The Enchantment of Time Volume 2: The Enchantment of Time

By Niccolò Gennari

This is the second volume of an epic fantasy saga.

On a night of the full moon, in the tower of a castle that rises between the water of the Nàar, a witch is born, gifted with enormous, dark powers. In the city of Fedòra, the great capital of humans, an ancient Order guards a terrible secret that gravely threatens every living creature. In the Temple of Destiny, not all the wizards are what they seem, and dark threads are woven in the gelid nights. This is the mission to recuperate the First Breath; the members of the team must face the most ancient and dangerous wizard that Crow Mountain has ever sent into exile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Niccolò Gennari
• Release date: May 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781547585021

Book preview

Contents

Prologue

Third part

The Maiden who heard Voices

Meèron Thà

The early years

The voices

The three columns

The old well

The siege

The rebirth

The confession

Siblings

The fall of the Thà

Fidelia

Part Four

The Hourglass beneath the Ear

Io

Fedòra

Kanistas Vor

The hourglass under the ear

Io's rise

The meeting

The two books

The book by Kano

The Internship

The book of Eliamor

The call

Grundwald the 31st

The end of the Greoyr

The goblin's mission

The way of the West

The Temple of Destiny

Kirsal the 38th

The unexpected

A night at Crow Mountain

The High Council

Part Five

The First Breath

Glem-Nar

Raghel the 39th

The sick wizard

The Mission

Before Dawn

Lake Lano

The Day of the child wizard

The elderly hermit

On language and memory

The sacrifice

Deductions

The Restricted Council

The night at Ard'jin

The Riadi

The premonition

The dragon passage

The village of Dago'On

The gray cigar

The Roof of the world

The First Breath

The return

Grundwald the 31st

The point of no return

Appendix A: List of names

Prologue

The Sun rose rapidly, beyond the peaks to the southwest. The wizard stood still for several minutes, enjoying the show and a rare moment when the voices in his head had subsided. A crow began to circle overhead, then began to descend in altitude, until it landed on a boulder that lay in the fresh snow, a few steps away from him. He pushed the red cape aside and knelt beside the bird, which looked very old and tired. He was there for him, and he had a message tied to a leg.

The wizard smiled at him but only for a second, because he soon heard the voices. They were the in audible whispers that he had lived with for centuries. They were blurred voices that blended into an unintelligible cacophony. He had never understood what caused them, but had now learned to use them as a warning signal: when their volume increased he knew he would soon lose consciousness, leaving his body at the mercy of the other.

The wizard walked rapidly towards the north. He circled a huge boulder out of the sight of Crow Mountain and reached a crevice in the rock that was protected from the winds, where there was a hole in the stone no wider than his head. There he hid his wand, a gnarled ash branch, he pushed it to the bottom with one hand. He couldn't risk losing consciousness without first having hidden it; he had been lucky to find the wand again, whenever he had lost his senses in the past. Relaxed, he moved away calmly from the hiding place. After not even ten steps his head spun and he lost consciousness again having lost touch with reality again.

Third part

The Maiden who heard Voices

Meèron Thà

For the umpteenth time Meèron turned over his empty glass, which was empty, for the umpteenth time.

He had always thought he was a man of sound and strong principles, and drinking, albeit in moderation, had always been one of the few vices he had conceded himself. He had received an iron hard and traditional education, which had led him to see the world with simplicity, white or black.

But that night things were different, for the first time in a grey fog had crept into the doubt and confusion in his mind, something he had so often criticized in others.

There was a full moon, but before the pale moonlight could rise beyond the barren ridges of the Gorf, to light up the placid waters of the Nàar, pitch-black clouds had swallowed everything.

From a nearby tower a cry of pain arose, the labor had begun.

There would soon be rain and Meèron briefly thought about dying.

It would not take much, he told himself. He was on the highest tower of the castle, which was a medium-sized fortress that stood on a small island in the middle of the river Nàar, which had three very tall towers. The main one, built directly above the keep, rose over thirty-five meters. The least effort to rise above the battlements and then a single jump.

Then nothing more.

He looked back at the glass and threw it violently against the stone of the battlements.

He told himself he would probably be cursed, if he ended his life with such an act of cowardice. That night the House of Thà was going through its darkest moment and it was his duty to face whatever the future held.

No, he repeated, he would not, for the sake of his firstborn Grundalf, who was still in the age of innocence.

He would not do it for the love of his wife, Abèra.

