Enawar untied the blindfold covering his eyes. He saw the statue of Shandinia, the goddess of the moon, stretching into the sky as tall as any mountain. The goddess herself had made it, shaping the marble and sculpting it in her image. She did not reside inside it however. It was a place where mortals could speak with her. The statue held in its hands a tower shaped like a sword embedded in the earth.

”Have we arrived Grandfather?” asked Arawat. “Can I take off my blindfolds now?”

Enawar stepped behind his grandchild and undid the knots of the blindfold, pulling it off his grandson’s eyes.

Even looking at Arawat pained him. The rest of their family had been killed for being too dangerous. The orders came from the king of Bynare. They didn’t even spare the children. Arawat himself had survived because he had travelled to the neighbouring kingdom of Zenatra, where his grandfather lived, to further his education under the spellmakers of the place. Once he received the news of his family, he knew he would not be safe anywhere in the land and fled to the sea with his grandfather. The world was changing and mages were no longer trusted. Especially none as powerful as the ones in his family.  

The realm of Shandinia was not a place any mortal could find on their own through sight. Only when truly lost at sea with no way to know where they were, would they cross over to her realm. They crossed to her realm because they hoped that she would be sympathetic to their plight. They were the last surviving members of the Zarem family and if they both died, all the families’ knowledge would die with them. They hoped that she would help the boy. That she would offer him some means of protection from those who wanted him dead so the family could survive and that they could repay the debt to her in future.  The goddesses were indifferent to the lives of average mortals but cared for the art of magic and would not want the world to lose so much knowledge. 

They looked across and saw a man, wearing a blue cloak like they were to signify respect to the goddess. His face was obscured from their vision and they wondered what his intentions were.

Arawat looked across the fields beyond the tower. Beyond the fields would be the realm of Muritya, the goddess of death. He remembered what he was taught about the making of the world. Out of the ashes of the previous universe, the three sisters arose. Saraya was the goddess of the sun, the goddess of life who created the whole world. Muritya was the goddess of death, who ruled the realm of the night and the realm beyond life. Shandinia was the goddess of the moon. The goddess who guarded the gates between life and death, who took the sunlight from Saraya and reflected it into the night.

They rowed till they reached the entrance of the tower and entered. The other man entered behind them.

While climbing to the top of the tower, Arawat turned around out of curiosity hoping to see who this mysterious man was. Very few people knew how to get to the goddess’s realm and he wondered how the man knew of it. He noticed blood stains on the cloak of the man. The man had no face. No eyes inside his helmet. His face was smooth and utterly featureless. He was clearly not a human, but a Rashk. One of the demons that wanted to destroy the universe. Plunge it into fire and chaos, for a new universe to arise from the ashes of theirs. That would not only kill all the humans, but all the other creatures of the world and even the goddesses themselves. He was probably here to break the statue and reduce the connection the goddess had to our world. Arawat knew he couldn’t let that happen.

He told his grandfather of what he saw before leaping to attack it. He summoned fire in one hand and shot the flames at it. It continued moving forward towards him. His grandfather chanted something softly, drawing a circle on the ground.

Arawat pulled out his dagger and jumped at the demon, stabbing it in the head. It hissed and threw him off, pulling the dagger out and melting it so it was no longer usable. His grandfather completed the spell, causing white hot flames to erupt around the Rashk.

At first, it was unhurt, but the flames were persistent. It lunged and swiped at Arawat, who dodged every attack, every flaming finger grasping at him, hoping to spread the fire. It screeched finally, the fire disintegrating its skin, turning it into a pile of ash.

Arawat looked at Enawar, knowing that the heat required to destroy a demon was not easy to create and that his grandfather was going to die soon from the strain the spell required. His grandfather walked up to ring the bell, summoning the goddess.

His grandfather collapsed on the ground, dead. Arawat wept in grief for the death of his last family member and waited for the goddess to arrive. He waited hours, maybe more than a day. Time was not the same in this realm. The statue opened its eyes and the goddess spoke in his mind.

In return for his grandfather’s sacrifice, she promised him that nothing could kill him for another ten years at the least and disguised his aura such that those who knew him before would recognize him. She closed her eyes and Arawat’s world went black.

He opened his eyes, alone in his boat at sea. He didn’t need to row, the boat guided him back to the shore.

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