The sun was setting as Soter left the city by the Southern Road. Not far from the city he found a huge camp of tents and smoking campfires and armoured men carrying spears. When he heard the chatting of two approaching men he hid in the scrub beside the road. They were soldiers, clearly from the camp, patrolling. Why are these soldiers here? Soter thought. Are they all looking for me?

Soter stayed off the road as he passed the camp. As each patrol came he’d duck behind a bush and stay as still as he could until they had passed. Soon the camp was far behind him and, having not come across any patrols in a while, Soter took to the road again.

The sky darkened quickly. When the last wisps of light from the sun had left the sky, Soter looked up and could see a great band of stars and celestial clouds stretching across the sky. There were hundreds of stars, more than Soter dared count, some small and dim, some exceptionally bright. The books Soter had read as a child had said that the stars were holes in the great celestial sphere. But Soter looked up and thought he could see into infinity. If there were so many holes, surely the sphere would collapse? Perhaps the writers of those books had never been outside a city at night. When Soter chanced to glimpse up at the night sky back in the city, he could almost count the number of stars he saw with his fingers.

The vastness of the heavens made Soter feel even more alone. He could hear insects chirping, an owl hooting, the wind blowing through distant trees. Where were the cries of babies echoing through the streets? Creaking wagon wheels, armoured soldiers marching heavily, the muffled sounds of a hundred different conversations?

It was more solitary than anything Soter had ever experienced. The lack of human activity was deeply unsettling. As he walked he heard footsteps behind him, but dared not turn around. He saw eyes staring back at him out of the shadowy bushes, felt the cold spectral fingers of demons on the back of his legs. The howling wind was the cry of a devil who had for some reason a vendetta against this poor human traveller.

Without anything but the clothes on his back and a purse of money, he found a soft patch of grass away from the road and curled up into the fetal position to keep warm. The wind had picked up – it was assaulting him, draining his warmth. Cool tendrils slithered underneath his shirt and up his back. He began to shiver, more and more the longer he lay there. He was too cold to sleep.

There was the snap of a branch. A careful, slimy footstep. This was real – so real it broke through Soter’s imaginings of demon screeches and eyes looking at him. He opened his eyes and there it was before him, a silhouette against the night sky – the form of a man, but not really a man. It was hunched over, its right arm was larger than its left, its head small and misshapen.

With a gurgling sound like a drowning man it lurched towards him. Soter jumped to his feet and ran away. He could hear it squelching after him, not far behind. Terror gave him speed, but he couldn’t outrun it. Soter could hear it still behind him at the same distance. If it were a demon it would chase him until he collapsed from exhaustion, if it were another kind of monster…

Soter snatched his coin purse from his belt and flung it at the thing following him. He could hear a bubbling sound fade into the distance as he continued to sprint away. An offering, a sign of submission to satisfy its hunger.

There would be no sleep that night. Soter stopped at a stone and sat down on it to regain his breath. Looking around, he saw tall trees in one direction and in every other direction, scrubs and bushes, some tall and some low. None of it looked familiar and there was no road in sight.

But then he remembered from a treatise he had once read, On the Practical Applications of Astronomy. He looked to the sky once more. There was Ykrab, a few degrees from the zenith. The head of the middle of the thrice-arrow constellation – he could see it clearly now, in the city he could only ever see one of the arrow heads. The middle arrow head points East, therefore South is… that way.

--

There it was. Black shapes against the starlit sky. A plume of smoke rising wearily out of one building. Dimlit lanterns along the road which paved it’s way through the village. Some of those buildings were more huts than houses – flat, rounded constructions made from dried mud or manure – Soter could not tell which.

As he approached, Soter hear the sound of merriment coming from some building ahead. That must be the inn, he thought.

“Who are you anyway?” said Soter to the man sitting next to him at the tavern.

“Borin Kotor, ranger and huntsman. Who’s askin’?”

“A person, a refugee from the greatest city in the world.”

“Which one?”

“Konstantyne.”

“Ah yes, I could have guessed as much. Have a drink? On me if you’re short for coin.”

“I’ll have one, then.” Said Soter, “Thanks.”

--

“You’re a god ‘mong men, m’lord.” Said Borin, “The story brings a tear to m’ eye. Must be, I’m thinkin’, some devil spirit latched onto ya, some bad luck ghost. Such misfortunes do not befall even the grav’st a sinners in my ‘sperience.”

Soter was feeling light headed. He knew that it was stupid to tell people things like this, with men looking to kill him, but at that moment he didn’t care at all.

“Sounds like horse shit to me.” Said Soter.

“I meant no ‘ffence m’lord. I’s jush you shou’d ssee tha’ Shaman. He dealsh in tha’ stuff – spirits an’ th’ like, bad luck if ya want ta think of it tha’ way. Lives ‘n th’ woods. Sells us oi’ments. Salves. Herbs. You’d be amaze’ what sprinklin‘ a couple bits a leaf into a soup will do for th’ flav’r.”

“Don’t think I would.”

“True enough.”

“C’mon I’ll take ya to ‘im. Promise ya won’t tell no one… the priests don’t like what he says… don’t like what anyone says but them, really. C’mon, the Shaman can help ya. Just promise…”

“I promish.” Said Soter, rising from his stool at the bar. He swayed, almost losing his footing. Borin put Soter’s arm over his shoulder to help him stay on his feet, but Borin was also unsteady.

“Yer lookin a little shaky there.” Said a patron, “Yer bloody drunk.”

