[Volume I] The Star Trial: Grief & Acceptance

      Silence; the world fell asleep. A sad, cold rain began to fall outside the window, as if the sky itself had finally decided to weep. Even the drunken voices and the once deafening roar of the cars were silenced.       “Do you really want to hear this? I… You know, I’m not a very good storyteller, especially for other people’s stories,” sounded such a light and languid voice from somewhere nearby, but in this boundless tenderness I felt a subtle hint of tension and some fear. “I can tell a lie; my memory is not infinite… I… I wasn’t there, I couldn’t be with him on his day of the trial.”       “No, you couldn’t,” the thin white hand closed into a hard fist as if it were a box for a soul. “When it comes to him, you never lie. And… Don’t forget, we’re not the only ones here.”       There was a short silence. The local storyteller seemed to be collecting his thoughts, which were literally scattered from him in all directions. His listener noticed some sort of prodigal nervous smile on the guy’s face, as if his body defense mechanism had woken up from severe stress. “I mean, I swore on his own life not to tell anyone else this, so why am I agreeing now… Oh, God, I’m such an idiot, such an idiot, forgive me, forgive me…”       “Okay, maybe you’re right. It’s up to you… He always told me you can’t just throw that kind of knowledge around and involve innocents in all this, but I think he’d trust you, and so would I. Ha, I don’t even know where to start. His stories were always so rambling and spontaneous, like he doesn’t remember anything himself anymore… I need to start small, with a tiny scrap to introduce you to a world beyond our understanding.”

***

      Tell me honestly, when was the last time you read a fairy tale, how many years ago did you touch a real printed book, have you ever been told such a long story? So long ago that you can’t even remember now what year it was then, what the book was, actually, and the plot wasn’t clear to a child’s mind. Now you have grown up, like all of us — crossed the threshold of hard adulthood and were left alone with the world and cruelty, throwing back all fantasies and hopes for the existence of light in the Universe, even a small drop of magic and unfulfilled fairy dreams, and not even a single thought of the possible presence of something fantastic here, among us, among the gray mass into which people have turned for the past centuries. Now that little glimmer of light is buried somewhere deep in the darkness of our souls and our unyielding minds, made so by all the pain we experience every day, lost and derelict children of the Creator with no hope of a new star rising over our heads as soon as possible. By Divine Order, by sacred writing of the destinies of all living beings like us, we were destined to remain in our places, in our cells, and live in this little world isolated from the rest of the world, so that people will never know about the Universe beyond the heavenly dome… But what are the Gods hiding from us there, beyond the horizon? Could it be that there are worlds even larger than the one we live in… No, we cannot know these secrets, all these distant lands are inaccessible to us, we are only humans — a failed experiment of the Creator, which the whole Divine Pantheon decided to hide far, far away from other living beings, so we do not cause unnecessary turmoil in the Universe. Maybe it’s not the Father’s mistake after all, but in us, in our temperament and stupidity? We are just little children living in a golden cage without proper knowledge — that’s why we blame everyone we meet for our own failures. You know what I’ll tell you? You can never blame someone whose story you don’t know in every detail — perhaps there is an explanation for all their actions, or maybe you are the cause of everything that is going on. It’s so human to look at others, forgetting about yourself. What kind of understanding between humanity and other children of Gods can we have if we can’t understand ourselves…       And the tale is written by the hand of its writer, the same Creator who breathed life into the characters of his story, spread across thousands of white pages of an immense book. Writing someone else’s fate can be incredibly difficult, but our Father had his helpers for that as well. At the dawn of the Universe, when Divine energy was in the air and woven in millions of threads, out of these reflections were born the three Swords of the Creator, his blessed sons, who were charged by God’s word to write the destiny for every living being in the Universe, so that we would not sink into the darkness of the abyss. But… What happens when an author makes a mistake? When his ink suddenly splashes muddy all over the page, crossing out the text he has already written? What if God himself suddenly stains your name on the page of the Divine Order, that very destiny that cannot be crossed? Maybe there is a little piece of it, an imperceptible glimpse of that Hope and Power that hides inside our soul, where we have buried all our love… People strive to write their own lives, to be independent and free, but not everyone is given that. If this is the case, the only way to comfort ourselves is to blame it all on the Creator.       And yes, I do want to tell you a fairy tale. A long, tedious one, but one that you yourself would never have read, heard, or seen — just remembered. My mind, my memories, and my words had long ago become intertwined, much erased, forgotten, vanished into infinite oblivion. The events of the last few years have been disgustingly dark and just unbearably hard on all of us, on the whole Universe, but I’ll try to tell you everything I’ve heard and seen myself. I’ve always tried to listen to him carefully, so I’m asking you to do me this little favor. I’m almost a hundred percent sure you’ll understand me and him very well — so frightened and lost… By hiding all this from other people, he just wanted to fulfill his purpose in the world and protect us from the terrible consequences of human stupidity, so don’t judge us — I was involved in this too. I am his last witness.       