At the base of the Perrith Mountains in the land of Thage lies a city of all races. A city of prosperity. A city of leadership. From this city come the Zutan, the ruling elders of this land. They are of all descents, all creeds, and all nationalities. Their word is law and their decisions are final. Through their actions, they shape the world. For good or ill, all nations obey. So as the tales go, all roads lead to the Zutan.

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The soft padding of feet echoed through the halls of the Zutan Citadel and tapestries waved in the breeze created by those passing by. Dim winter sunlight barely peeked through the windows, indicating that the day was only just beginning. Few were out at this hour, and those that moved within the halls strode with purpose, as the day was short and there was much to be done.

A lithe figure in the long blue robes of a Citadel page hurried quickly down the main hall, a bundle of scrolls under his arm. Pointed ears peeked out from under his shoulder-length hair, hinting at elven heritage, but his cheeks were unusually dark with the stubble of someone unused to shaving. He was shorter and stockier than most elves, and, to other elves’ dismay, not nearly as quiet as a “normal” elf. Some of the early risers wandering the hall called a greeting, while others moved away as if disgusted and whispered as he passed. However, he was used to the treatment, so waved or nodded to the first and ignored the second. He slipped down a side hallway, shoes clicking on the stone tiles, and knocked on a simple wooden door, which swung open under his touch.

The room beyond was homey, if a bit small for its contents. A large fireplace took up most of the far wall, while the rest of the walls were filled with shelves of scrolls and books and unbound parchments. Two large plush chairs sat invitingly in front of the roaring fire, and a desk was shoved into one corner, situated to allow for a great deal of floor-space in the middle of the room.

“Sthetha, I have brought the scrolls you requested.” The elf bowed slightly at the waist, then set the scrolls gently down on the desk where a middle-aged human woman, dressed in brown, was pouring over lines of dates and names on a long, ancient scroll. She did not look up as she scratched runes on a fresh sheet of parchment with a ragged-looking quill.

“Thank you, Cyril.” The young elf turned to leave, he had other duties to perform, but the woman stopped him with a question and a hand held up in a signal to wait. “Have you ever heard the true origins of the Nortac?”

“The outsiders? The heroes that arrived in our land’s darkest hour to save us from the usurper? Everyone has heard the bards’ tales,” Cyril sniffed disdainfully. “Imaginative lot, those bards.”

His elder’s eyes flashed a warning, veiling the surprise that showed deeper in her dark eyes. “Do not dismiss so hastily that which you do not know, nephew. I should have thought your parents would have informed you of these events before now.” She stood up and rummaged on the shelf behind her, tossing a scroll over her shoulder at the elf, who caught it with skill born of long practice. “Sit,” she spoke firmly and motioned to an armchair resting by the fire. “And I don’t want to see you move until that scroll is finished.”

“But, Stheta, the Council has…”

“Don’t even try to get out of it. I’ll deal with anyone who comes looking for you. Read and learn, nephew, for those ‘bards tales’ are your history.”

Cyril rolled his eyes in annoyance. His aunt was always cryptic, it had something to do with being a Zutan, he was sure of it. Nonetheless, he curled up in one of the chairs by the fire, the scroll balanced in his lap. If he had known it, he looked almost exactly like his mother had nearly 30 years before. But he did not know, for how could he? His parents barely spoke of their childhoods, and often changed the subject after a short time if the subject was brought up. If he had paid close attention, he might even had noticed the wistful and pained looks they shared during moments of silence. But young men of any race tend not to see these things and so Cyril had missed all the clues to his parents’ backgrounds.

He sighed heavily and sank deeper into his chair; he was not going to get out of his aunt’s grasp this time.  He unrolled the thick scroll a short way, and his eyes slid slowly over the first few runes on the page… “Row upon row of bookshelves…” 

In order to climb to the top of a mountain, you must first start climbing at the bottom. ~ The Coral Book

The walls of Sara’s hospital room were a ghastly shade of faded green. The floor, tiles worn with the constant tread of nurses’ feet, was a speckled tan and covered with permanent stains. The bed was in a corner by a window that looked out over a small rooftop garden. Sara, though, was not looking out the window. She was lying on the bed, her gaunt face framed by her tangled hair.

The many months of obsession had taken more out of Sara than her friends and family first realized. Days turned into weeks as Sara lay in the hospital, gathering her diminished strength. After her collapse it had become apparent that she had not been eating regularly for some time, and sleep had been just as infrequent. Now she was paying for it in a slow recovery.

