The Prophecy of the Gems (27 page)

“Because everyone would like to keep their dear ones close to them for ever,” replied Jade sadly. “They know that’s not possible, but they keep hoping anyway, and they can’t help suffering when their loved ones disappear.”

“So my strike is a good thing. That’s just what I was saying: no one loves me.”

“No, really, that’s not true,” insisted Amber. “Many people wait for you to bring them rest, even though they also wonder what you have in store for them. And you must continue your work, to allow the world to survive. You contribute to life, you’re part of it!”

“Really?” said Death more cheerfully, feeling reassured. “Although so many people get scared when they see me… I think it’s all this black, and the colour doesn’t do much for me, either. But if I don’t wear it, I lose my credibility.”

Jade, Opal and Amber exchanged amused looks.

“I’m too fat,” lamented Death. “That must be my main problem. I try to diet but it’s impossible, I’m just so greedy. I absolutely must lose weight.”

The three girls burst out laughing. Surprised by a light-heartedness she rarely had the chance to inspire, Death smiled as well.

“Don’t worry,” spluttered Jade. “You’re fine the way you are.”

“Am I? You think I’m pretty, and nice?”

“Of course,” insisted Jade.

“I can’t believe it, no one’s ever told me that and I’ve been waiting to hear it for centuries.”

Death was so delighted, she clapped her hands. Then she tossed back a lock of her chestnut hair and smiled even more broadly, lighting up her winsome and still youthful face.

“Fine,” said Jade. “Now, you’re going to stop your strike, right?”

“No. If I go back to work, I’ll be sick of it again within three days.”

“But people are in agony, suffering dreadfully while they wait for you,” said Amber pleadingly. “They were about to die when you announced your strike, and they’re begging you to come and get them.”

“They’re waiting for me?” asked Death in surprise. “Well! If they want me to, I’ll come, I’ll go back to
work. But only on one condition.” Death looked deeply into the girls’ eyes, and her gaze was unfathomable. “No mortal has ever come here before. I will call off my strike only if you promise me that when we meet again, perhaps after many long years, you will follow me without cries and weeping. As if we were just good friends happy to see one another again and who will go together to a pleasant place.”

“We promise,” chorused the three girls.

“Well then, I won’t try to keep you here any longer,” continued Death, “because I sense that you are in a hurry to follow your destiny. Rokcdär will guide you to the edge of my realm. Although I cannot read the future, I do feel that you are in peril. I can wait patiently until we meet again and I trust that you still have many happy years ahead of you.” After a pause, Death continued gravely, “For a long time I have been associated with evil, and yet I am beyond that. I belong neither to good nor to evil and I do not judge either one. Nevertheless, I do know, see and sense good and evil. You should be aware that the power of these two forces has reached its peak and that the battle between them draws nigh. One or the other
will be annihilated, temporarily, but they are both too strong to disappear completely from the world. In the human heart, these two enemies will strive together for ever.”

Then, with a worried look, Death asked in a faltering voice, “Are you absolutely certain that I don’t need to go on a diet?”

“Absolutely,” insisted Jade in a firm voice, before giggling helplessly.

After affectionate farewells, Death smiled sadly at the departing girls.

“I’m unhappy that you’re leaving. If fate weren’t always in such a rush, I’d try to keep you here with me for a while. But I know I’ll be seeing you again…”

THE YOUNG HOVALYN
could not bring himself to accept the evidence. How could he be the Chosen One? He, who had served the Darkness! It was impossible. The Ring of Orleys had made a mistake. The other knights tried in vain to persuade him to attend the celebrations Tivann had organised in his honour throughout the day, for he remained cloistered in his room, brooding. Late that evening someone knocked at his door, entering in spite of his protests. It was the stalwart Gohral Keull.

“I know what’s eating at your heart,” he told the young man. “Go and see Oonagh. She will help you.”

The Nameless One seemed lost in thought.

“Tivann of Orleys is already preparing your marriage to his daughter Orlaith, but I sense that you do not love her,” continued his visitor.

