3 NOW

3

Now

~RIKAS~

I can see the purple flag army standing outside the gates, holding their iron spears, with big arrows hung around their armoured frames. Their armour is rather a bizarre purple striped colored one, too odd and maybe a little bit too fashionable for some gruesome soldiers? I observe.

After a long, exhausting journey of nine days which were filled with the adventures and horrors of tailing Garius; the stubborn Healer Wizard of the purple Kingdom, I can now see that the real mission is about to begin. I am disguised as Garius. I have draped myself with layers of his thick and tattered rags but my nose is barely able to breath some quality air because of the rotten stench emanating from me, or rather, from my clothes! I mean Garius’s dirty clothes! God knows if he ever bathed!

I have tied up Garius, somewhere he can never ever escape from even if he is the King of all wizards. His powers are inside the gem on his wooden staff I heard.

‘And guess where the wooden staff is right now?’ I Chuckle like a devil.

I have hidden my small dagger well beneath my layered clothing and now I am holding Garius’s wooden staff. Lord Hemon told me that Garius’s staff has a black magical gem on it which has the ability to heal every wound, cure every illness, and do a lot of wonders, but I bet he lied again.

‘That old, cunning three eyed Martian!’

The staff I am holding right now has only a green useless gem on it. The thing is, it's either I am the one who cannot use the staff, or maybe Garius is the only one who can use its magic. As for the so-called lost Azurah legend who’d probably died somewhere in a shit pit, I just wasted my time trying to find him to help me with this mission. Maybe the tales of the lost Azurah legend are all fake and the old man with a crooked nose like that of Garius, does not even exist. I shouldn't have believed Lord Hemon’s story in the first place.

I am on a cliff, a little bit far away but I can see the black fog forming inside the tall gates.

‘It's the warning! I must hurry!’

~ROTIP~

My weak old body is tied up in some rusty chains and there is no way for me to get out of them without my staff. At least, I should have broken the spells to return to my normal appearance before that lunatic of a halfbreed attacked me. Now I am just a weak old Garius who can do nothing much without his staff. I am glad I did not give him the real Garius staff which I have hidden in a place where no mortal can find. It's been years now since the rotten old wizard had died. My plans have been unfolding well until this halfbreed showed up to be tailing me outside the gates.

I could have destroyed him in the first place, but for some odd reasons, I liked him, and because of that, my mission is going to be slowed down. Now that he has stripped me off my clothes and disguised himself as me, or no, as Garius, I wonder if Sofia will quickly pick on the differences between us because surely, she will break the rules and try to find me. I hope he will not hurt my Sofia because if he does, I swear I will chop off his head and put it out there on a spike for the birds to feed on.

He left me only a loaf of bread and said he will be back after three days so I should bear with the hunger before he returns. I wonder what sort of urgent mission it is that he has to carry out in the purple Kingdom but if the guards catch him, both I and him will surely be doomed.

I learned that the guards at the tall gate are the smartest ones so if I can find a way to breach through the gate, everything else will be easy. Even though I took Garius’ form, I cannot prove to the guards that I am him since the wooden staff is not shining like it should. Therefore, I must find another way to compromise their security and breach through the tall wall.

~SOFIA~

Rotip said he won't take long to come back but I have not seen him for the past ten days now. It means something has happened to him. He said I must never leave this place because the purple flag soldiers are still looking for me but I am running out of food and water to keep myself alive. And I am worried that he may have finally been caught in his disguised old Garius form.

I flip open the next page of the spell book. The smell of worn pages gets even stronger whenever I turn new pages. It's frustrating me since I had tried so many times to practice disguise but nothing worked.

‘Am I cursed? Is my blood jinxed or something? Rotip can do this disguise thing very well but why can't I? Is it because I am a woman?’

Back when I was young, I remember how we used to circle around a burning fire near the lair of spirits and watch the white witch mother who’d entertain us with tricks like this one. She’d practice a white spell in front of us and disguise herself as the great Arakis, only to make us laugh. That obviously means that magic can be done by women as well. I just need to do it right. 

Now that I am thinking about this again, I really missed home. It's been so many years now, living together with Rotip. Sometimes, we’d talk about stories of home, family and our friends while other times, he’d just tell me to bury the past and move on. I understand that Rotip feels very hurt because nobody cared to come and rescue us, we had to suffer by ourselves all alone. But I know that as much as he hated how the people of the caves abandoned us, he’d also missed the cosiness and warmth we once had over there.

I toss the spell book into the basket of my dirty clothes and pluck my cloak from the nail hanger. Today, I have to break one of Rotip’s rules because I have no choice. I cannot sit here waiting for him to come back while he may be out there in real danger. Even if I end up getting caught by the purple army, it will be better than not trying at all.

~RIKAS~

I have passed the alley which was very dark and full of decayed Human and Martian heads hanging on hundreds of spikes. Now, I am inside the wall and heading into the black fog. Hemon told me that the black fog is a warning that signifies the passing of the Brakoon and maybe, just maybe, I may be able to see what the Brakoon looks like.

It was so easy for me to bypass the guards at the first gate. Hemon told me they were the smartest ones but with the way everything turned out, I doubt if that wasn’t just another silly lie to make me extra careful in my mission.

I pause in my track and sniff around to see if I can detect the scent of any Martian or Human nearby but it seems like everyone has disappeared. Or maybe, Garius dirty rags have totally destroyed the cells inside my nose, so I cannot detect the scent.

A small thought is slowly crossing through my mind right before my eyes fall down to a stagnant water below my feet which is glinting like a shiny bronze surface, and suddenly, I almost freak out with terror when I see the reflection inside the water. 

‘My reflection!’

I had totally forgotten what I am supposed to look like until now. ‘Jeez!’ My skin is as wrinkly as the bark of a tree. My nose is looking so crooked, probably the reason why I couldn’t smell anything good but the stench of Garius’ dirty rags! I used to be so good looking to a point that the human girls in the caves would form a group to watch me training together with Hemon. But now, I must sacrifice my good looks and bear through these hardships to get the revenge I am after.

I almost jumped into the black fog ahead of me but Garius' weak legs remind me who I am as I lose balance and fall into the stagnant water. The wooden staff did not help at all. I think my tailbone has badly crashed into the hard surface while it sinks deeper into the cold water. My legs are passing through the paralysis stage now and the numb feeling is unravelling into an agonizing pain.

“Oouch!” I scream

“Pssttt! Hey! Hey! Garius!”

“Garius!!!” I can hear some strange whisperings coming from somewhere but I am not in the right senses to understand what they’re saying.

‘Fuck! The fog is gone!’

“Garius, look over here!!!”

For a few seconds, my brain boots to remind me who I am again.

‘Right! I am Garius! My name is Garius.’

I am motioning with my head around to see if I can find the caller, but I instantly feel something from nowhere, clinging onto my arm. My eyes spontaneously shift to the stranger in the cloak who has forcefully wrapped his hands around me, trying to pull me up. No time for me to think so I just mould my fist into a cannonball and fiercely punched him into his stomach.

His hood falls off his head while in motion as he splashes into the water only to reveal a woman’s face in agony “Holy Mother forgive me!” I can hear her silvery voice whispering almost audibly into my ears.

‘Ooops! Did I kill her?’

“Are you… Sorry, are you dying? I mean, did I hurt you badly?” I dragged my weak body closer to her figure, watching her face transforming into multiple colors with every stage of the pain she is passing through. She still glows like the moon even though the darkness is beginning to settle down on her face.