by Winfred Wong
With a rare broad smile, “I’m sorry for not making myself clear earlier,” Dulais apologized. “I’m from a resistance group consisted of people who’re willing to stand up against the tyrant of Austhun, Iain, who is just a puppet of Morax, a sinful man from the Eastland.”
Held up for a moment, “Well, that sounds great, but, still, I have totally no idea about it. What makes you think he is a tyrant?” Chavdar asked, fathoming out the logic behind what he had just heard.
“That man, Iain, is a murderer who offers everything he has to the demon living in the Eastland for their support. Not only that, he also betrayed his best companion, Ustron, the former King of Austhun, and killed him with his own hand in order to usurp the throne. He is such a despicable man that he doesn’t deserve the throne,” Dulais explained.
“He might not be a good king, but how’s that related to me?” Chavdar said. “I mean I’m just nobody. Why would you waste your time talking to me if you’re planning on toppling the king? You should be out there somewhere, fighting soldiers or trying to assassinate him, aren’t you?”
“It’s because you’re related to this staff, my friend,” Dulais said, calmly, as he went to take out the staff under his bed and showed him the words carved on it. “Still remember the color of light ray that struck at you?”
“Purple,” Chavdar answered slowly with a baffled look.
“This staff is said to be one of the things that hold the keys to our visioning, and you, my friend, is somehow connected to it. Maybe that’s why you feel like there is something you wouldn’t want to miss.”
Chavdar stretched out his hand and held the staff in his hand for the first time. “It’s lighter than I thought. So, what kind of things can this staff do except emitting light?”
A feeling of insecurity expanded in his heart suddenly when he saw the staff was in Chavdar’s hand. “I don’t know, but I guess we’ll find out one day.” Dulais got the staff back quickly, returned it to where it was and took out a short sharp dagger from under his cloak. “You know what? We should talk about this on another day. Because for now, I would like to show you something.”
Chavdar leered at the staff. “Sure, what are you going to show me?”
With a smile on his bearded face, Dulais tossed the dagger up, visioned in his mind, conjuring up ten non-physical daggers in a blink of an eye, just like when he was fleeing to The Flipside.
“Amazing,” Chavdar praised. “How did you? I mean what happened?”
“I visioned,” Dulais said, as he noticed that the staff was giving out light that can only light up the bottom of the bed.
“Are these all real?” Chavdar questioned, regarding at the flowing daggers. “You can create things out of nothing?”
“No, they aren't all real, only the real one is real,” Dulais answered, shaking his head. “And I can’t create things. None of us can create things out of nothing. All I had done was moving the water particles in my mind. But moving enough amount of water particles required to create nine tangible water daggers at the same time is just beyond my depth, not to mention the preciseness needed. The rest of them are just reflections of the real one. But, of course, I can create at most two tangible daggers if I wish.”
“You can move water, in the air?” Chavdar wondered and reached out his hand to try to catch a dagger. “Do you think I can do what you can do?”
“Half correct,” said Dulais, regarding at him. “I didn’t move anything. My vision did. And you can’t do what I can do just like I can’t interchange my senses. We’re all only capable of doing one kind of vision.”
“I don’t see the difference between you and your vision,” Chavdar said with a bewildered look.
“It’s different, but I don’t think I have to explain it to you now because sooner or later you’ll see the difference yourself,” Dulais said, rubbing his forehead slowly. “But I need to tell you something, listen carefully, if you are going to use your visioning again in the future, you should bear in mind that sometimes it can be deceiving.”
Chavdar turned his head from side to side and shrugged.
“The imaginations in your mind do not necessarily reflect what you wish for deep down in your heart. It can go out of your control if you allow your emotion to take charge of your expanding vision, and you mustn’t mix up reality and your own imagination, or else you’ll lose yourself in your mind,” Dulais warned him seriously.
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Chavdar assured him when someone knocked on the door, disrupting their conversation and Dulais’s visioning.
“I’ll see who it is,” Chavdar said and headed for the door shortly after the light from the sapphire went off gradually, and the reflections vanished after the only real dagger dropped on the ground.
He opened the door, and there was a hunchbacked old man standing before him.
“Oh, good morning, Chavdar, I didn’t expect you would be here,” Desman greeted and gave Chavdar a friendly hug.
“Good morning,” Chavdar replied. “What brings you out here so early?”
“Would you mind if I come inside?” Desman asked.
“Sure, come on in,” Chavdar agreed, showing him the way in.
“Mr. Dulais, I am glad to see you here,” Desman said, as he gave him a hug.
“Glad to see you too.”
“I have some good news for you,” Desman said. “A horse-drawn wagon heading to Valais came to the village this morning, and the owner is willing to give you a ride if you could pay him a reasonable price.”
“Sounds like a plan!” Dulais said. “But how many coins are we talking about?”
“This many,” Desman said, putting up two fingers as a gesture.
“That’s truly reasonable,” Dulais said. “At what time will he leave?”
“As far as I know, he will leave as soon as the sun reaches the highest point,” he said. “And I could take you to him now, if you wish.”
Dulais folded up the curtain, looked out from the window and uplifted his head to see the sun, which was almost at its highest, in the morning sky.
