CHAPTER FIVE
I
In the course of the next few hours, the motley company could have risen, if they so desired, to the station of nobles and lifelong revelers of the Palace and its luxuries.
For once the sentinels up in the turrets had witnessed the succession of wonders – the killing of Velius, Yodren rising from the dead, and finally the landing of the flying giant whose mere appearance had driven most of the Scavengers to a fiery death – the gates which had been standing shut were thrown apart to welcome the saviours of Feerien.
And if the heroes hadn’t been themselves too stunned and woolly-headed by the turn of the events, they might have spat at the King’s hypocritical, belated generosity. But they all felt grateful for their miraculous survival, and were thus inclined to accept the adulation that was showered on them, and on Yonfi in particular.
Because as soon as it sank in that he was the Royen of fables and epics, and that he was consequently able to bring back the dead, he started running from one house to the next, touching the lovingly preserved corpses and lifting the pall of the Shy Death off of them, all the while pursued by more people who wanted to be touched by him and be relieved from illnesses and griefs, men, women and children laughing and sobbing and throwing themselves on the ground to kiss Yonfi’s bare, ticklish feet.
Then the Queen herself came down the Palace stairs to bow before the little boy, whom she proceeded to take by the hand and lead to Fantyr’s bedchamber, a thrilling trip for Yonfi, during which he also discovered that he could restore the wholesomeness of food – meat, eggs and dairy – which until that moment had been lying untouched for lacking the merest trace of nourishment. And when the Prince blinked his eyes and rose from the bed, frowning and confused and pulling at the stitches on his throat while both his parents stood at the door holding each other for the first time in years, Yonfi was made Lord Kobold on the spot, by King Fazen who, with shaking hands, took off and bestowed upon him his own signet ring.
Meanwhile, the marketplace was crawling with people who wished to see – and, if possible, touch – the Seers and the gaunt giant who had descended from the heavens. But by then Yodren had silently advised Gallan and Raddia to hold their silence, while Wixelor, obviously ill at ease in the midst of this sea of midgets, had a rather erratic effect on those who gazed up to his face: for while many kept staring, in thrall of his glaring otherworldliness, some let out piercing screams and ran away. It took the six of them a while to discover the cause of this terror, identical to that which had seized the Scavengers, and it was once more Yonfi who unveiled the mystery to them.
The little Lord had just returned from the Palace to give them word that they were welcome to dine with the royal family and stay as their honoured guests for as long as they wished, and spotting Wixelor he ran to him and threw his hands up to be lifted and placed upon his vertiginous shoulders. It was an endearing moment – he might be Royen the Eternal but he was still a boy – and Wixelor smilingly obliged; but no sooner had he taken hold of Yonfi’s hands than young Lord Kobold squealed and sought cover in his father’s arms. “Papa!” he cried, “It’s that monster I told you about, that wolf with the red eyes!” And while Yern was stroking his back, telling him it was just a dream and that his eyes were playing tricks on him because he was tired, Raddia whispered to him in her mind’s voice that she, too, had just glimpsed the slain body of her Maker Lorn.
For Wixelor was a Dreamer. And looking at him, one might fleetingly see – like a brief vision blurring reality – either a cherished dream or a dreadful nightmare.
Though nothing quite so dreadful as the news he was about to deliver.
In order not to be disturbed, they asked and were granted consent (grudgingly, by old Celes the Head Scribe, who had no choice but to oblige the King’s favourites) to use the spacious if somewhat drafty top floor of the Scriptorium – while another group of Scribes, in worldless wonderment at being in the presence of Royen, the subject of so many a prophecy, carried the flying machine (yet another wonder) to the Scriptorium’s cellar, lest it become the plaything of the teeming children.
And after a modest meal – for the hunger of their curious minds had displaced that of their bellies – they sat in a crescent around Wixelor, who, squatting down to be able to look at them and avoid knocking his head on the chandelier, commenced on the long and bewildering narrative that was to change their lives forever.
The company’s overall feeling as they listened with growing fascination could be likened to that of a mind which, after having spent all its life in a sort of slumber, is suddenly stirred by another, wakeful, attentive and brilliant mind, to be exposed to the astonishing facts of the reality it had never quite known in its lifetime of haziness.
After all, Wixelor came from a world where the wisdom of every other world was stored and interpreted, and during his long years (longer than those of them all put together) he had seen and known a virtual infinity of things – and even that, he said, was but a particle of all the knowledge that coursed through existence.
To begin with, and even though by then they had all seen things that defied the firmness of their previous convictions, it was hard for them to fathom that Creation (a word puzzling by itself, since it implied the existence of one or more Creators) wasn’t limited to Lurien and Feerien, but included countless other realms, strange and faraway and all comprising the offspring of the inconceivable thing that was Norien. Then came the mystification of the Three Gods, and the way they ruled all existence through the Runes – which furthermore, as if things weren’t perplexing enough, had been stolen! Of course Gallan and Raddia had heard of the Ghosts, who, apart from the Feeres’ habit of worship, sounded more or less similar to the Spirits, but to listen to a man from a world as obscure and fantastical as Ienar Lin speak of the Three Runes as actual, tangible stones which held the power to make and unmake the dizzying vastness of the universe left them all gaping at Wixelor, their overtaxed minds bursting with questions.
How could the Runes have been stolen and hidden from the Gods if the were truly all-knowing and all-powerful? Why should the God of Fate and Chance conspire against Its siblings? Didn’t fate and chance already govern life and death? What was this Forgotten Sphere whose existence even Wixelor ignored until now, and how was one to ever find it – find nowhere as an actual place when its very notion meant no place at all?
