They saw the ferryman’s house a little while later.

It was a small wooden house, with just a door, one window, and a stone chimney. It was built right on the edge of the lake, so close to it that, at night, its only resident could hear the fish splashing in and out of the water. Outside was a small boat which, at first glance, looked barely spacious enough to carry the five of them.

“That’s nice, but how will we carry the wagon?” asked Nigel, expecting an answer that never arrived. Apparently, nobody had thought of that until now.

“Well, we’ll figure something out”, the General pointed out, laughing to get out of the awkward situation. “At worst, we ditch the wagon. We are on the clock, and I am not willing to waste four extra days.”

They arrived at the ferryman’s house in the early afternoon and parked the horses and wagon outside as they knocked on the door. However, there was no response from inside, so they decided to enter by themselves; Sahtar knew the man, and said he wouldn’t mind.

The interior of the house was as simple as the exterior, having no furniture other than the necessary, which was a bed, a table, and a chair, as well as a fireplace to keep its owner warm during the long, cold winter nights. Additionally, there was no sign of the owner anywhere in the house.

“Maybe he is outside”, Arthur suggested, and they split up to search outside.

Finally, the owner was found by Sahtar. As they had agreed for whoever found him, Sahtar whistled loudly in the forest and the others arrived, one at a time. The one they had been searching for was an old man, a very old man.

His eyes had gone white and his beard was reaching his waist, making a striking contrast with his bald head. His face and body were full of wrinkles, but his lifestyle hadn’t let his body strength completely wither away, as he still seemed able to walk just fine.

As is often the case for old people, his movements were smooth and calm, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry or need for anything. You could tell by the first look that this man really had reached some kind of mind state unattainable by most.

One by one, they all bowed their heads to him in respect of his old age.

“Why are you lowering your heads to an old man?” he asked in a shaky voice.

“To show our respect”, answered the General, somewhat surprised.

“You don’t need to show it. I already know”, he continued.

“Huh”, said the General. “We need to-“

“I know that too”, the old man interrupted him. “Please; I’m an old man with little time left, don’t waste it telling me things I already know.”

“Can I ask how you knew?” asked Arthur, preventing the upset General from speaking up.

“Because the water told me. The water knows everything and I, who knows how to hear the water, know a lot”, he replied, walking to his house. “You can spend the night here, there is no point in crossing the lake right now. Also, I’m afraid you will have to leave the horses and wagons here.”

“Thank you for your kindness”, replied Sahtar and lowered his head once again.

They followed the old man to his home, which they had already seen. This time, Nigel noticed one more thing. Right above the fireplace was a flute that didn’t seem to match the rest of the house. It was golden and short, carved with extremely detailed forms of humans, elves, dwarves and what he assumed were trolls and halflings. It was placed directly on the rock, despite it obviously being an item of great value. Nigel felt the urge to pick it up and play something but, naturally, he didn’t want to insult his host.

“Why don’t you play something?” he heard a faint voice.

“What?” he asked. Everyone stared at him puzzled. “Sorry, I thought I heard something”, he quickly apologized and joined the others at the dinner table, where they ate a frugal meal before going to sleep.

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“I thought you said he was a saint”, Nigel complained after the old man had gone to sleep. The two of them were now standing outside, next to the fire, keeping watch. “He didn’t even tell us his name.”

“I never said he was a good-mannered saint. But his kindness lies in actions, not words.”

“Pfft”, Nigel looked at the sky. “What has he done to be called a saint, anyway?” he asked.

“Let me tell you a story”, Sahtar stood up and went around the fire. “Some decades ago, this village was struck by a vicious epidemic. The roads were filled with rotten corpses nobody dared to touch, and mice had flooded the city. The smell of death was everywhere and the villagers were forced to hide in their homes, hoping the disease wouldn’t get to them.”

Nigel leaned towards him. The story had grasped his interest.

“But it wasn’t enough. The mice, which were later revealed to be the carriers of the disease, had infected every single home. It was at that time that a man arrived. He was young, full of energy and ambition. He arrived carrying nothing but a flute and some provisions. When he saw the situation of the village, he met with the village elders and struck a deal with them. If he could rid the town of the disease, the elders would have to give him all the money the village had.

As soon as they shook hands, the young man licked his lips and began playing the flute. Its sound was one the village had never heard before, and one they haven’t been able to reproduce since. Those who heard it said it was a sound gentle yet strong, beautiful yet jarring. Playing the flute, the young man exited the village and, magically, all the mice followed him. He took a boat into the lake, still playing the flute, and every mouse followed him, diving into the lake head-first. All of them drowned.

