Shervin's hands gripped a smooth, round object. His fingers tingled, and he felt a surge of warmth. He wasn't prepared for what happened next.
He was suspended in vast space. Chaos swirled around him. Cosmic debris, streaks of nebulous light. Ahead, a giant throne of obsidian loomed, empty, with a broken crown lying atop it. Beyond the throne, six gleaming pillars stood, and between the gaps, there were two eyes, blazing with red flames.
"I am free..." came a voice from beyond the bars, as sharp fangs came into view.
Before Shervin could react, he was pulled back from this vision. His hands went cold and numb, and the next thing he knew, he was back on his cot, inside his small room. He could hear the familiar rat-a-tat of his father's sewing machine, and the distant neigh of a horse. He felt his arms, his chest, his entire body -- he was clean of all the forest grime. What had just happened? Had he been teleported, somehow? How was he so clean?
"Father?" he called out. There was no response, and the machine still went on. Shervin decided to check on his father. He wasn't feeling weak from the ordeal of the woods. But it was still night outside. How much time had really passed?
He tiptoed out of his room. The room outside was illuminated only by the light of a lamp set in a wall corniche. The door of their cottage was slightly ajar. His father was hunched over his sewing machine, making final adjustments to what seemed like a royal vermillion robe.
"Father, you're working so late in the night?"
His father looked up. "Oh, son, when did you come in?"
"You didn't answer my question," Shervin insisted.
"A good robe can outlast a man who wears it," said his father.
Shervin was lost for answers. His father was so busy working that he hadn't even noticed his absence, much less the open door. He perhaps wouldn't even have noticed if actually got converted into an animal and didn't come home for two or three days. Something similar had happened last time too.
"Did you eat something, father?"
His father's brow creased. "Some bread and cheese, son. Enough to keep me going."
"What about the potatoes I got from the market yesterday? And the spinach?"
"It's hard work peeling and boiling those potatoes. And we don't have freezing Wards in place to preserve something like spinach. You can close the door -- I know it's bothering you. I don't mind the fresh air."
And perhaps bandits too, thought Shervin. He went to shut the door.
But just then, there came a rumble and a staccato sound of footsteps from outside their cottage. Before her could grab the door handle, a bearded man, wearing a leather tunic, his hair matted from sweat and dried blood, stumbled on Shervin's doorstep. Clutching his right arm, he let out a pained cry.
"He is dead," said the man. "The Violet God is dead. Our protector is dead!"
Events of last night swam in front of Shervin in a quick blur. A shiver ran down his spine. What was the man talking about?
"They are coming," the man said in a cold whisper, as he crossed their doorstep. Shervin's father shot up to his feet. The man swayed, staggered, wincing in pain, before his tall, hunkering figure crumbled completely. He fell on the floor face first.
"Help me, son! This man is bleeding all over our floor."
Shervin and his father grabbed the man's elbows and dragged him to the center of the room. The man was unconscious but his last words still lingered in the air.
"What did he mean?" said Shervin "Who is coming? And what is it about the Violet God? Isn't he, like, immortal or something?"
"Bring me hot water, needle, and some thread. Hurry up."
His father had a habit of ignoring his questions.
"Father, you're not a healer. I suggest we call Marrani for this."
"By the time a Healer gets here, this man will bleed out all over our floor. Now hurry up."
This was the first time Shervin had seen his father this animated. He quickly brought a kettle to the boil and grabbed a needle and a thin black thread from his father's drawer. As he was waiting for the kettle to boil, his father placed a hand towel on the man's wound.
"Will he survive?" asked Shervin. "What did he mean that the Violet God is dead. Just last night --" Shervin stopped himself. He wondered if he should even mention what happened to him in the woods. Even he wasn't sure what had happened to him.
Was it somehow related to the Violet God's death?
The kettle came to a boil. Shervin placed the kettle next to his father.
"Observe, son. You might have to do this for someone, sometime, someplace."
Immediately, his father got to work. First, he sanitized the needle in hot water, and then, with the skill of a surgeon and the finesse of a tailor, he began to stitch the gash on the fallen man's shoulder, a bloody scar that ran till his neck.
"Press on the wound," said his father. Shervin did as was told. Then, his gaze fell on a black tattoo, right near the collarbone. It was the same mark he had seen in the woods -- the winged serpent eating its own tail.
"He is one of the Karathins," whispered Shervin's father. "The Violet God's Chosen Acolytes."
"What's he doing in our village? Shouldn't he be tending to the hallowed Gardens of the Fifth Temple. Somewhere in Lurnia?"
But yet again, Shervin's father wasn't listening. His hands moved steadily, like he had done this a thousand times before. Shervin merely observed, as the Acolytes' wound closed in front of him, all because of the deft hands of his father. When he was done, his father wiped the sweat off his brow, and looked at the wound as if he was admiring his own handiwork.
"He might run a fever," said Shervin, touching the Acolytes' forehead.
"He will be alright," said Shervin's father. "All Acolytes heal from within, very soon. One of the perks of being a Karathin."
"He must be a great Warder."
Shervin's eyes twinkled. The man who lay in front of him had broad shoulders and a muscular build. He looked like a man meant for the battlefield, someone who had fought and won wars. But there was also a serenity to his face.
Shervin ate supper with his father, while the man slept. About two hours later, in the middle of the night, the man began to stir. Shervin was about to call it a night, when the man sat up, completely alert, his manic eyes searching for something.
"Where am I?"
"Sir, you were passed out. You must rest and heal completely," said Shervin.
"A Karathin doesn't rest," he grunted. "I must... I must leave immediately. I have to inform the High Priest of the Rukhnar Palace."
Shervin's father came into the room, wiping his hands. "Sir, we have an empty bed for you to sleep on. Whatever it is, it surely can wait till dawn."
"It can't!" the man bellowed. "We have entered the Second Dark Age. You don't believe me, huh! Look... look out and see for yourself."
Shervin peeked outside the window of his cottage. The three golden spires of the Rukhnar Palace spewed out purple smoke into the night. The smoke rose until it shrouded the full moon, plunging the world into darkness.
"Oh, high heavens," Shervin's father let out a gasp. "We haven't seen purple smoke in a thousand years."
"What does it mean?" asked Shervin.
"The Mad One is free," said the Acolyte, his eyes gazing into the distance, as the smoke began to swallow the world.