The streets of the City of the Sun were practically deserted. Only here and there one could see someone carefully moving through the hidden places after the day had caught him on business on the street.
„What’s going on here?” Fenrir feverishly asked, carefully looking around.
And his gaze stopped on two pitch-black eyes that were stalking him from behind a gray cloth, broken in places by time and other creatures.
„Fenrir?” Sephir lightly touched his arm and, as if awakened from dreaming, Fenrir winced and looked at her. „Something happens?”
„What… aaa … no… I just,” but when he looked toward those black eyes again, that had spied on him before, he saw nobody. „Where did they disappear?” And Fenrir looked for the intruder with his glance, but he saw only the desolation of the gloomy streets, still heavily bathed in sunlight.
Bestla and Arion stopped in place and, taking off the hoods of their long, black overcoats, they looked at the same place toward which Fenrir was staring as if he had lost an immense treasure there.
„What’s wrong with him?” Bestla asked her sister with a glance, but Sephir just slowly shook her head, a sign that she had no idea what was wrong with him.
„Wait for us here!” Arion ordered the girls. „If anything caught Fenrir's eye, that means someone is stalking us."
Arion tried to step forward, but Bestla grabbed his arm. That made Arion intently look at her, not understanding why the girl was disobedient when she had done everything he told her to do until then. „Bestla? This is not the time to…”
„No, Arion. It’s the right time. It’s time to find out what’s going on here and we must do this together. I have no intention to stay here and wait for you two.”
„Neither I!” Sephir confidently said.
„The girls are right, Arion. We have no idea about what’s happening around us. That’s why we can’t leave them alone here.”
Arion's gaze met Fenrir's and, after standing like that for a while, he finally saw a glimmer of concern in that gaze, even if Fenrir was trying to hide it. „It is because of Sephir that concern is in his soul,” Arion thought, but he immediately looked away when he met Bestla's glance. „Let’s go then!” He said and started to walk forward, in the opposite direction to the one they were heading to until then.
Passing beside Fenrir, Arion threw him a small dagger he slowly whispered: „take care of your back, young wolf,” and he walked further.
Fenrir watched the dagger for a short while, then he looked behind Arion, who turned right at the next crossroad and, while he was moving away, he put on the hood again. „Let’s go!” Fenrir told the girls and he had been the first to walk after Arion.
Bestla hurried her steps to get behind Sephir, who was so quickly following her husband. And, getting next to her sister, Bestla asked her in a whisper. „What’s going on, Sephir? Why are they both so preoccupied?”
„I don’t know yet, but we’ll find out!” Sephir answered, also in a whisper, and, looking up, she made that on the sky appear a big, purple cloud, even if the sun was washing the surroundings with its golden light. Then, Sephir’s lips whispered something and she closed her eyes for a second as if she was trying to get into a new world.
All these seemed weird to Bestla, but she decided to listen to the others, even if something inside her was telling her that it won’t be that easy to succeed in this and that they might be in trouble soon.
Finishing her little spell, Sephir opened her eyes again, and then she motioned to Bestla with her head to follow her.
The young lady listened to her elder sister and, saying nothing, she followed Sephir in a hurry while, behind them, the wind was slowly moving as if attracted there by a mystical whisper of the sun.
***
Arion has been the first one to get to the end of a huge downtown square. Then he stopped at the corner of the street and stared in amazement at all that crowd of people, who were watching as if mesmerized at something that was happening about 300 hundred meters in front of where he was sitting.
A few minutes later, Fenrir and the girls approached him and they watched in the same direction as Arion, but they also couldn’t understand what happened to that city.
„And… what’s this?” Bestla loudly wondered when a young couple, with a three year-old-girl in her mother’s arms, passed next to them, but none of them watched at the four fellows, as if they were invisible.
Sephir caught, in the end, the girl’s glance and she stared at her for a while, then she slowly nodded. „It’s empty in that body.”
„Empty? What do you mean?” Fenrir asked.
„That the girl’s body is moving, but, inside it, there is no soul.”
