From the sober and elegant architecture of the buildings with stone or masonry facades, the essential lines of the wrought-iron lampposts, and the impeccable cleanliness of the gutters of the cobblestone streets, it was enough to take a look at the Meridania stagecoach station to understand that one was setting foot in a land far removed from that of the filthy and impoverished Kingdom of Ferlonia, which did not shine even in its capital Leapoli or in the royal city of Ieracrusa.

Anker and Viryl got out of the carriage in which they had been crammed for a full four hours and stretched their legs. Viryl began to look around and said, «I have to pee.»

Anker, with a white face and an appearance that was anything but healthy, simply stared at him.

«You know how it is at my age, the prostate starts playing tricks,» Viryl added, as if to justify himself.

«So let's go to the station bar, shall we?» Anker said exasperatedly. He would have preferred to avoid opening his mouth to speak and just focus on getting some air.

While Anker was still speaking, Viryl spotted the sign that suited his purpose: "Bar Morvanni - toilets at the back", and headed towards the place.

When he realized that Viryl had made his decision, Anker followed him. Reaching the entrance, Viryl pushed open the left leaf of the swinging door, revealing a smoky and dimly lit room. Rudely he said to the barman, «I need the urinal.»

The bartender, in the usual professional act of drying a mug with a rag, replied, «It's three danari for the latrine.»

With some urgency, Viryl slammed three coins on the counter and headed towards the back. Anker followed him and stopped at the counter, where three other customers were sitting on stools.

The fact that even a pee cost three pence, he found himself thinking somewhat inelegantly, was another sign that they were in the plutocratic north. «I would like a lemonade, if possible,» he asked politely, hoping that the sour taste of the lemon would settle his nausea.

The bartender uncorked a cylindrical bottle and poured the yellowish, fizzy contents into a glass, which he served to Anker. The knight was slightly caught off guard, because he expected the bartender, as was customary in Ferlonia, to squeeze a lemon into a glass to which a sugar cube and fresh water would then be added, and he couldn't help but stare at the citrus drink with a confused expression.

The bartender, meanwhile, had returned to his previous occupation, ignoring him.

«New around here, huh?» asked a distinguished-looking gentleman sitting at the counter to Anker's left.

«Up here in the north, when you order lemonade, you don't mean a fresh squeeze. By that name, they colloquially refer to a sweet, carbonated lemon-flavored beverage produced locally. But don't worry, drink it without delay: it's delicious,» the man explained kindly.

Anker turned to him and looked him over more carefully. He was a man in his forties, with dark hair swept back and pomaded whiskers. He wore narrow glasses with metal frames and elegant clothes, exquisitely made, most likely by the skilled tailors of the League. Yet there was something extremely familiar about his voice, his accent was that of the Leapolitan coast.

«You, on the other hand, are not at all new to these lands, I gather,» Anker observed.

«Oh, absolutely not, sir knight. I have been a contract lecturer in literature at the University of Meridania for ten years now.»

Anker took a sip of the drink. It was indeed a little too sweet for his taste, but all in all it was pleasant and the aroma did not seem at all industrial.

«You'll miss home,» Anker said ironically, to get the conversation back on track.

«You won't believe it, but a little bit, yes. Fortunately, the research I do takes me on frequent trips, so I manage to return to our Kingdom at least once a year,» the man said with a hint of nostalgia in his voice.

«What's your name, professor?»

«Dioryl from Torre Mordelle in Leapoli, you?»

«Anker from Colle Luna of Valbaudia.»

«A Ferlonian in the strictest sense of the word, then. An islander,» the professor said with a modest smile on his lips.

«Indeed,» Anker answered, impressed.

Most Ferlonians had such limited geographical knowledge that normally stating their place of origin only served to allow the interlocutor not to be confused with any homonyms, without however that notion turning on a light bulb in their brain that would illuminate where that lost little village was actually located. The professor had demonstrated his remarkable erudition in a discreet and subtle way.

«Bartender, give me a half-pint of lager and some peanuts!» Viryl burst out, emerging from the bathroom, drying his hands on the sleeves of his tunic and sitting down to Anker's right. Evidently, he was intent on refilling his just-emptied bladder.

«He must be the noisy one of the pair,» Dioryl said jokingly, a smile back on his face.

«Imagine that the true humanist between the two of us is him. You might find many interesting conversation topics, in my opinion,» Anker retorted, laughing.

«Oh, don't tell me. Who is the gentleman?» Viryl asked, intruding on the conversation.

«A humble professor of literature, you?» Dioryl replied.

«A hapless fallen knight of the Royal Order of Ferlonia,» Viryl retorted sarcastically.

