Treasures of Ília - Dragonmage stories

1. The breath of the past

Fog washed the city. The stone walls, glistening with moisture, dressed in gray. No one walked the streets, even though it was afternoon – unfriendly, dark, and rainy. Lights already shone in the windows ofthe houses, and they revealed – but for whom? – this small town's houses, squares, and streets running like strings of pearls. But there was no one to see; only the tiny rivulets of water that hurried towards . Ília concealed herself behind a veil.

The drizzling fog led everyone who dared to venture out on this unfriendly, dark, late autumn-to-early winter afternoon to one ofthe town's oldest buildings. The stone house of the large-windows was an inn, situated on the main square. In front of it, a flag announced that the new wine tasting was taking place. A few soggy tents waited gravely in the square – these were intendedfor guests who had come to taste the wine. The owners of the cellars sat insidethe tavern with sour faces, their wines in barrels, and the visitors absent.

Only a couple looked around curiously at a table near the door; two travelers brought to the inn by chance. The man wore an elegant traveling outfit, a dove-gray overcoat, while the woman sported a fashionable terracotta coat and a tight-fitting, long skirt. Her high, melodious voice broke through the noise as she looked around, observing everything with childlike curiosity.

"What a wonderful name, darling! Ilia's Treasures Inn! Oh, I'm so curious about what Ilia's treasure might be! Surely it's something exciting!"

At the woman's chatter, the mood of the farmers at the table darkened further. Only the waitress was full of life as she placed the sumptuous meal in a large bowl in front of the guests.

I've lived here since I was born."

An old man spoke from a table, smoking a pipe.

"Come on, lassie, what do you know!"

The girl wiped her hands on her apron and spoke up confidently, like a schoolchild who knows the right answer .

"I know from my grandmother that when she was a little girl, people used to get together in the evenings and tell stories about the founding and the great battle at the bridge on big holidays. She told me how they built the houses on the main square and the mansion on the hill, the Orchard of Sourcherries. And how the first houses were built in the valley where the road goes to the Red Ermine cliffs. This was the first street. And that the name Ilia means shelter. They chose it because they wanted to find peace here. Have you seen the Orchard of Sourcherries? It's abandoned, a really eerie house. There's an elf called Krystien, famous, they say, and he lived there, but no one's seen him for years."

A hooded forest-green cloak moved round the corner, and he who hid in it lit his pipe with a slow movement. The light from the embers flickered for a moment in his green eyes, on his dragon-shaped ring and on the silver, diamond-encrusted brooch that held his robes together.

The past. Another past, another tale. Far away, long ago. The light as the candle's flame dances, and the woman spins at the table in the forest house.

Wool washed clean, like frothy white clouds, surrounded and warmed him. He barely felt the jolts of the carriage on the journey between daydream and fever dream. But he was alive.

The past was as if it had never been. Who he was and where he came from was lost in the mist. It was as if there had never been anything but the captivity, the dashed hopes, the futile illusion of escape. The darkness into which sharp lights sometimes flashed, the pain that had no cause, no beginning, no end, just stopped sometimes to let him live another day.