He would not do it for the sake of revenge, because he had not yet washed away the curse with blood that the cursed goblin had cast on his bride, less than five months before.

The curse was a contagious and rotten beast.

His wife had been marked, and soon the dark seed would bear its fruit.

There was no certainty in these cases, but only a lucid dread, a cold panic that had grown at an unnerving pace during the final months of Abèra's pregnancy, which had been marked by severe pain and nightmares. Was it only fear? Or had the dark passenger taken root in the belly of his love?

A second scream, this time more prolonged, came together with a dull thunder. A violent storm was rapidly approaching from the north.

Not heeding the icy wind that raged in the valley of the Nàar, he grabbed the pitcher and drank the little beer that was left in the bottom directly from it. He was so drunk that half of the liquid dripped from his chin; drenching the thick ermine skins that surrounded his neck and that joined the cloak behind his back.

In all those months he had not been able to find a solution to what would soon happen. But soon he would have to act; in one way or another his role would return him to that task.

He drew out his dagger and laid it on the stone in front of him.

The screams increased in their intensity and frequency.

The rain reached the valley of the Nàar, but its roaring did not prevent the sound of Abèra’s screams that were brought to his ears.

The storm raged, but it was nothing compared to what was stirring in the heart and mind of Meèron, taught as a rope, waiting for any sign that would make him understand if he could celebrate or if he must despair.

Suddenly the screams subsided, and he held his breath.

Then a new scream echoed between the towers but different from the previous ones.

It was from another woman, younger, and it was from terror.

The midwife!

Suddenly he understood. Things had gone wrong.

Meèron Thà cried out to the world in despair.

He stood for a moment with his head bowed, then grabbed his dagger and sprinted towards the inside staircase.

If his castle appeared deserted it was not because of the late hour, but because he had forced all its inhabitants to stay closed in their lodgings that night.

The gossip had been going around for some time and he didn’t want any witnesses, whatever happened.

Screaming like a demon he traversed corridors and climbed the tower where he had left his pregnant wife on the top. He saw a succession of luminous cracks. Nobody slept and everyone was trying to hear as much as they could.

That night someone would die, he thought among the fumes of alcohol.

A flash lit up the night, as he opened the door and entered the room.

Midwife, tell me what is it! he yelled.

The girl lay crouched and shivering, in one corner of the room, on the opposite side of his wife, exhausted, she lay on the bed where she had almost fainted.

A girl? It's a girl, she answered hoarsely and brokenly from tears.

He clenched his fingers around the dagger and glanced around the room.

The midwife whispered, I threw her under the bed, the demon has taken her!

Meèron Thà had hardly heard the phrase, or perhaps he had not wanted to hear it, and with a newfound but unexpected lucidity he found time to notice that Abèra was losing a lot of blood.

Then he vented his anger on the midwife. With two steps he was on top of her, with his gloved hand he grabbed her hair and lifted her off the floor. The girl screamed and struggled, but he punched her on the side, which caused her to almost lose consciousness.

You have not finished your job, midwife. He hissed, and then he threw her across the room, making her fall at the foot of his wife's bed.

Stunned and seized by convulsive tremors, the poor girl clung to the blankets and managed to get back on her feet, returning to Abèra’s face, looking at her with an indecipherable expression on her face.

Let me die. She exclaimed in a whisper, to the point that not even the girl was sure she’d understood the words.

But the midwife did not obey that order, because behind her Meèron Thà towered over her with his dagger. Then she worked hard to retrieve the placenta and cut the umbilical cord, which had remained intact.

Horrified, Meèron followed that evil thread that had kept, which abomination alive, and that ended under the bed.

As soon as the girl cut the cord, a gasp rose in the room. Not a cry but something more unnatural, a dark creature cried out its wish to survive to the world.

Midwife, now show me the creature, he exclaimed coldly. The adrenaline had already freed him from the effects of alcohol.

The girl shook her head, while her cheeks were streaked with tears.

Meèron Thà took her by the hair again and pointed the knife at her throat and repeated, Now show me the creature and finish your work.

In shock, the poor girl lowered herself and put a hand under the bed, keeping her eyes closed.

She grabbed the umbilical cord and pulled.

Meèron forced himself to look at it, but after a couple of seconds he had to turn around and close his eyes.

