Ferillu

Velda watched it go until the sound of the wheels dissolved into darkness.

Then she turned and looked out upon Manmir.

Somewhere in this sleeping town stood a house with a lilac bush. A house from which, in the night hours, someone's name rang out. Her name.

She adjusted her hood and walked forward.

***

Velda found the house without difficulty. It did not need to be sought—it found itself. It stood at the end of a narrow street, slightly apart from the others, like a man long since ceased to be noticed and long since ceased to wait. Dark, squat, with collapsed shutters and a roof blackened by time. But what gave it away above all was the lilac bush at the entrance.

The bush had long since escaped all restraint. What had once clearly been a neat decorative plant at the threshold had grown into something that laid claim to the entire façade of the house. Branches of lilac—thick, gnarled, covered in withered inflorescences—clambered up the walls, clung to the windowsills, reached toward the roof. The flowers had long since faded, but the scent still lingered—sweet, almost cloying, strangely out of place in the night air of this abandoned place.

Velda stopped at the gate and listened. A sound came from within—muffled, barely perceptible, yet clearly present. A groan. Not sharp, not piercing—prolonged, low, like the sound a man makes when pain is no longer acute but ancient and familiar. A male voice, or something that had once been one. Velda looked around. The street was empty—Manmir slept, and slept soundly, apparently preferring not to know what transpired in the house with the lilac in the night hours. Satisfied that there were no witnesses, she cast off her cloak, folded it carefully, and laid it across the fence of the gate. She spread her wings.

A window beneath the eaves—the only one not boarded up—gaped as a narrow stripe of darkness. Too narrow. Velda squinted, assessing, then sighed and took flight.

She had to squeeze through sideways, drawing in her wings and trying not to catch the rotten wood of the frame, which clearly required little effort to crumble. She nearly got stuck—forced to exhale and literally push herself through the opening, scraping her shoulder against a protruding nail.

But she was inside. The attic greeted her with darkness and the smell of ages past—dust, dry wood, mice, and something else that could only be called "time" with any precision. Objects loomed everywhere—covered in dust, shrouded in cobwebs, their original forms lost beneath the layers and transformed into mysterious angular silhouettes. Here was something that might have been a trunk. There—an outline suggesting a spinning wheel or loom. In a corner—a stack of things that might once have been books.

Velda stood motionless and listened.

The groan from below continued—steady, monotonous, with a barely perceptible rhythm. And then—a wooden creak made by the fairy. One. Sharp.

And silence.

No, Velda thought to herself, and in that short word lay vexed understanding. Then it knows I am here.

She folded her wings at once—their sound could give her away before her time. From here on, only on foot, slowly, shifting her weight from toe to heel so the floorboards would not creak. It was unknown what lurked in this abandoned house—and the unknown is best met with whatever advantage of surprise one can muster. In the attic floor lay a hole—wide enough to pass through, with the remnants of a ladder leading down. Velda knelt and began her descent—slowly, step by step, gripping the rickety rungs and testing each before transferring her weight to it. The room below met her with darkness—dense, but not absolute. Through the cracks in the shutters, thin ribbons of moonlight penetrated, painting pale stripes across the floor. This was enough to make out the contours: a table against the wall, a bed in the far corner, something else—vague outlines of objects.

The silence was absolute. Velda listened—not a sound. She walked slowly to the table. Upon it stood a glass bottle—apparently containing water—and a clay cup. Old, well-used, with a crack running along its rim. At the bottom of the cup something dark had dried.

"What has happened here?" Velda mused aloud, and her voice sounded unexpectedly loud in the silence.

"At last you have come, fairy-enchantress."

The voice was from everywhere and nowhere at once—quiet, without a clear source, yet perfectly distinct. Not an echo, not a whisper. Simply a voice, existing in space without attachment to a body.

Velda did not start. She exhaled quietly—and whispered an incantation. A small flame flickered to life in her palm—no larger than a fist, yellow-green in color, resembling will-o'-the-wisp, only obedient and steady. Light fell upon the walls, upon the floor, upon the ceiling—and the room gained dimension and substance.

"Who are you?" Velda asked, turning slowly.

"A wandering soul, thirsting for peace."

"I do not see you. Where are you?"

"I am on the bed."

Velda turned toward the bed in the corner. She raised the flame higher—a bed like any other bed, wooden, its headboard darkened by time. A blanket lay in a mound, as though someone lay beneath it. She approached and peered closely. The blanket lay too evenly for anything larger than a cat to be underneath it.

"Are you mocking me, spirit?" she said with mild irritation. "You are not here."

"Remove the blanket."

Velda pulled at the fabric—heavy, damp with age—and cast it aside.

On the pillow lay a rose.

Red. Still alive—petals dense, unshattered, the stem green. A perfectly living rose on a bed in a house where no one had been for a month.

Velda exhaled slowly.