“I’ll leave. I’ll go and consult Oonagh. All these people, here in the manor — they believe in me. I don’t deserve it. I have to go.” After a moment, he added, “I am not the Chosen One.”

“I know that,” replied Gohral Keull. “I know about your past.”

Startled, the young man looked up.

“You know who I was?” he asked softly.

“Yes. And I also know that you have changed. Let me go with you to Oonagh. I know many things about you of which you yourself are ignorant.”

After a brief hesitation, the Nameless One made up his mind.

“I’ll leave when it’s completely dark. I’ll run away like a coward, and if you wish to join me, then come along.”

“I will,” replied the older man firmly.

The two hovalyns spent the next hour preparing for their journey and then slipped out to the stables; they mounted their horses and galloped away from the
manor of Tivann of Orleys. From time to time the Nameless One glanced curiously at his companion, who maintained a stubborn silence, content simply to breathe in the invigorating air.

“I know some shortcuts,” said Gohral Keull finally. “They will bring us rapidly to Oonagh, where you will learn what your destiny is to be and submit to your fate.”

“What do you know about me? Can you tell me my name?”

“It isn’t your name that makes you someone, it’s what you are, what you do, what you feel. You’ve had your share of names, but I cannot tell you the one your parents gave you.”

“Then tell me what you know about my past!”

“The present is more important.”

For many hours after that, Gohral Keull refused to speak further. The two hovalyns rode across Hornimel all night long, and at dawn, when the colours of a new day blazed in the sky, the Nameless One spoke meekly to his companion.

“You know who I was, before… You know I served the Darkness.”

“I know,” repeated his companion.

“And you don’t hate me? Even though I don’t remember, I have blood on my hands. I’m a criminal.”

“You’re a man. So am I. Who am I to judge you?”

“Before becoming a man, I was a monster! I was a soldier of Darkness!”

“You are no longer. When you deserted, you renounced evil. When you lost your memory, you became someone else: the Nameless One, a hovalyn in the service of good. You suffered. You fought. Today, even if evil is still inside you — for it’s inside us all — it has been vanquished by goodness.”

“How do you know? What do you know about me?”

“I met you several years ago. You ask what I know about you? I never saw your parents, but you told me that they died when you were a child.”

“So they’re dead…” murmured the young man slowly.

“You were living with your grandparents,” continued Gohral Keull impassively. “You never wanted to talk about that time and never mentioned the name they called you by. You left home at sixteen because you were eager to see the world. That’s when I met you, and you possessed a strength and courage
that simply astounded me. You wished to fight, to combat injustice, and were not in the least afraid to risk your life.”

Surprised, the Chosen One listened avidly to his companion’s words.

“You burnt so brightly with audacity, with bravery, that all who met you called you Elyador, ‘the one who has been chosen’. You laughed about that and didn’t care a whit for glory.”

The Nameless One no longer knew what to believe. Gohral Keull spoke with great sincerity, but the young man was haunted by the mark on his left ankle.

“Then your path crossed that of the Army of Darkness.”

The Chosen One desperately wished to know what had happened, to discover why he had gone over to Darkness. He wanted to see his past clearly at last, forget his doubts, his questions, and understand what crimes he had committed so that he might be rid of them. But Gohral Keull now mysteriously refused to say another word, as if he dreaded to evoke those shadowy soldiers.

After another day’s riding the two knights saw the mountains where Oonagh lived silhouetted against
the horizon and decided to stop, since it had been dark for a few hours and they were worn out. Speaking little, they shared their food, then lay down to sleep. The Nameless One did not dare ask his companion any more questions, feeling that he would continue his narrative only when he wished to, but he wondered if, at long last, he would soon learn
everything
about his past…

The hovalyns finally reached the Irog range and began to climb the imposing mountain where Oonagh lived. They halted for the night in the dense conifer forest; it was already pitch dark, and both men could sense the anxiety emanating from the birds of prey. They did not fear them, however, for the Chosen One had kept the amulets given him by the Ghibduls. Just as the young man was drifting into sleep, Gohral Keull began to speak.

