As he went he has now arrived
Having his destiny strived
Finally the evening comes
with its mere news.
The fate that was believed demolished
has instead been completed.
The stars shine on the saviour,
now supported with ardour
by those who found it
with a strong and harmonious spirit.
Get the presents, he has arrived
As he went he has now arrived
Having his destiny strived
The moon shines on the world now silent,
while of our hero the memory will remain ardent.
Everyone’s tears will this sacrifice remember,
while tonight I write to you, with a smile so bitter.
Get the presents, he has arrived
As he went he has now arrived
Having his destiny strived.
(Huges Reen, from “Homage to Xemnath”)
“Have you read where this writing is from?” asked Selene.
“A collection dedicated to Xemnath?”
“The name that Viktor heard in his dreams.”
“If we think of the legend of Arald and of the name, it seems that this Xemnath is one of the chosen elected by the gods.”
“It seems that this is the confirmation of what Dandelion said,” his friend deduced.
“And it seems that our chosen one died to fulfil his task: the passage is clear, the village was waiting for the hero to return after the final battle, but unfortunately what comes is the corpse of a saviour carried by those who found him and who believed in him,” added Gabriel, letting himself slide to the floor.
A long silence followed.
“Legends start becoming real. I wonder if what we really know is not an illusion at this point, observed the girl, sitting next to Gabriel.
“I wonder what my brother has to do with all this. Whatever it is, I’m afraid it’s not positive.”
“We’ll find the answers.”
“The fact remains that we have not yet found the full version of the legend of Arald.”
“Dandelion said that on the shelf where we found the book there were only works by Lein, but the piece we found wasn’t his. It may have been added later in new editions.”
“And with this?” asked Gabriel, frowning.
“It means that, despite this library retains the memories of millennia, the oldest edition of that volume has already been revisited and amplified with contents from external sources. Do you realize, then, how old the text we are looking for is? The original Arald script may have been lost in the annals of history. The chances of finding it are practically null.”
“Dandelion said that we would find what we’re looking for here.”
“Surely, but the authentic version of the legend is untraceable and it is possible that the one here, however ancient, may already have been altered. I don’t think they had to hide anything, anyway. We will make do with what we find, if we can handle it by today. It seems that finding the volume is not as simple as we thought.”
“And if we postpone the search for the legend tomorrow and today we try to learn more about the blue mana, the Barglas and the rest? You could take care of it, since these are subjects that you are interested in ...,” Gabriel proposed.
“And what will you do?” asked the girl.
“I will ask Dandelion to show me the book from which the memorial of Xemnath was taken: I could find testimonies or other compositions about it.”
Gabriel started looking for something in the volume from which the piece was read that would help him understand more about the story of Xemnath.
As for “New Calm,” the collection contained many poems about the deeds of the chosen one taken from different sources.
Many had wanted to thank Xemnath by examining the conditions of life before the calm and after it, others had almost reshaped the unfolding of events to further enhance the figure of the chosen one, but nothing helped to understand who the chosen one was, instead as he continued reading, Gabriel became increasingly confused.
Now tired, he decided to go to the other side of the room, where Selene was reading with interest.
“Found anything?”
“A few more notions about the Barglas and the confirmation that they can be evoked by fairly powerful energy flows.”
“Energy flows?”
“Long-range and long-lasting spells require large amounts of mana for which the magician, or in this case the caller, must be able to expand his magical energy throughout the area of action. Following the flow of energy it is often possible to get to the point where the enchanter is exerting his powers, but in Beleth the magical flow seemed to have no origin.”
“And is it possible?”
“No not at all. The magician will have taken care to hide the real path under other false routes: he was smart. Being able to summon so many creatures of those proportions and power, the rain of fire arrows and concealing the source of the spells for so long is something abnormal. I thought it was impossible until a few days ago. Whoever he is, he must be a skilled sorcerer.”
“Nothing else?”
“Except that the situation worries me more and more every second,” the girl asserted.
“And what about the blue mana?”
“Nothing significant, for now I have not found anything relevant, excluding some spells that by their nature emit nearly blue lights.”
“I see...”
The two remained chatting for a while, until they began to breathe with difficulty.
Unconscious of what was happening, they ran to Dandelion, but he wasn’t there.
Trying to control the panic, the two made their way to the library’s exit, leaping up the steps of the tower, toward the sturdy door above the ground.
When they saw, with dismay, that the door was locked from the outside, Gabriel and Selene exchanged a terrified look.
It was getting more and more difficult to breathe.
ON ALLERT
“H e’s coming,” verified one of the three Elders behind Sinus. “Let’s see what happens,” he said soon after, turning his back on his elf friends, his gaze beyond the painted glass.
From above, a cloud of arrows darkened the sun, shot with the intent to hit the guards inside the monastery.
