Viktor

by Francesco Leo

  Selene was waiting for him.

  “I’ll miss you,” she said.

  “I’ll miss you too, very much.”

  “How much time do you have left?”

  “Vroel has chosen to accompany me beyond the tunnel.”

  “Make sure he’s got his potion ...”

  Viktor smiled. “After the last time, I don’t think he forgot it.”

  She didn’t speak, but held him tight against her.

  “When I come back, I want a skilled white sorceress to be waiting for me,” he said.

  “A white sorceress in love who will not stop waiting for you every day.”

  She looked at him and almost saw her reflection in his eyes, shining and struck by the light of the rising sun, which filtered through the flashes of sky beyond the agglomeration of rock and earth that, softly and almost selfishly, sheltered the Den.

  Vroel made some noise with a slight cough: “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but it’s time to go,” he said when he got their attention.

  “I don’t want you to watch me as I go away,” he told the girl.

  “Why not?”

  “So you’ll know that I’ve never really left, and this will be enough to give you the strength you need every day.”

  She looked at him again and, when she felt a tear wet her half-closed lashes, she kissed him one last time. Then she started walking towards the big door of the Den, stopping to watch him from behind the door that was still ajar.

  Vroel approached Viktor and patted him on the shoulder.

  The chosen one fought to abandon Selene’s sight. “Go,” he whispered to her.

  The girl lowered her head and closed the door slowly.

  The young man took a deep breath before turning around and going to Vroel, who in the meantime had advanced a few steps.

  “You’ll see her again,” he reassured him.

  “Yes,” he answered, more to himself than to his companion.

  So, together, they plunged into the darkness of the galleries they had arrived from.

  The stone slid quickly to the sides.

  They reached the exit from the mountain in a short time and Vroel opened it.

  The orange light of the new day flooded the entrance to the damp tunnels.

  “It will be hard, but promise yourself, more than me, to be strong. Get to the end of this story and put an end to this struggle of minds.”

  Viktor had never felt Vroel so close to him that the memory of the old half-vampire, icy cold and with his mind only on his tasks, seemed far away.

  “Thanks, Vroel,” he said.

  “I only did what I wanted to do and if I succeeded it was also thanks to you. Be strong and reach the desert as soon as possible; go and don’t turn around.

  The boy squeezed the hilt of Siride and smiled.

  He listened to Vroel’s advice and, without looking back, he stepped into the dangerous outside world.

  The atmosphere, created under the trees immersed in the light of dawn, was very different from the last time he had seen it at night, with Selene and Vroel.

  Without the goblins, everything seemed decidedly quieter.

  As he skirted the mountains, he thought of the lost opportunity to talk to Galaeth to inquire about Xemnath’s diary and the various references to him.

  On the other hand, he understood who he was and what the desert hermit, he had first heard of in the writing of his predecessor, did.

  The old secretary of the Organization of the Star, the hermit, had taken refuge in a place far enough away to guarantee protection and tranquillity.

  He had left the Organization for a different life that, after so many years of service, he had deserved.

  Viktor thought that, for having guided Xemnath’s apprenticeship too, the hermit must be over eight hundred years old; he could be nothing but an elf.

  Lost in his thoughts, he almost slipped when the ground began to descend to return to the level of the paths that wound from Beleth.

  When the ground regained its flat course, the boy looked up.

  At the end of the path he saw the Jerrall Pass.

  Watching the peaks of the mountains from so low made Viktor uncomfortable, so he immediately looked away to gaze at the cloudless sky.

  He estimated that, by keeping up a quick pace, it would take no more than three days to get through the woods and hills.

  Once at the entrance to Radaj, he would no longer be alone and with Amir’s help, he would get to his destination.

  Considering the impression she had of him, it wouldn’t be a simple relationship, but he hoped that Amir would be more bound to her task and less to her opinion.

  The low grass of the prairie grew thicker at the beginning of the pass of Jerrall.

  Viktor proceeded along the edge of the pass.

  At dusk, the boy arrived at the entrance of the Shady Wood. Having had no way to stop, he had fasted for the entire trip. Thus, beginning to feel the fatigue of the journey, he paused in a small space between two gnarled elms.

  He ate some dried meat and vegetables that he kept in his bag. Lighting a fire would keep wild animals away, but larger creatures like goblins or, worse yet, orcs of the woods would be attracted. During the night they would surely come out into the open and he couldn’t risk attracting them, so he put the fire out.

  He took a blanket and wrapped it around him to protect himself from the cold.

  “Laina,” he said weakly.

  A small sphere of warm light, as big as the knuckle on his thumb, sprang up from the palm of his hand.

  Viktor moved the tiny light under the blankets, to conceal it from prying eyes and he cradled it into the night.

  ******

  Viktor got up before noon to resume the march.

  He wanted to wake up earlier, but sleep had been slow to reach him that night, postponing his return to the world.

  He walked for a long time in the direction of the Grey Hills, making his way through the tall trees, but something broke the rustling of the wind among the vegetation.

