Sleep brought as much rest as Isak was used to getting these days with so many worries nibbling at the edges of his mind. Though he was still doing his best to brush them aside as he dressed for the day and had a quick breakfast with his parents as he informed them that he was going out to his treehouse again.
“You just checked the alarms there recently, son.” Amado said as he finished the last of his bread dipped in some olive oil.
“I know I know, but-”
“But you’re not going to miss the Dedication of Lights celebration tonight, are you?” His mother asked with a raised brow. “It might just be a minor holiday for us but the village has really put a lot of effort into coming together and having some shared celebrations this year!”
“Which I would never miss, but I just wanted to go out there and be sure I’ve caught nothing while getting a little studying in!” He hoisted up a backpack filled with books that he emphasized with a smile.
His parents shared a look of concern and had a silent debate between them that consisted of various facial expressions before his mother rolled her eyes with a sigh and said “Go see Kazimir to see if he has anything else for you to study up on. And just don’t stay out there all day!”
Isak was thanking and hugging them and out the door with his woolen cloak pulled on before either of them could change their minds. Using his hunting spear as a walking stick, he made his way to the center of the village where all of the larger buildings were gathered. The Town Hall may have been ambitiously named but still held a large gathering hall in addition to handling all matters of governance, standing two stories high with a peaked roof and bearing the finest woodworking of the local carpenters. It even maintained a small all-traditions temple that the neighboring schoolhouse and library had used to teach a much younger Isak about the religious traditions of the world outside of Inicios.
The two main temples of the village had been built next to one another as though part of some unspoken rivalry that had never materialized into anything before disintegrating into welcoming all into festivals to educate about traditions.
And a short ways away were the shops that had cropped up over time in what ambition might one day turn into a market district. Including Krazy Kazimir’s Place of Magics, which consisted of a respectably sized aforementioned magic shop attached to a bell tower standing tall over every single other thing in the village. All possible doubts or complaints over that had died the minute Kazimir had informed the town that it would be a part of a Nightspawn detection system stretching far out past the village limits and into the horizon.
“To keep me and my new neighbors safe!” The old mage had explained all those years ago when he had first moved here.
Isak pushed the door open with the sound of a small bell chiming above him. Leaning his spear into a rack near the entrance, he gawked around the shop filled with far more potions, magical items of every stripe, and artifacts of alleged authenticity than the village would ever need. Still, many traveling traders tended to linger in town a little longer to peruse his wares which inevitably led to wanting a local meal and browsing other shops. The old mage emerged from behind a curtain that led to the back of the shop, pushing aside the cloth with his staff and letting a broad grin cross his face as he saw his guest.
“Our people’s newest hope arrives!” Kazimir said while taking his place at the shop’s counter, easing himself onto a cushioned stool with a sigh. “How may an old man help you on today of all days when we should both be stuffing our faces full of food instead?”
“Hey, that still comes later!” Isak held up a hand to defend himself and brush off the misplaced praise. “My mom insisted I check in with you to see if you had anything else for me to study about magic-”
“You have the books I sold to you for the low low price of several home cooked meals.” The old mage shook his head and shrugged. “You’ll be learning from real magic teachers soon enough. I am but a humble magical craftsman, busy coming up with five new impossible wonders before lunch.”
The young mage raised an eyebrow as he crossed his arms. “Not before breakfast?”
“Some day you’ll find a wife, and if she’s good then she won’t let you go doing any crazy things on an empty stomach.” The thin old man said as he held a hand to his belly.
Isak rolled his eyes. “I have a mom for that.”
“You go from one woman who yells at you to eat more and be responsible to another!” Kazimir waved him off with a chuckle. “I go and I see why some cattle are missing, end up in a dragon’s den on top of an undiscovered ruin, shoo the smoky beasts out and grab a few shed scales and claws, recover bountiful treasure, and what am I told when I get back? What am I told? ‘If you didn’t forget breakfast you could have fought griffins too and found even more treasure and arcane artifacts!’ Gotta love them, isn’t that right Isak?”
