“So,” I began as I turned back to the Elder. “What shall we talk about?”

“I don’t know,” She responded promptly. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Ummm, I’m confused. I thought that this was supposed to be a test of some kind.”

“Are you not feeling tested?” The Elder smiled at me.

I considered the question. “I certainly feel as though I am being tried in some way.”

She laughed at that.

“I don’t know,” I went on. “I was expecting more… sit-ups and running and jumping and push-ups.”

“You could do some sit-ups for me if it would make you feel more comfortable. I have always enjoyed the sight of men on the ground in front of me.”

I must have looked at her sharply as she smiled. “I am joking. Consider this instead. I am the oldest of our kind in the heart of the Forest. I have experiences that you can not imagine. I have seen more men come through these trees than can easily be talked about. I have seen their tears, their hopes and their dreams and I have seen many of those dreams dashed asunder while others have attained heights that they, or you, could only have dreamed of.

“I have spoken with the Schattenmann regularly and as much as a being like that has friends, then I would hope that I am his friend. And when I first got here, I was often a sister to those that would be his physical form. Then I was their mother and now I am their Grandmother. Older even. So sometimes, the Schattenmann comes to speak to me, and sometimes the human that plays host to him comes to see me. Sometimes they ask my advice, sometimes they tell me things and I feel as though I am the younger of the pair of us even though the man in question is but a fraction of my age. I cannot claim it for sure…. So… What do you want to talk about?”

“So what you’re trying to tell me is that you have the ear of the Schattenmann and that I should talk to you as though I was talking to the Schattenmann.”

“You are talking to the Schattenmann, it’s just that he, and I, have found that sometimes a person needs a face to look at while they talk. So talk to me.”

“Do I talk to you as though you are the Schattenmann? Do I say to you what I would say to The Schattenmann?”

“Would it help?”

“I have no idea. Will it?”

“Try it and find out.”

I looked at her, straight in the eyes and I could see all that age and the illusion fo wisdom that age can sometimes give a person.

“I don’t like the Schattenmann.” I said. “I think he is cruel and ignorant and stupid. I think he is a tyrant that lords it over people that love him and that one day, hopefully, sooner rather than later, people are going to realise exactly what he is and how evil he is and they are going to destroy him. When that day comes I will be happy.”

Silence fell in the glade after a moment, only to be interrupted when the light breeze blew through the leaves above us.

“So you feel quite strongly then.” She said with a glint in her eye.

I laughed, seeing that as the only alternative to bursting into tears.

“It is an interesting perspective,” She said after a while. “And I am afraid to challenge your vanity when I tell you that it is not a new perspective.”

“My companion thinks that the Schattenmann is a head of a cult.”

“Nor is that a new perspective.”

“Is he wrong? Am I?”

“Yes and no. I have known, in as much as anyone does, or can, the Schattenmann all my life. I came here when I was around thirty years of age and he has been in my life since I was born. He is the single most… intense being that you can imagine. But on any given day, at any given hour, there is absolutely no knowing what he is going to choose to care about. There is no guessing what he is going to do, no guessing what he is going to say and where he going to go. Dryads are as close to human or Elven as you can get and the Schattenmann’s feelings are so different that even trying to compare The Schattenmann’s thinking to our own is ludicrous at best.

“So to call him a tyrant or a cult leader or some kind of God is pointless. He is none of those things because the thought of that is so ludicrous. The only thing that he feels strongly about, as far as I can tell, or as far as my predecessor could tell…”

“Wait. Your position is an ongoing one?”

“Sometimes. The position of unofficially official advisor to the Schattenmann is something that goes on and also depends on who is the host. It has most often been me since I got here but it has also been other dryads. For a while there was another man that was not chosen but also didn’t go… wherever the Schattenmann sends them, nor was he killed and he was a friend and companion to the Schattenmann. Both in his maskless state and his masked state.”

I absorbed this.

“So you were saying.” I prompted. “About what the Schattenmann cares about.”

“Was I… Ah yes. The only thing that we know that the Schattenmann cares about is this Forest. The Black Forest I believe your people call it. He cultivates it the way a friend of mine cultivates her herb garden. That doesn’t just include the trees or the plants that are in it. It also includes the birds in the sky, the animals that rove around inside it and yes, that includes the monsters, and he also cares about the people that live here. That is what The Schattenmann chooses to care about. But in the same way that sometimes a gardener has to remove the dead flower heads from the bush, or the rotten stems or the dead branches from the tree, so too does The Schattenmann work with his people. He cultivates them, carries them around, cross-germinates and other such terms that you might not be happy with if you don’t know much about gardening.

“Does that mean that he can be cruel? To our eyes, yes. To his? I doubt he knows what cruelty is.”

“I don’t want to be The Schattenmann’s host,” I admitted. “I don’t want to see the things he does and be affected by them. I don’t want to watch as he kills dryads for doing their duty or kills visitors because of… whatever thing is bothering the Schattenmann then. I don’t want to do it, I won’t do it.”

“Why?” She wondered and honest to Flame, I thought she sincerely wanted to know the answer.

“Because I don’t want to be that person. I want to go home. I want to hug my sister and marry the woman that I love. I want to read books and I want to learn new things and I want to travel to new places and see new things.”

“You want to live your life is what you’re telling me.”

“Pretty much I suppose.”

She nodded and took a drink. Her eyes seemed to unfocus for a while, looking over my shoulder at something that I couldn’t see. I turned to look to see if there really was something there but, of course, there wasn’t.

“Is the Schattenmann going to choose me?” I wondered.

“I have no idea.” She replied. “As I say, there is no reason to suspect or believe that he’s going to do one thing when he might, just as much, do something else. The Schattenmann is… other than that. It is true that there are a… not small number of people that think that you are going to be the next host of the Schattenmann and I can understand why. But you also have to remember that the reason that they think like that is that they are all trying to place some form of order on that which is unknowable. They don’t know what The Schattenmann is going to choose, they just think that they do. We will not know until you are actually all kneeling before him and he makes his choice.

“But I will tell you this. I have seen the boys and the men who have taken the antlers from their heads and every one of them, every single one, has a look of joy and wonder on their faces. When I talk to them later they all say things, words and phrases like ‘I had no idea’ and similar. Being the host of the Schattenmann is a burden, there are no two ways about that.”

“Seven years does not feel like a long time.”

She waved her hand in dismissal of that point. “You are human and you are only young. Think of this. Who were you seven years ago and where were you. And if you could ask that boy, would he have been even able to conceive of where you are now? Or who you are for that matter. So if that’s the case, then why do know where you are going to be in seven years' time, or who you are going to be. You could die on your journeys. You could become sick. You could become cursed or any number of things.”

“I would still have the option of a future,” I told her, with no small amount of heat. “AND, I would be able to spend time with the woman I love.”

“Mmm.” She didn’t like that. “Love. I have heard the term before and in my experience, it is merely an excuse that people give in order to excuse them from doing stupid things.

“IF THe Schattenmann chooses you and calls you to serve. IF. Then you will have things that no other human could ever conceive of. AND you would have direct influence over one of, if not the most powerful beings that exist on this continent. You will live more, experience more and learn more in those seven years than you, or I for that matter can even begin to understand. And in that time… Time is the point. Seven years to us is not seven years to the Schattenmann. This I know for a fact.”

