Armhianthia by Arbhin Cioc (best novels for students txt) 📕

lost too. Never to be heard of again.
That was why Luse left a note at the inn he last visited. He made sure people were aware of him and that he left. If the eagris would come and search for him, they would found the note and knew enough. But at this point Luse had no need of getting lost, he wanted to travel to the part of the world, that his book was written about.
“Somewhere several miles outside the Lagus borders.” Parcema had said. Luse wondered why Parcema knew, but Parcema knew quite some things. And he was sure old enough to see the world has changed around him. Luse was not young, he had to admit it. Partly he thought he was too old to travel these kind of adventures. But he had found that book and he was destined to find out. And he was hardly as old as Parcema.
Thereby the fact that he would not endure someone else finding out what he was looking for.
Luse shook himself back to reality. He had to travel and watch where he was going. He was not sure of the surroundings here. He heard some animals in the bushes some distance away from him. And overhead he saw a bird flying over. He thought it strange that such small things could make so much difference at feeling at ease.
His legs grew tired of walking. He was not custom to walking such distances, but there was no other transportation this way. He was travelling to the edge of the world for all it matters. There was nothing known outside the southern borders of Lagus.
Mountains and forest. Sand. Unknown land. That was all.
And why would anyone write a book about that all. About something that was no civilized world.
He stood still and opened his bag. After looking inside he took a glance outside the bag for a place to sit. Finding nothing suitable, he thought the ground suitable enough and sat down on the ground.
Reaching inside his bag with one hand, he overlooked the area and inspected the differences with what he knew.
He saw some features in trees, that he knew from the book he had been reading. He read it so many times, it was printed in his brains.
And now he could see what the book was written about. He realised that he had his hand still inside the bag. Taking it out again he remembered he was looking for something to drink and something to eat too. So he reached in to the bag again, this time extruding a flask of water. And a small piece of bread. He drank something from the flask and put it back in the bag. He tied the bag close again and heaved it back on his shoulders again. But he remained seated on the ground till he finished eating his bread. In the meanwhile looking around him he watched for more leads to the book. The grass on the ground and the herbs around the tree stems here and there were little leads. This was not the region that Leana dir Ychasa had been writing about. But he came closer to that region, so only naturally the vegetables around him would slowly become more like that the further he came towards that place.
Cleaning the last crums of his clothes, he stood up and watched down the grass covered road. It really has been a road, long time ago. If you looked at the positions of the older trees you could see that they were anywhere but on the little trail that was left of the old road. In his mind Luse could see Leana dir Ychasa walk here, looking at all the trees, then much younger, and the grasses. Maybe he even met some people walking by, because further down south there had been a town once. But that town was long time ago abandoned and Luse wondered how much even would have been left of it.

“Well, only one way left to find out.” Luse talked to himself as he turned on his heels, heaved the bag back on his shoulders and started to walk again.
As he walked further through the dense vegetated area, he tried to capture the parts of the book, for clues that he might be getting closer to the area of the book.

