Dearest Zann,

I tumbled through the hole in the darkness, and landed on mud. The sunshine was bright here, and I squinted as I stood up. Somehow I was still wearing the same clothes from when Ellewen and I had entered the laur. How long ago? I couldn’t tell. I checked that my coin was still hanging around my neck: it was.

Greenery was all around me, long reeds and big leaves coming down from somewhere above. I was on the shore of some water… probably a river. I knew this place, actually. I could see houses on the opposite shore, and the shapes of the hills… this was one of the islands in the Crideon River, some miles downstream of the city. I had never been here before, but I had seen the islands from the land. I tried to remember, did anyone live here? Had I ever seen smoke or farms or anything here?

I took a step and slipped in the mud, plastering river muck and leafslime all over myself. Tried to get up, slipped again, and completed the job of bedaubing myself from head to toe. I laughed and stood again, more carefully. I felt pretty good, unexpectedly. I was healthy. Wande and Jhus were fine, wherever they were. And, whatever kind of wars and intrigues were going on in Crideon, it didn’t have anything to do with me. I was just taking a nice walk around an island. Could I even get off the island? Who knew? Maybe I could swim it. I could just walk away from everything.

It sounded good. The greenfolk didn’t know how to rule in Crideon, and the people of Crideon didn’t know what they were dealing with in trying to drive the greenfolk out. The Rosolla Guard was a snakepit inside the larger snakepit of the palace. Ellewen and Ambe and my other friends could all take care of themselves. And I could go somewhere else. North, maybe, back to the Boltmarch.

I sat down on a rock and chewed on a blade of grass. If I did leave, it would mean that I was giving up on ever tasting the Sauce again. And that would leave a large hole in me. Right then, though, with the sun shining on me, and smelling the wind off the river, that didn’t seem so bad.

My fingers found the coin on its old leather thong. Of all things, that little pissard Ran was on my mind. Did I remember right, that his whole neighbourhood had been destroyed by all the fighting in Crideon? Was Ran dead? It might have been something that I imagined. But.

He did live in Crideon. He was in danger. A lot of people were in danger. And somebody had to do something about it. And that somebody was me. I couldn’t just sit on this island eating reeds. I had to, I had to, well, I didn’t know what I had to do. Just that I had to do it. I started looking around for a branch.

Love,

Ybel