The young man then returned to the village and fed those infected by the disease, and still alive, some herbs he had in his backpack. They all healed completely, and even their wounds that had nothing to do with the disease were healed much quicker than they should have. Even now, the villagers don’t know what those herbs were, only that they don’t exist in the nearby mountains. After he had healed everyone, the young man went to the elders and demanded his payment, all the wealth of the village. But the elders went back on their word. They thanked him, but then laughed him off, calling him “mouse-whisperer”, “flute-boy”.

The young man was furious. Picking up his flute once again, he played a new melody, one that was even more stunning than the previous one. The villagers were enchanted by the beauty of his music, but the adults could fight off the urge to follow him. The children couldn’t.

Their desire to go after him was so strong that they would even raise their arms against their own parents. Few were those that managed to restrain their children, for they had seen what happened to the mice. The young man ran out of the village, to the mountain, and the children followed him in ecstasy.

He reached the side of a mountain and, adding a new melody to his music, one that shook the earth and made the sky tremble, he tore open a passage that led inside the mountain. Such was his power, that the few men who had chased him to save their children were rooted in place, and fear didn’t let them move their legs.

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The young man then joyfully walked into the mountain, and the children followed him like sheep following their shepherd. After they had all entered the mountain, the young man sang a sharp note in his flute and, once again, the earth shook across the valley; the mountain passage closed behind them as if it had never existed, leaving all the men behind. Except for one.

The boatman, the only man in the village without a wife and children, had a bad feeling about the young man he had helped drown the mice in the lake. He was sitting on a hillside playing his own flute when he saw that same man split the mountain apart and enter with the children of the village following him. Since he was already close to the crack, the boatman fought off his fear and followed them inside the mountain, where they entered a large cave, one so gigantic that the boatman could not see the other side. While the children were still idly sitting around, the boatman confronted the young man.

The young man played a sharp note and the walls of the cave vibrated, and some of the children collapsed, but the boatman still stood. The young man played yet another note, even fiercer, and the children fell down in screams, but the boatman did not fall, although his eardrums were ruptured. He grabbed the flute off the young man’s hands and tried to break it on his knee, but it was his knee that broke instead. And as the young man raised his fists to finish what the flute couldn’t, the flute spoke in the boatman’s mind:

‘The time has come for me to have a new master. Put the flute on your lips and blow, boatman.’

In his despair, the boatman did as he was told, and as the note resounded in the cave, the young man withered away; bit-by-bit, he disappeared, as if he was never there. And the boatman blew one more note, and his knee was no longer broken, and his hearing was even better than before, and the children stood up and stopped screaming, as they wondered what on earth had happened.

The children following his lead, the boatman walked back to the entrance of the passage, the flute in his hands. He blew one final note and the mountain cracked again, letting them out in the open like ants spewing out of an anthill. The children ran to their weeping parents who had gathered just outside, and the boatman was revered as a saint. Since then, to resist the corruption the flute brings, he hasn’t played it once; he only keeps it safe from evil hands.”

Sahtar used a branch to reposition some of the branches serving as fuel for the fire. “Or at least that’s what I was told, the first time I arrived here. Nowadays, the boatman is growing more and more old and tired, and his life is nearing its end.”

Nigel looked up to meet his gaze, fully hooked to the story. “And what will happen to the flute when he dies?”

“Who knows”, was Sahtar’s absent-minded answer as he lied down next to the fire. “It’s none of our business anyway.”

Nigel stood up and went to patrol the surroundings, but his mind just couldn’t remain quiet. It tossed and turned, and every time it came back to the golden flute, the one filled with the magic he could never master himself.

“So, that was the flute we saw inside?” he asked when he came back.

“Yes, exactly that.” Sahtar was now sitting on a log next to the fire. “Is something on your mind, boy?” he asked, staring intently at Nigel.

“No, it’s nothing. I’m just caught up in the story, that’s all”, he replied, not looking at Sahtar.

“Hm. I think our turn is over”, Sahtar and stood up. “Let’s call Arthur and the General.” It was already halfway through the night, and Sahtar craved a good sleep.

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The rising sun found them up and ready to go. They didn’t want to waste any more time before getting to the other side of the border. They had already decided the wagons would stay behind, even if their plan was to use them to get across the border. The boatman, living close to the said border, had insisted they would be just fine without them, and Sahtar agreed with him.

They stuffed as many provisions as they could in their backpacks and boarded the boat. The boatman pushed his oar against the lakeside and they set out into the lake, shaking every now and then because of the waves and the imprecision in the boatman’s movements.

Old age has done its wonder again, Sahtar sighed internally, watching the man who was once the master of the lake now struggle to push his oar through the water. To his honor, he refused any offer of help from his passengers. “What boatman would let a passenger hold the oars?” he said.

