“The Star of the Prophecy”.
He opened the book, freeing a small cloud of dust, and then he quickly turned the pages over, leafing through them with his right thumb. He closed the book and turned it over many times, observing the bookbinding and then opening it to the beginning again: the author’s name wasn’t on the first page and neither on the jacket, and this made the boy more and more curious, so he began to read the first page.
When the young girl returned home, she went to the room where Viktor was asleep. She smiled, went near the bed and caressed his face: her friend was fast asleep. “He seems almost as if he has fainted” she thought, while she saw the book under his right hand. She read the title and smiled again.
Selene got up and approached the chair beside the fireplace with the flames now dim, and she brought it near Viktor’s bed. She sat down resting her head on the young man’s chest and reached him in the land of dreams.
CHILDREN’S STORIES
S unlight filtered through the glass of the window, flooding the interior of the room with its rays.
Selene opened her eyes slowly, she hesitated a few minutes and then she got up, raising her head from the boy’s breast where she had slept all night long. The young man sighed and mumbled, and then he turned on his side, as if to thank her for getting off his chest. Selene tucked the blanket around him: she knew he would wake up late. Viktor hardly ever slept enough because his job at Trust’s forced him to get up before sunrise.
The girl placed a doily on the bedside table and moved the book that her friend had read the night before, but it slipped from her hand. While it was falling Viktor grabbed it. Hunting in the forest and bow and sword lessons with Trust, had developed the boy’s reflexes.
“Good morning,” Viktor said softly, stretching and handing her the book. “I’m sorry, I nearly read all night long.” Selene observed the book for a few seconds and put it on the bedside table. “My father gave it to me,” she answered, frowning a bit. “It’s a legend known about everywhere. One of those stories that have been handed down for centuries in our lands. It was written as a story for children and it is still considered so.”
Viktor crossed his hands behind the nape of his neck, staring at the ceiling. “Well… it’s a nice story! Some things involve people of all ages and those, in my opinion, are the best of all. It’s a simple but nice story…there must be a reason if it has been read all this time.”
“When I was a child it was one of my favourite books…,” the girl commented. “That’s the reason why I put it under the bedside table with the others. Who knows what would have happened among the myriad of other writings in the library. I’m particularly fond of that story, my father gave me the book before…”
Viktor stopped her. He knew that the girl had lost her mother at a very young age because of an illness and, a short time later, her father in war. From that moment on, she had lived with the village people. Viktor, on the other hand, had lost his mother when he was four. He didn’t remember her very well and that’s the reason why he had trouble crying because he missed her.
All the same, his father and brother had given him all he needed.
Selene left the room for a few minutes, leaving Viktor lost in his thoughts. The boy observed a painting on the wall in front of him and he imagined himself being the protagonist. It was a painting of a navy fleet with some men intent on raising the sails of the bigger ship. He thought about how it must be to fight offshore for a cause ignored by most and risk your live for it. “How strange destiny is! We devote ourselves body and soul to make a dream come true, and then see everything vanish.”
The boy returned to reality when Selene entered the bedroom carrying a silver tray: “Here,” she said handing him the tray. “It’s your breakfast.”
Viktor took it, put it on his lap, sat up and began to eat the bread and butter.
“Tonight I’m returning home. I must also speak to Trust, now that you make me think about it…” said the boy swallowing the first bite. “You’ll leave if you’re feeling better,” Selene pointed out.
“I’ll go home! Come on, it was only Tufu and its effects are temporary, you should know that better than me. After a day, what could happen? I’m well, don’t worry… and then you really don’t want to sleep with your head on my chest again all night long?” the boy said laughing. “You’ll rest all afternoon and you’ll leave tonight… if I decide that it’s suitable,” Selene replied with a bit of presumption.
Viktor smiled.
“What do you have to speak to Trust about?” asked the girl.
“I have to get ready to leave,” he said, knowing well that the girl wouldn’t let him leave considering his recent illness.
“The day of the fair, in Beleth, there’s a competition for Great Talents. Every participant presents his work and Trust wants to show a rod he made of mithril. Nothing important, it’s a competition and nothing is risked, it’s worth it because Trust has wanted to do it for years. He hasn’t left Lezhen for a long time, and, at his age, it can only do him good. He knows the way, don’t worry!” He chose every word carefully, trying to make his friend understand that it wasn’t dangerous: it was only an event.
“To Beleth? And how will you go there?” Selene asked.
“We want to ask my father if he will lend us the wagon he has on the farm.”
“It will take a bit to get there, when are you leaving?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I want to go and speak to Trust to organize the trip.”
Selene nodded but she didn’t agree entirely with the idea. She mumbled something, got up, went towards the cupboard and got a small green pill. “Swallow this! After an afternoon of rest you should be able to move around on your own legs again,” she said handing it to him.
“I already can,” his friend said swallowing the pill with a glass of pomegranate cider.
“I have things to do this morning and I should also go and buy something for lunch. When I return, I want to find you here!” she exclaimed amused, pushing the boy’s forehead with her hand. “Yes ma’am!” Viktor snapped back.
