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It’s way too warm. Lisa feels miserable, cranky and quite honestly so done. The humidity of the forest could fool anyone who ventures there, tricking them into thinking they are tracking the hidden paths of a tropical forest.
They are not.
If Lisa believed in such nonsense, she would think the mountains are trying to keep them away. Make their way all the more treacherous, risky and downright annoying. But, of course, Lisa doesn’t believe such tales. After all, they are only legends and rumours, nothing more than fairytales for children.
Why did she agree to this nonsense? What made her change her mind and decide to do this instead of spending a wonderful summer by the coast?
The answer to that question pranced happily a few paces ahead of her, not caring if the low-hanging branches caught on his west or pants. Eric, her best friend, is not made for this. That’s becoming painfully obvious with every stumble, pricked finger, annoyed scratch at a bug bite or even the slight wheezing when they are tracking up any slight elation. He’s sweet and plump and soft in so many ways. He belongs in the safe walls of the academy, with cushy chairs, feather pillows, and all the comforts and luxury of a made researcher.
But no. Eric decided to do this .
Despite the discomfort of their journey, Lisa is enormously grateful he asked her of all people to tag along. At least this way, she can keep him safe. Because Eric might be a bright linguist, truly one of the best in millennia, he is also incredibly stupid and trusting. Way too trusting.
Lisa understands very little about the linguistic breakthrough Eric achieved just a few weeks prior or the impact it will undoubtedly cause in understanding historical texts better - he was rambling on about that for the better part of the day. But she knows what ‘groundbreaking’ means in the greater world, outside of the academy’s walls. Even if someone doesn’t understand her friend's science, it essentially means money. And money means greed.
The first time Eric asked for directions from the mountain village, Lisa wanted to strangle him. He pranced up and down the street, babbling about songs, ruins, and treasure , like the average village person wouldn’t just hold a knife to his gut and rob him of his maps and notes - or if they can’t read that, his wallet. So Lisa was his shadow, tall, dark, broad-shouldered, and menacing, so no one would even think about fucking with his dimwitted, brilliant friend. Eventually, they found a trail and followed it up into the mountains.
And that brings them here. Here, as if Lisa knew where they are. She doesn’t, and, though Eric’s enthusiasm never gave out, she highly doubts he does either. If Eric would recite one of those ancient poems with that strange guttural and rough language, nobody could speak anymore; he would talk about the forest making the track harder on purpose. The mountain keeping them away.
The trail becoming a Killer.
“This way,” chirps Eric, all delighted and eager, holding his sketched map so close to his nose, he can’t even see around it. Lisa knows by experience that he would turn around a few times before actually finding the right way, but she follows him anyway.
There are bears and big cats in these mountains, and many foolish hikers have disappeared without a sign before. Lisa wants to keep Eric as safe as possible - and if on the way they accidentally prove him right and discover a secret ancient ruin… well, she would owe him two crowns.
So they climb and hike and camp in the summer forest for two weeks. Lisa teaches her friend how to build a campfire or filter water, and Eric sings to her those ancient songs he could decipher and writes in his journal.
“Isn’t it weird that all those songs are from the same person?” Lisa asks one evening over their canned soups. “I mean, it could be a hoax or a story this singer made up of the area. Maybe they just liked the mountains too much.”
“Oh, Master Bard Jaskier took some artistic liberties, for sure, but I could actually decipher his bardic code a while ago, and he was pretty consistent of a few things.” Eric holds up his hand and counts them on his fingers. “He wrote most of his late song cycles up in these mountains. He trekked up the trail every year before winter and came down every spring. And he sang to the wolves. Or of the wolves - that part’s not quite clear.”
“Hmm,” Lisa says, furrowing her brows. “So he was a crazy hermit talking to the animals.”
Eric laughs, sounding all sweet silver bells and his shoulders shake with mirth. Maybe he does belong here, Lisa thinks idly. The wilderness looks good on him, the fire paints his soft features with warmth, and though he’ll never turn into a camping master, he seems to fit here better than on their first days. It’s a silly idea, one Lisa’s not even sure where it comes from, but entertaining enough. Eric here on the mountain chasing ancient texts and songs, with her by his side to protect him. Keep him warm and well-fed.
“No, I think that was actually the name of a secret guild living up here.”
There is something wistful and distant in Eric’s gaze now. He idly turns the pages of his translations, and Lisa has the vague feeling he doesn’t tell her something.