She sighed, looking off and over my shoulder again, her face falling. “But I can see that I have lost you. That is not going to change. You are one that will only believe, or only understand something once you have actually felt or understood the thing. All I will say on the matter is that despite this, you still believe in that Holy Flame of yours.”

She looked over my shoulder again.

“Tell me instead. Why should The Schattenmann let you go? Tell me about your life.”

“Will he let me go?”

“In my experience, he might. But he will also ensure that you will not, and cannot, be a threat to the Black Forest again. You might wake up in the streets of one of the nearby villages with no memory of who you are or how you got there. I have it on good authority that there are some people that have just forgotten that the Black Forest even exists. So long as the Schattenmann is confident that you are not a threat, then he might let you go, but that is a big might.”

“A lot of people know that I was coming here. A lot of powerful, important people.”

She smiled, despite my intended threat. “Tell me about them.”

So I did.

I told them about the Empress and all of her power. I spoke about Ariadne and her influence as well as the point that she was friends with a dragon that could strafe the Black Forest with streams of flame. I told her about my sister and about the logging concerns that she had access to. But before long my threats and anger turned into my spilling forth my life story. Not in detail and I would certainly say that anyone who has read these articles will know more than she did. But she was fascinated nonetheless.

So I told her about the place where I was born, the old Manor house and the move to the castle. I described my brothers and my sisters as well as a certain amount of our lives together. I also spoke about my relationship with my parents and about how Emma and Mark had become the real parents of my life, even while that was a worrying thing to admit, both to a stranger and to myself.

I spoke about my friends at University and my first loves and my early relationships and just how badly all of that went in the grand scheme of things. I spoke about my tutor and about how he gave me the final little push to get me out of the door to meet Kerrass and I admitted one of my secret, deep down shames which was that I never thanked him properly for giving me that little push.

I spoke about meeting Kerrass, our early days together and about how it took quite a while of me talking about those adventures with him for those works to find an audience and about how it wasn’t until my own life started to become more intertwined with his that the magazine and I started to really see a change in how people behaved towards it all.

I spoke about Ariadne, of course, and I spoke about the death of my Father and just how I felt about all of that.

The short version is that it’s complicated. It would not be unfair to say that the death of my Father freed me in many ways. Freed me in a way that I am almost ashamed to admit now. I certainly feel guilty because of that feeling. But while Father was alive, I always had that little fear in the back of my mind that I would receive a letter, or a messenger, telling me to return home in order to be married to some woman that I had never met and felt sure that I would never like, even if I did meet them. That I would be ordered to some position or some court and told to stay there and work.

Of course, the reality was that he knew and was proud of my existing work and had no intention of doing any of that. But the fear was very real and when he died, that fear was removed. I still don’t know how I feel about that.

I spoke about the various adventures that I had been on. I described the great love that I saw in Kerrass’ heart for Sleeping Beauty and how it seemed to dwarf and make a mockery of even the great romances in my life. I spoke about the fear of suddenly losing the one woman who, up until that point, had seemed to love me for who I was and about how I realised that I loved her back and that I was going to ask her to marry me.

I maintain, to this day, that there was never a decision to propose to Ariadne, it was simply acknowledged as something that I knew was going to happen.

I spoke about the loss of Francesca and the resulting search that consumed, just about, my entire being. About how I travelled with Kerrass and performed fantastic feats that I would never have even dreamed of in the past, but that I still couldn’t get the one thing that I wanted which was to find what happened to Francesca.

I spoke about the time of my sickness, after my meeting with the Goddess which might have been the thing that sent me over to the edge into madness. But also might have been the required action to tear the bandage from my body so that the wound could be properly exposed for the festering thing that it was. I spoke about how I climbed back on the horse, literally and figuratively in Toussaint and about how the final solution as to what happened with Francesca was delivered without me. About how, despite all of our searching and all of our hunting and about how all of the resources of an Empire could be commanded, it was an off-handed comment that solved the matter.

About how it was a mage that had wanted to gain some vengeance for an action that I had performed where, in theory, I was the least important factor in that circumstance. It had been an offhanded act of revenge, almost performed on a whim. And it had been found out by accident in a place where we wouldn’t have looked otherwise. And the finality of the matter had been performed by someone else.

I laughed bitterly at that and I stopped speaking after a while. I fetched tea for the both of us and tipped some white powder into the Elder’s mug at her direction.

“So then you came here?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

So I launched into another speech. I told her about Jack, which made her shiver which in turn, I noticed with some fascination, caused the tree that she was increasingly a part of to shudder. I talked about the unseen Elder of the Vampires. I talked about Crom Cruarch, the crooked man of the mound. I spoke about the Headless Horseman and the Goddess of Battle that Kerrass worshipped. I spoke about all of the different entities and beings that populated our world for which there is no easy classification. For whom there is no way or us to easily be able to classify them or put them into boxes.

And about how The Schattenmann was one of those beings and as such, it was time that his story is told. Even if that story turned into a warning that we needed to publish in order to keep onlookers away.

It was somewhere in the middle of this speech that her attitude towards me started to change. She started to seem bored, tired and even a little bit annoyed.

“I’ll stop you there.” She told me, a slight frown on her face. “I’ve heard enough.”

I have no idea where I was in the speech. I suspect it was some kind of sales pitch about why we had come, what the world could learn from a book on the Schattenmann and why that information was important. I suspect that it was somewhere about there.

And I just petered out.

“I’m sure that that answer is the answer to some question.” She told me. “But it was not the answer to my question. Why did you come here?”

“I don’t… That is the reason that…”

“No, it isn’t.” She said. “I have lived a long time and I have seen many people and had many conversations about many things. And I can tell when someone is lying to me. In your case, the reason why I am not particularly angry is that I don’t know if you realise that you are doing it yourself. The very least that you could do, the most basic, fundamental thing that you can do, if you are still capable of it, of course, is to be honest with yourself. Why are you here?”

“I still don’t… I don’t have to be anywhere else. I get married in the Autumn, half a year away. The marriage arrangements are pretty far along and I am not needed there so the only time that I would need to be there is when we are coming up on it. And I missed the feeling of the open road.”

She nodded. “That’s very interesting. I even think that you believe that yourself. Tell me, is that the reason that you are going to put in those little chronicles of yours, the writing that makes you famous?”

“What did I say to make you angry?”

“You lied. I have precious little time to waste and you are wasting it now.”

“But it’s not a lie.”

“I have listened to you speak about your past, your family and the people that you speak about. There is honest to shadow passion in your voice. You are interested in the history of the continent, you care about the people that you surround yourself with. You are fascinated by their habits and their doings and why they think this way and not that way. You are proud of your accomplishments, even when they were attained in the pursuit of something else and rightly so. When you speak, your eyes are animated, you speak with your hands and your voice has passion and drive in it. Even during the incident with the conspiracy in… where was it… Toussaint? Even talking about how you caught them, you were driven by that.

“And then you speak about why you came here. The light leaves your eyes, you sit quietly and you recount the journey and the reasons with barely a hint of the former drive.

“And it takes drive to come here. Ambition, passion and energy. A man like you will have researched the Black Forest in advance. You will know what the odds of survival are and how unlikely it was that you would survive. I can believe that your Witcher friend would have come. I can even believe that he would expect to survive. He is a Witcher and it is true that the Schattenmann and Witchers seem to share some kind of understanding that the rest of us cannot comprehend. And it is true that should Witchers make it to the heart of the Forest, then they are generally released and sent along their way. So it is reasonable to assume that he would come and that he would survive. You didn’t need to go with him. You didn’t have to risk your life and as you came here… You did risk your life. You did make his job more difficult. Do not pretend otherwise to yourself. Because now, he must worry about your survival as well.