„Don't talk nonsense, Sephir. How can a man live without a soul?” Bestla incredulously said. „You should spend more time between people and less in the clouds. This way you will stop seeing bodies walking on the ground without souls."
Sephir turned her glance to Bestla and deeply looked into her sister’s eyes, but without feeling upset.
Bestla, seeing her sister's insistent gaze, understood that Sephir wasn’t wrong this time. „Are you sure, Sephir?” The girl asked her.
„Yes,” Sephir nodded.
„Look,” Arion whispered to them and he showed them to look in the distance, where a group of ten men was approaching them from the left.
The group movement was somehow mechanical and clumsy, and this made Fenrir even more alert than before because the ten men that were approaching them were lined up in 3 groups of 3 people and only one of them was walking in front of the group.
Then, Fenrir analyzed their clothes - the nine were wearing usual, peasant garments while the one from in front of them was wearing a wealthy vestment and, on the right hand, he had a kind of golden-shade glove.
At first sight, the glove was simple, cut at fingers, and this way allowing the better use of them. But, narrowing his eyes, Fenrir watched the glove from closer and he saw the fingers exiting from the cuts of the glove, and what made Fenrir be attentive was the fact that the man’s nails were livid as if the blood coagulated in them.
Feeling something strange around, the commander of the group lifted his right hand and gave the signal for the others to stop too. Then, the nine listened to him, and, as if per order, they lined up in place and turned their heads, at the same time, in the same direction their commander was turning his head.
Seeing this mechanical movement of the 10, Fenrir shouted in a whisper: „Hide your bodies from their eyes!” And all four put their hoods on their heads, which made them invisible to others.
And the ten men turned their glances toward Fenrir and the rest of his group right at the moment when the hoods had hidden them from the real world, and they could carefully look around without being seen by others.
After that, Sephir took a step in front and stopped next to Fenrir, who was still staring at the group of ten men. „Do you see there the same as I do?” She asked him.
„Yes. The same bodies without souls. But… I don’t understand what’s happening and how this is possible.”
„I think this has something to do with the snake Ian Gyar,” Arion said and his words made Sephir wince, and, mechanically, she grabbed Fenrir’s wrist, but without looking at Arion and Bestla, who was standing only a step from her.
„Are you alright, Sephir?” Bestla asked her sister, using telepathy.
„I’m more than alright,” Sephir loudly answered and she looked at her fellows. „If we want to see what’s going on here, we must pretend to be one of them. Only this way do we have a chance to succeed, for, besides bodies without souls, even those alive seem dead. Let’s go!”
„Where?” Fenrir asked.
„To join them!” Bestla answered in Sephir's place and, grabbing Arion’s hand, she forced him to follow her.
Sephir and Fenrir followed them only two steps behind them, and while they were approaching the group of ten, that was coming right toward them, Sephir was more and more squeezing her husband’s hand.
Fenrir said nothing and, taking her palm into his, he tried to send all his love to her and that she was safe with him.
And when the group of dead souls was only a step from them, Arion made a sign to the others to step aside and allow the group to pass in front of them. Then, the four of them started to walk behind the group, at a slow step, as the dead ones were walking, as if they had been part of that group right from the beginning.
Marching down the street, the four of them saw how the people were getting out of their way, in fear, and as if fearing not to become the same soulless body, men lined up on either side of the street, letting the group pass through the middle while they looked away.
„The majority are looking to the ground,” Bestla whispered, but, catching Arion’s glance of reproach, she kept silent. „It was only an innocent remark,” she told herself. But, in the end, she decided to keep that thought only for herself.
Later, when they arrived in the middle of the square, the group stopped.
Arion and the others did the same and, looking in front of them, they saw how the crowd of people gathered in the square was looking in amazement at something as if charmed, and they all were rhythmically clapping.
This made Fenrir close his eyes and he entered his twilling world, under the shape of the black wolf, which stepped in front, among those people, unnoticed by them, till he got in front of the crowd, where a group of 13 Virgins was singing and dancing.
