Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Even though the structures were still intact enough in places to offer some respite from the howling wind and driving snow, there was little that the remaining travelers could do to keep themselves warm as the temperatures continued to plummet. They’d cut some trees surrounding the city and tried to fashion rude walls with them, stopping the gaps between rough-hewn bits of wood with mud, but even then the cold was an ever-present misery. Food and fuel were in short supply as well, and each further trip out to replenish them exhausted the group still further.

And yet, despite all the hardships, Scimoc continued to carefully map the ruins, day by day, systematically eliminating candidates and expanding his map, hoping to find the statue–the elven figure.

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The party, now numbering fourteen, left Rewitt’s grave in a clearing under a cairn. As torturous as things had been with the old trapper, they were worse without him. Agneja knew her way around the wilderness, surely, but it was not a wilderness she was familiar with. Even with the sun to guide them eastward and the river to mark the path, they constantly stumbled upon cliffs, morasses, and other impassible obstacles which required costly backtracking. Animals were scarce, and edible plants scarcer, while the river never seemed to widen or deepen enough for the party to build rafts to ease their way.

It was seventy days, give or take, after Rewitt died that the first paving-stone appeared, indicating a long and forgotten road that had been overtaken by the ages.

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The rude ramprts of Ysoait soon faded into the distance, and within a day, the supply train had reached the end of the road: a lumber camp. Lord Giarc and his men unloaded the supplies, creating a small cache of buried provisions the expedition could use to sustain itself in an emergency. In addition to Dr. Scimoc and Agneja, as well as their Ysoitan trapper guide Rewitt, they had a band of twenty porters and hunters.

“Small for this sort of work, but you’re not building a city, you’re locating one,” Lord Girac said. “Remember our agreement, Doctor. Anything you find is to be claimed for Ysoait first and the Empire second, and my man is to deliver the news to the Emperor personally.”

“Of course,” Scimoc said. “I am engaged in a quest for knowledge, not a hunt for glory.”

“Good. Keep to your end of the bargain, and I’ll keep to mine.” Giarc mounted his horse. “I’ll inform the Emperor you’ve departed. With any luck, you’ll arrive back safe sooner than news of your departure.”

His retinue followed him down the ruts toward civilization, while the porters busied themselves with the details of their departure.

“How rough will it be?” Scimoc said. “I feel like the hard part is nearly over with.”

“It will be rougher than you ever dared imagine,” Rewitt said, “and that’s if we survive to tell the tale. The hard part isn’t getting there; the hard part is coming back alive.”

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“Velin,” Agneja said. “How much do you know about it?”

“Our last stop before Ysoait,” said Scimoc. “Hilly. Mountainous. It’s said that the fortress is impregnable.”

“Mmm.” Agneja took a few more steps. “Do you fancy another stint in a dungeon?”

“Do you need me to say I’m sorry again?” snapped Scimoc. “How was I to know that Lady Termina was incredibly sensitive about her reputed ancestry?”

“You misunderstand.” Agneja drew close and pointed at the craggy rocks that had begun to rise near the road. “These foothills rise up into the North Mountains, which no man has ever climbed, and beyond which no man has ever ventured. They are incredibly inhospitable. Food needs to be taken up to Velin from lower in the valleys every day, because nothing will grow on the bare rock there. Yet Lady Eleury insists that it be the capital of her hold, and pays in gold for what is brought up.”

“She must live a very secure life,” Scimoc said. “All the better for us as her guests, I suppose.”

“What would you say if I told you that Lady Eleury, when she was a much younger woman, became the second wife of Lord Samej using every charm and wile she had to install herself in Velin and then to see her husband snuffed out with no heirs?

“It’s a story I hear quite often.”

“In the Imperial court, maybe. Who schemes to become mistress of a barren rock?”

Scimoc had learned to recognize the look on Agneja’s face. “You’re going to tell me,” he said.

“Velin is impregnable, a fortress that a dozen men could hold for a year as long as Lady Eleury switched from fresh to salted meat. Eleury set herself up here, on purpose, because she is paranoid. She is terrified that people are out to get her, and this fiefdom exists only to keep her protected. If we are not careful, we will wind up feeding that paranoia, and our broken bodies will roll down the slopes beneath Velin until the woods break out fall.”

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“It has been a rather long time since we’ve had visitors with Imperial letters of introduction in Rajaka,” said Lady Termina. “Longer still since they weren’t here to speak with me.”

“Do you object?” Scimoc said. “When I was dealing with Lady Annika in Jalav, she took offense to my merely passing through.”