The door creaked open and Cora, followed closely by Torin, slipped into the room. She sat down on the armchair by the bed. Sara slowly opened one eye.

“Hey. What brings you two to my humble abode?” she said with a half-hearted smile.

“The library sent me to tell you that they transferred the books like you asked. They are en route to a library far away from here as we speak.”

“That’s good.” Sara shifted on the bed. “I hope they don’t harm anyone else the way they harmed me. I wish I could get up and do something useful, now that I’m not consumed with reading, but I can barely walk across this room and back.”

“I know,” her friend patted Sara on her shoulder. “But now maybe you’ll heal quickly.” She smiled. “We need to go now, but we’ll come back soon.” And on that note, Cora and Torin slipped out as quietly as they had come.

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Cora was right, and Sara’s health did pick up shortly after her visit, and she was soon released from the hospital. However, a strange occurrence during Sara and Cora’s annual spring break sleepover a few weeks later cast an ominous shadow over the threesome’s rejoicing.

Sara was sitting in the swing on her front porch, doodling in a well-loved notebook. Hearing a step on the porch, she saw Cora, a backpack in hand, about to ring the doorbell. Grinning, Sara slipped silently off the swing, ran up behind her friend, grabbed her shoulders, and yelled at the top of her lungs. Cora jumped almost a foot in the air, and Sara nearly collapsed in a fit of giggles.

“Sara Nicole Artari! How many times have I asked you not to do that? Here I was thinking I was going to stay the night with a friend, and I find a prankster instead.” Cora acted exasperated, but Sara knew that she was only kidding.

“Come on, Cora! My mom said we could sleep on the floor in my room!” Sara was always hyper when Cora stayed the night, and this time was no exception. She bounded into the house and up the stairs, dragging Cora behind her.

The two girls spent the next few blissful hours chowing down on junk food and watching superhero movies. They alternated between pseudo-analyzing the filming techniques and squealing over their favorite actors like any average fan-girl. Around midnight, tired but still giggling, the girls curled up in sleeping bags on the floor of Sara’s room and were soon fast asleep.

A bright light flashed suddenly in the room. Sara opened her eyes, resisting the urge to shield them. Standing before her was a tall, pale woman. She was wearing a brown dress of medieval style, but it was tucked into a wide belt so that her legs, covered in dark leggings, were free for movement. Her hair, black as night and very curly, fell to her waist in a cascading tangle, as if she had been running very fast. Clutched in her hands was a small wooden chest.

As Sara watched, the woman set the chest gently onto the floor at the foot of the bed. When her hands left the wood of the box, an odd thing seemed to happen. The chest shuddered, then gained a vibrancy of color that was not present when held by the strange woman.  A smile graced the woman’s lips and she stood back up and walked over to where Cora was still asleep.

Taking something from her pocket, she slipped it over the girl’s head. Then she did the same with Sara, who had been wise enough to close her eyes as soon as she saw the woman coming her way. With her eyes closed, she did not see the half-regretful, wistful smile that briefly crossed the woman’s face.

Having finished what she came to do, the black-haired woman walked to the center of the room, where she did a very strange thing indeed. She started to shake all over, and then began to run in a small circle, faster and faster, until Sara could see only a brown blur through her half-shut eyes. Then, with a blast of white light as bright as the sun, the woman vanished, leaving the room dark as it had been before. Sara did not sleep the rest of the night.

The next morning, as soon as the sun peeked over the horizon, Sara rolled out of her sleeping bag and went to the chest, where she fumbled with the latch. Hastily throwing open the lid, she gasped when she saw what was inside. Seventeen scrolls neatly lined the bottom of the chest, each with a familiar seal. The seal, a deep, rich red, was made of melted wax and stamped with six runes, STHETHA. This seal had been detailed in one of Sara’s books as the official seal of the historian of Thage.

Sara turned the scroll over in her hand, and was about to unroll it when a groggy voice spoke from across the room. “Sara, I had the strangest dream last night.”

“It wasn’t a dream, Cora.” Sara broke the seal on the scroll in her hand. “Some strange lady came in my room last night and left a box of scrolls at the foot of my bed.” She unrolled the scroll, skimming over the words inside, then handed the scroll to Cora with an expression of shock written all over her face. “Here, read this and tell me what you think.”

Cora frowned, and sitting up in her sleeping bag, peered down at the scroll. Her eyes studied the words; then she looked up in confusion. “I can’t read this. It’s written in some form of ancient runes.”