"And there I am," the voice said.

"You are… a rose," Velda said carefully—not asserting it, but as though tasting the words.

"Anticipating your question—yes. Now I am a rose. But before, I was a man of flesh and blood. I fell asleep on this bed—and, as you see, have not awakened since."

Velda stared at the rose. Then slowly she sat down on the edge of the bed, holding the flame in her palm so it burned evenly.

"So you are an unquiet spirit, having taken the form of a rose," she said, more formulating the thought for herself than asking. "But why precisely a rose? Of all forms—why this one?"

"I do not know," the voice answered after a pause. "My… my lady."

"I am not your lady," Velda said without harshness, but firmly. "Call me simply Velda, if you wish." She fell silent. "What did you feel before death? If it is not too difficult—tell me."

"What people feel in the ache that follows the joy of a realized desire. And following that ache—disappointment in certain deeds I had committed." A pause. "I was happy. Then I was unhappy. Then I grew weary of being unhappy. Then I fell asleep."

Velda squinted, examining the rose more carefully. Something in the shape of the petals, in the curve of the stem—something elusive and familiar, something that eluded her grasp. And one more detail: at the base of the bud, where the petals converged in a tight knot, a barely perceptible spot—dark blue, nearly violet, the color of the night sky just before the very first light of dawn.

"Allow me to clarify," she said, continuing to look at the rose. "Who were you in life?"

"That no longer matters," the voice answered, and something in it shifted. It became quieter. More closed off. "I am dead. That is all that matters now."

"I see." Velda did not press—not yet. "But it seems to me that I have seen you somewhere before. You are familiar to me."

Silence. Long, taut.

"Indeed?" the voice, when it finally came, was deliberately even. Too even. "No. We have not met."

Velda did not respond to this. She simply took note—of both the pause and the tone.

"In that case, tell me, spirit," she said. "How may I help you find peace? Why did you summon me?"

"We must travel to a certain place. Beyond Lake Mano, in the rolling lands of Riedsaal."

Velda raised an eyebrow slightly.

"There, where the young king Enjen rules? The city of Ernberg?"

"M-m-m… Yes. There is a place there where I may at last find the peace and solace I have long sought."

"But why did you turn to me for aid, above all others?" Velda asked. "Of all the beings in my forest and these lands—why to a fairy?"

The rose fell silent. Then:

"And to whom, in your opinion, should I have turned?" there was something like a bitter smile in the voice—insofar as a voice without a body could smile at all.

"I do not know," Velda shrugged. "To the forest kobolds, for instance. They know the forest paths better than anyone."

"What use would they be to me?" the rose responded, both bewildered and indignant.

"Through the forest paths, they could guide you to your place of rest," Velda explained calmly. "The journey is long—Riedsaal beyond Lake Mano is more than a day's travel."

"Perhaps they could," the voice said after a pause. "If they could fly like birds. And if they could understand me."

"What do you mean by that?" Velda looked at the rose.

"You understand perfectly well what I mean," the voice answered simply.

Velda fell silent. Then she nodded—slowly, the way one nods when agreeing not with another's words, but with one's own understanding of the situation.

"Very well," she said. "Do we leave right now?"

"Yes."

"Then—"

"Wait." The voice carried unexpected firmness. "There is something I must take from here first."

"What, exactly?"

"A small pouch beneath the bed. And there, too—a dagger."

Velda squinted slightly.

"Are you certain they are needed for the journey?"

"Yes."

She knelt down and held the flame to the space beneath the bed. There, in dust and darkness, lay two objects: a leather purse, stuffed tightly with something that gave off a quiet metallic chime, and a leather sheath from which the hilt of a dagger peeked out.

Velda pulled both free, examined them, and placed them in her bag. Then she reached for the rose.

Her fingers touched the stem—and one of the thorns, which had looked quite harmless at first glance, pierced the skin at the base of her index finger with such ease, as though there were no skin there at all.

"Ow!" It escaped involuntarily before she could stop herself. Velda jerked her hand back and looked at her finger—a thin line of blood, small, but quite eloquent. "Your thorns are very sharp, spirit."

"Be careful, lady," the voice said—and in it was something very much like concern. Real concern, not merely formal.

Velda looked at the rose. Then at the drop of blood on her finger. Then back at the rose. She understood finally that before her lay not simply a rose. But who exactly—that remained a question.

She wrapped the stem with the edge of her sleeve to protect her fingers, and carefully placed the rose in her bag atop everything else.

The street met her with night chill and silence. Velda looked around—no one. Manmir slept. She pulled her hood lower, drew her cloak close, and moved away down the street toward the town's edge.

Houses on either side loomed dark with closed shutters. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked—lazily, without real alarm. The cobblestones of the street glistened with night dew.

At the last houses of Manmir she stopped. Ahead lay open road—fields, dark hills on the horizon, night sky full of stars.

