Yea understand now, traveller,and yea shiver as yea cross thyself and reach for yea amulets of protection. Yea hath been deluded by daemons or phantoms,doubtless for no good purpose;yea had been the gull of a questionable enchantment. Plainly there 'tis something after all to the legends yea hath heard, in the strange renown of the forests of Folcuth. Yea retrace yea way toward the path yea hadst been travelling.
But when yea thought to reach again the spot from which yea hadst heard the shrill,unearthly screams, yea see that there tis no longer a path,nor indeed, any feature of the forest which yea can remember or recognize. The foliage about yea, Traveller, displays a brilliant verdure in some places and in others, 'tis sad and funereal and the trees themselves art either cypress-like or already sere with autumn and decay in some places. In lieu of the purling brook there lays before yea a tarn of waters that art dark and dull as clotting blood, and which give back no reflection of the brown autumnal sedges that trails there like the hair of suicides, and the skeletons of rotting osiers that writhe above them.
Now, beyond all question, yea know that yea art the victim of an evil enchantment. In answering that beguileful cry for succor,yea hath exposed thyself to the spell,hast been lured within the circle of its Power. Yea could nae know what forces of wizardry or daemonry hadst willed to draw yea thus,Traveller;but yea know that yea situation 'tis fraught with supernatural menace. Yea grip the hornbeam staff a bit more tightly in yea hand,pray to all the gods yea canst remember, as yea peer about for some tangible bodily presence of ill.
The scene 'tis utterly desolate and lifeless,like a place where cadavers might keep their tryst with daemons. Nothing stirs,nae e'en a dead leaf;and there 'tis nary a whisper of dry grass nor foliage,no song of birds nor murmuring of bees, no sigh nor a chuckle of laughing waters. The corpse-grey heavens above yea,Traveller,seem ne'er to hath held a sun;and the chill,unchanging light tis without source or destination, without beams or Shadows.
Yea survey yea environment with a cautious eye;and the more yea look the less yea like it:for some new and disagreeable detail 'tis manifest at every glance. There art moving lights in the woods that vanish if yea eye them intently;there art drowned faces in the tarn that come and go like vivid bubbles 'ere yea can discern their features. And,peering across the lake, yea wonder why yea hath nae seen the many turreted castle of old hoary stone whose nearer walls art based in the dead waters. 'Tis so grey and still and vasty, that 'tis seems to hath stood for imcomputable ages betwixt the stagnant tarn and the equally stagnant heavens. 'Twas ancienter then the worlds yea know, Traveller;'tis older than the light:'tis co-eval with fear and darkness;and a horror dwells upon it and creeps unseen but palpable along its bastions. 'Tis no sign of live about the castle;and no banners fly above its turrets or donjon. But yea know,Traveller;as surely as if a voice hath spoken aloud to warn yea that here 'tis the fountainhead of the sorcery by which yea hath been beguiled. A growing panic, whispers in yea brain,yea seem to hear the rustle of malignant plumes,the mutter of daemonian threats and plottings Yea turn and flee among the funereal trees.