“I know why you went on the rest of your journeys. At first, it was about personal ambition and I would guess that this is why those stories did not resonate as well. Later, when you became more involved in the journey, the story became less about ambition and more about living. People related to that better and later, your quest was about finding your lost loved one. Something that everyone can relate to.

“So what now? You cannot tell me that you came with your Witcher friend out of habit. You just can’t do it. You could be doing any number of things that are safer and more in tune with the rest of your life. You could be teaching, and passing on your passions to other people. You could be learning how to be a proper husband which, by the way, I only know about dryad marriages. It takes both halves of the relationship to prepare for those and it takes a lot more preparation than you might suggest.

“So why come here? Why risk yourself when there was absolutely no need. Habit? Boredom?”

She shook her head.

“Even if you cannot answer these questions, you owe it to yourself to see if those answers are in yourself somewhere and then you need to come to terms with them. You need to come to terms with this. There is a very real possibility that you might die here. Or that your life will change irrevocably. If experience tells me anything, it will not be today or tomorrow but the day after that. You and the other potentials, including the Witcher will be brought before the Schattenmann and then he will make his choice. And after that. All of your other passions and interest, including regarding the people that you love, will belong to the Schattenmann.”

She sighed.

“Leave now, I am tired and I have other people to speak to today.”

As if summoned, her daughter appeared from around the tree and I rose to my feet.

“Quick question,” I began. “In talking to you, am I talking to the Schattenmann?”

The Elder was draining her cup.

“I thought I had covered this. You are always talking to him, but in this case, I can say with certainty that he certainly heard you.” She told me, nodding behind me. I turned and at first, I could see nothing.

“Do not look at the trees,” The daughter said. “Look at the shape of the Forest.”

At first, I had no idea what she meant. Then it clicked into place. The shape of the shadows gave an outline of the antlers of a deer. Then the wind blew and it was as though the wind had blown the shadows away.

“Make no mistake,” the Elder said. “The Schattenmann is always watching and if you think carefully, you have been seeing him since you entered the forest all those weeks ago.”

I didn’t really have enough time to absorb that before the daughter took me by the arm and led me away. My guide was waiting for me.

“Uh oh,” My guide muttered with a kind of knowing smirk. “I’ve seen that look before.”

“What look?”

“The look of someone who has been told some uncomfortable truths. Come on,”

She turned and led me away.

“It always happens that way when people go to see her.” She told me in what she doubtlessly hopes was a reassuring tone.

“Who is she?” I wondered, asking questions automatically.

“She is exactly as she appears to be. Older than time and wiser than we give her credit for. She has seen enough that current events almost have the ring of old stories, told year after year.”

She looked over her shoulder at me and frowned.

“She told you things that you didn’t want to hear didn’t she?”

“She told me some things that I don’t know if they are true,” I replied, still puzzling over what she had said.

My guide nodded and the two of us walked through the trees.

Off, in the distance and off to one side, I saw a glint of light shining off metal. When I looked over in the direction I saw Stefan walking through the small woodland. He was walking with another dryad and they were heading towards the old Sycamore that I had just left.

“The old one’s next victim.” My guide said with relish.

Stefan didn’t see me. He was looking through the trees with a certain amount of curiosity, but there was an attitude about him. He looked as though he was looking around curiously, but there was tension about his movements. I had changed clothes, but he still looked the same as he had when we had parted ways after his fight with Kerrass.

The guide came to stand next to me. I had not realised that I had stopped walking.

“I would love to hear what she has to say to him.” My guide said.

I grunted as I realised that I felt the same way.

“What did she say to you?” I asked. Again, my mouth and mind were asking questions automatically without my really trying to do so.

“She told me that I was not a nice person, but that if I worked at it, really hard. Then I could be a good person.” I looked over at the guide. There was a certain stricken expression on her face. “I didn’t like that. I had always been led to believe that I was a good person. Or at least, that’s what I had wanted to believe. That’s what I told myself when things got dark.”

“We always like to think that about ourselves. Otherwise, what’s the point?” I stopped. I didn’t like this woman but was I really trying to comfort her. “We are all the heroes of our own story.” I finished.

“That is certainly the truth. So go on then, turn about is fair play. What did she tell you?”

“She told me that I was lying to myself about why I had come here.”

“Huh. Are you?”

“I don’t know.”

She nodded as though that answered everything.

Stefan eventually moved out of sight.

“What is this place?” I suddenly asked.

“In the minute?” My guard asked, “or in the grand scheme of things?”

I had actually been surprised by my question. Both in the question and the tone of almost longing that I had asked it in. There had been a sense of almost terror in my voice.

She started to lead me away. “This is the Schattenmann’s forest with in a forest. It’s like his garden. For reasons that we don’t understand. He likes to just walk among the trees sometimes. It’s weird right?”

“It is weird.” I agreed, her answer wasn’t satisfying.

“I mean, he has the entire Black Forest to himself and there is not a single denizen of the Black Forest that wouldn’t get the fuck out of his way if they saw him coming but he wants his little stretch of woodland and…”

“No, I mean… What is this place?” I insisted.

“I thought you knew. This is the heart of the Forest.”

“But what does that even mean? The heart of the Forest. Is it the centre of things, the home of things or the beating heart of the living thing?”

She looked at me, dead in the eyes for a long moment. “Yes.” She said, before turning and starting to walk again

“Look, I know that it’s frustrating and I know that you have a lot of things going on that you do not understand, that you are frightened by and are coming to terms with. But the answer is yes to all three. It is the centre of the Forest from which, I think, the entire rest of the forest grew and…”

“But what is this place… why do?” I ran out of words.

“Oh, you’re panicking.” She realised, that the part of me that sits outside my head and watches thought that she was a bit slow off the mark. “Come and sit down.”

She led me to a large tree root and sat me down while she just carried on.

“This place has always been here as far as I know.” She told me while I concentrated on breathing in and out. “There has always been the heart tree and that part of the Schattenmann that is a physical being, makes his home here. We see to… we attend to his every need and want and from here, he governs all of the surrounding territories. But as to what this place is? I’m sorry to say that I think you might find out, long before I do.”

I suddenly laughed and she smiled with me before sitting down.

“What the Elder told you got to you that badly did it?”

“It was… troubling.”

My guide scratched her chin. “That is her function.” She decided after a while. “A friend of mine had a saying. She was the lover of a Fisherman. Shadow knows how a fisherman came to the Black Forest and ended up being a father to a dryad but there you go. He told her this saying which she liked. Something like ‘Even oysters need to be annoyed enough to make something beautiful.”

“I have heard that saying,” I told her. “That, or something very like it.”

“The point being that every society, every group or every place of work needs something to unite them. Often, more often than we would all like. That something is something that we all dislike. Hate even.”

“Are you that thing for the heart of the Forest?”

She laughed at that. “No, we have our purpose and I have friends here. And before you ask, the Eldest is not that either. What she does, what her purpose is, is to tell us the things that we need in order to move forward.”

“So is it true?”