It has long been a kindly belief that fairy tales, or rather many of their interpretations, are light children’s stories, which must necessarily contain a moral, exceptionally bright, colorful, and teach something to their young readers and their immature minds, so innocent and pure. Filled with magic and magical characters, good princes and princesses, these wonderful books from the first pages of the story capture the spirit of a child, remaining in memory for a long time, if not for life. When children come to their parents, they ask them to read them whole collections of such stories, which excite children’s imagination, and after reading them adults explain who was bad in the end, who was good, why good always conquers evil and why you need to be a generous person. It is easy and accessible to teach the younger generation not to make fatal mistakes, to love one’s neighbor as he always quoted the Bible, and to be respectful of all opinions around him. Sometimes the world can be difficult, cruel, and unpleasant, but as the tales say, good conquers all evil. Absolutely any evil, because that is why it is called good — it is one of the constants of the Universe and our lives. And it can’t be that the line between white and black is faintly blurred, dozens of shades of gray come through — from a slightly stirred by some dirty spots of whiteness, everyone’s favorite good, to a shining dot in the black drop of evil and resentment… Listen: not all fairy tales are required to be such, not every hero, even the brightest and noblest, will pursue the best goals, not every book has a good closed ending, as logical as its entire narrative. There are outstanding heroes with amoral motives, there are charismatic villains, as he himself said, magnificent scoundrels whose infinite charm will stand above any principles of society, and there is simply the same gray mass that tries to break out into the light. The world is filled with different people and perspectives, each person is exceptionally unique and amazing in his or her own way, and you and I will never be able to understand everyone’s motives. Maybe even our life is a fairy tale. A gray fairy tale…       I was distracted again, sorry. See how my hands are shaking? You have to believe me; this isn’t just some silly folk tale… Take it seriously, I beg you. The story I want to tell you is filled with real magic and travel, princes and princesses, good and evil, like a fairy tale we buried deep in the depths of our own feelings, somewhere in the far corner of our cold heart. It is a tale of the Great Beyonds, a tale of magic, a tale of one little gray man who for a long time was all alone, alone against the whole immense world, alone against himself. It will not be something breathtaking, as it was as a child, just the story of a young mage who has never been a luminous hero, never performed feats, never won wars, never saved others. A man wrapped in invisible chains, his own thoughts, voices from outside. He was lost in the worlds of the Universe, in himself, in life, and every time he looked for a way back, he came to a dead end. Can such a melancholy guy be called the prince of your heart? He’s gray, just like… Just like this world, you and I — the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. This magical tale will certainly not teach children mercy and compassion, for it is not intended for our young and innocent generation, which is not yet ready to accept the truths of the Universe. This tale will not show people the triumph of goodness, for it simply does not exist, believe me. And, of course, my tale will bear no moral but a gray one, just like its hero. Well, stop lying. This isn’t a fairy tale — it’s his reality. A dirty, nasty, aggressive reality that he created for himself. With his own hands, with his own strength. And I hope this story will finally teach you and others not to blame anyone for no proper reason, not to trust mere sweet talk, not to spit in the sky and not to repeat other people’s mistakes. His mistakes. After all, I already followed him once… All right, I’ve had enough of all these lofty words. Listen carefully, don’t get distracted.       As I said earlier, you and I live in one small, isolated and completely lonely world, where human civilization was born many thousands of years ago, and which became one of the not very successful experiments of the Creator, who wanted to try to breathe life into a weak and hopeless being, unfit for survival in extreme conditions. The Universe looks like a single infinite web, in which other dimensions of the same kind are tangled, populated already by their peoples — this creates the so-called cluster of worlds, formed around the womb of the Creator — the place of his birth, the place where all life took its Origin. And even if it seems to people that our and your Earth is incredibly complicated, it still cannot be compared to the world where all the truth written in the pages of the Divine Order is hidden. Like an endless shining labyrinth, the threads of the Universe of this dimension diverge in all directions, intersect, break off, get tangled in knots and play their own harmonious melody, like a very real guitar. Not everything in the Universe is perfect, but not everything is lost in the eternal absolute either — that is why we have to keep this fragile balance between pale light and dazzling darkness, flashes in the night and shadows of the sunny day itself, in order not to blacken with ourselves the face of Creator and pages of sacred scripture. But we all know that this is impossible, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much blood we have on us, be it our own or someone else’s, we will never come to a consensus, and even he could not, though he strove exclusively for peace. Father left us all alone with each other long ago, hibernating for a few thousand of our lives, using all his magic to create us all.       And something I completely forgot to tell you, where it all began, where this long and turbulent river comes from. The pages of all the scientific books have long since been lost somewhere in the darkness of the void, but something will always remain the same. For centuries, people have believed in a very strange arrangement of our planet: a disc supported by three elephants, which eventually rests on a giant turtle, carrying the Earth forward through the depths of space, the same dome with which the Gods have sheltered us from the rest of the Universe. Have you ever wondered where this strange model came from? I never wondered either, honestly, until he gave me a hint. When the Creator howled and burst out of his womb, sparks of eight colors, born from his wailing, blazed around him, but only three of them have retained their light to this day. One of them was so sharp and self-sacrificing, so torn toward the heavens, as if a wild beast awakened from its long sleep with glowing verdant eyes — so the Wild Nature of Life was born. This is the same energy that gives us the strength for new achievements, for growth and development, moving forward, existence, finally. And even touching a small tree we can feel a strange kindred warmth, because every child of the Creator is alive and capable of experiencing feelings and emotions, just like you and me. Following the Wild Beast, the wise Violet Dragon, who kept all the secrets and the mind of the Creator himself, like