“What are we doing here, Eric?” she asks gently.
“Do you trust me?” he asks with a shy smile, and something in Lisa melts at that. She nods without even realising what she is doing. “I want to sing his last song at the right place. I think they are still here in these woods. So I want to sing them Master Bard Jaskier’s last song.”
“Is this some kind of pilgrimage?” Lisa asks incredulously. Sure, Eric loves these fairytales of long ago with magic and monsters and Destiny… but he’s also a linguist and historian. Well-read and with more PhDs than anyone Lisa knows. He is a highly respected professor in his field with way too much trust towards random strangers who dumps their grandparents' old shit on his desk in hopes of sucking up to him and achieving - whatever history and language professors want to accomplish in life. “You never tried to discover Atlantis when you deciphered those old scriptures.”
“No, I think this is different,” he looks at her sheepishly, nervously scratching the back of his neck. As if whatever he’s about to say makes Lisa turn around and leave him on the top of this mountain. As if she’s not already making mental notes of hunting and living in these woods as long as Eric pleases. “I mean, at least I could pay my respect if nothing else. But…” he takes a deep, fortifying breath, squares his shoulder, and for a long moment, Lisa swears he’s the most beautiful man in the world. “But if I understood these notes correctly, they might be here. Actually trapped somewhere in the woods. And we could free them.”
Oh, this dreaming fool!
Lisa can’t help but smile warmly at Eric’s words. Her clever, brilliant, naive dreamer! How wonderful it would be if he’s right. It's a nice thought, even if she’s too cynical to imagine it. Almost as nice as following her friend to the end of the world while he chases his mysteries. Fairytales would turn out to be true. Magic and monsters and Destiny would be true - and though those things sound a bit scary and dangerous, she can’t help but be excited about them. Because if all of these old wives' tales turn out to be accurate, who’s to say there aren’t any more miracles in the world?
Like elves and dwarves coming back to the land.
Like Doctor Eric Danielson one day looking at her of all people and finding her as beautiful and intriguing as Lisa does him.
So what if, in the following days, she complains less about the summer heat and bug bites while clearing the path for Eric? What if she tries to learn the strange ancient songs Eric sings to her in the evenings? What if she already has those two crowns set aside in a pocket just to pay her lost bet?
Because if anyone would ever find such a place, it would be Eric. If the ruins existed somewhere in the high mountains, if there are secret, cursed people trapped by some crazy scheme or magic up there, Eric would find them. And Lisa wanted to be there for that.
***
A week after their conversation, they realise how high they have hiked on those hidden paths. Despite the summer, the air turns chilly, and the winds that run through the subtly changing flora bite their skin now. Lisa has wrapped Eric into a thicker jacket when he sheepishly admitted forgetting his own at home, and they have to look for shelter for their camps.
They find alcoves and shallow caves to sleep in. The third time they build a camp in such a cave, when their fire is finally warming their bones, Eric sees them. Scribblings along the walls, little messages, and counting of units. Eric jumps with excitement, and Lisa spends the whole evening holding her torchlight so he can translate.
“This was a stop,” he muses over a line of tidy handwriting. “They had provisions here for respite. Here, look at this, Lisa; it says, ‘Dry meat, hardtack, and oil for your swords. - V ’. And here’s another, ‘Was a wet summer, but here’s some dry enough wood. - V ’. Oh, look at this one; this is fascinating, ‘Took care of the wyvern but might have a mate. - V ’. Who do you think this V is?”
“I’m more concerned about what’s a wyvern,” Lisa mutters, brows furrowed but otherwise listening to Eric’s pleasant chatter.
“They wrote warnings to each other. And little anecdotes as well. Look, Lisa, they even kept track of their gambling, ‘Lambert owes me three orens from a Koviri Gwent tournament, don’t let him hide his stash. - E ’. And look, Master Bard Jaskier must have been here as well; this looks like one of his poems, ‘When he has closed his weary eyes, / Lulled by the billows that harmless roll, / Visions of bliss and beauty, rise / In flowery dreams to the waking soul! - J ’.
“If we found this, we must be on the right path,” says Lisa, and her chest puffs with pride for Eric. He was right! Even if they don’t find cursed people up in the woods, this is proof that somewhere they’ll find some ancient ruins no one in millennia laid eyes upon.
