Epilogue

So that is how our great game ended, with Gulgad, and now Ursula and Kurtis, dead. I had known it wasn’t a game for a long time, but everyone else just carried on playing. Looking back, it was always going to end like this.

We left the bodies where they fell. I think everyone expected me to deal with it. But I was past dealing with things like that. And we made our way back to Jaeger’s Keep. We didn’t stop there, of course, but it was on the road out. And from there we began our trek back towards Altdorf.

I didn’t stay with the group for long and wandered down a side road not knowing where it might lead. Otto tried to stop me, but he didn’t try very hard.

It has been a couple of years, now, and I have made a new home in the forest, among the other horned beasts. People from the surrounding villages visit me occasionally but they are frightened of me. They think I might be a witch or a wizard, but I heal some of the braver or more desperate ones when I can and make herbal remedies for them.

I wrote to Konrad a couple of times, just to see how everyone else was getting on. He said he was still in business, getting by as he always has done, and keeping an ear out for how everyone was getting on.

He told me that Otto had gone back to Kurtis’ house and seemed to think he could run it through his rat catching business. It was typical Otto and even Aunt Clara got tired of him. Otto was hanging on, hoping that I, or Solvej perhaps, might come back to see him, but in the end, he had to go back to Ubersreik and suffer living with his family again.

Konrad told me he couldn’t say what Erhardt was up to, which was appropriately mysterious, but they were in contact whenever it suited one or the other’s career.

Konrad also managed to get hold of Kurtis’ last will and testament, and a letter for me, which he sent:

Dear Lukas,

If you read these words the improbable has happened, and you have outlived me. As such, I truly hope these words reach you as a grey, old, and miserable (more miserable than your youth) man.

I write this during a sad time in my life, after Mice left, and our group went our separate ways. But through it all, I knew you were there for me. Even if you don’t visit as often as I’d hope, probably because of your important new job at the abbey, I know you'll always have my back.

We’ve had many laughs along the way – too many to list, and you know them all anyway – and I'd like to think between now and growing old together we will have many more.

Tell me... did I hear those pipes before the end?

Either way, I’m sure that in the blink of an eye we will meet again in the halls of Morr.

Until then, yours truly,

Kurtis

But Konrad said it was of dubious legal value. He soon wrote again saying that the house had been taken over by a distant relative of the Rottmar-Pfeifers who was attending the university. Aunt Clara was still working for them, but she didn’t seem as happy as when Kurtis was there. Perhaps she was still listening out for the magic bell.

Konrad also sent me this which Solvej dictated to him:

“Kurtis, in the months since you’ve passed, the arrowhead with your name etched in feels somehow heavier. I hear a distant relative has taken over the house since I couldn’t face going back; I tried, but the thought of entering that claustrophobic trap without you there to greet me was too much. I thought you’d like to know Clara seems well, from a distance, and the farms have recovered. I think I’ll continue south…

“Before I met you, it was a hard and lonely journey, it still is, but now it feels emptier. I’m not a good person, I manipulated and schemed and made friends with those that I could gain from, aside from Otto, however, when I had no use for you, you were still there, or I wanted you there. The only one who truly understood the beauty and power behind the kill. Maybe I’ll return to the woods and we will hunt again in the arms of Taal.”

Konrad said that Solvej then left Altdorf and he didn’t think he would see her again.

The villagers round here have a very old tradition. If any mutated babies are born they are left out in the forest. A legend tells that a local forest spirit takes the baby away and protects it, and so the villagers leave a lighted candle by the baby’s side to help guide the spirit. Of course, what really happens is that the forest predators come and eat them.

Now I walk the forest in the evening, visiting the villages and looking out for candlelight. I have rescued seven babies so far. Even now one of them is sat beside me, playing with the taxidermy rat-Lukas that Otto made. I named him Kurtis. The others are playing in the forest nearby. So, things didn’t work out quite how I had envisioned, but I got my orphanage.