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Description
The air vibrated with the dissonant screech of two turning chairs as Theodotus and Sally looked at Zigo.
The necromancer had his back to them.
“Zigo,” Theodotus said in a dark voice when his friend failed to answer the question. “Do you have the curse?”
Zigo sighed and turned around. His elbow rested on the counter and his legs were crossed in a cock-sure manner.
He smiled crookedly. “Yup. I’m cursed.”
Sally jumped from her chair. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? What’s wrong with you, you tell that kind of thing to people!”
Zigo squinted his eyes and pursed his lips. “Not necessarily,” he said.
Then Sally shrieked, grabbed her empty bowl and threw it across the room. It exploded halfway there and splinters cut into their skins.
“Ow!” Sally gasped.
“Well if it hurts so much, perhaps you shouldn’t have thrown it,” Zigo said sharply and removed a splint from his arm.
“Like I did that on purpose,” Sally sneered.
“Shut up,” Eve cut in. “Both of you.”
Sally scowled and moved away from the table.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do now, Zigo,” Eve said, “but I know I don’t need to deal with you. At least the Rhadhjon did us that favor.”
“Ouch,” Zigo snorted. “I know you’re not fond of me but … ouch.”
Eve put a long index finger on the table and tapped it a few times. “My only rule is that as long as you’re under my roof you do as I say and you live by my commands. I won’t accept you making any soul jamming and if you sneak off to a village to collect you’d better never return. Is that understood?”
Zigo glared at her with the most force Sally had ever seen him put into anything.
“Yes,” he spat.
Eve nodded once. “Good.”
“Wait now,” Theodotus cut in. “Isn’t there anything we can do to lift that curse.”
“Not as far as I know or am concerned,” Eve said and smiled triumphantly at Zigo.
Theodotus turned to his friend. “Really?”
Zigo nodded.
“But …” Sally crossed her arms and felt naked in this room filled with powerful and knowledgeable people. “Then you’ll die within a year. Really?” A wave of unease crashed into her and she slumped onto a chair.
“Correctly observed.”
“I’m sorry,” Sally squeaked.
Zigo’s expression softened. “Why? It’s not your fault.”
“I know. But I’m still sorry.”
He laughed. Sally stared at him.
“How long will you stay here?” Eve asked. “Hopefully not for so long that I’ll have to bury you and clean up the mess.”
Zigo shook his head. “I’m leaving as soon as I can, but I need to regenerate some power or I’ll just get captured by trolls again. I didn’t fight death back then just to get caught by it once more.”
“So what will you do now?” Sally asked. “Can …” She felt silly. “Can I come with you?”
“I’m touched,” Zigo said sarcastically and put a hand on his chest. “But no, you cannot. Where I’m going I can’t carry you. I will hardly be able to carry myself. I brought you to safety and we’re done. I owe you no more.”
Sally looked at her feet and wanted to leave. She asked herself why she didn’t do that but it seemed her body had frozen in place.
“Zigo is right. You should stay here. I could always use some extra help.” Eve sounded as if she’d prefer it if Sally stayed forever.
“But I need to get to a Safety Area,” Sally said. “It’s dangerous out here.”
Eve chuckled. “Safety Area? Those petty shield cities? Really, those are holding you back more than anything outside. And what would there be for you there, anyway? You don’t know anybody in this part of the world.”
Sally bit her lip. “Well, at least there I can do stuff. Here I’m just useless.”
Eve walked over to her and slapped her across the face. It was a loud smack, and it burned her skin.
“Don’t ever say those words here. I hate hearing them. There’s nothing more annoying. Of course you’re useless. You haven’t even begun learning anything. So just start learning. How, you ask?” A devil’s smile crossed Eve’s lips. “You can start by cleaning the rooms here.”
Sally’s eyes were wide and her mouth popped open like a stupid fish.
“Okay,” she mumbled. “Uhm. Okay.”
“So you’ll stay!” Eve stated. “Wonderful. Theodotus, help me carry this out.”
Theodotus got up and the sound of hooves was so wrong in a bar room. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes avoided Zigo.
“But what about my mom?” Sally whispered.
“Your mom?” Eve asked.
“Yeah. Will I never know if … if she died?” A couple of tears ran down her cheek.
Eve puzzled over this for a moment.
“I’ll be going to Arkandia soon. In this part of the world the best place to search for knowledge is Arkandia. You’ll come with me and we’ll try finding out if she’s dead or alive.” Eve’s voice sharpened. “But then you come back here! No running off.”