All the Virgins were wearing black gowns, with a strip of about 10 centimeters wide in front, of dark red color. Also, they wore simple wooden sandals and their hair was completely red.
Their dance was a bit strange, consisting of a single choreographic movement, rhythmically repeated. But their song was something unheard of by Fenrir until then, as was the language in which they sang.
And when he could finally see their faces, Fenrir has been so amazed to see that they all looked the same, as if they were perfect copies of one single woman.
„How is that possible??” Fenrir whispered and he returned to the real world. „All 13 are one and the same person,” he said as if answering the curious gaze of his comrades fixed on him.
„Parca,” Arion answered. „What Yellen saw in her vision seems to be real. Parca has a lot of copies in this world.”
„So, those are what my father called human feelings.”
Sephir nodded. „Uranus's anger - thrown on the ground and fueled by Cronus's greed. The two of them devised this vile plan to thwart any plan that may have been devised to dethrone them."
„And yet… how was this possible?! I know that Uranus is strong, but as far as I know, nobody has the right to bring new lives into this world without Moirae’s permission, and if the 13 virgins look exactly like Parca it means that she’s involved in this.”
„Not necessarily, Bestla. I think Arion was right when he mentioned that the snake Ian Gyar had something to do with this. Even though he's dead now, we don't know what he's been up to all these years and it’s possible that someone influential from this city may have turned to his magic helper,” Sephir insisted.
„It's possible, but who would…?” But Arion kept silent when his sharp gaze noticed, sitting on a golden throne and completely dressed in golden garments, with a shining crown on his head, a man about 40, whose beard and hair were completely gray. „King Goyan! How didn’t I think about it earlier?”
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„Do you think that the king of these lands could sell his own people to help Uranus?” Bestla asked with curiosity.
„There are people that can sell their own soul for immortality! This king isn’t an exception,” Fenrir whispered in hatred. „But it seems to me that all this charade wasn’t planned by Cronus and Uranus, even if they planned something similar right from the beginning. Look!”
When they looked toward the place where Fenrir was pointing with his head, they noticed how from their mothers’arms children were taken by force and none of those children was older than 5.
And those who kidnapped the kids from their mothers’arms were also men without souls, as the group that the four were following at that moment.
„What are they up to now?" Bestla asked.
„Let’s follow them and we’ll find out,” Arion said and all four left the group of the dead ones and headed in great secrecy behind a line of charrettes, in which the children of Goyan’s people had been hidden.
***
„Why exactly the forest?” Bestla asked in a whisper when the four of them passed the first rows of trees in a forest and right after a few meters of walking everything around had sunk into darkness.
„Because namely in the dark forests someone can do bad things without being seen even by the sun,” Fenrir calmly answered, who later transformed into a wolf again, whose fur was burning in flames, illuminating the surroundings and guiding the others.
In front of them, the group of men without souls and the convoy that was transporting the kids were slowly advancing because of the difficult and winding road, for the forest in those places had grown at will and it had also opened its grove according to its own laws, and, for a convoy of that type, to cross through the forest depths, was necessary to have a lot of patience and work hard for facing the obstacles that could have gotten in their way.
At a time, the road clogged, and the convoy had to stop. Thus, the carters have been forced to jump off their places, and, taking sharp axes in their hands, they began to cut the bushes around, with a view to making way for the convoy to pass. But when their axes first bit from the wood of the forest, a roar of lamentation has been heard around them, something that made them all fear.
„What is going on?” The teamsters wondered, looking around in fear, at nature that seemed to be alive while the forest moans were heard louder and louder.
„Look!” One of the men yelled and when everybody looked toward a huge tree, they saw, in amazement, two wide-open eyes watching them off the tree bark and this made the men crawl onto the ground and yell in fear, after falling down.
