The Book of Leafsta, by Angst Fretting

[Angst]

69th March 351

camped ouside Silverleaf Tavern

Smaed's decision

Though the moors were still bleak and wintery, the first signs of spring were appearing. The beck in the Riven Dell was in spate and the snowline on the moors above was now clearly higher. Even this far north spring would come.

Smaed sighed. It was time to make a move. He had to get on with his life and end this time of what seemed like suspended animation, waiting, waiting, to see his father, to be accepted by the village and to sleep indoors. He would wait a little longer, but, he realised, he had made a decision.

It didn't feel right to live in Silverleaf, however appealing. He had longed to sit at his father's knee and learn from him to be a ranger. He had longed to be part of a community where he felt at home and where he belonged. But he also had to accept his fate. He was neither man nor elf but something in between. And he had grown up and come of age.

He would wait a little longer for the ground to dry out and then he would take command of his life and make his own paths and ways.

 

[Angst]

1st May 351

Outside Silverleaf Tavern

Smaed leaves The Riven Dell

The last day of April - Walpurgis Night - drew to a close and the sun rose on the 1st of May to the noticeably calmer sound of the Silverleaf Brook. No longer was it a roar of rushing water flooding the banks. Though still loud and lively, it now gurgling musically over the stony riverbed. The spring floods were rapidly abating, even this far north. The blossoms were out in the dell and there was a shimmer of young green foliage around each tree.

Smaed broke camp and, following a goat track, he climbed out of the dell leading to the cliff path. There he stopped and looked out to sea, sniffing the salt air, listening to the cries of the nesting gulls on the cliffs below, watching their graceful glides on the air currents up the cliff-face. Soon the swallows would arrive from the south. He felt the springiness of the now rapidly drying turf. Yes, it was time to leave this enchanted spot.

He looked once again down at the tavern and the settlement and gave a shuddering sigh of longing. Then he turned and faced south, and with long strides he began the two-day coastal hike to Empath Abbey. He did not look back.

 

[Angst]

66th May 351

Extract from Jern's Journal

Big news! I bumped into Aunt Agnes the evening after the Trinsic Fayre, when I returned to the Travellers Inn from the Shining Path Armory after a day's work at the forge. She had newly returned from the Windenboug Library, where she had been carrying out research on the Fretting geneologies and other matters related to the fate of Leafsta. She had not managed yet to visit Minoc to search out any of the Minoc Frettings and indeed enquire if there might be any Leafsta refugees who had made their way there. But she was intending to return there once she had put Delver's Croft in order.

That at least was her original plan. But it seems she found to her horror that the croft is no more, the house has decayed, leaving only a plot of land, and even that had been sold. Now I have not been back to the croft for some years, I am ashamed to say, so I feel responsible for this disaster: it was more convenient to me to live in the Travellers Inn. Worst is the loss of important documents. Aunt Agnes said she was most upset by the loss of her private diaries.

Nor could I give her news of Smaed. I told her of my finding of her will and she was mightily put out, apologising and wringing her hands, angst written all over her lined face. She was going to tell Smaed that she was his biological mother and an elf his biological father once she had visited Minoc and searched thoroughly for his foster-parents. Did he know? I could not reassure her on that score, as I last had taken my leave of Smaed in the croft where he was alone for a while before departing for Stonekeep.

She was, of course, delighted to learn of my engagement and becoming a mastersmith. She left me a gift to give to my betrothed from her. There was much news to tell so we talked far into the night and took our farewells in the small hours. But the loss of the croft and my premature discovery of Smaed's parentage only hastened her departure, and she left for the long journey to the north before I awoke next day.

My foster-mother told me that she could be found at the Windenboug Library where she will base herself while she searches for the Frettings in Minoc. She begged me to send her news of Smaed there as soon as ever I received it, but to say nowt of his parentage. Messages could be left with Muldran or Callum, or indeed anyone there. She anxiously hoped Smaed had not stumbled on the will and hoped she would be the first to tell him, as was only right.

 

[Angst]

43rd July 351

Empath Abbey

Smaed writes his story

He reached Empath Abbey a couple of days later and rested up, sleeping in a bed for the first time since he left Empath over a year before. He had much time to think, digest his experiences, ponder his path.

He had changed since leaving Stonekeep on furlough three years ago to take a carefree spring holiday at Delvers Croft with his aunt and cousin Jern. A time of golden memories that seemed now to be of another age, enjoying his aunt's home cooking, the picnic trips to the tropical Hidden Valley, visits to the tavern in Trinsic with Jern. A world away, when he was but a child so it seemed. Since then he had learned who he was, resigned from the militia, searched for his father, found him. Now he was back in Empath Abbey.

Smaed sighed. He needed to spend some time putting his thoughts and emotions in order. He would do so by writing up his experiences in a diary of his own that he would call Smaed's Story.

So he bought empty books from the scribes and monks of the abbey and settled down to write. He was by now very short of gold, so he went on hunting trips in the swamp, sometimes as far as the haunted graveyard, to kill the monsters and undead skeletons that he would loot. But mostly he wrote, filling many volumes.