She left with Theodotus before Sally could argue. And what was there to argue? She’d found a perfectly safe place to continue her existence. Much better than dragon food for sure.
Her gaze locked with Zigo’s.
“Anything wrong?” he asked.
“There shouldn’t be,” she said.
He grinned. “Yet there always is.”
She bowed her head and whimpered a bit more dramatically than she meant to.

Eve meant it when she said she had work that needed doing.
Apparently more than a hundred people were currently staying at the Chest of Treasure. As the day progressed they came down into the big barroom in groups of all sizes. Eve instructed Sally on how to get around the kitchen and serve the right things for the right people.
“When you get better you’ll know before they ask for it,” Eve informed with a snobbish beam.
Sally let the woman boss her around since there’d been no payment for her room, and if she was going to stay for a while there was no other way of doing it. In a matter of hours she had become Eve’s apprentice or, as people in the barroom liked to call it, the new maiden.
The majority of the humanoid folks had the oriental look – there were creatures here, like a giant, observant salamander with turquoise eyes, which obviously had no human ancestry in them. Sally wasn’t used to it. In her Safety Area they all had dark or light skin and pretty much the same facial features. Black hair was a rarity. Alexander’s hair had been the darkest Sally ever saw.
Instinctively she prepared for the spearing pain of thinking about home, but nothing sparked. Alexander could be dead for all she knew, but her body didn’t react. It was not until her thoughts continued to Cornelia and Nesala that she had to put down the tray she was holding and grab a pillar for support.
Her heart was shrinking with every painful beat, she was sure of it.
The pain didn’t subside, but after gasping for air a few seconds she was able to ignore it.
She went back to the bar and sat down in front of Eve, who was writing in one of the many list books.
“I’ve got to be really far away,” Sally began.
Eve eyed her for a moment and then went back to writing.
“Yes?” she mumbled.
“I never saw so many oriental people. Only on TV. I remember that there was once a drama that consisted mainly of them and I was pretty confused. My mother said to me that they lived far away. Since our Safety Areas was so desolate it’s unlikely for travelers to ever go there. She told me there were other places like that, but there the oriental people were the normal people, and they would never have seen one of us because we’d never bother going there.”
Eve smiled.
“You’ve traveled far, then. Here the main body of the population is oriental, as you call it. I didn’t know that was a word we still used.” She chuckled.
“But your skin is dark,” Sally remarked curiously and then a force like a strong wind slammed her head down onto the counter.
The front door caved in, moaned, cracked and splintered. A red light drowned the room. Screams of horror from outside entered and killed all conversation.
“Wolves!” they shouted outside. “Help!”
Twenty people in the room immediately ran to the door, already shouting their war cries. They single filed through the doorframe and drew their swords.
Eve followed them, hissing: “Sally, stay here!” which Sally had no intentions of obeying.
As soon as Eve disappeared through the opening Sally – along with half of the people in the room – ran to the windows.
Sally was pressed up against the glass and tightened her stomach. If she let herself be compressed completely she’d never get to take another breath by the sheer pressure of curious people behind her.
Outside a battle was going on.
On the right side Eve and the people from the inn were ready with swords, bows, spears and raised hands and fists. On the ground amongst them lay three men clad in capes and armor and with a signature on their helmets: a walnut with a crown above it.
On the left side were two enormous wolves. But they didn’t look like the wolves Sally had studied in her biology books. They were much larger, but not proportionally wider. In fact they were quite skinny.
And their long front legs didn’t have the same joints as a regular wolf. Instead they looked more like long, human arms.
When one of the wolves rose onto its hind legs, revealing that it was seven times as tall as Eve, Sally realized what it was.
“A werewolf!” she exclaimed.
Everybody stood frozen, waiting for an attack.
But then it went down on its paws again and Eve stepped forward, her white clothes now beige from the sand that danced violently in the wind.
“Can anybody hear them?” somebody hissed. Sally turned her head and saw a long, bendy tongue stuck out at her face. It was the Salamander.
Sally shivered and shoved her way out of the crowd and through the front door.
The wind whipped her in the face with grains of sand. She ran over to the crowd of bar people. She realized Theodotus was amongst them and when he reached out a hand to help her into the middle of them she gratefully took it.
Then she listened as Eve spoke to the werewolves.

