“YOUR MOTHER HAS BEFRIENDED THE BEAST.” Druuk’s words pounded on Luca’s chest as if they were being pummeled by a gruesome, battling hammer. The words made his breaths asthmatic, and he could no longer breathe inside that room.
“I didn’t want to tell you,” continued Druuk. “I didn’t ever want to tell you, but I knew that someday I would have to. I never realized it would be this soon, for I believe you’re still too young to know this truth, but I apologize for lying to you. Regardless of how you feel about me not telling you sooner, I believe I did what was right in withholding the truth about your mother. I knew that the minute I revealed your mother’s fate, you would immediately go searching for her.”
“You were right in believing that,” Luca replied testily.
“So I wanted to wait until you were old enough and until you had learned everything you needed to know, in both the martial way and in discernment. I don’t ask for your forgiveness; I don’t see a reason. As a father, I knew there was no alternative. You’ll understand this one day, Son. I was hesitant to even tell you this now.”
“Why did she go with the beast?” Luca said.
“Ah, that is the question, isn’t it?” Druuk said. “The why has been haunting me since the day you came into this world. I don’t know why, Luca, though I have my suspicions, but that is why you must find her.” Druuk was thrown into another tirade of devastating coughs, and he tried to reach for his cup of water but accidentally knocked it off the night desk and onto the floor.
“All right, you two, there’s been enough talking between princes tonight,” Elba said as she pushed Luca aside and picked the cup up from the floor.
“And what exactly am I to do if I find her?” Luca said, fishing for an answer from his ill-stricken father.
“Help her,” whispered Druuk right as he began to drift off into sleep.
“Luca, let him be for now,” Elba said. “You can get answers in the morning. You, little prince, have had a long day. So many things have been overturned in your life. You need to rest. Please, Luca, we must take you to your chambers.”
“But my mother is alive,” Luca said with an erratic tone to his words, as if his mind was becoming unstable. “He just told me that my mother is alive! My mother—the woman in this picture.” Luca took out the drawing of his mother. “She’s alive!”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about that now, is there?” Elba said. “It’s not like you’re going to go running off into the night to find your mother, eh? I won’t let that happen! Now, take my hand. We’re going to your room, and you will go to bed. You can think about her once you’re in your room, and you can scream ‘my mother is alive’ to your heart’s desire, but now we must let your father sleep. Is that understood, my prince?”
Luca was taken aback by her authoritative manner. “Yes, Elba.”
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s leave your father to his rest. Mastro Vohro will keep guard at your father’s side until morning. Now get behind me.”
Elba approached the door and readied herself to leave. Luca followed.
“Let’s make our way to your chambers,” Elba said, gesturing to him. “Don’t forget your sword.”
“Right, my sword,” Luca said as he doubled back. He took the sword, wrapped it up in the blanket and carried it in his arms. After recovering all of his things, he walked back to Elba.
“I’m going to go ahead of you, Luca,” she said. “Let’s move, and don’t place your thoughts on the sword. Keep them closed. Don’t let anything in.” Elba opened the door and stepped out of the room. Luca followed, but before he closed the door behind him, he took one last good look at his peaceful father resting on his bed. He shut the door and kept close to Elba.
Elba escorted Luca to his room, and before he went inside, she had some final words for him. “Luca, whatever you hear, whatever noises are outside your chambers, do not open this door. I’ll come back for you in the morning. Remember to get yourself ready for your exile before you go to bed. Sertu will arrive tomorrow with your belongings, and we’ll leave right at dawn to go see your father and make our way to the school. Good night, my little prince.”
“Good night, Elba,” Luca said. “Thanks for guarding me on the way to my chambers.”
“It was my duty…but my pleasure as well,” Elba replied kindly. “Now hurry along, lad.” Luca stepped into his room and shut the door behind him, then locked it. Elba called for a guard that was near the stairs. “By the orders of the second prince, stand guard here by his son’s room, and don’t let anyone in. Understood?”
“Yes,” the guard said.
“Remember, keep your eyes where the light of the candle is not. What good is it to only heed those things that are illuminated?”
“Will do,” the guard said. Elba ran to the stairs and down she went, leaving the guard to keep watch by Luca’s room.
Luca’s guest room was small, but spacious enough to fit a modest bed and a large wooden study desk with a chair next to it. The walls were bare, except for a small drawing of the royal family perched up on the far wall. A lit candle atop the desk served as the only light in the room. Luca began to prepare to leave the next morning. He undressed down to his undergarments and set his clothes on the chair next to the desk. He set his mask on the table, and next to it, he laid the sword, which was still covered up in the blanket.
There was a small chest next to the desk where he kept his valuables. He knelt down in front of it, opening the lid. Inside were a number of journals, writing utensils, pictures, and keepsakes. He put them all in a soft travel bag, and then took the bag and walked up to the open window, leaning it up against the wall.
As he looked to the edge of the window, he saw a glimpse of something that looked like rope. He took the candle from the desk and shone the light on the window. He saw a length of rope going down the window and onto the ground outside. Strange…who would do this? He noticed a note next to the rope on the window ledge and reached for it.
Using the candle to light up the words, he read the letter. Just in case you need to take an alternative route. It was signed Vohro. He smiled.
He discarded the note right before plopping himself on the bed, for though a lot of stuff raced through his mind, his body was physically exhausted, and it called for much rest, so he laid back and just stared at the ceiling.
“My mother is alive,” he whispered. “My mother is alive,” he said louder. “My mother is alive!” he said with passion. And he gave a giggle. “You’re right Elba, it’s quite silly.” He closed his eyes and fell into a dream.
