To my surprise, one of my mother’s chimes responded, and, like a child’s arm, it reached back to the shimmering creature, adopting its starry glow. Two glowing white eyes like torches were affixed to its orbish head, and three twinkling stars in its belly began to churn and flicker. Without wings or arms to hold it in place, it hung there, as if some eldritch magic had nailed it to a block of air. Taking a deep breath, I pushed my way outside, but I was halted by an impossible sight: Floating in front of me, unaffected by the storm, was a small, translucent creature.

The Wandering Caretaker was more concerned with his own wonderful music than helping the infirm, and I was left with her infernal chimes to remember them both by. I prayed for that fortune when she fell ill, but it never came. “Good fortune in bad times,” she told me. Indeed, those precious chimes were instruments that brought wonderful music to our land. “But there was always a little we kept for ourselves-to make instruments of life, not death.” “Sold it to the Winter’s Claw,” she said, shrugging, “who made more weapons for wars to come.” Then she paused for a moment and smiled as her chimes began to sing. “What did the Collectors do with it all?” “How much ingot was out there, mother?” I asked once, as she gushed about ancient times. Whenever a battle had been lost and won, the Collectors, my poor but resourceful ancestors, entered the battlefield and retrieved what had been left to rust in the blood-stained snow. They were forged from ingot-war metals-some of the rarest in the Freljord. Stories of how they came into my family’s possession told of an incredible destiny and a celebrated past. I should not risk losing them, or worse-suffer no sleep from their incessant wailing.ĭon’t get me wrong, the chimes did have a certain appeal. Though they mostly stirred memories of my harsh and laborious upbringing, they provided me with a sense of connection to her. My mother’s chimes were still screaming in the wind. After scrambling to sheathe my trembling body in the thickest furs I owned, I made my way to the door, ready to slam it shut. I jumped to my feet when my door burst open and the rush of freezing wind filled my room. The night I speak of was no exception-a winter storm was raging.

Ha! An adolescence marred by the endless chopping of firewood can attest to that. Even at my age, I can only count a handful of pleasant seasons in Valar’s Hollow. She thought she was quite clever, my mother, convincing me their summer song would signal the coming of warm and sunny days. I was first awoken by the clanging of bells-my mother’s two-hundred-year-old wind chimes-screaming outside, beyond my window. Well, it’s best that I explain.Ĭome, now.

Bard league of legends