A Scholar's travels with a Witcher

by Spike368

Sent out to gather the knowledge of the real world. A young scholar from the University of Oxenfurt finds a wounded Witcher on the steps to the inn where he was staying. So he starts gathering the material for his journals. Rated T for language I will be publishing this story on Royal Road /profile/349358

160. Chapter 160

We followed after the Schattenmann.

I can't speak for the others, but I was blinking furiously. The horrible groan that Oak-Leaf had given when the claws of the Schattenmann had ripped open her belly was still echoing in my head. People scream when they are in pain. Speaking as someone that has felt more than my fair share of pain, I can attest to this. Screaming is a way to try and fight off the pain. It is a weapon, a tool, against agony and that is how you fight it off.

But, also in my experience and luckily only looking at it from the outside, real agony is not accompanied by screaming. It is accompanied by guttural moans and grunts. It is a primal sound and a terrifying one that speaks to who and what we were before civilisation crept upon us.

I have never felt that kind of agony. The agony of pending death. The sight of an injury that you know is going to kill you just before the real pain hits you in the face. I have never felt that for myself although Jack showed me the agony of others. But I have seen it and I am ashamed to say that I have inflicted it on other people. Being a spear user means that more than a few belly wounds have been felt at my hands and if I have time, I always go back and see to it that I end the suffering of those that I have inflicted such agony.

That is how Oak-Leaf had died. The sight of that as well as the utter… not indifference, that the dryads had displayed. That wasn't what was happening. It was more… reverence. How could someone revere that? I had no idea. Having spent a bit of time coming to understand the dryads with Apple-Seed, Chestnut-Shell and the rest. It occurred to me that these women were sisters to Oak-Leaf. Not just colleagues but some of them were undoubtedly sisters, even lovers or parents. And they had watched as The Schattenmann had gutted her without thought. Without apparent effort even.

My brain started to catch up with what was going on here and I felt something starting to grow in the pit of my belly. A wave of old anger and rage that has carried me truly more often than it has tripped me up. That anger that I love and hate in equal measure.

The scientific mind is a wonderful thing and if you ever want an example of how my mind works, then this is likely to be as good as you are going to get.

It occurred to me that these people were attendants to The Schattenmann. This was the purest form of what those Attendants did. They taught the young dryads of their society about what it means to revere The Schattenmann. They maintain the paths and the places of safety for people being on their way to and from the Schattenmann. And then they come here. Oak-Leaf had seemed to suggest that they come here at the final culmination of their careers. Either as retirement or as the ultimate expression of their devotion to the Schattenmann.

So then it occurred to me, as it probably should have been done earlier, that Chestnut-Shell might very well end up here towards the end of her career. It wasn't certain, the Attendant that Chestnut-Shell had taken me to meet in the settlement had been older than these women seemed to be. So it was more than possible that Chestnut-Shell would never come here as her… passions led towards education and the change in her society. But the opposite was just as true. She could end up coming here. She could end up being one of these black-robed women who maintained the lights around the tree. Or she could end up being someone who the Schattenmann gutted in front of him as part of whatever sick rite that was.

Oak-Leaf had expected something like this. Her tears on the way here had emphasised this. Her fear and her trepidation as well as the support of the other dryads, from Cherry-Blossom especially. So this was not unusual. Therefore it had happened more than once. Therefore, it was almost expected to be common.

I also knew that expectations and professions as well as character traits were qualities that the dryads deliberately bred for. Attendants were probably going to give birth to Attendants and so on. Therefore, with Chestnut-Shell being an attendant and my own character and drive, there was a strong chance that our daughter would have similar ambitions and qualities. Following on from that, it was more than likely that our daughter would be an Attendant.

Therefore, it was more than likely that my daughter would end up here, on her knees, in front of the Schattenmann waiting for him to tear her guts out.

A fury the likes of which I cannot remember having seemed to bubble out of me.

"Hold on." I snarled.

The Schattenmann turned and looked at me. It wasn't Henrik, I could see that now. He looked different and he moved differently. When Henrik moved, he moved with a certain amount of grace but he also moved carefully with the movements of someone who is used to having great strength and broad shoulders. Which is fair coming from a man that chopped wood for a living. He also moved like an older man.

I don't know how to define that. The closest I can come is that he moved so that he didn't hurt himself. He took the easy way. When climbing over obstructions on the path, he would go a few paces out of his way so that he could climb over a lower part of the log. So that he would exert himself less. Whereas I would just scramble over, he would find the easier, more thoughtful route and therefore expend less effort. I suppose that it comes with experience or a desire not to do too much. Maybe it was an accommodation of an ageing body or whatever it might be. But the difference was there. Henrik moved around the world, taking the path of least resistance.

This man, this… figure or whoever it was moved as though he expected the rest of the world to move out of the way. Young men do that. I do that although I would like to think that I do that to a lesser degree.

There was also a hardness to this figure's eyes. Henrik was a good man I think. He was a kind man. Someone who had been through a lot, seen an awful lot and had also done an awful lot that he regretted. He was someone who was looking back over his life and deciding that he could have done better and although he might not have a great deal of time left, he was determined to be better for that period of time.

This man's eyes were hard and uncompromising. They weren't the eyes of a young man, these eyes were old, very old, cold and utterly uncompromising. I felt a shiver of fear run down my spine as I looked at them.

I have faced down a primal entity of fear. I have stood in the face of the Unseen Elder of the vampires and I have seen what the throat of a Dragon looks like as it takes a breath ready to incinerate me.

But I have never felt a terror quite like this one. It was a bucket of ice over my anger, a much-needed one.

He stood there looking at me for a long moment.

"Wwhhh…" I tried before swallowing. "What the…" My anger came to my rescue. "What the fuck was that?" I demanded, gesturing back at where someone was still collecting Oak-Leaf's spilt entrails.

The Schattenmann seemed to look over my shoulder a moment. Even though he had seemed to shrink without the mask and the antlers on, which were still tucked under his arm, by the way, he was still a tall man at somewhere over six feet tall.

"Power." He said. His voice was warm, deep and powerful. It had the intonation and the timbre of someone that had been trained in how to speak. He thought about things a bit more. "Sacrifice." He added. He had that thing that powerful people do where he seemed to want to properly taste his words, carefully sounding out each and every syllable. "Punishment and Warning." He finally added. "Yes, I think that's everything." He turned and started to lead us away again.

Different people react to fear in different ways. But the most basic of responses is to flee or to fight. I had made my effort at fighting. Kerrass is more careful with this kind of thing and was considering matters. He tries to never act rashly and there was only so much he could do here. So he was waiting.

Stefan is a fighter though, and he did not enjoy being made to feel afraid.

"Wait just a fucking minute." He bellowed, not helping himself by the fact that his voice squeaked at the end there.

The Schattenmann turned back and looked at him.

"You didn't answer my friend's question," Stefan growled. "I too would like to know why you killed a woman that saved my life on three separate occasions that I can think of."

"And she saved it again when you arrived." The Schattenmann said calmly. "And I did answer the questions. What you are frustrated with is a lack of understanding. That is not my problem. Your understanding can wait."He turned away again and took another couple of steps. I was going to follow I think. I was still making my mind up but I am pretty sure that I was going to follow. Kerrass was certainly going to follow. He was frowning in thought to be sure but he was going to follow.

Stefan drew his sword.

"You will explain now, sir." He demanded.

The Schattenmann turned back. He was still infuriatingly calm as he gazed at Stefan steadily. Then his eyes sank to the sword in Stefan's hands before his gaze lifted back up to look Stefan in the eye.

"And what are you going to do with that?" The Schattenmann asked.

"You will explain yourself, sir," Stefan said formally. You could tell he was upset due to his lapse into formal speech. "Or my sword will have your answer."

The Schattenmann nodded and started to walk towards the church warrior. He didn't move quickly but there was an inexorableness to it that caused Stefan to step back in surprise. Then another step and another to wind up his first strike.

I backed off. This was so far out of my remit that it was almost funny.

Kerrass gestured and a golden nimbus started to dance around him, the telltale sign of him erecting a small shield about himself.

Stefan struck.

The Schattenmann simply caught the descending sword, by the blade.

Stefan grunted with exertion before the Schattenmann seemed to give an off-handed little tug. It didn't look as though he used much effort, but it pulled the weapon out of the hands of a trained fighter before hurling it, with a similarly negligent gesture, far away and into the darkness where it landed with a distant thump.

"Are you finished?" The Schattenmann wondered with the air of a man that was becoming frustrated with a toddler or an unruly dog.

Stefan just gaped before massaging the wrist of the arm that had been holding the sword.

"Good." The Schattenmann said before turning to Kerrass. "I dislike petty enchantments in my presence. Providing you do not attack me or any of the attendants, you are in no danger and your past sins against me and my people are forgiven."

Kerrass nodded and dropped the shield but the Schattenmann was not watching. He had turned back to Stefan.

"Your safety was paid for by the death of a woman who took the blow upon herself. Something you seem to have a habit of allowing to happen. Now follow. I will not ask again."

He turned and moved off. We followed, even as Stefan looked in the direction of where his sword had flown.

He led us to a large… building. When I started writing I wanted to call it a hut. But that wasn't quite true. Nor was it a tent or any other kind of thing. It was a building, quite large, made largely out of canvas hanging off a wooden frame made from long branches of varying lengths that were tied together. As well as being covered with canvas, it was also covered with wood and forest debris. A firepit was burning in the middle of it, providing warmth and light, and there was a large… chair is the wrong term for it. Calling it a throne is also wide of the mark. It was something for sitting in but it seemed to be made out of different pieces of wood and bone that had been thrown together until it eventually turned into something that could be sat on.

There were two dryads that were waiting for us there. It was not lost on me that, although they wore the black robes of all of the other dryads that were hereabouts. They were also substantially younger than the others. Also slim and beautiful, even amongst other dryads.

I started to feel cold.

The two women walked up to the Schattenmann. One was carrying a large bowl of steaming water and some cloth that was draped over her shoulders. The other took the deer skull and antlers out of his hands before taking it somewhere and placing it on a large table that seemed to be set aside for that specific purpose.

The Schattenmann held his arm out, the one still covered in the gore of Oak-Leaf's death and the two ladies started to clean the gore off him. They really had to scrub at it too.

It reminded me of the Unseen Elder and the way he had attendants to clean him off when things got… messy. I almost giggled at the thought but the feeling wasn't quite right. With the Elder, the feeling was a display of power as he didn't really seem to care about his personal cleanliness otherwise. The Elder had been trying to get me to react in some way but here, it just had a feeling of utility, a chore that needed to be done.

The dirty water was taken out and disposed of while the other fetched a tray and placed some cups upon it. From a pot that was simmering on a stone next to the fire pit, the dryad ladled out four cups. She took one to Kerrass first before passing it to Stefan and myself before the Schattenmann was served last. As I always do in these circumstances, I watched Kerrass for a moment as he sniffed the drink and took a sip before nodding to me and I drank.

It was good. I have no idea what it was but it was good. Warming, refreshing and scoured the unpleasant feeling from the back of my throat.

I took a moment to study the Schattenmann before I realised that it really was a Firepit in the middle of the room. Not one of the heating bowls of the dryads but a real, honest to Flame Firepit. For reasons that I cannot define, it made me feel better.

I looked back up at the Schattenmann to see that he was watching me and not seeing anything immediately wrong with it, I stared right back at him.

He really did look like Henrik, with the same unruly beard, the same grey hair and the same dark eyes. He had the same powerful build as well as some of the same mannerisms. Not a great deal but there was definitely something there. But as I watched in the flickering firelight. I noticed some of the differences. This figure had more frown marks whereas Henrik had smiling lines in the corner of his eyes. There was a drawn nature to Henrik as well which, now that I know that he had been sick, I wondered if that was the first signs of the onset of some kind of illness.

The Schattenmann wore a dark, crudely made shirt that was torn off at the shoulders and over the top of that, he wore a long leather coat that flapped around his ankles. As is the case with some of these things, there were holes in the shoulders so that sleeves could be sewn on when Winter came. He wore trousers made out of some kind of animal skin and old, battered boots that were scuffed and marked from much use.

"Do I pass your inspection?" He wondered.

There was a hint of a smile in the question so I decided to ignore it.

"Who are you?" I wondered.

He nodded as though he had been expecting the question.

"One of the classics." He declared approvingly. He gestured at the table where the skull, headdress was resting. "When the hornéd one possesses me, I am the Schattenmann. The man of Shadows. I am he who skulks at night. Under your bed do I hide and just outside the shutters, waiting for you to get up from your bed. The man with the hands of blades, some villagers call me. Some call me the Eldest. Some others call me Master or Lord despite my insistence that they should not call me that."

"None of those things are answers," I told him. "So that is what and who you are when you put that on. But who are you?"

"The real truth of the matter is that I no longer remember." He said. "I am old now and my time is almost at a close. The seven years of service have nearly elapsed and I will go to my death happily and willingly."

"Seven years?" Kerrass wondered.

"Yes."

"Are we all forgetting something?" Stefan snarled, refinding his courage. "You killed Oak-Leaf. Why?"

The Schattenmann frowned. I have no other name for him at the moment so that is what I will continue to call him. As he frowned, the temperature dropped and the shadows in the room seemed to lengthen and flicker.

"She died," he bit the words off despite not really raising his voice and something strange, that was not just firelight, danced in his eyes. "Because she failed. She knew what the penalty was and she still allowed you to slay a perfectly innocent Arachas. Your companions are aware that the rules apply to them but you seem to be of the opinion that these things do not apply to you. Allow me to disabuse you of that notion."

"Then surely you should be punishing me," Stefan said. "I was the one that killed it."

The Schattenmann seemed to calm. "Yes, you did." He admitted. "Yes, you did. Tell me though, when a child misbehaves do you get angry at the child or do you get angry at the parent who fails to control the child?"

"You yell at the child." Kerrass said, "in order to deliver a short sharp shock and a warning. Then you rebuke the parent properly."

The Schattenmann winced. "Then perhaps it would be better to argue the case for the animal. When the dog…" He gestured at Stefan. "Attacks the child, you might get angry at the dog. But the person at fault is the one that holds the leash and trained the dog. She warned you, but you did not listen. You chose not to listen and the Arachas died. As a result of that, others died including dryads."

