The next morning, Oracus awoke with Kivali firmly in his mind. He got himself washed and dressed, then made for the sitting room to see if Kivali was already up. To his disappointment, he only found Eistra, and she was rocking in her chair, knitting what looked like a very long scarf.

“Good morning, handsome!” she said as Oracus walked in. “Did you sleep well? The bed wasn't too uncomfortable, was it? What would you like for breakfast? Ham? Eggs? Bread? Mushrooms? Or just some oats? Maybe a bit of everything? You don't have to eat but a good breakfast will keep you going all day so I think you should.”

Oracus had almost forgotten how much Eistra liked to talk. “Morning,” he yawned. “I’ll just have some oats please.”

Eistra was on her feet and in the kitchen before Oracus had finished speaking. “Kivali left early this morning,” she shouted through to Oracus. “I don't know where she's gone, but she said she wouldn’t be long. Quent is still in bed, the lazy so-and-so. I should wake him up!”

Eistra talked incessantly while Oracus ate his oats. By the time his bowl was empty, he was beginning to develop a headache, so decided to leave the house for a stroll.

“Be careful out there!” Eistra warned him before he left. And he could feel her crossed eyes burning into his back as he passed the strange folk in the alley (“Toenail soup, sir?”).

Oracus turned onto the street where the many shops had intrigued him the day before. The rain was no longer falling, and the day’s air was clear and warm, and Oracus doubted he would spot Kivali given how dense the crowds of people were. So instead of searching for her, he decided to focus his attention on the shops.

Every five paces there was a different type of shop to observe. With so much footfall through Lalacia, it was near impossible to enter every door, but Oracus made full use of the displays in the windows of all the shops he missed out. There were shops full of clothes: from battle armour to nightwear, both in a variety of sizes and colours, as well as silk linens, clothes for workers, day clothes, evening wear, hats, shoes, socks, and even fingerless gloves. There was a large variety of food stores too: butchers with chopped meats, grocers with fruits and vegetables, bakers with breads and pastries, and a fishmonger’s stall too. There were also weapon stalls, with every style and shape of blade imaginable, while alehouses and inns made up the majority of the rest.

Oracus advanced along the street with endless enthusiasm until the gates of the city came into view. It was a disappointing feeling knowing he would have the return to Eistra’s house, but before he turned around, he spotted one last tiny store that was almost hidden from view behind an apothecary.

Oracus approached the store with renewed vigour and grinned when he saw the fading picture of an open book above the door; it was the library.

The door creaked as he pushed it open. And when he stepped inside, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. But when they did, he saw books had been piled everywhere. The library was empty of people, but there was barely room to move between the bookshelves and the mountains of tomes on the floor. There were more piles on and under tables, and there was even a pile that had been stacked in front of the window, which went some way to explaining why the library was so dark. The door closed behind Oracus, and his first breath was full of warmth and dust.

“Hello, my dear.” The kind whisper of an elderly lady with silver hair came from between the shelves. When Oracus smiled at her, she disappeared again into the ocean of texts.

Oracus started by walking between the shelves and scanning the titles of the books. Any that caught his attention he would pull free and have a quick read of their pages. With each book he opened, more dust would rise into the air and make him cough, and he would close them more delicately before putting them back.

After maybe an hour, the library had seen no other customers and the silver-haired lady appeared to have vanished. Oracus transferred his search to the books on the floor and started picking them up at random. There were all sorts of weird and wonderful titles: ‘The Governance of Lalacia: Volume I', 'Killer Snails? Protect your Garden' and 'Controlling your Pets: Cat Psychology'. It was only when he held 'The Mythical Lavorian' that he suddenly had his interest piqued. When he opened it to its first page, it read:

The Lavorian myth is that of a creature with extraordinary powers. When introduced to its Rider, a Lavorian breaks from its Orbular and takes the form of whichever animal it desires most. Its natural armour is impenetrable, and it will never cease to grow.

As legend has it, the Lavorian race was defeated and destroyed in The Noble War several centuries ago…

“This must be old,” Oracus uttered to himself. Then he closed the book and returned it to the pile on the floor.

'A Woman's Guide to Male Behaviour' was the next book Oracus found. Then 'The Dangerous Ocean', 'Different Trees and How to Grow Them', 'The Fine Art of Cookery: Lobsters, Crabs and Shellfish' and 'Building Your Home From Start to Finish'. But then he found a book called ‘Visioning’ and snatched it up with intrigue. As the book fell open in his hand to reveal a paragraph of text, he recalled the dreams he’d had of Catania.

King Xarmoud

There is one name from history that is more associated with Visioning than any other – King Xarmoud. Although many claim Visioning is impossible to control, there are records stating King Xarmoud had harnessed the skill over decades of practise. It is said King Xarmoud could summon the power whenever he desired…

A pain came to Oracus so suddenly that it made him gasp and drop the book. What had been a minor headache earlier in the day had become a searing migraine that forced him to his knees. He reached out for a shelf to steady himself but grasped only a handful of books, and he dragged them to the floor with him. The agony was like nothing he had ever felt, except maybe on the night when Bandor’s orbular had fallen from the sky, and he could no longer hold back his screams of protest.

