The letter arrived like an unexpected weight, carrying with it the scent of something distant and decayed, as though the words written within had been drawn from a time when the paper itself was denser and the air, heavier. The letters, strangely black, seemed to pulse with a dark energy, as if they were cursed. Each stroke of the handwriting appeared almost alive, concealing a purpose hidden within the shadows of its meaning. The seal, purple and black, evoked a cold appearance of something that once existed in splendour but now subsists through ruins. The image engraved on the seal represented the Penumbra: a surface incompletely illuminated by a luminous body, whose rays were partially intercepted by an opaque body.
Domine could not shake the feeling that the letter contained more than mere words. The air around him seemed to thicken as he opened it, as though the very space itself were preparing for something yet to come.
The letter began with a warning:
"It is time to discover to which altar your flame will bend. There are several idols in search of you, this I can confirm. I thought them to be nothing more than cadavers of a museum from the past, but these eccentrics advance with considerable thirst towards your search, and I am certainly not the first to communicate for this purpose."
Domine read the words more than once, the sentences repeating in his mind like echoes. "Idols", "cadavers", "eccentrics"—everything seemed vague, yet at the same time, infused with a subtle threat. Who were these that sought something from him? And what was this "altar" he was supposed to bend towards?
"The wood has been sufficiently placed on the pyre, and there should be no more delay in fulfilling your primal purposes. The incense must rise towards some direction, and I hope it is mine. Consider this message as a token of good faith from my part, a slight demonstration of regard—which I hope will be reciprocated in return."
The wood on the pyre... the flame... What was he being called to do? The phrase conveyed a sense of urgency, as if time was already running out and he was somehow late for an inevitable destination.
"Go to the west of the country, to the dead lands, and search for the man of mirrors, the one who lives near the lake."
Domine felt the weight of those words. "Dead lands" and "man of mirrors." What did those vague instructions mean? There was something sinister about them, something he couldn't put into words. The west of the country… What could that be, if not a distant, hidden part, a region of buried and forgotten mysteries?
"Vague instructions prove obedient servants and people with whom one can collaborate."
The final words left a bitter taste in his mouth. There was no guarantee of who these "people" might be, or what this collaboration truly meant. Everything seemed designed to provoke more questions than answers.
In the far west of Montanum, it stretched beneath a shroud of mysteries. The land was gently undulating, with long fields cultivated by hands that seemed almost forgotten by time, cut through by winding rivers, whose waters flowed lazily and unpredictably. The damp soil was sprinkled with patches of dense vegetation, where the whispers of the trees seemed to be secrets whispered between the winds. The forests harboured not just wildlife but the weight of ancient stories, preserved in the shadows. The land was marked by gentle hills, but where the paths disappeared, as if nature itself refused to let any human lose themselves in its limits. When the sky opened, the horizon seemed to stretch endlessly, carrying with it a sense of emptiness, as though something was missing.
The region was covered by a constant humidity, blending with the profound silence, giving those who lived there the impression that time passed differently. The low, gloomy mountains sank into an opaque sky, extending to infinity. And even in the farthest lands, the wind carried echoes of a forgotten past, as if it were a place apart, where the outside world dared not intrude.
And indeed, Domine already lived in the west, in that forgotten part of the country, where secrets were so deeply buried they had become almost part of the land itself. But now, he was being called even further into the depths of darkness, beyond what he already knew. The west had already become his refuge and his prison. And the invitation not only unsettled him but challenged him to venture further, where even the ground seemed to offer itself to him, suggesting more crossroads than paths.
In this corner of the country, where the land seemed to be immersed in shadows, the call of a letter could be the last sign before the inevitable.
What, after all, awaited Domine in the west? He did not know. But he knew, with an unsettling certainty, that the path ahead would allow no more hesitation.
At the same time that Domine tried to process the contents of the letter, a strange commotion began to spread through the village. The sound of distant screams sliced through the air, as if something or someone had been shaken by the words he had just read.