The people in the village respected him and even if they lived under very poor conditions, so they knew it not as such. They found all the things they needed in this gorge and the rest of this world would just confuse them. But was this a reason to keep them out and to deprive them of what the world could really be? It was not clear to me why someone would voluntarily live in such a place.
“This is the Drorumte, our field of dreams. Here we see the world more clearly than a Webuti,” he said and asked us to sit down on the few blankets, which were lying on the floor in front of us.
Everything in this village was only sparsely illuminated by torches and not a single ray of sunlight touched the ground under our feet. In the deep black of the remote dark, which we observed from this square, we could see nothing and so we accepted the judgment of Mel and did not contradict him.
They called us aliens, Webuti, and they seemed to hate what we were. Nevertheless they took us in and trusted us, as long as our words were the truth.
“This field is formed by the force of the Gesoe, the spirits of the ancestors. Here I communicate with the dead, who cover our people like a black rain. Their blood nourishes the soil in the shade and through their corruption the Skediere, the monster of the shadows are born. Their claws are sharper than the mind of any human being. Their legs may take the speed of light and their eyes displace the darkness like the sun the deep night.
We live here since the war shattered the world. Only a few Webuti have found us so far and even fewer have left us. The truth is everything in this place, because the lies are like the shadow itself. We know no mercy, no court and no forgiveness. My verdict is our judgment, my word is our word and my desire is the will of the shadows. Everything you see out there is produced by my power and by my power alone it will exist. The darkness does not allow even the sun itself to touch this place and like a king I protect my people.
Your friend is one of the Uiti, the outcast. They fall down through the shadows and in the shadow they rise again and their body becomes a prison for their minds. It is a torment, a shame, and an end that no one deserves. Why have you brought your friend here? I will see it and you will also see it,” he said and held both hands in front of his body.
He squeezed them together with all his strength and began to hum louder and louder, while the flames of the torches intensified and the shadow lifted, as his hands slowly separated. Now we could see the thousands of corpses, wandering as if they were still alive. None of them had a consciousness, because they knew no direction, no meaning and no existence. Out there in the dark we would find the man who I had once admired more than any other person.
It was an ineffable feeling that I felt when I realized what I had done to him. He was caught in an endless suffering, even more agonizing than his own death.
I felt a debt that never again could be taken from me and it was this moment that made me understand that there was more to be corrected between Lucia and me than a simple apology could ever compensate for.
Chapter 39: The People of Shadows
Mel made us understand very quickly that this was a different world. There were no fixed laws, except the one. Never leave the village. One that we were not able to abide by and so we asked him to make an exception and allow us to search for Jasper.
As was to be expected, Mel rejected our request and gave us nothing more than the hope that he would find another way to search for Jasper. For him it was easy to move through the shadows and his eye saw everything that was hidden within them. He had created this darkness in order to protect his people, but he could not tell us from what.
“We should just go. A place like this offers us no security. Have you seen the eyes of the people? They don’t want us here,” said Isaac, but his injuries were still too severe to safely return home.
Jasper was also our only hope and therefore we had no other choice than to trust Mel, who in turn didn’t trust us at all. As he doubted our intentions, he observed each of our actions and we were given a tent near his own in which we slept on the ground.
These were miserable conditions in this part of the world, but I feared that the whole world might soon become such a place. With the idea of convincing Mel, I therefore once again entered his tent at night and faced his judgment. It was hard to make out whether it was day or night, but we soon accommodated ourselves to the habits of the people who lived here.
Mel sat in his chair and looked on a map of the world, as I have never before seen it. It showed a single large continent on which some parts of our world could be clearly recognized, but others seemed to be lost.
“An old time. And in your eyes I can see the darkness that ended it. Your blood is poisoned and the demon that you carry within you will eventually destroy you.
Nothing is hidden from my eyes and yet the people try to hide everything from me,” he said with a sigh and slowly I realized that he really knew more than I was able to fathom.
“Where is our friend? If you already know all this, then you could just tell me. We need him in order to protect this world.”
He rubbed his hands together and looked at the fire in the coal pan in the middle of the tent. His gaze was marred by sorrow and too much knowledge.
“Of course I can tell you where your friend is. But I see no future for you. Your end has already begun. Why do you want to sacrifice yourself for things you do not even believe in? You think that you can stop this man; this man, who proclaimed himself as the prince of the ancient dragon lands. I know him and his intentions and I know that nobody ever stood against him and survived.”
His knowledge of this world fascinated me, since he knew more and saw more than many who had travelled and yet he lived far away from everything and hid in a tent.