a great Divine archivist who vowed with his life to lead God’s children to enlightenment, also flew out of the cage. From his own words was laid the Distant Way of the Mind, a violet magic that enables us to think, to analyze, and to continue our search for our origins. This path stretches across thousands and thousands of the same worlds and opens doors for us through which we can travel between dimensions of the entire Universe. Finally, a dazzling Cyan Star shone over their heads, as if it were a supernova explosion, and illuminated all the worlds, raised countless constellations to the heavens, and filled the children of the Creator with power and emotion. Out of fear, pain and despair was born the Stellar Energy of Destruction, a cyan magic that fills us with the ability to assess situations sensibly, to save and to preserve our own lives. It is only through the light of the satellites above our heads that we can experience the full range of negative emotions, for without them there would be no fear, which would still cause us not to be eaten alive. You know, many people would like to get rid of all the darkness in themselves and those around them forever, but just think, where would our lives go then… Unfortunately, as he himself had told me, it was impossible to tell exactly when our world began, what path all three magics had taken, how many deaths the Creator had seen in his lifetime. No one knows how his own birth eventually took place either, whether there were other beginnings of worlds and what became the parent for all of them. History is said to be cyclical, and many scholars of this world confirm this hypothesis, as do hundreds of people I know who have believed in the Creator and his sons. Perhaps centuries will pass and Father will return to help us restore our powers and the balance of the Universe that we long ago lost from our seemingly weak hands. He will finally explain who we really are, what we seek in this Universe, and what we were created for — just to please the Divine Pantheon? We are so lost… Ever think about that? That we are alone in this world, that we don’t have any meaning in life, that we are all just part of a huge machine… No, we are not alone, and we are not the only ones looking for our Origins.       The eight sparks gave birth to more and more living beings, completely independent of the Creator himself, who was then engaged in molding the crown of his creation — the Dragons that eventually populated the entire Universe. The magics were so strong and unyielding in their behavior that the Father made an unqualified decision: to sew from the threads of the Universe for each infinite force its protectors capable of curbing its nature and enclosing it in the fetters of order, and this phrase became the first commandment of the entire code of existence of the Universe. And if it were not for these words, if it were not for God’s will to create Patron mages, we would all have rotted away long ago at the bottom of the icy ocean formed after the collapse of the balance. Three powerful kingdoms of extraordinary beings, like true Gods of the Origins, protect this dark world from its fall into the abyss, from the death of all its inhabitants in the darkness and hopelessness. Without our Patrons, from whom we are now so far hidden, the heavy sky would have fallen to earth long ago, and even for the sake of one happy day they must work around the clock so that the whole Universe lives in harmony and no one force begins to suppress the other two. We humans, we live in isolation, we are far from their power — we have only to rely on them blindly and trust that our world will continue to exist as it was ordained in the Divine Order. By swearing by blood, the Patrons made a Sacred vow of devotion to their work, to world peace, to their Creator, and to their energy. Each mage was created in the image and likeness of one of the energy Dragons, those most beloved children of the Creator, so that exactly these crowns and lead keepers to the ideal. That’s why all mages are absolutely different, with unique laws and ways, traditions and morals, but each of them, literally everyone has to follow the same path without leaving it — so the Creator himself said. He wrote his words on the ancient Obelisks lost in the world, giving this knowledge to ordinary, not so vast worlds as this one. Sacred vow… That’s what they call a Divine curse on the Patrons. And he’d… Put it on himself, with his own blood, willing to stand for the balance for the rest of his life, wherever he might be. Even here, among humans.       Of course, as you may have already realized, moving between worlds is extremely difficult, especially for ordinary people like us or not so strong mages. Sometimes, however, the balance is disturbed again, and a new wormhole opens, through which mortals enter this lost and dangerous world and are either killed or taken under the wing of the strongest of the strongest. Unfortunately, the latter is very rare, because the Patrons deny the right of life to such down-to-earth creatures who can’t dream, can’t reach the sky with their bare hands, can’t spread their huge wings and cut the darkness of thorns with them — these are the words they quote from one of the Swords. But even with all the fierce aggression of that world and its inhabitants, he once again encountered a foundling who was there by mere accident, only thanks to another mistake of God and a calamity that had overtaken the Universe years before. Frightened and lost, the poor kid was given a not-so-great fate that wasn’t even his. The Creator did not lay this tragedy in his Divinely ordained story. The child knew nothing of this world, knew nothing of tradition, knew nothing of power, knew nothing. He became the filthy scapegoat of us all, not knowing himself what he must pay for and when the hour of his trial would come. The Star Trial that he waited so obediently before the guillotine, not daring to move one step away from the blade. He was strong, brave, but so sad.       