“That does sound like her, the stuck-up and spoilt daughter of a stuck-up and spoilt duchess,” Termina laughed. “But no, not at all. Most of the official business I deal with is suitors.”

“Oh, ah, of course,” Scimoc said. He did suppose that Lady Termina was exceptionally fine-featured. If one cared about that sort of thing, naturally. “I assure you, I have no such intentions.”

“Clearly,” said Termina with a wry look. “So to what do I owe the pleasure then, Dr. Scimoc? You needn’t have called on me if you simply meant to resupply at Rajaka.”

“Ah. Yes. Well, my expedition is seeking elven ruins in Ysoait, and according to the information available to me, Rajaka is founded on the site of an old elven village, and your family has distant elven ancestry.”

A rather icy change came over Termina’s features. “Ah yes, of course,” she said. “My line is noted for its beauty, which is proof positive that we once consorted with inhuman creatures, naturally.”

Scimoc immediately sensed his error. “My lady, I surely did not mean any offense-”

“Oh, and there is no offense taken,” Lady Termina said, in a very offended tone. “Let me tell you, Dr. Scimoc, that your sources are quite right about one thing: this fortress is built upon elven ruins. I’ll be happy to let you inspect the part of the castle that incorporates them.”

“Of course! I would be delighted for the opportunity.”

Termina snapped her finger twice, and one of her guards came huffing. “See Dr. Scimoc and his companions to the dungeon,” she said. “So they can see the elven ruins that undergird this fortress, naturally. Once they’ve had ample time for study, see that they make it out of Rajaka…and that they never return.”

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“I am bound for Ysoait,” said Scimoc. “You’ve heard of it?”

The guide nodded her head. “Of course,” Agneja said. “The little sister. Youngest and brattiest of the Seitselin. What do you hope to find there?”

Scimoc tented his fingers, much as he did with the Emperor when trying to emphasize the importance of any one issue. “You’re familiar with the elves?” he said.

“Depends,” Agneja laughed. “You’re familiar with Winterfather, who leaves sweets in the shoes of good children on the solstice, provided they’ve rich parents?”

“Hmph,” Scimoc said. “I’d expect someone familiar with the far west to be a bit more openminded.”

“When it comes to wolves, bears, rivers so raging they can’t be crossed, and slopes so steep that even the goats fall off them, I’m openminded,” said Agneja. “When it comes to magic? Creatures of air and light that were so powerful they could steal our children and yet so weak that we were able to drive them to extinction a thousand years ago? Call me a skeptic.”

“Well, if you’re too skeptical to take on this expedition…”

Agneja cut him off with a firm chop of her hand. “I’m never too skeptical to get paid,” she said. “You want to go into the furthest reaches of Zalissa, well beyond what safety the Seven Castles can offer you? I can make that happen for the right price. But don’t ask me to believe in whatever rich man’s dream has set you out here, all right?”

“Fair enough,” Scimoc said. “Will you indulge me to share my entire purpose, or is that too fantastic for you?”

“Share away.”

“I’ve been reading the reports of Elyod’s Expedition,” Scimoc said. “Trying to discern some meaning from the madness, as it were, and also to reconstruct parts of the text that were lost to the elements before it was found.”

“Elyod, huh?” Agneja snorted. “I know he’s an Imperial hero and all, but if he’d just had to stones to ask someone who actually knew the area for a little help, he wouldn’t have starved to death after eating his own men. Just saying.”

“Quite, which is why I’m not making the same mistake,” said Scimoc. “But I think that, in one of his last coherent notes, he describes the ruins of an elven city. And I think that it contains a depiction of an elf–one of the only, if not the only remaining images of their kind in existence.”

“Pointy ears and all?”

“Well, we shall see, won’t we?”

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Velin
Stretching into the foothills of the great mountains that mark the border of Zalissia to the north, Velin is a nigh-impregnable fortress that is nevertheless damp, drafty, and unpleasant, with only a few hardy trappers and the like braving the cold to live there. It doesn’t help that the ruler, Lady Eleury, is paranoid about her personal safety and in fact manipulated her way into rulership of Velin strictly because of its remoteness and safety.

Serkua
The key feature of Serkua is The Barren, an area in which nothing will grow. At its center, it is as brown and dead and a desert, with life and the verdant forest returning slowly at greater distances. Serkua’s ruler is actually a nobleman from the Imperial College, Lord Balton, who purchased the fief with the express purpose of researching The Barren. As yet, he has not reached any conclusions, and his obsession with the feature has led to a lackadaisical attitude toward the rest of the land, which is virtually lawless.

