I was in that place inside my mind where I would normally talk to Xoris before he acquired the abilities to give me pain and speak to me when I was awake.

Xoris was not here. Was he hiding somewhere?

“Hey Xoris,” I said aloud.

No response. I waited for some time and it became clear that somehow Xoris had lost his access to this particular part of my mind. I was suddenly very happy at this realisation. Apparently I needn’t deal with Xoris or his voice at least in my sleep when I could be in this place. I knew that I had to somehow use this to my advantage.

The pain that I had experienced earlier had left my brain feeling numb and I hadn’t been able to think of any way to get myself out of the predicament that I had fallen into. But now I could think.

Xoris wanted to use me like some puppet of his. I told myself that I would do whatever he asked me in order to escape his wrath as long as that did not involve killing anybody that was innocent or some other act of an unacceptable nature. There was of course the last option of me killing myself in order to free myself from Xoris. But I did not want to die. I was determined to survive and I believed that there had to be a way of freeing myself from Xoris without killing myself. And I would wait for such an opportunity to come along.

In the meantime I had to win the trust of Xoris much like he had won my trust earlier. It was important that I followed Xoris's commands with briskness. I would have to make him think that I was afraid of the pain enough that I was ready to do anything that he asked me to do. Only then when the correct time and opportunity came along would I be able to betray him and do whatever must be done to free myself from him.

***

I woke up with a start when I experienced a massive stinging pain all about me. For a moment I expected to see my wives sleeping near me, but then I recalled of all that had occurred and my heart sank. Half of the sun had risen in the distant horizon and the morning air was fresh and cool.

“You slept for way too long,” Xoris said inside my head. I wanted to point it to him that I had at best slept for two or three hours, but then I recalled the resolution that I had made in my sleep.

“I am sorry,” I replied to him.

“It’s okay. Do not sleep for more than a few hours the next time on. Just the bare minimum.”

Without any command from him I began to move south since that was the direction that he had wanted me to go yesterday. However, as I moved a new realisation surfaced within me. It was odd that I should notice it only now as it had been right in front of me the entire time—

Xoris could only hear the thoughts that I wanted him to here, like when I was having a conversation with him. The other times he did not know of what I was thinking. Or that was at least what I hoped. In that case I had the freedom to think. But I needed to test the theory.

I decided that I would make an abrupt act in a few minutes’ time. As I moved on forwards, there was a medium sized tree directly in front of me that was blocking my way. I could have simply moved around the tree, instead I grabbed the tree with my mouth and uprooted it and spat it away.

Instantly I felt a massive bolt of pain.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Xoris’s voice yelled inside my head.

“It was blocking my way,” I said to him.

“You could have moved around it! Don’t waste energy that needn’t be wasted!”

“Okay,” I replied.

“Next time on you do something like that you are going to experience a lot more pain. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” I said. Even though the pain had almost made me regret my decision to uproot the tree, at the same time I felt euphoric that Xoris hadn’t known that I was going to uproot the tree.

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And then a voice came. It did not belong to Xoris.

“Father?” the voice was a cold one. “Is it you?”

I turned around and saw the sorcerer Mintuk standing just a few metres from the tree that I had uprooted.

“It’s my son!” Xoris said inside my head. Mintuk looked pale. Yesterday I had left him underneath the pile of debris atop the Lazaki mountain.

“Is it really you, father?” Mintuk asked.

“Quick, turn into your human form,” Xoris said to me. “I want to speak to my son!”

I deactivated the Monsterification spell. I shrunk in size and lost all the fur and in seconds I was standing on my two legs as king Rabbi. The sorcerer’s eyes widened.

“I thought you were my father!” he said. “You are the lover of the bitch!”

Anger spurted within me. How dare he call my Rozy that? I almost threw myself at Mintuk in my rage. But a light pain reminded me that that was not what Xoris wanted me to do and I controlled my anger.

“Now, speak exactly the words that I say to you, okay?” Xoris said to me. Xoris had no control over my tongue so it was the only way that he could communicate with his son.

