Bjorn.

  "Something isn't right, Gall. Why wouldn't Kara and Bodil at least come for us anyways, send word like before?" I was considering the possibility that there were attacked themselves. With everything these people have been dealing with, the over run of monsters. Why haven't we come across them?

  "Yeah, you're probably right. What is the plan, Cal? Where should we look for your mother first?" He asked Cal. "Think, what else has been going on? Surely not just animals and demon attacks?"

  "There have always been erratic people. I... Why would the seers have a vision of a disaster here, how could it be faked?" Cal wondered out loud.

  "Maybe someone else sent it to them..." William said.

  No one said anything, we stood in silence in the hall. I tried to think of who would be able to do that apart from Ota and his kin. The awakened were the children of Ota. Their powers alone were a gift from him.

  "The Ud?de do not posses that kind of power." I told Cal. "Not even their leader could have sent a vision to an awakened seer."

  "You would know better then I." William said in a sing song tone and walked out of the hall doors.

  "I do not like him much." Pepper said annoyed.

  "That is something we have in common, Pepper." Gallion said. "I've had enough waiting, lets go find Sully and get the hell out of here. With or without William is up to you two. I'd leave him here if it was up to me." He stood stretching his arms and picked up his side bag slinging it over his shoulder, then looked to the both of us for an answer. The three of us let out a laugh.

  "There is a back entrance after all." Pepper said more seriously.

  The four of us started towards the back entrance intending to leave William and his mule. If anything, one less erratic was better for us all.

  Pepper pushed open the back entrance door and looked to see if William could spot us leaving, and then waved for us to follow out. The four of us quietly left the hall and worked out way over to a group of homes near the tree line. Pepper opened a door to fish hut and we piled inside.

  "Now what?" Gallion asked.

  "Let's go." Pepper darted across the small muddy yard behind the hall and disappeared behind the next building. A bird sound came from where she had gone to, Gallion and I moved as quickly as he could towards her, Cal was behind us, when I looked back at him he was walking backwards sending fog from his hands to hide us moving. Despite the fog, I still kept looking behind my back checking to see if William would come out of the back door and find us leaving.

  As we reached Pepper, Gallion asked, "What of the horses?"

  "I will have them brought to us. Brownies." Pepper offered.

  "Let's get out of here then before that geit figures out we left." Gallion said in a hush voice as he made his way towards the edge of the village. "I bet there's a gate near by we can exit."

  "Might have to climb some stairs, old man." I teased Gallion. His leg was always a problem for him.

  "There is always an exit to our villages. It shouldn't be far." Cal said.

  The exit was farther then we had hoped, sneaking through the village was getting on my nerves. I sighed out in frustration.

  "Let's go back to the front and w..." I stopped talking and dropped to the ground pulling on Gallion's cloak, bringing him down. "Shh, look." I whispered. Pepper, and Cal crouched behind us.

  William was creeping around the road between two buildings looking from side to side. If we had kept on walking he would of seen us. Pepper pulled herself on top of the small house beside us, the thatch roof creaked a bit as she moved. It wasn't enough for William to notice her and he simply stood in place listening.

  Gallion growled quietly. "This guy is weird. Let's just shoot him with an arrow and be done with it. Something tells me the world would be better off without someone like him."

  "Can't go killing people just because they are strange, Gall." I said stifling a laugh.

  Pepper's head appeared upside down from the roof just beside us. "I see an exit. It's three huts down, looks like its gonna be a ladder climb up to the port however." She said in a hushed voice, then flipped off the roof landing in the mud with barely a sound.

  "What are we waiting for then, eh?" Gallion stood up and looked around the corner, William was gone. Pepper led the way towards the exit along the defensive wall silently, checking around the side of the huts were clear of our creepy follower.

  "Pst, Ranger Pepper." A tiny voice came from above us.

  Pepper nodded to the brownie that blended in with the thatch roof. "What news?"

  "Sullevan waits for you, I will bring you to him." He said.

  "No, go and get a group of brownies and get our horses, do not let that William see you, and leave his mule and wagon." She ordered him. "Take them to a spot out of sight, we will come to you."

  "Aye! I am the sneakiest of all brownies, I know just the troops to bring! We will be quieter then.."

  "Thank you!" Pepper interrupted the brownie. He nodded happily and left without another word. "Always so eager, brownies. Hard working troops, but so..." She shook her hands in front of her like she was shaking off something.

  Cal and I laughed and the four of us moved forward to the exit.

  Without any incident or any effort really, the four of us left the village. "Where do you suppose Sullevan made it off to then?" Gallion asked Pepper.

  "Unsure. Let's find out." Pepper said smiling.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Walking away from the village and William gave me a small amount of relief. I truly hoped William would just go about his own business, maybe settle in the village somewhere and leave us be.

  Pepper tracked Sullevan without a problem. He was surrounded by a group of brownies, sharing a drink sitting on a large boulder beside a decorative arch way on the side of the mountain not far from the villages defensive wall. The arch way wasn't very wide and only reached about half the length of doorways to a home, or building would. Runes were chiselled into the mountain and around the door way. They were familiar to me, but only as if I had seen them written somewhere before.

  "Why doesn't it surprise me that you are drinking with brownies?" Cal laughed.

