Necromancer’s Sorrow: (Series Finale)

by Pablo Andrés Wunderlich Padilla

  “This planet is called Retelest. It is a world far from the Meridian, many, many leagues away. So many that you would never reach it even riding on the back of a dragon. You could reach it by using the River of Time, but I’m sorry to say that as far as you are concerned, the River of Time is now inaccessible.

  “It wouldn’t be worth the trouble to go to that world either, my dear. Don’t get it into your head to go there someday. The purpose of showing you this memory is not so that you can plan your next adventure, but so that you understand. Comprehension, my dear Manchego, is more important than any mission or task. When you understand, you succeed in connecting your emotions with those of others.”

  Manchego tried to speak but was unable to. It was as if his physical body had been taken prisoner somewhere else and were present in another dimension.

  On the desert ground, a caravan became visible. There were five carts pulled by giant worms tamed by two-legged beings with two arms and brown skin. Around the carts, what looked like people kept pace with the carts. These were covered by coffee-colored clothes so their bodies were not visible.

  The caravan was moving at a relaxed pace, and the people were not talking. They stopped for the day and raised camp when the sun began its descent. The worms were set free by their tamers and the beasts sank into the sand, where they disappeared. The carts were uncovered and the cloth coverings were erected into six tents. From inside each cart, they took out several objects including a large pot, which three men placed on a black stone that ignited easily. Torches were set up around the perimeter of the caravan. But in one of the carts, there was something special.

  In it were a group of women sitting close to one another, whispering and fussing over a lady who looked different from the others. She was pregnant.

  The sun had not completely set and was still high enough to allow the sunlight, together with the light of the torches, to reveal the faces of every woman there.

  Manchego’s sight focused on this pregnant woman. He went close to her, not of his own volition but because Mother willed it. His gaze drew ever nearer to this pregnant woman. Who was she? What was she doing here?

  He could now see the carriage and take a good look at the six women who surrounded the seventh. The pregnant woman was being tended by the rest of the older women. They were all brown-skinned.

  Manchego’s gaze focused exclusively on the pregnant woman. All sound vanished. The other six women vanished. The sun kept its position and the details became clearer.

  Now he was face to face with the pregnant woman. She was smiling but made no sound. Her gaze seemed to pierce his own. There was a sea of emotions in that sweet and compassionate gaze. What a beautiful gaze. The gaze of light and hope.

  Manchego shivered at the feeling that he was perceived, appreciated, studied, and understood. He wanted to be in her arms, to speak to her and understand who she was.

  “Let me introduce you to your mother.”

  “What? Mom? Mom!” he said. What the heck! Could he manage to speak?

  He saw his hands, feet, and torso. He put his fingers to his eyes to check that he was weeping. He was sitting face to face with her… His mother!

  “Greetings, my dear. I always wanted to know your face and know what you’d become. I knew you would be something great. Osha, the Goddess of All, always assured me of that.”

  Manchego was horrified by this. His mother’s belly was still swollen, which meant that he was still inside it and at the same time, was sitting in front of her. Was he present at two places in one and in the same time and space? This was insane. But Manchego knew that if he concentrated on trying to find out the temporal mysteries which governed this particular moment, he would lose the chance to get to know his mother. Osha. Did she mean Mother?

  “Mmm… Mom? Mama…” he stuttered as tears moistened his lips. Saying that word was the strangest thing. He had never uttered the word mom intending to call his parent.

  “Come to me!” the lady said, opening her arms wide. Like a puppy who cannot contain its emotion at coming to its mother’s side, Manchego threw himself on her and put his arms around her. He held on to her with all his might. He sank into her embrace and let his mother’s arms envelop him. She stroked his head and kissed his forehead. Manchego felt horrible anguish vanish from his soul at this contact with his mother’s skin. How delightful it was, that skin. How delightful to be able to rest his face against his mother’s body. He felt his heart beating fast, heat emanating from him, and his muscles trembling. She was nervous too.