Only one of them, in whom Sephir noticed that he was totally lacking soul, continued standing and, unpleasantly grinning, he grabbed the ax from the hand of one of his men and, after killing him in reward for being disobedient, the commander threw the ax toward the tree… the ax stabbed its sharpen edge between those eyes off the tree bark, blinding them, and a kind of green liquid started to flow on its trunk as if the tree was crying.
When on the tree's eyes a white peel appeared and it stopped to lament, behind Fenrir was heard Baradar’s voice: „Yātrīkar!” And all, as per order, looked at him.
„What do you mean, Baradar?” Arion asked, being more amazed to see Baradar there and not of what he just saw.
Baradar turned his glance from the tree that fell prey to the curse and looked at Arion. „Yātrīkar aren’t only women. They were women only at the beginning. Now king Goyan, helped by Ian Gyar’s black magic, transformed a lot of his loyal men into Yātrīkar and now we have what you see. Look!”
Looking in front of them, the five of them saw how Yātrīkar was forcing the children to leave the carriages and walk abreast.
Yet, that view made Bestla stretch her hands in front, palms facing up and, as if a mirror had been formed by the palms, she could see the frightened children's glances reflecting in it while they were forced to walk further, entering deep in the heart of the woods, moved from behind by the devilish souls. „They don't even cry,” the girl whispered and the others looked at her.
„Bestla is right,” Baradar said this time. „Yātrīkar stole their voices and their feelings when they took them from beside their parents. Just like they did with the adults, even though there is great mourning in that city of people now."
And when Baradar turned his gaze to the West, where was supposed to be the City of Goyan, on the mirror on Bestla's palms, they could see how in the same square, where the children had been abducted from, their mothers wept desolated their loss… some of them kneeling… others madly running around and looking for their offspring, and others simply fell in pain and weren't rising from the ground anymore.
„Still, Baradar, what are they looking for?” Sephir asked in the end.
But Baradar nodded in denial because he had no answer to that question, even if he had searched for it since he came on those lands because, after he helped Dike and Fenrir to save Sephir from Ian Gyar and he returned to Rophion Forest, the trees told him that something strange happened to this people, and the Spirit of the Woods decided to come here and find out.
Yet, arriving there, he noticed in amazement that many of the trees had already fallen prey to the curse and that they weren’t submissive to him anymore.
But there still were trees that had resisted Yātrīkar’s evil and their words led Baradar’s footsteps into the heart of the woods, and he found the den of evil hidden in that forest, where Baradar led the others to show them what was happening with Goyan’s people.
***
Stopped next to the thick trunk of a tree, the five of them looked in the distance… in a makeshift place, made of cheap canvas tents, they saw the convoy stopped and how the children were forced to sit on the cold ground and wait in silence.
„Someone has to teach them good manners, if they can’t learn it alone,” Fenrir angrily shouted when he saw one of the Yātrīkar hitting a young virgin, who had been dragged back after trying to escape.
Baradar instead stepped in front of Fenrir and, looking into his eyes, he whispered: „soothe your fire, young wolf. This forest doesn’t need your evil too. That’s enough with the one that it's already facing,” but what made Fenrir calm down were the thunders heard in the sky and when they looked at Sephir they saw her squeezing her fists and this made the sky shiver.
Fenrir extinguished the fire of his fur and, to illuminate their path, Arion was the one to turn on the light of the star from off his chest. Then, the wolf approached Sephir and the top of his head touched Sephir’s hand, making her turn back from her world, and a barely heard sigh was heard coming out of her chest and she unclenched her fists, leaving her palm to rest on the wolf’s head.
„He’s coming!” Sephir whispered and when they all looked in the same direction, they saw Goyan descending off his horse and approaching the young woman that was still on her knees.
And when Goyan’s hand touched the young woman’s chin and he forced her to look into his eyes, he was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of that glance and especially by the girl’s beauty, who even if had traces of mud on her face, after being thrown face down by Yātrīkar, she was so charming yet.
But, in her eyes, one could also see the disgust and hatred for the one who was looking at her at that moment.
Goyan instead smiled and, with his second hand, he cleaned some mud from the girl’s lips. „You will spend this night with me!” He said with desire, and this made the girl spit on him.
