The next day I reported at Brutus’s office.

“I’m quite certain you’ll be devastated by my words, young Antonius, but I have nothing for you today. Unless you’d like to wash my socks?” he mocked me, but without ill will.

“Not particularly,” I smirked and he laughed.

“Well, off you be,” he sent me away.

“Sir, may I ask you a question?”

“What is it?”

“How can I contact Lord Tiberius? I have to ask him something.”

“And what is it that you have to ask him?”

“During the trip he spoke of dispatching the Wolves to secure the daughter of the late Lord Cronos. He’s one of the…”

“I know who he was… Regarding the Wolves, if he said he’d do it, he did it. Tiberius is a man of his word. Anything else?”

“So there’s no way of reaching him?”

“Antonius… You’re a pledge, he’s the Lord. Know your place.”

“My apologies,” I awkwardly bowed and blushed, which made Brutus burst into laughter.

“Off you go now!”

I left his office and headed towards the tavern. Renting the room there was an unnecessary expense, but for some reason I preferred being on my own. The sun was shining strong and the snow sparkled, making the city appear magical. Nicola was away, so I had the place all for myself. She’d gone to visit a cousin in Stelarium, a city west of Lux, known for its countless temples.

The tavern was almost empty. The owner, named Lucius, called to me before I ascended the stairs to my room. He was an older man, with white hair and a short white beard. His eyes were so dark brown, they appeared black.

“Antonius, stop! I have a package for you.”

“A package? From whom?”

“A young man brought it. Said it was for you and that it shouldn’t be opened by anyone but you! I believe he was a pledge. Here you go.”

He handed me a box wrapped in brown paper, tied with a string. There was my name and the address of the tavern written in the right bottom corner. I thanked the owner Lucius and almost ran to my room. There I unwrapped the package. It was a bunch of papers with an attached note that said:

“Dear Antonius,

As promised, here are the notes of my excursion to the land of Giants. Mind that this is merely a short summary of the whole ordeal. Unfortunately I cannot lend you the more detailed version of my writings. I don’t have any copies and the thought of it getting lost is all too terrifying for me.

Tiberius

(I know you’re worrying whether I dispatched the Wolves. Be assured they’re already on their way to rescue Calista from her most unfortunate circumstances).

I sighed with relief when I read the last line. I found it absurd how I’d just had a conversation about it with Brutus, and then what awaited me at the tavern but the message from Tiberius himself. Odd how life is full of absurd coincidences.

I threw some wood on the glowing ember in the fireplace, then fetched the papers, sat on the bed and started reading. Tiberius’s handwriting was very uniformed and easy to read.

These are the words of Tiberius Decimus, Lord of Vetulonia, Dictator of the Cohort, Imperator of the Vetulonian legions. During the fifth year of my lordship I embarked on a journey to the mystical North with the intent to seek wisdom from the legendary Giants. It proved to be a hard journey that almost ended me. This is a short summary of the affair:

I entered the Forbidden Forest north-west of Megalopolis. It was late spring, fifth month of the year. The weather was splendid, warm, with lots of sun and with little to no wind. Except for my stallion, I went in alone. I had supplies for seven days and I intended to hunt as well.

The first day of entering the forest, everything appeared serene. I experienced nothing out of the ordinary. There were no paths to speak of.

The second day is where my hardships began. At first my horse stopped responding to my commands. He became irritated and eventually threw me off his back and ran away. Some supplies fell off his back as well. From then on I was on foot. I cursed my bad luck and continued the journey.

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By evening, I became delusional. In the corner of my eyes I started seeing people who were long dead. They lurked around the trees and then disappeared. Then came the voices, whispers, all angry and judgmental. I tried to ignore them and for the most part I was successful. I had heard the stories of the Forbidden Forest before, so I knew I'd be encountering this phenomenon. I prepared the tent, built a fire, and ate some food, bread with meat and an apple. Then I crawled into my tent and tried to fall asleep. I was unsuccessful. The whispers became louder and louder and soon turned to screams. I also started feeling an immense, overwhelming grief, to the point of wanting to kill myself. I opened the tent and started running, half mad from the illusions that besieged me. My lover, who’d died many years ago, screamed at me and kept pushing me to the ground. My heart beat so hard I thought it would burst from my chest. I ran through most of the night. My luck was, and that I found out later, that in my madness I was still running towards north-west, the land of the Giants.