When they were somewhere around the middle of the lake, the boat shook especially roughly, and an oblong item wrapped in leather slid from under the boatman’s bench right next to Nigel’s feet. Bending to reach it, a chill ran down his spine as he unwrapped what he already knew was the flute.

A gentle jolt of electricity sparked where his hands touched the flute, but he did not let go, and now the flute had a faint glow around it.

“Where did you get that?” Miss Nan worryingly asked him, leaning over his shoulder. The boatman, who had not felt the movement of the flute, dropped the oar and his eyes opened wide when he saw it in Nigel’s hands.

“Let go!” he screamed in terror and jumped on Nigel, momentarily forgetting his old age. To Nigel’s surprise, his hand moved on its own to stop the boatman from getting the flute, and his tongue also spoke by itself.

“It’s mine now”, he heard himself say in a strong voice, and he found himself looking the boatman in the eyes. He realized that, if the boatman struggled, he wouldn’t hesitate to hit him to keep the flute. The air got tense over the boat as the others, caught off guard, stood and waited for the boatman’s response.

The boatman himself was stunned. As his gaze was lost into Nigel’s, his eyes got wet.

“Oh”, was all he said, and this single word was filled with both relief and pain, at a magnitude that had rarely been heard before. He stumbled back and picked up his oar, and now he rowed faster, tears running down his eyes. But whether they were tears of relief or regret, nobody could tell.

“What the hell happened?” asked the General, as he was the first to recover from the shock.

“I believe,” Sahtar managed to utter, “the flute has found a new owner”.

“Explain”, commanded Miss Nan, using an authority she did not seem to possess. Slowly at first, and then with growing confidence as the story progressed, Sahtar told them the story about the flute and the boatman, the one he had told Nigel just the night before. The old man himself did not speak; only his eyes were wet as he heard the story of his life, the story of his curse, and of the artifact that had been the epicenter of his long life.

The same artifact that now, after so many years, ditched him.

When Sahtar was done, everyone was left staring at Nigel, who had been tightly holding onto the flute throughout the story but seemed to have regained control of himself.

“That thing is evil!” Miss Nan shouted and stretched her hand to grab the flute off Nigel’s hand, hesitating at the last minute.

“Don’t forget that it also healed the boatman and the children, aside from controlling them”, Sahtar reminded her.

“Is that story true, boatman?” the General requested to know.

“It is,” he replied, “to the last detail.”

The tears were now dry on the boatman’s face, but the confusion had not left his eyes.

“What do you propose then? Should he keep it?” the General insisted. The old man turned to look at Nigel, for the first time since he tried to take the flute away, and his elderly gaze was indecipherable. It carried sadness, relief, and the pain of more years than anyone else had lived.

It was a gaze that only old people can possess, one caused by an entire lifetime getting turned on its head.

“Of course you should”, answered the boatman, looking directly into Nigel’s conflicted eyes, “but be careful, boy. Many have lost themselves to the demon flute. Do you see all those carvings on its sides? They are images of those who lost their minds and bodies to the flute, and whose souls are now trapped inside it for eternity.”

“But the flute itself is neither good nor bad”, he continued. “It is the weakness of the owners that brings disaster, and the wickedness of their souls that makes the flute seem evil. I pray that you will be able to do what all others couldn’t, boy.”

“Thank you”, Nigel spoke at last. He didn’t have complete control of his emotions yet, and he still hadn’t come to terms with the situation. But despite its suddenness, there were some things that absolutely had to be said. “And I am sorry.”

The boatman smiled in pain, turning to General Escers.

“I’m not taking it back with me, General”, he said, and the General tensed as he wondered how he knew about his identity. He was careful not to mention it in front of him. “It belongs to him now.”

At this moment, the boat had reached the opposite side of the lake. “Walk half an hour this way and you will find a gravel path. Follow it, and you will reach the border soon”, said the boatman, pointing in a direction that might have been north. They couldn’t tell, because the mist that surrounded them had made them lose their sense of direction.

“For now, Nigel will keep the flute. The future will show us what must become of it”, Sahtar took the initiative as he jumped on the ground.

“Thank you again, my friend”, he turned to the boatman and bowed his head. “I feel that this will be the last time we meet.”

“On this world, yes. Goodbye, my friend”, replied the boatman and bowed his head as well. After everyone had jumped off the boat, the boatman headed back into the lake, and nobody ever saw him again.

As they began marching, Nigel fastened the flute to his belt, next to his sword. When the mist swallowed them and they could no longer be seen from the lake, the last thing to disappear was the golden flute. On it was the carving of an old man on a boat, sailing the lakes of infinity.