“A spirit?”
“You’re almost right,” the voice said. “I’m the last mage. Or rather, the memory of her.”
Hadjar finally realized who he was dealing with and, without fear, sheathed his sword.
“Shadow,” he said, saluting her in the manner of the Land of the Immortals, “I greet thee, wise one, the last of thy kind.”
The creature closed its eyes and nodded slightly.
“Have you been to that village?”
“Village?”
“The place where wisdom is valued but strength is sought above all. They call themselves Immortals.”
Hadjar looked into its multicolored eyes, enchanted by the green and amber... Then he looked at the stars behind the creature. Her eyes were older than even the stars…
“It’s a vast country now,” Hadjar replied, “and its inhabitants are the strongest people living beneath the light of the Evening Stars.”
Hadjar had expected every kind of reaction: nostalgia, surprise, sentimentality, whatever, but not a condescending smile.
“One day, if you live that long, you’ll understand, little warrior, that there are no strongest people beneath the stars. There is only light and the stars themselves. Everything else is dust. A moment. Something so brief that no one will remember it. Even eternity is nothing more than a tiny part of this dust. One day, a wind will blow through and scatter it all in the light.”
Only his previous conversation with the Tree of Life saved Hadjar’s mind from being shattered. How old was this Shadow and its original, the ancient sorceress, if the Land of Immortals, praised in ancient legends, was a village in her eyes and eternity was merely dust.
“Darkhan,” the Shadow said. “It’s a good name. Ancient. Older than many of the stars that were ancient even back when I was born.”
Hadjar didn’t say that he heard that same thing every time someone talked about his Name.
“Did you call me a descendant of the enemy? Was an ancestor of mine your enemy?”
“No,” the creature smiled again, “No. Not an enemy. The Enemy. The one who burned the Heavens and the Earth. The gods’ Enemy. The spirits’ Enemy. The Enemy of the Light. The Enemy of Darkness. The Enemy of Time. The Enemy of War. The Enemy of Peace. Of Life. Of Death. The Enemy of the Energies. The Enemy of the World Rivers. The Enemy of everything that surrounds us. The Enemy.”
From this stream of consciousness, Hadjar singled out the word ‘energies’, used in the plural and the term ‘World Rivers’. When these words had been spoken, Hadjar had felt like he’d touched upon a glimpse of a mystery so deep that it was rooted in the very foundation of the universe and so complicated that it could destroy a practitioner’s mind.
“You have his blood in you.” The Shadow blew, and Hadjar felt his old friend greet him like a long-lost dog. The Wind. For a brief moment, they were able to hear each other again, but the spell soon dissipated, leaving behind a slight sadness with the loss. This made the sword spirit tattoo on his back glow even brighter. “But your spirit... One who hasn’t met the Enemy in person won’t be able to discover you are his descendant, as your spirit is free from his darkness. Free. Still free. You still have a choice, little warrior.”
“Forgive me, wisest Shadow,” Hadjar said, pressing his right fist into the palm of his left hand and bowing low, “the unworthy one before you doesn’t know who you are talking about.”
He heard the murmur of the spring stream again. Or maybe that was the Shadow’s laughter.
“Don’t you know?” The sky girl smiled. “Didn’t your mother tell you, North Wind, stories of a dead tree that never surrendered, the one that a goddess turned into a General which another god then turned into a slave?”
Hadjar started. His eyes widened and he instinctively straightened. She couldn’t be talking about…
“Didn’t you ask her over and over to tell you about him? Isn’t that the reason why you wore black, torn clothes? Isn’t that why you’re so brave in every one of your fights, even the most desperate ones? Isn’t that why, even as a slave, you remained free? Isn’t his portrait stored in your ring?” Against Hadjar’s will, the old scroll made from silver thread emerged from his artifact. “Isn’t that his sword that you’re carrying in your soul?” In Hadjar’s left hand, for the first time in the real world, the blade made of black fog flashed into existence. “Don’t you have the Black General’s blood in your veins?”