Description
The air vibrated with the dissonant screech of two turning chairs as Theodotus and Sally looked at Zigo.
The necromancer had his back to them.
“Zigo,” Theodotus said in a dark voice when his friend failed to answer the question. “Do you have the curse?”
Zigo sighed and turned around. His elbow rested on the counter and his legs were crossed in a cock-sure manner.
He smiled crookedly. “Yup. I’m cursed.”
Sally jumped from her chair. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? What’s wrong with you, you tell that kind of thing to people!”
Zigo squinted his eyes and pursed his lips. “Not necessarily,” he said.
Then Sally shrieked, grabbed her empty bowl and threw it across the room. It exploded halfway there and splinters cut into their skins.
“Ow!” Sally gasped.
“Well if it hurts so much, perhaps you shouldn’t have thrown it,” Zigo said sharply and removed a splint from his arm.
“Like I did that on purpose,” Sally sneered.
“Shut up,” Eve cut in. “Both of you.”
Sally scowled and moved away from the table.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do now, Zigo,” Eve said, “but I know I don’t need to deal with you. At least the Rhadhjon did us that favor.”
“Ouch,” Zigo snorted. “I know you’re not fond of me but … ouch.”
Eve put a long index finger on the table and tapped it a few times. “My only rule is that as long as you’re under my roof you do as I say and you live by my commands. I won’t accept you making any soul jamming and if you sneak off to a village to collect you’d better never return. Is that understood?”
Zigo glared at her with the most force Sally had ever seen him put into anything.
“Yes,” he spat.
Eve nodded once. “Good.”
“Wait now,” Theodotus cut in. “Isn’t there anything we can do to lift that curse.”
“Not as far as I know or am concerned,” Eve said and smiled triumphantly at Zigo.
Theodotus turned to his friend. “Really?”
Zigo nodded.
“But …” Sally crossed her arms and felt naked in this room filled with powerful and knowledgeable people. “Then you’ll die within a year. Really?” A wave of unease crashed into her and she slumped onto a chair.
“Correctly observed.”
“I’m sorry,” Sally squeaked.
Zigo’s expression softened. “Why? It’s not your fault.”
“I know. But I’m still sorry.”
He laughed. Sally stared at him.
“How long will you stay here?” Eve asked. “Hopefully not for so long that I’ll have to bury you and clean up the mess.”
Zigo shook his head. “I’m leaving as soon as I can, but I need to regenerate some power or I’ll just get captured by trolls again. I didn’t fight death back then just to get caught by it once more.”
“So what will you do now?” Sally asked. “Can …” She felt silly. “Can I come with you?”
“I’m touched,” Zigo said sarcastically and put a hand on his chest. “But no, you cannot. Where I’m going I can’t carry you. I will hardly be able to carry myself. I brought you to safety and we’re done. I owe you no more.”
Sally looked at her feet and wanted to leave. She asked herself why she didn’t do that but it seemed her body had frozen in place.
“Zigo is right. You should stay here. I could always use some extra help.” Eve sounded as if she’d prefer it if Sally stayed forever.
“But I need to get to a Safety Area,” Sally said. “It’s dangerous out here.”
Eve chuckled. “Safety Area? Those petty shield cities? Really, those are holding you back more than anything outside. And what would there be for you there, anyway? You don’t know anybody in this part of the world.”
Sally bit her lip. “Well, at least there I can do stuff. Here I’m just useless.”
Eve walked over to her and slapped her across the face. It was a loud smack, and it burned her skin.
“Don’t ever say those words here. I hate hearing them. There’s nothing more annoying. Of course you’re useless. You haven’t even begun learning anything. So just start learning. How, you ask?” A devil’s smile crossed Eve’s lips. “You can start by cleaning the rooms here.”
Sally’s eyes were wide and her mouth popped open like a stupid fish.
“Okay,” she mumbled. “Uhm. Okay.”
“So you’ll stay!” Eve stated. “Wonderful. Theodotus, help me carry this out.”
Theodotus got up and the sound of hooves was so wrong in a bar room. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes avoided Zigo.
“But what about my mom?” Sally whispered.
“Your mom?” Eve asked.
“Yeah. Will I never know if … if she died?” A couple of tears ran down her cheek.
Eve puzzled over this for a moment.
“I’ll be going to Arkandia soon. In this part of the world the best place to search for knowledge is Arkandia. You’ll come with me and we’ll try finding out if she’s dead or alive.” Eve’s voice sharpened. “But then you come back here! No running off.”
