Mandarin simply stared into oblivion, surprised to have missed that obvious possibility. After a very long consideration of considering the advantages and disadvantages of the methods of banishing spirits or trapping them, Mandarin decided that he would rather prefer a handful of terrified servants carrying those, uh, bottles, he had already forgotten their names, than to risk himself with any company while banishing spirits.
One immobility spell and a death spell, or a swing of sword or use of a single arrow, for that matter, would be enough to finish him off. Since he had already given up the advantage of detecting spells being casted, he knew that he would be unable to evade any spell successfully. Almost the entire male population was chosen to accompany Evil Lord as he journeyed to get the Elixir of Power. Unwillingly, Mandarin had told them about their responsibility. There was a small doubt inside his mind that he may be taking his potential attacker with him.
I estimated that there were about two hundred men going on the journey and each one of them carried at least fifty bottles in their backpacks and had a garland of eight bottles around their necks. They all had clear instructions about their role in the journey and Mandarin had warned them already that if any one of them got careless and got possessed by the spirits, he would not hesitate in killing them.
The women and the children gathered near the streets to watch the entire procession pass. I saw, and felt Mandarin notice, that some of the men used the huge crowd gathering to get away from the rest of the group and hide among the women. Mandarin smiled bitterly and then casted a spell.
It was a different spell and, to the escapees’ horror, it turned them into women. Mandarin moved on while the rest were delayed a little as shocks and taunts filled the crowd. “This will remind them to never try to outsmart me.” Mandarin thought and yelled at the remaining men to follow.
It was an eerily quiet journey. No one spoke a word. After passing through the outer edges of the swamp of the ogres, a few courageous ones began to talk and even though they were chastised several times from the other villagers to stay quiet, those gossipers did not stop. Initially, Mandarin was actually satisfied to hear at least something after a long term of silence. However, Mandarin’s patience was taken as permission to talk and soon Mandarin was not even able to focus on his own thoughts. When he realized that in this chaos, some people had tried to slip away, he was very angry. Then he noticed that they were travelling in circles around the edge of the swamp.
“Quiet”, Mandarin yelled and it was so quiet that Mandarin could hear even the flow of water of the stream which passed through the centre of the swamp. After confirming that no one got careless again, Mandarin selected those gossipers who had begun to talk initially and with a spell which could kill them within the next twenty-four hours, he sent them off to locate the escapees.
Afraid for their lives, the cursed villagers did round up all the escapees and brought them back to Mandarin before it got dark. On the condition that they would stop any more escapees, Mandarin lifted his present spell and casted another spell on them which forced them to keep all the villagers together. After effectively dividing responsibilities among the cursed ones, Mandarin sighed and then began to decide the punishment for the escapees.
It was getting dark and so Mandarin decided that they would be responsible for setting up the tents and will do all the chores, except cooking. They were not allowed to eat or sleep in any of the tents. Mandarin decided that it would be safe for everyone’s health if the food was cooked magically instead of risking the entire group in the hands of some inept cooks. On the warning that if Mandarin was dissatisfied with the quality of tents, he would kill them all, Mandarin said that he would spend the night in whichever tent he chose.
Fortunately for those poor escapees, nothing dissatisfied the Evil Lord that night. There was a small illogical doubt in his mind if someone would dare to attack him in his sleep. It was illogical because he had made sure that there was no possible weapon being carried by any of the followers.
The night passed quickly enough and the entire group continued their journey to the Dark Forest. As Mandarin passed through the outer covering of the Dark Forest, murmurs and whispers came to his ears again. People were discussing the various rumours about the place. One of them was scared by the numerous spirits while another one was scared of the mysterious animals which inhibited the island. He told his fellow listeners that there had been rumours of existence of several uniquely dangerous and poisonous animals which came out at night time. Others were also discussing the various rumours they had heard about the Dark Forest. Mandarin kept moving forward and ignored these whispers. All he had heard from the villagers were false rumours, except the ones with the spirits. It was true that the unsatisfied users of Elixir of Power still wandered in the forest. The Elixir was said to reveal itself only to the living and even though the spirits could not see it, they knew where the Elixir was kept and were always hovering around that area.