Chapter 396
The words stunned Hadjar. He heard a loud ringing in his ears. His heart was beating so fast that it drowned out his own thoughts. Like frightened mice, they peered out of the burrows of his consciousness, calling to Hadjar’s soul.
Was he really a descendant of the Black General? After all, everything was possible in this world. How many millions of years had passed since... Since when? The Black General was no more than a bedtime story his mother had told him. Just like hundreds of thousands of other mothers had.
“I’ve never heard that part of the story,” Einen’s voice sounded in his memories.
“How did you know what would happen if you ate the fairy’s body?”
No. It couldn’t be. The Black General was just an old fairy tale for children…
“I didn’t know the story had an ending.”
Scenes from the past filled Hadjar’s mind. The moments when his knowledge about some insignificant, simple details had turned out to be much deeper than Einen’s, who had met thousands of travellers and listened to their stories.
The flow of images halted... His eyes blurred, and then, like an explosion, everything was flooded with bright, vivid colors. He saw his mother’s smiling, sad face.
“We won’t tell your father about this, little warrior. We’ll let him think you’ll be a scholar…”
“No, mother… no,” Hadjar whispered in horror. Only now, after all these years, did he see his fate reflected in her eyes. She’d known, she’d always known…
“Your mother’s relatives?” He’d asked Haver about them once. “They died a long time ago, son. I didn’t know them. But when you’re older, I’ll tell you how I met your mother. In those days, she was a Princess of the highlands.”
Hadjar grabbed his head. Scenes from the past danced before his eyes.
Nanny, hanging in the air, suspended by chains like a piece of meat, suffering in Primus’ dungeon. She’d asked him to tell her his story. She’d endured hellish pain, but had still waited for its end, as if she’d been looking for something in him that would let her die peacefully.
The sword left behind in the mountains by his paternal ancestors had awoken only after Hadjar and Elaine had been born.
Everything froze.
He was, once again, a small boy holding a heavy, bloodstained sword. His mother was breathing her last in his arms. There was a terrible hole in her chest, and her torn out heart was still beating in Primus’ hands. She whispered: “Don’t become a cultivator, it’ll only bring you misfortune.”
And then, once more: “Do you want to hear the story of the Black General? The saddest story of all?”
And her eyes. Her beautiful, sad eyes. In them was a bitterness born of a maternal need to protect her son and the realization that she would never be able to save her son from his awful fate. Elizabeth, his mother, had always known whose blood ran in her son’s veins.
Now, more than ever, he understood the absurdities of the past. It had been his mother who had insisted in public that he would become a scholar, but... She’d never locked the door to his nursery, allowing her infant son to leave his chambers and boldly go crawling around the Palace. She’d ensured Hadjar’s road always led to South Wind. She’d paid so much respect to the Scholar, and had certainly paid quite handsomely for her child’s education.
And that day… when he’d found himself on the Master’s parade ground… Elizabeth had supposedly been far away — she’d had to go with her maids and bodyguards to a remote town in the central province. How could she have gotte
n to the grounds just in time to see the weapons rack falling on her son?
Wasn’t it strange that the strongest swordsman in the region at that time hadn’t been a member of ‘The Black Gates’ sect or hadn’t sought his fortune in the Sea of Sand, but had stayed in the Palace of Lidus instead? A place where he hadn’t been able to get anything… Except for the opportunity to train a descendant of the Black General.
“She meant you no harm, little warrior,” the voice whispered.
Hadjar looked up. A cloudy tear ran down the Shadow’s celestial face. White threads parted from its hair and, forming a palm, touched Hadjar’s cheek.
“She didn’t mean you any harm," the long-dead sorceress repeated. “Like any mother, she wanted you to have a quiet, good life, but she knew that would be impossible... Millions of years before you were born, the moment your soul was formed and set out on a journey through the World Rivers, that very second, your destiny was written. As well as your mother’s destiny. The same as the Black General’s mother…”
Hadjar remembered his mother’s story. How the tree from which the goddess had created the creature that had doomed the world had grown out of the dead ground. It had been scorched by the Heavens and the Earth, forgotten by the gods and spirits, located in a place that even the World River avoided, not allowing a drop of energy to touch the dead sand. The Black General’s mother, the earth itself, had given up all the crumbs of its life in order to let its child see the silent sun.