The girl was seriously deformed. In her chest some protuberances showed that her chest was completely asymmetric and irregular. He counted four fingers on her right hand, as well as the left foot, but it was on her face that the goblin's curse had created its greatest effects. The right eye was completely covered by a layer of skin that grew over the forehead and even closed the nostril below, there was not left ear, while the right ear had moved forward, next to the temple. The jaw was rotated and the mouth had an unnatural opening on the left side that reached the middle of the cheek.

Meèron Thà looked at her for a long time, letting himself sink into the darkest hell.

The midwife, with her eyes almost closed, did what her master had ordered her to do. She cleaned the blood from the creature and cut the umbilical cord. She medicated the navel and placed a lead pellet on it. Finally, she wrapped it tightly.

I have covered the demon, must I do anything else for you My Lord? the girl exclaimed as if to challenge her owner, for that act she considered as useless as it was sinful. The creature would have been killed in the next few hours, if it had not died before of natural causes.

Meèron Thà was silent, as he looked from his wife, who was staring at him, apathetically, to the creature at her feet. He continued to descend into the abyss until he reached the bottom.

This creature came out of my wife's womb, you will not speak about her in that way anymore, do you understand me?

The midwife was terrified by that phrase and her eyes widened, as if she suddenly realized she was surrounded by evil demons.

She started to flee from the room, but Meèron Thà was quicker. Turning on himself with the dagger, he plunged it vertically under her chin, tearing her face and slashing her agonized to the ground.

Abèra and Meèron had loved each other all their lives, and after all those years they no longer needed to use words to communicate.

The Lord of the Lake lowered himself and took the creature gently and handed her to his wife.

We'll have to hide her. We'll say she died after you gave birth. He said to his wife gently, who had only then showed she was lucid, she nodded her head. He continued, I'll need something to show, I'll put the midwife's head in a bag and I'll show myself while I throw it in the well.

Abèra stretched out a hand and stroked the creature on the forehead. Come nearer to me with her, I have to find out how to nurse her. Her husband was baffled by his wife’s determination, You don't have all your strength yet, she is not ... it will not be easy you know that?

She smiled at him, I know. And from now on you must call her by her name. You know it well because you chose it.

Meèron Thà went back to looking at the creature. By now he was almost used to that sight, and the nausea was almost bearable.

Fidelia! he whispered.

The early years

Life in the castle quickly returned to normal. None of its occupants was interested in keeping alive the memory of the risk they had all run when a witch had come to light within those walls.

Everything was left behind.

With a certain foresight, and planning for one of the many eventualities, Meèron Thà had chosen a midwife from a village several days of riding away, where the mountains gave way to the plains of Enfasia. Her parents' humble beginnings had helped to avoid problems when it was said that she had died after a riding accident, her head had hit against a rock.

After less than two weeks the master builder of the castle had been removed and replaced with a foreigner, who on his first day of work, after a brief general inspection, declared that the summit of the southeast tower was likely to give way and that it had to be reinforced. In the meantime, for the safety of its occupants, it was evacuated. No one could access the higher floors, except the Lord of the Lake and his wife Abèra.

The master builder first began by closing all the windows with thick wooden beams. At Abèra's request, he then applied a large quantity of pitch, resin and straw to the cracks, to prevent the noise of the building from disturbing the other occupants of the castle.

Months passed, but the work was never begun. Meanwhile, the master builder appeared increasingly agitated and restless.

The farrier, who slept in the adjoining cell, had heard him talk in his sleep. There was talk of strange and sinister sounds coming from the top of the tower.

After a few weeks, nobody saw the master builder anymore.

The Lord of the Lake declared that he had been dismissed because he had not proven to be up to the task assigned to him. He added that the roof of the tower was beginning to yield, and the beams of the false ceiling, were beginning to crack, producing strange sounds.

After about a year, a dark feeling began to spread throughout the castle.

Something sinister permeated the air itself, between those walls, and the towers of the valley of the Nàar were greyer than usual.

Meèron Thà was the one who had changed the most. His sound principles tortured him at night, for putting an end to innocent lives. He had fallen into an abyss without return and was lost.

Meanwhile, the fate of his castle and the villages overlooking the lake were increasingly neglected.

The towns, left to themselves, after repeated bouts of brigands, the populations began to leave and they slowly ceased to exist.

The castle itself lost many of its inhabitants, who preferred to look for a life elsewhere, driven by an uneasiness.

The Lord of the Lake did not seek to replace the skills that were lacking, from time to time, but often entire families were replaced by a single individual, with the result that there were fewer people and not as much life within those walls. And the young Grundalf hardly had any other child of his age to play with.