He dreamt for hours. The total sum of all his exhaustions had culminated into a great resource for unadulterated and unequivocal sleep. Luca sailed the inner stories of his unconscious, and he played the part of the protagonist in the grand cosmic play which all souls do once they lay their minds to sleep.
Some people know there is a fine line between dreaming and memory, between memory as it could have been and memory as it truly was, and in his dream, Luca was experiencing one of these—but which one, the former or latter?
In his dream, he was a small infant, and he heard the echoes of elegance coming from the loveliest of sirens. He could not see this woman at first, but just heard her. It was a humming that was eternal, like the endless sound of waves brushing up against the diamond shore. He could not remember the beginning or ending of this song; it just was.
And the ethereal sound became more familiar, like the most comforting lullaby known to exist, specifically sung to comfort the world of men, harmonized in the vast trenches of the mind, where only truth existed and was not subjected to the personal whims of the ego. It was a soothing choral of croons, and the voice was that of a woman so exalted, that if one were to remember the dream, woe to them, for they would always feel unsatisfied with any other voice that was not of this woman.
Luca felt himself being held and rocked, as if nurtured into sleep by someone’s undying love. And he felt hair all ov
er him, curly and soft, smelling of wildflowers and the scent of a mist that had collected over a shimmering meadow. In this state he kept himself, listening to the wonderful lullaby, and he found comfort in the arms of the strange woman that kept him secure and safe. But it could not last for long, for he did not belong in a dream. He belonged to a perilous world, a world were dark things were always on the prowl for the ruin of all. And inside his dream, he heard the woman speak, “Wake up, Luca. You must open your eyes.”
Luca awoke, and a terrible chill fell upon him. He quickly sat up and noticed that the candle had extinguished; the only light coming into his room was from the moon. His hands began to tremble, for it was getting abnormally cold inside his chambers. He arched his back, and he felt something, a sensation of a frozen hand clawing down the length of his spine with fingernails made of ice. When his teeth began to chatter, he realized it was time to stand up and grab the thickest blanket he could find lying inside a small located in the wall just opposite the window. He threw it over himself and sat back down on the bed. A moment passed, and he felt the warmth of the blanket.
His stomach turned, and his leg uncontrollably shook up and down. He felt like a stranger in his own space. He went to the window and poked his head outside and saw nothing out of place, though it seemed as if the fog grew stronger and finally managed to cover the whole of the palace, but the fog had been lurking for a couple of days already, so it didn’t seem strange to him. So what was it? What made him feel on edge? He had remembered some of the things his father had taught him of discernment, so he shut his eyes to take in the space inside the room and feel what needed to be felt.
He searched his one sense which was beyond all senses, the world which was beyond all worlds, and he felt another world, a world more expansive than his and one that was lined with an endless suffering. There, he found dark things. But so what? He knew of dark things had been around for days now. Why was this time so different? He tried harder, and he opened his spirit, his mind, to what troubled him. And he felt it, something familiar, something wicked—outside his door.
Out in the hallway, no light breathed about, for the few hanging lanterns that were vibrant just hours earlier had now been put out. The guard had been ambushed; he had been subdued by a foul thing. His head was being pressed into the concrete wall by something abnormal, a powerful hand. But this hand was not the size of an average person’s—it was three times the size, as if someone’s hand had grown in girth and elongated to become hideous. This monstrous hand was attached not to a monstrous arm, but an elegant one, a slender and regal arm. And the arm itself was attached to a lean body, tall and statuesque. The creature had taken all its strength and used it to squish the guard’s head into the wall until all of his life had seeped out of him. It stood still with its ear less than an inch from the door. The nameless creature’s eyes were deep black, and it did not breathe but just listened.
Luca approached his door and waited. He put his ear no less than an inch from the door to listen for anything foul outside his room. Both beings, one dark, the other innocent, had their ears pressed to the door with only mere inches separating them, both discerning, both thinking about their next course of action.
Luca felt the presence. He stepped away from the door, and the creature, sensing Luca’s awareness, raised its free hand to the door handle and grabbed it. It turned the handle and found that it was locked. The door handle turned and turned, making a creaking sound. The noise shuddered in the silence of the boy’s room.
“Who’s there?” Luca called, but no one answered. “Who’s there, I said?!”
He heard nothing for a moment, but then began to hear a noise like a man struggling to breathe, as if he was wounded. The man’s voice got louder and began to sound like moans. “Help,” he heard, first as whispers, but then much louder seconds later. The man’s moaning escalated as the handle of the door kept shaking. “Please help me,” the man begged.
“Who are you!” Luca said fearfully as he stepped back some more and bumped into his desk, knocking down his unlit candle, which startled him.
“Open the door, please!” the man begged with a gruesome moan. “Please, now, please. Won’t you help me! I’m the guard outside your door. I’ve been ambushed. I need you to open the door.” The man’s voice changed into something more hideous, “Now, boy!”
Immediately, Luca heard moans, but not just that of the one man, but several outside his door, as if there was an army of moaning souls outside his room. They tapped on the door fiercely, as if all of them were trying to get in. The moans intensified into screams, and the door began to shake off the hinges. Whatever it was outside was beginning to lose patience with Luca.
Luca was paralyzed at first but quickly regained his wits, and as if he was in automatic mode, he began to prepare himself to escape. He put on his clothes like a soldier would if he had only a few seconds to get dressed. Next, he put all his things that were important to him in his traveler’s bag . He put on his mask and cloak. Lastly, he reached for the sword and secured it onto his back. The forces outside his room continued to bang on the door, and Luca trembled with a nervous chill, making it difficult for him to grasp onto certain things.
And the banging stopped, and silence was left to linger in the aftermath of the terror. Luca stood still in the stream of moonlight peeking inside his room, and he listened. What did he hear? It was a voice, and he heard clearly what it said.
“Nephew?”
***