From the very beginning of his disgustingly long and arduous journey, he knew that something was always going wrong. Whether it was Murphy’s Law or the simple bad luck that haunted him everywhere, everything always seemed distorted, wrong, out of place. The physical projection of the world could change its appearance in an instant, day would change to night and the stars would flash red. It was terrifying, and he wanted to scream and run away from it all, but there was no way out, something was holding arms and legs tightly, wrapping itself around the whole body, pulling him deeper into the abyss of the unknown. It tugged deep into the void, luring the mind further with new riddles and worlds, adventures and abilities that whispered so sweetly in his ear to stay close. The world unanimously cried out to him with a plea to help him and unravel his story that had been marred by anger and the bloodshed of war, but why did we want it so badly? Why did we turn to him? Did we see the one? Why him specifically? The question remained open even to the child himself, who grew slowly, breaking with his own body those invisible chains with which the whole world embraced him. But at one moment, when the three Moons converged, you might finally get something really interesting, you might get lucky one day, which was very rarely the case there. And so it happened: he got his hands on a book, a big diary with old yellow pages, some notes, golden corners. It beckoned to him, it beckoned him to discover itself, like the world itself, which had created its writings. From the first pages the text drew him in, the boy plunged into it, carefully reading every word to find answers to all his questions. And as the days went by, the text became less and less, as did the clues, blank pages appeared — and with each passing day he knew that now it was his turn to get on with it. But the longer he wrote and studied, the more he realized that this journal was the biggest mistake of his life. Or was it all one big glitch, and was the wayfarer himself to blame? However, it was this book by an unknown, but genius in his word author that prompted the boy to come face to face with magic, with its Patrons and peculiarities. It was this story that compelled him to turn to the stars of this world. This was the setting of her long tale, which he himself remembered for the rest of his hopefully long life.       At the age of ten-seventeen, a teenager is just beginning to search for himself, discovering the larger world. It is a time of maturation and self-discovery, when the boundaries of consciousness expand at an accelerated rate along with the power of the mind. Children become smarter, more intelligent and nobler, find new friends, make relationships, choose their own path in life. And yet, they are at their weakest right now. Sometimes their mental state worsens, nervous breakdowns become more frequent, and there are fewer and fewer people who can help. They try to look for support in close people, parents and relatives, who also play a huge role in the formation of the teenager’s personality. My point is that during this period, you can’t tear a child away from everyone you know. Do you… Yes, I remember that we are not alone here. You all remember yourselves at this time, I’m sure. Remember those constant problems and lingering apathy, the crying in the night and hands down, the physical and mental trauma… Now just imagine being separated from your family, friends, acquaintances, home and all that you knew and loved, remembered and honored in one miserable moment in your half-sleep. It’s as if you are submerged in a vast, bottomless ocean, which has bound you in its heavy, cold water and pulled you into the darkness itself. You try to scream, to call for help, but your lungs are immediately filled with scalding cold salt water, tearing everything from inside. Your eyes slowly close, you feel that you won’t get out, you won’t be able to reach your parents, who are in tears, looking for their lost child. And the whole world plunges into darkness. You are drowning, you haven’t even learned to swim yet.       You haven’t had time.       Of course, it happens very rarely in the world, for God’s hand has written the best fate for everyone, but there are still many cases, no matter how sad it may sound. And Kenneth, as the Gods had named their new blessed son, was one of them. Believe me, he wasn’t an orphan, a child of a destitute family, or a foundling at home — a very ordinary boy who grew up in good conditions and parental care, who went to school, who had good friends and many relatives. He himself does not remember how it happened: falling asleep in a warm bed at home, he woke up the next morning in a completely unfamiliar place. The mages themselves dubbed this land the Emerald Valley for its vast green meadows, where the sun always shone warmly and the birds sang. But this did not make the teenager happy at all, who found himself all alone in a godforsaken place, not understanding at all what kind of country this is and where he should go now. Always this story of “teleportation” was a mystery to everyone, but the traveler hoped that one day he would discover his true destiny and be able to return home. Even with all the beauty of this place, the guy started out all alone, for it was as if the world had cut him off from his true society. Being quite weak and timid, Kenneth was scared of literally everything, but later he began to get used to the new world. And he went on and on, going farther and farther. He met new creatures, found new things, explored other dimensions in an attempt to find himself on his own. He just wanted to know what happened to his mortal body that was far from home, and how he could get back. Kenneth wanted to shout to the Creator himself and throw many words right in his face, like a gauntlet, to challenge the Gods to a face-to-face duel.       My tale must begin at a moment behind which were nine long years of incessant travels through a wonderful world whose name I shall conceal for the time being, for even Kenneth himself often forgot it. Something has changed in him during this time, but many things have remained the same: our gray hero, as we shall call him, is still the same naive child he was at the beginning of his journey. Over the years, something very unpleasant and heavy was building up in his heart, but Kenneth just didn’t know what to do with that feeling. I wonder what ultimately affected him? Maybe leaving Emerald Valley a few years ago? He ended up settling in another warm place, in the Blazinglands, as the locals had nicknamed it for the endless summers, the scorching sun, and the red-hot orange cliffs on the horizon — as hot as the fire that had burned earlier in Kenneth’s blue eyes. Trying to distract himself from the unpleasant thoughts that grew stronger with each passing day, he studied the cosmos, the constellations, and one of the three energies: cyan. It was, for some reason, the one he was most interested in at that moment. Perhaps it was just Kenneth trying to control himself, his emotions, and his Patron mages whispering in his ear… Yes, he had always been a lover of the sciences, especially chemistry, and magic was perfect for him to study under his homemade microscope, which was his main hobby at the time.       And so it turned out — the beginning of the story is complicated, as is this fairy tale itself without hope for a good ending. How the ending will turn out… you’ll find out later. Just you wait.