However, above all other puzzlements and considerations, what Gallan, Raddia, Yern and Yodren couldn’t bring themselves to accept was the fact, confirmed not just by Wixelor’s testimony but also evinced by the black hole in Lurien’s sky as well as by the Shy Death and the dread of the Seventh Moon plaguing Feerien, that unless they acted, and soon, their worlds and every other world would be destroyed. It seemed hardly fair that such an overwhelming – if not impossible – task should fall upon their shoulders; how were they to travel to this Erat Rin, and what were they to do once there? Would they be able to return to their homelands, or would they be forever banished in this so-called nowhere, without ever knowing what happened to their loved ones?
And yet that final question, as soon as they had spoken it, was answered by the truth most obvious to them all: the only ones they truly loved were present.
Lastly, they had to come to terms with the fact – hardest to bear for Yern and Yodren – that Yonfi, being the immortal hero of the same myths that Zaepix’s vision of the imminent future supported, was to play a part, perhaps the most important, in the still-unbelievable mission they had to undertake. And this dismal thought was further aggravated by the fact that, during Wixelor’s entire recounting, Yonfi had been noisily and thouroughly engaged in a game of childish cruelty: namely, the chasing of a moth which he kept stomping with his foot only to revive moments later to chase after again, the same thing over and over, to his undiminished, screeching delight.
“No, I couldn’t possibly – ” Yern muttered. “He’s a child!”
I mean
no disrespect, Yern Kobold, Raddia said, but I believe we have all witnessed that your son is far more than the little boy he seems.
“She’s right, father,” Yodren whispered. “Yonfi is invulnerable; he cannot die – and, by extension, neither can anyone at his side.”
“But what if this – forgotten place at the other end of the world is filled with beastly creatures like the Scavengers, or worse?”
That is indeed a concern, Gallan said, looking at Wixelor. Is there anything we know about Erat Rin’s inhabitants? Do they resemble us? Will we be safe amongst them?
Wixelor sighed, and lowered his eyes at his bony hands, whose long, thin fingers he kept fiddling. “What I do know,” he said, “is that Erat Rin was a piece of the original Norien, though one which broke off and vanished before the Gods could mould it to their liking. That means its people may differ in appearance as much as you from me or from one another – and possibly more. It is also believed that Erat Rin was struck by a catastrophic event similar to the Disaster of Feerien, and that the only thing that kept it from coming apart was the presence of the Runes, and more specifically the Rune of Life. However, it seems that the Forgotten Sphere lies once more in peril, grave peril, and that if this time it is destroyed along with the Runes, so will everything that, in the beginning, was part of Norien.”
“Forgive me,” Yern said, with an expression of unyielding resolve, “but that is not enough. For all we know, this sphere might be home to monsters, or men in such a state of desperation, misery and terror that they are worse than monsters.”
But in his vehemence, Yern had made the mistake of raising his voice. And now here came Yonfi, the padding of his tiny feet making the wooden floor shake more than his slightness warranted, his face aglow with merriment.
“Monsters, Papa? I wanna see monsters! Oh, can we please go see the monsters?” he cried, throwing himself on Yern’s back and nearly making him topple over.
“I see someone’s grown fearless,” Yodren said, smiling at his brother.
“Oh, yes!” Yonfi said, assuming what he thought was a majestic pose. “I’m Lord Kobold now,” he said, proudly holding up the King’s ring, which the Queen had hung on a golden chain around his neck so as not to lose it. “And I’m also Royen the Eternal! So I have to be fearless, and fight monsters till I’ve killed every last one of them!”
“Is that so?” Yodren said with the same teasing smile, and without warning he snatched Yonfi, held him firmly in his lap, and tickled his belly till he started to wriggle and screech. But still he wouldn’t stop, for it was obvious Yonfi didn’t want him to stop. “Does that mean you now sleep without a candle burning at your bedside, eh? And what about that big old scary wolf with the red eyes? You’re not afraid of him anymore?”
Yern looked on this scene of brotherly affection with so intense a heartbreak he actually felt his chest constrict with pain. My boys, he thought, my treasures. They were all that was left of their family, and poor Yonfi didn’t even know it. And to think of them in another world, an alien place fraught with danger... No, he just couldn’t let go of them.
Forgive my intrusion, Raddia said, cutting into his thoughts and making Yern turn to face her. But wouldn’t that be going against Yonfi’s destiny? Shouldn’t he be at least told?
“Told what?” Yonfi suddenly said, startling them both. He still sat in Yodren’s lap, but now his expression was inquisitive and suspicious. “Told what, Papa?” He stood up, frowning at Yern, and when his father didn’t answer, he turned at Raddia. Please tell me, he said. I’m not a baby. I want to know! Is it about the monsters?
Raddia, shaken by the fact that Yonfi had heard her even though she hadn’t been addressing him, fell silent; then, It’s not my place to tell you, she said. Only your father may.
“Papa? Is it about the monsters? ’Cause if it is, you have to – ”
“These aren’t matters a child should be concerned with,” Yern gravely replied.
“Ugh! Why won’t anyone tell me?” Yonfi yelled, and suddenly he went into a fit, let out a penetrating whine, and charged toward the wall, butting his head against it.
It all happened so quickly, no one had the chance to even cry out. And now no one needed to, nor would they be heard over the howling wind that came rushing through the hole in the wall – where Yonfi’s head had crushed two great stone blocks.