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Rukshan had stayed awake for the most part of the night, slowly and repeatedly counting the seconds between the blazing strokes of lightning and the growling bouts of thunder.
It is slowly moving away.

The howling winds had stopped first, leaving the showers of rain fall in continuous streams against the dripping roof and wet walls.

An hour later maybe, his ear had turned to the sound of the newly arrived at the cottage, thinking it would be maybe the dwarf and Eleri coming back, but it was a different voice, very quiet, somehow familiar… the potion-maker?

He had warned Margoritt that a lady clad in head-to-toe shawls would likely come to them. Margoritt had understood that some magical weaving was at play. The old lady didn’t have siddhis or yogic powers, but she had a raw potential, very soundly rooted in her long practice of weaving, and learning the trades and tales of the weaving nomad folks. She had understood. Better, she’d known — from the moment I saw you and that little guy, she’d said, pointing at Tak curled under the bed.
“He’s amazing,” she’d said “wise beyond his age. But his mental state is not very strong.”

There was more than met the eye about Tak, Rukshan started to realize.
For now, the cottage had fell quiet. Dawn was near, and there was a brimming sense of peace and new beginning that came with the short silence before the birds started again their joyous chatter.

It must have been then that he collapsed on the table of exhaustion and started to dream.

It was long before.

The dragon is large and its presence awe-inspiring. They have just shared the shards, each has taken one of the seven. Even the girl, although she still hates to be among us.
The stench of the ring of fire is still in their nostrils. The Gods have deserted, and left as soon as the Portal closed itself. It is a mess.

“Good riddance.”

He raises his head, looking at the dragon above him. She is quite splendid, her scales a shining pearl blue on slate black, reflecting the moonshine in eerie patterns, and her plastron quietly shiny, almost softly fiery. His newly imbued power let him know intimately many things, at once. It is dizzying.

“You talk of the Gods, don’t you?” he says, already knowing the answer.
“Of course, I am. Good riddance. They had failed us so many times, forgot their duties, driven me and my kind to slavery. Now I am free. Free of guilt, and free of sorrow. Free to be myself, as I was meant to be.”
“It is a bit more complex th…”
“No it isn’t. It couldn’t be more simple. If you had the strength to see it, you would understand.”
“I know what you mean, but I am not sure I understand.”

The dragon smiles enigmatically. She turns to the lonely weeping girl, who is there with the old woman. Except her grand-mother is no longer an old crone, she has changed her shape to that of a younger person. She is showing potentials to the girl, almost drunk on the power, but it doesn’t alleviate her pain.

“What are you going to do about them?”

The Dragon seems above the concerns for herself. In a sense, she is right. It was all his instigation. He bears responsibility.

“I don’t know…” It is a strange thing to say, when you can know anything. He knows there are no good outcomes of this situation. Not with the power she now possesses.

“You better find out quick…” and wake up,

wake up, WAKE UP !

As the storm was raging outside, Tak was hiding below the bed, with a small knitted patch of garment that Margoritt had given him, which he kept as a comforting soother.

The darkness and gales of wind aroused feelings which he had rather not face. He curled below the bed, unaware of the other’s animated discussions, afraid to be terrified.

You know this is how it starts… the voice was familiar, warm and gentle, grandfatherly. But he didn’t want to hear it. He had too much pain, and the voice was driving him away from the pain.
Listen to me, just listen. You don’t need to answer, just open yourself a little. Let me help you with the pain, and the fear. You’ve had it inside for so long, too long.

Go away! Tak was crying silently under the bed, mentally trying to resist the support of the voice who sounded like Master Gibbon.

Alright, I will go for now. You just need to call if you need me. But you need to hear that.

No! I don’t want! You can’t force me!

Just remember that is how every cycle ends: death for your love, then death for all of you, before new painful, forgetful lives begin again for all of you. If you don’t break this cycle, it will end, and start again. You know it’s time for you to break that cycle of revenge, and manipulation. They have greatly suffered too for their mistakes. Let them see you as you are, and learn to forgive them.

“Oh no!” Margoritt swore loudly, “not that cursed rain again!”.
They were about to share what was left of the cake for dessert when the first booming strike of thunder resounded violently across the mountains.