***

      For days now, our young adventurer had to get up at the first light of the red sun rising over the blazing horizon. Routine, not his favorite routine, but that’s how all the greatest journeys to the Great Beyonds begin.       A homemade rounded clock in the corner of the room, ticking drearily, showed not the most consoling figures: four twenty-six a.m. local time. It was still dusk outside the window, but somewhere far away a hot glow was shining through, casting a pleasant scarlet light on the sky — red had always been the color of admiration, love, and hope in Kenneth’s perception. He didn’t feel like getting up, but he had to, even after only about two hours' sleep after a hard day’s and night’s work, as was usually the case. Pulling the heavy blanket off himself, the lad sat up dejectedly on the bed, prying his narrow eyes open with constantly drooping heavy eyelids and thick black lashes. In the darkness of the room this frail and terribly sluggish figure seemed even more flawed than in the sunlight, which gave it some special glowing charm. Every day’s work, running, exercising, and training was having little effect — without proper grooming and nutrition, he could not gain weight, so Kenneth remained a frail fellow, relying only on his agility and ingenuity. His long curly reddish hair hung in tangles above his shoulders and occasionally covered his eyes, so he had to put it back in a tight little ponytail. Rising from the bed, easily tossing his disheveled hair back and wiping his eyes, the guy walked slowly into the small bathroom, still equipped with his own hands. He walked to the crookedly made sink, washed his face with cool water, and combed his hair. Now he looked in the mirror as a more or less decent man, ready for routine work, though a little sleep-deprived, as it usually was. Well, decent for someone who had been wandering for more than nine years with his trusty weapon, which he had curbed at a very young age because of the circumstances of his own life. The cloudy light blue eyes even brightened somewhat after washing with cold spring water, and the guy perked up sharply, wiggling his skinny, tanned hands with long fingers that had already been broken a couple of times. There was a murky and incomprehensible smell of a kind of heat in the whole building, which was logical enough for this area — this hot, scalding aroma of heated stone and sand still long permeated the sun-faded orange brick walls, which once upon a time the guy had built with the help of some of his acquaintances, because he wanted to live comfortably. In the summertime it was especially hot here during the day, but disgustingly cold at night, like any other similar desert. If at noon one wanted to run farther away from these desert mountains, by evening one had to pull on all the blankets in the house, which the traveler bought in some small villages. In view of these and other facts, the guy had to gather his thick hair into a short ponytail, tying it in a tight bow with a thin red thread, the same kind of thread that street fortune-tellers usually tell their fate. He did not remember how he had obtained such an expensive silk product, but it had no other use in this way of life, and Kenneth knew nothing about fortune-telling, except to play cards and predict how much money his opponents owed him.       Faintly visible droplets of water and sweat ran down his neat bangs and freckled face, in some places covered with small cuts, and were lost on his tanned skin. The guy scrutinized himself day after day, as if trying to get to know himself again. He began each morning looking at his own reflection, as if he were the hero of some autobiographical book, and now Kenneth needed to describe his appearance. Of course, the young man didn’t want to do that — why waste time analyzing all his flaws?       “Well, good morning, Kane,” he exhaled, winding the curl lightly around his finger. The tip was darker than the rest of his hair, which was probably where he’d set it on fire once. “I’m surprised you keep waking up, boyo. Good to see you, what shall we do?”       His voice sounded a little off, a little too feminine for a lad, blending with the huskiness into a single, confused melody. In fact, his whole appearance screamed that he wasn’t the toughest warrior around. Still, it wasn’t really his — Kenneth had imposed this lifestyle on himself because of all the problems that surrounded him, what a pity. I wonder what he would have grown up to be if not for all the things that had happened in those years, which were now slowly being forgotten in the stream of thought of the Universe… “No time for thinking,” Kane, as he called himself, shook his head and leaned on the sink. “I have a lot of work ahead of me! So, what should I do…” Wishing himself a good day and good luck in his endeavors, the guy walked more cheerfully out of the bathroom and inhaled with his chest full. The sun, meanwhile, had more or less risen over the horizon, the twilight was slowly receding, and the room was noticeably lighter.       He did not want to eat. The somewhat weakened body was already used to the constant starvation, so that a slight desire to eat appeared only in the late evening, but was suppressed only by a couple of small pieces of meat. The traveler was not allowed to waste food anywhere, and the meat of some obscure animals usually went for other things. So, distancing himself from the subject of breakfast, Kane walked over to a large iron stand in another corner of the room, on which, gleaming and gleaming with shades of blue, hung his light breastplate of gray-blue with a silver border on the shoulder pads. It was cracked and chipped a long time ago, but it would not break, even after all these years. The most brilliant of all were the shoulder pads, with a pattern of wings and feathers that was a traditional detail of the armor of the people who made the armor. Kenneth carefully removed everything from the stand and dressed quickly, though he hoped not to get into any dangerous trouble today. Yes, the armor is rather difficult to put on by himself, but it is possible to get the hang of it, which Kane had already managed to do after nine years of training. A long blond sword, which seemed to be able to be held in one or both hands, was fastened to a pinkish-colored leather band across his shoulder on his back, and a frayed camping bag was tied to the waistband that was wrapped tightly around his waist. Black long gloves, similarly tarred tight boots, a pocket compass on one hand, and, as the crown on the cake and the main distinguishing feature of his image, a pale cherry long neck scarf that almost completely covered the lower part of his face. The whole outfit was practically impenetrable, but at the same time quite light and nimble. It was safe to run, jump, and fight in, which was what the young traveler usually did. Kenneth also liked things that covered his face, like capes, cloaks, or scarves, as if it gave him some kind of self-confidence and protection from mud flying right into his nose.       