This was written when Nathan was considering re-joining the game as Johannes

Johannes was alone.

Mindolpha he understood. The earthquake had just been too much for her. So many people injured and dying in such a short time must have driven her mad. An entire inch of the mind-numbing bark had been gnawed off when Johannes found it lying on the floor of his room. There had been blood on it, from the gums of the desperate woman.

But why Mineasia? Two days away from the rubble that had been Huerten City, and she'd just vanished. Johannes had been arranging wood to start a fire, and when he turned around, she was gone. No amount of searching or calling her name had changed that.

Johannes put a hand to his head. Uyithlyaw's cure worked, but the headaches were still there, a painful reminder of the insanity he had narrowly escaped – a reminder that he was now dependent on the potion which kept him grounded in reality. How long had Uyithlyaw said he had to take the drug? Less than a year. Did that mean a year? A month? A week? Johannes wished he knew.

He shouldn't have taken the little girl with him, but he hadn't known what to do with her. Who would have taken her? Sahlman and his friends were good people, but they couldn't afford that kind of burden, and Mineasia's uncanny ability to understand people's ailments could only have meant trouble for her with anyone else. Less trouble than she was in now, no doubt.

Those creatures could be out there somewhere. The sh'kurdaru, which could swallow a man whole despite being only two feet tall. Johannes hadn't believed the stories at first, even when he heard that Sahlman had led the expedition into the Rift to learn about the creatures. But with Mindolpha and Mineasia gone, he wasn't so sure anymore. Whether the stories were true or not, something was out there. When Johannes had circled the new two-mile-long Rift outside of Huerten, he'd looked down into the depths. Something had been moving, far below.

Now Johannes just sat in the dirt, staring at a cold, unlit pile of wood, with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. What would he do? He hourly saw signs that he was on the right track behind Mindolpha. The desperate villagers fleeing Huerten to find whether their families were still alive had pointed him in the right direction. It wasn't hard to spot a mad woman, running and stopping and running and stopping, sometimes determined enough to shove past anyone in her way, and other times looking completely lost and unaware of the world around her. Once he'd been pointed in the right direction, the trail had been impossible to miss. A shred of clothing here, a damaged bush there. A kind farmer who had tried to give her something to eat. He was on the right track, but how would he find her when Mineasia was missing too?

At least his research into a cure for Mindolpha had gone somewhere. Hal, the Zioth expert, had introduced him to the right people. Johannes found himself relying more and more on books of myth and legend, something he would have considered preposterous back home, but the books were giving him hints he couldn't have found from other sources. For example, the amulet worn by the princess in ancient Ostmark to ward off enchantment had been lost a hundred years ago, so it was probably not worth looking for. Another book had agreed with the recommendation of placing loadstones around the head to orient and clear the mind. Hal and his cohort had thought the idea of an anklet and bracelet which could “silence the mind” was ridiculous, but they had been able to clarify that the term “silence the mind” did refer to a cure for insanity, rather than death. So if it was real, it might help.

Johannes had also been pointed to new books he hadn't seen before. One gave a long series of obscure steps to a ritual through which one could enter the mind of another and repair it, as if it were a broken book-binding. Another listed cures for every sort of ailment, including three gallons of river-water a day to fight off fever, and the stem of the lonefin flower to quell anxiety. A third book had spoken of the ancient rites of Morenthian priests, which were said to fight magic in all forms, including effects on the mind. A forth described in dramatic form a battle during the Battle of the Magics where two wizards fought for control over the minds of generals, attacking the minds of enemies and protecting the minds of allies. Johannes shuddered. He never again wanted to encounter anyone or anything that would attack his mind. The mystery of Dunweig and his recent insanity were warning enough.

But what if Dunweig held the answer? Or Maelbourg, with its history of violence? Or what if he had to find some strange mystical object, which even now he had trouble believing could be real?

Johannes's shoulders slumped. It all seemed so difficult. How would he find a cure, with so little to work with? And how would he cure a woman who he couldn't find? And what would he do about Mineasia?

Mist storted. His horse and mule, both of whom had been lucky during the earthquake, were totally unconcerned. Johannes stood up and walked over to Mist. Her nose was in a thorny shrub, trying to reach a scrap of cloth. Mindolpha had been through here.