“I have no idea. What I do know about her is two things. The first is that other than her daughter. Only the Schattenmann himself, in either his possessed form or his maskless form, can stand to spend more than a short time with her at a stretch. The other thing is that she tells you what you need to hear at the time. Some people, including a certain woman sitting not very far away from you at the moment, needed to be told that they were not very nice and that not many people liked her. She needed to be told that. She needed to hear it so that I could get angry about it. Angry enough to make some changes which included, almost doubling down on what I had been doing before.

“So what she told you? What you talked about? You needed to hear that. I don’t know why and it’s none of my business.”

“Encouraging.” I climbed to my feet. “Where to now?”

“More testing.” She said. “Running through the woods, climbing things, picking up heavy things and putting them down again. That kind of thing.”

“Sounds thrilling.”

“You have no idea.”

“The rest of that afternoon was indeed taken up with things that I was more accustomed to thinking of as being “testing” I ran an obstacle course a couple of times. I trained with an older warrior and underwent some other, more humiliating tests. I was told to urinate into a pot which they then threw a bunch of herbs into and then fished those herbs out and examined them in the light. When the need to defecate came upon me, they made me defecate into another pot. What they did with that, I have no idea but I looked away.

There was another test as well that involved… well… They wanted to test the quality of my seed. It might seem funny to you, dear reader, as you sit and read this. But at the time, it was mortifying and by far the most clinical time my seed has been taken from me in all my life.

There were also some tests that I didn’t understand and had no idea what they were for. I ate three different small meals and then had to ask deep questions as to how I found them when it came to taste, texture and how they made me feel. The same with several clouds of smoke and several different liquids. I answered as best as I could and did my best not to ask too many questions. I cannot help but think that I was testing people’s latest toys or gadgets, the way someone who is fond of brewing their own wine will bring you samples of their latest efforts in order to test them out on you.

It was not hard work but it was strangely tiring and as the sun went down, I felt the fatigue and the trials of the day beginning to weigh down upon me.

I was taken back to my pavilion, there was more food and this time my guide waited with me. I bathed and made noises about being left alone so that I could go to bed.

“Would you like me to send a girl to you?” My guide asked.

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I sighed.

“Why would you ask me that?” I demanded.

“In case you wanted a girl to share your bed.” Was the prompt response. “Is the question strange or unusual?”

“So, if I said yes. You would find a woman and order her to my bed?”

“Well… Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you asked for a woman.” She seemed to find it funny.

“That’s awful.” I protested.

“Why?” She genuinely didn’t seem to understand why I was having issues with this.

“Because… I don’t…” I ran out of words. I could feel an outrage in the back of my throat that I couldn’t articulate. This seemed worse than what was happening in the dryad settlement. At the time, I couldn’t figure out why. I don’t have a problem with sex work in general unless that work actively demeans the worker or is done to the worker’s detriment, physical or psychological. I had struggled with the dryads on the outskirts because of feeling victimised. But there was nothing here. No rhyme or reason behind it. I could not understand why someone would allow that, or allow themselves to be pushed in that way.

Which meant, automatically in my mind at least, that these women that would be sent to my bed were being forced to do so.

I didn’t articulate this at the time though. I didn’t really have time.

“Look,” She began. “You are finding this entire situation difficult. Nothing wrong with that. And unlike a lot of the other candidates that come here, you have not had the time to acclimate. So I understand, you are stressed out of your brain. People deal with that in many different ways. Some people find comfort in some of the alcoholic drinks that we brew. Some find solace in stillness and quiet. Still, others find their comfort in the arms of a woman. Either young and beautiful or older and more matronly in a way that reminds them of their mother.” She considered that “Personally, I’ve never seen the appeal of a mother’s comfort. My mother was not very nice to me.”

The observation tickled me for some reason. Maybe the resonance with my own feelings towards my mother.

“Still,” She went on. “You would be surprised as to how many people like that. It’s less destructive than long term alcohol abuse… and so, I offer you a woman. Do you want one?”

“No.”

“Pity. I could rather do with a good hard fuck. Well, Good night. I will see you in the morning.”

Something about that conversation caught me in my funny bones and I giggled as she left my tent. Food was eaten and I treated myself to another bath given that it didn’t seem to take too much time and effort for the dryads to arrange and then I went to sleep to try and absorb what had happened over the course of the day. It didn’t go well.

I was really bothered by what the Elder in the tree had told me and I couldn’t figure it out. Was I lying? To her and to myself? I had no idea. If I was, what was iI lying about? I had no idea about that either. But those two questions rolled around in my head for what felt like hours. It was dark when I went to bed so I have no idea about the actual passage of time. But it certainly felt like hours.

Then I was being shaken awake by my guide. I came to suddenly and she danced out of the way as I slashed the air with the dagger that I still keep under my blanket. Long years of training keep it there and I sometimes wonder if I will ever get out of that habit.

As an aside, a couple of people have wondered why I am so concerned about that. They claim that it is not too much of a hardship to keep a blade under a pillow or to keep a weapon close to hand and my answer is this.

No, it’s not. And for professional soldiers, Witchers and warriors then it is even a good idea. An admirable one. But I am not those things. I am a Scholar and in a little while, I will be a Lord. It is not good for either of those things to still be needing to have a weapon next to their bed and a knife under their pillow in order to sleep. Why not? The first is that it is an insult to the guard of wherever it is that I am staying. If I feel as though I need to protect myself then what am I saying about those people.

I mean Skelligans don’t give a fuck but Nilfgaardians? Knights of Toussaint?

And if it’s my own castle, then I am insulting my own people. Which is worse.

The other thing though is that it says something about me. I am now the kind of man that cannot sleep unless I have a weapon close to hand. I don’t like that. I could not tell you why that is a problem for me.

“Come,” It was my guide that had woken me up. “The Schattenmann wants you.” She turned, obviously expecting me to leap to my feet and go after her.

“But I thought it would be a couple of days before he would choose his successor.” I protested. It was the protest of a little boy and I heard the petulance, even as I said the words, much to her confusion.

“What?” No, I mean… The Schattenmann wants to speak to you.”

“What? Now?” I started to pull myself out of bed.

“No, fucking next week.” She snarled. “Come on.”

“Can it not wait until…”

“Because I get off waking people up in the middle of the night when I, personally, would rather be in bed. Which part of ‘The Schattenmann wants you’ was difficult for you to understand?”

I felt a certain sullen, petulant rage well up.

“The part where that’s my problem,” I told her.

She stared at me for a long moment before she stalked over to the table, picked up the jug of water, and sniffed it to make sure it was the water before marching up to me and hurling the contents at me without a word. I only just got my eyes closed in time.

“There,” she said as I spat out the small mouthful that I had been too busy gaping to avoid. “Now clean yourself up and come on. While you’re out I will have someone change your sheets. In the meantime, consider whether or not you would keep a ruler of another nation waiting while you were being petulant. Come along. My next tactic is that I call another half a dozen women in here and we drag you to where the Schattenmann is waiting by the ears. Would you rather meet him on your feet with proper clothing on, or on your knees?”

Then she left.

Feeling chastised, I dressed and went with her. I took my weapons with me though.

“You won’t need those.” She told me as she led me along at a rate that I was honestly struggling to keep up with.

“It’s weird,” I told her. “But whenever people tell me that, I automatically assume that it is vital that I have my weapons close to hand.”

She gave a short bark of laughter at that.

She led me back to the Schattenmann’s pavilion where she opened the flap and gestured for me to precede her. Then she didn’t follow.

