Prologue: cries at night.
The echoing cries of a new born child sounded through the silent forest town of Vorn as the new child was pulled out into a new real World. A soft breeze blew through the warm midsummer eve as the baby was named Evinn after the spirits of wind. The midwife carefully washed and dried the baby, when she wrapped it in a blanket she noticed something strange, on her scalp nearly invisible under the black hair that covered the baby's skull a strange mark was visible.
It was the mark of holy and unholy powers bound together, it looked as two hooks curled together with a dot in the middle. The midwife knew what it meant, she finished wrapping up the baby her face a mask of satisfaction, not showing what was going on beneath.
Her gut was tied up in a knot. This was the child she had to take, but it was not the right time to do it. She had always thought it would be a child of older age, like eight, which she would have to cure form some illness. But not this, this was a baby. "It's a girl" she said while she passed the crying babe on to her mom. The midwife started packing her stuff "I'm very happy for you, and I'm sorry that I can't stay and share your joy, I have to check up on farmer Hemlings daughter, it could be any day now. Congratulations and I'll come by to check ever so often" hen she stepped out of the door leaving the happy couple with their new child, something they would die for if it would save her, something she was going to have to destroy. Her heart already felt painful in her chest just by the thought of such a low and dirty deed. She followed the moss covered flagstone road out of the town and into the forest, as the road changed into a carpet of leaves and pine needels, it made her footsteps soundless through the nightly forest. After a few minutes of intuitive walking through the dark she suddenly made a left turn on the edge of the road she kicked the undergrowth for a bit, then she made a step of the road and into the thicket and she disappeared.
She had entered a dark and narrow path, her footsteps silently trotting the bare earth of the well maintained way through the trees. These trees grew over to form a lush green, silent and beautiful tunnel by day and a pitch dark vegetative cave by night. The air had slowly turned cooler the last few minutes, and the midwife was hurrying to reach the yet unknown goal of her journey before it would start to rain.
The leaf enveloped path came to a dead end in the night against a cliff wall where the midwife stopped, she felt around moving her fingers over the rock like blind spiders. Once she had found what she was looking for a loud click sounded through the further absolute silence. She stepped inside a small cave little wider then the path she had just left just when the rain started to fall. With the rock closing seamlessly behind her she went forward feeling around until all of a sudden she found something familiar a light was lit, the midwife had picked up a lantern form a hook in the wall and looked down into a long dark tunnel. Again she strayed of the path, now it was to open a plain reinforced wooden door placed in the wall of a cave. She went through and stepped inside quite a spacious hall of smooth carved stone with a wooden inlaid floor, and the ceiling was filled with hanging dried herbs. In front of her there was a flight of steps and to her right hand a door, she dropped her bag on the ground a protesting sound form all the instruments suddenly hitting each other and took of her cloak which she hung on a peg in the wall.
Then she lit a small light with her lantern and when it burned properly she turned a small knob. Immediately multiple other lamps jumped to live basking the hall in a warm and welcoming glow. A sigh of relieve and relaxation escaped her as she walked into the room on her right, the room had a beautiful fire place and a bunch of random yet comfortable chairs that were grouped around a table which seemed at home here but one that would be out of place anywhere else but here, it's top was as smooth as a hill side view a bookcase was standing besides the fire place. This room was also flooded by the warm light, the trick she did with the few lamps in the hall had obviously worked here as well. Not visible because of the darkness outside were a bunch of small windows covered with clear crystal slabs providing a gorgeous view of the surrounding landscape, and the valley below. A small desk was standing under the window, with a bird stand on which a white pigeon was perched, looking around as if al he saw was his and his alone. "Don't look like that Baughb, this is my house and I feed you, you know".
She shuffled towards the fire place, she arranged the wooden logs and pieces of coal, and started lighting it with a skill unheard of in most people. Within seconds the fire was burning.