The boy in question had absolutely no idea who the old man was even talking about, much less if any of that was even slightly true, as his mouth hung open and his brows knit together. He shook his head to discard the befuddled expression before nodding a hasty response accompanied by a toothy smile. Kazimir had made references to a wife in the past, but he had moved here alone and by all accounts never had any family visit him. Nor did he ever claim to visit family, only leaving on the occasional business trip. Having never felt it was his place to ask, Isak always left the subject alone.
And as with every other time, this was enough to placate the old man into returning the smile. “Ah you’re a good kid! Even if you keep trying to jump at the sun with a hoe just after waking up! And still before lunchtime!”
“Yeah but I actually ate breakfast.” Isak had heard that phrase enough to know that it meant he was trying for too much too fast, and smiled despite the old man clearly not understanding the desperate need to try for better things in life as soon as possible. “So uh…was there anything else you had for me to study for now?”
The old man stroked his dark gray beard that made up for the lack of hair on his head by living up to old stories of powerful old mages. He hummed and hummed to himself as he stood from his seat with the aid of his staff, and browsed the shelves of his own store as though they were a curiosity even to him.
“I haven’t been outside yet, but Tytus tells me it’s looking like a nice winter day.” He gestured upwards, presumably to wherever his eagle familiar was outside as he always knew where the bird was and what he was seeing as though it was his own eyes soaring through the skies. “A good day for the first of The Dedication of Lights and stuffing our faces with oil fried foods, though the lack of latkes remains a tragedy.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Isak had only ever heard of the potato pancakes from Kazimir’s homeland far away. Asking for that recipe could wait as he slowly started to follow the old man browsing around his own shop looking for something.
“And, I believe, a good day for a bit of learning!” He pulled an old book from a shelf of similarly aged dusty tomes. “You were so eager for that book on Nightspawn! And I relented of course because you haggled in doing some chores around here for me. But you need the basics! It’s never a good idea to go calling the wolf from the forest, Izaak. But if you must, study the forest itself. Or The Lost Lands in this case!”
As the book was shoved into Isak’s hands, he had many questions for the old man who was really earning his title of Krazy Kazimir, but his eyes did grow on seeing the title of “A Lost Lands Primer”. He took the book in hand, asking the old mage “I thought they came from the stars? Hence the name?”
“We know nothing about the things before they enter our world. But the parts of our world that they have made their own? That is something we can study!” There was a properly crazed look in the old man’s eyes, but his smile seemed genuine enough. “Call it an early Dedication of Lights gift!”
Isak frowned at that last word, now holding the book with care like it might bite him. The holiday was barely enough of an excuse for him in regards to such things. “I’ll be sure to repay the favor, I swear it.”
Kazimir laughed, holding his belly with his free hand. “So serious! I know you will!”
The young mage thanked the elder mage a final time and excused himself out of his shop after grabbing his spear. Upon leaving he looked to the skies, holding a flattened hand to his brow as he spied an avian form soaring above and knew it had to be Tytus. He was the only bird that Isak had seen since the surrounding wilds had gone empty, aside from chickens. And though the lad had long thought it would be incredible to have a bird familiar, he would rather die than have to face a new school with a chicken familiar. Instead he focused on making his way out to his treehouse past all the buildings of the village, giving a polite yet short greeting to villagers going about their day and making final preparations for the night’s festivities.
Though still early in the day, those scattered snowflakes were still attempting to make an appearance as Isak walked out past the amphitheater and its growing crowds out to a patch of trees where he and his father had constructed a simple treehouse that they used as something of a makeshift hunting lodge. The trees were old and tall here, and it had always reminded Isak of a forest grove from old stories of magical forests in greener parts of the world. Amado had always said that this little grove felt like a true forest despite its size, as surrounding forests had an eerie emptiness to them at the best of times.
And here in the worst of times when it seemed like every wild animal in the Wasteland was avoiding Isak, the woods here still felt like the plants themselves were more welcoming. Like they had held out against the hordes of Nightspawn turning the Wasteland into what it was today rather than whatever it had once been that even the most ancient recovered texts of civilizations long past spoke of only as an unconfirmed legend.
It even sat on a hill, as though it was unashamed of its status.