"But you controlled those animals. You sent them."

"I don't think you are listening. You are choosing to get angry just as you are choosing who to get angry at. I did not send them. The Schattenmann sent them. But even were that not the case… The animals and the dryads serve him the same way that you serve your God."

"You are not a God." Stefan declared.

"No, I am not." the man replied. "At best I am a priest. But why is the Schattenmann not a God I wonder? He certainly acts that way to many who…"

"You are getting off the topic…" Stefan snarled.

It got colder and the shadows deepened.

"Funny." The Schattenmann said, smiling with his mouth a little too wide for comfort. "I was thinking the same thing about you. Oak-Leaf failed and her punishment was that she would pay the price for that."

"But I was at fault."

"Yes, and that is your punishment." The Schattenmann said.

"That is unfair."

"Fairness has nothing to do with it." The Schattenmann replied. "Life is rarely fair. If you have an unruly child, or a dog, then you teach it with whatever tools you have available. You acted, and another died for that action. You tell yourself that you would take the punishment, but it is easy to be a martyr in that instance. It is much harder to live with your mistakes. You must learn to do that, young priest." He made those last two words drip with scorn despite the smile that seemed to be fixed on the Schattenmann's face.

After a moment, the shadows seemed to subside.

"You said sacrifice." The words squeaked out of my mouth. "You said that one of the reasons that Oak-Leaf died was because of a sacrifice."

"Yes." The Schattenmann said. A spasm crossed his face for a moment before it subsided. He seemed suddenly sad. "A sacrifice is necessary sometimes. And the sacrifice freely given is the most powerful sacrifice of all of them. The punishment was coming, she knew that. A sacrifice was needed as well, she knew that also. She took both onto herself."

He turned back to Stefan. "So not everything is about you. Another lesson that you need to learn."

Stefan was still recovering from some of the earlier comments.

"A sacrifice to whom?" I wondered. "And for what purpose."

"Nature is not always sunshine and rainbows." The Schattenmann replied, the strange light was back in his eyes. He looked… hungry. "Sometimes it is teeth and blood."

"That is not an answer." I countered. "I see you enjoy speaking in riddles. Who are you?"

"I see you know how to play the game."

"I had a good teacher," I replied. "Who are you?"

"Who taught you?"

"I have heard him called 'Old red eyes'."

There was a pause and once again, the shadows seemed to lengthen.

"You say that as someone who is proud of knowing someone who takes pleasure in inflicting pain on the weak. That enjoys being the nightmare that haunts the dreams of all that must walk down a pathway." The Schattenmann whispered. "But I would remind you, that he hides in the Shadow and I am not afraid of him."

Something told me to push. "Who are you?"

"I told you, I no longer remember." He sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes.

I guessed and took a shot in the dark.

"Your sister says hello," I told him. "Trayka is now called Yew-Branch of the dryads and is probably going to serve in the scouts."

He frowned and sat up again. He seemed to come into focus for a moment and some of the years seemed to fall off him. "Trayka, yes, I know that name. Trayka. His face brightened and he seemed to grow younger before my eyes. "My God, how is she?"

"She is well," I told him. "Although she is meant to be your older sister."

"And she is. But it has been a long seven years."

"Seven years is not a long time."

"That depends on your matter of perspective." Another spasm crossed his face and for a moment, he pressed his fists into his temples before he leant back in his seat. "Leave now. I am tired and need my rest. Thank you for the news about my sister. It gladdens my heart. Although it is obvious that she will never come here, still I am reassured that I will die before she might have come. That would have made matters… awkward."

A dryad tapped me on the shoulder and beckoned to me. "But…"

She shook her head and gestured over to the Schatttenmann who was now, clearly asleep, his head was lolling and he began to snore. The dryad put her finger to her mouth in that age-old gesture of silence and beckoned.

Stefan started when he saw what was happening. He wanted to protest I think but the dryad shook her head again, rather forcefully.

"Do not anger him." She whispered. "The Schattenmann is always angriest in his last days of the life of a host. We think that he grieves their loss and the necessity of it. It will not be long now and the Master is already very tired. Thank you though, I think your news brought him some measure of peace. Follow now."

She led us back outside.

"We can speak a bit more normally now." She told us.

"So what happens now?" I asked.

"Now is a time of testing."

"What for?" Stefan demanded, still a little sore from the schooling he had received from the Schattenmann I think.

The dryad stiffened. "Make no mistake," She told us. "Back in the dryad village, you were an honoured guest. Here, you are not. And unless you are very careful. There are those among us that will remember that your actions led to Oak-Leaf's death. I loved that girl and one of those people that you will need to be careful about is me."

Stefan glared.

The silence was less than entirely comfortable.

"What… uh…" I swallowed at my attempts to try and break the silence. "What efforts can we… Uhhh. What are going…"

Fuck it.

"What are we going to be tested for?" I asked, trying to make my voice seem a little supplicative. "I apologise if it's a rude question but there is so much going on here that I'm finding it all a bit…"

"You must be the favourite." She told me.

Kerrass sighed. "This must be what you feel like all the time Freddie. I have so many questions."

The dryad laughed, being shocked out of her temper.

"Come," She said. "This is not a conversation that should really happen around him." She gestured towards the pavilion, yes that's a better word for it, behind us.

She led us around the huge boulder. A couple of the robed women nodded to us, one or two even bowed. Most had their hoods up now and my feeling of being in a monastery deepened.

She led us to an open area.

"By my judgement, we have a few days before things will come to a head so there is no rush." She told us. "So rest. Food will be brought to you. You will need your strength in the days to come."

"What are we being tested for?" I asked again.

She sighed in exasperation. "Will it help you rest if I tell you?"

"Almost certainly not." I told her, as it will only lead to more questions."

She laughed at that. She seemed to be a woman of changing moods. She took her hood down and we saw a woman that looked to be in her late fifties or early sixties. Still handsome but her face was lined and her hair was grey.

"It starts with the body." She said. "Tests of endurance, strength and speed. And before you start trying to second guess things. This is not a case where you can succeed or fail at these things. It is more a case of assessing your capabilities. After that will come tests of your…" her eyes went a little vacant. "Cog-ni-tive abilities" her focus came back. Some of the tests are spiritual in nature and still, others are things that I do not understand."

"What?" Stefan started before taking a deep breath and turning his head to one side before looking back. "What are we being tested for? What is the purpose of these tests?"

"Why?" She wondered. "So you can figure out how to throw the tests. So that you can deliberately choose to fail them?"

Stefan laughed. At first, the dryad seemed angry with that until she realised that Stefan's laughter was genuine and then she smiled in return.

"No," He said. "Although that would be a good plan and I might steal it for the future. But I am not entirely stupid."

"He's just a bit out of his depth." Kerrass teased, going for the joke to lighten up the situation.

Stefan considered that. "Not an unfair comment." He decided.

The dryad smiled in answer. "Something worth remembering I think." She told him. "But I remind you that there is no right and no wrong way to answer these tests. They are just tests."

"And what do we win?" I asked.

"Life everlasting." She told me. "I will have food sent. Rest. Things will start to get interesting tomorrow. And remember that here, life is dictated by the Schattenmann. If either he, or his host, requests it, we attend upon him. Night or day, whether we want to or not. It doesn't matter if you are off defecating somewhere or if you are eating some soup. If he calls, we go."

She turned to leave.

"So the Schattenmann is a…" I wanted to say Parasite. "He requires a host to live. He's a symbiotic creature."

"I do not know what that word means." She said turning back. "But yes, the Schattenmann requires a host if he is to manifest on the world. Normally he is in the water that you drink and the air that you breathe. Her voice took on a reverential sound to it as she spoke. It was the same tone of voice that people use when they speak about the Holy Flame. "He is in the night sky and he is the dark of a warm bedroom when you lay down to sleep."

Her eyes became hard.

"He is also the darkness of the storm and the shadow cast by the rain cloud. So be warned. But when he must influence the world in a more physical way, then he requires a host. And yes, this ages the host and affects them hard. They age more rapidly than normal humans do or so I'm led to believe. Does that answer your question?"

"I think so," Stefan said. "Thank you."

"Rest now." She said again. "Take every opportunity that you can towards rest and contemplation. In the service of the Schattenmann, you never know when the next time that you can do that will come."

And so saying she left.

Stefan was nodding and looked around for a place to sit.

"So." He began. "We are being tested as to who the next host of the Schattenmann is going to be. This host is on his last legs, about to die and we are the candidates for the job."

"It seems that way," Kerrass said. He was looking at me.

A chill went down my spine. "And I am the favourite apparently." I realised. "Fuck." I looked out over the area around the tree and where we were. There weren't many dryads around but there was a real sense of people looking over at us. It gave me the same kind of feeling that I get whenever I am walking through the halls of Oxenfurt University now that I have accidentally become famous. 'There he is' the students say. 'That's the one that's friends with a Witcher and is going to be marrying a Vampire.' I could hear the dryads now. 'There he is, the one who we will be calling Master.'

I managed to keep myself from sobbing. But only just. Ariadne felt very far away.

"So," Stefan said, a little too smugly for my opinions. "Now can I convince the two of you to work on an escape plan?"

"I don't think there's much to plan," Kerrass said, sighing as he say down behind me. I had turned away so that neither of them would see my face. We don't know which direction to head, we have no supplies and we will be cut down the moment we make a move."

"Almost like they planned it." Stefan was clearly trying really hard not to say 'I told you so.'

"I think it would be fairer to say that they've been doing this a long time," Kerrass told him.

"So what do we do?" Stefan said. "It's pretty obvious as to what we are being tested for, do we throw the tests?"

"We can't do that," I told him, feeling my brain working again after the shock of fear. Whether I wanted it to or not. There was a problem that needed addressing so I was going to do it. "Remember all of the things that could happen to people that come here. We know that some leave, I agree that it is an option that someone will be chosen to be the next Schattenmann. But there is also an option that people are killed. It was suggested that people that do that end up with that are the people that have sinned against the Schattenmann in some way, but it could also be said that these people are in tune with nature. If they decide that we are too sick to survive, they might just look at it in the same way that a farmer might kill a sick animal to improve the stock. There is a reason that there is a term 'culling the herd' after all."

"Gardners do the same thing," Kerrass said. "As do Alchemists. If there is a problematic strain of plants, then cut it out and destroy it. If they test us and we are found wanting, they will kill us."

I shook my head and turned back to them.

"We play the game," I told the pair of them. "Don't get me wrong, if the perfect opportunity comes to try and make an escape, we take it. We know that we can't attack, I assume you weren't pulling your blows there Stefan?"

"I was not," Stefan admitted. "Hitting him was like hitting an armoured knight at full gallop. I can still feel my arm tingling."

"And that is when he wasn't possessed." I shook my head again. "There are far too many dryads and although these people are older than the others, some are younger I notice and still others will be veterans. An escape would need to be lucky."

"I hate to ask Kerrass." Stefan began. "But my sword is steel, would Silver be better?"

"I doubt it. He is human I am sure of it, even if he is clearly insane. My medallion does not shake around him so he is a natural thing and there is no magic in him. If the Schattenmann is in him? Or could I strike when the Schattenmann is in the process of possessing? I don't know. It would not be a matter for experimentation. That would be a last-ditch effort at best and it might get us all killed regardless."

I nodded.

"Then it seems that I am likely to throw myself on my sword again," I told the pair of them. "I knew that life following a Witcher around might lead to my death but…"

And I couldn't keep my control anymore and the tears tumbled down my cheeks and my words caught in my throat.

It took me a short while to control myself. "Look at it this way," I told them. "Maybe I can influence the matter. Try and get the Schattenmann to understand a bit more about the world and the damage this is all doing to the dryads. Maybe I can get him to let some other people in and… It might not be the worst that it's for me."

"That's good," Stefan said. "Acceptance is good. It is the first stage towards dealing with the…"

"That's it," Kerrass bellowed in a sudden rage. "Stand up."

"What?"

"Stand up so I can kick your ass you fucking coward." I've seen Kerrass angry before but… It was the first time in a long time that I thought I had seen his fangs. I still don't know if they're real or a figment of my imagination.

"Kerrass," I tried. "This isn't…"

"And you," he spat at me, "At some point in the future, you and I are going to talk about that Martyr complex of yours." He turned back to Stefan. "Come on, stand up."

Stefan was appalled.

"I was only trying to…"

"Trying to what you unspeakable piece of excrement." Kerrass snarled. "Help? If you really wanted to help, you would be trying to think of a way to get Freddie out of this. Including whether or not you could take this burden off him. He has done everything for you, what have you done for him."

"I will carry word to…"

"Carry word." Kerrass mimicked. "Fuck off. You couldn't carry water in a bucket. You would tell people what happened and you will always try and insist that if we had just listened to you then all of this would have been avoided. You will paint me as the negligent Witcher and yourself as the misguided genius. You won't carry word, you will taint the reputation of the scholar and make it so that everyone will assume that he was lying about his skills and his deeds."

"I will not be a vehicle for darkness," Stefan said, slowly coming to his feet. "I won't do it. If Freddie is willing then…"

"Don't call him that," Kerrass growled. "Only his friends call him that. You don't get to call him that."

"Or you'll what." Stefan was working himself up as well.

"Well I was going to knock your teeth in for a start and…"

"Try it," Stefan growled, raising his fists.

"THAT'S ENOUGH." A dryad was nearby with a spear and I saw others running to join her. "That's enough, both of you."

"Where's my sword?" Stefan demanded. "I need to kill a criminal and a vagabond."

"You are both criminals and vagabonds here." She told him. "And your sword belongs to us now. You have clearly misunderstood what is happening here. This is a time of great importance to us and we will NOT ALLOW YOU TO RUIN THIS MOMENT."

She stalked up to Stefan. "YOU SHAME THE WOMAN THAT DIED SO THAT YOU MIGHT LIVE." Spittle sprayed from her mouth and Stefan stepped back in horror before the woman's rage. "AND YOU SHAME THE MAN THAT IS WILLING TO GIVE UP HIS EVERYTHING SO THAT YOU CAN LIVE." She took another step forward and Stefan took another step back before the sheer fury of the woman. Another two dryads stood in front of Kerrass with their spears levelled at him but it was clear what they were watching.

