Rodrigo Zacara and the Mirror of Power

8. The History of King Garad

Their squire naming ceremony went to plan, although Adara was confused when they apologised for not having swords. It seemed she hadn't given Noa a message, nor had she given her the key to the arms room. And as if that weren't sufficient, when they saw their friend again, she had no recollection of doing so.

'But I was in the infirmary all morning,' Noa insisted again and again.

'Maybe they hypnotised you to make you bring us the key and the supposed message from Adara,' said Aisha. 'I'm sure one of Kyle's friends must have the power to do so. Did you see any of them this morning?'

'I don't think so,' she replied. 'Well, I'm not sure. At ten this morning a boy who had hurt his leg came into the infirmary. Mirena let me put a dressing on it myself.'

'So was he one of Kyle's friends or not?' Aisha asked.

'I don't know,' said Noa. 'He was really tall, he had brown hair and very blue eyes. Eyes so blue that...'

Noa fell into silence.

'So blue that you couldn't stop looking at them, right?' Aisha finished.

Noa nodded, blushing.

'That's it. He hypnotised you. From now on, we must all be really careful around that boy with blue eyes. Whatever happens, we can't look into his eyes.'

That evening, they were all waiting impatiently for their new chores timetable. Considering they were now squires, they could start practising with swords and bows. For this reason, they were extremely disappointed when they saw that the first thing on their timetable was "history class." Oliver looked at the piece of paper as though his worst nightmare had become a reality.

'Before you learn to use weapons you should understand the events that have resulted in us needing them,' Adara said, guessing their thoughts. 'Knowledge is the most powerful weapon we have, little ones. If we don't keep the memory of King Garad alive, we have nothing to fight for.'

The next day at ten o'clock in the morning, the six of them headed to the classroom for their history lesson. Oliver wouldn't stop grumbling and moaning it wasn't worth travelling to a different world if he had to continue attending classes. He wondered if there was anyone with the power to fill their minds with knowledge without the need for boring classes.

When they entered the room, an extremely old man welcomed them. He had long, white hair, a pointed beard and the most wrinkled face Rodrigo had seen in his life.

'Come in, come in, friends. Take a seat wherever you would like. My name is Erold and I am going to be your history professor.'

'I'm sure he knows it all from memory because he's actually lived through it,' Oliver whispered. 'At least the last three centuries.'

Rodrigo, who was seated next to Oliver, made a great effort to contain his laughter.

'Very well,' the old man began. 'I imagine you have already been told many things about the reign of Arakaz, although few of those will be true. We are going to begin further back in time, before the arrival of King Garad, even. They were difficult times. Mankind was divided and confrontations often occurred. There were tens of kingdoms and in each of them a different language was spoken. We weren't capable of understanding one another and we always resorted to using our powers to destroy each other. Homes burned, fields flooded... You can imagine the rest. Meanwhile, the varblins took advantage of our rivalry to invade our towns one by one. They sacked them all and killed anyone they came across.'