She turned to face the beautiful white pigeon and walked towards it. Without warning she grabbed it the bird uttering a small cry of protest Then she started talking to herself, or maybe to the bird "Life is one big lesson you 'know, every day you learn something new and unexpected. But today I even learned two things, neither of which was very unexpected. Lesson one, I should never have gone living so far out of the village. Ad lesson two, I should have never let myself in with you people. She pulled a small leather container from the pigeons leg, slowly and carefully to prevent the paper from ripping she wriggled out a small note. She looked at it for a few seconds then she tossed it into the fire.
She let herself fall in one of the chairs. "They found the two of them, have you heard?" She looked through the room her eyes scanning every spot, when her eyes hit a corner a man dressed in black robes of a strange fabric which looked like it was woven out of liquid shadows. "I always wonder how you manage find me every single time" he man said with quite a cheerful tone of voice, the women scowled at him before she started to grin, she stood up and gave the man a hug. "It's rather quite simple, Shadows that move like you do aren't normally shadows since shadows don't move at all" The man looked at her and spoke " shadows do move, look at the shadows of the chair they move because the flames move."
She laughed "silly little boy, the shadows don't move the flames just show another shadow which was already there in the first place, you create a shadow that isn't supposed to be where it is or where there's none supposed to be that are as big as you are."
The man laughed, his voice filling the room "I should have learned not to go into a discussion with you Till" The woman frowned "I don't like it when people call me Till. It makes me feel like a little child, you of all people should now that Jeany". Now it was the man's turn to frown he mumbled something about being old enough and walked through the room to sit down in one of the comfortable chairs next to her. Then his expression changed like a flash. "Did they find them so soon already?" Tillayneyh was again torn by the thought of the innocent child, she needed to tell him about her, but she didn't want to destroy their young happiness.
Jean gazed into her eyes; his dark Blue eyes always seemed to pierce her mind. But she stared back, her eyes were blue, bright clear blue. Her eyes had the same, piercing ability as her brothers.
His face didn't change it was hard an inquisitive. Then Tillayneyh, dropped her eyes, she stared at the ground, playing with the frill of her skirt. "I think I may have found the child" she muttered.
Jean rose to his feet, his face completely colourless.
He paced around the room, his face an expression of concentration.
When he started speaking he mad wild gestures with his arms, it was clear that he was in distress, "This is to soon! We haven't yet prepared. We are in trouble now, you have to take the child as soon as possible." She looked at him her face flushed with anger "She was born this very day and I'm not going to take her away so soon already. The child probably wouldn't survive, and I can't tell what would happen to her parents. It's their first child."
Jean froze his face a mask of anger and disbelief. He took two large steps and stood n front of Tillayneyh who was still sitting. "You have to take her as soon as possible, if you fail to do so, you have doomed us to darkness, and all we have worked for all this time is lost."
He now stepped away and he walked towards the corner from which he had appeared a few minutes ago. "A trader will stop and make camp not far from the village, he's heading for Crem. If you give him the child he'll refuse it, if you put it in his wagon he'll take her and give her away to someone who'll take reasonable care for her. After that she'll have a life of her own, but at least we now where to find her.
You know what you have to do."
He touched the shadow, or so it seemed. Then he spoke.
Slowly the shadows thickened and darkened around his hand, then he stepped in and disappeared.
Tillayneyh cried, She found it sad what she had to do.
She knew that if she did this she would have a hard time living with herself. Then she pulled herself together and got up.
She walked over to Baughb by the windows, there she sat down on the chair and started writing a note. It was short and simple and it didn't take long before she tied it to the pigeons leg.
"o now my bird and bring this message to him, he'll help her survive."
Then she left.
That same night a shadowy figure dressed in black robes was thought to have been stalking through the town.
The next morning a dead half eaten infant was found in the crib.
At the same time a travelling merchant found a crying baby girl in his cart.
"The deed is done, what had to be done is done. The task is done."