The lead dryad was still not done. "AND YOU SHAME THE SUN WHICH YOU CLAIM TO WORSHIP. SHE WOULD TURN HER GAZE FROM YOU IN DISGUST BUT SHE IS BETTER THAN YOU GIVE HER CREDIT FOR."

"The Sun is not…" Stefan spoke in what looked to be an automatic response.

"Not what? Female? Then you are more stupid than you look and your petty little religion is more ignorant than we give it credit for." She said, turning her back on him. Stefan went to get angry and the last shred of respect I had for him seemed to vanish. He was moving to the attack now that she had turned away.

I shouted a warning but she was already spinning back to face him.

He backed down. Two other dryads advanced on him, spear points level.

"It is clear that the three of you cannot be trusted not to interfere in these, our most sacred rites." She told the three of us. "You, warrior monk will be taken to a place of contemplation where you may think upon your crimes against your saviour and your friends. You, Witcher, your temper is understandable in light of the fear for your friend but we would expect one such as you to have better control over it."

Kerrass nodded his acceptance of the point.

"You will be taken to a private area where you too can contemplate what has happened. Your treatment will be better than the warrior monk. But it will not be easy. Both of you should come to terms with the fact that your arrival here was inevitable from the moment that you set out. The only thing that you could have done to not be here at the end of your journey was to die upon that path.

"You, Scholar. You will be treated with kindness and respect. You have earned it."

She addressed the three of us.

"I will answer your unspoken questions though, to teach you a lesson that you all sorely need if for no other reason. The Schattenmann is not like us. He doesn't think like us or act like us. You are right that he will choose his next host from among the three of you as well as some other candidates. But there is no telling what qualities he is looking for or how he makes his final choice. We know that he generally doesn't use Witchers though so if you are betting people, he will not choose the Witcher."

"I will not be a vehicle for…" Stefan tried before he was poked in the chest with a spear.

"Yes yes, I heard. You are assuming of course that you will be given a choice. From everything I've heard, you assume a lot in that direction." She gestured and Stefan was escorted away. Kerrass looked at me, his face stricken.

"I am sorry Freddie." He said before turning and being escorted away.

I watched him go.

"Will I ever see them again?" I wondered aloud, not really expecting an answer.

"Yes." The leader told me. "At the last. Come with me."

I did as I was told.

On balance, I think I've been more miserable, but not by much.

"Where are we going?" I wondered.

"To the place that is prepared for you."

"Do you enjoy being cryptic or…" I snapped before I realised what was happening. "Sorry."

"It's alright. I don't criticise people that speak from a place of fear unless to point out that the fear is unreasonable. And in your case, I absolutely understand the fear."

"I do not want to be the host for the Schattenmann."

"No one ever does. No one who comes here ever sits down and says 'I want to be the next Schattenmann' but I will let you into a little secret. No one has ever had cause to complain."

"That seems like a generalisation."

"And it is. But it is also true."

"Men come here regularly though. I was led to believe that the pilgrimage is made at every festival. The Solstices and the Equinox."

"And that is true, but not all of these pilgrims contain men. Some are just dryads that are called to serve and still, others are just an excuse to bring us some supplies."

"So what happens to those that are not chosen?"

"Asking for your friends?"

"Mostly. Also out of curiosity. And also to distract myself."

"Sometimes they die." She admitted. "Sometimes they are sent away but we never get to find out where."

She led me on a long walk around the place. We stopped in one area where we found a pair of dryads with some rakes. They were carefully carving patterns into the ground. When I looked, it looked as though they were carving the sea itself as the patterns depicted waves and the spirals of moving water. Individual stones acted as islands in the artistic chaos. But they were being so careful about it. It struck me that the entire thing could have been made in a matter of moments, but then, I supposed, the patterns would become a lot more ragged.

One of the two dryads working on it saw us and hopped over the pattern that she was working on to approach. The dryad who I was with introduced me to her as "one of the potentials". I did not like the sound of that. I also noticed that neither my guide nor the woman that I was being introduced to gave their names.

This woman would, if she was human, be in her thirties somewhere. She was happy, smiling and rounder of shape than most of the dryads that I had seen thus far. She laughed and wished me all the best. She and my guide spoke about the other dryad who was far too focused on her work to even notice that we were there. Apparently 'the young can be like that sometimes. The raking woman bowed to me and wished me well before moving on.

My sense of being in a monastery was deepening even further.

My guide took me around a corner and there I found rows of vegetables planted in the ground, all of them carefully placed according to what was needed. I saw a glasshouse as well as some wooden climbing frames for beans and peas. There were a number of dryads working and my guide cleared her throat. One of the women put down her gardening tools and approached. She was much younger than any of the others with dark hair and a smooth face. She looked at me with an appraising eye. The two women spoke of small things and about the latest harvest which was, apparently, looking hopeful. I could no longer help myself and a question bubbled up to the surface of my mind before exploding out of my mouth.

"I thought that you needed sun in order to grow things." I blurted without any sense of courtesy or decorum. "And yet it is dark and gloomy down here. How do you grow such things?"

"Damned if I know." The gardener sniffed and I found that I liked her. I tried to squash the feeling. These people were not my friends. "My predecessor as master of gardens told me that it was something to do with the rock," She gestured at the boulder that the tree grew out of, "and the ground that we grow it in. The roots of the tree or suchlike. But I think that the truth is that she didn't know either." She sniffed again. "Is that all or can I get back to work?"

I was astonished that she seemed to ask the question of me. I made a, hopefully, generic gesture and she took it as a dismissal.

"I think she likes you." my guide said as she led me away.

"What makes you say that?"

"She waited for a response from you." And she led me off. As we walked, a dryad ran up to me and pushed an apple into my hand before giving a nervous little bob of a curtsy and running off. If I had to guess I would have thought she was somewhere in her forties.

"You should eat the apple." My guide said. She didn't explain why but as there was no reason not to, I ate the apple and it was delicious.

Versions of that happened a couple of times. Someone else was brewing something and they came over with a small cup of the strongest moonshine that I've ever tasted. Strongest and most mellow. It was insane and honestly left me feeling a little strange. As we walked around, more and more people were just taking the time to walk up to me and introduce themselves without giving me any names. Saying hello or otherwise letting me know that they were there. It was strangely endearing.

I saw many things about their way of life. I saw the area where they butchered their food. Again, I had slipped into the assumption that the dryads would be vegetarian but it seemed that they ate animal meat just as much as the next walking person. Pigs, chickens, sheep and cows were all kept in the depths of the forest. The bowl was big enough to contain the herds of these animals and my brain did its best to rebel at the sheer size of it all.

I walked through what was described to me as the "meditation area" and I was warned to be quiet. Lots of women perched on small boulders or in random areas. There was a stream running through the bowl, crater or whatever it was that we were in. I tracked its movement and it flowed down and into the base of the rock where it fed, presumably, the great tree. Some dryads sat near the water as it cascaded over other small rocks and embankments. As I watched, a couple of the women washed clothes in it and another was fishing with a line and tackle.

"We use another stream for drinking water." My guide seemed to have a strange ability to read my mind.

All of that and I still felt as though I had only seen a fraction of what the great tree had to offer. This community of dryad attendants living together and, well, worshipping together.

Gradually though, she brought me back to that area where we had initially been told to rest. Kerrass, Stefan and our things had been taken away. However, now there was a nearby pavilion to which I was led.

"We thought you would want some privacy." She told me before lifting the flap of the pavilion open and gesturing me inside.

Inside, was a large bed, a small table and a couple of chairs as well as a bath that was steaming.

"We also thought you might like a bath." She said. I wondered about that and found that I felt grimy and nodded my gratitude, propping my spear on the rack that was aside for it.

"The water will not grow cold." She told me. "Would you like me to find you an attractive attendant to scrub your back?"

I looked at her sharply but she seemed unperturbed.

"No thank you," I told her, unable to keep the hostility from my voice. She nodded without her expression changing.

"Then I shall return in a little while with some food. I will ask a horrible question now, but do I need to remove your weapons, either for your safety or the safety of others?"

I considered the question and soon saw what she was getting at.

"No," I said. "If I turned my weapon on myself then I would only be consigning someone else to the fate of… whatever. And if I attacked someone else, then it would make no difference. I am a long way from home and a long way from help."

She nodded her acceptance of that.

"Then I shall leave you to your rest and your bath. The food will be about an hour. Someone will give you a warning to ensure that you are not naked and still in the bath."

She pointed out the stuff that was used for soap and the cloth that was used for a towel before leaving. I took advantage of the bath and I will not hide it from you reader. I also took the opportunity to try and reach Ariadne. And when that didn't work I wept for quite a long time.

You can only do that for so long though and eventually I stopped and set about cleaning myself. The water did indeed stay warm.

Someone came to warn me about the imminence of food being delivered by virtue of knocking on the wooden board that was hung next to the gate and hollering into the tent. That was reassuringly normal for this kind of thing and I was able to climb out and dry myself in time for my guide to come in with a couple of women who lay out a couple of steaming loaves of fresh bread, a small bowl of butter and a tray of meat, dripping in gravy. There was also another bowl of green vegetables and a jug of watered wine that was absolutely delicious.

"Do you mind if I join you?" My guide asked me.

"Would it matter if I said no?"

"Of course, it would. We're sometimes savage but that doesn't make us savages."

I gestured at the chair opposite. "I have questions anyway."

She smiled.

"I thought you might."

I ate for a while as the food really was delicious and tried to decide what to ask first.

"So are you my jailor, or my guide?"

"Is it impossible to be both?" She said, making a sandwich of two bits of bread and stuffing meat, greens and grainy mustard inside. She looked up and laughed. "In your case, I am a guide should you want one, or need one. I will take you to where you need to go and will address any questions that you might have. As far as I can anyway."

"And where is Kerrass?"

"I notice that you don't ask about your other friend."

"Unfortunately, and disappointingly, he has proven that he doesn't care for me that much, so why should I care about him."

"That is anger talking, but I will not argue. He is scared. He is meeting an enemy that he can't hit with a sword and he still believes all the stories that his nanny told him about good triumphing over evil."

"You are well informed."

"The roots of the Black Forest run deep."

"Do you know how sinister that sounds?"

She laughed at me. "I do, and I am joking. The truth is that this is not a new situation for us. This kind of thing has been happening for centuries. One man every seven years give or take a few days is a lot of men. Self-Righteous, terrified men thinking that someone else should make the sacrifice rather than themselves… it's not a new thing. Everyone is far too important to sacrifice themselves in their own heads. You people laud self-sacrifice but so few of you are willing to do it."

"So why should I not be afraid. Your little tour was not as reassuring as you might think."

"That's a shame." She began. "I was hoping to show you that life here can be quite fulfilling and to try and calm you down. But I was also getting you away from your friends in an effort to ensure that we could do what needs to be done with them without further problems. And also to arrange your tent."

"What needs to be done?" I asked, trying to put some threat into my voice.

"Yes. Separating them with as little violence as possible and taking them off to a place of safety. Safety of us from them, them from us and them from each other. It's harder than it sounds."

"And I notice that you haven't answered my other question. Why should I not be afraid?"

She grinned, a little lopsidedly.

"I can't tell you everything." She told me, raising her hands to forestall my warning. "And that's because I don't know everything. The Schattenmann can answer some questions should he decide to. What I can point out is… a couple of things. The first is that seven years is a long time, a long long time. And if you are chosen to be the next Schattenmann… Because that's what you will be. It is wrong to think of yourself as a host or whatever it is to be. You are the physical representation of the Schattenmann. Being the Schattenmann means that you live those seven years.

"You will learn more, experience more and dare I say it, enjoy more in those seven years than you can easily dream. I have sat and talked with the Schattenmann after he has taken his mask off, for hours and even though he was a young human, he has taught me more about life and living than I can easily explain.

"And yes. You should prepare yourself for the very real possibility that the Schattenmann might choose you as his next… I prefer the term 'vessel'. But when the candidates are lined up in front of him, there is no telling, at any given moment, what he is going to choose to care about. We can never tell what he is going to decide. You might be the current favourite based on the experiences of some scouts and scouting attendants. But when you are actually there, in front of the Man of Shadows. All of that is just dust in the wind. And both you and, to be fair, they, should remember that."

"So there is hope?" I wondered.

She laughed. Again. In comparison to the gardener woman, I was coming to dislike this woman. I found her to be smug and a little arrogant. She reminded me of me.

"Hope?" She said. "Hope for what? The Schattenmann might decide that you are better off dead than his 'host'." She rose and finished her drink before turning to leave. "I will leave you to your thoughts and, may I suggest, your rest. Would you like a woman sent to you?"

"No," I snapped. "The only woman I want is not someone you could reach. And I will have no one that needs to be sent to me."

She laughed but waved her hand when she saw how offended I was. "I apologise. There is much here that you do not understand. I will come for you in the morning."

Then she left me, as she said, with my thoughts.

There comes a time in the evening when there is nothing to do other than go to bed. I had eaten, I had cleaned myself, I had tried to take some notes but it became clear, fairly quickly, that I wasn't going to be able to concentrate enough to do anything useful and so there was nothing else to do other than to go to bed.

So I did, and I am forced to admit that I have slept in much less comfortable beds.

I did dream and it was about the clearing. I have fewer memories about it than I do of some of the other dreams of the clearing. I knew that Kerrass was elsewhere and that there was a predator in the tree line watching me. It was later in the night. I got the feeling that I had slept for a few hours and the fire had burned down to some low embers. I rose, threw some more fuel onto the fire and stirred it back into life until the flames leapt up to drive back the darkness.

But the thing in the trees was unafraid of the light.

I woke to be shaken by a dryad. I don't think I had met her before but what with all of the dryads in this vicinity wearing the same clothes and only being different according to the jobs that they were doing. It was another sign of the homogenous nature of their society and race in that one of the main ways that you can tell them apart is by their hair colour and their body shape. Otherwise, they are all slim and muscled for their build, have beautiful faces and large eyes full of expression. So when their hair and the overall shape of their face are covered by a hood and their body is wrapped in a voluminous black cloak, there is much less to see in order to be able to tell them apart.

This one seemed younger than most of the others that I had met around the great tree. She smiled and apologised for shaking me awake but pointed out that she had had some difficulty rousing me otherwise. She pointed at the steaming bowl of porridge on the table as well as a couple of other pots and things before she left before I could ask her anything.

