Victor and the Seven Circles of Darkness

Chapter 7 - Mount Saligia

The travel time took a little longer compared to travelling to the human world or to the Black River. Victor hated passing through the gate. He never got use to it as he always felt losing his breath inside the long and winding cocoon of air and space. He came out from the translucent portal gasping. He felt relieved, however, seeing Master Tyrus and Trobit nearby.

Bogle rushed to him. "Are you all right, my prince."

"I'm fine, Bogle."

The wind blew cold over Victor's face as if his presence was a disturbance to anything else unseen and lax. He looked around. Mountain and mounds of rocks surrounded them, with a lake so dark and serene in the middle and of which emitting a foul smell of decay. Thick and gray cloud mantled above them, and from far away were clashing cries of vicious beasts.

"Don't disturb the lake ... stay away from the water," Victor warned Trobit, who loved playing in the water.

"Something wrong in the water?"

"On my quest to Fallen Island, I happened to find a lake like this. I had no idea of the danger so I plunged myself in and had awoken a giant hydra that almost made me dinner."

"Do you think there's a hydra living in here, too?"

"I don't know, Trobit, but better be cautious. I defeated a hydra by pure luck and with the aid of my godparents' gifts. I don't think we could do the same here. We can't afford wasting time by fighting any beast now." He plodded towards his instructor, who seemed to be focused searching for the entrance to Mount Saligia.

Master Tyrus found a large, rectangular stone sealed intact over the mountainside. It's not difficult to find since its flat surface was a dominant view among the many boulders of rocks.

"This might be the door to Mount Saligia, but how to use the feather is the problem." He ran his palm over it and noticed something engraved in the center, a mark similar to the shape of a feather. "Victor, give me the feather."

Victor brought out the feathers from his coat pocket and gave the biggest to Master Tyrus.

"Let's see if this will work." He spread the feather in the carved marking and it fitted well, and yet, nothing extraordinary happened to the flat surface. He sighed, obviously disappointed. "Absolutely not."

"But how in the world a feather supposed to open a stone door?" said Trobit, puzzled in his expression. "A soft feather against a solid wall? That's ridiculous!"

Victor examined the marking and it fitted exactly to the shape and size of the feather. There were no other marks or holes visible in there. He recalled, the code to the portal was his name and maybe it should be him doing it.

"Let me try, Master Tyrus. This is my quest, maybe it should be me doing it." He spread the feather flat on the marking and in an instant the stone sucked it in.

They stepped backward. 

A radiance of light burst out from the feather mark, from there came out a thick line of light and slithered around the stone, cutting it into the shape of a door. Luminous inscriptions appeared above: Mount Saligia.

"It's the door!" blurted Bogle while resting on the prince's shoulder.

"Yeah, Bogle, we see it's the door all right," said Trobit. "What does Saligia mean?"

"No idea," replied Master Tyrus.

The thick line of light continued to slither until two images started to form on the surface of the stone. The image was a man with wings and dressed in armor. He was holding a shield in his left hand and a sword in his right, and striking over a defeated beast with bat wings, a tail and horns, and armed with trident.