had better be good, old man, or I shall be back for that. Ill have spent it by then, said the senior citizen with a chuckle, on wild women with red lips and pot bellies. Soldier was beginning to wonder if this senile old rake could tell him anything of value, but once the question was asked the priest sent for a copper bowl and a charcoal brazier, an astrolabe, a divining rod, and other instruments of conjecture. The astrolabe was consulted with regard to the source of the wind. Then the copper bowl was placed on the fire, substances were put into the bowl and stirred with the divining rod, and green smoke issued forth which contained cryptic messages for the old conjuror to decipher and pass on to this client, the questioning soldier. Theg says that to cure your wife, to restore her memory to her without its companion madness, you need to go on a quest and gather the following three objects: the silver container of the song of an eternal prisoner; a golden unborn babe in the house of a stranger; a jade widow who has righteously murdered and devoured her husband. These are all to be found in the the Unknown Region. Once you have the objects, you must lay them at Thegs altar. Soldier was angry at first, with these words from the priest. What are these riddles? How can I find objects when I dont understand what they are? They are precisely that, riddles, which you have to solve before you can discover their hiding places. Good Soldier, do you expect it to be easy? You want the gods to place the cure in your lap? No, a knight must earn the reward, by using his intelligence, his chivalry, his courage. You must go forth, seek amongst the hidden ways, probe into unknown places of horror, use the goodness of your soul and the brightness of your mind to uncover the truth. Return with the treasures to me and I shall use them to lure your wifes lost memory from the hole in which it hides. How will I find them? Follow the white road. Soldier was puzzled. Are there roads in the Unknown Region? This one comes and goes, said the ancient priest, smiling secretly. This one is evanescent, transient. Sometimes its there, sometimes its not. More damn riddles, grumbled Soldier. Do you want to cure your wife or not? If you dont, stay at home. I dont care. Its nothing to me. Should I take any companion with me? Take the bird, the raven, for it can climb high and see many things which are out of sight to your eyes. Very sensible. I hadnt thought of that. In the meantime, I shall rattle my bones with the contents of this purse and see if I can find a spark of life in these old loins. You are a wicked priest! Yes, I am, arent I? cackled the old man. Soldier returned to the Palace of Wildflowers and told his wife what the priest had said. Husband, she said, taking him in her arms, you do not need to do this thing. The place to which that old man has sent you is a dangerous and unnatural land, full of tricks and traps, where even the ordinary needs travel under different guises. There is no stranger you can trust there, and you will find no friend amongst them. It is an isolated, brooding place, where solitary, exiled creatures grow into the landscape. It is full of wild, uncoded magic, uncontrolled and without any sense of order. I am afraid for you. I would spend the rest of my life with a blank history rather than let you wander out into that bleak, desolate region where there are no common rules, where science and philosophy have decayed and fallen into foul hands, to be moulded as they wish into shapes of which you could not dream. Stay here, safe by my side, and we shall make do with less than perfect. Soldier sighed. That I cannot do, my sweet Layana, for you will always ache for a whole mind. Your whole life has been spent either in the shadow of lunacy or without your memory. We must do all we can to restore you to wholeness, for only then will I know if you truly love me. You must remember who and what I was when I first came to you, and I
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