If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

Lewis Carroll

She was out of breath and her feet hurt, the only thing not hurting was her left hand, and that felt dead and cold. She opened the door and stumbled inside.

Taking several deep breaths while stabilizing herself with her hands on her legs she focused and then softly spoke some consonant heavy words. A small spark flowed from her fingertip towards a lantern igniting the wick. Ghostly runes flickering for a moment around the flame. After adjusting it she took the lantern and hurried towards her room at the back of the house.

Her parents, now only her father, slept in the room in the attic, the first room one entered was the living room, where the dining table stood. Then there was the laboratory inside a refurbished shed to her right.

Hitting the table leg with her shin while hurrying, she cursed and hobbled into the small bedroom. All her possessions rested in a small chest at the foot of the bed. The room itself was merely big enough to turn around and put on clothing without hurting oneself. Dim light filtered through the gaps in the shutters she had drawn before the ill-fated search for her father.

She opened the chest and threw some clothes onto the bed, sorting them into some she wanted to wear right away and those to carry with her.

A little pouch clinking with some money was unearthed from a loose floorboard. Sadly lacking in volume. She pulled on some trousers and a tunic over which she wore a long robe of forest green, with some stains from her work as an apothecary and herbalist she never got completely rid of.

Breathing the familiar herbal fragrance calmed her down some. A belt with loops for potions and some pouches followed next. She was thankful that she did not wear it at the time. Nirileth knew where her clothes and quarterstaff had gone. Next came a backpack already mostly packed because she never took the time to completely empty out what she would not need in town. She secured the bedroll on top. Hastily scooping the clothes into the pack she tamped the loosely flying bits and ends into it with some force.

Then she gathered the few pieces of jewelry she possessed, mostly copper and agate pieces, and added them to the mix. In the kitchen, she grabbed some bread and cheese. In the laboratory, she teared up after realizing she would have to leave most of it.

Her mother's workplace was left as she had last used it, Alyssa never having the heart to change it- besides it being this way as she learned to use it.

A sack was filled with some books on alchemy and herbology, a primer for the magically inclined housewife was also added. Then came some potions which she added to her belt and the portable mortar and pestle besides a small iron stand for brewing with some glassware to make it possible.

She grunted a bit while hefting the lot and then took some rope to bind it to her side. Then she went to the door looking back for the last time. Before going she grabbed a charred piece of parchment and wrote with a wrapped stick of coal “Sorry father, forgive me.”

Then the words left her, or she had too much. How many times had she sat at this table and looked at his back, his expressionless face. So many grey mornings just before sunrise where she would wordlessly give him his lunch the 'good morning' like a leaden weight on her tongue unspoken. The nights when he did not come back or the nights where she heard him coming back late, sitting in the darkness while nursing cheap spirits.

She never found the words then and she did not find them now. She only desperately hoped that he would be spared in that whole sorry incident. But remaining here would lead to her death or worse and she was not ready for that.

Her whole body ached and she hastened towards the north gate in the direction of the mountains, having been there for gathering herbs with her mother and later alone since she was able to bear the walk.

It was very late at night nearing dawn. ‘The madam probably did not want to disturb the paying customer and did not yet realize his death.’ she thought ‘otherwise there would be guards and soldiers everywhere.’

When she reached the small plaza before said gate she saw two guardsmen talking in front of it illuminated by a flickering lantern. “Mark my words, the walkway will collapse one of these days. When Mark Thimble last went, this stone broke loose.” he pointed towards a bit of fallen masonry nearly the size of a horse's head. “A real menace that is!” “Calm down and keep your voice down. Thimble is stuffed like a prized sow at farmers fair, should have kept towards the wall!” “And what do you say when you smash your head like a pumpkin? Oh, should have passed on that last pie?!” “Who will tell the captain, you? Don’t make me laugh! When he asks you always stutter and act all shy.” he guffawed.

“Excuse me! Can I please interrupt you for a moment?” Alyssa interrupted the two arguing completely oblivious towards her presence.

The angry Guard first regained his cool “Oy, what are you doing here at this hour. Honest citizens should stay at home ‘til dawncall.” “Sorry, I have an urgent request for a potion and there is not a twig of Helmseye in the whole town. If I don’t start early I will not make it to the Fernwoods and back before nightfall. Could you please let me out!”

“You know that there are rules for this kind of thing, do you? The gate is shut for the night unless it's a festival and even then it will close by midnight.” the other calmer guard interjected.

“Could you please make an exception? I really have to do this, it's nearly time for the collector to make his rounds and I need the additional revenue. I could spare a bit of silver for you to have a drink to my health and success?”

“Each?”

After the night she had Alyssa looked pale and haggard and after she looked even paler when this was mentioned the first guard coughed embarrassedly and said “Ok, ok, no need to get nervous, a silver is enough, isn’t it?”

He looked at his companion. “Yes for fucks sake, open the damn door. I will stand watch” he grinned because of the obvious irony.

The grumbling guard took her to a small portal set into the right-wing of the gate which he then proceeded to unlock and unbar. “Here ye are missy.” Holding out his hand and receiving the coin a grin parted his unruly beard which was nearly the only feature next to his nose and eyes that were visible under his helmet in the dim light.

