"How long are you going to make me shout? Don't you ever get tired of coming here?" Maham bellowed. It was the same routine, two weeks in, while most of the youths, including Thaddeus and Finwing, had already set off for Lume.

"No one asked you to cut my lawn!" he added, glaring at the freshly trimmed grass.

"I was just wondering why your compound looked so abandoned," I shot back, wiping sweat off my brow. "If I’m going to be coming here every day because of you, I might as well keep myself busy."

"You’re doing this just to get under my skin, aren’t you?"

"Maybe. But if you’d just let me in and help me, I’d promise never to bother you again. Please, just this once," I said, clasping my hands dramatically.

Maham squinted at me, clearly unconvinced. "You’re persistent. I'll give you that. But don’t think for a second I’m impressed."

"So, are we really going to keep doing this back-and-forth, or are you finally going to open the door for me?" I asked, crossing my arms impatiently.

Maham let out an exaggerated sigh, muttering under his breath before finally relenting. "Fine, you win. But listen here—if you so much as irritate me, it’s goodbye, and you’re never coming back."

"Noted," I said with a grin, stepping forward as he unlocked the creaky old door.

***

“Come in, kid. I’m only letting you in because if I don’t, I might die from the insanity of you yelling on my lawn every day,” Maham grumbled, his voice carrying the weight of defeat as he stepped aside to let me enter.

He looked like the oldest man in existence with his dwarf stature and walking stick. His hair, now entirely silver, cascaded down in wild, unkempt waves, merging seamlessly with a long, wiry beard that wrapped around his neck like a scraggly scarf. He hadn’t bothered to trim either in what seemed like decades, giving him the appearance of someone who belonged more to the forest than to civilization.

As I stepped into his home, the air shifted. It felt thicker, charged with something unexplainable, almost sacred. The room was dimly lit, with sunlight filtering weakly through the warped wooden shutters.

Stolen novel; please report.

Shelves lined the walls, crammed with an assortment of strange objects: jars filled with roots, powders, and preserved animal parts; bundles of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling like a canopy of ancient secrets; and stones etched with symbols I didn’t recognize, glowing faintly under the flickering light of oil lamps.

The centerpiece of the room was a massive wooden table, scarred from years of use, covered in what looked like an alchemist’s toolkit—mortar and pestle, vials of colored liquids, and strange-looking plants I’d never seen before. Animal skulls and talismans dangled from ropes strung across the room, casting eerie shadows on the walls.

The place smelled of earth, smoke, and something bitter—like the essence of a forest distilled into a single overwhelming aroma. It wasn’t just a house; it was a shrine to an ancient art, a realm where science and superstition blurred into one.

“You can sit there,” Maham said, pointing to a rickety stool near the corner, “Don’t touch anything unless you want to lose a hand. Now, what exactly do you want from me?”

I leaned forward, picking at the edge of the table as Maham stared at me, waiting for me to speak. The words felt heavy in my mouth, but I forced them out anyway.

“So, uh… the first dream—it was weird. I was falling. Like, from really high up. But it wasn’t a mountain; it was higher, like… I don’t know, it didn’t even seem real. The air felt so thin, I could barely breathe. My chest hurt, my lungs felt like they were about to explode, and the fall just kept going.” I shook my head, letting out a nervous laugh. “I woke up before I hit the ground, but it felt like I was still falling, even after I opened my eyes.”

Maham didn’t say a word, just kept staring at me like he was trying to read my soul or something. I scratched the back of my neck and went on.

“The second one was worse.” I shifted uncomfortably. “I dreamed I had these… boils all over me. Big, disgusting ones. They burnd, and they itched, and I could feel them, like really feel them. There was this woman with me. I didn’t know her name, but she was helping me, rubbing this herbal lotion on me. She kept talking to me like I was a little kid. It was… creepy.” I paused, frowning. “Her face was blurry, like, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make it out.”

I took a shaky breath, my hands curling into fists. “And then it changed. I was in this village—not Seafallow, some other place. The people there were… they were angry, yelling and waving torches and pitchforks. They dragged the lady out first, screaming that she was a witch. I tried to stop them, but they didn’t listen. They… they threw her into this giant furnace and burned her alive.” My voice cracked, and I looked away. “Then they came for me. They called me the devil and… and threw me in after her. I woke up right when I hit the fire.”

Maham finally blinked, but he still didn’t say anything. His silence made it worse somehow, but I kept going.

“The last one…” My voice wavered, and I clenched my jaw to steady it. “I was in this dungeon, chained up. It was so dark I could barely see anything, but I could feel it, you know? It was freezing, and it smelled awful, like… like something had died in there. My body was messed up—cuts, bruises, I could feel every single one. And then I… I said something.”

I looked up at Maham, his eyes locked onto mine. “I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t in English. It was something like, Thrak ven zuor vel’drazak… zuor vel’zar drazak qeth. I didn’t even know what I was saying, but it came out like… like it wasn’t even me talking. There were more words, but I can’t remember them. I felt like I was dead.”

I exhaled, slumping back in my chair. “When I woke up, it felt like those words were still in my head, like they didn’t leave when the dream ended.”

The room was dead silent, the shadows from the lantern flickering on Maham’s face. He leaned back slowly, his expression unreadable, and I couldn’t tell if he was going to laugh at me or tell me I was cursed.

___

Did you know?

Thousands of years ago, the first recorded public execution was carried out on a woman from Lume and her young son. The villagers branded her a witch and labeled the boy a devil possessed by a cursed spirit. It was only after their brutal deaths that a few dared to confess the truth: the boy had been adopted, and there was no evidence she was a witch. But by then, the damage had been done, and their story became a haunting reminder of fear and ignorance’s devastating power.

___