“I messed up,” he said.
The firemen from the Seven Kingdoms returned to their bases leaving behind ashes and coal. Most of the forest was undamaged, but still, damage had been dealt to people’s morale mostly and the feeling of security they had had for so many years. They realised how vulnerable they were, how easily humanity could have been extinguished. Roy was ordered by the king to investigate the cause of fire.
“Erica might be useful as she knows where the spaceship fell and she also has good observation skills,” Roy said at once.
“Are you sure you want this thief with you? Do you trust her?” the king asked, trying to understand Roy’s thoughts.
“I will be careful with her your Majesty, don’t worry,” he said confidently.
Roy entered Erica’s apartment wearing one of his crisp shirts and found her on her bed lying down.
“Get ready, we are going for a trip,” he said.
As they were driving towards the forest Erica wanted to ask him why he picked her, but she was too shy. Roy noticed she was nervous.
“Why are you nervous?” he asked without looking at her.
“Why did you take me with you?”
“You are very observational so you could be useful in finding the cause of the fire.”
“Is that all?” Erica said suspiciously. “Then I guess I misunderstood your intensions.”
“That’s alright. You are not the first, nor will you be the last. Actually I would like to ask you something. This Ivorin, how do you know him?”
“I had heard about him from some friends that I used to work with.”
“What kind of ‘friends’?” he asked.
“Like me.”
“What do you know about him, like what does he do for a living, where is his hideout, what are his plans? Do you know anything that it could help?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down, cowboy. What’s this, an interrogation? Is this why you brought me here really?”
“This guy might be dangerous to the kingdom and it’s our duty to find him! He has a nuclear reactor that you and your team stole from the Royal Nuclear Warehouse and there is a whole system of tunnels under his house. You are in big trouble for helping him, so you’d better cooperate with me and I might get you out of all this” Erica started to laugh.
“I believed for a moment that you actually brought me here for my skills! How stupid I am!” she said sarcastically.
Roy realised that he hadn’t wanted this reaction from her and changed his approach.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to bully you, I was just asking. Oh, come on let’s forget about all this and let’s enjoy nature, or whatever remains of it. Did I tell you about King Martin and his son? When Arthas arrived at his home, Martin believed that he was a duplicate of his son that his kidnappers had sent to deceive him!” Erica smiled. “Can you believe that this man, this criminally stupid man, mistook his own lost son for a potential spy? How possible is it to find a duplicate of Arthas, first of all, and does he really believe he has enemies with such an imagination?”
“You are being mean now,” Erica said with a smile.
“Could you ever accept such a fool as your king? I would like to kidnap him and send him to meet your friend, the fire-wizard who throws fire from his butt!”
“He doesn’t throw fire from his butt,” she said laughing.
“I’m sorry, did I insult him? Maybe from his nostrils then?”
Erica laughed louder and Roy looked over at her and laughed too.
“Ah, Roy, you are a smart and funny and charming guy. Why do you have to hurt me every time I meet you?”
“Did you say charming?” he said, surprised and stopped the car immediately.
They looked each other’s eyes and there was moment of awkward silence when thousands of thoughts passed through their minds. Erica’s stomach was knots and both hearts beat faster. Then Roy held her at the back of her neck and kissed her passionately. She responded to his kiss and they hugged each other with tenderness and passion.
After a few hours they arrived at the burnt site where a dishevelled Erica followed crumple-shirted Roy. Their love had started in this grey background and they kept throwing glances to each other while they were investigating the path of fire. As they followed the trail they reached the location that the fire must have started. Inside a pile of ashes a shiny metallic device was hidden and there was a drawing of a red bird on it. Roy took it and inspected it with great interest in front of Erica.
Andria was half listening to the news about the fire, half remembering how she lost her perfume on the sun and she felt even worse when Erica came in holding the metallic device with the phoenix on it.
“Do you recognise this?” she asked sternly jubilantly.
Andria seemed lost staring at it.
“I recognise that bird. Is it…?”
“I’m afraid so,” Erica said.
“I‘ve brought this evil to our door and it burnt our forest, our hopes and my heart with it. I thought I saw some goodness in him, but I was sadly mistaken,” Andria said, so devastated that Erica felt guilty that she had been so tough on her.
Erica decided then that she should investigate the situation a bit further as it was similar to her own, when she had been misunderstood by Roy. Could she find something good in Farnath too? She went to the Royal library to search the archives for any information about what happened two thousand years ago. Maybe there were some missing points in his story, some untold tales that hid secrets of the world and its heat problem.
Part 6:
The Frozen Heart
F arnath was waiting, hopeless and alone, for the princess to come and Felix was waiting for his master to make a decision.
“She won’t come, Felix, I know it now. But I’m in pain, Felix. Your Master is useless and weak right now. What should I do?” he asked desperately.
Felix made noises and looked at the sky.
