Twenty Six

I thought that that was the greatest coincidence in history or that was a sick joke made by someone who was stalking us. It was apparent that Donatello, Joan, Nara and George thought the latter. They all had their swords drawn on the old man and told him to prove it. He moved towards our campfire, put it out, relit it with a spell and made it grow with another.

     We all turned to him in astonishment and immediately apologized for doubting him, though he understood why we doubted him. George asks how he was there, when the map said that he was still a 12-day-walk away from them. He looked at the map and asked who held it last. Joan stepped forward and said how it stopped changing after she took it out of the fire, and he told us that the map wasn't leading us to him.

     He said that it was leading us to his house in Kingspin, not him. We were told that the map takes you to where you want to go, not where you need to. Donatello briefly explained to him the events in the castle and asked him about the possibility of the massacre being carried out under a spell. He first asked us the symptoms, but said that it was impossible to know without seeing someone who had experienced it, like George.

     He placed his hand on George's head and his eyes began to glow again. After the glow died out, he told us that the spell he was under was one that took even the smallest amount of hatred and manifested it until George became "drunk on hatred." Donatello asked Merlin if he could lift the spell, and he replied that he could lift it, but he won't.