There was another rumour, though, about which Mandarin was unsure of. It claimed that there was a unique creature in the forest, correlating to the rumour of weird creature, which controlled all the spirits and was the true guardian of the Elixir of Power. The villager told those who believed him that the guardian was the source of the Elixir of Power and his own blood was what they called Elixir of Power. To Mandarin’s dismay, a lot of people believed the story-teller and were too scared to move further.
After several threats, Mandarin finally convinced them to follow him. They would have barely walked for a minute or so before they ran into a spirit. It was a translucent and purple man, dressed in the clothes of early fifteenth century, who was hovering a few feet above the ground. His coat was wrinkled and his ‘skin’ was so white that it could have been papery. The look in his eyes was a haunted one and he looked at Mandarin as if he was looking at his soul in an empty-minded way. His legs were almost transparent and there seemed to be nothing below his knees.
Mandarin raised his hand and began to twist his wrist clockwise thrice and then anticlockwise twice. A bluish glow began to appear as he casted his spell. Nearby, a scared civilian finally recovered from shock and managed to open the cap of one of his bottles. Mandarin casted an immobility spell and it hit the approaching spirit just before it could touch Mandarin.
An invisible net formed around the spirit and it writhed in pain. Without releasing his grip, Mandarin forced him towards the bottle and immediately it got sucked into the bottle. The cautious civilian immediately sealed the bottle and the spirit became trapped. After recovering from the uneasiness, Mandarin congratulated him and gave him a reward. A reward that was unorthodox but useful in this situation.
It was not exactly what one would expect to get but then again it was an unusual place. Mandarin’s reward was that the quick civilian got to stay near the centre of the group. Considering the fact that it was the safest spot in the group, it was a nice reward.
A few more steps later, they encountered another spirit. The followers had already seen the prize and everyone hurried to make Evil Lord use their opened bottle. This resulted in such a chaos that Mandarin lost his control over the spirit. Then, in a second, several things happened.
Mandarin screamed, “Quiet, everyone!” The spirit got free and instantly screamed, in an inhuman way, to call for help. The entire ruckus immediately silenced and any spirit which was nearby came to the troubled one’s aid. There was a new chaos formed as soon as the followers saw the arrival of the new spirits. People began to run away in fear as the angry spirits began to possess the scared villagers. There was a few screams and I saw the people who had been cursed to keep the villagers together for survival choke to death. Some came to their rescue but they did not dare to touch any of them.
They all died in pain while everyone around them was getting possessed by the spirits. There were almost hundreds of spirits in the area now. Mandarin was fighting to keep as many of the spirits away from those who were still with him as possible. The worst luck was that of the rewarded one. He had been stuck in the chaos as his reward turned into a punishment and he had been one of the first ones to be possessed.
The good thing, Mandarin thought, was that none of the possessed ones tried to attack the others while Mandarin took care of the spirits as he saw the possessed ones run away. The bad news, unknown to Mandarin, was that they all were running ahead towards the resting place of Elixir of Life.
After seeing several of the possessed ones to run towards the interior of the Dark Forest, Mandarin finally realized their intentions. He was completely outmatched. He had no one around who had magical powers who could help him. Mandarin was getting desperate because he knew about the other hidden curse of the Elixir, as told by D’nimo. If the possessed ones got the Elixir first, the Elixir would be destroyed permanently as it could not be used completely by the same spirit twice. If one who had already once consumed the entire amount of Elixir drank even a drop of it again, the Elixir turned into poison forever.
Mandarin was continuously casting spells at the spirits to capture them. Maybe it was only luck which caused Mandarin to face only one spirit at a time. He was unable to even breathe between two successive spells.
His followers were working equally efficiently. They were all holding an open bottle in one hand and its cap in the other. Mandarin was very impressed at the calm exterior of theirs but their face did show fear.
One of the spirits, a woman who might have been born around fifteenth of century, took a shot at one of the helpers. Before it could get him, however, Mandarin caught her and quickly sent it inside the bottle to trap it.