The nature around him was open. Trees stood far apart of each other the ground underneath him was dull beaten by sun and grass grew slowly, with much open space to show the sand and dirt underneath.
Lugas was the most southern country of this side of Armhianthia, and the sun was far hotter then Luse was used to, in the more northern Eagris.
In front of Luse he saw a hill coming up, behind him, he saw the trees and undergrowth where he’d been walking through.
There actually was something of a road there. And ahead he saw that same feature go thought up to the hill, in front of him. Up ahead him, the sun slowly rose to its highest position. At the time Luse reached the bottom of the hill, the sun was beaming down and Luse was wishing he had taken other clothes with him. His heavy wool robe was not very comfortable in this heat. And as he looked up to the hill he had to get up to, he saw the sparse existence of trees there. No shades to hide under. Sighing deep, he straightened his back and he started his walk upwards.
By the time he reached the top his bag on his shoulders was so heavy it felt like bricks and his feet were tired. He had taken almost every hole there was to trip over, or so it seemed to him. He sat down again for a moment, but it would not give any relieve. After two minutes of stretching his legs and relaxing his leg muscles, he pulled himself on his legs again and walked on. As he looked around him he saw the whole area was hills. Slowly the whole landscape in front of him, the further he watched, the higher it gets. Suddenly looking up at the hills in front of him, he felt small. He was a small human being, somewhere lost in a big world. Putting one foot in front of the other, he took his first step knowing that he had changed into a new level of being. The big hill in front of him, just on the other side of a small valley, was steep enough for the sun to not reach this side of the slope.
In need of shadow and rest he took that as a point to walk to and made his way to there. As he reached the shadow of the hill, he noticed the grass was more colourful and more alive then before, on that lost road behind him. But even here, he could see a road go into the hills. Not by any signs of the grass but he saw it in the contour of the land. Where once had been a road, the landscaped had created a very small hole. Something you could see better when you looked at the egde where hill and sky reached each other.
The sun broke away behind the edge of the hill bathing Luse in pure shadow. He suddenly felt cold. Sitting down without even looking where, he let his bag fall on the ground. Without a thought he took the bag, pulled some food out of it and as he laid his body on the ground, he ate without a thought.
Finished with his small meal, he closed his eyes, which were tired of the hard sun that had shone almost the entire day for so far.
“I could use a break.” He muttered to nobody. And at the same moment he knew that there was no one who would change places with him.

It was dark when Luse opened up his eyes again. Of course it was dark by the shadows when he closed them, but now the sky had turned into dark blue, instead of bright. Scrambling to his legs he looked around him. Everything was still the same, the hills, the slope and the invisible road. He took his bag up again and looked upward to the top of the hill.
“Here we go again.” He said. With new energy of his nap he started on his journey again.
By the time he reached the top of the hill, though, the sky had turned into darker blue, and the sun was about to disappear behind some other hills in the distance. Behind him, Luse could still see the south borders of where he had left Lugas, without real notice. The hills were Lugas’ borders. Or so it seems. No one would be able to tell him. The people who had lived here ages back were long gone and maybe even they would not be able to tell for sure.
In the back of his mind he heard the voice of Boreo, talking about King Roghar. King Roghar wanted to claim some lands in the south to enlarge his country. Although Roghar probably had his own ideas about that, Luse couldn’t see why land like this would be so wonderful to have.
In front of him he saw forests appear gliding backwards away out of side, the start of another small valley where the forest fell in to.
Glad that he now had made the hardest part of today, he thought it time to really get some rest. He was alone and there for he needed to be aware of things that could be out in the woods, or lurking out in the hills.
The first tree was surely some good distance away and Luse was quite sure he couldn’t reach them in time, before it was actually dark. So he walk back to the top of the slope and laid himself on the ground. His only belonging was his bag, so he used that as a pillow. Although he had been sleeping half the day, Luse was tired enough to fall asleep right away.

Suddenly Luse woke up. He opened his eyes and in front of his face he saw a big animal head. Startled he sprang up searching around him for something to hold on to in defence, but the head belonged to a fox, that was as startled by Luses reaction as Luse was by the fox’s appearance, it gave a small yelp and ran off to the forest. Luse felt his heart racing in his chest and knew he would not be able to fall asleep again. Tomorrow he hoped he could spend his nights in the trees, or he could use some branches to cover himself.
He laid himself back on the ground and tried to get some sleep again. But the fox had startled his sleep too, it seemed. Luse found himself staring upwards to the night sky, looking at the stars above him. Star constellations and knowledge was common lessons for the Eagris. He could trace constellation after constellation and named them one by one easily. To get his heart pulse back to normal he traced the constellations. Star by star he could back trace his own position on the ground and he estimated that he was far from home. After several he moments he stopped counting stars and looked puzzled to one particular star.
It took him some moments to figure out that this star was not supposed to be there. In surprise he sat straight up and began to count all the stars in the serenity of this new appearance.
It was not right. Stars did