“It’s me, your father,” I repeated Xoris’s words to the sorcerer. The sorcerer frowned, not quite believing.

“You are not,” he said.

“I am,” Xoris said through me, “and I cannot express to you the betrayal that I felt when you turned me into a rabbit, son. I loved you so much, yet…”

“If you are my father, then why don’t you look like him?” Mintuk asked, still suspicious of me.

“I was killed in my rabbit form and then my heart was transplanted into the body of this person who happens to be the husband of the woman that you were planning to sacrifice in your thirst for power. The turn of events has made me the master of this person. He can do his own will, however he will do only what I want him to otherwise I make him experience pain of an extremely high order. He is speaking these words of mine because that is what I have ordered him to do.”

“How do I believe you?”

“Watch this,” Xoris said. The next moment intense pain took over me such that I fell to the ground. I had totally not expected Xoris to do that as I had been following his instructions to the word.

“What if you are acting?” the sorcerer asked. I was in great pain, but still I was taken over with anger since Mintuk was refusing to believe anything. I picked up a pebble from the forest floor and hurled it at him such that it hit him right on the face and he winced in pain.

“I am not,” I barked and at that moment Xoris relieved me of the pain and I fell onto a heap on the ground.

“That was not a bad way to tell him that you were not acting,” Xoris said inside my head in a pleased tone.

“Okay, I believe you,” Mintuk said.

“Get up,” Xoris told me and I pushed myself back up to my feet. “Now continue repeating my words to my son.”

“Now, I know that you want to become all powerful,” Xoris said through me, “and that was why you kidnapped Rozy, the girl with the birthmark, and planned to sacrifice her in an intricate ritual. I appreciate your thirst for power. At the same time, I feel ashamed to call you my son. It’s good to rise to power, but it’s also important to observe some ethics. How did you even allow the thought of betraying me to come to your head? It’s good to seek power, but you do not have to become a person without values to achieve that. There is no need of stooping so low.”

Really? Xoris was saying that? Xoris sounded like the biggest hypocrite on the planet. He had made a slave out of me and he was telling his son not to disregard values to achieve power?

The sorcerer hung his head.

“I am sorry, father,” he said.

There was silence for a while. The sorcerer did look genuinely sorry. But I doubted he was feeling sorry for having betrayed his father such a long time back. He was just feeling sad that I had ruined all his plans of sacrificing Rozy and becoming all powerful.

“I want this to be a lesson to you,” Xoris said. “I hope you never forget that when you climb the ladder to power you must never betray the people who are ahead of you.”

“Will you forgive me, father?” Mintuk asked.

“Yes,” Xoris said. “Ultimately you are my own blood and despite the filthy act that you have done I am ready to forgive you. But must you repeat your mistake; remember that the consequences will be grave.”

Mintuk fell to his knees.

“I am sorry, father, I really am,” he said. “Even the Lazaki no longer trust me and they were trying to kill me saying that I was the real cause behind the destructions that had come upon their village. I escaped from the mountain using an old magic carpet that I had. But the carpet ran out of magic and there was no way I could fix it. It was just too old. I have been wandering this part of the forest since yesterday.” And Mintuk began to sob.

“Go and pat him,” Xoris ordered me. I went and did as told. There was a fat stone lying on the ground a metre away from the sorcerer. I really wanted to pick it up and hit Mintuk on the head with it. But I contained my urge.

“I am on a quest in pursuit of something big,” Xoris said to Mintuk, “and I would like you to accompany me on it. I would even like to share the spoils of the quest with you if the quest turns out to be successful. But I warn you, there will be perils unlike anything you have encountered in the world of humans, would you still like to come with me?”

The look on the sorcerer’s face was enough to say that he would come with Xoris even if he could be killed in the quest. Xoris ordered me to become the monster rabbit once more and I promptly did as told, being eager to win Xoris’s trust. Then I allowed Mintuk to sit on my back just behind my neck.

“And now,” Xoris said inside my head, “we resume the journey south. Move fast, for I am eager about the possibilities that my quest might unlock.”

***