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OOC: Part 3 of 5.
Plaxica 85/85
The vision ended as abruptly as it had started. Looking around Plaxica saw from the Sun’s standing that half an hour had passed. And he was on the move again. He panicked for a moment that the spirit had taken him away from his goal, yet looking back he saw that he had come a great distance towards his goal. And this time when the spirit spoke inside his head, his surprise was much less as he had been expecting it.
”Do you still not see it?”
“You show me the death of my best friend and then that of the man, who took me in for my apprenticeship. What now? The death of my father?” – he asked with a feeling of fear and dread entering his mind.
”You guess well…” - was all the spirit said and in a swirl Plaxica was taken in by another vision.
The bleakness of winter was gone, yet the location was the same. After the death of Karan, Plaxica had awaited the end of the winter in the town, and then went back to his village for half a year. It took his father that long to find someone else to take him as an apprentice. This time it was an ageing old man Almanius who took care of Plaxica’s education. He was too old and fragile, and his muscles were already weak, so he only took care of Plaxica’s mental education, yet much of the young man’s free time was spent hanging out with other youths from the town. It was thus that he met Ramella. Plaxica was nineteen at the time and Ramella was eighteen. As time went by and they got to pass more and more time together they started liking each other and not long after Ramella’s nineteenth birthday Plaxica took her to the falls of Arg and under the moonlit sky he confessed his love to her. Three weeks later he wrote a letter to his father asking his permission for him to ask Ramella to marry him. The reply came seventeen days later. Plaxica and Ramella went together to the falls of Arg and there Plaxica opened the letter. What struck him first was that the letter was written in his mother’s flowing script and not his father’s barely readable scribblings.
Five minutes later the letter fell from Plaxica’s hands. He sat down on a rock and burying his head in his hands he started crying. It took Ramella several minutes to calm him down.
”I’m sorry Ramella. I have to go home. My father is dying. You’d better stay here. I promise I shall be back.”
”Plaxica! Wait!” - she said as Plaxica jumped up.
A brief, but passionate kiss later Plaxica was running back to the town, tears flowing down his cheeks. He reached the stables and without a word to the stable boy, who was one of his friends took his horse and rode off towards his village. Exhausted, he got there after twenty hours of riding, giving his horse only short rests and one longer one, of three hours during the early hours of the day. Jumping off his horse in front of the house and just leaving the poor, also exhausted beast out there, he rushed inside.
His older sister and her husband had come and so had his uncle with his family. Plaxica requested to see his father alone. The old man looked to be in really bad shape, and Plaxica could see that he would not live long. He knelt down beside the bed and took the old man’s hand. The weakened eyes opened and the head turned to look at Plaxica. The parched lips formed barely audible words.
”My son…You have come…Thank…you.”
The voice faded and a tear rolled down the face, due to the effort.
”Your…mother told me…about the letter you wrote…I’m glad you came…I wanted to see you once…again before I passed…away.”
Through immense effort Padrag, Plaxica’s father lifted a hand and brushed away a tear from his son’s face. A hint of a smile touched his lips and he spoke again.
”Plaxica…” - his breath came suddenly with a sharp whistling sound - ”I wish you many happiness with this girl.” - and as he pronounced the last words, his eyes closed, and the once great man died.
Plaxica broke out in tears and kneeling next to his father’s bed and sobbed for several minutes.
The burial happened three days later. Plaxica, his uncle and two men from the village carried the coffin to the grave. On the gravestone was marked:
Padrag Battan lived 59 years, shall be missed by his children and wife
After the end of the ceremony the priest called Plaxica over for a talk during the week. Plaxica went to see the priest the night before he was to go back to Algan Falls.
”Plaxica there is something I have to tell you.” - the short chubby man announced to him after letting him in to his small house next to the temple.
”What is it?”
”I am sorry to be the one, who gives you this news, but your father was poisoned by your own mother. A year ago a strange new man arrived in the village. A mage they say. He went to see your mother one day and she never was the same since. I tried to send you a warning earlier, but the two men I sent were intercepted by this man, and they haven’t come to speak to me ever since.”
”So you say that my mother was put under a spell by this, mage?”
”I fear it is so. You must flee now! Do not go back to Algan Falls! They watch the road and I have heard rumours that this man seeks to kill you. I would give you shelter in the temple, yet not even the temple is safe from him. Two weeks ago someone broke into the temple and stole our holy items, and I fear it was him, or someone working for him.”
”I thank you. I shall never forget you for this.”
Plaxica turned to leave through the door, but suddenly a knock penetrated the stillness of the room, and a voice came through the wooden door.
”I know he is in there. Open up, or I shall be forced to blast the door off of it’s hinges.”
The priest motioned the window to Plaxica and without saying a single word the young man nodded his thanks and left the house through the window. He did not make fifty meters, before he heard the death shrieks of the priest. Plaxica broke into a run. He did not stop until he reached the next village fifteen miles away. He did not know whether he was going to be followed, so he only stopped briefly for half an hour for a meal in the tavern and then he continued on.
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