“You carry naught but fear in your heart, but my fear that I once knew has become a conviction for which I am ready to die. Many people have had to suffer because of my faults, even more will if I do not stop this prince and yet you tell me to just run away? How could a person to something like that? This journey has only one direction and even if you can see my death, I can see hope.”
He was surprised that I opposed his judgment and for the first time it seemed as if he was on my side.
“Your friend is caught in this gorge. An old curse rests on all souls that inhibit this land. Only my shadow provides protection and everything behind it is spoiled and dead. To release him, it needs more than just conviction - it needs a sacrifice. Are you ready to forfeit your own life for that of your friend? Nobody can enter the land behind the shadows alive and then leave; nobody except me.
But it is not possible for me to free him, not without your help. His spirit is now trapped in the body of a dead man and he will not be able to die until he leaves this body. I see courageous intention in the deeds of your friend and perhaps an equally courageous intent from your side.
If I transfer his spirit into your body, then he can leave the gorge, but your own mind cannot survive this process. It is an exchange and your only option. I will allow you to try it and when you are ready, to make such a sacrifice, then you will have my trust,” he told me and furled the map.
Now Isaac walked into the tent as he had followed me and heard what Mel had said to me and of course he was convinced that it was his fate to act as the spirits replacement.
“Let me go. There are already two people dwelling in my body and one more will not be the end of me. Jacob is too important for this task, because without him, my father is hardly in a position to leave this place.”
His plan, if you could call it that, was born from the intention to die before we could heal his father, but I wanted to prevent it at any cost.
“If the spirit changes over to the other body, is there ever a moment in which both exist at the same time? If so, could we exchange the spirits only for a limited time and save my own?” I asked and again proposed something for that Lucia would have hated me.
“Probably, but only very few have witnessed this process
and from my own experience I can assure you that the stronger spirit will prevail. If your friend is not willing to go, then you will die in his place,” said Mel and asked Isaac to enter the tent as he was still waiting at the entrance.
“I will do it. If someone should risk the possibility of death then it’s me, because I am responsible for the things that have happened. Maybe I can still save Lucia's father, even if I must sacrifice my own spirit,” I replied and Mel began to gear up for the ritual.
Isaac was still in serious pain and the weak mental condition of Magnus would have probably led to his death and not that of Isaac or Jasper. Isaac realized this and he knew that we could not lose Magnus. So he agreed full of regret to wait while Mel and I began the search for Jasper.
It was strange to think about the fact that after all the mistakes and all the weeks there was still hope to save Lucia's father. This for me was a hope, in which I happily lost myself in.
I wondered what story was concealed behind the face of Mel, for both his skills as well as his knowledge exceeded everything that I previously had believed possible.
“Who are you? Why can you do all these things?” I asked him when we left the tent and he looked at me and just reached out his hand.
When I grabbed it, it only took a short moment and everything around us had changed. We had reached a place whose air was heavily poisoned and I could feel its lingering presence on my lungs and its perversion was only increased by the thousands of corpses that were stacked on top of each other.
“Whether king or farmer, in the end we are no more than these beings. We are thrown away, forgotten and we pass. The curse of this earth infected the air and it changes all life. This is neither magic nor divine power it is the result of experiments. Research that has been conducted since many centuries ago and in this place they failed for the first time. They called it a success and believed that the riddle of eternal life had been decrypted, but at the end they only had extended the death.
You have asked me who I am, but you know the answer to this question already. My life is long, because I was a part of these experiments. As you could see on the old map, much has changed since the day on which the world fragmented, but for me this fragmented world split up once again when my people changed. I have killed many of them and some are still walking through the gorge, trapped in their bodies.
The prince is not the only one; there were many thousand like him, but today only a few remain. Do you believe that this threat is new or that our world is only now threatened? The truth is that this conflict began when the world was born and it will not end until the world can die with it.
Unfortunately I can’t tell you more, because I am not able to. This is no longer my world, no longer my problem; it is now the world of the prince. Every crown belongs to him, every coin and every sword and if you think that you can stand against him, then I will tell you that you are mistaken.
Find your friend, save his spirit and then leave this land just like you entered it - through the shadows,” said Mel and sat down on the contaminated soils.
Only barely could I breathe under these conditions and it took a while until I could at least bear the smell around me so much as to not instantly vomit. All of these corpses wandered around us or lay before me cut into pieces and they moved their arms in an unnatural living but dead way. None of them attacked me or even truly perceived me; they just seemed lost, sad and full of fear.