The Yātrīkar, that was behind her, tried to hit her. But Goyan stopped him, by raising his hand. „That’s useless. I have other methods to punish her for her dare,” he whispered and he pushed her away from him. „Prepare her! And also prepare my tent! We’ll spend this night here!”
„Yes, Master!” The Yātrīkar quickly answered and he bent to lift the young woman by force from the ground.
Then Goyan took a few steps away from them. But he stopped when he heard the girl’s voice: „do you think this world bends only at your feet, king Goyan?”
Watching behind him, the king saw her glance full of hatred, but this made him even more eager to have her and he smiled, satisfied. „That’s what I’m fighting for. To be the only one in front of whom this world bows.”
„You forget about Titans, king! They won’t allow you to fulfill your foolish plan because they are the only ones meant to rule over this world!”
Goyan kept silent for a few moments and looked at the girl that was trying to release herself from the „trap” of Yātrīkar’s arms and approach the king.
„And… where did you find this out? While you were serving the Titans?” Goyan asked her with hatred. „If so, then you’ll find out what it means to serve men too while spending your nights with me, in my bed and in my arms, and you won’t leave my bed till you won’t give birth to a son of mine. Only then you’ll be free!”
„This was what you were looking for!” The young woman whispered with hatred, calming her movement. „Your offshoot is barren, king Goyan. You will never have the joy to see the face of one of your sons because Parca took this gift from you when you dared to steal her face.”
„Parca! And who's this Parca for this world to decide my future? I’m the only one worthy enough to decide it!”
„Do you think so?! Then, release me and we’ll see if it’s like you say, king because I can read this into your eyes - foolishness and stupid pride. Your nothingness!”
Surprised by her courage and by the fact that the young woman wasn't afraid of him, Goyan made a sign to Yātrīkar to release her. „Then, come closer!” He told her.
The young woman looked first at Yātrīkar, but seeing him calmly standing and listening to his master’s command, she took a few steps toward the king, and while she was cleaning her clothes of mud, she approached him. „You are actually right, king Goyan. We are the only ones capable of deciding our fate.”
„At least in something we agree,” Goyan answered and he took a step toward her.
But he quickly crawled back when the girl jerked toward him and, taking the dagger from his girdle, she touched his throat with the dagger-sharp blade while staring into Goyan’s gaze.
„Many tears spilled the mothers of these lands because of your greed. Many virgins lost their honor spending a night in your bed, but when you didn’t receive from them what you were looking for - a son, you threw them prey to tigers, to wolves, and to other beasts of this forest only for hiding your shame. But, king Goyan, you’ll never have what you’re looking for - neither a son nor immortality because the last woman that could have fulfilled your dream is dying now.”
With a quick movement of her hand, the young woman ended her life when the blade of the dagger touched her white throat and she fell helpless to the ground.
A mad roar came out of Goyan’s throat and he pushed her away from him, for, in falling, the woman grabbed his clothes, as if she was trying to send him the same curse that blamed her.
Then, he bent and looked into her eyes still open that were fighting with death. „You are so stupid, women. You prefer death and the love of Titans instead of your human nature. If you were smarter, you would have fought by our side because if we do nothing then we’ll be led for eternity, even if we are more than able to rule our lives, alone.”
She tried to say something, but she didn't have enough force to do this and, in the end, she gave up on her life in the arms of death.
Goyan then looked at Yātrīkar: „throw her body next to the others and find another one in her place,” he commanded his servant and, standing up, he headed toward the place where the children had been gathered and who had been forced to be witnesses to that fierce scene.
„Bestla! Sephir! Follow me!” Baradar told them after the two Yātrīkar, that took the young woman’s body, lost their trace among the trees, and Baradar followed them in a hurry, illuminating the surroundings with his heart, but still unseen by the external world, while behind him were trying to catch up with him Bestla and Sephir.
***
The young woman’s body had been thrown into the river water, which was slowly flowing down the valley and which was crossing right through the middle of that forest, deeply hidden between the trees and leading into the depths of its darkness.
