Infinity Glyphs

Chapter 7 - The Pyroglyph

Chapter 7 - The Pyroglyph

Kevin woke up in his four-poster bed the next morning. For a delirious moment, he asked himself where he was, but the stone walls and wooden floor didn't leave much space for questions: it had been his first night's sleep in the Pyramid. Now that he recalled all the discoveries from the previous day, though, it felt like ages since he had left his grandparents' house riding his old bicycle.

He stood up and started getting ready for breakfast, moving sleepily around the room. When it was time to get dressed, he couldn't help but laugh at the lack of options in the wardrobe, even though it was already full. Stella had come to see him in his room after the welcoming dinner last night; she informed him that she had brought new clothes, compensating for the fact that he wasn't allowed to go back home and retrieve his belongings. That moment, Kevin realized that her majestic mystical skills were counter-balanced by an extremely poor creativity on fashion. She seemed to have assumed he wore nothing but the exact same outfit he was wearing when they first met and, sure enough, he was now the lucky owner of five identical pairs of pants and ten replicas of his jean jacket.

Great, now I'm gonna live like a cartoon character, always with the same clothes.

The t-shirts, at least, came in different colors, though they appeared to carry the same symbols, most of which Kevin had already spotted in the Pyramid. Obviously, he hadn't discussed his new collection with Stella, especially because she had a far more interesting topic to address.

'Meet me tomorrow in the gallery, by sunset,' she had said. 'We are going to initiate your training.'

Even remembering those words made chills spread up and down Kevin's body. He knew they could only mean one thing: his famous first lesson would take place that afternoon; he would finally understand, learn the most important secret of all time.

The fact that she wanted to meet in the gallery still baffled him, though. Was the sacred knowledge hidden in the famous phrases? Or maybe lurking under a philosopher's beard? It was no use trying to guess; he would have to wait for the answer and spend the day trying to contain his expectation.

Breakfast was served on the same wooden table by the forest. Max, Levina, Nariko and Anna were already there and got incredibly excited when Kevin arrived and told them the news. Very soon, however, he discovered that there was a downside related to the perspective of such an important event: every single subject seemed to have to wait until after the lesson in order for him to participate. Frustration flooded him when they started talking about the medieval town, wondering what kind of people lived there and where it was located, but then ceased the discussion, insisting that Kevin would understand better later. He was tempted to remind them that he was the only one ever to see the place, but preferred changing the topic.

'Very nice trick with the artefacts yesterday; the way they created the symbol of Gold in the sky,' he said, hoping they would elaborate this time.

'Yes, the traditional welcoming toast,' replied Anna in her rapid pace. 'Aurum used to do it.' She grabbed her yogurt, stood up and pretended to be proposing a toast. 'Below the golden night ... no ... under the scary light ... no ...'

'Immersed in smelly fart,' joked Nariko, also raising a cup.

'It's ''under the golden light, we toast to our new knight''.' Intervened Max, before it got worse, but they were all laughing.

'So ... Aurum himself made the artefacts?' asked Kevin curiously, after a while.

'Only he knows the recipe,' answered Levina. 'All we can tell is that he always uses gold.'