Chapter 26

It took me two weeks to get those six children out of the forest. It also meant that I barely slept those nights. It was clear that the people who had been chasing Frey and I had not forgotten their humiliation and, a few times, we had to hide from a searching party and their dogs. Even if I could easily make the trip from Aston to their hiding place in a day, there was no way that we could move the little kids that fast. Then there was Tove who was pregnant. What made things a bit easier was that their condition became better day by day because of the food and clothes I carried there. Oh, did I say that I studied and worked at the Library all that time? Any change from the ordinary might have brought some extra attention and I was sure that both the Guardians and the Magicians had their spies among the Royals and they knew exactly how some of those high and mighty had been humiliated by the ‘poachers’.

In a way, the longer time frame helped me, since after a moment of consideration, I was able to send a carefully handwritten letter to Birgit, who would then deliver it to my friends in the Valley. If somebody read that letter it was just a description about a student’s life at Aston, unless you were able to make the magic writing visible. I trusted that, if there were more natural Mages working for the Magicians, they would have something more important to do than scan all the letters. Besides, there was enough loose cat fur on to the paper to make some people sneeze. Those two cats Mrs. Ness was hosting there probably wondered why they suddenly got all that extra attention.

It was an easy decision not to bring the children inside the city. They would stick out like a sore thumb because they had absolutely no experience of life outside the forest. Luckily for me, Ylva and Liv knew a place - actually a very small, abandoned farm that we could use - and outside Aston. I tried to pay for it, but as soon as Elise found out about it she ... well, she wasn’t happy with me. She also organized a carriage and a woman who would help them. At least Elise agreed that the group would do better with Elves than anywhere else because she took my word about their abilities.

It was Sunnudag afternoon two weeks later when I was back in my room and for the first time in a while, there was no place where I needed to be a few hours. I decided to lie down for a moment to think about the situation.

It was fully dark when I woke up, sweating. I had been in the middle of a nightmare. I was trying to get the kids to safety while being hunted by the dogs and getting drenched in a flooding stream. I had been carrying some people and counting my steps like it had been important. I tried to shake the dream away, even though I was sure that it was already stored so deeply that I’d never be able to forget it. I opened the window a bit, even if it was cold outside. Then I took off all my crumpled and sweaty clothes and used a washcloth and the bowl to clean myself a bit. Once finished, I noticed that I was hungry. I decided to dress in my linen robe and go downstairs to check if there was something to eat. That robe was something that Elise had given all of us, and I was ready to admit that it was a bit of luxury I would miss if I needed to give it up.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

I had sensed that Elise had been approaching me, but I hadn’t turned. I had just been watching the empty street in front on the house from the window; or what I could see of that empty street, through the fog that seemed like a constant companion this time of the year.

“Nightmare. Woke up from it.”

“Those dreams bothering you again?”

I knew that Linnea had revealed just about everything to Elise and it was also possible that either Bellcauniel or Fainauriel had mentioned something. I knew that they all meant well and they were worried about me. Still, I felt a bit uneasy about it. I shook my head.

“No, this was a normal nightmare. It was about failing to save those kids...”

I guess I should not have been surprised, but the sheer power that Elise used while hugging me was more that I had expected.

“You poor, young man. It’s like you carry the weight of all those people on your shoulders. Not just those people in that valley but all those others who have been hunted and who have now probably scattered all around the kingdom.”

I wanted to argue, I wanted to say to her that it wasn’t like that at all, but I couldn’t. It was something my mother had tried to do when they were attacked; when their ship was sunk to the bottom of the sea. They had failed - she had failed - and now I felt that I should succeed where they - she - had failed. I had to succeed so that their sacrifice wouldn’t have been meaningless.

Some part of me, maybe a more rational part, tried to point out that without that shipwreck, my mother would not have met father and I would not have been born. That maybe my mother had added a hidden message to the text she had written for me, and I was reacting this way because of that subtle, hidden, message. After all, my mother had mastered the hidden writing. I closed my eyes. If that was how it was, then it was. There was no way that any magic push could be this long-lasting and now I was doing all this because I wanted to do it. Or so I thought.

So, I returned Elise’s hug and enjoyed the feeling of a comforting, warm, body next to me.

“At least I’m not alone, Elise. I know that I have good friends helping me in what I’m doing.”

When I had said that, I was able to sense Elise stiffen, and slowly she pulled away from me. “Stian, I have ... no, we’ll talk about that later. Please eat whatever you want and go back to sleep. Even if you are still young you need more rest.”

For a moment, I wondered what Elise had in her mind, but then I realized that I was still tired and decided some more sleep would be a good idea. A really good idea.

Towards the winter solstice and the end of the year I spent even more hours working inside the Library walls. If possible, my tasks turned even more nasty and dirty than they had been. It was almost as though they wanted to make me quit - or they were testing the level of my commitment. I hoped that it was the latter. At least nobody seemed to pay me any extra attention while I was working there, which suited me fine.

I made a few visits to see the children on the farm and talked to Tove and Frey, but there wasn’t really that much that they could tell me that would help me to find more people, more natural Mages. It was only two days before the winter solstice when I got a letter back from my ‘aunts’. They expected to arrive in Aston a week after the winter solstice.

It was hard not to smile when I went to work the last day before the solstice, during which the Library would be closed. The lectures had stopped two weeks ago and they wouldn’t start until the coming Manadag three weeks after the solstice.

“Son, you intend to keep on working here?”

I turned and stopped dusting the shelves. The man talking to me wasn’t actually a librarian, but he was the one responsible of all practical work that was being done here. While the ‘Old Man’, Halvard, was responsible for the whole Library and wanted to know all the people working here; he wasn’t at all interested how the things really worked inside the library walls, as long as they worked. The man speaking to me, a middle-aged, grumpy man called Rudolf - or ‘that bastard Rudolf’ or at least ‘that damned Rudolf’ - took care of all practical things, even if he looked like a man who had never read a book in his life. Since I had noticed how easy it was to eavesdrop or keep an eye on some other people inside the library I had been very careful with what I said and where I said it. In a way it had been easy since nobody wanted to talk with me.

While cleaning my hands on the cloth I carried with me almost all the time, I nodded to him.

“Yes, I think I am, Sir. I need to help in the maintenance of a building in order to keep my own room, but I’d like to have some money once I’m finished at the University. It’s hard to start your life without any money.”

The man looked at me for a while. “I think that you’re almost the only person they have managed to hire here, with at least half a brain and some sort of work ethic. You know that most of the other workers would have had no problem touching the books immediately after they stopped their cleaning task.”