Selene smiled and got up, leaving the room and closing the creaking wooden door behind her.
In the meantime, Viktor finished his breakfast calmly and, having drunk the last drop of cider, put the tray on the floor beside the bed.
He got under the covers, but he couldn’t stand it much longer. He had been in bed for a whole day, during which the most amusing thing had been reading the book the night before, an unusual activity for who, like him, was used to sleeping very little, waking up early and working. He wandered for a while among a thousand thoughts that crowded his mind, then he paused to reflect on the conversation that morning about the stories for children and stories that were handed down from generation to generation; finally, he thought of the book that now rested on the bedside table… “The Star of the Prophecy.”
The book didn’t have any notes by the author, Viktor fantasized a while longer and then he continued reading.
It told about the rebellion of one of the eight divinities that were born from the eight elements and how they forged the world with magic.
The rebellious divinity had taken a body that he called Zergh. With this he wanted to subjugate humanity and proclaim himself the one who had given birth to all the inhabitants of the planet. The seven divinities tried in all ways to save Zergh from the abyss of madness and tyranny in which he was falling, reminding him that the decision to create humanity had been approved by the entire Divine Council, to share the gift of life with others. What they wanted wasn’t to create a world of slaves to control but a population of free and autonomous creatures.
But Zergh didn’t want to reason and the only solution was war that brought only ruins and destruction. When the divinities realized they couldn’t annihilate each other, the war ended. However, they could not prevent Zergh from using his own tyranny. To end the threat, the Divine Council decided to forge a sword with immense po
wer, a blade soaked in all the natural elements and when it was brandished only by the chosen one of the Star of the Prophecy, it could stop Zergh temporarily. The spell worked and, when the Star had made its choice, the chosen one used the divine sword to close Zergh up in a dimensional prison. The sword was called Arald, in honour of the first who had brandished it and so, for a hundred years, there had been a period of peace. The divinities recalled Arald from the mortal lands and enjoyed the calm, knowing however that Arald’s power would have worn off and Zergh would have returned.
It is said that, still today, the return of Arald and the chosen one is expected to drive the evil back to the darkness it comes from.
Viktor went over the eight elements of the divinities in his mind: Water, Fire, Land, Air, Ice, Thunder, Light, and Darkness.
He looked up from the book and smiled.
“What a nice story,” he thought, “but they are only fairy tales.”
SILENT SHADOWS
V iktor inhaled and exhaled deeply when he left Selene’s house and returned to the open air: now he was at ease. He had said goodbye to his friend a few minutes earlier and now he could see the sun colour the clear sky with orange and red, becoming a background to the flock of birds that was flying towards the horizon.
“I almost feared I had forgotten how to do it,” he thought beginning to walk in the scent of cut grass.
It was nice to breathe fresh, clean air again.
He knocked on the blacksmith’s door three times and waited impatiently: he could not wait to see him again to organize their departure. Even if he felt the competition was not very profitable due to the suspension of their activity, now he was much more enthusiastic about the idea.
The day spent in bed had given him a reason to move as much as possible. After a few seconds, the blacksmith’s door opened.
Trust let the boy in, smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
“Selene told me about the Tufu… I really was an idiot!” the old blacksmith declared, frowning and having the boy sit down.
Viktor sank into the worn-out armchair that he saw every morning, while his friend asked questions about his physical conditions. “I’m fine… I was thinking of other things,” the young man interrupted, while Trust frowned.
“What are you referring to?” the bewildered blacksmith asked.
“We should leave tonight to arrive in Beleth on time for the fair and the Great Talents competition. We’ll use my father’s wagon.”
“But you’ve just recuperated, Selene doesn’t …”
“I succeeded in convincing her, with a bit of effort. She didn’t like the idea very much.”
Trust caught satisfaction in those words, as if convincing his friend was one of the hardest tasks the boy had ever done.
“To tell you the truth, I had put the idea of the competition aside when Selene told me what had happened. I’ll need some time to prepare the provisions and saddlebags to load on the wagon,” he explained.
“So you should hurry up. I’ll go home and ask my father for permission to take the wagon, he shouldn’t say no.”
Trust reflected on what the boy had said for a moment.
“Try to rest tonight. We’ll meet at dawn tomorrow near the wagon on the farm,” he recommended soon after.
Viktor nodded and went out, going in the opposite direction of the circle of houses that made up the village. In no time, the temperature had already gone down a few degrees and humidity had gone up. The boy hastened his pace, shivering. It took him less than a minute to arrive home and his father First and brother Gabriel were waiting for him in front of the crackling wood in the fireplace. He hugged them, reassuring them that he was fine and telling them about the Great Talents competition. When he got the desired permission, he went to his bedroom and took a saddlebag from under the bed, filling it with clean clothes.
When he was sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, he tried to rest.