«And what brings my two compatriots to the feet of the Varanachi mountain range?» Dioryl asked, showing genuine interest.

«The esoteric medicine that seems to proliferate here in Meridania,» Viryl stated succinctly.

«He means that we're looking for a healer I heard about in Tarterno. I was injured during my first mission, but traditional medicine hasn't been able to heal me. About him... well, I met him during my journey and he's fit as a fiddle, but having nothing else to do in his life, he decided to join me. Maybe, after I'm done with my search, he'll stay in the area to do some well-paid work,» Anker tried to explain as best he could.

«Oh... I wish you luck in your quest. But to me these stories of sorceresses seem like nonsense, without a shred of scientific validity,» Dioryl observed with disenchantment.

«They probably will be, but when all else has failed, all that's left is to cling to nonsense, even if it's a vain hope,» Anker said, expressing a despondency that he truly felt in his heart.

«I understand…» Dioryl replied, showing a certain empathy for the sadness of the knight he had just met, «Is there any way I can help you find your sorceress?»

«I don't think so, all we know about her is that her methods are based on the rituals of a pagan deity called Velthan,» Viryl said.

«Oh, Velthan... I've heard that name. I study modern literature and that deity was mentioned by a local poet in a sonnet a couple of centuries ago. I think the stanza that speaks of her read: 'Beneath the shadow of the joyous joust, Velthan, the winged one, with raven's plume, Watches the murky marsh beyond the flume, Where merry revelers of gifts make boast' However, the critics I've studied haven't delved too deeply into those two verses, evidently it seemed superfluous to them to document themselves too much about a forgotten deity. They cobbled together the scant information about her from a treatise by a Classian historian who recounted the war waged against the tribes of the northern part of the Velitasian peninsula. But it seems very likely that some beliefs related to Velthan survived the Classian conquest. After all, it was in their modus operandi to allow a certain freedom of worship in the new territories. Perhaps it might be useful for you to take a look at the library of the Society of Ethnographic Studies in Meridania…»

«We're not here for some scholarly research: we're looking for a witch, if you hadn't noticed,» Viryl dissented.

«But it seems to me that you don't know where to start anyway, Viryl,» Anker observed with a polemical note. Viryl gave him a scowling look.

«Come, come, there's no need to argue!» Dioryl exclaimed with a smile: «I'm going back to my apartment, which is in the university district, as is the library of the Society of Ethnographic Studies. If you'd like to come with me, I can recommend a lovely little guesthouse where you can rent a room for a few weeks at a great price. Then you can decide for yourselves whether or not to visit the library.»

With those words, Dioryl placed two coins on the walnut counter, pulled over his head a fedora he had been holding in his lap, rose from the leather stool he was sitting on, and headed out of the bar. Anker and Viryl, after a quick consultation, decided to accept their compatriot's gallant offer, so they downed their respective drinks, paid the bartender and followed the man.

*****

The night in Meridania was much harsher than on the Horn of Morghorou. Perhaps because the Varanachi were further north than the Veils, perhaps because they were higher up, or perhaps simply because winter had definitively supplanted autumn. In any case, Anker would have gladly avoided the nocturnal escapade he found himself caught into.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Even though the first decent night's sleep after almost twenty days of cots and filthy bedslopes was looming, even though the bed in the hotel suggested by Dioryl was warm, fragrant and inviting, Viryl had not wanted to listen to reason.

He had pompously said that certain nefarious deeds are brought to light by darkness, and that when the sun goes down you can see evil things that its rays hide. Anker had replied that there was no need to be so poetic to express the obviousness that certain shady deals are conducted at night, away from prying eyes, but at the same time they could have easily rested and started investigating nocturnal Meridania the next day.

But Viryl had the air of a restless dog who, after being cooped up in an apartment for a whole day, just has to go out to do his business because he can't take it anymore and otherwise he'll do it inside, and Anker, a caring owner, gave in around eleven o'clock and put a metaphorical leash on him to take him for a walk.

They had dressed in bourgeois clothes, wrapped themselves in their capes and gone out. Viryl was fretting along the streets lit by lascivious red lanterns and Anker, frozen by a temperature well below freezing, was struggling to keep up with him.

In his naivety, Anker had assumed that Viryl's strong determination stemmed from the arrogance of wanting to prove to Dioryl that he was capable of tracking down Velthan cultists without the need to research further in a dusty library.

In reality, Viryl was driven by a morbid compulsion that festered in a dark corner of his mind inaccessible to honest and straightforward analysis, a compulsion that had nothing to do with finding the stolen tablet of Demetriscus.