“What are you saying? Should I go to her? Are you crazy or am I?” He dwelled the idea for a while and then he said determinedly, “You are right, Felix! If the princess can’t come to Farnath, then Farnath should go to the princess! I need to speak to her to make her undo the spell she has put on me to make me like a grovelling worm!”
So he climbed on Felix’s back and flew away to Earth at an unnatural speed. He created a magic cloud around them to protect them from Earth’s atmosphere and they managed to find the huge hole that led to the Forbidden Forest. His eye caught sight of the burnt ground and he noticed the last few investigators who were just packing up to return to their kingdoms. It was at the time that Erica and Roy were returning holding the magic device so he followed them, flying Felix silently above their heads, to the gate that led to Andria’s kingdom. When they passed the gate, Felix landed ahead of them and Farnath told him to wait hidden somewhere, until he was needed. The bird obeyed him reluctantly and sat on the rocky wall beyond the gate. The wizard stepped out wearing a black hood to hide his red skin, but he didn’t pass unnoticed by the cameras or the guards—he didn’t wear any of the typical professional uniforms. Immediately, the guards at the control point were alerted by their colleagues at the gate and they gathered, armed, to inspect him. When Farnath saw them pointing at him with their guns, his first thought was to burn them all, but then he realised that this wouldn’t make a good impression on Andria. He didn’t really know why he cared about that girl’s opinion, but it was annoying to him. The officer of the control point, the fat friend of Andria’s, who had surprisingly kept his position, ordered Farnath to reveal his face. When he did so everyone was surprised and scared and they immediately arrested him.
King George was eating with his daughter when they brought him the news of the arrest of the red-skinned man that came from the forest.
“How did they manage to arrest him?” Andria wondered.
“Bring him in,” the king ordered without losing his appetite. “It will probably be one of these activists that protes
t about the nuclear energy. They never stop!”
Farnath proudly entered the big throne room, surrounded by a dozen soldiers, restrained with handcuffs. He wasn’t afraid of anything except the moment that he would see Andria. She was sitting next to her father, staring at him, making his heart beat faster from stress and making the ice around it melt and break even more. Andria was anxious too, but she wasn’t sure how she should feel about him as it was impossible for her to hate him. She knew what this man was capable of and she was worried for her father and everybody in that room. Had he come all the way there to revenge her for escaping from his planet? Could he be so evil? Or did he feel so guilty that he surrendered to her people? Could she forgive him if he really did that? Her thoughts were whizzing in her head. The officer handed a bottle of perfume to the king.
“We found it on him, my King.”
The king was confused by this revelation and asked Farnath how the object came to his possession, but the wizard was too proud to exchange words with him, even if he was a king. He just stared at Andria.
“Answer now or you will find yourself in the dungeons of the highest security prison of my kingdom! Do you also take full responsibility for the fire at the forest?” the king asked him.
But Farnath preferred the answer of silence so the king had no option but to imprison him until the court could decide his fate. Andria knew inside her that he would speak only to her and she decided to give him the chance to defend himself before she left him to the juror’s judgement.
One of the deepest parts of the palace, the old Royal Library, was covered in dust and spider webs. An old, skinny librarian with a long white beard was sleeping on his chair with an open book on his belly, while Erica was searching some of the oldest chapters of the world’s history. She found a heavy leather book full of stories and legends and one of them had an interesting title that caught her attention: “The Cursed Boy” by Leonid Dimitrovich. She opened it and started reading.
Before the age of the sun, humanity lived on the surface of the Earth. There was a woman, a witch as they used to be called, who changed the fate of world with her actions. Lucia Indringth was a brunette woman born with extraordinary powers. She could change the temperature around her, depending on her mood or her thoughts and as she grew up she managed to control these powers and strengthen them with concentration and willpower. She had always been attractive to infamous men, soulless and selfish, perhaps because her father, Gronas Indringth, was such a man, a drunk, who hurt her with all possible ways, even when he was sober. Her mother was a passive, good woman, who believed that Gronas actually loved them, so she couldn’t protect them when he was violent. One day Lucia left the house with a man, an evil creature who promised to take care of her, but he betrayed her at the most difficult moment, in the middle of a war. Pregnant and desperate she struggled to survive in a besieged city until somehow she ended up back with her family. After some traumatic occurrences, most of her relatives ended up dead and she was left, still carrying the baby of this evil man who she loved and hated most in her life.