Trayka’s brother was waiting there, sitting in his chair that I really had to concentrate on not to call a throne. There were still two dryads with him. I could not tell whether or not they were the same dryads from the last time I had been in this tent, but they looked similar. Young, given the average age of the women that I had seen around the heart tree, and they were remarkably beautiful. Even for dryads.

“Welcome.” Trayka’s brother said.

I fought the urge to bow.

“No need for that kind of thing.” He told me, somehow reading my mind. “Please come in and sit down.” Then he started to cough and the second of the two attendants poured something into a cup and gave it to him. He looked at her with an uncomfortable amount of gratitude.

“And no,” he said after he finished his drink. “I did not read your mind.”

A chair was salvaged out of some of the wreckage that lined the walls of the tent and the dryad who carried it gestured for me to sit.

“How did…”

“How did I know…” He had leant back in his chair, a look of relief crossed his face and he closed his eyes in pleasure. I recognised the look, the absence of pain can be akin to the heights of ecstasy. “I am sorry to say, Lord Frederick, that I have seen you before.”

“Me?”

“You or people like you.” He fixed me with a stare. “You are not so unique as you might imagine, or even hope for. Men who think that they are important, some who even are important to one master or another. And some others that are just plain scared. They come here, thinking that they are exempt, or should be exempt from the Schattenmann’s choices. From my choices. And when they learn that they are not….”

He shrugged and I could see his body starting to relax back into the chair, nodding his gratitude back to the dryad that gave him the drink.

“They think that they can sway my decision. They plead, they beg and then they try to bribe. Eventually, threats are even used. But all of them, every single one, tries to suggest that they are better than the next one. It starts with courtesy and that starts with a bow.”

He sketched the gesture with the hand that was holding the cup. His attendant caught the gesture and took the cup.

“Are you drunk?” I blurted suddenly.

“Very.” He agreed. “It helps… sometimes it helps.” His eyes went vacant for a moment and I took the time to look around the pavilion.

There was more light this time. The two dryads had their roles, one was close to the Schattenmann and the other was moving around, doing maintenance chores. A the moment, that seemed to be taking the form of topping up the bowls of light that now lined the walls. Then she tidied up around the place. The age-old movements of picking things up, looking around for a place to put the things and then arbitrarily picking a place before putting the thing back down again. Sometimes in the place where it had been picked up from in the first place.

The tent was a mess but not uncomfortably so. It wasn’t dirty, it was just a mess. There was rhyme or reason to it as though it had started out as a place for someone to live and then layers of life had come and covered the place. I have seen university lecturers have their offices like that. An ordered office that has just had things added to it. After a while, places can develop almost a strata of stuff. There was a sleeping area, an eating area, and an alchemical area which looked newer than some of the other places.

And then there was the altar, lit by its own pair of smaller light bowls. Upon the altar rested the antlered skull mask of The Schattenmann.

“I thought we should talk.” He said after a long moment. “Man to man.”

I nodded. “Do you talk to all the people that come through here?”

“Only those I am interested in.” He said. “Those that need to hear what I have to say are another group of people that I speak to.”

“And which am I?”

“Guess?” He seemed to sigh and answered his own riddle before I could have a chance. “Both.” He said after a small coughing fit

I didn’t like that answer and it must have shown because he laughed before he started coughing again. A rag was provided and he covered his mouth with it. I saw specks of blood when he set the rag aside.

“I apologise.” He told me. “I am nearing the end of my life now and it is hard. Hard, knowing that there is still a couple of days left which also means that I am going to get worse.” He seemed to focus on me again. “You are both. I am interested in you Lord Frederick. I know who you are. One of your predecessors came through here at the Winter Solstice. What possessed them to come here I don’t know. But they had a copy of your works that they would read from as though it were some kind of holy text.”

“Did you read it?”

“I cannot read.” He told me. “The part of me that is the Schattenmann hopes that his next host will be able to read it to him.”

“It will take a long time as there are several volumes and I am not given to brevity. What happened to the man carrying it?”

“It was a woman actually. She died during the transformation. She had a weakness in her… well… She would not have survived. She felt entitled too and protested up until the point. She could not believe it was happening. She died not believing that she was dying.”

He suddenly seemed to be incredibly sad for a moment. “There are so many that die because they think that they are immune, that their life matters more than the next one.”

He stared into space for a long time.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He shook himself as though my question had suddenly startled him.

“I thought that had been made clear.” He told me, taking another drink. “I am the Schattenmann.”

“I don’t believe that,” I told him. “It doesn’t strike me as entirely accurate that the Schattenmann would agonise over the lives of those that have been killed in the name of defending his realm.

“You might be surprised.” He told me with mischief in his eyes.

“I might agree that you are, or were, Trayka’s lost brother. But that would, at best, put you around my age and you look like an old man. Couple that with the fact that you speak like a philosopher and a man of knowledge…. You certainly speak in a way that no countryman would speak. You don’t think like one, you don’t behave like one.”

“And how does a man from the country typically behave?” He countered, thus proving my point.

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“When the man of Shadows possesses me, I am…”

“The Schattenmann, yes you said. But you are not wearing the mask at the moment so I am forced to…”

His face twisted in something approaching almost anger.

“This is not about me.” He said. “You are trying to interview me, asking me questions and you are trying to be objective with it, even while you can barely contain your own fear and anger. I brought you here to try and assuage some of your fears and to answer questions about what your life will be like, should the Schattenmann choose you to be my replacement in a couple of days.”

“So who are you?”

He got angrier for a moment and then he laughed with an edge of hysteria before calming.

“I am told…” He rubbed his head with a trembling hand. “That you are reluctant, even fearful at the prospect of being The Schattenmann’s host. Why?”

“Why what?”

He smiled. “Why so afraid. Why so reluctant?”

I was trapped and I could see no easy way through the conversation without answering his question.

“I do not like it here,” I told him. “I do not like the darkness. I do not like… the light that those bowls of yours give off. I want to see the sun again. I want to sit in a tavern and drink, listen to some music and maybe dance a bit.”

He smiled at me, it was the smile of a benign old Grandfather explaining why the child can’t have any more cake.

“You are suggesting that you wouldn’t be able to have those things?”

“You seem a prisoner here.” I countered.

He started to really laugh. “A prisoner? No. Not even close, but you were telling me about why you didn’t want to be…”

“I don’t like the attitude of the people around here. I don’t like the way I am being… I have been offered, women. The only place in the continent that has ever offered me, women, seriously and without irony… and without my having to pay for it, were those corrupt places that wanted something out of me. They were hoping to bribe me with a pretty face or seduce me, or blackmail me into doing what they wanted.”

“Is that what you think we are doing? Bribing you? Seducing you?” He smiled at the idea.

“Isn’t it.” I countered, a little hotter than I thought was entirely prudent.

“Not in the least. I am going to tell you something now, that my predecessor told me before I took up this burden, this charge that is placed upon me. And it took me a good year to be able to come to terms with it and acknowledge it myself. Are you ready for that truth?”

I shrugged and nodded.

“Being the human part of the Schattenmann… Whether you want to call yourself the vessel, the host or the fucking show pony…” He winced at his own words before giggling, “Whatever you want to call yourself, being the Schattenmann is hard. Really hard and there are days when taking up that burden is more than you can bear. I mean it’s worth it but it’s hard. And the Schattenmann knows this. So everything you see here. Everything around the great tree, the monsters in the woods, the dryads on the outskirts and the villagers that tend their flocks on the real outer edges of the Black Forest. All of it defers to the Schattenmann which means that, when you take up that burden, everything defers to you.

