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  The nilt brought the four of us into what was called the nilt’s nest. He spoke only few words, but the only four words he needed to invite us were “Come join the nilts.” So without further ado, the mage and the scholar followed the nilt with the lance, as Sui and I followed closely behind. I knew that none of the inhabitants had heard what we had just heard, because they were separated from us by a stone door that the nilt had to slide open with a magick phrase and his arms stretched out to his sides. When we walked into the nilt’s nest, Sui and I were surprised by how great of a society these rats and mice of the mountain had. There was an entire community of nilts living in a huge rocky palace, decorated with large statues of their gods and many torches that lit the bustling miniature city before our eyes.

  In the dimness of the nilt’s cave, we noticed livestock being tended to within wooden fences, markets and merchants selling goods of various sorts, and many laboring nilts who pulled wagons of fresh supplies to the market stands. The people lived in huts and tents scattered across the rim of the cave floor. Women and children tended their homes, cooked the meals, and washed the laundry all day. The males handled all the other jobs such as: bartering, building, manufacturing, hunting, fishing, and protecting the cave entrance from hostile intruders. This was a nilt’s cave, and we were in the middle of it, after years of reading about these people being indigenous and savage-like. The warrior nilt, who provided us the cure, led us to a very small hut just outside of an old dead, leafless tree. This tent was significant compared to the others, based on its careful stitching of animal pelts and gems, evenly glued by clay on the surface of the tent.

  Inside, we found a fairly ripened nilt with sagging wrinkles covering his face and thin black patches of hair along his face and hands, which were folded in his lap. The elder possessed a well pronounced beard that was dyed the same shade of green as Äbaka’s hair. I realized that this was not just the elder of the nilts, but probably the green-bearded wizard that the mysterious whisperer in the cave entrance was speaking of. Around the tent’s walls, there were staffs, artistically forged swords, spell books of many arts in sorcery, and a lightweight robe of white silk that matched the one around his back. This was the green-bearded wizard we were told about, not Äbaka. I stared at him long and hard. Was this the man who would give us back our memories?

  ***

  After all the trials that Exitius has thrown at me, after every battle I’ve fought, I think I’m ready for him.

  ~Sui Bane Ozborn

  The musky smell in that tent was nauseating; however, I had no choice other than to deal with it. This ancient nilt was probably a fanatic of my forefather’s since he took the liberty of dying his long beard pine-green. As the nilt warrior stepped out of the tent, the wizard raised a shriveled and shaky hand towards Bradel and Larou, who were standing behind us.

  “We have come on your warrior’s invitation, sir,” Larou said in a respectful manner as he bowed to the elder, with Bradel standing at his side. The wizard raised his hand again, only this time, he didn’t wave, but said two words directed to Bradel and Larou, “Leave us.” So with another bow to the wizard, the Lux Invicta members left George and me with the old nilt, who brought out a bong from behind him and started to smoke it. After a few puffs, the wizard began to speak to us with flowing sentences, which was rare for a nilt to master, since they had their own language and didn’t often speak in others. He was a very slow speaker, and with every pause between words, his dry lips quivered.

  “I know why you have come. You have come to have your curses mended.”

  “Actually,” George began to correct him, “we have already been cured of the jauish curse.”

  “Yes, the jauish curse has been erased from you, but not the curse of a brainwashed mind.”

  “We’re here to see the green-bearded wizard,” I stated, watching his hairy lips suckle upon the tip of the bong’s cord and exhale the tobacco through his wet nostrils.

  “You are looking at him,” he said with a weak chuckle, “although not the wizard you were expecting, I’m sure.” He turned his head to me, “Sui, your forefather did this for a very good reason. It was for your own good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You mean it wasn’t obvious to you? Your forefather, Äbaka, is the one who stole your memories and replaced them with new ones.”

  I couldn’t speak. I could hardly breathe. George was as confused as I was and the look on his face said it all. I began to sweat and felt lightheaded. Of all people to take my memories, it was my forefather? Why would he do this to us? How did he do it? When did he do it to George? Did he know George before I even met him? All these questions festered in my brain as the nilt elder stared at us.

  “Trust me. He did it to protect you two.”

  “Protect us from what?” I asked.

  “From rushing to face Jobik; your forefather and I were fast friends, Sui Ozborn. When you were roughly the age of seventeen, something strange took over your mind. Some reckless and irrepressible thirst for the blood of Jobik painted upon a blade, stormed deep within you.”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted, “I never knew Jobik was real until after I met George.”

  “That is what your forefather wanted you to believe. He didn’t want you to remember that you were training as a mage after all of the chaos you had brought upon Rïdeneer. George Goodwill, you were no different. Äbaka had no choice but to erase all memory of what you had learned about Jobik. Now that you know this, I assume both of you are ready to learn exactly what drove you to the brink of madness, now aren’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” George said and then we listened to what the elder had to say. As he narrated a dark story, images of our younger selves flashed by in our minds with blood-red tint. It was a charm by the nilt sitting in front of us. It was almost as if we traveled back in time to witness the despicable actions that caused Äbaka to take our memories away.