She cupped her hands in front of her mouth to rally the troops over the noisy rumble of the heavy dark clouds. “Inside! Everyone inside!” — when the rains started in spring, they could go on for days, drenching the countryside in curtains of water.

The first drops falling, quickly extinguishing the candles, Rukshan raised his head to look at the darker skies covering completely the moon’s glow “This is no ordinary rain…”

“You bet, it isn’t!” Margoritt said, looking more sombre than she ever was. “That magical umbrella won’t be enough this time, we are probably going to have to sit that one out inside. Help me bring the animals inside.”

In front of the small cottage, everyone else started to hurry inside, bringing back the plates, cups and leftovers, while Rukshan was preparing some wood for the fire to keep the moist away.

“Has anybody seen Eleri?” Yorath’s look was concerned. “She seem to have disappeared somewhere as usual… But she hasn’t come back yet,… and I’m afraid she took a large bite of the trancing cake too. It’s not a good night to trance out.”

Rukshan was torn between waiting a bit longer, or going to search for her, which would be risking lives during the dark stormy night. He was about to offer to go outside himself when Gorrash said briskly:
“Let me go find her, this storm is nothing, and I’m used to the dark. You all should stay inside. If I don’t come back at the break of dawn, you can go out to look for us, but don’t worry too much about me, I’ll blend in.” He winked at Fox who smiled weakly. He didn’t like this type of cold rain. Its smell was damp and rotten.

“Thank you Gorrash, that is very noble of you. Please, take care of yourself, and be back soon.” Rukshan said as he opened the door which was now jerking violently against the darkest night.

Those things people discard… in his life as the rubbish collector, Pepe had seen many. The unusual large package was just one of the highlights of the day; it’s like Providence meant for him to have this thrown away parcel.

Curious they didn’t even bother to open it, though he thought as he put it on the front of the truck. He probably would keep it for awhile, to see if anybody claims it back. You’d never know with the lot of crazy hoarding people in this lot. It was not the first time their batty help threw stuff away.

If not, whatever that was inside would probably join his large collection.
Over 20 years of gathering discarded books, he could almost open a library. And it didn’t matter how much he would give away, more would come back. It was a blessed curse, he used to say.

“I don’t have time for that” Godfrey said loudly, grumpy at being woken up by the smikst alert. “There are some people who do actually have real work to do.”

It was not difficult for him to ignore the “come back here right this instant!” of Liz’ when he walked away to the secret passageway that let him pop in and out of scenes like a peanut from its shell. He still had earplugs from his sleeping attempt, and thought they were actually quite useful.
Liz’ was far more than capable of handling the German and her ex without him.

The dinner had already started, the roasted chicken half devoured, and Fox turned redder when he saw Rukshan’s dismayed look. The Fae seemed much too rigid at times.

It was a good and cheerful assembly, and Lahmom the traveller of the high plateaus, with her adorned cowboy hat always proudly put on her golden locks of hair, was telling them of the shamanic practices of the people of those far-away places she had seen in her voyages.
It was all fascinating to hear, she had such a love for the people that she beamed though her sparkly eyes when she was telling them the tales of those shamans, and how they would drum in circles and be able to communicate with their group spirit…

“We should do that sometimes” a surprisingly talkative Gorrash said, as he munched his way though a large ear of maize. He seemed almost drunk on the fermented goat milk that he had found pleasantly attracted to.

“Oh, I’m sure we can find some old skin somewhere around my stuff” Margoritt said, amused at the idea of the challenge.
Lahmom winked at Tak who was hiding behind his plate, but not missing any word of the lively exchanges.

“In all your travels, have you been to any of those places?” Lahmom asked Yorath who seemed distracted.
“I’m sorry, what?” he wasn’t paying too much attention “Has anybody seen Eleri?”

As the night was coming on the party, lanterns were lit around the place, and Gorrash started to wake up.
He felt grumpy, and ready to take on the world, but suddenly realized there was quite a crowd assembled around the long table set up in front of the shack.
He would have grumpfed and grumbled and sworn angrily that they had started without him, but someone had put a nice plate of pebbles in front of him.
He couldn’t help but smile Nice touch, pointy ears!

His friend the owl hooted as if in approval.
“Oh there you are…” he said, seeing it was perched on… what exactly?
There was another statue, a big old winged thing that wasn’t there yesterday.

