THE PROLOGUE

“I must go. You cannot stop it this time. Look within yourself when you are in doubt and I will speak to you. The journey is yours from here on. Hope is the code for our fight that never ends. As of this moment, I have taught you all that you need to move on from here,” Master Jorness said as the last parts of his mortal essence dissolved into starlights that shone brightly and absorbed into cosmic consciousness.


Darsom sat with his back against the wall in despair. Master Jorness was the only father he knew. He taught him everything that qualified him for the trials into the Institution of The Light-Order. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks as he replayed in his mind how he failed his master in the last stand against Mogravus. His arrogance was the sword that his master fell upon to end his life ingloriously. His master gave up his own life to save him. He should have died. His own life was worth nothing. He did not stand the slightest chance of challenging Synic Mogravus to another duel. Even now, he failed to understand why Mogravus had not killed him and ended his misery. He sobbed and laid a curse on the day he set out to be a swordsman.


Luciana ran in to the room kicking the door wide open. She ran to him, knelt beside him, with her hands touching his tight fist decorated with a labyrinth of blood veins projected with pain, and wept. She harmonized with his pain like the perfect delivery of a duet. She knew his pain.


“Master is gone Anna, he is gone. I killed him,” Darsom sobbed as he buried himself in her embrace. “My arrogance has finally taken a life,” he said removing himself from her embrace, shoving her away and slowly rose up, his countenance changing from sadness to quiet rage. “They were all right about me. I am an abomination. Master was wrong about me, you are wrong about me. Look at me,” she slowly raised her face as she knelt down “no, just look at me!” he whimpered, speaking more with wind produces from the nostrils than the mouth while avoiding a direct stare, yet this rattled her and caused her to shiver, “I am everything wrong with this path that many have chosen.” He continued to speak with reddish teary eyes. Luciana shivered as his passive rage sent cold waves down her spine.


Luciana came only because in her spirit communion she had a vision of Master Jorness’ passing. As one gifted with visions, she came to comfort Darsom and reassure him that it was not his fault and that he must continue the path of swordsman and champion of light, but Darsom was in no condition to receive this vision. Darkness filled him and the cloud of fear surrounded him. Years of companionship with Darsom taught her when to deliver the visions and when to hold back. Her gift did not allow contamination with darkness. She must learn to withdraw when darkness presented itself in the form of fear, anger and hatred.


His anger collapsed once again to sadness. He placed his forehead and his palms against the wall and sobbed quietly. Master raised him as his own son. It was regrettable that Master died on the altar of his folly and quest for an unrealistic ambition. Weak from much crying, he knelt down. He ran his index finger along his master’s sword The Incarnate with sadness. He took the sword by the hilt and lifted the blade to his forehead. Luciana looked on from a distance about two feet away. She sobbed too. He rested his forehead against the sword and instantly had a vision. The floor he sat on imploded and he fell through, the walls rolled away and Luciana disappeared into a great darkness. A great light surrounded him and the light lifted him to his feet, he was lifted further until he was suspended mid-air. Suspended between the god-world and mortality, stirring images trapped his attention. He saw a man standing with a sword above the helpless but living body of another man he recognized as his archenemy Mogravus.

The strange man had a familiar figure but had his face concealed as his back was turned to him. Mogravus pleaded to be spared of imminent destruction as he offered a deal and a compromise. He detested Mogravus not because of his average skills with a blade but for the exceptional wielding of tact and diplomacy; a cunning man. Mogravus haunted his Master for years with offers to join his ambitions of darkness. He was not great with the sword so he went about recruiting those who showed great promise to fight his battles and fulfill his ambition. Without any prior indication, the strange man who had managed to subdue Mogravus looked back. He looked at the stranger’s face with great intent. It was a face he knew, not a stranger’s face. He saw that face every day when he picked up his sword to polish it. Shocked, he began a rapid descent. He let out a loud gasp as one that surfaced from beneath waters that drowned him. His athletic build and muscle mass crumbled under the weight of the trance. It surprised him that the spirit weighed much more than the body and that the spirit did instruct the body. Every attempt to resist the vision failed. Luciana ran to him as he collapsed to the floor sprawled out like a man beaten without help. Strands of her loose hair fell over him as she bent over him. He slowly opened his eyes. He struggled to keep them open.


"Are you well?" Luciana's voice was faint and he blinked as he tried to reconcile the two images of his friend that his eyes saw. "Did you have a vision?" Her voice gained more substance.


“You were…you were gone, the house, it all went away, I saw myself but I wasn't myself…I… I was bigger and stronger. I was standing over Mogravus in victory. It was overwhelming," he explained with heavy breathing, gulping in air at every break possible. He sat up.


"You did have a vision" she replied with excitement and hugged him. "Finally I'm not a freak alone," she continued. She rolled her teary eyes when she spoke of being a freak. "Now you are part of the circus. Yay!" She finished with arms spread wide as if to welcome him to a surprise party.


"Hey, I just had a freak accident. You are the circus," he replied laughing. He gave her a friendly shove. He for the moment forgot about his very recent loss and the consequent sadness.


They both stood up and dusted themselves. "You are happy now, you will be fine Dars. It all gets better" she spoke up while putting her arm in his and looking into his eye.


“I know I will be fine. That's what everyone says," he said as he quickly avoided her gaze. Fighting darkness was not the only thing he failed at, he failed also at keeping eye contact. "But I will be fine this time because I'm going to quit this path." “I am giving up the sword, the fight and the light." He said while he stared into the void.


“You cannot do that Darsom. What about the vision?” Luciana said, leaping to his front and looking into his eyes. “Does the vision mean nothing to you?"


"Forget it Anna," he said looking straight into her eyes. His fear was gone, so was his anger. His eyes lit up with a different color, if it resembled anything, it was indignation. "I have failed a lot of times. My failure took Master away from me. This path was never mine to journey from the very beginning. Why did I think that I could ever wield a sword for the light? I have enough proof of failure and one sudden hefty vision cannot just wipe them all away. I was deluded but now I truly see who I am. Just an arrogant boy who is out to prove to those who gave up on me." He looked away, took one deep breath and continued- "I don't want to prove anything anymore. I just want to be."


“You do not understand you do not understand that the path and sword called you. You didn’t choose it, it chose you” Luciana fired back, hitting her index finger into his chest as if that would make him change his mind.
He held her wrist, shook it violently and said, “I do not have spirit communications and visions like you do but if the path chose me, I can tell you with all logic and anecdote that it chose wrong. Perhaps the spirits decided to mess with me.”


At the mention of wrong, she flipped. In a split moment, she went from comforting to aggressive. She said with a pitch intended to pierce the ears of a predator- “What? I do not care if you are in a bad mood but I urge you to take those blasphemous words back and swallow them.” Without waiting for a reply, she backed away and left angry.


He looked away from her as she left. His attention shifted to the place where his master’s body had just left to become part of the world around him. He picked up the sword. As he dragged the sword across the floor, the heel of his custom made leather boots hit against the wooden floor in beats and rhythm; one step after the other. He would never raise a sword above his head again. He walked into the chamber of blades and his path with the light was over. Or, was it just the beginning?


© Jegdy