  He stopped behind a bush to scrutinize the situation, when something came near him.

  Fearful, he peered around cautiously, leaning over the hedge.

  Suddenly, he felt himself seized by his ankle. He tried to wriggle, but was pulled out of his hiding place.

  A very big wolf with grey fur dragged him on the grass through stalks of flowers and fallen leaves.

  The young man tried to wriggle free, but the big beast seemed to be tightening his flesh with hot tongs.

  “Expulgo!” he screamed in fear.

  At that word, the animal was thrown against the trunk of a tree.

  When the animal died, a howl followed by other verses made Viktor turn around and he saw a pack of wolves.

  “Too many,” he said bitterly.

  He remained motionless, controlling his breath, and when a leaf floated in front of him he drew new will and whispered, “Seida.”

  A whirlwind ripped a large amount of leaves off the surrounding trees, which together with those on the ground and the flowers, began to vortex around him, wrapping him completely until he disappeared.

  The herd, in the distance, first advanced and then stopped to watch carefully.

  When the wind subsided, the boy had disappeared.

  The pack leader howled with rage and soon they all launched in search of Viktor.

  The boy began running in the direction of the Grey Hills, making his way through the undergrowth where he had ended up.

  He had a hand tightly around the Artemisia pendant to make sure that it was still there.

  At some stage, he thought he saw the shadow of a person following him in the brush.

  He decided to ignore the impression that someone was tailing him and he moved on quickly.

  In the centre, wrapped in the roots of a century old tree covered with vegetation, there was a ruined house.

  The small house only had one room. The rest of the building had been destroyed
or had completely deteriorated over time.

  The boy approached the house, aware of having escaped the dangerous pack of wolves.

  He decided to stay in the ruins of that place to check his position and, resting his sword and sack on what was left of the stony floor, focalized on the map he had bought in Placym.

  According to how far he had gone, he considered that in the evening he would have been beyond the Shady Wood.

  Realizing that it might not be safe to spend the night in such a hostile place, he decided to anticipate his sleep taking advantage of the temporary shelter. So with the usual travel blanket, he prepared a bed to lie down on.

  Above him, the foliage of the big old tree along its side dominated the house with its fallen roof and the young man got lost observing that big green spot and the light show that the sun created playing with the small spots between the leaves.

  The chirping of a goldfinch on a stone wall made Viktor relax even more and soon his song was the only thing that echoed in his mind before falling asleep.

  Dreams about Xemnath that he always had, appeared as fragmentary memories and, among those memories, it seemed to him that he was seeing things he had never seen before.

  A sentence of Xemnath’s diary stood out on the front page.

  .”.. all you need is in this diary ...”

  Viktor immediately remembered that sentence and recalled that Xemnath had stressed on the word “all.” A detail he had noticed but had neglected and almost forgotten over time.

  What Xemnath was referring to, the boy couldn’t imagine.

  Suddenly, he jumped and stared.

  It was now late afternoon and noises of crickets filled the silence of nature in a discontinuous way.

  He got up and looked around

  A sudden intuition revealed to him where he was. He decided to check, and in one corner of the room he found the same stone his predecessor had sit on.

  He was in the old house he had seen in his dreams; the same one in which Xemnath and Lenia had left each other for what seemed to be the last time.

  The thought of walking on the same ground as his predecessor, eight hundred years before, tinged Viktor’s soul with anguish.

  THE REALITY OF DREAMS

  J asmina looked at the stars from the top of a promontory above the Den of the Star, contemplating the moonlight.

  “What brings you up here, Galaeth?”

  The Master was behind her, his scarlet robe moving at the faint contact of the wind. “Darkness thickens on the lands of this world. I need to know what the sky says.”

  Jasmina closed her eyelids. “The stars are trembling, the clouds are seeking support while the elements are wavering. They doubt the chosen one, but hope to be able to trust the deities; they hope their consciences weren’t groping in the dark when the boy was chosen.”

  Jasmina sighed and Galaeth came to her side.

  “If he was chosen …”

  “The Prophetic Star chooses who has the potential to prevent chaos from overwhelming life, not who is destined to do it,” she interrupted him.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “Well, the story has begun and it can’t remain without an ending. If the epilogue is full of peace or destruction, we must wait to find out until the end of the road.

  “The stars could be wrong to doubt the boy…”

  “This is what I hope. I don’t know why heaven is reluctant to believe in him, after all, he is proceeding in a positive way.”

  “Zergh returns stronger and stronger, fed by the evil that flows from the bowels of the world, everywhere. Perhaps the stars don’t doubt Viktor, but they fear the power that darkness could regain when it returns.”

  “We’ll make sure the young man is as ready as possible and then there will really be nothing else left but hope to cling to,” the clairvoyant concluded.

  ******

  The old ruined house was now far from Viktor when he finally reached the edge of the Shady Wood.

  A vast plain surrounded by hills was in front of him.

  Hills piled on top of each other, united in a single, formless shape.

