“Man, why is it that the land narrows down to a point at the monastery to the south?” I asked, as he was about to continue with his explanation. “What’s over to the east and west of it?”

“The mountains,” he replied, matter-of-factly.

“Has nobody ever climbed those mountains?” Kard took his turn in asking.

“These are not any kind of mountains, Kard,” Seika answered in Man’s place. “They are known as ‘the Mountains’ and are believed to be boundaries set by gods to keep us from straying into the dangers that lurk beyond, but also to keep those dangers away from us. No human, manaless, or spellcaster ever crossed the Mountains and lived to tell the tale.”

“Are you talking about monsters, Seika?” Krysha asked.

“Well some of the most powerful creatures that roam these lands are considered to originate from beyond the Mountains,” Seika replied.

“So those monsters are either immune to frost or can fly above the Mountains?” Krysha said.

“Dragons…” Kard mumbled, and Seika nodded at him before Man took a deep breath and continued with his explanation.

“As you can tell from this map, in order to reach the monastery we need to first reach Fjalhun,” he said. “This can be done either by traveling through Guldan or Fenira. The crossroads leading to one or the other are just an hour’s riding distance from where we are now.”

“Which way do you think we should go, Man?” I asked, certain he had already considered all possible implications.

“Now wait a minute,” Krysha interjected. “Shouldn’t we all be given the information and decide together?”

Everyone nodded, including Man, so I simply waited for him to provide what we needed to know.

“Guldan is a nation of engineers, and it is also a land where magic is forbidden,” Man started. “The people there despise anything related to magic and would much rather spend years developing an engineering solution for something a minor magical item would solve quickly and at a very low price. Leka An doesn’t have many trade relationships with them apart from receiving shipments of minerals, metals, and precious stones that come up from Fjalhun via their railway system.”

“Is this railway some kind of trading path?” asked Kard, who seemed to be as lost as I was.

“It’s a system of machines that travel using minerals as fuel instead of mana,” Man replied. “So yes, in a way it is used as a trading path. In any case, we only pay them a fee for transferring the goods to us, but that’s pretty much it. Guldan, especially its capital Tankara, is teeming with large-scale magic-nullifying devices, so I don’t enjoy visiting it, even though its fleet of airships is impressive.”

I tried to recap. “Guldan to the East, good engineers, fast transportation, hate mana, our magic items and Seika’s spells won’t do anything there.”

“Speaking of magic items, we cannot carry any in Tankara,” Man continued. “There are ways to smuggle them of course, but let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.”

We all agreed with a nod and waited for him to continue.

“On the other side, Fenira is a crownless nation of vast farming areas,” he said. “Its capital, Helian, sits in the middle of a valley where all you can see around is green fields. Its people worship their own goddess of the land who keeps their crops and harvests safe, and they do not care much about kings, wealth, or mana. They are content with the life they live and don’t really want much more. Some of them know me, as I sometimes buy harvests from them or sell a magical item or two there.”

“So traveling through Fenira, we won’t face the same issues as is the case with traveling through Guldan?” I asked.

“Not really,” Man replied. “We can use magic and we can travel freely through Fenira, but we will need to ride the whole distance, while the railway system in Guldan is significantly faster.”

“When we were in your father’s throne room,” Kard started saying, “it felt as if I was naked without the heavy protection of all those magic items… even though I felt safe there. I wouldn’t want to travel for days feeling like that in a country that dislikes spellcasters and is so far away from home.”

“I would also prefer to avoid Guldan,” Seika admitted. “I have always trained with spells. If you gave me a sword or a bow and arrow, they would be as useful to me as a spellbook to Man.”

“I don’t necessarily like the idea of it either,” Man said in turn, “but every device has its weaknesses and I know them all. I am fine with traveling through Guldan with their railroad, but I agree that I’d prefer not to do it. A member of the Leka An royal family sabotaging Guldan mechanical equipment might have terrible consequences if uncovered.”

“The way I see it,” said Krysha, “everything points toward going through Fenira and the only downside is that it will take us longer. But we’re already following a trail which is perhaps one month old, with no hope of catching up. Logic dictates we should take the safe route through Fenira.”

“Well then, let’s go to Fenira,” I said and stood up. “Maybe not until tomorrow though.”

“Let’s all rest tonight,” agreed Seika and stood up as well. “I’ll set up some alarm spells on top of our protective barrier so nobody needs to stay awake and guard the rest of us.”

“Great idea, sister,” I said, as I lay down in my light blue fluffy sleeping sack. “You do that.”

“You’ve grown up to become a bigger gargoyle, Adel,” she said with a laugh, as she retrieved the material components needed for her spells from one of her bags.

Pretty soon, everyone was in their sleeping sack and all protective spells were in effect. I was extremely tired but still excited that we were closing in on Myriam. Kai was with her as well of course, and I had a series of questions I wanted to ask him. For the thousandth time, I replayed the questions in my head. Why did he kill my parents? Was it him or was it The Divine? Would I ever get a shot at receiving my mana again?

Man was preparing breakfast when I woke up. I quickly gathered my sack and put it back into my magically enlarged bag before heading over to him. The breakfast we had was not very different to the ones we had in the tower, which was a pleasant surprise since I remembered Krysha noting that we needed combat rations before departing. However, today it looked like eggs, beans, and dried meat slices were among Man’s priorities.

As soon as we’d eaten our breakfast, we summoned our rides and were on the road south once more.

***

A couple of hours later, we reached the crossroads Man had told us about. I was expecting it to be guarded by soldiers of all three nations, but instead there was just a large inn, called The Rooster Thief where seemingly people from all three nations flocked to drink and talk business.

The sun was still young in the sky and, at this time in the morning, most of the inn’s patrons were probably still sleeping. But in the stables, I could see steeds carrying the handshake crest of Leka An on their saddles that were placed next to them, as well as some that had a scythe—presumably the Feniran crest since they were farmers. The remaining horses had no crests on their saddles but were rather loaded with a variety of metal tools, that I assumed belonged to engineers of Guldan.

What caught my eye more than anything about the outside of the tavern was the spectacular magic scarecrow they had. Since it was early and most people were still sleeping, the crows were circling above to attack the crops.

But whenever this happened, the magical scarecrow would jump down from its wooden cross and chase the birds away. It then walked back to its resting place and used its limbs made of garments to climb up onto the cross and stay there. Such a simple use of magic, but definitely useful in these parts.

I wonder if it was made with mana from The Divine or magic from another god…

We didn’t want to raise any alarms or notify anybody of our presence unless we really had to, so we simply galloped past the inn and took the west road, away from the crossroads.