The small paperback book, that favorite journal of Kane’s, was literally always in a bag for two reasons: it had a huge folding map of the terrain and sky, and lots of useful information and notes. Today promised to be an interesting and travel-filled day like so many others. Kane’s life had long ago turned into some kind of book or even fairy tale, filled with magic, but even such a colorful picture of the world could eventually get boring and tiresome. The guy had long ago stopped perceiving everything that happens as something unreal, he simply got used to his fate, albeit with great difficulty. The whole amazing story was happening in real life, right in front of his eyes, and magic was no longer considered a thing of wonder and novelty. Needless to say, Kenneth would never have imagined that one day he would put real armor on himself. “It’s like I’m in some game or book… Oh, the one I read when I was eight; it was about worlds, portals, time travel…”       The world in which our omnipresent young traveler was conducting his research at the time is very far from our human dimension. As you can easily understand, we are not alone in the Universe, and the worlds are not limited to these two, constantly multiplying and separating into thousands of mirror images of each other, sometimes growing from these fragments something unique and inherently delightful. Our minds are the means by which we try to find our true Origin, to find the very song that the Creator sang when weaving together each dimension. The path we walk in search of ourselves is very far and difficult, and only the Violet dragon was able to curb it and go all the way to the end. That’s why violet magic is still called “portal magic” in some translations — the only one that can light the interdimensional doors by which humans and mages can travel between the Universe’s network of worlds. All of them are divided into subgroups, the distance between which determines the complexity of the portal itself. Kenneth was lucky to be in the first subgroup, where you can easily reach a variety of interesting places, so since childhood he carefully studied the structure of portals and tried to build them to find the world of people. Unfortunately, so far his efforts had never been successful, so today was going to be the beginning of something entirely new for Kenneth. You’ll soon see why I told you that.       It had finally dawned by five o’clock in the morning, so that the orange stony ground of the local table mountains, which were called the Blazinglands, was already beginning to shine brightly in the eyes. The slopes still shimmered with warm shades of red, sparse clouds gathered in the sky, and the hot wind barely touched the guy’s hair. Everything seemed so familiar and at home, but Kane was quietly walking very far from home every day, beyond the blazing horizon, toward new adventures. With light steps, Kenneth stepped out into the street and stretched to his small stature, standing on his toes, and then looked around imposingly, assessing the whole situation. His brick house was surrounded by a high fence, a small spring of water somewhere in the grounds nearby, a sort of seedbed on the other side, which the guy had built himself on the advice of his farmer father, a warehouse of some things and just a pile of useful, perhaps, garbage. A little farther to the right, the faint reddish particles of an elongated arch-like device began to reach Kenneth’s face, tangling in the guy’s long, equally reddish curls. He lifted the corners of his mouth involuntarily, watching the shiny construction with a sparkling scarlet canvas of pure energy that had long since become commonplace to him. And yet, despite years of painstaking research into violet magic, things like this continued to fascinate him: both the construction was quite simple, and the triggering mechanism, but still, portals… Portals were something magical, perfect. It was very interesting how they worked in general in their nature, he wanted to study their structure, but the guy just couldn’t. Kane wasn’t a fan of the dimensional energy that powered all those interdimensional doors and drew paths between them, he didn’t relate to violet magic, and he understood very little about it at all, because he was doing other interesting things. The portal to the Fiery Passage, a rather low dimension rich in veins of minerals and inhabited by a race of skilled blacksmiths, was the last one he had been able to light on his own with some ancient device given to him by an acquaintance from here. All his other attempts to build such things again kept failing. He didn’t know what it was due to — improper design, material, lack of strength? For quite some time now the guy had been struggling with this question, reading every book on violet magic in a row, trying to light a portal, practicing — but the problem never went away. And that’s the reason he’s been trying to find them for about three months now. Mysterious beings who keep all the secrets of powerful violet magic, know the parable of the Art of Flight of the Violet Dragon by heart, and carry their Sacred vow. Guy knows that they live far away, in a very difficult place, and finding the right path will be very difficult for one person. “I will only be satisfied when I find them!” thought to himself the traveler, approaching a large boat with a lot of straps, high sides and two motors. “It will be a huge breakthrough in my research! With portals I can travel between worlds, which means I can find my way back…”       There were very few large and deep bodies of water in such arid places that would require such a makeshift boat of planks and light metal, but it was more interesting than it looked, as was usually the case with the “genius” inventions of the young mechanic, who was eager to get going. Kenneth opened a small compartment in the back and threw in some dry material of charcoal and some other greenish powder — apparently it was some kind of fuel. As Kane poured the thick oil over the top, a small gas burner lit up nearby, to which the guy immediately hooked a metal tube with a sparse thread. The cloth, lying in the “boat” itself, began to slowly inflate and rise above the hull, held back by the straps. Well, of course, the “boat” turned out to be not a sea thing at all, but an air thing — a light, but strong airship for one person, built by the ancient technology of the local people, who lived here since the dawn of time. The traveler already had a huge pile of problems with this machine, but it was the most convenient means