***
Two days after the cave, Eric suddenly squeaks in front of a tree. Lisa trods over there, pistol already in hand, ready to scare away a bear or wolf he might have come upon, but-
Eric stares at the tree and grins so hard it almost splits his face. Lisa looks over at the bark, expecting a sign or some written memento from a long-forgotten era, but all she sees is carving. Eerily beautiful and detailed carving of a sword painted with radiant colours. It’s so detailed that it almost leaps off that tree bark. The pommel is of a wolf’s head, snarling and threatening, the grip’s wrapped tightly with leathers, and the blade gleaming with the most brilliant shade of silver Lisa ever saw painted before.
It is a curious sight, and if Eric’s estimation is correct about the carved masterpiece, it’s also very, very old. Though, Lisa thinks with unease, if it is as old as Eric said so, how come the colours are still so popping? Shouldn’t they fade with the elements?
Eric doesn’t know either. But he seems like someone who just won the lottery, scribbles in his notebook and rants to Lisa about the significance of silver in this area. There’s a certain a spring in his steps when he continues on, but Lisa can’t take her eyes off the carving for the longest time. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and something in her hindbrain whispers danger.
“Lisa, come on,” Eric calls her from a few paces ahead. “I think we’re close now.”
She follows him, of course. Why wouldn’t she? Maybe Eric’s excitement is infecting her, or the adrenaline from looking at whatever that carving is made her giddy. She doubts it is only a neat artwork, and something deep within her suggests that Eric’s right.
Not long after that, they find more of it. Each and every one of them are intricate and beautiful to a fault, almost leaping off the tree barks, and none of them are faded or damaged in any way. The handles and pommels vary in style or size, but the blade itself is the same razor-sharp-looking silver blade that glistens in the sunlight menacingly. Countless swords are carved in the trees; they encounter at least fifty, but by Eric’s estimation, there might be many, many more.
The pommels sometimes show off snarling wolves just as he predicted from the bard’s songs, but they see cat heads and bears, snakes and bird motives and some that they can’t even recognise.
And then they see it.
Eric calls to Lisa, and she sprints after him to catch up. They are surrounded by the carved trees like they were an army, and when they step out of the woods, there it is. It must have been magnificent when it stood. Now nothing more than crumbling dark stone, where they can only guess which area of it served what purpose. Lisa hears Eric’s breath hitch, and she can’t blame him. It’s a glorious site, yet heartbreaking.
Because something’s wrong with it. As her hair stands up whenever she looks at those carvings, as she just knows deep down that Eric was right all along, she knows this as well.
This is not right.
There’s no logic behind it, of course. This place is ancient, more than a millennium old; not even the locals at the foot of the mountains are aware of it existing or whatever this place is; it should look like a ruin. However, she feels the wrongness of it even in her bones. Like an itch, she desperately wants to scratch. A sudden urge to do something. As she looks over at Eric and that same zealous determination burns in his eyes that made her fall in love with him in the first place, she knows he feels the same.
Without a word, they hike closer to the ruin. Right before what might have once been the gate of whatever fortress this was, stands four trees. Seed might have been carried here just to take root and grow over time, sure, but nowhere else are there any more trees this close to the ruins. And they look… sad.
The tree’s trunks turned this way and that over the years, as if they were trying to reach out for each other, branches catching onto one another here and there. There are carvings on them as well, but they are different from the sea of swords they just saw.
On the far end, the tree stands tall and elegant looking, with a carving of an obsidian star - and a deeply unsettling aura around it. Right next to it is a slightly shorter one with an elegant swallow carved on it, painted with mesmerising ashen and emerald notes. On the other side of the tree with a swallow stands a burly, pale-barked one with the same silver sword they saw in the forest. And on the other side of that stands one that, during the years, managed to wrap itself around the bark of the pale one, almost lovingly. There is an intricately carved and painted lute on it.
Lisa palms around her pockets for a long moment before finding the coins and wordlessly sliding them into Eric’s hand. To her surprise, Eric doesn’t let go of her hand after that, so she squeezes it encouragingly.
“So,” Lisa starts awkwardly, still eying the trees. “Ready to figure out if we can break an ancient curse?”
Eric squeezes her hand and looks at her with a grateful smile. Oh, how Lisa hopes it will work! How she wishes that otherworldly feeling means Eric’s right. That magic and monsters and Destiny is real, and this place, whatever it once was, stands tall and proud again. How she wants the impossible possible. To see elves and dwarves walk among men again.
To be just brave enough to kiss her best friend.
Eric takes a deep breath and softly counts to three.
And then they begin to sing.