Прохор Озорнин - On the Wings of Hope - Prose

With these words all of a sudden the fisherman knocked the traveler flatwise on the head with a third oar, throwing him overboard.

“…Then he will keep silence like the fish out of modesty!” the fisherman burst out laughing, stretching an oar to the floundering and spitting traveler. “The lesson of patience will follow the lesson of humility. We’ll have to cuckoo here for at least ten hours. It’s indeed a bad fishing spot,” he added.

26.12.2017

Fantasy…

That was the name of the world, where creative souls were being born. One of a kind, it was a pearl in the Universe. World of unimaginable laws of physics, easily coming out of space limits of other worlds, located inside the Sphere, it stood apart since the dawn of creation. Almost no one of its inhabitants, including even the High Mages, knew when exactly is has been formed and what indescribable goal was pursued by its maker – but it was considered a great award to be born there, which only a few have attained. Best representatives of the multitude of Sphere’s worlds with awakened creative Spark inside their unextinguishable souls – first and foremost such ones could set foot on its fertile lands, having clothed in the armor of flesh.

What can be a better forge of creators than a world that is subject to their fantasy and imagination? And here it was capable of bringing out wonders. Future makers must have traveled a long way in other worlds of the Sphere in order to kindle this creative spark – yet even longer journey to acquire a full control of it inside a magnificent Fantasy. And only a few of them did earn the right to be known as Magicians.

***

Exhausted Lor-Quinor stopped and fell down on his knees, greedily incorporating evening air. After two hours of continuous run through hot, wild and dangerous jungles of Rotanor last remnants of his forces have been totally drained – yet he did manage to come off from scouts of the Legion.

Lor-Quinor could call himself a scout, a ranger, or dancing-on-the-edge, or looking-from-afar, but he preferred to consider himself simply as a warrior, who wasn’t deprived of creative heavenly Spark during the time of birth. His past was foggy. His father, an ordinary guardsman, was killed in battle with soldiers of the Legion of Nine Gods during the siege of Rakhligar – an outpost of the Legion in the western lands of Fantasy. He was adopted by his uncle, who disappeared a few years later during the Fiery Revolt. And his mother died while she was giving a birth. Since these times Lor-Quinor became a wanderer, scouting through lands of Illumion from northern borders to southern ones, earning his piece of bread by completing private tasks of governors of Illumion’s principalities, which were known as mentors. And this his latest assignment from the mentor of the southern principality of Sulinor promised to become the most serious trial during his all long-term life, – and, probably, in many decades of Illumion’s life as well.

Breathing heavily, Lor-Quinor stood up on one knee, peering from the Peak of Seven Stars, which served as the highest spot in entire Rotanor’s land, at the opening to his eagle eye horizons in the aspiration to see movement of Legion’s scouts, who have been closely following his steps, but were still unaware of his current location.

This peak had its own history. Legends said that many millennia ago heavenly stars descended here into the land of Fantasy – messengers of other worlds, which have drawn a way from the horizon to the horizon on a boundless lilac firmament. These harbingers symbolized the births of seven Oracles in lands of Fantasy – almost invincible seers-prophets, capable to see the future and operate the time. Six of Oracles have gone to other worlds by now, having ascended to the sky in dazzling white shining, witnesses of which described it in the chronicles, still remained in hands of their descendants, as unimaginable and unknown even to the best magicians of the Academy highest magic of Light. Only one of them was still living in the Fantasy – has become, much like Lor-Quinor, a voluntary wanderer after the costly victory in the battle for Rival. Sometimes, once in several years or even decades he appeared on roads of Illumion in the shape of gray-haired aged man with celestial-blue eyes and glowing in darkness of night long staff – and then suddenly disappeared for years to come, and no one dared to interrupt his journey or to ask of the burdens, lying on him – no one except for Lor-Quinor, who has met him by will of unknown laws of fates in the first year of own wanderings. Lots of sand passed through clocks of Eternity and much water flowed in deep rivers of Fantasy since these times – but where it will be possible to find the Oracle in case of a great danger to the world of Fantasy – this Lor-Quinor remembered well since the moment of their memorable meeting.

Now he was standing, kneeling on the Peak of Seven Stars, and his thoughts wandered far away, outside of what inhabitants of Fantasy that were deprived of the creative Spark, considered as meanings of their simple lives. He thought of eternity, of infinite shapes of the battle between good and evil, of feats and treacheries, of heroes and turncoats, of the meaning of life and death. This internal fire of search, which has existed inside him since childhood and found its coexistence with awakening creative Spark, has always warmed him in minutes of danger, giving new powers to fight with evil – as Lor-Quinor understood it.

After six Oracles left the world, the Legion of Nine Gods was born. That way called themselves the ones, who many centuries before represented the first circle of the Academy of Magicians. Having learned many ways of mastering the reality of Fantasy through creativity, having gained immense political influence in lands of Illumion, they desired more – they desired immortality. Alas, that magic was not in the powers of Fantasy – and, probably, an intimate and great meaning was expressed by that fact. Only the Oracles possessed powers that prevailed over the might of the Circle of Nine, called as the highest magic of Light – only these mysterious messengers of the heaven could, like Angels, resurrect, grant invulnerability in battle and reduce unstoppable speed on eternally running time.

Envy to Oracles and desire to gain immortality pushed these nine High Mages for the greatest of crimes ever seen in the lands of Fantasy. Mages along with their numerous supporters and adherents rose against Oracles, desiring to captivate them and gain their secret knowledge, naively believing in own blindness that it is possible to acquire these possibilities through violence. Filled with a thirst for immortality, they have forgotten of the truth – Oracles saw the future and knew in advance of the treachery, which was about to be born. When envoys of mages came to the valley of Oracles, they found nothing there except for their own grim fates.

The magic of Fantasy inexplicably changed adherents of the Circle together with their mentors, having distorted their forms beyond recognition. Much like monsters from the underworld, deprived of reason, these terrible creatures rushed around the valley in search of their victims until rapid degradation of their minds led to the point when they have rushed at each other, tearing apart with newly given canines and claws flesh of former companions. Magicians of the Circle in their turn became the living, deprived of souls undead, whose only sight was capable to strike fear in hearts of even the bravest of warriors. Together with the remnants of own adherents and adepts, they have left Illumion, traveling to the far south, and having regained strength after many decades became the Legion of Nine Gods, the Legion of the Damned, the Legion of Whispering in the Evil – as they were differently named in various regions of Illumion. Next day six of Oracles ascended to the sky, so only one of them remained inside the Fantasy for only known to him final – or infinite – goals. Only one immortal for the entire world.