  Sullevan saluted his drink to us, and drank it down. Getting to his feet laughing, "Well my small friends do make good company. Plenty of heroic stories, and information. They really are the best of our kind." He smiled and gave the troops a wave, "Go, explore, watch our parameter and make sure we are not followed." The brownies all gave an "Aye, Ranger!", "We always do our best!", "We are the best because we are unstoppable! The best tree climbers! The invisible threats!" Pepper cleared her throat!

  "Go on!" She ordered, and they all scattered into the trees.

  Sullevan put his hand on Peppers shoulder, "Be patient with them, you will grow to like them..." He smiled and studied Pepper's facial reaction, which was disgusted, "Maybe.. maybe you will grow to like them." He finished laughing.

  Pepper gave him a shove and stepped in front of the arch. "What is this then? What runes are these, Sully? I don't recognise them all." She was following them with her hand trying to make sense of them.

  "I'm not sure yet, but I have a suspicion. Its been a long time since I have a few of these runes. More then a century." He said.

  Gallion sat against the rock that Sullevan was on and gave a huff. "Which ones do ya know?" He asked.

  "This one." Sullevan reached to the top of the arch, "Gateway, and this one." He pointed to one near the bottom of the arc on the right side, parts of it were chipped and covered in moss and dirt. He brushed it off a bit so we could see more of it, "Great foe, or Guardian."

  "So, basically we have nothing." Gallion said. "Wonderful, probably an entrance way to the depths of the world."

  Cal laughed, "well finally a place the three of us haven't been to!" Gallion and Sullevan laughed with Cal.

  "There are places here, on the island of Nef that were created by the gods, for the gods. A place to commune with our followers, or our own kind. This," I pointed to a rune on the top left of the arc. " Is ?rl?g, The name of the first maiden of Fate. This one," I pointed to the one just above the Guardian rune, " is Heim. It means home."

  Cal asked me softly, "A maiden of Fate. I didn't think they were real beings but more like a living magic that lived in seers. What gave them visions."

  Pepper scoffed, "They don't exist."

  "They do. Five of them. ?rl?g and her four daughters." I told them.

  "What?" Cal asked me. "Is that something you know from..." He trailed off.

  "My life as Aadi? Yeah, it is. Somethings I remember clearly, other stuff just seems to come to me." I shrugged.

  "So ?rl?g. Where is she and he daughters then?" Sullevan asked.

  "I don't know." I told them.

  The looks on their faces told me they didn't trust that response. "I Swear to Ota, I don't know where they are. Or if they are even all alive. Ota told me that other gods gave up their immortality, like Bodil and I, they live as mortals, maybe they did the same and left fate in the hands of those who live?"

  "What if they are helping the Ud?de? Helping ?deleggeren?" Pepper asked

  "Who?" Cal asked

  "Another god." She said. No one spoke.

  "Could they retain memories from that life without help?" Asked Sullevan.

  "Ota returned the memories or Aadi and Amaia to Bodil and I." I nodded, "I believe so. If one god were to wait for the right time, and return those memories to the mortal like Ota did us. They why not?"

  It was silence while we all thought through this. "Bjorn, can't you just, you know, ask Ota?" Gallion asked me.

  I shook my head, "I don't think it works like that for me. I am only a mortal with access to the magics. Nothing more."

  I was standing in front of the doorway peering into the dark tunnel it led into. A whisper came from inside carried by the wind. "Bjorn."

  Pepper stepped beside me pulling her daggers out. "You hear that?" She asked me.

  I nodded to her and stayed silence.

  "Bjorn." The voice said again, slightly louder.

  Gallion and Sullevan stood behind Pepper and I as we listened.

  I stepped into the tunnel and started to walking into the darkness. The others followed my lead without protest. The tunnel smelled old and damp. Each stepped sent large insect scattering away from our feet. The tunnel blocked in places by large roots and fallen rocks. Pepper and Sullevan using what they called green magic, moved the roots out of they way without breaking or destroying them, clearing a path so we could continue. After a long trek in the darkness we came upon a single room. It was large, and like the tunnel it was full of insects, webs, roots. Expect, in the far corner of this room stood a small brazier filled with burning oil and incense. The flames were not large enough to light the entire room. There was a woman sitting on the floor in front of it. She was cross legged and covered in a cloak. She sat on a large fur patch probably from a mountain bear, with a circle of animal bones around her. Skulls, limbs, all different sizes. Some of them looked old while others were recent. She didn't move.

  "Hello?" I said. "I am Bjorn."

  Her head turned slightly towards my voice. "Bjorn, or Aadi?" She asked, her voice was soft, and reminded me someone.

  "Both." I replied.

  She nodded and stood, careful not to touch any of the bones. She turned to me pulling the hood of her cloak off. Her eyes were white, with no color. Her skin was white and pale as though she had never seen the sun. Seeing her face made me stop. A face that I remembered. She wasn't an old woman, but by no means was she the younger woman I knew once. Her lips pink and full, and her hair long, a faded yellow and grey.

  "Kaida" Her name escaped my lips before I even knew I said it.

  "Aadi. It is nice to see your face." She reached her hand up and placed it on my cheek. Careful that she didn't step from the circle of bones. "I have been waiting a long time."