I dressed and investigated the pots. There was a pot of honey and another pot of some kind of jam. There was also some salt on the table, presumably if I wanted a more savoury porridge and some more of the vast amount of herbal drinks that they seemed to serve here in the black forest. It took me a while, but in the end, I managed to convince myself that I would need the strength and I sat down to eat.

My guide entered the tent as though she was a returning Queen and sat down at the table. I bristled as she pulled over another bowl and helped herself to the pot of porridge before adding some gam and stirring the bowl vigorously.

"You don't mind, do you? I've not eaten anything yet today." She said this before spooning a large amount into her mouth and catching some bits that escaped with the edge of her spoon.

"Would it matter if I did?" I was not consciously mirroring the conversation from the previous day but sometimes these things happen

"Of course, it would." She said with a smile.

"Why? I am your captive."

She smiled and I sensed that I was being made fun of.

"Yes, you are." She said. "But you are also our guest of honour."

"All of these contradictions are making my head hurt."

"Well, lucky for you, I am taking you for your first set of tests, and the lady that we will be going to see will explain more. She is far better at that kind of thing than I am."

She shovelled another spoonful of porridge into her mouth before looking at me slyly.

"I notice that you haven't told me that you would like a different guide, or jailor if you prefer."

I ignored that question. "How are my friends?"

"Physically they are fine. The Witcher is alright and last time I checked with his minder, he was sitting and doing whatever it is that Witchers pass off as being meditating. He ate his food without comment and engaged the others in conversation. The other one, the religious man, was last seen pacing. He has ignored his food and snapped at his minders. He seems to be having some kind of crisis of faith." She shrugged. "From my thinking, he kind of has it coming. Still," she shrugged. "Are you done?"

I found that I was. I had the suspicion that she was doing this with her behaviour deliberately. I felt like I was having my emotions and feelings toyed with and that this dryad was deliberately trying to keep me off balance and off centre so that I didn't question everything that was going on. I felt a desperate need to take back control of things. The most obvious way to do that was to see if she was bluffing with the whole 'Can I have a new guide thing'. But there was the sense of allowing myself to double bluff and tie myself in knots with that. Would I be playing into her hands if I asked for a new guide, was that part of the manipulation? I didn't know.

I resolved to stick with this one for now on the grounds that it is better for the demon that you know rather than the one that you might get. I also decided that if I got offered a woman to scrub my back or to warm my bed or for whatever other suggestive thing that they were going with, I would accept and ask that one all my questions. They would know how I felt about such things from past interactions so surely, that would be acting differently from how they expected.

I decided that my small act of rebellion in this case was to eat a bit more porridge. I took my time about it too. She sat there and watched with a faintish smile on her face.

When I did, eventually, decide that I was done, we left the tent and a couple of the other dryads went in. One of them had an armload of linen. It is something of interesting insight into my own mental viewpoint that when I am in my own castle, I don't notice servants. I have commented on that being a weakness of the noble class before. But when I am out on the road, I am much happier if I take care of my own bed. So seeing the dryads waiting on me felt a little uncomfortable. But I said nothing.

My guide led me on a sunwise route around the great tree which is where I found the dryad orchard. This being the spring, the workers mostly seemed to be doing various maintenance pieces of work, cleaning things off, tidying and pruning ahead of… whatever happened next. After weaving through those trees she led me into a thicker, more cultivated but still wildish patch of woodland. It reminded me of the hunting reserve that my Father had.

I had been thinking a lot about Father during the immediate time and that was roughly when I first noticed it. But he would have liked that place. Even more so when we found pigs, chickens and some deer in those woods.

During the whole walk which took, maybe a half an hour give or take, I again noticed a lot of strangeness in the way that people were interacting with me. Dryads would stop in the middle of their work, put down whatever it was that they were doing and just stare at me in wonderment. A couple of times I stopped and stared back until the dryad noticed that I was looking and scurried off about her tasks. I watched one go until I could hear my guide chuckling to herself as she watched me.

One dryad, whose face I couldn't see but was remarkably tall, stood there and stared straight back at me until the guide cleared her throat.

As I was on my way towards wherever it was that we were going, we did see Kerrass. He was walking along, a little distance from us with his head bowed, obviously deep in thought. He had both swords on his back and his left hand rested on the harness. I called out to him before my guide could stop me but he didn't hear me. He had his own guide as well, walking along at his side. I went to go and talk to him but my guide caught my arm and shook her head. When I turned back, absolutely intending to chase after Kerrass, he had gone.

I was led through the smaller, artificial forest within a forest until we came to a large Sycamore tree. It was an odd thing to find as it seemed a little out of place in the Black Forest. I am not as knowledgeable about tree types and species as I could be, especially not when it comes to the Nilfgaardian Empire. But I do know that it was unusual that a Sycamore tree is found this far south. I tried to remember the last time that I had seen one and it had been a while.

A dryad came out to meet us and she and my guide hugged each other in greeting.

"How's she doing?" Asked my guide.

"She is tired," the newcomer said. "It is all but certain now that this will be the last time that she sees a change and we will need a new Elder."

My guide nodded.

"I will leave you here." My guide said. "When you are done, just start walking and I shall come and get you."

My increasingly rebellious side made me ask. "In what direction?"

She laughed. "In any direction. Try and lose me if you like. It will make for a fun diversion."

And then she left. She seemed to leave at a much higher speed than she had when we had arrived. The newcomer seemed to notice me watching.

"She is uncomfortable around my mother." She said, pulling her hood back to display a relatively young face for the surrounding area. "Most dryads are."

"Why?"

The dryad laughed musically. "For the same reason that humans don't like to be around old people. My mother reminds them of their mortality."

"But you are not bothered?"

The woman shrugged. "She is my mother. Of course, I am bothered by it, but she is my mother and it would break my heart if I left her alone at a time like this."

"What's your name?"

The dryad shook her head. "No names in the heart of the forest."

"How do you tell each other apart?"

The woman shrugged. "We just know and to forestall the next question. In the heart of the forest, identity is not important. Come, my mother is waiting for you. She has already met the Witcher and she is anxious to meet you."

"That always bodes well," I muttered as she turned.

She led me around the tree, through and over the various root systems so that I had to carefully watch where I was putting my feet until we came to a little sheltered spot.

It was kind of like a garden. It reminded me of my mother's rose garden when she was passionate about that small part of the castle grounds all that time ago. There were some small flower beds there, a couple of comfortable chairs and there was a small covered area that had some trays and plates of food laid out.

Wiser people than me who know more about this kind of thing than I could even dream, have told me that such gardens need some kind of focus about them. Generally, this is a statue or a seat or a sundial. In very wealthy areas like the palace of Beauclair, there might be several different focal points and that one of them might be some kind of magical water feature.

The focus of this particular place seemed to be the tree.

It was a nice little area. It seemed sheltered although the only real wind that I had felt in the area around the heart tree was a light breeze that had barely been enough to ruffle my hair, I also got the impression that it would be sheltered from rain and other weather things. It had the feeling of the kind of place where I would like to curl up in a blanket with a book and a hot drink of some kind.

I must have looked a bit confused as my new guide gestured towards the tree.

"May I present my mother."

I blinked and then gave a kind of nervous yelp as the tree opened her eyes.

The guide and the tree both laughed at me.

"Holy Flame," I swore, "You scared the crap out of me."

My protest did not seem to lessen the laughter.

"You did that on purpose," I accused.

"When you get to my age," said the tree, "you take the pleasures where you can find them. Please sit."

I should explain what was happening there.

I don't like optical illusions. There is a particular school of artwork where a picture might show something like a woman with long hair, riding a horse along a forest road with her cloak billowing behind her. But then you kind of blink and suddenly, it is no longer a picture of the woman on the horseback. Suddenly it is the face of an old man looking down and out with a sad expression on his face.

The really good pictures like this have multiple different things hidden within the overall picture. The picture of the woman on the horseback might then turn out to be completely made out of separate small candle flames.

I hate that. I don't know why but they tend to make me feel quite uncomfortable. Not least because I find my gaze drawn to them.

Much worse though are those pictures that are just a jumble of shapes and squiggles and you stand there looking at them for hours on end before a person standing next to you will declare loudly that it is a picture of a child playing with a cat. I never see these things and I remain convinced that it is all some kind of practical joke that other people are playing on me.

That was the feeling that I had here.

I was looking at the tree and at the first, it looked like any other tree that you might see around the place, a bit older and a bit more gnarled than you might strictly be used to or that is allowed to exist in nature. Then as I looked at it, there was an itching feeling on the edge of my consciousness that suggested that there was more going on with this particular tree than I might have seen at first sight. It was like there was an extra gnarled collection of growth that seemed to form on the side of the trunk. Then I saw that it was not a growth, but it was closer to being a carving of an old woman that seemed to flow out of the tree. As though she was part of the tree itself and was being pulled out of the main trunk of the tree, or being pulled into the tree.

More detail occurred to me as I looked. I could see that the old woman was sitting on something, as though she had perched somewhere to take her weight off and had just stopped for a rest. One arm had seemed to hang down by her side and that seemed to have been completely absorbed by the trunk of the tree while the other arm and hand was placed on a lap.

It was suddenly so cleverly done that I wondered who the artist was so that I could shake them by the hand before punching them in the face for being that talented and subversive.

And it was this carving that opened her eyes and looked at me.

It took me a moment to catch up before allowing myself to be led to one of the chairs facing the old woman. The arm on her lap raised up and I shook her offered hand. The hand felt warm and leathery with a rough texture, as though I was running my hand over old wood that had been touched by hundreds of people before me.

"Please sit." She said, her voice was deep and melodious.

"I sense I am being mocked," I informed her as I did as I was told. Growing up, my mother was a remote figure and as such, I only got sent to her when I was falling behind in certain studies that Father didn't care enough about and didn't fall under Mark's remit of being the family priest. My Father's mother, the woman that I think of as being my Grandmother (I am eternally grateful that I didn't meet my Mother's mother.) was not really an authority figure and as such, she was never someone that I would sit before in order for her to hold court. When she was alive she was too busy marvelling at the fact that she had married a farmer who had moved her to a manor house before she had given birth to a son who had moved her to a castle. She was having far too much fun to be a disciplinarian and when she started to get really ill, she didn't have the heart.

But I felt like I was sitting before a Grandmother. The woman's daughter bustled around behind us, pouring tea with the telltale sounds of a spoon stirring a cup and being tapped against the rim of the cup.

"You are being mocked," the old tree told me. "But only gently and only with the best intentions."

"Oh?" I accepted the cup as it was offered to me, took a sip and grimaced as it was a little too sweet for my comfort.

"I have been speaking to all of the young men that have come to the heart of the forest since before your Father was born which was when I made my pilgrimage here. And before that, I was regularly put in charge of dealing with those people that had gone to the forest and were surprised by the presence of dryads. I understand that one of my Great-Granddaughters performs that duty now. She was called Elm-Branch then."

I looked back at the woman described as being a daughter. She was younger than I would expect someone to be who had Grandchildren of my own. She laughed at me.

"Not my descendant," the daughter told me. "When last I got news, I still only have daughters, not granddaughters."

"We age differently to humans, and Elves for that matter." The Elder told me. "We are fertile for a lot longer and remain of childbearing age for longer than you can conceive. And if we survive, we can live longer than even we can easily comprehend."

"How old are you?" I wondered with what I hoped was suitable reverence.

She smiled as she accepted her own cup from her daughter. The daughter had poured a packet of white powder into the cup that was then stirred. The Elder took the cup, sipped it and grimaced before nodding some thanks to her daughter.

"A lady never tells her age," she told me. "And a gentleman is never supposed to ask."

"I have done many things that a gentleman is not supposed to do," I told her. "Including getting into fights, acknowledging that magic users are real, treating non-humans as equals… or at least I hope I do that and going into dangerous places when I could just as easily have sent someone else to do the job that I don't want to do."

The Elder smiled at me.

"I would put myself at a little over a hundred and twenty years old. I was born a dryad to a woodsman and a dryad who had been human when she was taken. She was an assistant to a healer when she was a younger girl but was described as a dreamer really. According to those that knew her, she would often go wandering into the depths of the woodland to be alone.

"I miss her every day.

"I am older than I ever expected to be. I have lost friends to outside attackers, the creatures that you would describe as monsters, not entirely incorrectly, and still others that have gone to their trees and become part of them with age. I have lost children to that fate."

"I am sorry."

"Don't be. The process is uncomfortable but it is far from painful. It is peaceful and restful."

"So where does the discomfort come from?"

She smirked but the daughter answered for her.

"My mother's muscles are atrophying. She has sat there for about a decade now. Do you know that feeling when you wake up after a long night's sleep and you desperately want to stretch? Imagine that feeling amplified and then know that you cannot move."

"That is it," said the Elder. "What I would give to be able to get up and walk around. I sleep more and more now of course. Today is the longest I have been awake for some time. Soon, very soon now I shall close my eyes and my mind will finally be absorbed into the consciousness of the tree and through that tree, into the forest itself."

She skewered me with a look.

"Do not feel sorry for me. I am astonished that I have lived this long, I have many children and grandchildren and I look forward to the peace."

I looked at the daughter who smiled at me.

"Every day I expect to come here to find that the part that is my mother is now part of the tree and her eyes will not open. I will weep for a while."

The Elder looked at her daughter in gratitude and sympathy.

"But then," The daughter went on. "I will be glad and remember the mother that I love."

I looked between the two for a moment before nodding. The two of them exchanged looks and the daughter stood up.

"I shall leave the two of you to talk. I will not be far away so do not hesitate to call if you need to. There is food on the tray if you need it. My mother can feed herself so do not worry, but she is very rarely hungry. Just thirsty. The white powder is pain relief. Do not try any, it will kill you."

Then she left, walking around the tree until she was out of sight.

"So," I began as I turned back to the Elder. "What shall we talk about?"

"I don't know," She responded promptly. "What would you like to talk about?"

"Ummm, I'm confused. I thought that this was supposed to be a test of some kind."

"Are you not feeling tested?" The Elder smiled at me.

I considered the question. "I certainly feel as though I am being tried in some way."

She laughed at that.

"I don't know," I went on. "I was expecting more… sit-ups and running and jumping and push-ups."