The child continued to be the only source of light left in the castle, and grew happy and carefree, albeit with fewer and fewer friends, unaware of all that was happening around him.

Meanwhile, on the summit of the Southeast Tower, Fidelia fought to survive.

The deformities of her body gave her excruciating and permanent pain that could have driven anyone but her out of their mind. Impelled by a dark and unnatural force, she learned to endure the agony, and to consider the intense pain as a normal part of her life, and she had already stopped crying for the first time at ten months. Until then, her crying had not ceased, except when she ate or when she slept, collapsing every time, after hours and hours of despair.

She had also learned very early to know loneliness and cold. Meèron and Abèra went to visit her every day and she did not lack for food and blankets, but there were no fireplaces, or the possibility of lighting fires up there, and the winters in the valley of the Nàar were very cold. There were no windows in the attic and the only light filtered weakly from the roof. Her parents used torches when they visited, but they never left them in the room, so the child was almost always in semi-darkness.

At two years old the girl learned to crawl, and six months later she spoke her first words, to the amazement of her parents, who did not think she would ever succeed. And from that moment on she quickly learned to pronounce numerous words, even exceeding her peers.

The child grew up serene and without resentment.

That was the only life she had known, and the attic was the only world she had ever seen. To be serene, it was enough to know that her parents visited her daily, and her reward was to know that she could learn a few things every day, as well as learn how to manage the problems she experienced with movement, breathing and the constant pangs of pain between her ribs and everything else.

She had learned to live with the body that life itself had given her, without wishing for anything else. She understood that she was not like her parents and she did not want to be the same as they were She just wanted to live.

The voices

On a day like any other, only a few months before her third birthday, Fidelia complained to her mother that the voices would not allow her to sleep.

Abèra didn't think much about it, or perhaps didn’t want to give it too much weight.

After three years she had achieved a satisfying stability and daily life with her daughter. She didn’t know what would happen in the future, but the nightmare and despair of childbirth were now distant, cloudy memories. She was convinced that a future was possible and that her daughter was a normal child, if not for her physical deformities. Indeed, she was more intelligent and precocious than those of her age.

From time to time in the days that followed, the child kept repeating that she heard those voices: confused voices, in a language she couldn’t understand.

Her mother was convinced that they were childish fantasies, after all Grundalf had always had an imaginary friend, and she encouraged her to ignore them.

The girl obeyed, now accustomed to put up with various forms of slight and intense pains without complaint.

It was in the middle of the night of her third birthday, when the full moon was high in the sky when, for the first time, the girl understood the voices. And when it happened, her only eye widened in surprise.

It was not the voices that had changed, nor the language those words were spoken. She herself had changed, and now she understood everything, as well as she understood those phrases.

The next morning her mother went up to the tower to take her daughter breakfast.

She found her standing in a corner of the roof hidden from the light.

Abèra smiled at her. Fidelia, what are you doing hiding there at the back?

Surprise, Mother. The girl replied in an unnatural voice but overflowing with happiness.

Her mother had never heard her speak with that joy, and she was happy.

She crouched down to her height and invited her to come forward.

A few seconds later, an intense cry came from the southeast tower.

The attic door was opened and violently closed.

The Lord of the Lake's wife ran downstairs, completely upset; she looked for her husband, her face pale.

Once again, the castle was shaken by demonic screams that echoed in its corridors and halls.

Her husband could not understand his wife; she was so agitated; she forced him to follow her back to the tower.

The child was still there. Crying desperately, because she had seen her mother run away.

Her father looked at her for a long time, but he found nothing unusual about her.

Abèra, tell me what you saw! He thundered.

His wife managed to respond through her sobs and tears, She was not her anymore. She was me! She had my face!

The father looked back at the child, who now looked disappointed, but who had already stopped crying.

Fidelia, can you do what you did for your mother again?

The girl nodded obediently and smiled again, thinking that her father would appreciate her gesture.

She turned away for a moment, and when she turned back, she had Abèra's face.

Her father took two steps backwards, trembling.

It was an abomination, the face of an adult woman, smiling, on the body of a three-year-old girl.

The little girl spread out her arms and small, faint fires appeared everywhere in the room, only to go out immediately afterwards.

Abèra fled again and as she ran she fell tumbling down the narrow spiral staircase. Her husband, ignoring his wife, fell to his knees, crying. His worst fears had become reality. He could stand the idea of those physical deformities, but not the darkness that had manifested itself before him, nor the threat it represented.

