A Bad Night In Bridgetown

Avan Weatherstrong and the Stalker Wolf

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On occasion it would do us all well to be reminded that there are real heroes who wander between the realms of man and the realms of the folk. One such was the great magician Avan Weatherstrong, a braver, wiser and kinder wandering prince one could not hope to find.

The knight was the youngest of an embarrassingly large number of male siblings. For this reason Avan Weatherstrong was compelled to search hard for his path in life. He required a social position that would allow him to be appropriately royal. At the same time, it could not be so royal that it sparked political difficulties between himself and one of his brothers.

Thankfully he had a talent for magic. This would have been a disaster if Avan Weatherstrong was a serious contender for his own royal seat. Or if one of his brothers had got there first. Happily, neither was the case. Because of this serendipity the prince became a fine and disciplined alchemist. He learned his craft under some of the finest tutelage available in his land at the time.

When Avan Weatherstrong came of age the celebrations were somewhat muted. At twenty one, he had only nine years to work out what to do with the entire rest of his life. By thirty a prince is expected to have made all the important decisions. Further he is expected to be ready to go forward into a future filled with stability and prosperity.

Avan Weatherstrong was a student of some accomplishment. Despite this, he had no life experience. He was wise enough to know that, unless he acquired some, he risked being an embarrassment to his family line. He did not want to be the sad kind of prince who never found ease with their station in life. Such men were always reversing direction and indulging in fads and fancies. Much apart from anything else Avan Weatherstrong did not believe that suited his own sense of self. Something had to be done.

What Avan Weatherstrong did was to make a road pack, saddle up a steed and set out into the world to find adventure. Today's story is about one of those adventures.

When the young prince set out upon his journey he determined to explore some of the far off places. In the fringes of reality magic is more potent and strange things are commonplace. His desire was to gain an insight into the heart of magic, the Liminus, a point in the great weave that is between all things.

There are tales of his time at the edges but nobody knows whether Avan Weatherstrong did get his insight. There are facts to suggest that he did. He returned from the soft places and undertook further adventure. he eventually settled to happiness and stability. Storytellers offer these facts as the proof. Only he could have told us and it would appear that he never did, for stories of his exploits are all very old and there will be no more that are new.

It came about that on his way from Weatherstrong outward to those soft places Prince Avan passed through the land of Skulkmite. A land that was caught within a moment at the edge of winter, cold and bitter, with little in the way of daylight. Avan had been riding since morning as the sky had darkened and the air had slowly turned to bitterness.

He had been in the saddle long enough by this time to have developed some sense of a day on the road. He only stopped to make camp or, occasionally to stay at a coaching inn for the night. He had passed through three large cities and had taken some time to learn a little of each of them.

Avan Weatherstrong was not a young man who would rush into peril. Even so, he always felt that something was lacking when time was passing too pleasantly. So, as the warm weather of the summer he had left behind was cut to ribbons by a constant north wind. As he was forced to stop to pull on a heavier riding coat. As the outline of trees on the horizon began to resemble clawed hands more than soft green clouds. Avan got a taste of something amiss in the air.