Aethel ran across the muddy ground of the swamp, passing peasants who tilled the soil around isolated farmsteads, as the walled city of Pantanoburg shrank to a distant blur behind him. Two men in beaten leather armor, carrying steel swords, gave chase. The people ignored the everyday scene. The young master seemed to know exactly where to step on that viscous ground so that his eleven-year-old body would not sink. His pursuers were also familiar with the place, but did not possess the same instinctive memory as the boy, which made them slower and caused them, at times, to curse when their boots sank into the quagmire.
The young master let out a satisfied laugh when he saw that the guards would take long to reach him. He ran to his destination, the banks of the Kaltflut, the river that descended from the mountains to the west and wound its way through Pantanoburg. Aethel wanted to make the most of what remained of autumn. Soon, the ice and the violence of the waters would make it impossible to dive and gather stones from the riverbed.
He reached the bank pulling off his leather boots with little bouncing hops, dropping the pair in the mud before stepping into the murky waters up to his shins. Behind him, Ulrich and Beleran cursed, but he ignored them. The many-colored stones on the riverbed left him in wonder. A few times he had even gone home with a handful of gold, though it was rare, since the miners collected nearly everything upriver.
Before long, Aethel dove in. Agile as a small fish, he submerged in the shallows, not daring to venture toward the middle of the current. He surfaced with white pebbles, which he tucked into his pocket as he laughed. Looking back, he saw that the guards were now coming at a slow trot, noticing that there seemed to be no danger around the young lord.
Without waiting for them to arrive, Aethel dove once more. His hands reached for the bottom, but closed around nothing. Annoyed, he tried again, pushing off with his legs and going deeper, but once more his small fists grabbed only water. He tried to feel for the riverbed, but now the ground, which had always been so close, seemed out of reach. He grew confused as his fingers touched only the emptiness of water where there should already have been mud. He tried to turn back, but something was pushing him in directions he could no longer identify. Up and down had ceased to make sense.
He felt something at his heels and arms, he could not tell if they were hands, monsters, or simply the river's fury. The air escaped his lungs as he screamed with his very soul, breathless, and cold water rushed in, filling his chest with a sudden freeze. His child's mind understood something then.
He would die.
Consciousness was abandoning him. What dragged him was the strong current coming from the glaciers, which had finally claimed a child who had only wanted to play.
Unconscious, Aethel's brain still worked through dreams. He felt a cold, indifferent fear and a terrible loneliness. The image of his brother and his father crossed his mind like a last remnant, followed by the figure of his mother, scolding him for going to the river. Finally, the child's last vision, before sinking into darkness, was of his mother running her fingers through his black hair and calming him, telling him she forgave him. That softened, for one brief instant, the cold that embraced him forever.
And then a hand seized the young boy by his muddy collar and brought him to the surface.
Albert, who had once closed his eyes and waited for death in an asylum bed, was the one who felt that pull.
He opened his eyes, disoriented. He was freezing, shaking uncontrollably, which was bizarre, since he had never in his life felt a physical tremor. Something was expelled from his mouth in a jet as air filled his lungs with a terrible wheeze. He struggled to gulp down pieces of oxygen, expelling more liquid in the process.
Around him, everything was spinning. A rush of feelings assailed him: absolute terror, loss and grief invaded his mind like a deafening noise. He wanted to cry and call out for his mother, but knew, somewhere in his consciousness, that she had died decades ago. He felt the longing for a father and siblings he had never had. He was submerged in mourning for people he did not know, unable to understand why, feeling only the cold of the icy water as his body reacted with violent force.
Still lying on the ground, he noticed a young man, eighteen perhaps, wearing beaten leather armor. He was drenched, drops running down his disheveled blond hair, shouting in despair to another man behind him, who was also gasping for air, bent over with his hands on his knees, forming puddles of water that soaked into the mud.
The words made no sense, muffled by his water-clogged ears. The young man struck him on the back and he vomited more water. One ear released its pressure, opening up to the sound of shouts that pulled him back to reality, in the middle of a gust of air.
His mind was chaos. The young man holding him in his arms looked far too large. It was frightening. He was lifted as though he were a child, those hands were nearly the size of his head. For a moment, Albert wondered whether he was looking at a giant.
The relief on the young man's face was plain. He was pale, but the color was returning to his cheeks as he watched Albert respond. Without delay, Albert was easily lifted into Beleran's arms, who took off across the muddy ground, pressing him tight against his chest. He was being taken somewhere, and quickly. That was Albert's last thought before the trembling and the rocking of the run made him black out completely.