Ritual

Chapter 5

"I can trust you, right?" I asked Mr. Farko as I followed him to the alchemy room, keys in his hands.

"With my life, Your Majesty," he said. "Your father kept many secrets I held witness to, and I swore secrecy to it from everybody." we reached the door, and he inserted the key in the keyhole. I was about to ask him what kind of secrets father was keeping, and I opened my mouth, but he seemed to already know I was going to do that. "Everybody, Your Majesty. That includes you, unfortunately. But don't worry, they're not big secrets, I can assure you that." he said, without even looking at me, and opened the alchemy room door.

It was dark inside, and I could smell the abandonment. The light from the outside was enough to make me see, though, and I could see that it was clean and orderly, everything seemed to be in place, only the whole room was dusty and unused. It had a very mysterious and magical atmosphere; the walls were made from a strange purple stone, and there were a few unlit lanterns on the walls.

"I will go fetch the matches, Your Majesty." Mr. Farko said and left me in the alchemy room on my own. There were bottles and vials and strange things I don't have much knowledge of inside glass jars, powders and liquids in different colors, from red to blue to purple to yellow, and many others. They were lined up neatly on shelves and along the counters, and a big, metal cauldron with the spoon still upright and leaning on the rim seemed untouched for years, perhaps.

Shortly, Mr. Farko came back with a box of matches. He lit up the lanterns on the walls, and it only gave the room more enigma than it already had. I looked around the room in awe, it felt so important and so puzzling, like it was where a big historical event took place.

"Ah, this room was where your grandparents, King Vurwyn and Queen Henrietta, kept the hybrids and drew their blood to end the Great Death. This is a place of history, indeed." Mr. Farko said. He always seems like he could read my mind, or maybe it was because he is wise with his age.

"Are they real?" I asked. He looked at me, his brow raised. "The hybrids, are they real?"

"I'm afraid I was not working for the castle during the time of the Great Death, I was a small child in the village, Your Majesty, child of a farmer father and a baker mother. But I have heard stories, and that strange red liquid that they gave out to all of Krurian was nothing short of intriguing. It only took a few days for things to start getting better." he said, nostalgically.

"Mr. Farko, I need your help with something, again," I said.

"Yes, that is my job, Your Majesty what is it you need me to do?"

"You have to promise nobody else will know about this."

"A skill I have learned many years ago, Your Majesty." and he gestured to zip his mouth.

I closed the door, and the room became darker than I thought. I brought out the book from my pocket. "My mother left me this. It's a strange book about, magic, I suppose. I talked to a savant, and he recognized these symbols." I turned to the page. "He said it was a spell for resurrection."

Mr. Farko looked at the book, then at me, with a serious face. "I think mother wanted me to"

"Bring her back to life?" he said, cutting me off. "Yes, I figured as well." he gave a heavy sigh. "Your mother was never the one to believe in things like this. She was a skeptic in all things she found questionable. A smart woman, she was. Never believed in anything without proof."

"She didn't even know if the hybrids exist. She never saw one, ever." I said.

I opened the book and turned to the pages where it was written in a more understandable language. It seemed like a diary or an anecdote of history from somebody's perspective. It read, written mostly in quick scribbles:

The hybrids were discovered outside the kingdom walls, where travelers would be found dead and mutilated on the grounds. Kingdom knights were sent to capture the unknown beast, and it showed an odd ability to heal any wound, even a severed arm, as one knight had reported. They are vicious creatures and must be avoided at all costs. They will kill any person they will catch without reason. Fast, deadly, and regenerating. They have a history of the mysterious loss of many Krurians in the past, unknown until today.
I turned to the next page,

The Great Death is worsening, and more people die every day. I have consulted the savants, who confirmed that hybrid blood can be used to end it, once and for all. For the kingdom.

We will venture tomorrow outside the walls, where we will capture one of these hybrids for experiments.

A hybrid was successfully captured. It was very difficult to catch one, and we lost two knights. They are to be buried with honour. The hybrids are shapeshifting, though not in an absolute sense. They are humanoid creatures, with grey skin, long claws, and big eyes, with a set of razor-sharp teeth. They run extremely fast and can climb trees easily. They are built to kill. At first sight, the hybrid has disguised itself to look like a human and eventually transformed into its real form.

Security plan – improve the security in the gates. The outside is not safe. Outside travel will be heavily guarded and supervised. Anyone could be a hybrid.

New discovery – hybrid distinct fiction from any other human. Three hybrids are captured, and all share the same mark on their skin, like ink on their backs.

Queen Elisabetta then proceeded to try and draw what the mark looked like, and it was a hook-like shape with sharper edges.