The sentries managed to survive thanks to some protection spells that deflected the trajectory of the arrows, ran behind the main door pointing their spears, at the foot of the walls, towards the entrance. They stood still, then a loud noise ripped through the silence, the door swung open and a stream of people armed with bows and arrows, in dark and heavy fur armour poured into the monastery
The spears stopped a first group, but the rest of the enemies managed to break in smoothly and engage in battle with the other soldiers in the elven rear of the monastery.
Some enemy magicians showed themselves by evoking long jets of flames, which turned into ash everything in a wide range: the monastery was becoming a scene of fire and ashes.
“Why are they attacking us?” one of the soldiers exclaimed to a friend next to him as they tried to block the enemy units at the entrance.
“I think they are trying to steal the treasure of the monastery, but that’s none of our business: our job is to stop strangers from taking what’s not theirs.”
“Where’s the commander? I don’t see him,” the soldier snapped.
“I have no idea, the fact remains that we cannot move from here!” his friend snorted and returned to hold up the wall of spears.
******
Gabriel brutally knocked on the door three times.
It didn’t open and the inside of the tower was painted red with every blaze of fire set on the outside.
The boy was now at his wit’s end: he didn’t know what he was doing, or why the air was starting to run low, but something had to be done.
Selene looked to the right and to the left trying to find a
solution. Her eyes were wide open and her pale face begged for help.
Gabriel moved behind her as he almost lost consciousness. He saw double, then, as soon as he recovered his sight, he saw his friend staring at something.
He pushed her against the wall next to the door, and then headed for the doused candelabra on the wall she had indicated.
He examined it thoroughly and touched it at various points until he felt that one of the arms was less rigid than the others were. He pushed it down and his eyes lit up with a weary smile.
A portion of the wall came in, then the whole wall began to rise slowly, releasing large quantities of dust.
The more the wall rose, the more air entered the passage.
Gabriel inhaled deeply as if he had held his breath for a long time, took Selene in his arms and walked down the stone steps of the passage.
He arrived in a storeroom with a low ceiling.
Selene motioned to Gabriel to let her down.
“Let’s hope it’s open,” he pointed to a door.
“How did you know about the candlestick?” asked the boy.
“In the tower with the stairs leading to the library there are no torches on the walls and the candelabra gave me the impression of the wrong object in the wrong place, also because I was suspicious to see it near a window that allows so much light to come in.”
A loud crash shook the youngsters.
“What do you think is happening?” he questioned the girl after a few moments.
“Let’s find out.”
The two approached the door at the back of the room, Gabriel opened it with great force, and then crossed it with Selene.
They were on the walls of the fortress.
On their left, the spearmen tried to impede the entry of the bandits. Some soldiers were trudging their swords like flags, trying to slow down the enemy in numerical superiority. The allied wizards exploited the poor magical knowledge of the adversaries to evoke powerful and elaborate ruins.
“Here’s what that deafening crash was,” Selene said, pointing to a cloud of debris and dust over the remains of one of the four towers now destroyed by the flames. Just at that moment, Gabriel noticed a bandit behind the remains of the destroyed tower, who eyed them and moved his right hand.
“Selene, we must run to the other tower!” the boy shouted while he grabbed the girl’s hand and tugged her. He sprinted, with his friend in tow.
The magician who had seen them blew a quick, burning globe toward the walls.
Another portion of the wall exploded in a myriad of fragments of black stone behind the youngsters.
A second and a third blow was aimed at them, but luck turned its back on them only at the fourth spell.
This time the globe of fire went to destroy the stone beneath Selene’s feet, and she slid past the parapet of the walls.
Gabriel squeezed her hand harder and tried to hold her steady as best he could, but she fell to the ground with her arms protruding into emptiness.
He tried to pull Selene back to him, but he felt his strength begin to yield. He was about to follow his friend off the walls.
He put force on his legs to slow the sliding, then looked straight ahead: the magician was shaping another sphere of destruction.
“We won’t be able to avoid the sphere of fire in this way ...,” he thought. “We might as well drop to the ground and hope to make it ...”
Gabriel closed his eyes and loosened his grip when he saw one of the allied soldiers stab the enemy magician in the chest.
The globe of fire dissolved into a reddish smoke and Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief.
A strong twinge caught him in his right arm, reminding him that his friend was still dangling over the dark parapet, now almost without force.
“I cannot hold on anymore!” she shouted.
“Don’t worry, I’m pulling you up now!” he lied to reassure her.
He started to slide towards the void, when he felt someone grab his ankles and hold him still.
“Let Selene drop on the roof of the buildings beneath you, she won’t get hurt!” a familiar voice shouted.
Gabriel didn’t let him repeat it twice: he could trust that voice.
He let Selene go and, shouting, told her to run to their apartment and wait for him there; then, the hands gripping his ankles pulled him close.
