'Be careful', warns Almon. 'Wrap yourself in woollen cloth;
cover every part of your skin. Under no
circumstance, remove your eye glasses, the nymphs are tricksters and will make
sure your eyes see fog thick and solid as unspun fleece.
The stories you hear about the ones touched by nymphs begin
and end here, in the sheoak forest. Be
careful, the nymphs are invisible. Their
touch causes human form to dwindle into a lace, thin, curvaceous, binding its
victim in threads, thin as hair, to the alcoves governed by the nymphs.
Do not under estimate the strength of this thread, it is
stronger than any fabric or metal we can make, the thread is a chain that gives
the touched ones only a past. Sorrow
exists in memories, make sure that you have a future, the woollen cloth that
now covers you may prickle and scratch your skin, but this quality keeps the
nymphs at distance.
Hear the trees. The
trees are not the only ones that sigh in this forest. The human prisoners also sigh with the trees.
Listen to their howls ricochet around
the lands narrow contours, no maps can record their spin. Only the wind can carry the laments higher,
which only increases the lamenter's misery.
Their cry is not heard by their loved ones.
Remember, the nymphs are tricksters, your senses will be
flooded with sounds that cry, and laments will weave a desire to rescue the
touched. Your ears will scream with the
desire for relief and rescue.
Do not trust what you hear, even when your eyes see the touched,
this is the nymphs, the touched cannot leave their alcove, once touched you
cannot be freed, not yet, our scientists have not been able to unravel the
strands of thread.
Instead, trust in the garments you wear, trust the prickle and
the scratch. While you feel this
discomfort, you have not been touch. If
you are touched you will find yourself fade and dwindle, and bound to the
nymphs who will carry you to an alcove.
This is your pathway instruction. Now the instruction is finished we can start
our journey, by nightfall we will be in the granite country, there we can rest
for the night. We will remember the
touched, in the field of names, this is the journey every initiate of science
takes, knowing the question is the first step in finding the answer.'