To make an estimate, Mandarin was trapping at least eighty souls per minute. Still the number of spirits was not decreasing. One of the helpers said in between spells to his fellow members, “Too bad she did not get to come with us. She would have overtaken us already.” Mandarin was too concentrated to hear it properly but he did assume some of the missing words and in spite of the serious trouble they were in, I could see a smile forming on his face. “It is different to hear several men being outmatched by a woman.” Mandarin thought as the others agreed with the helper. None of them noticed his smile. During this small talk, eight spirits were trapped.
Mandarin did not turn but assuming that the helpers were listening, said between the spells, “Listen... If you... survive... this... meet... me at... the... tower... a ... week... later.”
“As you wish, Evil Lord.” One of them replied as they continued to capture the spirits. After some time, one of them shouted to make others hear, “I’m almost out of the demijohn, guys. How many do you have?”
The replies, to Mandarin’s displeasure, were single digit numbers. He said to them after a little thinking, “Keep... me ... safe.” Others looked puzzled while I saw a resolve form in his mind.
Risking his own life, Mandarin made a choice which could affect the kingdom of Damian. He yelled as he twisted his hands:
“Earth, fire, wind and water! Banish all those who are restless in ethereal form to The Land of Souls. Send all the unsatisfied ones to their afterlife. Heed me and fulfil my wish, O mighty elements of life!”
There was a tremendous draw of energy from Mandarin as all the spirits were forced to the Land of Souls. There were several explosions in the air. They were very beautiful as they were filled with various colours. Each exploding spirit left behind a dazzling array of colours as they were moved, or I could say, pushed on to their afterlife. The colours signified the qualities of a spirit. Golden yellow, leaf green, aqua blue and other similar colours showed good qualities while the darker colours showed negative qualities. The helpers covered him from any approaching trouble and were willing to take the damage upon them. Fools, I muttered as I thought about their actions. They probably did not know what they were losing by protecting him.
But after some time, I cleared my mind and saw that they were right in doing so. There would be no one strong enough to protect the people from the frenzied spirits if Mandarin died now.
Mandarin was, however, unable to see these colours as he screamed at the huge energy loss affecting him. The survivors gathered around him, hoping for him to calm down as the weather had turned into a terrifying blizzard although after some time as Mandarin’s screams increased, the storm slowly began to change into an autumn. People came up with several theories to explain this change of phenomena but none of them were correct. It was so obvious that people had not even thought about it. Mandarin had lost all of his power over the weather! He was a simple ordinary person who was feeling like his entire body was being pulled apart.
Ultimately the pain Mandarin was suffering began to lessen and I finally reopened the mental connection I had almost closed in fear of facing the same torture he did. The storm slowly began to return and before anyone could do anything, the Evil Lord was fully in control of the weather again. I shook my head in despair while wishing against the timeline that someone might have killed him during that period of weakness. Mandarin’s brilliant fail-safe spell would have been spoiled and the approaching tragedy would have become non-existent. The entire timeline would have shifted to a different path.
Mandarin turned to his true helpers and said, “Remember! If you survive this, you should come to my tower a week later. I would have a special job for you all. And bring that girl you mentioned too. Tell me your names so that you may be allowed past guards.”
There were four of them and each one paused before saying their names: “Henry” “Paul” “John” “Elisan” The four names were most uncommon Mandarin had ever heard on the entire island. He decided to ignore it. Then he noticed that John had a slight limp in his left leg. But there were more important concerns now, Mandarin decided as he pushed away a nagging memory.
Ignoring others’ stares; he simply hurried towards the direction where the possessed ones had run to. Mandarin could not risk losing the Elixir of Power forever. Mandarin caught up with one of the possessed ones just in time to see it die. Mandarin stopped where he stood as he stood in front of the resting place of the Elixir of Life.
But it did not hold his attention at the moment. The remains of the servants who had been possessed were not his concern either. A small working part of him heard several gasps from behind and he knew that others had finally caught up to him.
He looked at the mystical beast that, in the stories of the scared villagers, was the leader of the spirits and was the true protector of the Elixir of Life.
Both of us, I could say, were staring, with shock and fear, at the Cerberus itself.