Everything Included

In Which We Settle in for a Long Night

553. That's how many pages Rayburn Auttsley had managed to wrangle free from nature's clutches. And he hated wrestling with nature; it was always drawn out, frigid, insulting. Nature loved hurling insults on the wind at those who tried to get in her way.

Rayburn had fought nature before, overcoming her with trickery and deceit, an unsavory victory. He wished he'd had Miss Laddie's touch-- bending nature into submission-- but to those of us born without green thumbs, the magic needed to bend nature took cycles to master. And Rayburn hated mastering anything.

The wind, at the insistence of nature, kept the pages inches from the man's reach. He had to overcome that with staystill, one of the earliest spells he had learned to use. It wasn't difficult, freezing someone's or something's time, and so he did that, prying the pages from the wind's grasp, an indulgent smile on his face.

When nature had caught on to Rayburn's time stopping trickery, she had decided to hide the pages in the deepest crevices and caves the mountain had to offer. She even created a few just for the night's amusement.

But Rayburn used an illumination spell woven into the alchemic symbol for Phosphorus to light his way to the remaining pages. Fed up with the man who seemed to carry all manner of plan b's, c's, and d's, nature-- in its anger-- sent a mighty wind that stuck its hands into Rayburn's pockets, that took his leftover packs of Reese's and sent them flying over the side of the mountain.

At this, Rayburn couldn't help but relent, giving nature it's accolade, lamenting over the candy that would never be appreciated the way he could have appreciated them. His misery, more so than his accolade, sated nature, and it soothed; the wind became a slight breeze, the snowfall tapering off to a flurry.

Rayburn was thankful, yes, but the war raged with nature had come at such a heavy cost. And for both sides to have a draw? That was frustrating.

The illumination spell he'd woven earlier on-- that cloaked the entire right half of the mountain-- was still in effect and the man walked toward the last glowing symbol.

It was, of course, at the very peak of the mountain, a good 100 or 150 feet up. Not to mention he'd have to trek nearly that far over a foot of heavy, wet snow, just to be able to start his journey toward the top. Luckily he wouldn't have to walk.

With a wave of his hand, a blue cloud engulfed him, and lifted him forward and upward. He took this time to reach into his pocket, pull out his flask and have another sip of cider. If he hadn't reached some sort of peace with nature, she would have, without a doubt, sent a wind to steer him off course.

He was glad he wouldn't have to expend any more energy on his search than he already had. A day had gone by, maybe more, maybe less. There was no sun on these mountains and he wore no watch or had no phone. But he could sense a decent amount of time had passed; his sore muscles attested to that.

He wished he had brought more candy. Or that he had pockets that zipped, as he reached the apex of the mountaintop. His magic dropped him off gently on its snowy surface, the snow, a few inches thicker here than elsewhere. To his left was the last page of Captain Stormholden, this one a half page, waiting to be finished.

He reached for the last page and jerked away; something sharp had pricked his hand. He removed a glove to find blood running along his forefinger. He looked at the paper more. Smelled it. Odd. Then he looked to the ground and found what had drawn his blood. A thorn. It too smelled, dry and acrid, dusty. The Refinery.

"How'd you manage to get there, captain?" Rayburn asked, pocketing the page, crumpling it up with its inked brothers.

The exhausted man sighed and turned heel. He wanted to be warm. And he wanted more candy.