To begin with, they had asked for directions to the sleepy receptionist at their hotel. He had stared at them with a dumbfounded expression. He had been doing that job for four or five years, but he had never been asked if there were any neighborhoods or places in Meridania where witches and occultists gathered.

After thinking for a while, he had said that there was not a soul in Meridania after midnight, except, of course, in the red light district.

«That'll be a good place to start,» Viryl had said, and they had had the location of the licentious suburb marked on a yellowed and crumpled map that they had fished out from the top of a pile on the counter.

In fact, as the receptionist had predicted, they had found completely empty streets and only sporadically had some cloaked figure appeared, walking briskly towards unknown places far from the dazzling public lighting.

After almost half an hour's walk, they had reached the main street where brothels, nightclubs and gambling halls stood, the infamous Zaniarti Street. And now they were there, amidst a thousand lights of warm and gaudy colors, over which red reigned supreme, staining their faces in the same bloody tint.

Viryl, despite not seeming to need it at all, decreed that the best way to start the evening was with a good drink. However, there was not a single tavern overlooking Via Zaniarti that resonated with his soul, or so he said.

Anker looked at him in exasperation and prayed that he would decide quickly which hole to crawl into, so that he could find some relief from the cold that had desensitized every extremity of his body.

Finally, Viryl resigned himself to using his rationality as the decision-making criterion and was guided by the influx of customers: he selected the most crowded place, where they would have a better chance of obtaining useful information. It was a cocktail bar the size of a rabbit hole but ridiculously teeming with rowdy drunks.

Anker found relief in the warmth of the bodies compressed and sketched by the dim green light of the crystals that were set in the bar's chandeliers, even though in any other context he would surely have run away screaming. The surface of the floor varied from slippery to sticky from span to span, even though it was impossible to see where they were putting their feet, and a stench of alcohol, sweat, vomit and smoke permeated the dense atmosphere.

Reaching the counter was an extremely complicated and frustrating process, but Anker faced it with passivity and resignation, letting himself be dragged by Viryl: after all, the arterioles in his hands had dilated, providing access to the burning heat of his blood, and that warmth was enough to keep him docile.

Anker didn't like to drink, and the times he had gotten drunk to the point of regretting it the next morning could be counted on the fingers of one hand. But that night, with that frost, with that confusion, with the agonizing weight of the hours and steps that separated him from bed, he came to the cynical conclusion that he would gladly drown himself in that expedient that would allow him to compress time and sweeten his suffering.

Inspired by the light that reverberated around him, he shouted at the bartender, «Absinthe!» as he handed him five denari. He gulped down the sweet and bitter contents of the sparkling shot glass in one go.

«Absinthe!» he shouted again, handing over another five denarii. And down it went.

Viryl, swaying slightly as he tried to resist the pushes of the crowd so as not to spill the whiskey he had ordered and received a few moments before, looked at Anker in admiration. «Absinthe!» and down another shot glass.

«Boy, I see you're getting into the spirit of things, but we can have another round later,» Viryl shouted to Anker to drown out the surrounding uproar, placing a hand on his shoulder.

«Absinthe!» and down the fourth.

Viryl smiled under his white mustache and gulped down his whiskey. He turned to the bartender and said, «Another whiskey!»

By the fourth shot of absinthe, Anker found himself thinking that even getting drunk wasn't that easy. Beyond the fire that twisted his stomach, he thought, in a flourishing efflorescence of his inner dialogue, that he didn't feel even remotely tipsy and the bartender had already pocketed almost two soldi. There, he was still good at math. Tangible proof that he wasn't drunk. And the fact that he still didn't feel at all amused by the whole situation was another proof that he wasn't drunk at all.

«Another absinthe!»

«Another whiskey!»

Actually, he had to be honest about this: Viryl was likable in his own way. He was an old fool, but he was good at heart, sometimes caring, and with his deadpan irony he tried too hard to make him smile. Sure, maybe he was taking him down, maybe this adventure would be his downfall. Maybe his little sister Verunia would be disgusted with him if she knew he had fallen so low. But what the hell, he was getting drunk in Meridania's whore lane, and he really wanted to see what Kalira, Bersept, Geltram and the others in his class were doing right now. If they had ever set foot outside Ferlonia, that is.

There was a tavern song in the air. Viryl started singing it, raising his glass. Anker put his right arm around his neck and raising his left arm he started singing too, even though he didn't know the words. He made out of tune and inarticulate sounds, but even though he was aware of it, he didn't care and didn't feel the slightest bit of shame. And it wasn't like Viryl was much better at singing.

«And down down down love, and up up up on this bed of thorn-sss!»