Viktor’s forehead was sweaty and his arms were busy helping his brother.
Gabriel hugged him for a long time.
“But what ...” he muttered.
“We’ll talk later, we need to get out of here!” Viktor suggested, pointing to a turret not far from them.
They reached it, but a handful of bandits had managed to ambush them.
“What are we going to do?” Gabriel asked as the enemies clustered around them.
“I don’t know,” Viktor said, bringing his right hand to Siride’s hilt.
******
Descending behind the building she had fallen over, Selene collapsed with her back to the wall, rubbing her left ankle.
She made a spell to relieve the pain and got up, albeit limping.
She slipped quietly close to the buildings on the sides of the fortress, praying to arrive to her quarters as soon as possible, but a few steps from the door she saw two large men pointing and running towards her.
She increased her pace to the limit given her by her aching ankle, then catapulted herself to the door and tried to turn the key.
“It’s stuck!”
She tried again a couple of times hoping to hear the latch gears snap, but there was nothing to be done.
“I lost too much time, I must hide: they will be here soon!”
She entered Gabriel’s bedroom and closed the door behind her, then she heard someone enter the house.
If they found her there would be nothing more to do. “I dare not imagine what they will do to me ...”
“Hey, baby, come out and play!” one of the two shouted from the hall, trying to muffle his friend’s perverse laughter.
The girl looked around several times trying to find an escape; at that moment the door swung open.
The two wielded large, two-handed axes with their big muscular arms. They looked around and, finding no one, their hilarity waned. They remained motionless.
Selene had managed to hide under the bed against the wall and interpreted that sudden silence like a deafening wail of anguish.
Forcing herself not to move, she felt every single drop of sweat running down her face and tried to resist the burning in her eyes as they made their way between her lashes.
As one of the two men approached in slow steps, the girl’s heart was pounding. She believed that at that moment the two men would have discovered her hearing the sound of her heart.
When the threat came to the side of the bed, Selene sighed with relief when she saw the bandit turn to the closet and open it suddenly.
She knew that the next place he was going to check would surely be hers and an expression of surrender was painted on her dismal face.
When the bandit turned to the bed, the girl tried to withdraw her left leg inward, but felt something sting her thigh.
She bit her lower lip in annoyance, then lowered her head. Gabriel must have mistakenly dropped an arrow from his bow.
The girl stretched out her arm to grasp it with her hand and hide it in her boot: that arrow would be her only chance to try to overwhelm the two beasts.
When the assailant’s snout stood in front of Selene’s face, she began to scream and kick, the man didn’t lose heart and grabbed her arm with a squat hand, pulling her on the floor and thrusting her toward his friend, who laughed and lifted her to load her on his shoulder.
Selene waited for the other to stand before her, took courage and at the right moment put her hand into her boot, took out the arrow and planted it in the man’s neck.
He stood still without making any sound, and then fell on it.
She quickly pulled the arrow from the
victim’s neck and hurled herself on the second aggressor who didn’t have time to turn around and realize what was happening.
Selene hit him in his left side.
This time it was not as simple as the first: the man, enraged, hit the girl with the palm of his hand and she fell to the floor a few feet away.
In rage, he violently pulled the arrow from the wound and threw it to the side.
As the attacker approached her, Selene saw the corpse of the dead bandit dissolve.
She looked back to her enemy. She closed her eyes.
Silence.
She waited a few seconds before reopening them: even the second individual was disappearing.
“Magic projections? Simulacra? What does it mean?”
She stood up and picked up the arrow, noticing that there were no traces of blood on the tip, then she let it fall to the floor and decided to go out in search of Gabriel.
******
Viktor clenched his fingers around the handle of his sword.
“If we don’t find a solution, I don’t know how long it will last,” said Gabriel, pulling the knife out of its scabbard and placing himself shoulder to shoulder with his brother. “Where did you get that sword?” he added.
“Worry about how much I know how to use it,” Viktor replied without taking his eyes off the soldiers who held their weapons against him.
Viktor waved Siride, trying to scare his enemies.
“We have to go back to Selene and run into the tower of the Elders, they can help us!”
A few steps away Gabriel saw a pulley system that served as a freight elevator for the room on the top of the tower. One of the bandits broke the circle formation, leaping with his weapon pointed at Viktor, who barely managed to escape making him fall behind him.
Just then Gabriel shouted: “Strike the lantern on the wall and give me your hand!”
Viktor just followed his brother’s advice. He struck the target with a sharp blow.
The noise of broken glass entered their eardrums with the same discomfort as a splinter of wood when it enters your skin.
The lantern fell and a pile of straw under it ignited, radiating the surroundings in red and orange. As the fire slowly moved toward the wooden crates in the corner of the room, Gabriel tugged his brother onto the freight elevator and quickly cut the pulley rope.
Viktor Page 14