Elizabeth had known... once she had a child, her fate would be sealed.
A mistake of the Seventh Heaven’s Magistrate…
A few years ago, Hadjar had decided that the gods had made a mistake, creating a situation in which demons had attacked Haver and Primus’ group, but... Only now did he realize that a mistake in the Book of Thousands could’ve hardly affected the lives of just a few mortals and only a single event.
However, that mistake had its roots somewhere far back in time. It was so essential and terrible that it was altering destinies even after many millennia. Like ripples in the water after a stone disturbed the lake’s surface.
“Tell me,” Hadjar whispered. He was still on his knees, clutching his head. The sudden realization weighed on him more than anything that had ever happened in his life before then.
“This story won’t bring you any joy, little warrior.” The Shadow’s voice was like his mother’s. “There are many sorrows inherent with the knowledge. It’s not too late, little warrior. Turn around and leave. I’ll remove this vile spell of slavery from your soul and pave a way that will lead you to any place in this world. Would you like me to send you to a Master who can cut through space and time with their sword? Would you like me to send you to a tree whose fruit will lift you to such unimaginable heights of power that the Immortals will declare you a genius? Would you like me to show you a country so magnificent that one look at it will make you forget about-”
“Show me!” Hadjar interrupted her desperately.
“As you wish,” a tear rolled down the Shadow’s cheek. “It was a long time ago. So long ago that neither the wind nor the earth remember it. Back then, I was young and worked in the Palace of Knowledge as a junior servant…”
As the story progressed, the image of the girl thinned out, and at the same time, became more voluminous. Hadjar seemed to sink through her face. He went deeper and deeper into her memories that looked indistinguishable from reality.
The fall from a great height inside the magical visage ended in soft grass. At first, Hadjar didn’t know where he was, but his eyes soon became accustomed to the abundance of color and light, and a sigh of admiration escaped his lips. He was in the midst of hills covered in meadows and flower glades. They were so bright and colorful that they looked more like paint splashed across an artist’s canvas.
In the distance, the peaks of great mountains towered, covered with trees. Cries of birds came from those trees, and in the sky, he could see many spires, with rays of powerful, dense energy radiating out from them. It expanded through the clouds, spreading across the azure like blue veins, reaching someplace far on the horizon. Hadjar easily recognized the now-lifeless rocks and the crumbling library building. Except everything was teeming with life, and beauty, and power.
A gaggle of laughing children ran past. They were running after a kite. It wasn’t held by a thread or anything else. It just flew through the air, and the children ran after it. Some of them rushed past Hadjar, and some ran right through him.
“This is just a memory,” the voice said behind him. “Nothing more.”
Hadjar turned around.
Chapter 397
A girl stood before him. She was a very plain eighteen or nineteen-year-old girl. She had thick, brown hair, wore a blue and white dress, and numerous gold bracelets and necklaces adorned her thin neck. She wore odd ornaments on both her hands — blue discs set in gold frames, lying on a thin, golden net. The base of it was attached to a wide bracelet and the top itself was attached to the ring.
“This is what I looked like back then,” she said.
She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. The gesture was simple and gentle. Her blue eyes glowed with joy and naughtiness. She smelled like a garden in the morning and fresh dew.
How could the gods destroy anything so innocent and good? The place Hadjar was in didn’t look like a grim fortress of knowledge and wisdom, but rather, a haven filled with peace and solitude, enjoying an eternal summer forever transitioning smoothly into autumn.
“Follow me.”