“I’m not. Jus’ tired. Cmon let’s see th’ Shaman. Get yer purse, I’ll pay yeh back tomorrow.”

--

Borin and the others took Soter into the wood. The ground had a mist hanging around it, even at this time of day, tendrils parting as Borin made his way forward along the path that he had obviously travelled many times before. The trees were so thick that they formed a roof which kept the sun’s light and heat out entirely. As a result the ground was bare, moist dirt. There were a few clumps of grass and flowers at points where the canopy was thin enough to let some sun through. As they made their way further inwards, Soter noticed that the trees themselves were changing. Where at the outer edges they had been tall, straight and strong, further inward they became gnarled, twisted, tortured forms which seemed barely strong enough to hold up the roof of leaves that they did. There were rock formations, pointing upwards as if they had been torn right out of the ground.

Finally they came to a small round hut, cobbled together with bark and wood and vines. There was a circle of stones surrounding the hut, and as Soter approached he saw that they were each engraved with some complex symbol which he had never seen the likes of before. Borin stepped over the stones, careful to not accidentally touch any, and knocked on the moss-covered wooden door. The hut was like a forest of its own – with lichen, mushrooms and mosses of all colours.

The door rattled. “Just a minute.” Came an old woman’s croaking voice from within.

It rattled some more, there was the sound of a lock sliding, then the door flew open. The woman behind it was bent over a stick which seemed far too short to be of any use to her for walking. She was covered in long necklaces and hanging wooden ornaments which all had the same style of arcane lettering as the stones did. Tendrils of fuzzy, dreadlocked hair covered her face as she stared impatiently at Borin.

“What is it?” she demanded.

“A man,” said Borin beckoning Soter to come closer, “a man with bad luck. Evil spirits.”

The woman waved the hair away from her face, revealing a stern, wrinkled expression. She was covered in copper, silver and gold ornamentation; a band of silver through the bridge of her long nose, disks of polished copper with faces on them stuck in the stretched skin of her earlobe, small, circular metal piercings around her face which held some precious gem in the center. Her eyes narrowed as they interrogated Soter.

“Bad spirits eh? What makes ye think so lad?” she said.

“I-I suggested it.” Said Borin, “He-“

Soter interrupted, “My father was murdered, my mother died giving birth to me, my brother was killed in battle. The only person who ever loved me was blinded in front of me for a crime she didn’t commit. Then she died. I was forced to flee the place that had been my home since I was born. Tell me this isn’t an evil spirit. Tell me that God just decided that this was to be my lot in life.”

The Shaman’s stern expression became concerned. She gestured for Soter to wait and slammed the door shut. A noise erupted from inside of things being thrown around, glass clinking against glass, a frenzied search for something long lost.

Soon the Shaman reappeared. “Follow.” She said.

She hobbled off into the wood and Soter and his company followed.

At last after what seemed like hours following the hobbling Shaman, they reached a clearing in the forest where the Shaman stopped. The sun blinded Soter for a moment. He hadn’t realised how dark it had been in the forest. It was midday now. As Soter’s eyes adjusted, he saw that the clearing was around a shallow pool of water fed by three great toad statues. They were ancient and cracked. The opals that were the pupils of their eyes gittered in the sunlight just as did the water that gushed out of their open mouths.

“Here is a place of ghosts. We shall see. Enter the water.”

Soter stepped into the pool. It was warm and steam rose from it into the air. It reminded Soter of the baths he had at home. He hadn’t had a bath in a few days now. He remembered when he felt safe, when he wasn’t alone and in exile. When he wasn’t a refugee in the country that should by right have been his. His father had always told him that.

The steam in front of Soter suddenly condensed and twirled around itself. As he looked at it in wonder, he saw the eyes of his father staring back at him.

“I told you that it would be yours if you were virtuous. You never listened to me Soter, I was only ever concerned for your future. Your brother listened to me. He would have been a good ruler. He wouldn’t have had to flee the city.”

“I never saw my brother, I never knew him. He was in the East my whole life, fighting your war. I tried to avenge you. I tried to kill them. I… I… I failed. I…”

“You are weak.”

“I tried.”

“You are weak like your uncle. You have resigned our family to extinction and disgrace.”

Soter swiped at his father but his hand went right through him. He swung his other hand in an arc downward. It flew right through the form of his father and slapped into the water.

He kept on flailing his arms, expecting his father’s form to disintegrate like a wisp of steam. But he didn’t, he just stood there glaring at Soter, the disappointment obvious in his eyes.

He heard a shout from the shore. Hands grabbed him and pulled him out of the pond.

As he lay on the muddy ground, panting for breath, Soter saw Borin was extremely worried.

“What’s the matter? You alright? What’s going on?” said Borin.

“Stand back.” Said the Shaman.

The others that had come with Borin were whispering to each other. One would occasionally glance down toward Soter out of the corner of his eye but then immediately look away when he saw Soter looking back.

The Shaman bent down over Soter.

“Rest.” He said.

Soter nodded.

--

After Soter had regained his strength, the Shaman took him back to his hut. Borin stayed at the lake after he got in a heated argument with the others from the village.

“You are cursed.” The Shaman said, “You have evil spirits.”

“Why am I cursed? What have I done to deserve this?”

“Your father’s blood debt must be satisfied. Gaeia gave him his throne back after your Uncle lost it. He thought he could kill the gods with his Inquisitions before they reaped their price from him.”

“How do I fix it?”

“You must drink blood from the Heart of the Forest.”

“What does that mean?”

“Go into the dark forests of the West. The tribesmen there will be able to guide you to where you need to be.”