She left with Theodotus before Sally could argue. And what was there to argue? She’d found a perfectly safe place to continue her existence. Much better than dragon food for sure.
Her gaze locked with Zigo’s.
“Anything wrong?” he asked.
“There shouldn’t be,” she said.
He grinned. “Yet there always is.”
She bowed her head and whimpered a bit more dramatically than she meant to.

Eve meant it when she said she had work that needed doing.
Apparently more than a hundred people were currently staying at the Chest of Treasure. As the day progressed they came down into the big barroom in groups of all sizes. Eve instructed Sally on how to get around the kitchen and serve the right things for the right people.
“When you get better you’ll know before they ask for it,” Eve informed with a snobbish beam.
Sally let the woman boss her around since there’d been no payment for her room, and if she was going to stay for a while there was no other way of doing it. In a matter of hours she had become Eve’s apprentice or, as people in the barroom liked to call it, the new maiden.
The majority of the humanoid folks had the oriental look – there were creatures here, like a giant, observant salamander with turquoise eyes, which obviously had no human ancestry in them. Sally wasn’t used to it. In her Safety Area they all had dark or light skin and pretty much the same facial features. Black hair was a rarity. Alexander’s hair had been the darkest Sally ever saw.
Instinctively she prepared for the spearing pain of thinking about home, but nothing sparked. Alexander could be dead for all she knew, but her body didn’t react. It was not until her thoughts continued to Cornelia and Nesala that she had to put down the tray she was holding and grab a pillar for support.
Her heart was shrinking with every painful beat, she was sure of it.
The pain didn’t subside, but after gasping for air a few seconds she was able to ignore it.
She went back to the bar and sat down in front of Eve, who was writing in one of the many list books.
“I’ve got to be really far away,” Sally began.
Eve eyed her for a moment and then went back to writing.
“Yes?” she mumbled.
“I never saw so many oriental people. Only on TV. I remember that there was once a drama that consisted mainly of them and I was pretty confused. My mother said to me that they lived far away. Since our Safety Areas was so desolate it’s unlikely for travelers to ever go there. She told me there were other places like that, but there the oriental people were the normal people, and they would never have seen one of us because we’d never bother going there.”
Eve smiled.
“You’ve traveled far, then. Here the main body of the population is oriental, as you call it. I didn’t know that was a word we still used.” She chuckled.
“But your skin is dark,” Sally remarked curiously and then a force like a strong wind slammed her head down onto the counter.
The front door caved in, moaned, cracked and splintered. A red light drowned the room. Screams of horror from outside entered and killed all conversation.
“Wolves!” they shouted outside. “Help!”
Twenty people in the room immediately ran to the door, already shouting their war cries. They single filed through the doorframe and drew their swords.
Eve followed them, hissing: “Sally, stay here!” which Sally had no intentions of obeying.
As soon as Eve disappeared through the opening Sally – along with half of the people in the room – ran to the windows.
Sally was pressed up against the glass and tightened her stomach. If she let herself be compressed completely she’d never get to take another breath by the sheer pressure of curious people behind her.
Outside a battle was going on.
On the right side Eve and the people from the inn were ready with swords, bows, spears and raised hands and fists. On the ground amongst them lay three men clad in capes and armor and with a signature on their helmets: a walnut with a crown above it.
On the left side were two enormous wolves. But they didn’t look like the wolves Sally had studied in her biology books. They were much larger, but not proportionally wider. In fact they were quite skinny.
And their long front legs didn’t have the same joints as a regular wolf. Instead they looked more like long, human arms.
When one of the wolves rose onto its hind legs, revealing that it was seven times as tall as Eve, Sally realized what it was.
“A werewolf!” she exclaimed.
Everybody stood frozen, waiting for an attack.
But then it went down on its paws again and Eve stepped forward, her white clothes now beige from the sand that danced violently in the wind.
“Can anybody hear them?” somebody hissed. Sally turned her head and saw a long, bendy tongue stuck out at her face. It was the Salamander.
Sally shivered and shoved her way out of the crowd and through the front door.
The wind whipped her in the face with grains of sand. She ran over to the crowd of bar people. She realized Theodotus was amongst them and when he reached out a hand to help her into the middle of them she gratefully took it.
Then she listened as Eve spoke to the werewolves.