All of a sudden, everything became dark and Viktor found himself observing the steed he had learned to know so well in his dreams. He saw it trotting towards the edge of the forest where there was a hill you could see some ruins from. The steed slowed down and stopped. The rider got off and grabbed a red bundle, tightly bound to a leather belt on the horse.
The man put the bundle on his shoulders and began walking toward the ruins when someone behind him grabbed his left arm.
Viktor jumped and opened his eyes wide, then he realized he was dreaming. “The same dream again,” he mumbled rubbing his head.
He tried to regain lucidity rubbing his eyes with his fists, and then he turned onto his side struggling to find a more comfortable position. He turned over again and again, then he decided to get up. He went to a water jug on the bedside table and washed his face.
He dried himself on a towel, put it near the wooden jug and put his boots on. He wore his usual leather jacket, got the saddlebag and put it on his shoulder. Then he went into the hall, and looked into Gabriel’s room and entered.
The boy’s breast was moving slowly, while he breathed asleep in his own dreams. Viktor caressed his forehead, smiling.
His straight hair didn’t go past his neck and for a second it seemed to Viktor that the moonlight that came through the window illuminated him. Soon after, semi-darkness fell in the room once more, because of a cloud that had hidden the nocturnal star. He looked at his brother one last time, thinking that soon he would have to wake up to go to the fields with his father, as he did every morning.
He was sad about the fact that his brother hadn’t been able to study. At least he, being constantly with Selene, who had studied by herself since she was a child, had learned the rudiments of reading and writing. Gabriel, instead, had begun working when he was still a child and, above all, he didn’t have the fortune of having a friend like Selene.
Viktor returned into the hall, then he looked toward his father’s bedroom but he preferred not to enter for fear of waking him up.
He made sure he had buttoned his jacket and he adjusted his scarf before going out into the freezing weather.
When he looked at the sleeping village, Viktor shivered. The cold flowed first through the fabrics of his clothes, then penetrated into his bones.
He hastened his pace toward the path that brought to the forest, trying to warm up. He thought of the blacksmith who was certainly already waiting for him beside his father’s wagon, and then he turned around toward Selene’s house, with a bit of sadness.
He went off the path to go onto a short cut through the vegetation around the village.
Visibility was clearly inferior to the darkness under the trees, a thing that, even if it was obvious, the boy hadn’t thought about because he was used to walking outside the village only during the day. He slowed down being careful where he put his feet.
While he pushed a tree branch away, he heard the noise of kicking pebbles: he instinctively looked up, but thought it was impossible to hear the noise of pebbles in the high grass. He stopped and listened again, hoping not to hear anymore strange sounds before resuming the journey.
The noise of dry ground moving reverberated in the darkness. Viktor’s heartbeat increased.
The boy turned abruptly toward the path that he had just left. A shape hidden by the darkness turned toward him, staring from beyond the grass that separated them, then it got nearer. Viktor was paralysed with fear, he didn’t know who it was, but he was sure that whoever went around at night wasn’t anyone with good intentions.
“Who could it be? Even if it was a bandit or someone dangerous, I haven’t anything with me to defend myself and even if I did, I don’t think I could stop him,” he thought scared. Although Viktor was going toward his own farm, where the blacksmith was waiting for him, he had however taken caution to venture into the woods with the high moon, and the tranquillity with which the mysterious individual approached him left him puzzled and afraid.
He thought that the man was going in the same direction as he was, by cha
nce, without seeing him, but he immediately rejected the hypothesis when a cloud moved away from the moon and illuminated him for a few moments. The light filtered through the leaves of the tree under which he had remained petrified, and while every alternative to that of facing the enemy crumbled slowly, he did the only thing he had not thought about, the most logical from the beginning: run.
He plunged into the vegetation that became denser and denser, an impassable tunnel with branches, plants and malformations of moist soil. In the distance, he saw a small glimmer of light: it was the exit that went onto the gardened fields. He had never ran so fast in his life, his cold legs burned with the flow of blood. For a moment he thought he couldn’t feel them anymore.
He slowed down, knowing he had arrived and that he was no longer alone: by now Trust must be at the meeting point.
He left the dirt road that brought to the farm, choosing to pass through the wheat fields to decrease the possibility of being noticed by someone, although the sound of his steps between the ears of corn wouldn’t remain unheard. The boy’s forehead was dripping with sweat when he arrived to the wagon on the side of the farm and got in from the back. When Viktor plunged onto it, the wooden planks creaked. Viktor sat down with his shoulders against the wall, his elbows on his bent knees and his head bowed looking at the wood under him, while he tried to catch his breath. Trust hadn’t arrived yet and even if he knew he was well hidden, he was still jumpy about what had happened.
“I was lucky I didn’t lose my saddlebag on the shortcut through the trees, I could have got tangled in the branches and not been able to get out, with that darkness!”
He rested his head on the wood behind him and contemplated the green cloth that served as a covering for the wagon. The cloth was fixed with iron bars, some rope was tied to the four ends of the wagon, and it ended falling over the back of the wagon, so you could get in from the back.
Viktor Page 3