of getting around the world. The guy couldn’t even remember what book he’d found the idea and blueprint in, but he obviously liked the thing, even though it flew disgustingly badly. “Looks cool — works so bad” was the first principle of Kenneth’s work, and the second was “looks just disgusting — works great.” As strange and incomprehensible as it sounded, the young mage already had his own secret ways of traveling, but he was by no means eager to use them. Even though he was all alone here, and no one would reveal his secrets, it was something personal even to Kenneth himself. It frightened him, and the guy found it hard to use his own skills. “I can’t do that… I’ll grow up first, deal with my problems, and then we’ll see…”       The airship slowly and very despondently rose above the ground with its pilot and headed off into the distance. No Great Beyonds awaited, nor were there any adventures, so there was no time to waste by standing outside the house. Unfolding the map, which nearly blew away as he went, Kane picked his direction for the day. The northern part of the sheet was blank with no notes, so he decided that north would be his destination for today. The guy had constantly avoided this direction, for he thought it was one of the most dangerous places, but over the last couple of days he’d still set his mind to it. The one thing he knew for sure from the village farmers he knew from the western markets was that there were huge distorted mountains of amazing beauty. The young man had once dreamed of them and wanted to see this eighth wonder of the world, but later he had completely forgotten about it, having occupied himself with other interesting affairs and researches. And the mountains, they say, are very beautiful and high, their peaks reaching far beyond the clouds. “There must be a very strong wind up there,” thought the pilot. “I hope the engines will take it out.” After about an hour of flight, the traveler reached the edge of the territories he had explored. The map was completely blank and it was not clear what was ahead. Kane wanted to take a break, but he had enough fuel so far, so he decided to move on, because he wasn’t tired at all and didn’t want to eat. He quickly pulled out a pen of his own making, which was remotely similar to a ballpoint pen — it could be filled and didn’t need to be constantly dipped in ink, as the invention itself had a small compartment for it inside the shaft. It was a very useful thing for traveling, of which Kenneth was terribly proud, and why he had already tried to sell a few samples at the market a couple of times.       With a press of the pedal, the airship creaked forward. Surveying the terrain with the telescope, Kane mapped landforms, structures, sometimes signing something, painting over it. Kenneth’s maps were neat and tidy, and most importantly, understandable. Though his handwriting was not the prettiest, he liked his own sketches. Annoying ink sometimes dripped from the pen and formed blots, but he immediately masked them to the nearest lake or canyon. The wind kept trying to blow the sheet of parchment out of his hands, but the dead grip of the wayfarer’s two powerful hands was still enviable. As he flew farther north, Kenneth noticed how often the areas here shifted. He’d recently charted a desert, then a sprawling river delta, and now a taiga. Sometimes he had to fly around the tops of huge trees that grew on high hills, so that even at high altitude he could smell the sweet smell of tar. Occasionally he encountered abandoned buildings or some sort of totem around which were scattered some random things, which Kane immediately took for himself. There was never enough paper for a journal, so he collected everything he had, including some manuscripts and books left here by mages and humans. He had never been here, and that was the most interesting fact to Kenneth. Such beauty was literally right in front of his nose, and he hadn’t even flown or walked here. Kane constantly noted the fact that he didn’t understand himself, and very often.       “What are they called, hmm…” the guy pondered aloud, brushing his own long hair. It made it easier for him to concentrate. “Why do I always forget such important information from all the books! I should have read more carefully about violet magic, now I can’t even ask the locals… Well, well, well, I’ll just have to run through all the guesses! They’re connected to the Dragon, portals, weapons — halberds, hmmm… Think, Kane, think! How many times can you forget the essentials!”       He didn’t have such a big map in the beginning. When Kenneth first began his journey, he didn’t go far from home, nor did he seek to explore the world as much as possible. He spent a great deal of time a day in his little house, working with portals and various interesting materials, and rarely went very far. That’s not counting, of course, the other dimensions the guy had visited in his early youth with his mentor. He had absolutely no problem with violet energy at the time, Kenneth used it anywhere and everywhere, even tried to learn the art of fighting with it at one time, but still remained faithful to the usual cold weapons. But before he could fully experience the magic, he lost it. Kane’s history with the three colors is long and mysterious, and he understands little of it himself, trying to study only one of them. The others didn’t really appeal to him: the violet one had abandoned him altogether, and the verdant one he had never dealt with, constantly forgetting that. The crops in the beds grew well enough without help, no wood was needed, no serious illnesses to treat themselves either. Maybe one day Kenneth would meet all the energies of the Universe and their Patrons, but for now it was only a dream, so unattainable and fragile, ready to crumble under the weight of the growing anxiety in his heart about the rest of his life. There was little the guy could do alone, and finding a suitable team was extremely difficult because of his banal undeveloped social skills and narrow circle of acquaintances in these parts. The lad always had dreams where he saw himself as the greatest traveler and explorer of worlds with his faithful companions, but for now these too were only hopes. Silly adolescent dreams, like every young lad once had, even myself. Unfortunately, no one knows at what point his pen will begin to make real history and write his life — it’s only a matter of time and luck. Maybe, on the contrary, bad luck.       