Isak approached the large old tree that held his treehouse, his shoulders slumped at the disappointing silence that defied his hopes. The tree had long lost its foliage for winter, and the boy circled around it while looking back and forth between the wooden structure and the surrounding woods. He did so several times, just to be safe, before finally ascending the ladder up into the simple structure. It bore an old lock that he unlatched, more to keep beasts out than any person who could likely enter if they truly desired. Though the main structure only had the one main room, it was large enough for him and his parents to spend the occasional night here whenever it was warmer.
Setting his spear down, he unlatched the shutters to a window to let some light in and then the latch to the ‘watchtower’ for a bit of additional light. The ‘watchtower’ was in truth just an opening out onto a branch turned ladder that led up to a small observation platform and an even higher vantage point if one was brave enough to climb to the very highest point of the tree. On one wall of the simple wooden room, now lit by wintery sunlight filtered by the surrounding woods, was Isak’s pride and joy.
Wooden boards nailed to the wall framed an arrangement of wooden rattles and boards with names written in charcoal beneath each. Only Isak and his father knew how to make sense of names such as “Split Loop” and “Third Moss Pit”. In a journal stashed in an old iron box in one corner, there was a more detailed list of directions to each, but the names were familiar enough to them that they could remember exactly where each trap was with the corresponding rattle alarm. Each of those wooden rattles had been bound to a “sibling” in a magic ritual, so that whenever a trap was activated and had caught something it would rattle on this end. In this way, the hunters could scatter them about the surrounding wilds of Inicios and know exactly which traps could be ignored aside from the occasional maintenance.
And with a deep frown and a hand through his short black hair, the boy confirmed that each of them were indeed still dead silent. Being that there was still time enough left in the day, he decided to get some reading done up in the watchtower. He climbed up to the observation platform, which true to its name was little more than some wooden boards with wooden railing for safety enough that his mother would even allow it to exist. After brushing aside some leaves, he took a seat and looked out over the railing into the forest and back down to the treehouse. In truth, it was his father’s. Or more accurately, it had belonged to his father and several other hunters who had long since met their ends in the Wasteland.
Isak started with his newest book on The Lost Lands, reading more on what his school had only ever gone over as a broad subject of places that had at one point in time or another had been completely overrun with Nightspawn to such an extent that they were changed into places that scholars still struggled to explain. They could say that a fortress that resembled no known architecture would shift around in impossible ways and be larger on the inside, but not how such a thing happened. Sure, all plants from outside The Lost Lands would not grow no matter how much repayment was given to the gods while the strange ‘native’ plants would grow in ways that made little sense, but at best there were only hotly debated theories on why this was.
Hours passed, and he studied more conventional subjects from other books as he had promised, both in preparation for magic school and for a return to his classes once the winter holiday was over. He looked up from his book, finding that there was still about an hour before it would start getting dark out and there was hardly even the slightest breeze. Which meant enough time to read a bit of fiction after so much studying was in order before heading back for the Dedication of Lights festivities. Though there wasn’t much selection in the village library, and though he had read the story more times than he could count, Isak always smiled as he read about the crazy old mage with the horse familiar convinced that windmills were not as they seemed.
The rattle from below nearly had Isak falling out of the tree as he threw the book into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder and setting a foot on the ladder before realizing the rattle wasn’t rattling anymore. It had only sounded once and then stopped, and so Isak stopped on the ladder before he heard another rattle sound off and then fall silent. Which only ever happened on the occasion that something was big enough to break out of the trap.
Another rattle sounded and fell silent as Isak froze, trying to figure out what was going on.
A cacophony of bells large and small rang and rolled out over the land all the way up to Isak’s watchtower, as the boy’s blood turned to ice. That sound that every villager in Inicios had only ever been told about, and what to do when hearing it. That sound that warned that somewhere out there beyond the furthest reaches of fields of crops and orchards, something that the people of The Western Wasteland’s frontier liked to pretend was only a myth had slipped through.
And from the sound of Kazimir’s entire bell tower sounding at once, it was not one mere ‘something’ but instead a lot of them.
Nightspawn had found their way to Inicios.