Pirin - Book III - The Gests of Nhalbar

Chapter 3

Domenir, who looked with admiration and awe at the imposing canopies all draped with curtains, banners, shields and spears, already imagining the stands packed with crowds and the judges seated on thrones of silver and orange velvet, tried to mask his great agitation. Helewen's warm, reassuring hand, wrapped in the white glove, took his shoulder with paternal firmness. Their eyes met. "Your time has come, my son."

Being called a son gave Domenir a pleasant feeling of belonging to that man who, despite not having any blood ties with him, was now, in fact, his only family. Helewen continued: “The tournament will start in eight days. And you will have the opportunity to prove to the world that you are the worthy son of your mother”.

This was perhaps what worried Domenir the most: “What if I disappoint everyone? What if I am not worthy of my mother? She has become a legend, but I may not have inherited her talent. I could be a normal person, without being destined for fame and acclamation”.

Now Helewen crouched down in front of her godson, staring at him intently, without worrying that his white and flowing robe could get dirty or crease on the ground of straw and sand. “Listen, Domenir: you are here above all for yourself. To try your hand at a goal. During the test it will be you, your bow, your arrow and the target. It does not matter what others see and how they judge you. When faced with the challenge, the challenge you have chosen, if you see the arrow striking the centre of the target, that happiness will be yours alone. Nobody will be able to understand it. The crowd will be able to admire or mock you, ignore you, cheer you or judge you. They will be able to criticize the shot, compare it to that of other archers. But no one, no one will know the joy that your heart will feel seeing that arrow reach its target ”.

“Yes, but what if I do not make it? What if I miss the shot and the arrow does not hit the target, or sticks to the outer edges? What would it have been worth being here to try the enterprise, if I failed and were considered by all to be inept?"

"But tell me, Domenir: do you really believe that every champion, the author of every masterpiece, those who excel in all fields, have succeeded in the first attempt at what made them great? Victory, the achievement of an objective, most of the time passes through a road strewn with small and large defeats”.

"Yes, but there are also streets strewn with defeat that only lead to defeat," the boy replied.

“See, Domenir, defeat is never something objective. It is rather an impression, an angle from which things are observed. There is no definitive defeat, as most paths that are interrupted to take new and perhaps better ones".

"You are telling me this to encourage me, my Lord," Domenir complained shrugging and looking down.

"No. You are wrong,” Helewen denied resolutely. He stood up again and now his gaze was lost in the horizon of memories. “No, Domenir. If I tell you these things it is because I have had the most terrible, grandiose and extraordinary demonstration of it in the events I have witnessed. The history of the Crown of Sibereht, the whole history of my life, was a demonstration of this. One can believe in an objective for years, only to discover that failure is nothing but the most subtle disguise of a victory, while certain victories are the most false masks of true defeats… ”.

“What does that mean?” Domenir asked somewhat bewildered by those words.

"You will understand when I finish dictating my memories to you."

“And when will you finish? When will you tell me what happened after funeral pyres were burned in Lothriel, proclaiming your death, yours and your son Nhalbar's, while who knows whose bodies were burned in your place? What happened after your son Nothal came to power?"

“We have a few days left before the tournament. If we are lucky I will be able to conclude my story. In the meantime, let us get to our lodgings. After we have settled down, I will resume narrating those dramatic events..."

Unleash the ghost wolves

CHAPTER II

Thus the memoirs of Helewen continue, as he dictated them and the scribe Nhalfòrdon-Domenir wrote them.

The smokes of our fake funeral pyres still had to completely clear in the sky, when Nothal reached with some excitement his group of hooded men, who had gathered in secret on the heights near Thalabain. Nothal took off the Sun Mask, which he had worn to deliver his speech to the people gathered for our funeral. The Hooded Men, each of whom displayed the tattoo of the two chameleons, symbol of their secret Order, were ready to put their dark magical arts at the service of the new master. Their tall pointed hoods and long iridescent cloaks, just like chameleons, took on the colour of the surrounding landscape. Each sorcerer had received an initiatory name that only the members of the Brotherhood knew. Five hooded men stood in front of Nothal that day. Their initiatory names were: Cloud, Shield, Storm, Wind and Voice.

My son addressed them in a tone that betrayed all his disappointment with the situation: "How is it possible? How did they escape the dungeons? This will not do! My father and brother still alive! We cannot afford it. They could screw everything up. And we cannot afford it!"

Storm spoke up: "Master, we will find them!"

"You will see, they will not escape us," Vento supported him.

"They will be dead before night falls," Voce also agreed.

Nothal blurted out, drawing the black and terrible Dofendoari and pointing it at the throat of the last sorcerer who had spoken: "They should be dead already! Every moment that passes is a breath that they should not be able to breathe. So make sure you deliver them to me even before a moment has passed! Turn 'it will be done' into 'it has already been done'!"

Then he moved his sword, now aiming at the expressionless hood of another warrior priest: "Cloud, I want you to unleash the ghost wolves!"