Ysoait
Ysoait is the largest, most remote, and most sparsely populated of the Seitselin fiefs, and represents the furthest frontier of the Empire and the furthest reach of Zalissia that has been reached by settlers. Hunters, trappers, and traders do venture further east, of course, but they do so at great risk. As befits the youngest and largest fortress, Ysoait is mostly composed of wood walls around a small settlement, principally notable as a trading post and the last terminus of the road from Neljan. Its leader, Lord Giarc, is an ambitious man who hopes to develop the fief’s vast wilderness but is chronically short of troops and money.

Rajaka
Rajaka is the heartland of what was once a great confederation of elven settlements, and occupies the site of an old elven village. It has been more successful than other fiefs in attracting farmers as well, though they are often subject to attacks from wildlife and bandits. Persistent rumors abound that the leader of Rajaka, Lady Termina, is descended from the long-vanished, extinct elves. Termina is more concerned with her farmers’ crops and the depredations of bandits, though anyone mentioning her supposed elven blood in her presence will be clapped in the stocks.

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“What about this one?” I pulled up the next post on Hostr. “Perfect for our Halloween in December party.”

Missy wasn’t convinced—frankly, she hadn’t been convinced that “Halloween in December” was a good idea, even though I had a great spreadsheet showing how much money we’d save on party supplies and a suitably spooky host. “Nah.”

“Why nah?” I said. “Look at him. He’s perfect, and 75% off for the month of December!”

“Sweetie, he’s a werewolf and the party isn’t on a full moon,” Missy said. “He’d just be really hirsute and angry, it would be like hiring an Italian uncle.”

I popped over to the almanac site in another tab, then shrugged. “Granted. Okay, how about this one? He is 95% off and a full-blooded vampire from the Cluj-Napoca line.”

Missy scrolled down to him. “I mean, yeah, that is pretty cheap for a vampire from one of the Old Houses, and he has great reviews. But did you see his requirements? Count Erdély requires ‘one living meal per two hours.’”

“We’ll hire him for an hour and give him half a meal,” I said. “What about Suzie? He could eat half of Suzie.”

“We are not inviting Suzie to our party just so she can get half-eaten by our hired vampire host,” Missy said.

“Why not? Nobody likes Suzie.”

“We’ll like her even less as an immortal creature of the night.”

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Jalav
The largest and best-fortified of the Seitselin, Jalav, might have become a proper dukedom already if not for the constant unrest among its populace and the bitter enmity between its rulers, the House of Luostari, and the Emperor. Lady Annika’s grandfather was banished for his (real or imagined) part in a plot to overthrow the Emperor’s father. She, as well as her mother before her, have sought to make Jalav an Imperial Free City in all but name, but their efforts have constantly been stymied by the restive population. Many are only a generation or two removed from the Empire’s seizure of their lands, and resent Jalav’s attempts at cosmopolitanism.

Neljan
Also known as the Crossroads for its central location, this commanding fortress overlooks a crucial meeting of east-west and north-south roads, which has grown into sprawling and unruly settlement. Other than collecting tolls and maintaining the roads via a corps of Pavers, the rulers show little interest in the property; they live in the Empire proper and are absentee landlords. A vicereine, the Lady Juna, rules in their stead.

Timant
Duke Timant is well-known for putting on airs, and the only ruler to insist on being referred to by his full title. His modest hold, the fortress of Timant, controls a river crossing but is otherwise modest. Timant has invested lavish sums in attempting to attract settlers and tradesmen to bring more of the Empire to his hamlet, but with limited success. To his credit, Timant does maintain a corps of well-drilled rangers, and the roads of Timant are rather safe–though the same cannot be said for the wilderness itself.

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The Seven Castles, also known as the Seitselin, are the primary fortified settlements of the wild region known as Zalissia. The name Zalissia literally means “the forest beyond” in Old Imperial, just as Seitselin is a corruption of the Middle Elvish phrase “the seven forts.”

Each of the Seven is technically the seat of a dukedom, and their rules are properly dukes and duchesses of the Empire. And, indeed, they can and often do request small detachments of Imperial troops for minor issues, and send elements of their own men-at-arms on those rare occasions when the Empire is at war. But in practice, each of the Seitselin is an independent fief, and they compete bitterly with one another for trade and the opening of further frontier lands.

The largest and best-fortified of the Seitselin, Jalav, might have become a proper dukedom already if not for the constant unrest among its populace and the bitter enmity between its rulers, the House of Luostari, and the Emperor. But even Annika Luostari herself is rarely referred to as a duchess, with most in her fief simply referring to her as Lady Annika. Every other ruler, save the famously pompous Duke Timant, is cut from the same folksy cloth.

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