“Nameless, I have been a coward and avoided telling you this, but tomorrow we will reach Oonagh and I want you to learn everything I know about you.” After a deep breath, he continued hurriedly, “I don’t understand why you crossed over to evil. At the time I was your friend, and we were inseparable. One
day we encountered the Army of Darkness. I don’t know what happened to you — you were fascinated by the power of those sinister soldiers. Something drew you towards evil. You had always been good, as you are today — yet you joined that black army. I tried to reason with you. You wouldn’t listen. Why? You were so young, still innocent. Why does evil tempt men so much? Once a man has tasted its power, once he has known hatred, it’s so hard to return to the Light… Darkness carried you off into its depths. I lost track of you.”

Mortified by these revelations, the Nameless One asked in a shaky voice, “If I was good before becoming a soldier of Darkness, it means that evil could still regain its grip on me! If I gave in to it once, would I be able to resist it now?”

“That is a battle everyone fights at every moment. We are never safe from Darkness.”

“Why are you coming with me to see Oonagh?”

“In memory of Elyador, the youth you once were. You are not the Chosen One. But neither are you a soldier of Darkness. Many people know the rest of your story, and it finally reached me by word of
mouth. You deserted the black army. Why? Perhaps because you wished to return to the Light. You were caught, however, and as punishment your memory was erased. You then became once more the man you really are, a hovalyn.”

“But how could I make up for my mistakes? Atone for the blood I shed? Will people still trust me when they learn who I was?”

Gohral Keull did not answer.

With a lump in his throat, the Nameless One stared up at the starless heavens. So the soldier of Darkness had told him the truth. He’d been a criminal, then a deserter. One thing still intrigued him. He took from his pack the casket he’d received from the mermaid at the Lake of Torments and showed it to his companion.

“Do you know anything about this object?”

“No, absolutely not. But ask Oonagh about it, perhaps she can tell you.”

After their conversation, the young man then spent a wretched night, dreaming of blood and violence.

The two knights continued on their way in the morning. When they caught sight of the birds of prey, which looked like scars in the summer sky, they
slipped the Ghibdul amulets around their necks and shed every last twinge of fear. Gohral Keull had already consulted Oonagh once before, so he confidently led his melancholy companion into the winding tunnel. It took them more than an hour to reach the wall of light, and stepping through it boldly, they entered the vast grotto of Oonagh.

“Ah! Here’s the youth called the Nameless One,” piped a fluting voice.

The young man turned, and there was Oonagh.

“Help me,” he asked simply. “What is my name? What am I fated to become?”

“So you want to redeem yourself? Very well. Hasten to the castle of Yrianz of Myrnehl. That is where the bravest hovalyns become sorcerers of Light by pledging to fight the Darkness on the day of the summer solstice.”

“But I don’t understand,” confessed the Nameless One. “What will I do there?”

“You served the Darkness. Now, serve the Light. Take the oath of a sorcerer of Light. Fight when the battle so long awaited by everyone takes place. As it will, within two weeks.”

“But the people in that castle — they won’t ever accept me when they learn what I’ve been! They’ll hate me!”

“If you wish to stand up to the Darkness, first stand up to the hatred of men.”

“I’ll go with you, Nameless,” announced Gohral Keull. “I, too, want to fight in the Army of Light. And all those who have the strength for it will join us! Fairytale has been expecting this battle for such a long time… At last the Council of Twelve and the Army of Darkness will be reunited before us. We will annihilate them! On the day of the summer solstice, thousands of people will be there — pouring in from everywhere to fight for the Light!”

“But do not forget that the Chosen One has not yet appeared,” Oonagh reminded them softly. “He is to lead the Army of Light. Without him, I fear that the battle will not take place.”

The young man looked down. He was not the Chosen One.

“Go to the castle of Yrianz of Myrnehl,” repeated Oonagh. “Perhaps you will find the Chosen One there — and perhaps you will find yourself there as well.”

“What does that mean? Will I learn my name there? Or what I must become?”

“I read people’s hearts, not the future,” Oonagh reminded him.

Resigned, the Nameless One carefully withdrew the casket from his pack and held it out to Oonagh.