Sephir, Bestla, and Baradar waited for a while in their den, till the two Yatricar lost in the distance. Then, they approached the body, which was still floating near the river shore.
Stepping through the water, the three of them approached the woman and they saw in amazement that her eyes were still wide open and she seemed to watch the sky, hidden by the rotated vaults of the surrounding trees.
„Not even after death her soul isn’t free and it dreams about freedom,” Bestla whispered and she stretched her hand, intending to close the dead woman’s eyes.
But she withdrew it immediately as if an electric current had passed through her being. „The Hand of the Clock!" She whispered, and Baradar nodded yes.
„You are right. That’s what Goyan is looking for so feverishly in all the young women that he forces to be his because, after he had stolen Parca’s face and he formed the army of Yātrīkar, the Titanide of Fate cursed him to have no son. But still, Ian Gyar gave him a trace of hope by revealing to him that he will have a son if he joins with the one who has inside her the hour hand of the Clock of Time."
„And this poor woman knew what he was looking for. That’s why she preferred to die than to give him a son,” Sephir whispered.
„Yes, and I could see this only after she touched the handle of that dagger with which she took her life away because that dagger is the soulmate of the dagger Samaya is always carrying at her girdle. Both daggers had been made by the People of Samandra and they are unique.”
Bestla and Sephir looked at him in amazement. „Do you mean that the daggers are part of the prophecy? I mean that they are the elements that will open the Gates of Aeon for Eris?”
„I don’t know this yet, but, to find it out, we must have those daggers in our power. That’s why Arion and Fenrir are following King Goyan now. They will wait for the right moment to have that dagger, and you must take the hand of the Clock of Time from this being because it lives only in living beings, and since its Master is dead now, it will choose another one soon and Goyan will have another chance to triumph this way.”
„Here we have no power, Baradar. The only one who can take out the handle of the Clock of Time is Samaya because she has the power of the Balance of Time inside her, but how she’s in the sky now…”
„I think I have an idea about it,” Bestla said. „Help me with this, Sephir.”
„With what?”
„That cloud that’s following us since we entered the City of the Sun - bring it here. That cloud will help us to hide the Hand of the Clock till Samaya will be able to take it out of this body.”
„I don’t know if that’s a good idea to…,” Baradar said.
„If we don’t try, we’ll never know it,” Sephir whispered with confidence and, touching her girdle, she took a small whip out of it, which she threw up - the wip transformed into an arrow, which slowly floated in the air - „Bring Palar here,” Sephir whispered and the arrow turned its body with the sharp edge pointing to the sky and, in a blink of an eye, it lost in the horizon.
At this time, Bestla surrounded the woman’s body with a light wave of blue air that soon transformed into a kind of transparent peel, as if the young woman was covered with blue-transparent glass.
Finishing to „pack” the woman’s body, Bestla slowly moved her palm over the woman’s face and closed her open eyes, whispering: „rest in peace, daughter of the Sun. Soon the Angels of Sky will lead you toward Aeon.”
„Her name was Marry,” Baradar told them, and the girls kept silent till Palar, a thick, purple cloud, showed up in front of them from the faraway sky and it descended till closing to the ground. But it stopped at the statue of a man above the earth and widely opening its eyes, it looked at Sephir.
„Did you call me, young Master?”
„Yes, Palar. We need your help to hide the body of this young virgin because her soul mustn’t leave it, till the time of her leaving to Aeon won’t come.”
„I listen and I obey!” Palar said and it slowly started to move its foggy body above the water, as if increasing in volume, till it completely „swallowed” Marry’s body and made it disappear into its being.
Then, the foggy cloud raised in the air, higher and higher, till it got in the sky and, in a hurry, it left those places.
„Let’s go back to the others,” Sephir whispered. „They’ll need our help,” and, raising her hand, she caught the flying arrow, and she turned it back at her girdle, after the arrow became a small whip again, beautifully knitted from leather.