When the boy was born on a tragic day of conflict and death, I helped her bring him into the world, but the boy dealt great pain to her, not just physical but also psychological. The child was a reminder of the man who left her so cruelly after all she had done for him. A reminder of betrayal, instead of receiving his mother’s love, as all the babies should receive, he was instead cursed by her. She cursed him to have a frozen heart like his father and all the men she knew, to never find enough warmth to make his heart beat, to never find someone to love and make him feel. And she abandoned the baby and disappeared. I took the baby, Farnath I named him, and raised him as my child. I couldn’t make him love me because the curse was too strong as it came from his own mother and these kinds of curses are known to be extremely difficult to break. As Farnath grew up I found out that he had similar powers to his mother so I taught him how to control them, so maybe later when he would be powerful enough to melt the ice around his heart and to have feelings, not only to love me as the father that he never had, but also later, if he found a good girl to love, to have a normal life and find happiness.
Farnath became powerful, but his lack of feelings made him selfish too. The only thing that mattered to him was power and there was no morality in him to make him change his mind. I failed and I realised that I created a monster, a heartless creature that could not change as the roots of evil were too deep inside him; very old and too strong to rip them up. They made him ruthless and cunning and at the end, he cared only about himself. Unfortunately, my older sister, Lucia, gave the world its doom.
Later Farnath disappeared from the world like his mother did and then it seemed the sun got hotter and the land got dryer, killing everything that lived on it. The people moved under the surface of Earth to survive and built huge underground cities and tunnels. The shortage of living space brought violence and years passed before order was found in this troubled place. I believe, without having any proof, that Farnath was responsible for this climatic change, as, in an attempt to warm his heart, he had somehow made the sun hotter. I hoped the ice would melt soon so my nephew would find peace inside him and humanity to be able to move back to Earth again. I also hoped that my sister Lucia was alive and happy somewhere and I wished she would break the curse that she gave to her son and reconcile with him.
After this short story, Erica found some more pages, burnt and torn, but what she read was enough for her to have a clearer image of where this Farnath came from. She was surprised and unsure about the origin of this story, but still, she thought it would be right to share this information with Andria who seemed to live in a tormented guilt but mostly Erica wanted to impress Roy, her lover and mentor.
At the long dining table Andria and her father were sitting far from each other, at opposite ends, lost in their own thoughts. King George was holding the bottle with the perfume, trying to understand how it came in Farnath’s possession. The more he tried to find an explanation, the more real Andria’s version of the story became. Was it possible that this red man had lived for two thousand years on the sun? How did he achieve immortality and who he really was? His practical mind couldn’t accept this incredible story, so again he found himself in a dead end. He looked at his daughter who seemed to be weighed down by an unknown burden, too heavy for her young shoulders. Should he give her another chance to explain the relationship with this man and his role in the heat problem?
“Do you really believe that this man is responsible for the heat problem?” he asked.
Andria didn’t answer, but just looked at him with a blank stare. The king took her silence as a “yes” and continued.
“Is this man dangerous for the kingdom and for us?”
She didn’t answer again, still staring at him, sadder and terrified. He continued, anxious after another silence.
“Do you believe you can talk to him?” He waited a bit. “Did he come for you?” At the last question, Andria opened her eyes wide and scared as it was the main thought that troubled her mind.
Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by Erica who presented herself to the king and, after he gestured his permission, she whispered something in Andria’s ear and they both departed, leaving a speechless king. After a moment the princess returned with a much brighter face.
“I would like permission to speak to Farnath, the fire-wizard, alone to ask him if he is responsible for the fire in the forest,” she asked, confident about her decision.
King George wanted to decline this request, but he was afraid that his daughter would go secretly anyway. It would be better if he could provide her with some protection first so he decided to let her go officially, avoiding making the same mistake of the past. Four guards would accompany her on her visit and she should also wear her heatproof uniform.
In a dark room, next to the bed Jake was sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of the bed, trying to figure out a solution for his hopeless situati
on. He was afraid that sooner or later they would find the device that he threw in the forest and, after they interrogated the wizard, his information would probably lead them to him. The line between him and the prison became thinner and this time he would stay behind bars for a long time. Time was pressing, he needed to act quickly and escape, but there wasn’t a place safe enough to hide in that realm or any other. The security services were well known for their efficiency in catching criminals and especially internationally known ones like himself. His was an outcast and only another place for outcasts would be welcoming to him. He remembered then about what Erica had said of Ivorin’s tunnels. Roy had told her that Ivorin had disappeared in an endless complex of tunnels and not even all the forces of the kingdom together would be able to find him. So there was no other option for him than to try to find Ivorin’s hideout. The door of his room opened, slowly creaking and someone entered holding the magic device that set the forest on fire. Jake turned his head to see the man who had decided to set him free.
Into the grey corridor of the fresh painted barracks, Andria was walking fast, wearing her silver uniform while four heavily armed guards were following her with purposeful strides. She reached Farnath’s cell and the guard unlocked the thick steel door for the princess to enter. The wizard was standing with his back to her, sniffing the air before she even came inside.
“I smelled you were coming,” he said, without turning to see her.
“Did you smell my perfume?” she asked with interest.
Farnath: The Frozen Heart Page 8
