Hot pain seared his brain, stealing his breath and welding his eyes shut. Strange images flooded into his mind. A pair of boots, soles worn smooth and cracked with age, sticking out from the base of the furthest stall. Broken bits of straw dusting the soil. One pants leg, stained yellow at the hem, bunched up around a pasty calf muscle.
His jaw stretched to its limits in a silent scream, Nevin reached out to steady himself, finding only air in every direction. He sank into a crouch, sitting on his heels. He squeezed his head against the pain, but as quickly as it flared up, the pain vanished, and the images evaporated like candle smoke before a gust of wind.
“What was that?” he whispered, rubbing the lingering ache from his temples. A faint ringing played at the fringes of his hearing, but all was otherwise silent.
When he opened his eyes, he realized with some concern that he had migrated somewhat during the unexpected episode, and now crouched a number of feet inside the study.
The room stood empty – devoid of life and any signs of it, but its disheveled and chaotic appearance only marginally alleviated his concerns.
Ishen's study accounted for nearly half of the cabin's footprint, and justifiably so, as the older scholar spent the bulk of his time here; lounging, book in hand, or hunched over the angled writing desk floating off of the side wall. Matching upholstered armchairs sat opposite one another at the room's heart, sharing a circular pine end table mounded with creamy pools of hardened tallow. Of the two, the chair facing the door bore deep impressions in its faded green seat cushion - Ishen's favorite reading spot.
Lines of stalwart shelves covered all available wall space, stretching from polished floor to vaulted ceiling and displaying books and artifacts of both a curious and valuable nature. Waxed skulls of unfamiliar carnivorous fauna, detailed sketches of ancient battles and temple structures, wooden figures and marble busts, and even the occasional polished gemstone decorated the shelves, but their number was paltry compared to the volume of leather-clad journals clustered in their midst and the loosely rolled scrolls arranged carefully in the lattice style shelves at knee level.
“Meager in comparison to the amount of books I've read in my lifetime,” Ishen had said, a self-satisfied smile plastered across his lips as he gazed lovingly at his collection. “But some of the most important I've encountered. I dare say these books are just as much a part of me, of who I am, as they are a part of this tiny library.”
On his right, one more feature split the wall between the shelves, and out of all the inconsistencies and wonders of the cabin's construction, Nevin placed this one at the top of the list – Ishen's glass window.
Ishen often expressed the importance of maintaining an healthy environment for the care and safety of his book collection, a collection he bragged contained a number of original scrolls and tomes the likes of which the world may never see again. He regularly swept the cabin for warm drafts, the roof for leaks, and put a kettle on the stove to adjust the humidity in the room.
But it was light, he asserted, that posed the most danger, if only because combining light with books was practically inevitable. It was a double-edged sword. One could not study bereft of ample light, but light also faded ink, yellowed paper, and made brittle the already delicate edges. Sunlight caused the most damage the quickest, so books and scrolls were often kept in windowless buildings for their protection, and dedicated scholars single-handedly kept the local chandlers in business.
“There were some days I wondered if I'd forgotten what the outdoors looked like,” Ishen had mused, peering out into the forest. “The trees block out the sunlight, and this window helps me remember the world I'm part of. It actually pains me to draw the curtain closed when the leaves fall in the Fading.”
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A single pane of smooth, clear glass. Nevin had never seen its like. Every stitch of clear glass in Elbin was no larger than the palm of his hand, and the few windows not made of paper were tiled together using said smaller pieces. He'd witnessed the process necessary to form the individual panes, and Nevin would sooner slap Dalen on the mouth before someone could convince him the same process capable of reproducing Ishen's favorite window.
Yet, in that moment, the window was the sanest part of the entire study. Books stood in precarious stacks on the floor, like the columns of some forgotten henge unearthed by cautious historians. Other books lay scattered carelessly about. Scrolls filled the seat of Ishen's chair, while its twin lay upside down against the far wall. The sloped writing desk had slid from its place, angling awkwardly out into the room in a way that made traversing the space difficult. Even with the state of the study, Nevin could tell a number of books were missing, but whether that meant Ishen was robbed, or had packed up in the middle of the night and vanished, Nevin couldn't tell.
Nevin carefully picked his way around the jumbled furniture, trying to remember all the little tips about tracking that Aidux had taught him over the years. What would he reasonably expect to find in a space where a fight broke out? He scanned the floor, the chairs, the desk, the shelves. No blood, as far as he could see. No gouges in the wood either. Some furniture was in the wrong spot, in that the chair had been moved across the room and the desk was out of place, but nothing looked damaged or roughed up.
He peered out the window and into the quiet forest, wondering where Aidux had hidden himself. Outside, all was still. Even the burbling, swollen creek could barely be heard through the precisely adjoined pine logs.
“Why did you have to go missing on the one day I needed you most?”
He folded his arms over his chest and took a second look at everything. With the bridge out, Nevin and Aidux would need another way off the peninsula, and quick. Aside from wanting to make sure he was okay, Nevin needed to pick the old scholar's brain for any possible means out of the Traagen that didn't require a rope bridge. But while all the evidence appeared to point to Ishen having left the cabin voluntarily, assuaging Nevin's concern for his safety, his old teacher's untimely disappearance had only worsened his own situation.
That left him with two options. He could stay, digging through Ishen's remaining books, scrolls, charts, and whatnot, hoping the means and method of escaping these woods lay hidden within. Problem was, he was fairly familiar with Ishen's collection by now, and doubted anything new would materialize. In addition, if they hadn't already, a team of soldiers was bound to show up sooner rather than later, and he did not want to be up to his knees in literature when that happened.
The only other option was to run for the hills. Put as much countryside behind Aidux and himself as possible. Stay out of the open. Head into the foothills and climb the Nimmons, if at all possible. Brave the wolves, the snow, the altitude, the Narlocs. With his best friend at his side, who knows? Dying of exposure sounded better than being beaten to death by Dalen and his friends, or eaten alive by domesticated hogs.
Nevin cocked his head, leaning slightly to his right side. A black leather-clad journal rested on the floor behind the writing desk, barely visible but for his position by the window. He skirted the tenuously piled book and crouched beside it. Channel Disjoining and Annexing it read, in raised silver filigree.
“Never seen you before,” he said, picking the book up for a closer look. He barely made it a foot from the floorboards before something jerked it right out of his hands.
Nevin blinked in surprise, cautiously reaching for the book again. This time, his fingers brushed something taut and almost invisible running horizontally across the cover. He ran a fingertip over it. A thread? The bit of string matched the book color perfectly, and its thinness only added to its utter invisibility.
“What...?” He raised the book until the string went taut, then firmly tugged.
One of the boards popped loose from the floor. Eyes widening, Nevin lifted the book higher still, bringing the board with it. Under the added weight, the fine string finally snapped. The three foot long board clattered to the floor. Nevin flinched, losing his balance and setting him on his ass.
In the clamor, Nevin had failed to notice the sound of men's voices approaching the cabin.