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Consus looked up still afraid but in time to see his master withdraw an old scroll from the chest.  He dropped the chest, which tumbled down the stairs and came to rest near Consus’ hands.  The Gray Wolf looked over the scroll.  With every second the half-pleasant expression on his face turned sterner, from incredulity to abject anger.  He hissed a long, slow hiss.  A cold breeze seemed to touch Consus and a chill ran down his spine.  He feared his last moments of life were quickly approaching.

“This is not it!” screamed Araknik.  “This is a love poem!”

i    i    i    i

May 24, 1740 EQ,  Cah Bel, Andril Region of Epi 

Firesmyth Mancuso sat down on the stone bench grieving over the loss of the small chest.  Granted, it was only of sentimental value and not vital to his mission, but still, it meant a lot to him.  For a man driven single-mindedly to redeem history, he did not allow himself many luxuries.  This was one.

The poem was not for him, but for his mother written by his father.  He would never see them again and hadn’t seen them since he was nineteen.  Firesmyth Mancuso possessed few articles from those early years, and this scroll was one of them.  Over the years each of these articles had fallen out of his possession like the leaves falling off of a tree in late autumn.  This recent loss served as a reminder that deep winter quickly approached.

He shook himself trying to clear the memory.  “Face it, old man,” he said to himself in his thick accent, “It is gone and has served a greater purpose.”

Scroll 1: History's Mirror                                                                                    Chapter 1: Treasures from the Past