I woke up with my heart pounding like crazy. My eyes searched for Vielle. He was still pulling his legs in his bed, completely unaware of what was happening with me. I had the impulse to tell him what I dreamed of, but for some reason, I couldn’t make a sound.

After a while, my heart rate calmed down, and I realized that the sky had already lightened up.

Vielle noticed that I was awake.

“When did you wake up?” He turned his head towards me. I could see the untamed excitement in his eyes. Today was the day.

“For a while now,” I gulped, still trying to breathe. I felt my heart racing again, and those images from my dream came screaming at me as I looked at his eyes.

Should I tell him?

I hesitated.

“Do I look different today?” Vielle felt strange about my looking at him. He rubbed his face and circled his eyes, “I do feel a little different, though.”

“Vielle, I need to tell you something.”

It rushed out of my mouth. I didn’t have the chance to think it through, but now there was no returning.

“Ok,” he leaned towards me and studied my face, and then I saw seriousness emerge between his eyebrows, “Rio, what is it? You know you can always tell me.”

I took a deep breath, but my heart was still racing.

“I had a dream about today, the ceremony, you, the Phoenix, and Lama.”

“What about it?”

“I think something bad might happen,” looking at his eyes. I found myself inability to tell him exactly what I saw. After all, it was just a dream, and he was so happy.

Vielle sighed. He rubbed his forehead and looked at me again with the type of look that calmed me down, “everything is going to be ok, Rio,” he touched my shoulder, and then he showed me a dancing fairy on his fingertips, “everything is going to be ok, I promise.”

It did upset me a little when I saw it in Vielle’s eyes that he didn’t believe me, but his words were calm and assertive. I nodded and smiled back, “everything is going to be ok.”

I repeated it over and over again until my mind drifted off to another place, under the stars.

I had a bad feeling, that was all.

Mother and father were getting ready for the trip. They packed four servings of ice and fire berries and tones of storybooks for the little children. Their faces were blushing festively. They were thrilled to see their first child crossing the gate between life and death.

Today, Vielle would become a real sorcerer and live forever until the end of time.

I gazed at the mountain top of Dawn and prayed. The shadow still hovered over my head, but I decided to think about the good things.

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Before the sun fully reached the top, our tribe had already entered the mountains.

There was no single drop of snow from the sky, and the roads were accessible. I was able to see the ten mountains surrounding us for the first time in a year. I took a deep inhale of the sun gazed air and felt my entire body becoming lighter and lighter, like a feather.

The ten mountains were connected and disconnected, clustered together right next to each other, forming a unique landscape right in front of our eyes. The first mountain, Piscis, was crystally blue. It had a beautiful and deep glare in its half-transparent body, reaching down to the further end. As I stepped on its cold, icy surface, I thought about those dreams I had about the ocean and the creatures that had tails. The second mountain, Silva, contrasted Piscis with a lifeless forest. Unlike Piscis that sparkled with wonder and fantasy, it was death and darkness. As if a forest were being burned down, no bird would pass the sky above, and there wasn’t a drop of sound or even a breath of wind.

The third mountain, Geminus, was made of two heads. They were two mountains connected by a single body of sand. The wind was brutal, and the sandstorm wasn’t exactly a wonderland to be in. The fourth, Votum, was a mountain made of stones. It was magnificent and intimidating. The fifth, Dawn, on the contrary, was a dead rainbow-colored volcano, centering the central theme of red. The temporary got a little higher around here, but not hot enough for us to melt or burn.

The Cave, located at Dawn, was, in fact, somewhere in between Votum and Dawn. They were connected in a way as if two giants were holding hands. To reach the Cave there, we must cross the first three. It would take us at least half a day to circle in different landscapes, but it was an adventure for kids in our tribe as well as the adults.

Sometimes, we got to glance behind the mountain tops and saw the last four mountains as well. No one has ever been there or seen what was truly behind since the only time the mountains weren’t blocked by snowstorm was the day a child turned seven. They remained a mystery.

We were circling to the back of Piscis. Vielle saw an edge of Mount Solia. He slapped my arm so hard that it went numb a little bit, but I couldn’t blame him.

“That’s Mount Solia!” His voice was a little scratchy.

“How do you know?”

“I just know!” He jumped up and down and ran to the front of the line, “come, Rio! Let’s go.”

Vielle couldn’t wait any longer to get to the Cave.

Lama would be waiting for us there already. No one saw her leaving, but she would always be there before any of us.

I ran towards Rio as we held hands and crossed the border of Silva together.

As soon as my feet landed on the land of death, I heard a voice, calm and loud, coming from everywhere and nowhere, and the smile froze on my face.

“Rio.”

It called my name.

“Rio, son of Phoenix, sorcerer of Dawn, seeker to the beyond. I shall show you the path.”

I froze as I had no idea what he was talking about it.

The dream came to me again. I saw Vielle holding his head as the thoughts inside him tore him into two men. I saw death, the dark decay, everything turning into dust carried by the wind. I saw the faces that walked the storm, where ice has preserved their last-minute death, but then I saw water, the endless, deep blue body of water that stretched up to the horizon where the moon and sun were sides by the side. In this vision, I realized that I was flying.

“Rio! Rio!” Vielle was shaking my body as my thoughts gradually came back to reality.

I suddenly had the impulse to take Vielle and run away, and before I realized it, I was already dragging him back to Piscis.

“We shouldn’t go,” I was really scared.

“What’s going on, Rio? I thought we’d do this together,” Vielle didn’t let go of my hand, standing his ground on Silva. We were stretched between two mountains.

“Vielle, I heard a voice. It called my name, and it showed me all the terrible things that are going to happen today if we go to that cave,” I was begging him, terrified.

“But I can’t go,” he was still holding my hand, “you know I can’t. Good or bad, we have to go. There’s no other way,” Vielle had something in his eyes that didn’t let me say no.

I was going to walk away, but instead, I stepped on the land of Silva again,

“I’ll go with you.”