Velda cast her cloak from her shoulders—not removing it, merely freeing her wings. She spread them in the night air, feeling her shoulder blades open after such prolonged sitting. The earth fell away below.

Manmir remained behind—small, dark, sleeping. The road below became a bright thread stretching toward the horizon. The hills of Riedsaal were still far away, beyond Lake Mano, beyond the darkness—but they existed.

"Home at last," said the quiet, solitary, otherworldly voice from within the bag.

Velda flew on in silence. And thought about where, exactly, she had seen that familiar spot at the base of the bud before.

Chapter 2

Velda flew for a long time. The night had passed its midpoint, and Riedsaal remained unforgivably distant—too far to think of it as anything but tomorrow's goal. Dark forests flowed beneath her, interspersed with open meadow spaces—silvery in moonlight, covered with tall grass that swayed in slow waves. The trees below blended into a single dark mass, meadows gave way to copses, copses to meadows once more. No dwellings, no lights. Only the night, only the stars, and only the road—a pale thread winding somewhere below through the grass.

Her wings began to tire. At first—a barely perceptible burning at her shoulder blades, then a heaviness that grew with each beat. Velda descended, searching for a suitable place. A small thicket at the meadow's edge served well enough—dark, dense, sufficiently secluded. She landed at its edge, folded her wings, and listened. The forest breathed with night sounds: rustlings, a distant screech owl, the scent of damp earth and rotting leaves. Somewhere nearby a stream burbled—not loudly, but distinctly. Velda made for the sound—her throat had dried from the long flight.

The stream proved to be narrow and swift, tumbling over dark pebbles. It looked quite respectable. Velda knelt, scooped water in her palm, and took a drink. A decision she regretted instantly.

"Ugh!" escaped her entirely unbidden. She began spitting vigorously, trying to rid herself of a taste that could only be described as bog mud mixed with slime and stagnant filth. "What abomination is this! Is this water at all, or liquid clay that has taken the form of a stream?"

She stood, wiped her palms with distaste, and reached into her bag.

"I shall drink from my own bottle," Velda muttered, withdrawing a small flask of water from the forest spring, set aside back in the enchanted wood. She took a drink—and the taste of familiar clean water washed away the unpleasant aftertaste.

A suitable tree was found quickly—a tall, spreading pine with long horizontal branches. Velda climbed onto one of them, leaned her back against the trunk, and caught her breath.

From her bag she withdrew several berries—blueberries and wild strawberries, brought from the stores of the enchanted wood. She ate unhurriedly, watching as the moon slowly crept toward the western edge of the sky.

Just a little rest, Velda told herself. Not sleep. Only to recover—and then onward. Riedsaal is still too far away to allow myself such indulgence.

The night air was warm and still. The wind could barely be felt in the depths of the thicket. The branch swayed slightly. Her eyes closed of their own accord.

***

The awakening fell upon her like a blow. Ice-cold water, combined with the rising dawn sun, rushed over her all at once and without warning—torrents of it, from every side, with that merciless generosity with which one empties a full bucket without regard for consequences. The cold was so sharp and sudden that her body reacted before her mind could comprehend anything.

Velda screamed. But there was nowhere to scream to—she was lying on the ground. Not on a branch, not in a tree—on the ground, on something hard, covered with nothing whatsoever. And her hands were bound.

She understood this the next second—when she tried to rise and discovered that her wrists were cinched with something rough and tight. She jerked—the rope did not yield. She tried to spread her wings—they too were pressed against her back by some strap that had caught them at their base.

Velda sat up sharply, flinging her wet hair from her face. And looked around. She was in a camp.

And everywhere—creatures. There were not many of them. She did not count—because they moved, jostled, spoke among themselves with that deafening lack of ceremony of beings for whom the concept of personal space is utterly foreign. Bipedal, human-shaped from the waist up—broad-shouldered, muscular, with faces that under other circumstances might have been called almost human, were it not for the horns. Horns jutted above the temples of each—curved, sharp, goat-like. Below the waist—fur, goat legs, cloven hooves.

The one holding the empty bucket—clearly the source of the icy shower—was red-haired, young, with a pleased smirk plastered across his entire face.

They were laughing. Exactly as goats might laugh, if goats were capable of laughter—loudly, in bursts, with brazen self-satisfaction.

"Awake at last, you winged thing! Ha-ha-ha!" bellowed the red-haired one, shaking the bucket.

Velda looked at them.

Water streamed from her hair onto her shoulders. Her bound hands she placed on her knees—calmly, as though this were the most ordinary state of affairs. She took a slow breath. Then exhaled.

"Where am I?" she said evenly. "And who are you? And what do you want from me?"

"Lost your way entirely, have you, girl, to have wandered into our camp—to us, the satyrs?" came a voice from the depths of the encampment.

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