Alyssa thought he looked like something to frighten children with, especially with his uneven and blackened teeth. “Thanks a lot!” She felt a twinge of regret and guilt as she said this and hastened out of the door.

The door clanged shut behind her and she heard the sliding of the bolts used to secure it. The road to the northern wilds stretched into the distance before her, the somewhat lawless lands between the heartlands of Rivenlorn and the principality of Ulsolm. There were some small towns and villages, but the farther one went the more sparse the population. At least of the more civilized kind.

Once humanity had been pushing into the wildlands and there was talk of newly founded fiefs and towns springing up to make use of natural resources that were abundant in those regions.

But time and the constant wars left dead ruins and fallow fields, old stones charred from fire and dyed in blood.

If she tried to cross the mountains or went to the southeast to get to the coast she would then have the possibility of reaching Margrinar. In late summer it should still be possible for her to go for Thundersplit Pass which traversed the mountains a bit to the northeast of here. Lately, she had heard of bandits infesting this part of the County.

But before the bandits could get to her, the viscount's men would if she was not fast on her way. The first rays of dawn would probably be her signal to leave the road and forge on into or at least towards the Fernwood, a wooded area that contained extensive moors caused by streams out of the mountains. It was a dangerous area because of unpredictable, sometimes magical flora and fauna. Deeper inside, there were rumors of swamp hags and will’o’wisp even the drowned dead were sometimes seen. Rumors told of sleeping dragons and giants deeper in the range.

On some of the barren hilltops were old stone rings of ill-repute, erected to elder gods and fey, not made by the hands of mortal men. It was a good area to forage for herbs, not least because it was very unpopular with herbalists and even hunters. She heaved another sigh and then set a fast pace towards the north, the stars slowly wheeling above her and the lost eye, as the white major moon was called, setting slowly in the west and the first grey fingers of dawn crept over the mountain range in the east casting their summits black against the slowly lightening sky.

Thankfully she had a few hours to gain distance, leaving the outlying farms crowding around the city behind. Her legs were burning and the bruises she had accumulated hurt with each step. She felt the guilt gnawing at her for leaving her father. But what was she to do? If she stayed she would be killed, at least this way he had a chance didn’t he? And he was the cause of this catastrophe.

And then there was the face of the young noble arrogantly leering at her, the overpowering fear and loathing she had felt and then the dried-out husk she left behind. She had not wanted to kill but she never learned to use this power, always hiding it.

She massaged her unnaturally cold left hand. She had known for some time of her ‘talent’ or curse as some would call it.

Necromancy or the left-handed path, the thief of the last solace, the one standing beside the river, he who is forsaken by the light they called it. It was not talked about, much. And reliable information was not openly disseminated. The clergy warned to not stray and seek to subvert the so-called ‘natural’ order. Was she not part of this order? Did she do anything to acquire this power, this curse? Sometimes there were rumors of speakers for the dead, claiming coin for passing along a message to and from the dearly departed.

She remembered back to a warm summer day. It was the first year of her mother's passing. She had been shut in her room reading a book about a golden butterfly leading the protagonist of the story into a fairie mound where time stood still and everyone was happily dancing in an eternal feast with fey lords and ladies, circling through halls of crystal and pearl.

Then she saw it, a butterfly dry and dead lying with wings extended in a patch of light, glowing golden in the late afternoon, and she wanted this butterfly to lead her to the mound where she and her family would be forever happy. She felt it then, the cold, dark might inside of her straining into this world through her small body into her hand stretched towards that patch and the whisps of dark shadow forming symbols and etchings of night, the butterfly beating its wings in the golden light of a dying day, her life-force ebbing into the stream of blackened frost curdling in her veins.

And she realized then, that to surmount death while you are living you have to give of life.

She had always loved magic, it was so wonderful and seemed made to escape from the drudgery of daily living. Her mother knew some small spells to call spirits of nature to hasten growth, to help a cure, and to see the root of an illness.

Sadly Alyssa herself had few talents with this kind of thing, nature and life were opposites to the void in her core. But the elements and even magic itself, harsh and unfeeling as they were most of the time she could bend to her will. And she was talented, while largely self-taught.

She did not really need to take the Primer for the magically inclined Housewife with her. She had it memorized already.

The sun rose red and big over the peak of Icehand's grasp, so-called for the eternal ice on its peak outlining a grasping hand. And she felt her time slowly running out. The town seemed much too near for it to be this late. She stumbled and nearly fell with exhaustion.

So she went into the fields to her left towards the distant misty line of forest. Here the rapacious hunger of industry had felled all trees, leaving stumps and the debris of old lumber camps.

She prayed to Nirileth and Jaros, to the three-eyed god of travels, old Varnis who was said to be always with those who went alone, giving company where there is none. And perhaps it was the prayers, perhaps it was luck, perhaps it was the cowardice of Madam Turosso she heard the death knells as the sun rose to its peak.

The dark voice of the old Castignar Bell rolling over the fields and echoing back from the mountains, once for a death, twice for a son, thrice for the heir, and again for an unjust death.

And then the dark dappled green of the forest swallowed her whole.