"You could do some sit-ups for me if it would make you feel more comfortable. I have always enjoyed the sight of men on the ground in front of me."

I must have looked at her sharply as she smiled. "I am joking. Consider this instead. I am the oldest of our kind in the heart of the Forest. I have experiences that you can not imagine. I have seen more men come through these trees than can easily be talked about. I have seen their tears, their hopes and their dreams and I have seen many of those dreams dashed asunder while others have attained heights that they, or you, could only have dreamed of.

"I have spoken with the Schattenmann regularly and as much as a being like that has friends, then I would hope that I am his friend. And when I first got here, I was often a sister to those that would be his physical form. Then I was their mother and now I am their Grandmother. Older even. So sometimes, the Schattenmann comes to speak to me, and sometimes the human that plays host to him comes to see me. Sometimes they ask my advice, sometimes they tell me things and I feel as though I am the younger of the pair of us even though the man in question is but a fraction of my age. I cannot claim it for sure…. So… What do you want to talk about?"

"So what you're trying to tell me is that you have the ear of the Schattenmann and that I should talk to you as though I was talking to the Schattenmann."

"You are talking to the Schattenmann, it's just that he, and I, have found that sometimes a person needs a face to look at while they talk. So talk to me."

"Do I talk to you as though you are the Schattenmann? Do I say to you what I would say to The Schattenmann?"

"Would it help?"

"I have no idea. Will it?"

"Try it and find out."

I looked at her, straight in the eyes and I could see all that age and the illusion fo wisdom that age can sometimes give a person.

"I don't like the Schattenmann." I said. "I think he is cruel and ignorant and stupid. I think he is a tyrant that lords it over people that love him and that one day, hopefully, sooner rather than later, people are going to realise exactly what he is and how evil he is and they are going to destroy him. When that day comes I will be happy."

Silence fell in the glade after a moment, only to be interrupted when the light breeze blew through the leaves above us.

"So you feel quite strongly then." She said with a glint in her eye.

I laughed, seeing that as the only alternative to bursting into tears.

"It is an interesting perspective," She said after a while. "And I am afraid to challenge your vanity when I tell you that it is not a new perspective."

"My companion thinks that the Schattenmann is a head of a cult."

"Nor is that a new perspective."

"Is he wrong? Am I?"

"Yes and no. I have known, in as much as anyone does, or can, the Schattenmann all my life. I came here when I was around thirty years of age and he has been in my life since I was born. He is the single most… intense being that you can imagine. But on any given day, at any given hour, there is absolutely no knowing what he is going to choose to care about. There is no guessing what he is going to do, no guessing what he is going to say and where he going to go. Dryads are as close to human or Elven as you can get and the Schattenmann's feelings are so different that even trying to compare The Schattenmann's thinking to our own is ludicrous at best.

"So to call him a tyrant or a cult leader or some kind of God is pointless. He is none of those things because the thought of that is so ludicrous. The only thing that he feels strongly about, as far as I can tell, or as far as my predecessor could tell…"

"Wait. Your position is an ongoing one?"

"Sometimes. The position of unofficially official advisor to the Schattenmann is something that goes on and also depends on who is the host. It has most often been me since I got here but it has also been other dryads. For a while there was another man that was not chosen but also didn't go… wherever the Schattenmann sends them, nor was he killed and he was a friend and companion to the Schattenmann. Both in his maskless state and his masked state."

I absorbed this.

"So you were saying." I prompted. "About what the Schattenmann cares about."

"Was I… Ah yes. The only thing that we know that the Schattenmann cares about is this Forest. The Black Forest I believe your people call it. He cultivates it the way a friend of mine cultivates her herb garden. That doesn't just include the trees or the plants that are in it. It also includes the birds in the sky, the animals that rove around inside it and yes, that includes the monsters, and he also cares about the people that live here. That is what The Schattenmann chooses to care about. But in the same way that sometimes a gardener has to remove the dead flower heads from the bush, or the rotten stems or the dead branches from the tree, so too does The Schattenmann work with his people. He cultivates them, carries them around, cross-germinates and other such terms that you might not be happy with if you don't know much about gardening.

"Does that mean that he can be cruel? To our eyes, yes. To his? I doubt he knows what cruelty is."

"I don't want to be The Schattenmann's host," I admitted. "I don't want to see the things he does and be affected by them. I don't want to watch as he kills dryads for doing their duty or kills visitors because of… whatever thing is bothering the Schattenmann then. I don't want to do it, I won't do it."

"Why?" She wondered and honest to Flame, I thought she sincerely wanted to know the answer.

"Because I don't want to be that person. I want to go home. I want to hug my sister and marry the woman that I love. I want to read books and I want to learn new things and I want to travel to new places and see new things."

"You want to live your life is what you're telling me."

"Pretty much I suppose."

She nodded and took a drink. Her eyes seemed to unfocus for a while, looking over my shoulder at something that I couldn't see. I turned to look to see if there really was something there but, of course, there wasn't.

"Is the Schattenmann going to choose me?" I wondered.

"I have no idea." She replied. "As I say, there is no reason to suspect or believe that he's going to do one thing when he might, just as much, do something else. The Schattenmann is… other than that. It is true that there are a… not small number of people that think that you are going to be the next host of the Schattenmann and I can understand why. But you also have to remember that the reason that they think like that is that they are all trying to place some form of order on that which is unknowable. They don't know what The Schattenmann is going to choose, they just think that they do. We will not know until you are actually all kneeling before him and he makes his choice.

"But I will tell you this. I have seen the boys and the men who have taken the antlers from their heads and every one of them, every single one, has a look of joy and wonder on their faces. When I talk to them later they all say things, words and phrases like 'I had no idea' and similar. Being the host of the Schattenmann is a burden, there are no two ways about that."

"Seven years does not feel like a long time."

She waved her hand in dismissal of that point. "You are human and you are only young. Think of this. Who were you seven years ago and where were you. And if you could ask that boy, would he have been even able to conceive of where you are now? Or who you are for that matter. So if that's the case, then why do know where you are going to be in seven years' time, or who you are going to be. You could die on your journeys. You could become sick. You could become cursed or any number of things."

"I would still have the option of a future," I told her, with no small amount of heat. "AND, I would be able to spend time with the woman I love."

"Mmm." She didn't like that. "Love. I have heard the term before and in my experience, it is merely an excuse that people give in order to excuse them from doing stupid things.

"IF THe Schattenmann chooses you and calls you to serve. IF. Then you will have things that no other human could ever conceive of. AND you would have direct influence over one of, if not the most powerful beings that exist on this continent. You will live more, experience more and learn more in those seven years than you, or I for that matter can even begin to understand. And in that time… Time is the point. Seven years to us is not seven years to the Schattenmann. This I know for a fact."

She sighed, looking off and over my shoulder again, her face falling. "But I can see that I have lost you. That is not going to change. You are one that will only believe, or only understand something once you have actually felt or understood the thing. All I will say on the matter is that despite this, you still believe in that Holy Flame of yours."

She looked over my shoulder again.

"Tell me instead. Why should The Schattenmann let you go? Tell me about your life."

"Will he let me go?"

"In my experience, he might. But he will also ensure that you will not, and cannot, be a threat to the Black Forest again. You might wake up in the streets of one of the nearby villages with no memory of who you are or how you got there. I have it on good authority that there are some people that have just forgotten that the Black Forest even exists. So long as the Schattenmann is confident that you are not a threat, then he might let you go, but that is a big might."

"A lot of people know that I was coming here. A lot of powerful, important people."

She smiled, despite my intended threat. "Tell me about them."

So I did.

I told them about the Empress and all of her power. I spoke about Ariadne and her influence as well as the point that she was friends with a dragon that could strafe the Black Forest with streams of flame. I told her about my sister and about the logging concerns that she had access to. But before long my threats and anger turned into my spilling forth my life story. Not in detail and I would certainly say that anyone who has read these articles will know more than she did. But she was fascinated nonetheless.

So I told her about the place where I was born, the old Manor house and the move to the castle. I described my brothers and my sisters as well as a certain amount of our lives together. I also spoke about my relationship with my parents and about how Emma and Mark had become the real parents of my life, even while that was a worrying thing to admit, both to a stranger and to myself.

I spoke about my friends at University and my first loves and my early relationships and just how badly all of that went in the grand scheme of things. I spoke about my tutor and about how he gave me the final little push to get me out of the door to meet Kerrass and I admitted one of my secret, deep down shames which was that I never thanked him properly for giving me that little push.

I spoke about meeting Kerrass, our early days together and about how it took quite a while of me talking about those adventures with him for those works to find an audience and about how it wasn't until my own life started to become more intertwined with his that the magazine and I started to really see a change in how people behaved towards it all.

I spoke about Ariadne, of course, and I spoke about the death of my Father and just how I felt about all of that.

The short version is that it's complicated. It would not be unfair to say that the death of my Father freed me in many ways. Freed me in a way that I am almost ashamed to admit now. I certainly feel guilty because of that feeling. But while Father was alive, I always had that little fear in the back of my mind that I would receive a letter, or a messenger, telling me to return home in order to be married to some woman that I had never met and felt sure that I would never like, even if I did meet them. That I would be ordered to some position or some court and told to stay there and work.

Of course, the reality was that he knew and was proud of my existing work and had no intention of doing any of that. But the fear was very real and when he died, that fear was removed. I still don't know how I feel about that.

I spoke about the various adventures that I had been on. I described the great love that I saw in Kerrass' heart for Sleeping Beauty and how it seemed to dwarf and make a mockery of even the great romances in my life. I spoke about the fear of suddenly losing the one woman who, up until that point, had seemed to love me for who I was and about how I realised that I loved her back and that I was going to ask her to marry me.

I maintain, to this day, that there was never a decision to propose to Ariadne, it was simply acknowledged as something that I knew was going to happen.

I spoke about the loss of Francesca and the resulting search that consumed, just about, my entire being. About how I travelled with Kerrass and performed fantastic feats that I would never have even dreamed of in the past, but that I still couldn't get the one thing that I wanted which was to find what happened to Francesca.

I spoke about the time of my sickness, after my meeting with the Goddess which might have been the thing that sent me over to the edge into madness. But also might have been the required action to tear the bandage from my body so that the wound could be properly exposed for the festering thing that it was. I spoke about how I climbed back on the horse, literally and figuratively in Toussaint and about how the final solution as to what happened with Francesca was delivered without me. About how, despite all of our searching and all of our hunting and about how all of the resources of an Empire could be commanded, it was an off-handed comment that solved the matter.

About how it was a mage that had wanted to gain some vengeance for an action that I had performed where, in theory, I was the least important factor in that circumstance. It had been an offhanded act of revenge, almost performed on a whim. And it had been found out by accident in a place where we wouldn't have looked otherwise. And the finality of the matter had been performed by someone else.

I laughed bitterly at that and I stopped speaking after a while. I fetched tea for the both of us and tipped some white powder into the Elder's mug at her direction.

"So then you came here?" She asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

So I launched into another speech. I told her about Jack, which made her shiver which in turn, I noticed with some fascination, caused the tree that she was increasingly a part of to shudder. I talked about the unseen Elder of the Vampires. I talked about Crom Cruarch, the crooked man of the mound. I spoke about the Headless Horseman and the Goddess of Battle that Kerrass worshipped. I spoke about all of the different entities and beings that populated our world for which there is no easy classification. For whom there is no way or us to easily be able to classify them or put them into boxes.

And about how The Schattenmann was one of those beings and as such, it was time that his story is told. Even if that story turned into a warning that we needed to publish in order to keep onlookers away.

It was somewhere in the middle of this speech that her attitude towards me started to change. She started to seem bored, tired and even a little bit annoyed.

"I'll stop you there." She told me, a slight frown on her face. "I've heard enough."

I have no idea where I was in the speech. I suspect it was some kind of sales pitch about why we had come, what the world could learn from a book on the Schattenmann and why that information was important. I suspect that it was somewhere about there.

And I just petered out.

"I'm sure that that answer is the answer to some question." She told me. "But it was not the answer to my question. Why did you come here?"

"I don't… That is the reason that…"

"No, it isn't." She said. "I have lived a long time and I have seen many people and had many conversations about many things. And I can tell when someone is lying to me. In your case, the reason why I am not particularly angry is that I don't know if you realise that you are doing it yourself. The very least that you could do, the most basic, fundamental thing that you can do, if you are still capable of it, of course, is to be honest with yourself. Why are you here?"

"I still don't… I don't have to be anywhere else. I get married in the Autumn, half a year away. The marriage arrangements are pretty far along and I am not needed there so the only time that I would need to be there is when we are coming up on it. And I missed the feeling of the open road."

She nodded. "That's very interesting. I even think that you believe that yourself. Tell me, is that the reason that you are going to put in those little chronicles of yours, the writing that makes you famous?"

"What did I say to make you angry?"

"You lied. I have precious little time to waste and you are wasting it now."

"But it's not a lie."

"I have listened to you speak about your past, your family and the people that you speak about. There is honest to shadow passion in your voice. You are interested in the history of the continent, you care about the people that you surround yourself with. You are fascinated by their habits and their doings and why they think this way and not that way. You are proud of your accomplishments, even when they were attained in the pursuit of something else and rightly so. When you speak, your eyes are animated, you speak with your hands and your voice has passion and drive in it. Even during the incident with the conspiracy in… where was it… Toussaint? Even talking about how you caught them, you were driven by that.

"And then you speak about why you came here. The light leaves your eyes, you sit quietly and you recount the journey and the reasons with barely a hint of the former drive.

"And it takes drive to come here. Ambition, passion and energy. A man like you will have researched the Black Forest in advance. You will know what the odds of survival are and how unlikely it was that you would survive. I can believe that your Witcher friend would have come. I can even believe that he would expect to survive. He is a Witcher and it is true that the Schattenmann and Witchers seem to share some kind of understanding that the rest of us cannot comprehend. And it is true that should Witchers make it to the heart of the Forest, then they are generally released and sent along their way. So it is reasonable to assume that he would come and that he would survive. You didn't need to go with him. You didn't have to risk your life and as you came here… You did risk your life. You did make his job more difficult. Do not pretend otherwise to yourself. Because now, he must worry about your survival as well.