“What?” Sara snatched the scroll out of Cora’s hand and looked harder at the words. “I can read it perfectly, what’s the… oh.” She lowered the scroll. “I should have known when I saw the seal. These are the books of the Land of Thage.” Her eyes had taken on a haunted, tired look. “I can’t seem to escape their hold.” She sighed, and placing the scroll back in the chest, closed the lid with a dull “thunk.” Then she shut her eyes and rested her head in her hands.

“Sara? Do I need to go get your mom?” Cora’s dark eyes looked on with concern.

“No. Cora, there’s another reason those books compel yet scare me.” Sara shivered, though the room was warm. “I told you that the main character was Dorvan, but that is only partly true. There are three other main characters within these scrolls.” She bit her lip as if she was gathering her strength to continue. “Their names didn’t appear until I skimmed that scroll just now; they were merely stated to be ‘the historian’, ‘the elf’, and ‘the dwarf’. However, now, that has changed; ‘the historian’ has become ‘Cora’, ‘the elf’ has become ‘Sara’, and ‘the dwarf’ has become ‘Torin.’ Cora,” she looked her friend straight in the eyes, “the heroes of Thage, they’re us.”

A stunned silence followed Sara’s revelation. “We can’t be sure of this.”

“Yes, we can. Who else would have our last names?” Sara was about to say something else when there was a knock on the front door.

The girls rushed down the stairs, throwing on robes over their nightclothes. Sara flung open the door to reveal Torin, still in his pajamas, and an utterly confused look on his face. “Can I come in for a minute? I need to talk to you two about somethin’ strange that happened las’ night.”

Cora’s look of surprise turned to a look of worry as Torin stumbled through the door and flopped down on a nearby chair. “Did it have to do with a strange lady giving you a leaf pendant?” She held up the pendant that the dark-haired woman had given her and indeed, it was in the shape of a leaf. Torin’s eyes widened.

“Yes. That’s exactly it. The problem is, I can’t get the thing off! I can move it around, but if I try to remove it, it just sits there like a lead weight and does nothing.”

“I have one too,” Sara spoke up. “It seems as if we have been marked for something, but what that is remains to be seen.”

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Though the friends were wary due to the strange occurrence of the names, the rest of the year passed relatively uneventfully. Cora graduated from high school and entered an accelerated professorship program at the small local collage, while Torin and Sara entered their junior years of high school.

Sara, sitting at her desk and struggling to grasp the concepts of her math lesson, glanced at a letter that had arrived for her earlier that day. She had tried to ignore it, but the runes on the back cover seemed to call out her name. Sighing heavily, she pushed her math book to the back of the clutter and picked up the letter. Sara flipped it over in her hands. There was no return address on the front, merely her own address and a stamp.

Hesitantly, she tore open the envelope and pulled out the parchment inside. “Dear Friend,” it read, “You have been invited to a fall gathering, held at the Community Center of Wenrite. Arrive promptly at 6 am, October 1^st and bring your two closest friends plus the chest left for you last spring. Signed, THE HISTORIAN.”

“The Historian…” Sara mused aloud, just as her phone rang. Frowning, she picked it up and flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Torin. Did you get a weird letter in the mail?” Torin’s voice was oddly strained.

“Yeah, why?”

“ ‘Cause Cora an’ I got a letter saying to go to the Wenrite Community Center next week. Do you have any idea why?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that my letter was signed with Thagian runes. It says, ‘the historian’” Sara ran her free hand through her hair. “I am so confused right now, but I feel that we need to go.”

“Okay, I’ll tell Cora. She can drive us. Take care, Sara.” Then the line went dead. Sara hoped with all her might that she had not just made the mistake of a lifetime.

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The car bumped along the rough back roads on the way to Wenrite. Despite the constant bouncing, Sara and Torin were asleep in the backseat, Sara’s head rested on Torin’s shoulder, and her arm wrapped protectively around the chest in her lap. Cora smiled as she used her rear-view mirror to look at the teens.

Suddenly, as if lightning had struck directly in front of the car, a bright flash lit up the road and the vehicle’s interior. Sara sat up with a jolt, as did Torin. “What was that?”

“I don’t know, but, oh!” Cora gasped and clutched at the leaf pendant around her neck. The other two were doing the same. Sara chanced to look behind her and saw the strange black-haired woman from before, eyes closed and expression pained, running around the car, faster and faster. Then everything winked out of existence.

Alone on the road, an unoccupied car sped headlong into the trees, where it lay, tires spinning, for others to find and assume the worst.