Morning came and the visions and screams and whispers became overbearing. I crawled under a tree and sobbed for hours. I soiled myself. I started to realize that if I stayed there I’d die. So I gathered the strengths I had and continued my journey, despite the increasing desire to end it all. I continued walking north for two days straight. On the second day I reached a river, where I dropped to the ground and surrendered to the fate.

The river is the outer border of the Giant’s realm. One of them spotted me and carried me unconscious to his village. There I awakened in his cave, weak and half-dead. In the next seven days, he and the others nurtured me back to my health and sanity.

My rescuer’s name is Lao. Unlike most Giants, who are blue-eyed, he had beautiful, kind brown eyes. He said I was the first person in twenty years to make the trip. “Pure luck”, he said, “It’s a dangerous adventure.” I spent with the Giants the better part of the month. This is what they taught me:

Of Creation

They believe Creation began by a GodHead, an entity so powerful and wise that it’s beyond our comprehension of its true nature. They spoke of the possibility of there being many GodHeads and many Creations, existing all at once, but that I didn’t quite understand.

This GodHead entity is part of everything, everything that was, that is and that will be. Even we are it. The purpose of Creation is to elevate GodHead’s essence through theater of life. The Giants called this process Returning Home. They believe the act of Creation is somehow tightly connected with some form of sorrow. Something irreversible happened, Lao told me, but that's what makes it beautiful.

Supposedly we ourselves live many lives. We are reborn constantly – until we are ready to return to nothingness of potential – our true home.

They described the nature of Creation with these words: “A mist made of sound.” Again, I did not understand what they meant by this.

These are all concepts I have trouble accepting.

Of our World

Our world is a sphere, located in a black void. There are many worlds in the black void, some full of life, some empty and barren. These worlds circle around suns, not the other way around. In fact, the stars we see in the night’s skies are indeed far away suns! - as some Vetulonian scientists correctly speculate.

Our world has seven continents, two of them are without people. One that is covered with an eternal ice and one that is a dry, burning desert.

There are five races on our world: Men, Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, Giants. They told me that we Men, with time, will prevail over others.

Of Our History

They said we Vetulonians didn’t just appear out of nowhere and conquered Helena. We traded with different realms before our invasion, although to a limited degree. What caused our invasion they do not know. But they speculate it was some form of a natural disaster that destroyed our homeland.

About the history of our world, they spoke of us as not being the First Ones. They referred to our time as the Second Age. Some Giants even speculate we’re actually in the Third Age and that there were two kinds of people before us.

Our predecessors, the ones we call the Ancient ones, destroyed each other in a terrible war. The war was caused by differences in their political philosophies.

Elves and Orcs are the direct descendants of those people.

When this Second Age was they do not know. But they do speculate the war occurred fifteen thousand years before our time.

The haunting effect of the Forbidden Forest is the result of the Ancients’ still working machines. Tall metallic poles that somehow poison the air, making a person delusional.

The Giants told me they do not feel effects of this air-poison, but didn’t elaborate as to why.

Of Themselves

I was told their numbers were low, approximately ten thousand. They do not procreate anymore and intent to die out. Lao told me: “This is not our world anymore. We do not belong. It is our time to leave.”

Some Giants live in caves they carved with the help of a mysterious liquid. This liquid softens the hardest stones. Once dry, the stone becomes hard again.

Others prefer simple huts, cabins or even tents. They eat fish, berries and vegetables. They don’t have rulers or any form of social hierarchies. They have no need for it, as they’re not prone to conflicts.

Their main purpose, before as a society they depart this plain, is to leave knowledge behind. With that purpose they are building complex stone monuments. Cave systems, stone pyramids, hidden chambers. All made with mathematical and astrological precision. “While everything else perishes, stone remains,” Lao told me.

This is merely a short summary of what I saw and what I learned.

By the time I finished reading I wanted to pack my traveler’s bag and head up to the Giants myself. Instead I fell asleep and dreamed of a terrible and noisy battle.