Viryl saw a plump man with a tonsure and a double chin sitting next to them who was also singing, carried away by the sobbing melody. He looked him in the face and both of them, with burning, passionate eyes, howled in unison, «I sink in pleasure in your cr-i-ineee!!!»

After closing that rhyme together, they continued to sing in a trio. Taken by the man's transport, some of his friends who had accompanied him joined in, and then even others who had nothing to do with it ended up in the group of drunken out-of-tune singers.

There were about ten of them now and they sang and drank and sang a new song and drank and so on for an indefinite time. At one point one of the friends said, «Oh God, I think I need some fresh air!», and the whole group followed him out of the bar for a well-deserved break.

After elbowing their way out, some lit a cigarette, others continued to sip their drinks, others sat on the steps full of cigarette butts and scraps of paper and some pigeon shit, and still others did all of these things together. Spontaneously, trivial chatter began among the unknown drunks.

Anker did not take part in the conversation but observed everything, commenting on each scene in his busy brain with an increasingly dense inner dialogue. Viryl, on the other hand, still showing a certain lucidity in his own way, without context burst out, «If you find me a witch, I'll buy you a round!»

«Holy shit, what does 'find me a witch' mean?» asked a skinny man who looked like he had an eggshell for a head, as he eagerly sucked on his cigarette.

«I don't know, a witch. One who dresses in black. Old but beautiful. Alluring. Still shaggable, let's say. One who casts a spell on your dick by passing some powder under your nose and gets it to stand up even if you're piss drunk. A witch. A woman who does magic, that's it.»

«I don't know if I can find you a witch, but I can definitely find you a whore, if that works for you,» said a guy with a receding hairline, his shirt open down to the third button, and the sweat from his armpits making its way to his jacket.

«I'm not sure if that works for me.»

«A whore in her forties, with blonde hair and black lace lingerie. She's got delightful little pointy tits. She smells good, and that alone gets you hard. She offers teas and potions to her clients, and after you're done, you feel like you've really had a magical fuck, the fuck of your life, I tell you.»

«Oh!» exclaimed Viryl. «That's exactly what I'm looking for! Where can I find her?»

«If you turn down that alley over there and follow it until you find a little fountain on the left…» began the receding-hairline man.

But there's no point dwelling on these details, because Anker didn't hear a word. He had started jumping through time, and from that point on, only vivid flashes would remain fire-branded in his mind of that night. The guys they had sung with, smiling and waving goodbye. A dark alley and Viryl pulling him along by the hand. The flashy red sign of a brothel. A few snippets of conversation between Viryl and the owner at the counter: Anker must have stood there watching them like a staggering idiot. Viryl wanted a specific girl, a specific lady, blonde hair, pointy tits, pushing sixty but still looking good, well, not a lady, practically a grandma. Her name was Darlah.

Viryl was waving his arms and gesturing, speaking louder than necessary because surely the owner with blue hair and those remarkable tits squeezed into a black leather corset could hear him perfectly well. There was no Darlah there, and those fucking drunks had been messing with him. But then a blonde girl in her thirties with a delicate mole on her left cheek had peered out from behind the velvet curtain behind the counter, and Viryl had sized her up with a slow nod. Shit, she could have been his daughter.

Now, Anker had never visited a brothel, and he had sworn to himself that he would never succumb to such a deplorable temptation. But now he was there, the owner was looking at him sternly, and he was strongly wishing to be whipped on his face while that magnificent mare rode his…

«Son, you're slurring and can't stand straight. How about you come back when you're in better shape?» the madam had said with an almost motherly look. Anker had hung his head at her words.

«If you go over there, there are some benches. You can wait there until your friend finishes.»

And then, the wait on the benches. Soon, nausea had set in. Anker would have bent over and vomited a golden puddle onto the splendid granite of the brothel. Before that happened, however, a lovely woman had sat down beside him. She had a sweet floral scent, gentle like wisteria, penetrating like rose. Her eyes were lilac, her hair blond and silky, and she wore a long black robe.

«Are you his son? Well, it doesn't matter,» the woman had said. Anker had simply looked at her with googly eyes. The woman had delicately placed a wet finger on his forehead and traced a symbol. The impending need to vomit had disappeared. Then the woman had gotten up and left in a rustle.

After the deed was done, Viryl had returned and they had left. Just outside the establishment, the need to retch had come back, gripping Anker's stomach forcefully and, without ceremony, he had spewed onto the sidewalk in front of the brothel. Viryl had immediately rushed to his aid.

«This smell, you…» Viryl had said, holding his forehead. Anker had looked up at him from below, all disheveled, tears streaming down his face from the effort.

«It's nothing, calm down, we'll talk about it tomorrow. For now, let's go back to the hotel…»