  Several minutes went by while the two of them stayed immobile. When the young man and his mother felt they had had enough, they came apart slowly and looked at one another’s faces. Both of them poured out their souls in a river of tears.

  “My, you’re so big already, my dear. What name do you bear these days?”

  It was an odd question, but then everything was odd here. So he replied bluntly, “Manchego. I’m a shepherd.”

  “My Manchego. What a beautiful name. My name is Tarará which means the one who sings all day.” Tarará’s smile gave him the kind of peace that only a mother would be able to give her children. Manchego felt peace and as if a space in his soul had at last begun to fill.

  He felt an urgency fill his soul. “You’re leaving already? Mom?”

  “We’ve been granted this meeting by the grace of Osha. I no longer exist in the world of the living, and this is the image I chose so that you would know me at my happiest moment. That’s it. When I was pregnant with you, that was when I was happiest of all. I was considered sterile. By the grace of Osha, I became pregnant with you, the miracle of all miracles. You’re beautiful. Truly, you are.”

  “Then I don’t have a father?”

  “No, my dear Manchego. You were conceived by the supreme forces of Osha.”

  “Well, I guess it’s not such a terrible thing to have no father,” the young man said sadly. He had longed to have a father like the other young people of the Meridian who could enjoy their parents.

  “Don’t be sad, my dear Manchego,” Tarará said. “You might not have had a father, but you might become one yourself someday. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Tell me now, do you have anyone special waiting to see you with all her love?”

  “Yes,” he said. With deep feeling, he told her about Luchy. The story took them down the paths of the Holy Comment Ranch and he ended up telling her about Lulita, Eromes, Teitú, and even mentioning Balthazar. Hours went by and Manchego’s tongue seemed to be unstoppable. If he had the opportunity, he would have told her his whole life’s story, detail by detail.

  His gaze dwelt on his mother. She was beautiful, she really was. In his mind, she was the definition of immaculate beauty. Her eyes were almond-shaped and the color of coffee, like his own. Her hair, also coffee-colored but darker, was wavy and fell down one side of her face. Her smile was thin-lipped, like his own, and she had good teeth. Her body was slim, her arms and legs slender. They were very like one another. Her most incredible feature, though, was her gaze. She wore a simple tunic of a material that resembled cotton and nothing else.

  “I hope to make you a grandmother someday, Mom. But I fear you’ll never know about it. What I’m afraid of is that this is just a dream, a memory, an illusion.”

  “This moment, what is it to you? Is it a dream? An illusion? Or an opportunity? Who are you, my son? Did you decide to become the kind of man who distrusts or the one who seizes every moment because he knows that true happiness is ephemeral?”

  Manchego felt the outpouring of wisdom that flowed from his mother’s voice. He was impressed at hearing the series of questions that only a mother would be capable of asking her son to guide him. His guide for so many years had been Lulita and he had learned to trust her. But there were things he had never told even her, things he had just willingly shared with his mother.

  “It’s just that I’m afraid to believe in things,” the young man said, his heart trembling. “I’m afraid of
suffering.”

  “That’s the weight of love. Pain is inevitable. Come.” Mother and son embraced once again.

  “Remember me like this, Manchego. This is what I was like at my most joyful moment when I was the happiest woman in the universe. I had you in my womb. I felt you kicking and moving around inside me. There’s no greater success than being a happy mother and you’ve given me that. Thank you, my son. Remember me. It’s time for you to live your life. Go back to Luchy, and continue loving properly. Let it hurt. That way you know it’s real. Farewell.”

  Tarará and her image vanished. Again, the blue light filled Manchego and he felt completely at peace.

  “The time has come to say goodbye, Manchego,” Mother said. “My debt to you has been paid. It was my duty to show you your origin. It was my responsibility to show you that your mother was someone great who gave her life for you. But the universe will never stop being in debt to you. You never had a normal youth. Your adolescence was full of ups and downs and suffering. Find space in your heart to forgive us for demanding those years for you so that you could serve Good. We are very powerful, but not even our powers can give back to you what we took away. We are deeply sorry.”