  He began to take a few steps, the hills looked like a painting made by the deities when they made the lands sway at the dawn of time.

  He walked for a long time guided by the faint moonlight, then, beyond the hills, he could see the ancient ruins standing out against the stars.

  The ruins of the old outpost of Torus seemed to dominate, even after millennia, with the same powerful magnificence of the history they represented.

  Viktor wished ardently to cross that threshold to see the scenery of his dreams with his own eyes, the dreams that had haunted him for such a long time.

  He only needed a few seconds to change the direction of his journey to get to the centre of the great stretch, towards the silent hills.

  It was as if his dream was materializing before his eyes.

  He saw Xemnath climbing on top of the hills and following him like a guide.

  He saw the skeleton emerge from the earth to grab Xemnath who pulverized it with a powerful rune of destruction.

  Finally, he saw the great door of Torus split in half and he disappeared into darkness; he, who had become his guide, was opening an entrance to those ancient ruins.

  He got to the threshold of the ruins, took a deep breath and entered.

  Every detail reminded him of his dream.

  When he reached the back of the hall, he stopped.

  Total dimness enveloped the top of the room.

  “Laina,” he murmured.

  A platinum light hit everything and the ruins became a reverberation of the day.

  In a flash of light, Viktor saw Xemnath pull Arald out from the red bundle he had with him and another figure, he had never seen in his dreams, wriggle in dismay.

  A knight in massive black armour saw the glow hit him in the eyes that were hidden behind the bare steel of his helmet.

  Though he didn’t see Zergh, the body that the dark deity had taken control of, he saw him kneeling down in front of the great power of Arald, strong in his black armour.

  The shapes of Zergh and Xemnath disappeared while Viktor heard screams and crashes of a blade against the floor

  The boy perceived that noise and he tried to understand the direction it was coming from.

  Something glinted in the darkness at the foot of the step leading to the marble floor, exactly as he had seen it in his dream of eight hundred years ago.

  Approaching the brilliant object, he recognized it: Arald, the sword of destiny.

  According to legend, the sword would have revealed itself only to those who were ready to fight Zergh, but Viktor wasn’t ready yet and couldn’t believe that the sword was in front of him.

  He tried hard to grasp it, but it disappeared like an illusion.

  In its place he found some boots.

  He slowly looked up and he clearly distinguished him: Xemnath was in front of him.

  “In this place our minds come into the most intimate contact, because it is here that I gave my life for the people of the world. What I showed you in dreams was done to direct you to your destiny, to help you. Now I’m no longer in the world of mortals, as you know, but it is perhaps because of the Line of Blood that I was able to pour my clearest memories into you. Zergh settled here after besieging the fort of Torus and darkness impregnates the place: you shouldn’t be here, we don’t have much time. Finish what I started and all this will end … you can put an end to all this.”

  “Line of Blood? The final solution? Tell me how I can do all this … what’s so relevant in the diary?” he shouted, fearing to lose contact.

  For a moment Xemnath seemed to speak, but a growl interrupted the conversation.

  “Time is up, the servants of darkness know where you are. Flee, flee to the desert!” Xemnath shouted.

  “No! Stay with me, I have to talk to you ... don’ go!”

  “Run! Run!” Xemnath repeated as
his image faded.

  “The servants of darkness know I’m here ...”

  The young man heard a loud snort: the snarl wasn’t a part of the vision of his predecessor.

  He turned and, beyond the throne, distinguished the outlines of two beings with bright, purplish fur.

  He recognized them immediately and swallowed: two huge barglas emerged from the shadow of the millennial throne and Viktor’s light spell faded.

  The boy began to run: attacking them was out of the question.

  “Laina!” he shouted, to keep the shield of light active. He knew it would defend him for a short time, but he thought it was always better than to be killed immediately.

  His strength abandoned him as he ran, in the lonely night.

  He pulled Siride out and launched some balls of fire against his enemies; even if that type of monster feared this element, the intensity of the flames was barely enough to graze their hard, purple fur.

  Distracted by the monsters, he lost sight of the earth below him and started sliding down the hill.

  He rolled down for a long time and when he found himself lying on the ground, he saw his sword stuck in the ground a little further on.

  He quickly dragged himself toward the weapon but, a step away from it, the two pursuing beasts pounced on him.

  In a last gesture of futility and despair, the chosen one closed his eyes.

  THE ESSENCE OF NATURE

  S elene had just finished her lesson with Elaine, when, about to leave, the woman stopped her.

  “For now everything is going very well, I can see your premature interest in white arts. Today, however, you were a bit distracted: is there something wrong? I prefer talking about it right away so that I won’t complicate things with you,” she said bluntly.

  “It’s all right, really. Don’t worry,” replied the girl, smiling.

  “It’s because of him, isn’t it?” Elaine asked again. She understood that she had hit the mark by her silence.

  “He’ll be fine, he’s a clever boy. Unfortunately a chosen one has never had simple love stories.”

  “This doesn’t mean that things have to go wrong,” the girl underlined, turning around and looking at her with shiny eyes.