Meanwhile, after having crossed the border and covered most of the road in the Nhirklordi mountains hidden on a cart crammed with goods, Nhalbar, cold from the storms and trembling with fear from that completely unexpected escape, heard the veil of fog of that frozen winter that encircled the mountains being suddenly torn apart by the terrifying barking and sinister howls of a pack of wolves. Those ghostly verses, which seemed to tear the wind, the mist and the snowstorm, came closer and closer. It did not take long for my son to realize that those wolves were looking for him. He realized that the freight wagon was too slow and soon the hungry pack would be upon him. He had to find a quicker way to escape! So he quickly pushed aside the crates and heavy blankets that sheltered the back of the wagon and, jumping on the driver's seat, silenced the poor fellow with a hand over his mouth before he could finish his "But what...?"

“I am Nhalbar, the prince! I am sorry, but I have to steal one of your horses, Sir!”

The merchant's wide eyes wanted to express an: “are not you dead, my Lord?”.

“Please: you have never seen me. My life is at stake! ”.

The other nodded, always with a dismayed expression. So, thanking him, Nhalbar leapt into the saddle of one of the four steeds that pulled the heavy gig and loosened the bonds that held it. He launched the draft horse into a gallop, darting through the blizzard. Snow and cold air lashed his face, so Nhalbar tried to cover himself with his cloak. He rode down the steep mountain-sides, riding at breakneck speed as the pack got closer and closer. He could feel it looming, although he could not see it. He rode until he entered a forest, a black colonnade of fir trees that supported a leaden sky. The snow was shallower under the trees. Whenever he heard a howl cut through that damp, swirling sleet-laden mist, Nhalbar turned, but he never saw anything but small ice crystals forming clouds behind him. Then, suddenly, a bitter surprise: the wolves had surrounded him.

Yellow eyes like burning torches and sharp-eared shadows stood out in the mist of the undergrowth, in the livid light of that fir wood. Rattles, growls and barks mingled with the wind and the night that was now falling, enveloping everything. Those were not wolves. They were shadows. Evanescent ghosts. Eyes that searched Nhalbar straight into his soul, clutching his chest in the grip of terror. The pack had circled the prey, staying within an arrow's range. Further upstream, a sorcerer, astride an equally ghostly steed, observed the scene from a distance. He held in his fingers two citrine diamonds in which the flames of an unknown and tormented afterlife seemed to burn. Those were the eyes that allowed the sorcerer to see through the same eyes as the wolf pack, and they were also the will of the pack. Holding those diamonds, Cloud, the hooded one, could command the pack of ghost wolves.

Nhalbar trembled, shaken to the bottom of his spirit by a panic that he felt seizing him like an invisible hand. The pack could have driven him mad. This was its power. Although my son did not know it, those wolves could not have harmed him in any other way than by devouring his mind. Their shadow jaws could only feed on what was related to them: fear. This was their substance and their nourishment. They had killed many men before that day, driving them to madness, to suicide.

Even the horse went crazy, violently kicking Nhalbar out of the saddle and running away in madness. It did not know where to go, it only knew that it was afraid of wolves, and fear led it to ruin: the ghosts followed it up to a high steep cliff. The horse fell with a neigh that echoed like a desperate scream in Nhalbar's head.

Not being able to flee in any direction, now fallen on the white and cold surface of the snowy blanket, Nhalbar closed his eyes and tried to escape on the only paths that were not, at that moment, barred by the growling pack: the silent and lonely roads of the heart. He remembered that day when he was in the temple with his sister Iriah, and they had discussed the magic of lotus flowers. That day Nhalbar had urged his sister to place her tired fingers on its white petals and allow herself to be pervaded by the serenity emanated by that flower. “I do not know why the flower has this magical virtue, my sister. But I believe that this same capacity also exists in us, somewhere, lodged in the folds of our spirit. There must be a flower that cannot be seen, yet germinates and blooms by a mysterious grace when we remember to look for it. It must be that invisible flower that, if we can touch it with the fingers of thought, makes sadness pass from our hearts".

Now Nhalbar found himself thinking: maybe, if that flower really exists, somewhere, inside of us, then maybe it can make not only sadness go away, but also fear…

In those thoughts he found himself suspended as in a fleeting moment of absolute peace, but it was only a moment. Again the grip of fear assailed him, plunging him back into the chill of the forest. Opening his eyes and lifting himself up to look around, Nhalbar saw the wolves now just a few paces away. They advanced slowly, almost cautiously. Nhalbar, then, did not know why the wolves did not immediately pounce on him now that they were so close and he was practically helpless on the ground. He did not know that the only weapon at their disposal was fear. He did not know that their jaws had fangs of nightmare and their paws claws of illusion. Inconsistent like the shadows that disappear under the midday sun. At that moment, under the fierce gaze of those ginger yellow eyes that dotted the pale gray of the forest, surrounded by those black animals made of nothing, yet so disturbing in their belonging to the domain of the unknown, Nhalbar panicked wildly. He got up and started running at breakneck speed, almost closing his eyelids so as not to see all those wolves who, for sure, would have pounced on his flesh with greed. He counted the steps and beats of his heart, as if he were counting the moments that separated him from death. Instead, for the moment, nothing was happening. He opened his eyes to see where he was going and not crash into the imposing black fir trunks, and he saw no more wolves in front of him. He had them, of course, still on his heels. He could hear them running behind him panting menacingly. He ran, ran as long as he could. He thought he felt his lungs burst in his chest. A hammering increasingly heavy, made extremely pungent by the snow-soaked air.