  “I forgive you. I won’t keep any grudges. I promise.”

  “Thank you, Manchego. Now, go on. Be happy. Wake up. Wake up…”

  Part V

  Chapter LXIV — Convalescence

  Elgahar, Ítalshin, Leandro, Lombardo, Turi, Cail, Ostherlan, Ekimidos, Valímidos, Perófias, Unna, and a hundred other soldiers were standing in the courtyard of the rock tower, watching wide-eyed as the shadow began to dissipate.

  It had all started in the early hours of dawn when the first sunbeams pierced the atmosphere. The shadow underwent a spasm at their touch, then lost control of all its tentacles which then fell to the ground uselessly. In another instant, the shadow turned to smoke, then a strong wind fell on that horrifying presence and began to dissolve it.

  Thousands of tiny grey particles fell off it and evaporated after a few seconds. It took hours for the wind to sweep it away completely. The defending army could not believe it. They had been on the brink of extermination and now they stood watching the Fields of Flora become empty.

  “Did we win?” Turi asked, his face somber. Everybody was exhausted. The war had lasted for two days and a night. The second night, there had been a pause when the shadow had stopped its advance and not grown further. Today, the third day, it had begun to dissipate until it had vanished completely.

  “I… I think so,” Elgahar said. He was as puzzled as Turi. They all turned to look, seeking support in their comrades’ gaze.

  “The shadow’s completely disappeared,” Lombardo said. “I can’t see any trace of it.”

  “Then the terror has truly ended,” Leandro said. “By the Gods. The plan worked. We’ve survived the Times of Chaos. We’ve survived the Times of Chaos! We’ve won the war!”

  The people cheered, although the celebration was a brief one. There were too many questions. Why, for instance, was the Fields of Flora empty? Where were the dead? Armies of hundreds of thousands had been reduced to twelve thousand or so. Humans, Catalgar, crystals, Dakatak, Mílikin, centaurs, and elves had suffered massive losses. The whole army of the Divine Providence had been destroyed along with its leader Haziiz Farçia. The elves had been reduced to a hundred though ten thousand had originally come. The Catalgar now numbered less than a thousand out of the hundred and fifty thousand who had come to the war. A hundred thousand Dakatak had been reduced to less than ten thousand. Three hundred thousand centaurs had been decimated to fewer than fifty thousand. All the dukes of all the cities, together with their armies, had been destroyed. Of the four hundred thousand soldiers of the Imperial Army, more than three quarters had perished during the battle. The crystals had been almost totally destroyed, and only a hundred or so were left. The losses were so great that not seeing the bodies, not being able to bury the dead, not being able to thank them properly, began to be a problem. Seeing the battlefield so clean brought unease. The grass of the Fields of Flora had been replaced by red mud.

  The process of lamentation began. Now that the pressure of terror had ceased, the people could afford to give way to their emotions. They hugged one another and patted one another’s backs, he-goats with centaurs, humans with insects, elves with crystals. All supported one another, motivating one another to go on. Nobody knew what step to take next. The mission had been to save the universe and stop Mórgomiel, and now that this was accomplished, nobody knew what to do. How could they simply go back to their daily lives? The Portal of the Worlds had been destroyed and there was no-one with sufficient power to regenerate it. For the beings from other worlds, this was a cause of anguish and anxiety, a matter that needed to be dealt with very soon.

  “Look! Over there! It’s like a feather coming down from the sky!”

  “No! It’s not a feather! It’s a bird spiraling down to greet us! It’s a condor!”

  “No! It’s an angel who’s come to thank us for the worth of our efforts!”

  “Holy Nimyaya and most pure Alambam,” cried Lohrén. “What’s that?”

  “It’s like the Fire of Yoshto,” Ekimidos said. “Bright and full of hope.”

  “No, my friends,” said Ostherlan. “It seems to be more like the grace of Archangelo.”