"I know why you went on the rest of your journeys. At first, it was about personal ambition and I would guess that this is why those stories did not resonate as well. Later, when you became more involved in the journey, the story became less about ambition and more about living. People related to that better and later, your quest was about finding your lost loved one. Something that everyone can relate to.

"So what now? You cannot tell me that you came with your Witcher friend out of habit. You just can't do it. You could be doing any number of things that are safer and more in tune with the rest of your life. You could be teaching, and passing on your passions to other people. You could be learning how to be a proper husband which, by the way, I only know about dryad marriages. It takes both halves of the relationship to prepare for those and it takes a lot more preparation than you might suggest.

"So why come here? Why risk yourself when there was absolutely no need. Habit? Boredom?"

She shook her head.

"Even if you cannot answer these questions, you owe it to yourself to see if those answers are in yourself somewhere and then you need to come to terms with them. You need to come to terms with this. There is a very real possibility that you might die here. Or that your life will change irrevocably. If experience tells me anything, it will not be today or tomorrow but the day after that. You and the other potentials, including the Witcher will be brought before the Schattenmann and then he will make his choice. And after that. All of your other passions and interest, including regarding the people that you love, will belong to the Schattenmann."

She sighed.

"Leave now, I am tired and I have other people to speak to today."

As if summoned, her daughter appeared from around the tree and I rose to my feet.

"Quick question," I began. "In talking to you, am I talking to the Schattenmann?"

The Elder was draining her cup.

"I thought I had covered this. You are always talking to him, but in this case, I can say with certainty that he certainly heard you." She told me, nodding behind me. I turned and at first, I could see nothing.

"Do not look at the trees," The daughter said. "Look at the shape of the Forest."

At first, I had no idea what she meant. Then it clicked into place. The shape of the shadows gave an outline of the antlers of a deer. Then the wind blew and it was as though the wind had blown the shadows away.

"Make no mistake," the Elder said. "The Schattenmann is always watching and if you think carefully, you have been seeing him since you entered the forest all those weeks ago."

I didn't really have enough time to absorb that before the daughter took me by the arm and led me away. My guide was waiting for me.

"Uh oh," My guide muttered with a kind of knowing smirk. "I've seen that look before."

"What look?"

"The look of someone who has been told some uncomfortable truths. Come on,"

She turned and led me away.

"It always happens that way when people go to see her." She told me in what she doubtlessly hopes was a reassuring tone.

"Who is she?" I wondered, asking questions automatically.

"She is exactly as she appears to be. Older than time and wiser than we give her credit for. She has seen enough that current events almost have the ring of old stories, told year after year."

She looked over her shoulder at me and frowned.

"She told you things that you didn't want to hear didn't she?"

"She told me some things that I don't know if they are true," I replied, still puzzling over what she had said.

My guide nodded and the two of us walked through the trees.

Off, in the distance and off to one side, I saw a glint of light shining off metal. When I looked over in the direction I saw Stefan walking through the small woodland. He was walking with another dryad and they were heading towards the old Sycamore that I had just left.

"The old one's next victim." My guide said with relish.

Stefan didn't see me. He was looking through the trees with a certain amount of curiosity, but there was an attitude about him. He looked as though he was looking around curiously, but there was tension about his movements. I had changed clothes, but he still looked the same as he had when we had parted ways after his fight with Kerrass.

The guide came to stand next to me. I had not realised that I had stopped walking.

"I would love to hear what she has to say to him." My guide said.

I grunted as I realised that I felt the same way.

"What did she say to you?" I asked. Again, my mouth and mind were asking questions automatically without my really trying to do so.

"She told me that I was not a nice person, but that if I worked at it, really hard. Then I could be a good person." I looked over at the guide. There was a certain stricken expression on her face. "I didn't like that. I had always been led to believe that I was a good person. Or at least, that's what I had wanted to believe. That's what I told myself when things got dark."

"We always like to think that about ourselves. Otherwise, what's the point?" I stopped. I didn't like this woman but was I really trying to comfort her. "We are all the heroes of our own story." I finished.

"That is certainly the truth. So go on then, turn about is fair play. What did she tell you?"

"She told me that I was lying to myself about why I had come here."

"Huh. Are you?"

"I don't know."

She nodded as though that answered everything.

Stefan eventually moved out of sight.

"What is this place?" I suddenly asked.

"In the minute?" My guard asked, "or in the grand scheme of things?"

I had actually been surprised by my question. Both in the question and the tone of almost longing that I had asked it in. There had been a sense of almost terror in my voice.

She started to lead me away. "This is the Schattenmann's forest with in a forest. It's like his garden. For reasons that we don't understand. He likes to just walk among the trees sometimes. It's weird right?"

"It is weird." I agreed, her answer wasn't satisfying.

"I mean, he has the entire Black Forest to himself and there is not a single denizen of the Black Forest that wouldn't get the fuck out of his way if they saw him coming but he wants his little stretch of woodland and…"

"No, I mean… What is this place?" I insisted.

"I thought you knew. This is the heart of the Forest."

"But what does that even mean? The heart of the Forest. Is it the centre of things, the home of things or the beating heart of the living thing?"

She looked at me, dead in the eyes for a long moment. "Yes." She said, before turning and starting to walk again

"Look, I know that it's frustrating and I know that you have a lot of things going on that you do not understand, that you are frightened by and are coming to terms with. But the answer is yes to all three. It is the centre of the Forest from which, I think, the entire rest of the forest grew and…"

"But what is this place… why do?" I ran out of words.

"Oh, you're panicking." She realised, that the part of me that sits outside my head and watches thought that she was a bit slow off the mark. "Come and sit down."

She led me to a large tree root and sat me down while she just carried on.

"This place has always been here as far as I know." She told me while I concentrated on breathing in and out. "There has always been the heart tree and that part of the Schattenmann that is a physical being, makes his home here. We see to… we attend to his every need and want and from here, he governs all of the surrounding territories. But as to what this place is? I'm sorry to say that I think you might find out, long before I do."

I suddenly laughed and she smiled with me before sitting down.

"What the Elder told you got to you that badly did it?"

"It was… troubling."

My guide scratched her chin. "That is her function." She decided after a while. "A friend of mine had a saying. She was the lover of a Fisherman. Shadow knows how a fisherman came to the Black Forest and ended up being a father to a dryad but there you go. He told her this saying which she liked. Something like 'Even oysters need to be annoyed enough to make something beautiful."

"I have heard that saying," I told her. "That, or something very like it."

"The point being that every society, every group or every place of work needs something to unite them. Often, more often than we would all like. That something is something that we all dislike. Hate even."

"Are you that thing for the heart of the Forest?"

She laughed at that. "No, we have our purpose and I have friends here. And before you ask, the Eldest is not that either. What she does, what her purpose is, is to tell us the things that we need in order to move forward."

"So is it true?"

"I have no idea. What I do know about her is two things. The first is that other than her daughter. Only the Schattenmann himself, in either his possessed form or his maskless form, can stand to spend more than a short time with her at a stretch. The other thing is that she tells you what you need to hear at the time. Some people, including a certain woman sitting not very far away from you at the moment, needed to be told that they were not very nice and that not many people liked her. She needed to be told that. She needed to hear it so that I could get angry about it. Angry enough to make some changes which included, almost doubling down on what I had been doing before.

"So what she told you? What you talked about? You needed to hear that. I don't know why and it's none of my business."

"Encouraging." I climbed to my feet. "Where to now?"

"More testing." She said. "Running through the woods, climbing things, picking up heavy things and putting them down again. That kind of thing."

"Sounds thrilling."

"You have no idea."

"The rest of that afternoon was indeed taken up with things that I was more accustomed to thinking of as being "testing" I ran an obstacle course a couple of times. I trained with an older warrior and underwent some other, more humiliating tests. I was told to urinate into a pot which they then threw a bunch of herbs into and then fished those herbs out and examined them in the light. When the need to defecate came upon me, they made me defecate into another pot. What they did with that, I have no idea but I looked away.

There was another test as well that involved… well… They wanted to test the quality of my seed. It might seem funny to you, dear reader, as you sit and read this. But at the time, it was mortifying and by far the most clinical time my seed has been taken from me in all my life.

There were also some tests that I didn't understand and had no idea what they were for. I ate three different small meals and then had to ask deep questions as to how I found them when it came to taste, texture and how they made me feel. The same with several clouds of smoke and several different liquids. I answered as best as I could and did my best not to ask too many questions. I cannot help but think that I was testing people's latest toys or gadgets, the way someone who is fond of brewing their own wine will bring you samples of their latest efforts in order to test them out on you.

It was not hard work but it was strangely tiring and as the sun went down, I felt the fatigue and the trials of the day beginning to weigh down upon me.

I was taken back to my pavilion, there was more food and this time my guide waited with me. I bathed and made noises about being left alone so that I could go to bed.

"Would you like me to send a girl to you?" My guide asked.

I sighed.

"Why would you ask me that?" I demanded.

"In case you wanted a girl to share your bed." Was the prompt response. "Is the question strange or unusual?"

"So, if I said yes. You would find a woman and order her to my bed?"

"Well… Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you asked for a woman." She seemed to find it funny.

"That's awful." I protested.

"Why?" She genuinely didn't seem to understand why I was having issues with this.

"Because… I don't…" I ran out of words. I could feel an outrage in the back of my throat that I couldn't articulate. This seemed worse than what was happening in the dryad settlement. At the time, I couldn't figure out why. I don't have a problem with sex work in general unless that work actively demeans the worker or is done to the worker's detriment, physical or psychological. I had struggled with the dryads on the outskirts because of feeling victimised. But there was nothing here. No rhyme or reason behind it. I could not understand why someone would allow that, or allow themselves to be pushed in that way.

Which meant, automatically in my mind at least, that these women that would be sent to my bed were being forced to do so.

I didn't articulate this at the time though. I didn't really have time.

"Look," She began. "You are finding this entire situation difficult. Nothing wrong with that. And unlike a lot of the other candidates that come here, you have not had the time to acclimate. So I understand, you are stressed out of your brain. People deal with that in many different ways. Some people find comfort in some of the alcoholic drinks that we brew. Some find solace in stillness and quiet. Still, others find their comfort in the arms of a woman. Either young and beautiful or older and more matronly in a way that reminds them of their mother." She considered that "Personally, I've never seen the appeal of a mother's comfort. My mother was not very nice to me."

The observation tickled me for some reason. Maybe the resonance with my own feelings towards my mother.

"Still," She went on. "You would be surprised as to how many people like that. It's less destructive than long term alcohol abuse… and so, I offer you a woman. Do you want one?"

"No."

"Pity. I could rather do with a good hard fuck. Well, Good night. I will see you in the morning."

Something about that conversation caught me in my funny bones and I giggled as she left my tent. Food was eaten and I treated myself to another bath given that it didn't seem to take too much time and effort for the dryads to arrange and then I went to sleep to try and absorb what had happened over the course of the day. It didn't go well.

I was really bothered by what the Elder in the tree had told me and I couldn't figure it out. Was I lying? To her and to myself? I had no idea. If I was, what was iI lying about? I had no idea about that either. But those two questions rolled around in my head for what felt like hours. It was dark when I went to bed so I have no idea about the actual passage of time. But it certainly felt like hours.

Then I was being shaken awake by my guide. I came to suddenly and she danced out of the way as I slashed the air with the dagger that I still keep under my blanket. Long years of training keep it there and I sometimes wonder if I will ever get out of that habit.

As an aside, a couple of people have wondered why I am so concerned about that. They claim that it is not too much of a hardship to keep a blade under a pillow or to keep a weapon close to hand and my answer is this.

No, it's not. And for professional soldiers, Witchers and warriors then it is even a good idea. An admirable one. But I am not those things. I am a Scholar and in a little while, I will be a Lord. It is not good for either of those things to still be needing to have a weapon next to their bed and a knife under their pillow in order to sleep. Why not? The first is that it is an insult to the guard of wherever it is that I am staying. If I feel as though I need to protect myself then what am I saying about those people.

I mean Skelligans don't give a fuck but Nilfgaardians? Knights of Toussaint?

And if it's my own castle, then I am insulting my own people. Which is worse.

The other thing though is that it says something about me. I am now the kind of man that cannot sleep unless I have a weapon close to hand. I don't like that. I could not tell you why that is a problem for me.

"Come," It was my guide that had woken me up. "The Schattenmann wants you." She turned, obviously expecting me to leap to my feet and go after her.

"But I thought it would be a couple of days before he would choose his successor." I protested. It was the protest of a little boy and I heard the petulance, even as I said the words, much to her confusion.

"What?" No, I mean… The Schattenmann wants to speak to you."

"What? Now?" I started to pull myself out of bed.

"No, fucking next week." She snarled. "Come on."

"Can it not wait until…"

"Because I get off waking people up in the middle of the night when I, personally, would rather be in bed. Which part of 'The Schattenmann wants you' was difficult for you to understand?"

I felt a certain sullen, petulant rage well up.

"The part where that's my problem," I told her.

She stared at me for a long moment before she stalked over to the table, picked up the jug of water, and sniffed it to make sure it was the water before marching up to me and hurling the contents at me without a word. I only just got my eyes closed in time.

"There," she said as I spat out the small mouthful that I had been too busy gaping to avoid. "Now clean yourself up and come on. While you're out I will have someone change your sheets. In the meantime, consider whether or not you would keep a ruler of another nation waiting while you were being petulant. Come along. My next tactic is that I call another half a dozen women in here and we drag you to where the Schattenmann is waiting by the ears. Would you rather meet him on your feet with proper clothing on, or on your knees?"

Then she left.

Feeling chastised, I dressed and went with her. I took my weapons with me though.

"You won't need those." She told me as she led me along at a rate that I was honestly struggling to keep up with.

"It's weird," I told her. "But whenever people tell me that, I automatically assume that it is vital that I have my weapons close to hand."

She gave a short bark of laughter at that.

She led me back to the Schattenmann's pavilion where she opened the flap and gestured for me to precede her. Then she didn't follow.

Trayka's brother was waiting there, sitting in his chair that I really had to concentrate on not to call a throne. There were still two dryads with him. I could not tell whether or not they were the same dryads from the last time I had been in this tent, but they looked similar. Young, given the average age of the women that I had seen around the heart tree, and they were remarkably beautiful. Even for dryads.

"Welcome." Trayka's brother said.