“All right,” he said after a short delay for proper assimilation. “In this case, I would like to go with you now.”
“Good, then find me at the hall after you have packed up your belongings,” Desman said with an unusually broad smile on his wrinkled face.
“I am very grateful for your help.” Dulais thanked.
“My pleasure,” Desman said before he left.
“He is a very kind and wise man,” Chavdar said, looking at Desman with respect in his eyes. “When he was still the village head, he single-handedly finished the construction of the wooden fence that kept us safe from the bandits for nearly a decade even though at that time everyone thought that the protection was totally unnecessary.”
“You really look up to him, don’t you?” Dulais guessed.
“Yes and no,” Chavdar sighed. “He was a great leader and everyone in the village respected him as much as I do. But it was all before his granddaughter, Hera, went missing nine years ago.”
“What happened to her?” Dulais shrugged.
“No one knows,” Chavdar said. “All we know is she disappeared from the village on the Austhun Day nine years ago, you know, the National Day, without anyone seeing her leaving or any signs of kidnapping.”
“She went missing on the Austhun Day nine years ago?”
“Yes.” He confirmed and sat down at the table. “We tried to ferret out what have happened and kept searching for her for almost a week after she went missing, but we failed. It seemed like she vanished into the thin air.”
“What about this Hera’s parents?” Dulais asked. “And Warner? Isn’t he Desman’s grandson?”
“Her parents both died in an accident many years ago,” Chavdar said. “And, yeah, Warner is his grandson. Both of them are as stubborn as a mule.”
“Look, I need to tell you something,” Dulais said in a firm tone, staring at Chavdar. “You may find this
very hard to believe, but I think I know what happened to her.”
“For real?” Chavdar asked, gazing at him suspiciously.
Dulais nodded. “King Iain, as I have said, is just a puppet of a depraved man, and he is a veritable tyrant. About ten years ago, before he took power, a barbaric carnage took place in Orilon. Thousands of troops marched into the city and slaughtered everyone in sight under the command of General Iain.”
“Why would he do that!?” Chavdar said.
“People of the Orilon was tired of the unjust oppression from the former ruler, King Ustron. They refused to pay the unaffordable land taxes and assembled at the central park and took over the city on the Austhun Day ten years ago. As the revolt escalated, King Ustron considered it a riot and ordered General Iain to take thousands of men to suppress it. It didn’t take long before the troops dismantled the blockade set up outside the city gate and marched into the city to hunt down everyone that was involved in the riot, and by everyone, I literally mean every single living person in the city.”
“And Hera?” Chavdar wondered when he heard a heavy tread from outside of the closed door. “I don’t see the connection.”
“After the massacre, Ustron discovered that the mayor of Orilon was the man who plotted the insurrection. He feared that people would rise up and overthrow him one day,” Dulais explained. “Therefore he started a camp at Orilon to confine those who had revealed any signs of disobedience to him, though, sarcastically, he was later murdered by his most trusted friend, Iain, during the civil war. But long before the war, he had already given out orders to set up guard stations, which the guards would only listen to the head of the place appointed by the king himself, across the country, claiming that it was for better protection against outlaws, and it was obviously an excuse. The real reason for him to do so was that he wanted the guards to serve as a deterrence against any possible insurrections.”
“So, are you suspecting that Hera is held captive in Orilon because she is a revolutionist?” Chavdar speculated, pondering. “But it is impossible. She has never left the village since she was born.”
“Good guess, but it’s not what I’m implying,” Dulais said. “On the Austhun day nine years ago, Ustron decided to hold the family of the highest-ranking officials of a city, a town or a village hostage in the capital so as to prevent the same thing from happening again. He thought that imprisoning rebels and deploying guards were just not enough after what had happened.”
“Desman was the village head... Do you think she is still alive?” Chavdar asked. “In the capital?”
“Well, I guess we’ll have to find out,” Dulais answered.
“This Ustron. He appointed the head of cities and villages in this country himself and then ordered to capture their loved ones. This is madness,” Chavdar said.
“His obsession with power was like the thick fog of the Flipside.”
Assimilating all the mind-blowing information, for the first time, Chavdar realized how big the world actually was. He felt that this tiny village he grew up in was just too small. He imagined the views beyond the tattered fence, the people living on the other side of the world, the people in Orilon, and the forests that were not as murky as the Flipside, and so on, igniting a feeling of wanting to wander around the world in his soul.
“Need a helping hand in there?” Desman knocked on the door. “It’s about time to go.”
“I think we should get going now,” Dulais whispered with his finger on his lips and moved to the door.
Looking at his back, “What happened to your left ear?” Chavdar suddenly asked. “It looks like it’s made of some kind of metal?”
Smiled at him, “Secret,” Dulais said and opened the door.
CHAPTER FIVE
* * *
As Chavdar and Dulais were conversing in the inn, a young man, wearing a woolen tunic with a belt on his waist and a linen cloak that was a little bit oversized for him, almost drooped from his shoulders, was dawdling along the rocky bank of a shallow streamlet. He had a pair of leather boots, which was as rare as his pair of green eyes in such a rural area, covered with hard wooden patens.
