After a couple of hours walking through a somewhat broader mountain passage filled with snow, we finally reached a cliff overlooking a small frozen valley. The tundra was enclosed in what seemed like almost vertical cliffs of mountains high enough to be hidden in the thick white clouds. In the middle of the valley was the monastery, a circular building with what looked like a forest in its middle and a tower standing within it.

The monastery itself was bathed in sunlight emanating from a hole in the thick cloudy shroud above. Upon closer inspection, I realized the snowing clouds were not moving at all but were static at the top of the valley, snowing down while concealing the mountain tops.

Once we walked to the edge of the cliff in front of us, we realized small steps had been carved into the mountainside, leading down to the same level as the valley. We carefully began the descent and were soon faced with the gates of the monastery.

We waited for someone to notice us, even knocked twice, but nobody paid us any heed. Seeing this, and being anxious to move indoors, we pushed the gate open ourselves and walked across a long empty corridor and through another door leading to the outer gardens of the monastery.

There were all sorts of plants and trees in this garden, but what was most fascinating was the fact that the climate here felt as if spring had suddenly arrived. Just outside the gates, snow and cold were raging, but in here the gardens were brimming with life and warmth. We walked further in, toward the entrance of the tower and once again, did not find anybody there.

We called for people and knocked on the frame of the missing door, but ultimately we entered without anyone answering our calls. The room was completely empty save for a door that was slightly ajar, some ten steps in front of us.

Noises could be heard behind the door, though I could not recognize any voices. Seika moved first and pushed open the door and we realized what the noises were.

We were in the monastery’s dining area, a score of monk-priests having their lunch in silence. They were all wearing white robes and had equally white long hair. Some of them had straight hair, some very curly, but all of them looked as though they had never put a knife to it.

“Hello.” My sister announced our presence, but none of the monks stopped eating. “We are here looking for some friends of ours.”

Still, the monks didn’t react to any of our prompts. One of them stood up from her table , an empty plate in hand, and moved toward us. She was walking head-on toward Seika but just as she was about to crash on her, she sidestepped and continued to a table near the entrance. She left her plate there and turned to a corridor on our right.

“Can you not see us?” my sister asked, in a loud voice, presumably in case the monks couldn’t hear us either.

“We can see you,” replied a man sitting close to her.

“We are sorry for entering your monastery uninvited. We are looking for two friends of ours,” Seika told the man, but he simply ignored her again.

My sister threw her hands in the air, frustrated, as Kard stepped in.

“We are looking for a young woman with a boy…” Kard picked up where she left off. “Have two people looking like that been here recently?”

“Yes,” the monk-priest replied, not taking his eyes off of the broth he was having for lunch.

“When did they come here?” Kard asked again.

“Weeks ago,” came the immediate answer.

“Where are they now?” I asked anxiously.

“We don’t know,” the man replied.

“But they’re not here?” Kard asked, though we already knew the answer. “When was the last time you saw them?”

“No,” he answered to the first question, and proceeded onto the second. “Yesterday.”

“Okay, let me handle this,” Kard told me, and went on with questioning the monk. “Since we didn’t meet them on our way here, they did not return on the road to the north. What other ways could they leave the monastery? Apart from the north entrance, I mean.”

The man who was now halfway through his lunch pointed south with his hand before picking up his spoon again.

“What is there?” Seika asked.

“The crypt,” he replied.

“Is there something special in the crypt, or does it lead to somewhere?” Kard asked once more.

“The crypt leads to the staircase,” he answered.

“This is getting tiring,” Kard confessed, turning to look at the rest of us, but he kept pressing on. “And where does this stairway lead?”

“The Edge of the World.”

“Why would somebody want to go there?” I asked, not making much sense of what the man was saying.

“We don’t know,” came the same answer to my accidental question.

“What is at the Edge of the World?” Man asked.

“The Mana Tree,” the monk responded immediately.

“Why would they…” Kard began anew. “No, we’ve asked that. How long did they stay in the monastery?”

“Many nights,” came the vague answer of the monk-priest.

“Why did the woman and the boy come here?” asked Krysha.

“They wanted to study a book,” the man replied, as he swallowed a spoonful of broth.

“What was the book about?” Krysha pressed on.

“Restoring deities,” he answered.

“Where is the book now?” she asked.

“We don’t know,” he replied again.

The exchange with this man was almost taken out of a tale. He never asked us any questions and answered all of ours with as few words as possible. As fun as this sounded at first, it quickly became frustrating for all of us. None of the other monks seemed to care about us asking questions and I wondered why they all behaved so strangely.

But we didn’t have time to lose, so I continued questioning him about Myriam and Kai instead.

“Who gave them the book?” I asked.

“Brother Galad,” he answered.

“Where can we meet Brother Galad?” I asked quickly.

“You can’t,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Why not?” I asked just as fast.

“He is dead.” His answer came with a chilling emptiness in his voice.

“We are sorry to hear that. How did he die?” Man asked, as he saw me struggling to find words to continue.

“He was killed,” the man replied in the same tone as when he was talking about the book.

“Who killed him?” Man asked immediately, skipping all pleasantries.

“We don’t know,” he replied, having almost finished his lunch.

“Did two spellcasters pass through here recently?” Seika asked in a worried tone.

“Yes,” the man replied.

“When did they come here, and what did they want?” she continued, a sense of urgency rising in her voice.

“About an hour ago. The book,” came the monk-priest’s emotionless answers, one after the other.

“Were they people from the Order?” my sister asked, and added an additional question before letting the man answer. “What did you tell them about the book?”

“Yes, and we told them we do not have it,” he replied and took his plate in his hands.

“And what did they do when you told them you don’t have it?” I asked in an impatient tone.

“They asked who has the book now,” the man replied as he stood up and moved toward the table where everyone was leaving their empty plates.

“By The Divine, this is frustrating,” I said, but Kard looked more determined.

“Did you tell them about the woman and the boy?” Kard continued. “And that they recently looked for the book?”

“Yes,” the monk-priest replied as he got close to the table next to the entrance.

“Did the two spellcasters also move southward,” my sister asked, “toward the crypts?”

“Yes,” he replied one last time, before he put his plate down and left the room.

“This is bad,” Krysha said. “We should move now.”

“Yes,” my sister agreed. “The spellcasters likely harmed the monk who gave the book to Myriam and Kai, and will not hesitate to harm them either.”

We didn’t say anything, but simply nodded in agreement as we started walking down the corridor where all the monks were heading after their lunch. We saw many closed wooden doors and right when we thought we had finally made half a circle inside the round building, we saw a long corridor with a dark staircase that went underground.

Figuring that this was the entrance to the crypts, we fell into formation and silently climbed down the stairs. There were large chunks of stone all over the floor at the entrance of the crypt as if some force had broken the door down.

Was it Myriam and Kai or their pursuers?

We crossed the doorstep carefully and continued into the thick and humid darkness of the monastery’s crypts.