David Palin

The Half-Torn Page David Palin

17th century Bavaria - Ilsa Wlich, a striking, mysterious woman of indeterminate age and steeped in ancient lore, arrives in the beautiful, but remote and insular town of Reimersberg at the end of the Adventurers' Road. She saves the life of a sick boy, Karl, but is suspicious of the cause of his sickness; a fact she keeps from the townsfolk for fear of causing panic. She earns the boy's undying love, the gratitude of his father, who has lost his wife to the same 'sickness', but also the enmity of some Town Elders, in particular the doctor and the mayor, Meister. Both feel as threatened by Ilsa as she feels wary of them. Weary in mind and body from years of travelling and not yet ready for a direct confrontation with Meister, Ilsa asks to settle in the town. Decades pass, during which Reimersberg's glory crumbles, while minds grow old and weary in ageless bodies. Meanwhile, its existence is wiped from map and memory. The people and Meister do what is needed to survive, by fair means and foul, though the citizens come to terms with their fate and start to see the error of their previous ways. One night, miles away, the grandson of a foundling child receives a message, which, together with an old map and a cryptic heirloom containing a half-torn page, brings him along the Adventurer's Road, through fearful forests and valleys, to the lost town, where he meets and strikes up an immediate friendship with Karl. The town's fate is in their hands. Yet evil lives on in Meister's heart and he has a final trick to play that leaves all their lives in the balance.