’s nothing written in it, though…”
Hain, “That’s impossible! Take a closer look! You must’ve missed it somehow!”
Hain grabbed the book and opened the first page. Like earlier, the necklace gave off this strange glow, before the letters finally showed up. The elf did see the letters this time.
“What… what the hell is this?”
“You can see them now, right? The letters!”
Jhaan scratched the back of his head. “I mean, I do see something. But it’s not—”
Hain recited what appeared in the book without leaving a word out. It sounded like some kind of prose written in a time long before neither he nor the elf was brought into existence.
The sentence structure, the pauses and whatnot, were different from what they were used to. It was like a poem written in plain words.
“I reached the Land of the Emniths at last.
It was neither in ruins nor in order,
Yet everything lay in darkness
And lost in time.
I met a stranger.
His name was Curt,
He told me I needed to return to Fayr
And become the rightful king.
But I told him.
I am no king or in need of power,
But he told me again and again
‘A king you are and will forever be’.”
Hain looked at the elf as soon as he finished reading, expecting the other to tell him something.
But instead, the elf remained hushed, and his expression turned hard and steely. Why was he looking like that? The answer came sooner than he anticipated.
“What… in the whole Fayr did you just do?”
Hain blinked repeatedly, unsure of what the elf meant.
“What do you mean? Didn’t you hear me read?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. How did you do it?”
“I- I don’t think I—”
“It’s not written in our language.”
“Not in our language?” He peeked at the open page once more. “What do you mean it’s not written in our language? It clearly is!”
Jhaan looked beside himself. “How is that even possible? And that weird necklace, too! It looks like a thousand fireflies are trapped inside it!”
“You really… can’t read the book?”
“Tell you something, Hain? Now that Elise is not around?”
“What… is it?”
“There’s something about you that gives me the heebie-jeebies! You’re weird, you know? Hell! You’re even odder than that stupid book!”
Hain dropped his head. There it was again, all the talk about him being weird and giving people the creeps.
His eyes landed on the mysterious book as the letters faded away one by one. Maybe they were all right. Enis, Barken and… Jhaan. Maybe he was weird, after all.
And what if what the elf said was true? That meant he could read a language he didn’t even speak or knew existed! How was that even possible?
Then a thought hit him. The whispers. Were those in this strange language only he could read and understand, too? That would explain why no one but him heard them…