“Fox has some explaining to do…” he thought, wondering about this… Then he was startled to realise that said statue was just a strange large being, stuck in a sort of hypnotic trance.

“Has he woken yet?” the dwarf turned around to see the young lad who had addressed him, coming in his direction. “The witch’s magic mushrooms are very strong… it’s his fault; he wouldn’t calm down…” the lad said sheepishly.
As the dwarf was looking at the owl for explanation, she just decided to fly away for some vole hunting.
“Hello, I’m Olli… Olliver is the name.”
“Well, I’m Gorrash. You can call me Gorrash.”
“Mr Go- go-gorrash, the Fae has called all of us to tell us something, could you come please…”

Gorrash pointed at the tranced out god “and what about this big guy?”

Olli shrugged, “Ruk- Ruk-, Rukji said we can leave him there, he will join us later on the trip…”

“What was in the bag, Finnley, tell us!”
Everyone was looking at the maid after the Inspector had left hurriedly, under the pretext of taking care of a tip he had received on the disappearance of the German girl.

Godfrey was the most curious in fact. He couldn’t believe in the facade of meanness that Finnley carefully wrapped herself into. The way she cared about the animals around the house was a testimony to her well hidden sweetness. Most of all, he thought herself incapable of harming another being.
But he had been surprised before. Like when Liz’ had finished a novel, long ago.

“Alright, I’ll show you. Stay there, you lot of accomplices.”

Godfrey looked at Liz’ sideways, who was distracted anyway by the gardener, who was looking at the nearby closet.

“Liz’, will you focus please! The mystery is about to be revealed!”

“Oh shut up, Godfrey, there’s no mystery at all. I’ve known for a while what that dastardly maid had done. I’ve been onto her for weeks!”
“Really?”
“Oh, don’t you give me that look. I’m not as incapable as you think, and that bloodshot-eyes stupor I affect is only to keep annoyances away. Like my dear mother, if you remember.”
“So tell us, if you’re so smart now. In case it’s really a corpse, at least, we may all be prepared for the unwrapping!”
“A CORPSE! Ahaha, you fool Godfrey. It’s not A corpse! It’s MANY CORPSES!”

Godfrey really thought for a second that she had completely lost it. Again. He would have to call the nearby sanatorium, make up excuses for the next signing session at the library, and cancel all future public appear…

“Will you stop that! I know what you’re doing, you bloody control machine! Stop that thinking of yours, I can’t even hear myself thinking nowadays for all your bloody thinking. Now, as I was saying of course she’d been hiding all the corpses!”
“Are you insane, Liz’ —at least keep your voice down…”
“Don’t be such a sourdough Godfrey, you’re sour, and sticky and all full of gas. JUST LET ME EXPLAIN, for Lemone’s sake!”

Godfrey fell silent for a moment, eyeing a lost peanut left on a shelf nearby.

Conscious of the unfair competition for Godfrey’s attention Elizabeth blurted it all in one sentence:
“She’s been collecting them, my old failed stories, the dead drafts and old discarded versions of them. Hundreds of characters, those little things, I’d given so many cute little names, but they had no bones or shape, and very little personality, I had to smother them to death.” She started sobbing uncontrollably.

That was then that Finnley came back in the room, panting and dragging the sack coated in dirt inside the room, and seeing the discomfit Liz’ with smeared make-up all over her eyes.

“Oh, bloody hell. Don’t you tell me I brought that dirty bag of scraps up for nothing!”

She left there, running for the door screaming “I’m not doing the carpets again!”

And closed the door with a sonorous “BUGGER!”

Looking at what was left in his bag, it made Rukshan realise he was walking in the Dragon Heartswood for longer than he thought.
It was a maze with layers of concentric circles of tree, and seemed far bigger and vast once you were inside that it should have been.
He had been presumptuous to venture in it, without any guidance or map, knowing very well that most of those who had entered it, never came out. There was a magical distress beacon that was in the bag, but he guessed it would only help him retrace his steps back to where he entered. He didn’t want to use it. He could still feel the glowing confidence infused in his heart by the potion, and now, it was as though it was telling him to do nothing, and just not worry. So he chose one of the trees, to just sit under, and meditate for a while.

There was a bird, high in the small patch of sky that the treetops didn’t cover. Or at least, it looked like a bird. I had been there for a moment, as if watching him.

