He shook his hand out of it, almost too violently and winced as the wave traveled upward through the cord. The rusted tongue of the bell swung back and forth, nearly kissing the mouth, a bit more and he would have had everyone in the temple scampering like headless chickens. He held his breath and waited for it to still and stood up. His joints creaked like an old man's, and he felt like one too, despite having only seventeen winters on him. They felt rusted, clogged, like dirty hinges on the doors to his chamber.

He walked up to a corner of the small square box like room the he was in, stretching his limbs as he did so and stepped forward to hug the corner support with the rope in hand, and tied it around it.

The old bell rang like a cough from a dying bull and was their final and only warning.

Every night Tristan watched out for a reason to ring it and in the morning he did ring it to say that everything was fine and they can wake up to another 'beautiful' day. He supposed he was the village c.o.c.k now, just less useful. They couldn't eat him after all.

He sighed and peered into the direction where color was bleeding into the graying sky, behind dark mountaintops and naked trees. About an hour more before the sun was up, 'and' to calm himself. He placed a hand on his racing heart and took deep and slow breaths to control the rapid and shallow ones. The black spots in his vision also slowly started to recede and so did the ringing in his ears.

His practices, his nightly exercises took everything out of him, leaving him completely drained by the morning, and shaking and swaying from exhaustion. He trembled every now and then and often in a violent manner and leaned on the wall as not to fall over. His secret studies hadn't been going well lately, every night he seemed to do worse than before; he felt weaker, his reserves growing smaller, his well of power drying.

He had to go there again, he thought, to the source, to refill his 'well' and renew his practice.

But his master wouldn't be happy if he did that, like he hadn't been when Tristan had gone to the source the first time. He was pulled by that powerful hunger and strange curiosity only 'that' place seemed to satiate.

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He had gone there again about a week later after the first time, to feel reinvigorated and renewed. But his master had found out about it as soon as his eyes fell on Tristan when he got back and was not at all happy about it. It had been more than ten days from then and now his master was bedridden and Tristan practiced alone. Master Nowsen wouldn't find out if he went out again he was certain, but Tristan had promised to not give in to that hunger. His master had been nothing but generous to Tristan, more than anyone had ever been even without having any reason to be so. And Tristan was not going to betray that trust, but still…

Below the tower, a deep black fog that covered everything but the tallest, like a thick cloak of clouds, was slowly descending. With it, trees rose, dead and twisted in a sick show of pain, ruins of their homesteads, barns. Mostly they were just leaning pillars with bits of walls attached to them. Tristan watched dispa.s.sionately as slowly more of the fog disappeared and showed more and more of his village. His mind kept going back to the strange dream he had last night or what he thought was one because it had not made sense to him then.

Tristan remembered Laanimere last evening when she had brought him to his and his master's chamber and left, only to quickly return with a cold bowl of soup with flakes of barley and hog-root in it. He was checking up on his master then and took the bowl with both his hands and sat by his master to eat. He hadn't asked for it, but he was hungry and thankful.