  “You were with your family in the Jungles of Matta Shimbib, having an urban exploration trip through the abandoned laboratory of the long-since perished Resurrection Organization. Upon finding a holographic document hidden under a desk in the communications center, you discovered instructions for a ritual that could automatically bring Jobik back from The Netherworld of Darkness. When you listened to the voice recording, a terrified rouge scientist admitted to having concocted a ritual that could truly bring back The Black Beast, and frantically warned to never use it. You were growing tired of waiting and decided to perform the ritual in secret when you got home. As soon as you engaged in the dark magick, a phantom that appeared to be the embodiment of all evil appeared and attempted to destroy all of Rïdeneer. When you failed to stop him, he killed many people until your forefather was forced to vanquish him. In return for what you had done, Äbaka made you believe that you were a simple farm girl with no real knowledge of magick, the Fancore, or the reality of Jobik. He made you stay simple by giving you an adamant mindset.”

  I saw myself in the dark ruins of that facility, scavenging that file for my own benefit, but unleashing a power that I had no knowledge of. Guilt filled my heart as I saw people I didn’t remember existed die because of my arrogance. If it were the real Jobik, I would surely be dead. Not that long ago I was hungry to find Jobik; when we had Spike as a hostage to take us to him. Dealing in evil was not a good means to hunt it down. I listened as the nilt continued telling my story, “Before he could erase your mind, you put up a great fight against him, crying the whole way through as you knew that you were going to lose everything. You fought with all your heart until you were stabbed, treated for your wounds, and then altered into a simple country girl.”

  I remembered that particular moment very well now, before all my memories were even returned to me. I was full of so much passion and felt betrayed when Äbaka told me what he was going to do. I thought he wanted the Fancore to burn, but now I realized that it
was only temporary for a year, when nature intended me to be ready. Everyone in Rïdeneer was in an uproar because of my sin, but they all forgot when Äbaka altered their minds as well. I continued to sob uncontrollably at the sight of the most life-altering moment that I ever had. The elder spoke on, “You were blinded by your hatred of Jobik. Your impatience and reckless advance caused so many of the people that you held so dear to die by the hands of that demon. After you woke up, to find yourself in the cellar, nothing about your memory was true, but you believed it was. You recalled a tornado the night prior to when you woke up (not a battle), so being in an underground room wasn’t out of place to you. Tornadoes were common in the fall, which is when it happened. To cover up your crime, Äbaka had wiped the minds of every man and woman in the village and made them think that their loved one’s deaths were one large-scale, tragic accident, while on the fields of Crosscc, meeting their end from a burrowing wyrm. Many things about the Fancore were hidden from you to keep them out of your curiosity’s embrace. Everything you read in the books is real, Sui, people, places, things, concepts, gods, goddesses, everything. You were simply made to think they were myths.”

  After seeing that horrible vision, I wanted to know more about who I was before the event that led to my memory’s demise. The wizard told us about George’s cause of brainwashing, but it was a much darker tale than even he had anticipated.

  “It was a cold day and the air was moist. These were the days when the neko was still inside of you and you had abandoned your family roughly six years prior. You were in the southern city of Shi Shii when you lost a street chariot race to another man surrounded by gorgeous women, who bragged about his victory and the increase of his swagger. The winner of the race and six women approached you and antagonized you with boasting and obnoxious laughter. Due to your rough defeat, extreme jealousy, and the uncontrollable animal instincts that you held, the anger you had toward the victor caused you to lose yourself in a berserk rage.”

  I remember that George had told me about this incident. I knew the reason he did it was because he had been possessed, but there was much more to the story that the elder had to add.

  “You killed that man with your bare hands, and then you nearly killed the six women standing around him. The Shimbian Secret Police showed up at the scene moments later to arrest you, and despite your efforts to resist, they eventually trapped you in an ally. You were saved by a cult of demon worshipers, who killed the hooded men who tried to capture you. When they brought you to their quarters, they taught you their ways and how to kill in the name of Jobik.”

  George and I gasped simultaneously, learning that he had once been an ally to the very definition of evil.

  “You gave them your oath, and with that oath, they used you for their bidding. An assassin, a thief, and a bloodthirsty killer; this was what they made out of you and your abilities. When the time was right, you were permitted to assassinate your father— the man who passed the curse unto you by blood. You despised him for all the abuse he had put your family through before you were born, and wanted to see him die from no other means than by your hands. He was in his palace, towering over the slums of the northern settlement. The cult was with you to assist, but you quickly learned that they were ordered by the higher-ups to betray you. Before you could kill your father, you had to defend yourself. In doing so, the commotion alerted the man from his bed chamber and sent him rushing to find you next to two dead assassins. You fought with your dagger, and he with a sword. For days, you two fought throughout the town, having to wait for the imminent arrival of the Shimbian Secret Police. Your father put your face in the dirt and left you to them, defeated and broken, hating the cult you once belonged to and hating Jobik all the more since learning that your father was also a follower of The Black Beast.”

