The diary begins with reference to a difficult childhood.
Connavar describes how, at an early age, he was abandoned by his parents, whom he had little memory of, and how he was then forced to survive alone. Shunned by both sides of his lineage he distanced himself from civilization and wandered alone. The diary then moves on to how he found a small brotherhood called the
Stone Deep Monastery in the
Warmwood Forest and found himself welcome for the first time. He made a life for himself in devotion.
After some years however, he found himself getting into more and more disquiet with the cloistered life and took up martial arts after finding references in the holy texts and discovering a long forgotten area of the monastery’s library.
The brotherhood shunned the violence of martial skill but Conn was drawn to it by some inexplicable desire.
Finally comes the story of how, upon being found practicing one day by the head of the monastic order, the reaction was very unexpected. He instructed Conn that his time at the monastery was at it’s end and Conn's purpose had become much greater. He handed Conn a relic (the small stone with runes on) and told him to continue his learnings elsewhere and to wander till he found his path.
The diary contains periodic references to a range of events, fights, people he's met, places he has wandered and notes about his new travelling companions,
The Missing Horses. He wondered if there was something about them all that they inherently recognised as being akin to themselves, but mentally had not yet made that connection.
What he observed about Mae that she seemed very afraid of being recognised. And yet, when she noticed someone she appeared to recognise she immediately followed. He too followed Mae just in case the fear and that person were related and she needed help - when she didn't, he dropped it, not wanting to intrude. He concluded that Mae was simultaneously fearful and courageous, and he worried that being both for too long might damage her. He wondered whether whatever was behind her fear also made her distrustful of the group, and therefore whether there might be something about the group that should be feared that he didn't know of or understand.
Comments