I fought the urge to bow.

"No need for that kind of thing." He told me, somehow reading my mind. "Please come in and sit down." Then he started to cough and the second of the two attendants poured something into a cup and gave it to him. He looked at her with an uncomfortable amount of gratitude.

"And no," he said after he finished his drink. "I did not read your mind."

A chair was salvaged out of some of the wreckage that lined the walls of the tent and the dryad who carried it gestured for me to sit.

"How did…"

"How did I know…" He had leant back in his chair, a look of relief crossed his face and he closed his eyes in pleasure. I recognised the look, the absence of pain can be akin to the heights of ecstasy. "I am sorry to say, Lord Frederick, that I have seen you before."

"Me?"

"You or people like you." He fixed me with a stare. "You are not so unique as you might imagine, or even hope for. Men who think that they are important, some who even are important to one master or another. And some others that are just plain scared. They come here, thinking that they are exempt, or should be exempt from the Schattenmann's choices. From my choices. And when they learn that they are not…."

He shrugged and I could see his body starting to relax back into the chair, nodding his gratitude back to the dryad that gave him the drink.

"They think that they can sway my decision. They plead, they beg and then they try to bribe. Eventually, threats are even used. But all of them, every single one, tries to suggest that they are better than the next one. It starts with courtesy and that starts with a bow."

He sketched the gesture with the hand that was holding the cup. His attendant caught the gesture and took the cup.

"Are you drunk?" I blurted suddenly.

"Very." He agreed. "It helps… sometimes it helps." His eyes went vacant for a moment and I took the time to look around the pavilion.

There was more light this time. The two dryads had their roles, one was close to the Schattenmann and the other was moving around, doing maintenance chores. A the moment, that seemed to be taking the form of topping up the bowls of light that now lined the walls. Then she tidied up around the place. The age-old movements of picking things up, looking around for a place to put the things and then arbitrarily picking a place before putting the thing back down again. Sometimes in the place where it had been picked up from in the first place.

The tent was a mess but not uncomfortably so. It wasn't dirty, it was just a mess. There was rhyme or reason to it as though it had started out as a place for someone to live and then layers of life had come and covered the place. I have seen university lecturers have their offices like that. An ordered office that has just had things added to it. After a while, places can develop almost a strata of stuff. There was a sleeping area, an eating area, and an alchemical area which looked newer than some of the other places.

And then there was the altar, lit by its own pair of smaller light bowls. Upon the altar rested the antlered skull mask of The Schattenmann.

"I thought we should talk." He said after a long moment. "Man to man."

I nodded. "Do you talk to all the people that come through here?"

"Only those I am interested in." He said. "Those that need to hear what I have to say are another group of people that I speak to."

"And which am I?"

"Guess?" He seemed to sigh and answered his own riddle before I could have a chance. "Both." He said after a small coughing fit

I didn't like that answer and it must have shown because he laughed before he started coughing again. A rag was provided and he covered his mouth with it. I saw specks of blood when he set the rag aside.

"I apologise." He told me. "I am nearing the end of my life now and it is hard. Hard, knowing that there is still a couple of days left which also means that I am going to get worse." He seemed to focus on me again. "You are both. I am interested in you Lord Frederick. I know who you are. One of your predecessors came through here at the Winter Solstice. What possessed them to come here I don't know. But they had a copy of your works that they would read from as though it were some kind of holy text."

"Did you read it?"

"I cannot read." He told me. "The part of me that is the Schattenmann hopes that his next host will be able to read it to him."

"It will take a long time as there are several volumes and I am not given to brevity. What happened to the man carrying it?"

"It was a woman actually. She died during the transformation. She had a weakness in her… well… She would not have survived. She felt entitled too and protested up until the point. She could not believe it was happening. She died not believing that she was dying."

He suddenly seemed to be incredibly sad for a moment. "There are so many that die because they think that they are immune, that their life matters more than the next one."

He stared into space for a long time.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He shook himself as though my question had suddenly startled him.

"I thought that had been made clear." He told me, taking another drink. "I am the Schattenmann."

"I don't believe that," I told him. "It doesn't strike me as entirely accurate that the Schattenmann would agonise over the lives of those that have been killed in the name of defending his realm.

"You might be surprised." He told me with mischief in his eyes.

"I might agree that you are, or were, Trayka's lost brother. But that would, at best, put you around my age and you look like an old man. Couple that with the fact that you speak like a philosopher and a man of knowledge…. You certainly speak in a way that no countryman would speak. You don't think like one, you don't behave like one."

"And how does a man from the country typically behave?" He countered, thus proving my point.

"Who are you?" I asked again.

"When the man of Shadows possesses me, I am…"

"The Schattenmann, yes you said. But you are not wearing the mask at the moment so I am forced to…"

His face twisted in something approaching almost anger.

"This is not about me." He said. "You are trying to interview me, asking me questions and you are trying to be objective with it, even while you can barely contain your own fear and anger. I brought you here to try and assuage some of your fears and to answer questions about what your life will be like, should the Schattenmann choose you to be my replacement in a couple of days."

"So who are you?"

He got angrier for a moment and then he laughed with an edge of hysteria before calming.

"I am told…" He rubbed his head with a trembling hand. "That you are reluctant, even fearful at the prospect of being The Schattenmann's host. Why?"

"Why what?"

He smiled. "Why so afraid. Why so reluctant?"

I was trapped and I could see no easy way through the conversation without answering his question.

"I do not like it here," I told him. "I do not like the darkness. I do not like… the light that those bowls of yours give off. I want to see the sun again. I want to sit in a tavern and drink, listen to some music and maybe dance a bit."

He smiled at me, it was the smile of a benign old Grandfather explaining why the child can't have any more cake.

"You are suggesting that you wouldn't be able to have those things?"

"You seem a prisoner here." I countered.

He started to really laugh. "A prisoner? No. Not even close, but you were telling me about why you didn't want to be…"

"I don't like the attitude of the people around here. I don't like the way I am being… I have been offered, women. The only place in the continent that has ever offered me, women, seriously and without irony… and without my having to pay for it, were those corrupt places that wanted something out of me. They were hoping to bribe me with a pretty face or seduce me, or blackmail me into doing what they wanted."

"Is that what you think we are doing? Bribing you? Seducing you?" He smiled at the idea.

"Isn't it." I countered, a little hotter than I thought was entirely prudent.

"Not in the least. I am going to tell you something now, that my predecessor told me before I took up this burden, this charge that is placed upon me. And it took me a good year to be able to come to terms with it and acknowledge it myself. Are you ready for that truth?"

I shrugged and nodded.

"Being the human part of the Schattenmann… Whether you want to call yourself the vessel, the host or the fucking show pony…" He winced at his own words before giggling, "Whatever you want to call yourself, being the Schattenmann is hard. Really hard and there are days when taking up that burden is more than you can bear. I mean it's worth it but it's hard. And the Schattenmann knows this. So everything you see here. Everything around the great tree, the monsters in the woods, the dryads on the outskirts and the villagers that tend their flocks on the real outer edges of the Black Forest. All of it defers to the Schattenmann which means that, when you take up that burden, everything defers to you.

"It is hard being the Schattenmann. Very hard, harder than I can easily describe. So whatever it takes to get you through that, is provided for you. Anything. If you can get through your day on spirituality alone. If you can pray to the Sun or the Flame or the thunder. If that brings you peace and helps lift the burden, even a little bit. Then that's ok. They will build you a little shrine somewhere nearby for you to be able to pray. They will even find you a priest to hear your confession if that's the kind of thing that you like or need in order to find some kind of spiritual fulfilment.

"The same if, like you, are a scholar and you need books, paper and ink in order to record your thoughts on the matter. I am no expert but I imagine that there are many people that would love to know the deeper thinking of the Schattenmann. It would even be a best seller and then you can give all that money to a charity or something. Build a hospital, finance a place of learning or donate it all to a church in the name of buying your way into whatever your preferred afterlife is.

"Then you can do that. They will send out people to buy books, arrange paper and call priests to the region."

He sighed and gestured to the woman that was sitting on a small stool nearby. She had been doing some knitting while she listened to the man speak. When he gestured, she set aside her knitting and took up the jug that was next to her, pouring him another cup which he took a large swallow from before he held the cup out and she refilled it again.

"But if your route to satisfaction and happiness is not those things. If it lies elsewhere and you find comfort in things that society might frown upon. If you find comfort in the bottom of the cup for instance." He toasted me with his drink. "Or in the arms of someone else? Then that is alright too."

"But I am not the Schattenmann yet."

He laughed, it lasted a little bit too long for comfort. If I was out drinking with this man then I might be at the stage of deciding that he had had enough.

"No, but you might be. And it helps them if they don't have to watch you night and day. If they can keep you happy and relaxed."

He seemed to find that very funny for a long while until his laughter turned to sobbing as he turned to look at the woman sitting next to him who, again, put aside her knitting. But, to my surprise, instead of picking up her jug to refill his drink. She took his cup off him, whispered something and embraced him, climbing into his lap so that she could do so.

The other woman tapped me on the shoulder.

"It helps not to look at them." She told me. This was the first time that I really got a chance to look at her and under the hood, she really was startlingly beautiful.

"Is what he says true?" I asked.

"It is." She told me. She looked over at the throne where the pair were whispering to each other. "He is my… Seventh Schattenmann and there is no way of proving it to you but he is one of the good ones. I can only hope that his successor is as good as him. He only started drinking in the last year of his life for some reason that we can't understand. It's true that he went through some of the younger attendants when he was first here but then he met her and well… She loves him and he loves her."

She looked over at the pair of them and a look of pain crossed her face.

"He wanted beauty and I can't begrudge him that, save for the fact that she loves him back and his death is going to destroy her."

"How did you come to…"

"She loves him, but she can only do so much. Some people are just not suited to nursing the ones that they love as they die."

I thought of my Father's death and said nothing.

"It sounds a lot like being a King though," I said to her. "Deciding that I want something or someone and then just expecting for that to be provided for me."

"If you say so," She said. "I was born a dryad and I have never known a King other than the Schattenmann and he serves us as much as we serve him. More so even. I can't prove that and the only way that you would see that that is true is if you live here with us. But that is not… Ohhh. They've stopped whispering sweet nothings to each other again."

She gestured and I turned back. The Schattenmann was sat, leaning back in his chair while the other woman returned to her stool and took up her knitting again. I don't know if the Schattenmann genuinely didn't notice, or whether he was pretending not to notice when she snuck a rag out of a sleeve on her robe and wiped her eyes with it.

"Forgive me," I said. "But you have not made the post of Schattenmann's host, vessel or whatever we call it."

He smiled at the repetition.

"You have not made it sound very attractive," I told him. "Seven years of life, a burden that drives men to drink, drugs or sex for comfort, all of which are fleeting pleasures at best. I don't understand, why would I want this? I have a love outside of the forest. I have things to do, ambitions to fulfil and friends that I do not want to let down."

"So you are returning to the argument of 'I deserve to be let off my debt because I'm special." The Schattenmann's voice dripped with scorn.

"Not in the least," I replied. "But you brought me here to convince me that it wouldn't necessarily be such a bad thing if I was the Schattenmann, that I should not be afraid of being that thing, or that person. Well, so far, all you've told me are reasons that I would not want to be you. I would not want to be in your place."

"Explain." He seemed confused.

"How can I put this. I would not want the love of a woman who gives herself to me because of what I am rather than who I am. I do not want to give those things that I mention up, including my integrity and my morals. You killed a woman when I arrived here. I didn't know her well but you murdered her. You might want to say 'sacrifice' but you murdered her. She might have been willing but she was also clearly terrified and you killed her. Her death was agonising. And how many others have you killed while being this man, this thing that you are? Now, don't get me wrong. I understand that you will argue that it was the Schattenmann that did those things, that he was possessing you. But I do not want to be the instrument of someone else's murder."

"How many men, or women, or innocents have died at the hands of your monarch." The Schattenmann countered. "Just since they ascended the throne."

"I do not want to be a monarch. And I don't understand people who do. I am not saying that this makes you worse or better than them. I am saying that I do not want the job,"

He nodded and for a moment, he seemed sad.

"There are arguments here about how some must die so that the greater whole can survive." He said softly.

"I have no doubt, just as I can also counter with the fact that seven years is not a long enough time to live."

"Ah but such life. Your idea of what seven years is, is different to my idea of seven years." He smiled a little smugly.

I had the bit between my teeth now and I was charging forwards.

"So there you are." I almost yelled, wanting to affect his stupid smug face. "You are asking me to sacrifice my life for the purpose of being the Schattenmann. In return for that, I manage to live for seven years before the wear and tear on my body and, I assume, my mind becomes too much and I just fold in on myself. In that time, on those occasions where I am not needed by the being that is enslaving me because that is what he is doing. I am being enslaved and kept prisoner, lovely though the cage and the warders might be, I have the licence to do just about anything I want.

"Tell me, what happens if, the way I find pleasure in such things is by the horrible murder of children? What happens if I order the dryads to bring me a sword and then line up so that I can practise killing them with that sword. What happens if my hobby, the thing that keeps me going in dark times, is torture and I happen to enjoy taking people and torturing them to the point of death. And that isn't even the darkest thing that I have seen since being on the road. What happens then?"

"It would never happen?"

"But what if it did?"

"It would never happen." He repeated, his voice was low and fierce. "The Schattenmann chooses and he would not choose one such as you describe. There have been a few that have come that have those kinds of character traits. None have survived and The Schattenmann has ended them."

"Why should I believe that?" I demanded. "What is there in this for me to believe that? You are trying to convince me of a thing but there is no proof that you can offer me that that is the case. I don't want your free and willing women because I love another. I had to work myself into a bit of a frenzy to lay with the dryads on the outskirt. I love another. I don't want to only live for seven years before… Forgive me… or not, I find that right now I don't care. Seven years before I degrade into a dribbling lunatic of a man. I don't want that. Why should I go with this easily?"

He fixed me in the eye. "It's worth it. I have no regrets."

The surety of his voice hit me in the face. There was knowledge in his face and posture. Great, deep wisdom and suddenly I saw him as a King. Not the kind of King as they really are or were. But the kind of storybook ideal of a King. He was wise and strong. A venerable weight lay upon him.

That weight retreated for a moment.