For a few seconds the girl waited for a sign of approval from her father. But what Meèron Thà did, however, was to get up and close the door behind him without even saying goodbye to Fidelia, leaving her alone in the cold and dark.

That evening the Lord of the Lake went to the castle library and stayed awake until late. He had to understand what he was dealing with. And he did the same the days following, disregarding the fate of his wife, who had fallen and fractured her right leg.

Something had changed that afternoon. Meèron and Abèra, who had walked together until only the day before, were now on two separate tracks. His wife had entered a spiral of deep depression, and all her worst fears that had been laboriously buried under the small stones that had accumulated over those three years had returned heavier than ever. Also, she was forced to stay in bed almost always, but her husband did not visit her. Nor did he bother to enquire about the condition of her health. The Lord of the Lake no longer even thought about his beloved first-born Grundalf, nor much less about governing his territories, long since fallen into ruins. It had become his obsession to understand who his daughter really was.

More than two weeks passed before the father realized that his daughter had had no water or food for days. Abèra was no longer talking to him, resentful of her husband's distance, but the last thing she had said was, I will never visit that creature again.

Meèron Thà ran to the tower, convinced his daughter was dead, but when he threw open the door he found she was still there, intent on drinking her urine. The room had not been cleaned for days and the smell of feces was sickening.

The girl looked at him with an indecipherable expression on her face, but said nothing.

He burst into tears, thinking that darkness had fallen on the castle and had infected all its inhabitants like a cancer.

He put food and water on the ground and closed the door without saying or doing anything.

More days passed, and he spent all of them exploring his immense library in search of useful information, but no single day passed that he did not go to visit his daughter, he personally took care of cleaning her room and taking her food and clean blankets.

The little girl started to talk to him, but she did not mention that day, nor did she play the game anymore. She had learned that her parents didn’t like when she played, listening to the voices.

She would only do so in secret.

It was not until two weeks later that the Lord of the Lake found what he was looking for.

Ancient notes stuck inside a book of alchemy mentioned witches. He found everything he needed to know there. They went back a few centuries and were signed by a certain Lyo Kan Pelseng, who called himself a hunter of abominations.

He learned that there were three types of witches.

The first the author called ‘Fatuous’ and had the power to show things that were not real to other living beings. The illusions were described as extremely real but short-lived, however, the length of time was not specified. They were so real they could be touched and used as if they were real. The illusion was all in the mind of the victims, who believed they were doing things that they did not actually do, and more people could be affected at the same time.

The second kind were called ‘Goblin's daughters’, these witches were capable of casting evil spells, just like the goblins from whose darkness they had sprung. And here the author went into explaining a wide variety of possible evils, depending on the powers of the witch and the goblin that had generated her. It referred to another text, which analyzed the various ethnic groups of the existing goblins, based on their places of origin, and how the dark powers of the Ancient World had been handed down through the generations. It also better explained the role that all this had on the dark shadows, which had been attacking them for millennia, infecting pregnant females with their darkness, until they were subjected to that race.

The third type was described as the most dangerous. These were called ‘the Evocatives’. Of all the existing creatures, they were the only ones who were able to summon the demons of the Ancient World. These were recalled by the Underearth, an undefined place, which many believed was only a legend, and was said to be located neither in the Lands of the Above, nor in the Lands of the Below. They could remain in this world for only a few minutes each time, and during that time the witch was catatonic and totally helpless. It continued with a long digression about the various types of demons that had been seen to emerge from the underearth over the millennia. Not a few, in truth, considering how rare the evoking witches had been. They were giant creatures, driven by a blind thirst for violence, and each time the few minutes they had at their disposal had been sufficient to sow death and destruction wherever they appeared. A postscript specified that the witch could summon them with a precise task to complete, but she no longer had any power over them once they appeared.

The notes ended with a brief explanation of how to identify the witches. It was essentially a matter of observing their behavior, until they had shown one of the three ‘gifts’, although there were isolated cases of witches who had possessed two or even all three together. It was also specified that each of them possessed another faculty: premonition. This consisted of a state of trance, during which they could declaim future events for anyone with whom they had entered into physical contact. When they recovered, they could not recall what had been said, so it was not a real gift. The premonitions were, if anything, a gift that witches could give to others, for their own use, and for them alone.

Meèron Thà was convinced that his daughter was a ‘Fatuous’