“It is hard being the Schattenmann. Very hard, harder than I can easily describe. So whatever it takes to get you through that, is provided for you. Anything. If you can get through your day on spirituality alone. If you can pray to the Sun or the Flame or the thunder. If that brings you peace and helps lift the burden, even a little bit. Then that’s ok. They will build you a little shrine somewhere nearby for you to be able to pray. They will even find you a priest to hear your confession if that’s the kind of thing that you like or need in order to find some kind of spiritual fulfilment.

“The same if, like you, are a scholar and you need books, paper and ink in order to record your thoughts on the matter. I am no expert but I imagine that there are many people that would love to know the deeper thinking of the Schattenmann. It would even be a best seller and then you can give all that money to a charity or something. Build a hospital, finance a place of learning or donate it all to a church in the name of buying your way into whatever your preferred afterlife is.

“Then you can do that. They will send out people to buy books, arrange paper and call priests to the region.”

He sighed and gestured to the woman that was sitting on a small stool nearby. She had been doing some knitting while she listened to the man speak. When he gestured, she set aside her knitting and took up the jug that was next to her, pouring him another cup which he took a large swallow from before he held the cup out and she refilled it again.

“But if your route to satisfaction and happiness is not those things. If it lies elsewhere and you find comfort in things that society might frown upon. If you find comfort in the bottom of the cup for instance.” He toasted me with his drink. “Or in the arms of someone else? Then that is alright too.”

“But I am not the Schattenmann yet.”

He laughed, it lasted a little bit too long for comfort. If I was out drinking with this man then I might be at the stage of deciding that he had had enough.

“No, but you might be. And it helps them if they don’t have to watch you night and day. If they can keep you happy and relaxed.”

He seemed to find that very funny for a long while until his laughter turned to sobbing as he turned to look at the woman sitting next to him who, again, put aside her knitting. But, to my surprise, instead of picking up her jug to refill his drink. She took his cup off him, whispered something and embraced him, climbing into his lap so that she could do so.

The other woman tapped me on the shoulder.

“It helps not to look at them.” She told me. This was the first time that I really got a chance to look at her and under the hood, she really was startlingly beautiful.

“Is what he says true?” I asked.

“It is.” She told me. She looked over at the throne where the pair were whispering to each other. “He is my… Seventh Schattenmann and there is no way of proving it to you but he is one of the good ones. I can only hope that his successor is as good as him. He only started drinking in the last year of his life for some reason that we can’t understand. It’s true that he went through some of the younger attendants when he was first here but then he met her and well… She loves him and he loves her.”

She looked over at the pair of them and a look of pain crossed her face.

“He wanted beauty and I can’t begrudge him that, save for the fact that she loves him back and his death is going to destroy her.”

“How did you come to…”

“She loves him, but she can only do so much. Some people are just not suited to nursing the ones that they love as they die.”

I thought of my Father’s death and said nothing.

“It sounds a lot like being a King though,” I said to her. “Deciding that I want something or someone and then just expecting for that to be provided for me.”

“If you say so,” She said. “I was born a dryad and I have never known a King other than the Schattenmann and he serves us as much as we serve him. More so even. I can’t prove that and the only way that you would see that that is true is if you live here with us. But that is not… Ohhh. They’ve stopped whispering sweet nothings to each other again.”

She gestured and I turned back. The Schattenmann was sat, leaning back in his chair while the other woman returned to her stool and took up her knitting again. I don’t know if the Schattenmann genuinely didn’t notice, or whether he was pretending not to notice when she snuck a rag out of a sleeve on her robe and wiped her eyes with it.

“Forgive me,” I said. “But you have not made the post of Schattenmann’s host, vessel or whatever we call it.”

He smiled at the repetition.

“You have not made it sound very attractive,” I told him. “Seven years of life, a burden that drives men to drink, drugs or sex for comfort, all of which are fleeting pleasures at best. I don’t understand, why would I want this? I have a love outside of the forest. I have things to do, ambitions to fulfil and friends that I do not want to let down.”

“So you are returning to the argument of ‘I deserve to be let off my debt because I’m special.” The Schattenmann’s voice dripped with scorn.

“Not in the least,” I replied. “But you brought me here to convince me that it wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing if I was the Schattenmann, that I should not be afraid of being that thing, or that person. Well, so far, all you’ve told me are reasons that I would not want to be you. I would not want to be in your place.”

“Explain.” He seemed confused.

“How can I put this. I would not want the love of a woman who gives herself to me because of what I am rather than who I am. I do not want to give those things that I mention up, including my integrity and my morals. You killed a woman when I arrived here. I didn’t know her well but you murdered her. You might want to say ‘sacrifice’ but you murdered her. She might have been willing but she was also clearly terrified and you killed her. Her death was agonising. And how many others have you killed while being this man, this thing that you are? Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand that you will argue that it was the Schattenmann that did those things, that he was possessing you. But I do not want to be the instrument of someone else’s murder.”

“How many men, or women, or innocents have died at the hands of your monarch.” The Schattenmann countered. “Just since they ascended the throne.”

“I do not want to be a monarch. And I don’t understand people who do. I am not saying that this makes you worse or better than them. I am saying that I do not want the job,”

He nodded and for a moment, he seemed sad.

“There are arguments here about how some must die so that the greater whole can survive.” He said softly.

“I have no doubt, just as I can also counter with the fact that seven years is not a long enough time to live.”

“Ah but such life. Your idea of what seven years is, is different to my idea of seven years.” He smiled a little smugly.

I had the bit between my teeth now and I was charging forwards.

“So there you are.” I almost yelled, wanting to affect his stupid smug face. “You are asking me to sacrifice my life for the purpose of being the Schattenmann. In return for that, I manage to live for seven years before the wear and tear on my body and, I assume, my mind becomes too much and I just fold in on myself. In that time, on those occasions where I am not needed by the being that is enslaving me because that is what he is doing. I am being enslaved and kept prisoner, lovely though the cage and the warders might be, I have the licence to do just about anything I want.

“Tell me, what happens if, the way I find pleasure in such things is by the horrible murder of children? What happens if I order the dryads to bring me a sword and then line up so that I can practise killing them with that sword. What happens if my hobby, the thing that keeps me going in dark times, is torture and I happen to enjoy taking people and torturing them to the point of death. And that isn’t even the darkest thing that I have seen since being on the road. What happens then?”

“It would never happen?”

“But what if it did?”

“It would never happen.” He repeated, his voice was low and fierce. “The Schattenmann chooses and he would not choose one such as you describe. There have been a few that have come that have those kinds of character traits. None have survived and The Schattenmann has ended them.”

“Why should I believe that?” I demanded. “What is there in this for me to believe that? You are trying to convince me of a thing but there is no proof that you can offer me that that is the case. I don’t want your free and willing women because I love another. I had to work myself into a bit of a frenzy to lay with the dryads on the outskirt. I love another. I don’t want to only live for seven years before… Forgive me… or not, I find that right now I don’t care. Seven years before I degrade into a dribbling lunatic of a man. I don’t want that. Why should I go with this easily?”

He fixed me in the eye. “It’s worth it. I have no regrets.”

The surety of his voice hit me in the face. There was knowledge in his face and posture. Great, deep wisdom and suddenly I saw him as a King. Not the kind of King as they really are or were. But the kind of storybook ideal of a King. He was wise and strong. A venerable weight lay upon him.

