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≈ VI ≈

iii. The Quest For Hearthstone

And so he traveled along the rocky spine of the Maegorod Mountains that separated Beardenheim from Shavehalla, before crossing the great river Sírphen into Manegard, the land of the elves. He lost himself in the deep forests of Alfheim, which gave way to shimmering cities among the trees that seemed made of moonlight.

He hunted the plentiful woodland game, and foraged berries, roots and mushrooms. He spoke to the light elves, a few of whom had crossed paths with a human cartographer, but remembered little else of such a simple creature.

After a time traveling east, he turned north to pass in the direction the elves told him his father had gone, between the dark elves of Svartalfheim and the Vanir of Vanaheim. To his east he saw gleaming yellow eyes of either the dark elves or the night creatures, flashing in the darkness.

But neither the eyes, the elves, nor the night creatures set in him a sense of unease as did the deafening quiet, deep, inky green boughs and velvet blackness that lay to the west.

The nights he spent in that place were hardly distinguishable from the days. When he set camp and made fire, the light seemed penned in by the encircling dark, save for the flames dancing in eyes watching from the east. The crackle of fire on wood popped and hissed in short sputters before being eaten by the enveloping silence of the west.