  I watched all the red-tinted scenery playing out before us by the nilt elder’s magick and felt very strange. It was like meeting two new people, but in fact, we really were. I wasn’t a farmer, and George had been more than just a simple thief. I could not judge him for what he had done in his past. All of that was behind him now, but the grief and shame he felt was evident upon his visage. The elder showed us more images from the past, played out in third person.

  “The Secret Police let your father off, not knowing that he was cursed as you were, as he was able to hide his features through a drug. They cuffed you and shipped you off to Imga XII, where a cell in an asylum for demons, and suspected demons, was set and ready for you to live out the rest of your life. It was there that you killed many inmates who tried as they might to kill you. You spent your eighteenth birthday in that wretched isolation. About five months had passed when a certain woman showed up to free her father from the asylum, without any credentials. The prison break that was meant for one man turned into a full-out riot when several of the inmates, including you, took advantage of the guards and escaped, destroying the entire facility.”

  I was that woman who was breaking my father out of the asylum! In the crimson shaded visions, I could see myself trying to free my innocent father, convicted of using dark magick in Bonitheraj, when we had visited that place before. This was a few days before we took a shuttle back home to Rïdeneer, where we decided to go exploring the laboratory in the jungles. As I continued to observe the visions, I realized that George and I had actually crossed paths, seeing each other, but not noticing one another. We were strangers, yet we assisted each other through the riot in the asylum. When we parted ways, we soon found out that everything we had been through would be shattered because of our rash decisions and impulses thereafter. George’s life was much darker than he himself had even imagined, and my early life was difficult with all the training I had undertaken since the age of three, a mere toddler. I listened as the nilt wizard went on with his narration, but couldn’t stop being amazed with what we were learning.

  “George Goodwill, when you stowed away on a space shuttle heading for Shimbia and made the decision to return home to your family in the country, you were confronted by Äbaka, who was disappointed in your affiliation with the cult. You grew impatient with his scolding and tried to shut him out, but he insisted in having a word with you. The demon within erupted and threatened the lives of your entire family. Realizing the danger you would bestow upon them by returning home, Äbaka had no choice but to slow you down. He knocked you out cold with a single punch to the throat and proceeded to brainwash you in your sleep. When you awoke, you were in the Jungles of Matta Shimbib, remembering that you ran away from home as a pre-teen and spent your entire adolescent life surviving in the jungles. Nothing was out of place for you and your hatred of the society that shunned you when you tried to travel. Journeying south, you entered into Rïdoranna and eventually came up to the rural village of Rïdeneer— that was when the two of you officially met. This is one of the first moments that the two of you had truly experienced.”

  After what seemed to be hours of listening to these stories, the red visions fell from our eyes and we found ourselves lying on the floor of the elder’s tent, as if we had been sleeping. My mind was blown by everything we had just learned. My forefather took our memories in order to protect us, and others, from rushing to face Jobik. The wizard began to speak again when we stood up and brushed the hay from our worn armor.

  “This was but a taste of what caused this to happen to you. As I said before, it was for your own safety that Äbaka did this. If he hadn’t, then both of you would have been dead or consumed by evil. Soon you shall be allowed to regain your memories as they played out before the brainwashing. That moment shall come when I return you back to Imga I, where the one who did it can be found. Follow my nilt guardians outside. I shall conduct the ritual that will bring you to Greenbeard.”

  Into the tent entered two robust nilts, holding lances and wearing full armor and helms with horns fit for humanoid rats. They led us next to the dead tree just outside of the elder’s tent. We really didn’t need
to be escorted seven feet away, but out of respect, we went along without question. Larou and Bradel stood beside one another with a group of hooded and cloaked nilts chanting some sort of blessing around the tree. While we were in the trance in the tent, gazing at our pasts, these people were preparing for some type of bizarre ritual that clearly revolved around the two of us. Out of his fetid tent came the nilt elder who leaned on a staff with many symbols of nature adorning the mahogany, bulb tip, fueling his magick ability. The hooded and cloaked nilts appeared to be priests blessing the tree. They reached out to touch the bark with shivering hands and raised their voices with every word in niltese.

  Once the priests gave the tree their blessing, the elder with the green beard directed us to stand next to it, back to back on either side. He walked up to me and George and instructed us to hold hands with each other by gripping our wrists. Larou and Bradel were granted the right to watch the ritual as long as they respected the peace and silence that was expected of them. The priests stood to the side and watched carefully as the shaman sprinkled powdered ginger and the native trilon root atop our heads. After they had completed their casting of spells upon us, the priests raised their hands and shouted our names. Visible blue energy flowed from their mouths and onto the ground like mist. This mist traveled across the stone ground and wrapped itself around me and George, as well as the branches of the tree standing above us.

  The eldest nilt started to speak in his native tongue as the priests shouted and the shamans continued sprinkling herbal powders on our heads. Raising his jittery arms in the air, the elder opened a blue, fiery, sparking portal above the tree that led to the location of my forefather. As I looked up at it, I could see him hiding in an ally of some sort of city, though I knew not which one, nor where. To save me from mysteries, George said the name of it out loud in a hushed voice, “Shi Shii.” So he was in Shimbia, but why would he be hiding in an ally, more importantly, from what?