That weight retreated for a moment.

“Well, that’s not entirely true. It would have been nice to see my sister and meet the dryads that I have no doubt that she will produce. I would have liked to tell her that she did the best job that she could in raising me and that what I remember of my early life was a happy one. I would also have liked to see my Father again and to feel his strong arms around me. I would have liked to tell him that I forgave him for his drinking and his neglect and his abuse. He blamed me for driving our mother away although he apologised for that many times, I don’t think he ever let that go. I would have liked to let him know that I forgave him for that.

“There is an old dream in me. That I wanted to get married and have children. There was a girl that I liked in the village that had blonde hair. Long, straight blonde hair that she used to tie back with a piece of strings when she couldn’t find a group of daises big enough to be able to restrain that hair. I loved her with all the fervour of my thirteen years of age. I wanted to marry her. I know that Trayka was trying to find me an apprenticeship but nothing was really fitting for me although I did like working with the… But I wanted a cottage, a little way away from the town where I could work on whatever it was that I was doing, tending flocks, working with horses or forging the metal. My wife would work in the gardens, growing flowers and lighter vegetables. She would tease me about being big and clumsy and I would tease her for being small and delicate and we would laugh as I picked her up and put her over my shoulder before sliding her down to the bridal hold and carrying her over the threshold to do…

“And that is where my young imagination would normally give out. I remember that dream now, it seems incredibly naive.”

“It sounds like a good dream to me,” I told him.

“What was your dream when you were thirteen years old?” He asked.

The discussion of dreams had robbed me of my anger and I struggled to get it back.

I failed.

“The more realistic of my dreams? The ones that didn’t involve leading a cavalry charge against the invading Nilfgaardian troops who were monstrous in their huge black armour. I would succeed against all odds and the soldiers and knights would cheer my name after I salvaged the forces of the North from the disaster that King Radovid had led us to, a disaster that he had not survived. In return, Queen Adda, who I had a young man’s crush on after seeing her in a parade in Novigrad, this before I discovered that she was a viper in woman’s clothing, would graciously lift me up from where I was kneeling in my armour and then kiss me before declaring her love or me before the assembled nations of the world.”

“Not that dream.” The Schattemann told me.

“I’ve always enjoyed reading and writing,” I said. “Back then, I didn’t have as focused an interest as I do now. I would read anything and everything that would come across my desk. My older brother and sister who were essentially my parents would give me books, anything that they could get their hands on and I was happy. When I was young, I imagined a study. A large writing desk with stacks of paper, an inkwell that never ran dry and a quill that never split. I imagined shelves of books and scrolls waiting to be read. I imagined a comfortable armchair next to a crackling fire which I would use for reading and when I got a bit older, there was another armchair there where a woman would be sat reading. Every so often we would look at each other and smile a lover’s smile at each other before returning to our books.”

A lump in the back of my throat stopped my speech.

“Who was the woman?” He asked.

“I was fourteen,” I told him. “It varied. Sometimes it was just a woman. Any woman. I was intensely lonely back then. My father didn’t approve of my interests and was trying to arrange marriages with people. I was never a good looking boy and as such, the arrangements failed as the girls were invariably pretty and the idea of marriage was a way that I could see towards having a friend. Then the war happened and afterwards, the arguments with my Father got worse.”

He grunted and nodded.

“But don’t you see what I mean?” I pleaded. “I can still have my dream. That armchair, that desk and that woman are all waiting for me. I’m not trying to appeal to your better nature. I know that The Schattenmann will make his choice regardless of whatever else might happen and that I will have little choice in the matter. If The Schattenmann chooses me then that is what will happen.

“I don’t want what you offer. I don’t. I can still have my dream. What could possibly be worth the loss of all of that?”

The Schattenmann considered the question.

“One of the Attendants that came here a little while ago was a Philosopher. She returned to the Forest and I never saw her again but I enjoyed the way she thought. She would lead me onto huge tangents but the way she thought was of great solace to me in the third year of my service.

“I struggled to describe, I still struggle to describe, what it is like to be The Schattenmann and when I was talking with her about it she describe me as the ant on the flower. She told me that I was like an ant, working away on the plant that I was working on, bringing water, food or construction material back for the nest and then the human picks me up and moves me to another plant. I look up at the human and to me, that human might as well be a God.”

“In this argument, you are the ant and the Schattenmann is the man moving you.”

“Yes.”

“It is not an unusual piece of thinking,” I told him, sliding into the lecturers pose of arrogance with astonishing ease.

“The question comes from the reaction of the man to the ant and the ant to the man. The full thing is that to the ant, the plant or bush that he lives on is his entire world. And when the man moves the ant to the other plant, what is the ant's perception of that action. Does he bow down and worship in thanks at the benevolent God for bringing him this new bounty, or is he raging at the cruel whims of this new deity? All the while God did something, possibly out on a whim.

“It is also meant to describe the fact that the Gods might actually care little for the plights of people. That we are less than ants to them and that they behave and act in mysterious ways that we cannot understand because they are Gods and we are, well, not.

“It has to be said that this is not encouraging either. I do not like that thought experiment.”

“Why not?”

“Because the thinking doesn’t work. Either on the level of the ant looking up at the human, or the human looking up at the God. The Ant is defined by his world. The urge to find food, water or whatever. According to a scientist mage that I once read the works of, the life of an ant is dominated by shapes, sizes, geometry and the same basic drives that govern humans, and Elves for that matter. Food, water and shelter from elements or predators.

“So if a human picked up an ant and moved him over to the next flower. Then the ant might be grateful that he survived the experience, and humanity would already be known to the ant in question. The Ant will have seen the sun being blotted out by the huge shape of the human and have felt the ground shake under the weight. The ant would not think much more of it. Being picked up and moved is just the same as being caught up in any other kind of thing. It might find itself surrounded by new shapes and new circumstances. New things that smell like food and a slightly different feeling to the water, but its experience of the matter would not be all that different. The way it works out the world would not be that different.

“I can’t speak for Elves or dwarves for that matter, but it strikes me that humans are the same. We pray to the Gods but we don’t really understand them. We don’t, or cannot, understand the difference between a natural act of wind, fire, flood or other circumstance and an act of this God or that Goddess. So how can we tell? The answer is that we can’t, or that we willfully don’t. We rationalise these circumstances according to whatever it is that gives us the most comfort, whether we tell ourselves it was an act of God or whether it was just a coincidence of the Elements.

“Or maybe it was just luck.

“Kerrass and I were travelling East along the Pontar. The spring rains had flooded the river and had made the river journey impossibly dangerous. So we took a higher road up the mountains. As a result of that, we were overtaken by a nobleman who insisted on hiring Kerrass’ services. That hire led to me meeting the love of my life, angered a man that kidnapped and murdered my sister out of vengeance and is one of the incidents that made my family famous and powerful. So much so that the ripples of those circumstances are still being felt even as I sit here talking.

“I don’t say these things to try and tell you not to choose me, just to illustrate a point.

“They were unexpectedly large rainstorms. There are always rains at that time of the year but these were particularly large. Without those rains, none of the other stuff would have happened. So was that just… luck, coincidence or was it the power of some God arranging everything? I have no idea. I cannot comprehend everything that went into that set of circumstances. Speaking personally, I would like to believe that it was an act of the Eternal Flame guiding me home, I more believe that it was just a pleasant coincidence.”