"Well, that's not entirely true. It would have been nice to see my sister and meet the dryads that I have no doubt that she will produce. I would have liked to tell her that she did the best job that she could in raising me and that what I remember of my early life was a happy one. I would also have liked to see my Father again and to feel his strong arms around me. I would have liked to tell him that I forgave him for his drinking and his neglect and his abuse. He blamed me for driving our mother away although he apologised for that many times, I don't think he ever let that go. I would have liked to let him know that I forgave him for that.

"There is an old dream in me. That I wanted to get married and have children. There was a girl that I liked in the village that had blonde hair. Long, straight blonde hair that she used to tie back with a piece of strings when she couldn't find a group of daises big enough to be able to restrain that hair. I loved her with all the fervour of my thirteen years of age. I wanted to marry her. I know that Trayka was trying to find me an apprenticeship but nothing was really fitting for me although I did like working with the… But I wanted a cottage, a little way away from the town where I could work on whatever it was that I was doing, tending flocks, working with horses or forging the metal. My wife would work in the gardens, growing flowers and lighter vegetables. She would tease me about being big and clumsy and I would tease her for being small and delicate and we would laugh as I picked her up and put her over my shoulder before sliding her down to the bridal hold and carrying her over the threshold to do…

"And that is where my young imagination would normally give out. I remember that dream now, it seems incredibly naive."

"It sounds like a good dream to me," I told him.

"What was your dream when you were thirteen years old?" He asked.

The discussion of dreams had robbed me of my anger and I struggled to get it back.

I failed.

"The more realistic of my dreams? The ones that didn't involve leading a cavalry charge against the invading Nilfgaardian troops who were monstrous in their huge black armour. I would succeed against all odds and the soldiers and knights would cheer my name after I salvaged the forces of the North from the disaster that King Radovid had led us to, a disaster that he had not survived. In return, Queen Adda, who I had a young man's crush on after seeing her in a parade in Novigrad, this before I discovered that she was a viper in woman's clothing, would graciously lift me up from where I was kneeling in my armour and then kiss me before declaring her love or me before the assembled nations of the world."

"Not that dream." The Schattemann told me.

"I've always enjoyed reading and writing," I said. "Back then, I didn't have as focused an interest as I do now. I would read anything and everything that would come across my desk. My older brother and sister who were essentially my parents would give me books, anything that they could get their hands on and I was happy. When I was young, I imagined a study. A large writing desk with stacks of paper, an inkwell that never ran dry and a quill that never split. I imagined shelves of books and scrolls waiting to be read. I imagined a comfortable armchair next to a crackling fire which I would use for reading and when I got a bit older, there was another armchair there where a woman would be sat reading. Every so often we would look at each other and smile a lover's smile at each other before returning to our books."

A lump in the back of my throat stopped my speech.

"Who was the woman?" He asked.

"I was fourteen," I told him. "It varied. Sometimes it was just a woman. Any woman. I was intensely lonely back then. My father didn't approve of my interests and was trying to arrange marriages with people. I was never a good looking boy and as such, the arrangements failed as the girls were invariably pretty and the idea of marriage was a way that I could see towards having a friend. Then the war happened and afterwards, the arguments with my Father got worse."

He grunted and nodded.

"But don't you see what I mean?" I pleaded. "I can still have my dream. That armchair, that desk and that woman are all waiting for me. I'm not trying to appeal to your better nature. I know that The Schattenmann will make his choice regardless of whatever else might happen and that I will have little choice in the matter. If The Schattenmann chooses me then that is what will happen.

"I don't want what you offer. I don't. I can still have my dream. What could possibly be worth the loss of all of that?"

The Schattenmann considered the question.

"One of the Attendants that came here a little while ago was a Philosopher. She returned to the Forest and I never saw her again but I enjoyed the way she thought. She would lead me onto huge tangents but the way she thought was of great solace to me in the third year of my service.

"I struggled to describe, I still struggle to describe, what it is like to be The Schattenmann and when I was talking with her about it she describe me as the ant on the flower. She told me that I was like an ant, working away on the plant that I was working on, bringing water, food or construction material back for the nest and then the human picks me up and moves me to another plant. I look up at the human and to me, that human might as well be a God."

"In this argument, you are the ant and the Schattenmann is the man moving you."

"Yes."

"It is not an unusual piece of thinking," I told him, sliding into the lecturers pose of arrogance with astonishing ease.

"The question comes from the reaction of the man to the ant and the ant to the man. The full thing is that to the ant, the plant or bush that he lives on is his entire world. And when the man moves the ant to the other plant, what is the ant's perception of that action. Does he bow down and worship in thanks at the benevolent God for bringing him this new bounty, or is he raging at the cruel whims of this new deity? All the while God did something, possibly out on a whim.

"It is also meant to describe the fact that the Gods might actually care little for the plights of people. That we are less than ants to them and that they behave and act in mysterious ways that we cannot understand because they are Gods and we are, well, not.

"It has to be said that this is not encouraging either. I do not like that thought experiment."

"Why not?"

"Because the thinking doesn't work. Either on the level of the ant looking up at the human, or the human looking up at the God. The Ant is defined by his world. The urge to find food, water or whatever. According to a scientist mage that I once read the works of, the life of an ant is dominated by shapes, sizes, geometry and the same basic drives that govern humans, and Elves for that matter. Food, water and shelter from elements or predators.

"So if a human picked up an ant and moved him over to the next flower. Then the ant might be grateful that he survived the experience, and humanity would already be known to the ant in question. The Ant will have seen the sun being blotted out by the huge shape of the human and have felt the ground shake under the weight. The ant would not think much more of it. Being picked up and moved is just the same as being caught up in any other kind of thing. It might find itself surrounded by new shapes and new circumstances. New things that smell like food and a slightly different feeling to the water, but its experience of the matter would not be all that different. The way it works out the world would not be that different.

"I can't speak for Elves or dwarves for that matter, but it strikes me that humans are the same. We pray to the Gods but we don't really understand them. We don't, or cannot, understand the difference between a natural act of wind, fire, flood or other circumstance and an act of this God or that Goddess. So how can we tell? The answer is that we can't, or that we willfully don't. We rationalise these circumstances according to whatever it is that gives us the most comfort, whether we tell ourselves it was an act of God or whether it was just a coincidence of the Elements.

"Or maybe it was just luck.

"Kerrass and I were travelling East along the Pontar. The spring rains had flooded the river and had made the river journey impossibly dangerous. So we took a higher road up the mountains. As a result of that, we were overtaken by a nobleman who insisted on hiring Kerrass' services. That hire led to me meeting the love of my life, angered a man that kidnapped and murdered my sister out of vengeance and is one of the incidents that made my family famous and powerful. So much so that the ripples of those circumstances are still being felt even as I sit here talking.

"I don't say these things to try and tell you not to choose me, just to illustrate a point.

"They were unexpectedly large rainstorms. There are always rains at that time of the year but these were particularly large. Without those rains, none of the other stuff would have happened. So was that just… luck, coincidence or was it the power of some God arranging everything? I have no idea. I cannot comprehend everything that went into that set of circumstances. Speaking personally, I would like to believe that it was an act of the Eternal Flame guiding me home, I more believe that it was just a pleasant coincidence."

"So what you're suggesting," The Schattenmann mused, his eyes glinting a little in the subdued darkness. "We cannot comprehend the actions of Gods. We cannot begin to understand them and even when we are subject to those actions, we rationalise them as something mundane, out of… fear… confusion…?"

"And a desire to exert control of our own destinies." I thought through the line of logic and found that it was mostly right."

"So…" He mused. "What would happen if… The ant was able to comprehend that he was being moved to a separate flower on a whim?"

I considered that question for a moment.

"That would lead to true horror wouldn't it," I said. "To get that perspective, the ant would need to understand the full range of human experience. To understand what a whim is? They would need to understand what their purposes are. The difference between doing something for enjoyment and doing something for survival. This would be an ant and suddenly, it would be exposed to all of the knowledge and experience of the human. And to get to the concept of 'doing something because it seemed like a good idea at the time' they would need to understand all of those concepts. Things that an ant would never have realised. They would have to understand the difference between doing something solely for the good of the hive community and doing something for themselves for a start. So that tiny little ant would have been exposed to an entirely new universe of philosophy and survival, not least of which is the fact that it is so tiny and insignificant to the perspective of the human and the larger forms of existence that the human travels in. Then you put it down and it is left with the memory of all of that. What's it going to do?"

He was smiling.

"That would depend on whether or not he remembered and maintained the knowledge after the human had left them on the flower wouldn't it?" He said. "Or if the ant forgot that knowledge."

"I don't know which would be worse."

"Why?"

"If the ant remembered what it was like to be human. Remembered all the strange and alien concepts of that, it would realise just how small its life is and how… unimportant it all is in the grand scheme of things. It would go to its fellows and try to explain concepts like language and art and enjoyment. Multiple dimensions, the concept of time, flavour, texture, feeling, and colours. It would try to explain these things to its fellows and how would they treat him. It would be, whatever the ant equivalent of thinking a person is mad. He would be thrown out of the hive at best."

"Or it would forget that knowledge." The Schattenmann prompted.

"I don't know which is worse," I told him. "If it lost that knowledge, then it would have the memory of that circumstance. Concepts of things that it remembered knowing everything about are suddenly lost to it. Sensations that had seared their way through that small ant brain were no longer there and it wouldn't even be able to describe what that would be like."

I shook my head.

"That poor ant. Having all of that ripped away from him, leaving him with just the echo of the memory in the back of whatever the ant equivalent of a hindbrain is. It would remember a feeling of self and isolation without having the words to describe it as the hive mind crept back up and over him."

"Quite." The Schattenmann had leant back in his chair, his face and body were shadowed now. "That poor ant. So do we equate the possibility that if a human was properly exposed to that level of power? A God, with all of the new powers and concepts that a god would accept on a daily basis. The man elevated to that, what would that look like to an outside observer?"

"Well, he would look like…"

I stared at him.

"He would look like a madman." I finished.

The Schattenmann nodded.

"He would look like a man trying to hold onto his humanity. Trying to take experiences and find things, find people, that would keep him grounded. So that he didn't lose himself in the knowledge of just how small he is. He would want to live, drink and experience human things. Sex, drink, food, he would want to… be human."

"Is the Schattenmann a God?" I whispered to him.

"I don't know," he said. "I am not able to say one way or the other. He doesn't think of himself as one. But it would fit me.

"He needs the human anchor. He needs to be reminded about what it's like for the small person that lives within his forest. He needs to know the difference between animals and humans and all the rest. He needs to know what it is to be an ant so that he can treat the ant accordingly."

"And what if he doesn't have that?"

"I don't know, and neither does he. And it terrifies him."

"The terror of a God." I shuddered.

"In return for that," he went on. "I get to see and experience everything that the Schattenmann sees and experiences. Like you said about what the ant would do, I do not have the words, or the ability to communicate what that is like. It has only been seven years in the linear, mortal concept of time. But I have lived for thousands of years. I stood in the clearing when that rock outside slammed into the earth. I watched as the first signs of the heart tree grew from the rock as if it was growing from a seed and I have seen when the White Frost finally becomes too powerful to be kept at bay and finally, even the heart tree will freeze.

"I have seen worlds that you would not believe and I have seen things that I cannot describe using the boring three dimensions of physical space. I have talked with beings so small that you could not see them with your naked eye and I have seen the entire worlds that spin around the suns that make up your fingernail. But likewise, I have stood on the shoulders of the giants that would flick our existences from the surface of their skin in the same way that you would slap at an insect bite.

"And I have met and interacted with Law and have cowered before Hate. I have stood before the wobbly and transparent forms of Truth and I have fled in terror before the fires of Love and even that is a gross simplification of what I have seen and done.

"There is a prison, a vast distance from here where the suns are so far apart from each other that there is just darkness. And inside that prison which I am not even going to even try to explain how that prison is made up. Inside that prison is a thought. I remember it as being so beautiful, so simple and so complex. There was a pattern there and chaos and… and… and it was alive. And if that thought was released then the entirety of… everything… EVERYTHING would tear itself apart. Not only would it tear itself apart but it would do so with a howl of agony as everything, in reality, stopped existing and then it would be as though reality had never existed in the first place.

"I saw the fall of "He who fell," the being of light who was born into existence to alleviate the loneliness of darkness that looked upon their creation before hating and fearing it. I can go on and on. There is more and that is just the simplest of things that I can talk about. Things which are close to the concepts for which we have words.

"To you, and to me, I have only lived for seven years. But in a very real sense, I have also lived for thousands of years. Longer. For thousands of thousands of years and I will continue to live for thousands of thousands of years more.

"I am the Schattenmann but I am also the lost and frightened young man that missed his sister and was astonished at these dryads that seemed perfectly willing to throw themselves at me. When I die, when this human form finally just… stops. I don't know anymore… What even is death? I'm kind of looking forward to it in truth. I could do with the rest so that my mind is no longer in turmoil as I try to make sense of those things. Things for which there are no words in Elven, Dwarven, Gnomish or even Vran. Let alone the languages of humanity. I am looking forward to the peace."

He leant forward and his eyes glinted sharply. I felt skewered, like an insect pinned to a board.

"Consider this. You came here for some reason. You don't know why although the Elder suggests that you are lying to yourself. I agree with her by the way. But why if you were led here for a reason. What if your reason is to write what you see when you are the Schattenmann and thus, humanity can begin to understand what it is like to be a God and they can finally understand just how small and pointless they all really are."

He laughed. There was a hysterical edge to that laughter and I fled in horror and awe at what he had told me.

He told me more than that reader. He told me things that I cannot replicate. There were languages and names there. He described a city with a name that sounded like… It hurt my throat to say it when I tried to remember it later. He talked about beings that hurt my brain to think of them and, try as I might, my hand will not write their names. I forgot some of it because my brain would simply not take in what he said.

I have spoken about terrifying moments that I have experienced. But just that thought, just that brief glimpse into the world that the Schattenmann was experiencing and could tell me about it. I recoiled from it on an instinctual, soul-deep level.

And yet, I am fascinated by it.

I fled to my pavilion and paced up and down until morning.

(A/N: I stopped the chapter here because otherwise the chapter would just go on and on. Hope you enjoy this bit and I will see you again soon. Thanks for reading.)