We still need man-things!

Chapter Eighteen

 Returning to Castle Dimitrescu without being detected wasn't so simple at all. The village covered quite a large area of the valley and consisted of four main parts that were separated from each other by woods. Even with his new ability, which allowed him to see well in complete darkness, Mike failed to spot the castle's towers he wanted to find.

After being sure that the old woman or someone else didn't spot him, he lowered his pace after having distanced himself from danger by around 300 meters. The village road had ended long before, and the ground had started to rise steeply until two-story-high cliffs appeared to block his way further.

Shit. Now I have to find out where the hell I am. Where is that creepy castle?

Since his greatest trouble were footprints left on the snow that Miranda could easily use to follow, he believed that the best way was to try climbing up from there to reach the rocky area where wind has cleaned the snow and the castle may be observable from a distance. Of course, it wasn't an easy task to do, especially when he was carrying a book that was quite heavy. But Mike was used to climbing on rooftops for years to reach chimneys; he finally found his way up despite all the things that tried to stop him.

He emerged on a rocky plateau and rested for a minute. There really wasn't any snow, and he was happy that there weren't any buildings where people could see him.

Okay, now I need to find the right direction.

But unfortunately, his night vision ability turned out to be useful for only short distances: when he tried to look further than the nearest trees or looked back to the direction from which he had arrived, he didn't see even a church that should be right there. It was completely dissolved into a greenish-gray hue. Only a few street lights from the village center were visible; they were about two kilometers away over the fields. They looked like bright spots, just like stars in a constellation.

"There, I have to go." Mike guessed. "Oh my god, they are so far."

He believed this to be the right direction, as he had seen these lights from the castle earlier, and then they were slightly right from his point of view. Now they were little left, and so he thought that he must be on the western side of the valley, and the castle must be directly ahead.

But going right down again and starting his way right there wasn't possible, however. Since the village was under strict quarantine and there were certainly guards outside to enforce it, Mike didn't even think about the risks and started looking for a way around.

He walked to the south on this rocky plateau until it turned into dense forest. All the trees there were glowing bright gray like they were carved out of bones, and even the smallest patterns of their barks were distinguishable when his eyes got close enough. At short distances, his night vision worked even better than normal eyesight.

Soon, his trek was suddenly interrupted by another cliff. Unlike the first one, it was a real one, not like some sort of naturally occurring ladder where a fit person could ascent without tools. That was at least four stories high and made of solid granite. Mike didn't even want to think about climbing further, as it was clearly impossible without special gear. The wall had no cracks, and it was almost vertical.

"This place really sucks!"

To find a better spot to climb, he walked for several hundred meters in parallel with that cliff. He hoped that the cliff would disappear or start to be more climbable, but in reality, the wall went only higher, and there was nothing indicating that it would end soon. Being disappointed, he cursed himself and turned around to head back where he started.

So he decided to find his way around from another direction. After a hundred or so steps through the woods, the ground appeared to be descending, at first slowly, then quickly. Mike had to use some small trees and bushes to gain some support and avoid falling. Carefully, he managed to walk down the woody slope of the mountain and arrive at the next plain area, where the forest got so dense that it was impossible to see further than thirty steps ahead. But suddenly, all these trees and even the ground ended, and there was nothing but a gray background. That had to be a chasm of unknown size, and Mike had to be extra careful not to just walk down it. Even before reaching there, he had started hearing the sound of rushing water somewhere, but now it was clear that he had reached some canyon where there had to be a river down there.