When the pain finally subsided, Oracus breathed deeply and prayed the feeling wouldn’t return. He dragged himself shakily to his feet, but then noticed his clothes were wet, and the wind was swirling around him. When he looked around, he was no longer in a cramped library full of dust. Instead, he was in the middle of a battlefield, surrounded by bloodied bodies on the saturated, sandy ground. Thousands of Human men clambered over their fallen comrades to fight the foreign enemy that faced them. Tall and pale, with black armour that glistened in the rain, the enemy glided like black liquid across the ground to slaughter the lesser Humans in their path.

A ferocious storm hung overhead, and powerful winds drove sheets of rain across the battlefield. Lightning flickered within the charcoal clouds and the cries of dying soldiers were lost in the claps of thunder that followed. Beyond the enemy in black, a city stood in ruin.

At the very centre of the battle, King Xarmoud held his ground. Under the thunderclouds, his green eyes surveyed the chaos with little concern. He held his sword in his hands, a sword with an emerald in its hilt, and he stood between the legs of his mighty Lion Lavorian. However impressive the enemy were at fighting, King Xarmoud and his Lavorian were more so. But their foes didn’t fall to sword or claws, they crumbled to dust every time their armour was pierced.

For a long time, the battle continued. The storm was relentless while countless Humans were slain and never-ending droves of enemies came forwards. It seemed it would go on forever until a beast stepped out of the storm with an unworldly shriek. Both friendly and unfriendly fighters came to a halt at the sight of the creature, and a flicker of panic crossed King Xarmoud’s face. The beast was as black as the armour of the fighters around it, and it stood even taller than the Lavorian it opposed. Three narrow crimson eyes pierced the weather, and a tail covered with spines swayed aggressively at its rear. Atop the creature, a magnificent being sat graciously, as pale as those under his command, but with armour more impressive and a giant sword in his hands with a serrated blade on either end of the handle.

It seemed this was the moment King Xarmoud had been waiting for, because he quickly mounted his Lavorian and held its reins in a firm grip. Without a moment’s hesitation, they charged at their foe, trampling anyone who stood in their way. The enemy charged too, and time almost slowed to a stop before they collided in the centre of the battlefield.

The impact sent shockwaves through the air, and an explosion of blinding white light erupted from between the two creatures and their Riders. But when the light dimmed, the four were nowhere to be seen. And neither were the thousands of soldiers who had been there moments before. There was now nothing on the sandy ground except silence and a lingering white mist; not a dead body, not a sword, not even a drop of blood. Even the storm had surrendered to the eeriness of the mist – the mist that signified the end of the war.

“My dear, are you okay?” a concerned voice asked from above.

Oracus opened his groggy eyes and found the elderly librarian standing over him.

“You’re awake! Thank goodness,” she sighed. “Come on, let's get you up.”

The lady grabbed Oracus’s arm and helped him to his feet. His legs were shaky and the warmth of the library had brought beads of sweat to his forehead.

“Thank you, but I need some fresh air,” Oracus said as he pulled himself free of the lady’s grasp.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she said. But Oracus was already through the door and out onto the busy street.

The journey back to Eistra’s was a direct one, and Oracus no longer had an interest in the shops to either side of him. The dream – if a dream is what it had been – took precedence over everything else. It had been so realistic, like those he’d had of Catania. Yet this dream had been of King Xarmoud. And bizarrely, King Xarmoud had looked very similar to himself; his stature, his face, his hair. And his sword too, it had been an exact copy of Oracus’s, with the same emerald in the handle.

As Oracus pushed through the crowds, he thought about King Xarmoud’s Lavorian too; a Lion the same as Bandor, but larger. Had the dream been a vision of what was to come? Had Oracus just seen himself in the future, going by the name King Xarmoud and sacrificing himself on the battlefield? It seemed so ludicrous, but most of his life seemed ludicrous these days.

When Oracus finally reached Eistra’s house, he paid little heed to the beggars in the alleyway, and he ignored Eistra too as he rushed by her to find some privacy in his bedroom. Lying alone with his face in his hands, he revisited all his dreams in the hope they would explain themselves. But something told him they were a warning of some kind. He pulled his sword from under the bed and studied it intently, hoping it would prove to be different to King Xarmoud’s somehow, but there was nothing obvious. And then the words of Elnir the storyteller swam through his head – “No two Lavorians are the same” – and he wondered how King Xarmoud and his Lavorian could have been anyone but himself and Bandor.

Oracus tried to take comfort in the thought that even if his dream had been a vision of the future, he wasn't going to die in pain or by Jowra's hand. But unfortunately, seeing his own death, no matter how quick and painless, gave him no comfort whatsoever, and he continued to search for answers that refused to reveal themselves.