  The minutes went by extremely slowly for those who were watching the object descending from the sky, slowly and peacefully. What could it be?

  “It’s going to come down on the Fields of Flora, a few leagues from Kathanas,” Turi cried. “Let’s go and welcome it!”

  The idea sounded so insane that a number of them decided to join in. Not all went to see the spectacle. Most remained in Kathanas, praying to their deities or weeping for the dead. Others were wounded and unable to move, like Luchy and another hundred soldiers who had been touched by the enemy weapons. Funia and a handful of healers remained with the wounded and tended devotedly to their injuries.

  “You’re going to be all right, Luchy. Don’t know how, but you’ll heal,” she said silently. “Your face is no longer grey and your veins are no longer black. You’re strong, Luchy. Come back to us. You’ll get over this.”

  The centaurs and the Catalgar were going too fast for the humans, and they were the ones who arrived at the scene first. Turi ran as fast as he could, trying to see who or what had come down from the sky.

  But before anybody could arrive at the point of contact, it had already landed. Something—someone—with gallant white wings placed something on the ground. That thing or person spread his wings, white as two gigantic outspread hands. With a single beat, it took off, disappearing in the sky in less than the blink of an eye.

  “He’s alive! He’s alive!” the centaurs shouted in celebration. The Catalgar were cheering as well.

  Turi was the first human to reach the scene, followed by Cail, Lombardo, and Elgahar. They were all gasping with the effort when they stopped and struggled with the centaurs to see who or what had been deposited on the ground.

  Elgahar stared wide-eyed when he saw him. He looked at home, asleep. Had it been an angel who had come down from the skies to lay him on the ground?

  “Manchego?” he said.

  The young man woke up at once and sat down on what looked like a cloak of blue satin. But as soon as he moved, the cloak began to fade until it had vanished completely. The boy took his head in his hands as if it hurt. After seconds of silence, he seemed to become aware of his audience and turned his gaze to the spectators. Nobody could understand the sadness in his eyes.

  Elgahar offered him his hand. “Is it really you?” he asked.

  Manchego took the hand and allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He felt so light without his wings or his armor. It felt very strange without Alac’s presence within him. He turned to look around, searching for someone. He shook his head, listening to what was inside it. He felt strangely empty.

  “Greetings, everyon
e. Wow, there are beings from other worlds. Thank you all for coming and fighting for this cause. You don’t know who I am? Well… I suppose I’m not the same. I’m Manchego.” The boy smiled grimly.

  “Who is this immature human?” Ostherlan asked. Nobody except the other centaurs understood him, because the Naevas Aedán were not there to translate for them.

  “A boy?” asked a Catalgar. “Why on earth would an angel descend from the sky to bring us a youth with such a soft gaze?”

  “Humans celebrate the strangest things,” Perófias added. He was the only pegasus left on the planet.

  Elgahar was about to say something, but he held his tongue. He did not feel like explaining to anybody. “Come on, Manchego. Let’s go on to Kathanas. Luchy’s there.”

  “Not many people know I was the God of Light,” the boy said. “I want things to stay that way. I don’t want special attention from anybody. I don’t mind if the beings from other worlds look disappointed. All I want is to see Luchy and know that the shadows have left.”

  The centaurs, Catalgar, insects, humans, and elves who had come to see the miracle and did not know Manchego left immediately. For them, there was nothing to celebrate, even though nobody had explained why an ordinary youth had been brought down to the ground by an archangel. They had been expecting some kind of miracle and although they had seen it, they had failed to recognize it.

  “The shadow left the battlefield clean,” Manchego said as he looked around. The last thing he remembered of the great battle was the field filled with bodies, the millions of soldiers fighting.

  “At least we don’t have to pile the bodies up to burn them,” Lombardo said. “I’d have hated having to pick up bodies of people I knew to set them on fire.”

  “Wait,” said Cail. “What about the orcs? Did they flee?”

  Nobody had asked that particular question. The sea of orcs had been neither quelled nor defeated and there were millions of them left.