“Don’t you like birds?” the voice said “They are my favourite creatures, so smart and graceful. Ah, and the joy of the flight!”
He wouldn’t open his eyes, not sure the feminine voice was in his head or not. She was one and the same with the large bird hovering —it was one of her projections, but she was human.
“You know who I am, Rukshan, you have been searching for me.”
“You are the Hermit, aren’t you?”
“Yes, and here I am, saving you a long trip to the mountains.” There was a smile in her voice.

He didn’t know what to say, but feared to open his eyes, and risk the spell to vanish.

“You can open them, your eyes. They are deceivers anyway, they are not the senses that matter.”

She was there, in front of him, looking ageless. There was no telling if she was a projection or real.

She had put something in front of him. A sort of flat braid, not very long, and made with different threads of diverse nature and impractical use, yet artfully arranged, revealing clever and shifting patterns.

“It is for you Rukshan, to help you remember. I have worked on it for the past days, and it is now ready for you.”

He looked at the patterns, they were clear and simple, yet they changed and seemed to elude understanding. The braid was only loosely attached at the end, and threatened to unravel as soon as moved.

“These are your lives, intertwined. You and six others. You don’t know them, in this life —however long yours has been. But you are connected, and you have know each other before, and you have intertwined before. Some of these past stories can be read in the patterns, and some are tragic, and they all bear fruits in this life and the next. It is no mystery why you have been attracted to the Heartswood, because it is where the Sundering started, and where you and the others have left things unresolved. If you don’t look deep now, and take steps to correct course, you will go from this life to the next and repeat your torments and endless search.”

While Kumihimo spoke, Rukshan had fleeting images and impressions, some linked to the visions the gingkos and the trees had sent him before, of the others, linked to his quest.

“Yes, you are starting to remember… That day, when you and the others tried to rob the Gods of the flame of creation. They cursed you, even their pet Dragon who was supposed to guard their treasure and sided with you against them.”

She showed him the ring of charred trees that marked that particular period in the middle of all the rings for each ages of growth of the Heartswood.

“The Sundering” he spoke softly, reminded of fables in the legends of the Fae. That was the ancient age, when most of the Gods had disappeared, some said, gone through the doorway that was at the very heart of the Heartswood, the very source of life and death, and creation. There had been new Gods after that. They also possessed great powers, but none with the aura of the Old Ones —no Old God would have been trapped in stone by a mere witch’s enchantment.

Rukshan turned to the Hermit with deep pondering. “What can we do?”

She was starting to fade away, turning again into a bird. “Each of you has a special power, that you stole in that past life, and with each new life, you carry it with you, and with it, its curse. Find who you were, find what you stole, and give it back. Then the threads will unravel and the knot of all the curses will be undone.”

He took the road again not much later after a light breakfast.

The potion hadn’t seemed to bring about immediate noticeable changes. It told Rukshan something about its maker, who was versed enough in potions to create gradual (and likely durable) effects. Every experienced potion maker knew that the most potent potions were the ones that took time, and worked with the drinker’s inner magic instead of against its own nature. The flashy potions that made drastic changes in nature were either destructive, or fleeting as a bograt’s fart in the spring breeze.
If anything, it did give him a welcome warmth in the chest, and a lightness on his back and shoulders.

The Faes had been generous with him, and he had food enough for a few days. Generous may not have been the right word… eager to see him scamper away was more likely.

Enhanced by the potion’s warmth, the Queen’s words were starting to shake some remembrance back to him, melting away a deep crust of memories he had forgotten somehow, pushing against the snow like promises of crocuses in spring. The core of the Dragon Heartswood was very close now, a most sacrosanct place.
Faes were only living at the fringe, where life and magic flew, running like the sap of an old tree, close to the bark.
Inside was darker, harder to get to. Some said it was where life and death met, the birthplace of the Old Gods and of their Dragons guardians before the Sundering.

His initial plan was to go around it, safe in Fae territory, but after the past days, and the relentless menace of the hungry ghosts on his trail, he had to take risks, and draw them away from his kin.
The warmth in his heart was getting warmer, and he felt encouraged to move forth in his plan. He gave a last look at the mountain range in the distance before stepping into the black and white thickets of austere trees.