“So what you’re suggesting,” The Schattenmann mused, his eyes glinting a little in the subdued darkness. “We cannot comprehend the actions of Gods. We cannot begin to understand them and even when we are subject to those actions, we rationalise them as something mundane, out of… fear… confusion…?”

“And a desire to exert control of our own destinies.” I thought through the line of logic and found that it was mostly right.”

“So…” He mused. “What would happen if… The ant was able to comprehend that he was being moved to a separate flower on a whim?”

I considered that question for a moment.

“That would lead to true horror wouldn’t it,” I said. “To get that perspective, the ant would need to understand the full range of human experience. To understand what a whim is? They would need to understand what their purposes are. The difference between doing something for enjoyment and doing something for survival. This would be an ant and suddenly, it would be exposed to all of the knowledge and experience of the human. And to get to the concept of ‘doing something because it seemed like a good idea at the time’ they would need to understand all of those concepts. Things that an ant would never have realised. They would have to understand the difference between doing something solely for the good of the hive community and doing something for themselves for a start. So that tiny little ant would have been exposed to an entirely new universe of philosophy and survival, not least of which is the fact that it is so tiny and insignificant to the perspective of the human and the larger forms of existence that the human travels in. Then you put it down and it is left with the memory of all of that. What’s it going to do?”

He was smiling.

“That would depend on whether or not he remembered and maintained the knowledge after the human had left them on the flower wouldn’t it?” He said. “Or if the ant forgot that knowledge.”

“I don’t know which would be worse.”

“Why?”

“If the ant remembered what it was like to be human. Remembered all the strange and alien concepts of that, it would realise just how small its life is and how… unimportant it all is in the grand scheme of things. It would go to its fellows and try to explain concepts like language and art and enjoyment. Multiple dimensions, the concept of time, flavour, texture, feeling, and colours. It would try to explain these things to its fellows and how would they treat him. It would be, whatever the ant equivalent of thinking a person is mad. He would be thrown out of the hive at best.”

“Or it would forget that knowledge.” The Schattenmann prompted.

“I don’t know which is worse,” I told him. “If it lost that knowledge, then it would have the memory of that circumstance. Concepts of things that it remembered knowing everything about are suddenly lost to it. Sensations that had seared their way through that small ant brain were no longer there and it wouldn’t even be able to describe what that would be like.”

I shook my head.

“That poor ant. Having all of that ripped away from him, leaving him with just the echo of the memory in the back of whatever the ant equivalent of a hindbrain is. It would remember a feeling of self and isolation without having the words to describe it as the hive mind crept back up and over him.”

“Quite.” The Schattenmann had leant back in his chair, his face and body were shadowed now. “That poor ant. So do we equate the possibility that if a human was properly exposed to that level of power? A God, with all of the new powers and concepts that a god would accept on a daily basis. The man elevated to that, what would that look like to an outside observer?”

“Well, he would look like…”

I stared at him.

“He would look like a madman.” I finished.

The Schattenmann nodded.

“He would look like a man trying to hold onto his humanity. Trying to take experiences and find things, find people, that would keep him grounded. So that he didn’t lose himself in the knowledge of just how small he is. He would want to live, drink and experience human things. Sex, drink, food, he would want to… be human.”

“Is the Schattenmann a God?” I whispered to him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I am not able to say one way or the other. He doesn’t think of himself as one. But it would fit me.

“He needs the human anchor. He needs to be reminded about what it’s like for the small person that lives within his forest. He needs to know the difference between animals and humans and all the rest. He needs to know what it is to be an ant so that he can treat the ant accordingly.”

“And what if he doesn’t have that?”

“I don’t know, and neither does he. And it terrifies him.”

“The terror of a God.” I shuddered.

“In return for that,” he went on. “I get to see and experience everything that the Schattenmann sees and experiences. Like you said about what the ant would do, I do not have the words, or the ability to communicate what that is like. It has only been seven years in the linear, mortal concept of time. But I have lived for thousands of years. I stood in the clearing when that rock outside slammed into the earth. I watched as the first signs of the heart tree grew from the rock as if it was growing from a seed and I have seen when the White Frost finally becomes too powerful to be kept at bay and finally, even the heart tree will freeze.

“I have seen worlds that you would not believe and I have seen things that I cannot describe using the boring three dimensions of physical space. I have talked with beings so small that you could not see them with your naked eye and I have seen the entire worlds that spin around the suns that make up your fingernail. But likewise, I have stood on the shoulders of the giants that would flick our existences from the surface of their skin in the same way that you would slap at an insect bite.

“And I have met and interacted with Law and have cowered before Hate. I have stood before the wobbly and transparent forms of Truth and I have fled in terror before the fires of Love and even that is a gross simplification of what I have seen and done.

“There is a prison, a vast distance from here where the suns are so far apart from each other that there is just darkness. And inside that prison which I am not even going to even try to explain how that prison is made up. Inside that prison is a thought. I remember it as being so beautiful, so simple and so complex. There was a pattern there and chaos and… and… and it was alive. And if that thought was released then the entirety of… everything… EVERYTHING would tear itself apart. Not only would it tear itself apart but it would do so with a howl of agony as everything, in reality, stopped existing and then it would be as though reality had never existed in the first place.

“I saw the fall of “He who fell,” the being of light who was born into existence to alleviate the loneliness of darkness that looked upon their creation before hating and fearing it. I can go on and on. There is more and that is just the simplest of things that I can talk about. Things which are close to the concepts for which we have words.

“To you, and to me, I have only lived for seven years. But in a very real sense, I have also lived for thousands of years. Longer. For thousands of thousands of years and I will continue to live for thousands of thousands of years more.

“I am the Schattenmann but I am also the lost and frightened young man that missed his sister and was astonished at these dryads that seemed perfectly willing to throw themselves at me. When I die, when this human form finally just… stops. I don’t know anymore… What even is death? I’m kind of looking forward to it in truth. I could do with the rest so that my mind is no longer in turmoil as I try to make sense of those things. Things for which there are no words in Elven, Dwarven, Gnomish or even Vran. Let alone the languages of humanity. I am looking forward to the peace.”

He leant forward and his eyes glinted sharply. I felt skewered, like an insect pinned to a board.

“Consider this. You came here for some reason. You don’t know why although the Elder suggests that you are lying to yourself. I agree with her by the way. But why if you were led here for a reason. What if your reason is to write what you see when you are the Schattenmann and thus, humanity can begin to understand what it is like to be a God and they can finally understand just how small and pointless they all really are.”

He laughed. There was a hysterical edge to that laughter and I fled in horror and awe at what he had told me.

He told me more than that reader. He told me things that I cannot replicate. There were languages and names there. He described a city with a name that sounded like… It hurt my throat to say it when I tried to remember it later. He talked about beings that hurt my brain to think of them and, try as I might, my hand will not write their names. I forgot some of it because my brain would simply not take in what he said.

I have spoken about terrifying moments that I have experienced. But just that thought, just that brief glimpse into the world that the Schattenmann was experiencing and could tell me about it. I recoiled from it on an instinctual, soul-deep level.

And yet, I am fascinated by it.

I fled to my pavilion and paced up and down until morning.

(A/N: I stopped the chapter here because otherwise the chapter would just go on and on. Hope you enjoy this bit and I will see you again soon. Thanks for reading.)