The girl... or her memory... her Shadow... held out her hand to Hadjar. He took it, and she led him to a pond. Surrounded by tall trees, the sight of it forced Hadjar to grasp the hilt of his sword. He recognized where they were: not so long ago, the golem and the sand spirits had destroyed a whole squad of seekers in this very spot. Although... that hadn’t even happened yet.
In the centre of the pond... stood the girl who was also next to him.
“That’s me,” she said a little sadly.
Hadjar looked closely. The strange jewelry on the girl’s hands radiated a subdued, blue light. Standing waist-deep in the water, she swayed to a tune only she could hear. It looked like a simple dance, but after each movement of the girl’s hands, long ribbons of water stretched out of the pond. They followed her hands, assuming the forms of birds and dragons. Most surprising of all, Hadjar didn’t feel a single disturbance in the currents of energy around them. The girl’s actions could’ve been seen as her simply practicing some Techniques, if not for the complete absence of disturbances in the energy flows. It seemed like the water was actually obeying the sorceress’ commands, following the guidance of the girl’s hands.
Hadjar tried to sense what was going on. He tried to determine the power of the sorceress, but couldn’t. This girl, who was younger than twenty, was at such a high level that he wasn’t able to determine her might at all. And that was more frightening than anything else. Even when he’d spoken to Harlim, the Immortal, Hadjar had been able to sense the sparks of his incredible energy. But here, he felt nothing.
“It happened on that very day,” the shadow said and pointed to the sky.
The blue sky was suddenly covered with a gray veil. Clouds were gathering, thickening, and darkening. It began to rain. The rain was so strong and sharp that it pierced the leaves.
Obeying the wind, the water in the pond surged up, but the high waves crashed into the ‘calm island’. In the center, the sorceress still stood. She put her hands on the surface of the water and it glowed blue, ignoring the gathering storm.
Suddenly, there was a black flash in the sky. A lightning bolt the color of wet coal cut through the clouds and struck the ground. Then came the deafening thunder. The lightning bolt was like a sword, the thunder like a man’s roar.
The sorceress suddenly threw her hands up, and a roaring stream of water formed a blue dragon that was a hundred feet tall, which then wrapped around the man falling from the
sky. Shielding him from the ordinary lightning bolts that followed, it lowered him gently to the ground. A moment later, the storm ended as abruptly as it had begun.
The girl, dropping her hands and letting the water flow back into the pond, ran toward the man floating on the surface of the water… Kneeling beside him, she reached for the hair covering his face, but pulled her hand away with a shudder. The man’s skin was gray like a corpse’s. The man wore a torn, black robe with a hood. Beneath it, a powerful body with well-defined muscles was clearly visible. His body was covered in terrible scars from all kinds of weapons, teeth, and fangs. The man seemed like he’d been in the middle of a terrible battle from the day he was born. In his hand, he held a simple sword dripping with black blood.
Hadjar started. He recognized that sword: it was the same one that he’d carried in his own soul for several years, except his was made of black fog.
“That day, I couldn’t determine, or even roughly estimate, this man’s power.” The Shadow leaned over itself. It looked a little strange. “I should’ve known that a swordsman who fell alongside the black lightning bolt couldn’t be a simple, errant wanderer. I should’ve known how monstrously, horribly powerful he was. I should’ve expelled him, asked him to leave, or called the Sages, but instead…”
The Shadow waved her hand, and the vision changed. Hadjar was now standing in the center of a bustling city. Huge buildings disappeared into treetops. The stained-glass windows were multicolored and bright. People wearing simple clothes bustled around him. If not for the sheer complexity and beauty of the architecture, Hadjar would’ve thought he was back in Lidus. Even the boats that sailed the canals dotted with water lilies were almost identical to the ones that traversed the waters of the capital of Hadjar’s homeland.
The same girl from before ran out of a stone house built into a tree whose branches looked like lizard heads. Her hair being tied into a ponytail was the only thing that had changed from the scene at the pond. The same man from that memory followed after her. Hadjar couldn’t see his face. It was hidden by his unruly, long black hair. He leaned heavily on a crutch, his right leg tucked in beneath him.
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