THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS

The Cursed Eye

Chapter XX

Liero and Aheim bargained to join parties since they are looking for the same village. They journeyed together in the southern part of Asca. Their travel was occupied with discomfited silence against each other; though Liero was humming and playing with his banjo, Aheim walks with him perceptively annoyed by his nonchalance. 

Aheim’s struggle ended when an intriguing picture came into view, as they walk pass through the woods. An abandoned village of small people—It is obvious since the clay huts are smaller than an average dwarf house—But the windows and doors are big enough for a human to sneak in. However it is not enough to make them notice the unusual place. Watching the area that is seemingly attacked by another group is giving Aheim an idea of its history, on how it ended up in such a chaotic view. Some roofs were burned and some of the walls were totally demolished. Thought there are few still standing and still looks firm, but most of it were damaged. Aheim realized who is responsible for the cause, he realize that the place is the village of Ascans. He never knew it went this far and Qardolan was right, the queen never should’ve trusted his father.

“Oh man—the king really has no mercy” Liero said sarcastically, he smiled, but that smile is meant for something and it is clear to Aheim what Liero is referring to. Only he hopes Liero is foolish and does truly believe that Shuixron is behind all this cruelty. But no! He is not. The Elves are pretentious beings, and he himself admitted it. All the madness his father made to surpass the queen, to bring back the Altagan and rule the entire Elf kingdom, or perhaps he is aiming for bigger than that. The reason his father sent him to find the Ayah of Ligayun’s tribe. Yet these are nothing but a fantasy, a dream that will never ever happen, no matter how much his father strive for it. He knew his father is not the rightful person to rule Altagan, and that is not just because of what oddin told him, it is what the fate foretold.

They tried to roam all over the place. One by one they checked each hut and intrude its small but spacious interior. It is known that the Ascans love scriptures and books, but Aheim did not expect this amount of books inside the Ascan houses. But one hut drove him to dig more into details. A hut taller than the rest, and the inside room has more books than the rest. Like a mountain of books for a small ascan, they probably need a ladder to reach the top of it. He was convinced by this scenery that Ascans surely are wise. Maybe because of all these books hidden inside their small world. Aheim found a big cabinet, well at least big for the Ascans, but still, a little smaller from the normal ones. It only has one book occupying the entire cabinet. Its color is not as bright as the others and it looks like it is as old as the world. 

Aheim tried to pull the lock to open it but it did not work. The chain of the lock is too strong, it requires magic to open it. He took a step backwards and found the perfect position to shoot the lock with his arrow before it finally opened. He scanned the book briefly and all he can see are a bunch of undefined words that he could not read nor recognize. Yet, there is a word he stumbled upon while scanning, and in fact it is written on the very first page—‘Esel’—. This word appears to be familiar, but he didn’t know why. 

Suddenly, a commotion is happening outside. Liero must have captured something and is torturing it. He hurriedly run to see what’s going on and trip his foot unto a pot of drought soup that signifies the last time the house is occupied by its inhabitant.

 “What is going on?” said Aheim trying to get the pot off his foot 

“This creature was stalking on us for a while” he held the creature from its wings to enable it to fly away 

“I’ve never seen one like this before” Liero added “ do you know it?” Aheim remained silent, it is something he knew but have forgotten. He studied intently the curious creature, and as he observed; its body is round and small like a normal bee, it has a small hand with three fingers and a feet like a shoe. Its wings are crystal but it has trailing veins that glistens gold, a hoggish nose and a bubbly circled eyes. The color of its fur is also gold-ish. Its entire Image is what exactly he saw on a picture so many years ago 

“A Tephapine” he unexpectedly remembered 

“A what?” Liero regarded his attention back to Aheim as he was trying to think of more information about the creature they found 

“A Tephapine! I must not be mistaken, that is a Tephapine” he draw closer to the creature Liero was holding to make sure he was right, and so he confirmed. This is one of the most dangerous creature, despite of its innocent look

 “So, what does it do?” Liero began 

“It steals energy and transfer it to another” but that is not just what a Tephapine can do. Aheim also knows that a Tephapine can steal magical powers and transfer it to another 

 “If one is no longer capable of retaining the energy, the Tephapine transfer it to another, that is its role in nature” Aheim explained. But Liero is not someone whom anyone can fool around 

 “So it can also transfer power?” his clairvoyance brought Aheim into silence, and it was pretty obvious he knew about it too 

“Tephapine huh! What do you think is this fella doing here?” they both ran into a question, and in their inattentive wondering, the Tephapine managed to wiggle itself off Liero’s suppressing hand, and flew away. 

“Oh no!” 

The two chased the Tephapine who’s heading towards the top of the mountain

 “What is it going to do in the NIHA?” Liero asked

 “Just keep going and we’ll find out” 

The Tephapine led them into a more peculiar place they never knew could be found in Shuixron. A sculpture of an eye gazing towards the castle

 “What is that?” said Liero catching his breath. But Aheim look as if nothing happened. Elves do have a higher endurance on this kind of things, he is fully aware of that, if it is a competition, he would be in a total disadvantage. Aheim remained silent, his attention is entirely on the eye. Liero was curious what it was about this time

 “hey! Hey!” he called, but Aheim seems not hearing him, instead, he marched nearer to the eye and raise his hand to touch it. Liero noticed the spark the eye made and the Tephapine as well 

 “Are you insane? Don’t touch it!” he yelled, but then again, he failed to disrupt him from this eye’s enchantment. Liero drew his sword to try to provoke him, but when Liero swung the sword, the mark engraved on the sword illuminated together with the eye statue, and they were suddenly pulled down by a force and gravitated towards a seemingly endless hole.