And before him, glossy and shiny, the soothing view of an interminable grassland was appreciated by the nourishing chirping of parrots in the sky. The mellifluous sound of the restless stream softened the whole view, the fishes gliding in the natural flow of water were well-fed, and the rising sun was glaring out of an intense blue sky as the man stopped walking when he saw a big maple tree, with roots stretched above the ground.
The fragrance of greenery and the soreness of muscles left him no choice but to amble to the tree and lounge in the shadow of it. He leaned onto the trunk of it and took a deep relaxing breath as if it could prolong his life.
“Nice song, master mimic.” He praised the singing parrot, detangling his frizzy coffee-colored hair.
The tree leaves on the crown blocked most of the dazzle from the sun and created the perfect place for him to recharge after being waked up by his twin brother early this morning. He lay down on the spongy-like grasses and hummed just like he could understand what the parrot was singing before he drifted off in the music.
Sunset, the sky was rust in color, the echoes of the birds were fading away. The sound of the river was replaced by heavy footsteps from across the river. Roused by the tread, he snapped his head around to find the approaching guest. He stopped looking when he finally set eyes on a man, if he could be called that way.
The uninvited man spotted him at the same time. He hesitated to come over at first, judging by his back-and-forth movement, but he still approached him at last.
“Who is this?” Althalos inquired incredulously, staring at him. “You can’t really be a centaur!”
The eight feet tall stranger had four horse legs and a strong, hazel horse trunk, but instead of a beast head, he had the torso, head and arms of a man. He was carrying a silver quiver attached to a black belt round his waist and a long bow on his back, with the string over his chest. Frizzy brown mane covered extensive part of his whole body, but he did wear a light plate chest-guard for some extra protection. His arm length was incredibly long, long enough to touch the ground without bending down. The dark eyes that were evenly spaced apart lying below his trim eyebrow were uncommon in the north, not to mention the jutting chin of him that was an extension of his square face.
“What would I be, if not?” the centaur replied in a cold tone, with a sonorous sound. “I am looking for a man who is said to be staying in a village near the river by now. Would you please tell me the way to the village?”
“You just found the right person to ask,” Althalos replied lazily, stretching his limbs. “Just follow the parrots to go all the way up. You can’t miss it.”
The centaur looked around, but all he could see were saplings and maple trees, no sign of birds.
“Can you take me there?” the centaur said.
“Hmmmm…” Althalos uttered with a pressed lips, vacillating between helping and sleeping, as he didn’t feel like doing anything.
“Is it that hard to decide?” the centaur urged, pressuring him to make a decision.
“Hmmm…” Althalos agreed when curiosity finally outpowered slothfulness, and then he began to lead the way. “I can take you to the entrance, but I won’t take you to the inn. It’s too far. Now come this way.”
The centaur followed close. “So, who are you looking for?” Althalos said when some sporadic metal clashing sounds lingered in the sky.
“An old friend. I’ve been looking for him for a long, long time.”
“But are you sure your friend is now staying in Ayrith?” Althalos questioned, staring at the centaur. “I don’t remember seeing any new guests these days.”
“Ayrith?” the centaur said, with a pair of wicked eyes.
“It’s the only village you can find in fifty miles,” Althalos said yawningly.
“I see, but don’t worry about that, I am quite sure that he is there
,” the centaur said and noticed that Althalos had been gazing at him oddly. “All I have to do is to find him before he leaves.”
“Hope you find him soon,” Althalos said nonchalantly. “By the way, my name is Althalos.”
“I am Morph,” the centaur said.
“Nice to meet you, Morph,” Althalos said listlessly, as they were moving up on a steep gravel pathway that led to an upland.
Young, straight maple trees grew on the sides of the path. The crunchy sound of hooves striking on the gravel made the trees looked like soldiers marching in a drill, and the parrots hiding in the hollows of the trees were having an eloquent debate on the meaning of life, attracting Althalos’s attention.
“There are something diff…special about you.” Althalos suddenly sniffed, stroking his chin, while listening to the squawks of the parrots.
Feeling weird, Morph reduced speed and gazed at the back of Althalos like an eagle at his prey.
“Um…it’s the smell!” Althalos suddenly realized. “You have an odour that is much stronger than the others of your kind.”
“You have come across with another centaur before?” Morph questioned, catching up his pace guardedly.
“I wish I had.” He solved his question.
“Then how do you know what the others smell like?” Morph said.
“They told me that,” Althalos said, pointing his finger to the parrots. “I don’t know what they mean, but they’re saying that you don’t smell like a centaur.”
“What?” Morph wondered, eyeballs rolling. “You can talk to a bird?”
“No,” he said, staring at Morph restlessly. “They talk to me. It’s more like a one way communication.”
“But how do you understand what they’re saying? They don’t seem to be able to speak any human languages,” Morph questioned, laying his hand on a grip of a sheathed sword attached to his barrel, as he began to doubt the identity of this man.
“Umm…I don’t know,” Althalos replied, slurring his words. “Actually I can’t even tell if the birds are really saying things to me, or it is only fabricated by my own imagination, but I tend to consider it as some kind of a figment that only exists in my mind.”