To find Jasper amongst all these people was crueller than anything that had ever happened to me and yet I felt as if I deserved it. This world was cruel and even if Mel was right when he said that this condition was new for me, so it had always been this way. Nothing of what was happening here was of interest to the people who lived only a few thousand meters away, because it was not their world. They discarded these people, whether criminals or slaves, like they were waste that the society no longer needed. Here they finally died, and became a husk for their own spirit, forever trapped in endless tortures.
At the sight of this place I rejected the question why Mel kept his people down here, because I had now found the answer. His life, howsoever long it has been, was full of knowledge such as this and he knew this world better than I ever would.
And finally I saw him. Among all these bodies was Jasper and he tried desperately to free himself. I did not take long to reach him and Mel immediately began with his ritual. A dark veil rested on Jasper and as he was swallowed up almost completely by it, it disappeared again and now covered me.
It was a strange feeling, almost as if new life awoke in me and although I felt full of energy and joy in the first moments, so it quickly led to fatigue and sadness. None of my feelings were mine and soon I forgot how to speak, to move my hands, my feet, yes my whole body. There was nothing there anymore, no idea, no image, not even a noise. I disappeared in a fog of emptiness in which nothing existed except a voice that slowly approached me and became louder and louder. It echoed through the infinity to the centre, in which I waded and it orbited me until I lost my orientation and stopped looking around.
I felt the empty no longer only around me, but also deep in me, as if everything that I was ended. This had to be the moment of that Mel had spoken and still I was not able to communicate with Jasper. The time that I had now left, was overshadowed by helplessness and fear, because no matter what I tried to do, I was not in a position to truly execute it.
I had been warned that this ritual could become too difficult to control and yet it was as if I already controlled it, even if it was not really true. Jasper’s spirit was perhaps stronger than mine, but as long as I still existed, there was a chance. My hope kept me alive and I started to move again even though there was nothing in front of me or behind me.
I simply ran straight into the empty and was looking for that which wasn’t there, but it had to be. Jasper had planned this moment, I was sure, because so much of what had already happened on this trip was done by his intention. The treasure he hid, the key and our encounter with the prince, everything was planned by him and everything started to form a connection now.
“Is this my end? Now that I have done everything that you have requested of me? Why should it be? Why can’t it all return to how it once was?” I screamed into the empty and Jasper appeared.
“No, nothing can ever return. The time knows only one direction and no one can change this. I am pleased that we meet once again, Jacob. I remember the time when you were only a small baby. Your father was so proud of you and today I am as well.
You have overcome challenges beyond what you could ever expect of your children and even if you have separated, your objectives are still the same. Do you trust me?” he asked and started to slowly approach me.
“Yes,” I said and he reached out with his hand.
He was wearing a dark blue robe and a bright scarf. He seemed peculiar just like the world in which we were. I grabbed his hand and the world shrunk up in mere seconds just to be pulled apart a moment later. Now we are once again in Amnia, my hometown.
Chapter 40: The Key to the Truth
“Why this place again and again? What is it that I do not understand?” I asked Jasper, but he only smiled and went in the direction of the city centre.
I followed him and soon noticed that no one could see us here, because neither they nor we really existed. All these were just ideas that Jasper and I shared.
“This place is my favourite. I have always wished to have a family, a house and a simple job. But the world works in a much more complex way and one can’t understand this simple fact until it is much too late. A disease that I could not control took the woman that I loved and moreover it not only took my own life but it also took my courage and hope. You know my daughter and you love her, just as I always did. But for me this place had become a nightmare, a horror that I could no longer be in, while this miserable grimace looked at me from above and froze the blood in my veins.
It is like you always hear people say and still you tr
y to stick to the idea that it’s not. The reality exists and no dream of this world allows you to void it,” he said and with a wave of his hand the beautiful old Amnia transformed into a place of destruction and death.
Buildings burned, people shouting and everything he and I loved disappeared in the relentless wrath of the fire. He looked down to the floor and I saw the tears in his eyes, but I myself could not feel the same in this moment. It was too much for me, all of this again.
“Make it stop. Let us get away from here and finally tell me why you sent us on this journey,” I asked him and with another wave we found ourselves in a desert.
“You're right. This world is caught in an on-going conflict and the hatred which drives it apart connects it in a diabolical way. The prince, as he refers to himself, is the commander-in-chief of an army, which is greater than everything you could imagine.
Ultimus Thesaurus: The last Treasure (Era of Change Book 1) Page 21