As Kenneth pondered the meaning of life and his destiny, the airship slowly carried him further and further north. He hadn’t taken his watch with him, so he didn’t know how long it was, but in the meantime the sun was approaching its zenith. “Wow, I didn’t notice how much time flew by,” he thought to himself as he estimated the hours that had passed. That made it more like five or six. Time passes very quickly during his favorite activities, everyone had once noticed that, and in those five hours he had already met more than four different zones with their own climate and vegetation. Yes, the north was definitely the most interesting and varied part of the whole map, and the young man was happy to sketch it all out and enjoy his work. He almost dropped the spyglass a couple of times, but the journey so far had been quiet and without mishaps. Occasionally flocks of huge birds of prey flew over him, but fortunately they didn’t notice him. He was absolutely certain that he would certainly not find a violet energy Patrons settlement in today’s short day, but at least he was investigating the area, hoping for some lucky chance that would take him to the right place. Surprisingly, he hasn’t encountered a single human settlement in all the time he’s been in the air. A little earlier, Kenneth had purposely taken with him a bag of gold coins, the local currency with the simple name of dero, because he planned to buy some food, but today he had no luck. Only a couple of abandoned houses came across, but they no longer appealed to the guy — there were no useful things to be found there, so there was no point in checking them out. As you might have realized by now, the world I’m trying hard to describe to you was very much like an “open map” as it’s called in our games today, and there weren’t many people in those parts — which is why travelers, treasure hunters, bandits, mages, and other vagabonds were free to rob houses, get materials from nature, and do other damage to property. Perhaps now you can see why Kenneth was so surprised to read the local human laws for the first time.       By evening the wind had picked up noticeably. The weather stopped playing into his hands, and Kane had to stow all his protruding, lightweight things in his bag to keep them from blowing away. Some cold nastiness was drizzling from the blackened sky, and it had already soaked the young traveler’s clothes and hair. Clearly it felt as if the warm desert lands had been left behind, and the cold and rainy northern climate was now raging here. Rain, on the other hand, the guy hated. According to him, the most disgusting weather was this one, slimy and dank as it usually was in the fall. He hated the sound, the smell, the humidity, the inability to do his business properly. Kenneth, of course, liked to bask in the warm bathtub, but he didn’t like swimming in general, and he didn’t know how. But the farther into the forest, the worse the weather got. Lightning had already struck very close by, which made Kane involuntarily shiver and tuck himself into his scarf. Though he wore black gloves of very thick and warm material, they were still treacherously cold. He gave up on the map, for he could see nothing below anyway, and it was blowing out of his hands along with the pen. It grew colder and colder by the minute. The sudden changes in temperature were pure evil, but they were very common in this world. The layout of the place was a living hell, so not everyone could live here for a year, especially the unfit. I could see why Kenneth was so wary of the north and so reluctant to explore it, even though he was constantly planning and preparing for the journey. And in spite of all this, something relentlessly and extremely stubbornly beckoned him forward, and Kenneth felt that it was not all in vain, so he continued to struggle as he usually did. “I must seek answers! Isn’t that my goal for today?” The storm was approaching inexorably, encircling the small airship with its strong clawed paws like a huge, angry Dragon. The guy was no longer even aware of what terrain he was in — it was pitch black and raining. He was running low on fuel and still couldn’t get it in, risking crashing on sharp rocks or into a bush of thorny trees. When thunder rumbled close by, the traveler jerked the wheel westward to change course. The sudden turn made the machine rattle, and one of the balloon straps came loose, soaking wet. Kane felt it slowly descend toward the spiky spruce tops that could pierce the balloon, so he tilted his weight to the side, tilting the whole structure behind him. He was a pretty good pilot of all sorts of flying machines, but now the guy couldn’t find a better option than to just, screaming in panic, steer the airship farther and farther away from the trees. The feeling that he was about to kiss the soggy dirt grew stronger and stronger, but he tried with all his might to soften the landing. The godsdamn trees did not end, as well as their prickly tops, and the pilot simply rushed all over the board, swaying in the air in all directions. After running around like that for a few minutes, he finally accepted his fate and sat back down. The look in his blue eyes expressed only the inevitability of a situation that Kenneth had failed to foresee, either through stupidity or his natural forgetfulness, which he seemed to have inherited from his extremely distracted mother. As the airship approached the treetops, it was about to stall, and it was over, but no. A new gust of wind struck directly at the fabric balloon, causing it to lean down, right into the needles, whereupon a quiet pop was heard, and the balloon began to deflate quickly. Nothing now held the weight of the rest of the structure above it, and it tumbled down into the branches, which was what the hapless pilot had been so afraid of. Kane, shrieking loudly, clung to the top thin twig and hung on with one hand, his other hand slipping away. His flying machine was already down with a couple of torn straps, and he was about to grab the next stick, but the first one failed, and he collapsed on the lower one, which was a little bigger. The guy was hanging on it, but the wet surface caused him to roll straight down. He flopped flat on the cold, wet grass on his back.       “That’s the break, my friend, take that! The fun’s over…” Kane sighed with pain in his voice as he sat down on the ground. “It hadn’t happened in twenty years, and now it’s happening again. What a day, what a day… And that stupid airship… Well, I’ll have to rebuild it to be safe, or I’d better walk, I’m not a kid.”       But was this really the end?       This is where the tale originated, where Kenneth took his first unconscious step into the history of the Universe, so clumsy and blurry. It’s funny, isn’t it? Did you ever think that because of that silly airship, because of the dark forest and the pesky rain, he would continue to walk forward, stepping more confident and bolder each time, to eventually lead us all to the light? The world sensed the rise of a new star in the dark heavens.       “The Great Beyonds… Waiting for me, and I don’t want to be late. Mages die twice!”