"That's all for today, young men and women—and remember how dangerous it is to perform magical summonings of spirits. The time will come when we will practice this magic as well, but there is no need to hurry, because whoever rushes, stumbles…"
And with these words the wise Elanor ended the lesson, telling them that they would learn all this better in the last two years of the academy. Moreover, he did not fail to remind them that even when they eventually learned how to summon magical beasts, summons should always be their last choice in battle, because the danger was great—and then he dismissed them for break.
"Tell me, buddy… why didn't you mention anything to me about your duel with Professor Elanor?"
"Sorry, Saer, but I didn't know whether it was right to talk about it… I didn't know if the teacher would want that, so I avoided telling anyone. Besides, maybe I didn't want to become a laughingstock after what happened to me—fainting like that…"
"You should have told me! What kind of friends are we?"
In truth, Foskyr hadn't said anything to anyone—not so much out of fear of offending Elanor, but mostly because, after everything the wise elf had told him about summoning magic, he realized his classmates might be tempted to try it themselves. And exactly as he had feared, so it happened: one of the next days, during the morning lineup in the school courtyard, his mischievous friend went ahead and summoned the dark Eskeinthos. All the children fled in terror when they saw the beast, and one student nearly suffered a severe injury. But Elanor reacted just in time—before disaster struck—and halted the shadow spirit with the powerful spell "onympator." From his staff burst white rays of light, and a great luminous wolf chased off the dark demon and destroyed it.
Meanwhile, the headmaster of Ezami, Asethis, tried to find who was responsible for attempting such a summoning spell, but in all the chaos, no one understood who had actually done it. The only one who knew the truth was, naturally, Foskyr—who stood right next to his friend. But he did not wish to betray him, and so he said nothing.
Months passed, and the great elven winter festival of the Anepypsia arrived. During this festival, the elves rested for two weeks, and the academies closed. The young mage and his classmates enjoyed their holidays by playing snowball fights in the snow-covered Knossaeon. One of the following vacation days, the beautiful Enali asked her brother if he would like to accompany her on a hunt. Foskyr agreed without a second thought, since he adored both his sister and hunting.
The next morning dawned, and the two siblings prepared and set off into the forests of Knossaeon, searching for game such as boars, deer, hares, and more. Indeed, within a short time they had already caught two hares. Even so, they continued deeper into the untouched snow of the forest, still searching for prey. Soon they noticed deer tracks in the snow. Enali cast the spell "roverio," revealing the direction in which the deer had gone.
Moving quietly, after a few minutes they spotted a beautiful doe chewing on some branches. At once Enali invoked the spell "tholykso," and the doe was wrapped in a magical rope, falling motionless to the ground, unable to escape. Happy, the siblings approached her, ready to kill her and place her in their magic sack with the rest of the game. Enali raised her hand to deliver the final blow—but Foskyr stepped between them and stopped her.
"Don't kill the doe! She has a baby to raise—she's a mother!"
Enali looked at her brother in confusion and asked, "Where is her little one? Where did you see it?"
"There—look! If we kill her, the fawn will die too. It would be a shame."
"Well done, Foskyr! Thank goodness you noticed—otherwise we would have made a terrible mistake."
Thus, the blonde Enali untied the doe and let her go free to raise her young.
"It's fine, little one—we'll find other prey. We did the right thing! Hunting also has its unwritten laws—for example, we never kill newborns. So we had to spare the doe since she had a baby."
Feeling happy about their kind deed, the two siblings continued the hunt. As they walked, they suddenly heard loud crashes and human shouting coming from somewhere in the forest, not far away. They headed toward the noise to see what was happening—and then they saw a group of humans and skodita fighting against several Onia.
"Don't make a sound, Foskyr! Stay quiet here with me—we need to see what happens."
"This is getting out of hand," she whispered. "More and more strange visitors have been coming into our forests in recent years…"
"It can't be a coincidence. They must know something about our kingdom… They must be coming for us—there's no other explanation. Those Ministry men must be at fault. They're looking for our help, and with them they bring these hideous, dangerous Onia that follow them secretly."
So the two siblings stayed hidden and watched the fierce battle in the snowy forest. The two sides exchanged constant bursts of spells, and shards of magic blasted apart trees. A mage lifted a fallen tree trunk with his staff and hurled it at a goat-like Onion, but it instantly transformed into a blue sphere of fire and dodged the attack. The battle raged on, and soon the Onia began summoning magical beasts to aid them—gradually gaining the upper hand. One Onion even created a huge snow demon, which caused great trouble for the humans and skodita fighting for their lives.
After some time, a skoditon managed to defeat the ice demon with the powerful fire spell "konvirgo," yet the Onia still held control of the battle. Slowly, the humans and skodita began to fall one by one beneath the relentless Onia. And when almost everything seemed lost, young Foskyr—unable to watch his people's mages being slaughtered by the fairies—summoned the shadow demon Eskeinthos and leapt into the battle to help defend his kin.
Enali barely realized when her little brother dashed from her side and joined the fight. But she did not remain idle—she too rushed forward, determined to save the mages and her naive brother from almost certain death. Enali summoned a shadow demon of equal strength—the dragon Mandrak—and suddenly, just when everything seemed finished, the battle ignited again, with beasts and mages unleashing terrible magical attacks without pause.
In the meantime, on this occasion Fóskar, instead of hearing whispers like the previous time he had summoned Eskeinthos, now clearly heard a strange telepathic voice in his mind. He could hear distinctly a kind of voice that came from the shadow-spirit, which was controlling and hearing his thoughts, as well as the spells he was attempting against the Ónia. The young mage, wanting to confirm that it was indeed the "voice" of his shadow-spirit, tried to cast some of the spells he heard from it—and he was left astonished. Indeed, Fóskar managed to deliver several devastating blows to his enemies using some of those spells, such as telaunor, the magic of the cylinder, the summoning of the demon Radín—which he was seeing for the first time—as well as many others he managed to pick up from Eskeinthos during the battle with the fairies.
Suddenly, while the battle was still raging, he heard the whispering voice of Eskeinthos inside his mind addressing him.
"So, you can finally hear my voice, hm? Truly strange for something like this to happen—especially to a mage of your age."
Fóskar was shocked that Eskeinthos spoke to him telepathically, but he responded in the same way:
"You can communicate with me telepathically? I didn't know something like this was possible. None of my teachers ever mentioned that such a thing can happen with magical spirits."
"It seems there is much your instructors hide from you, my young and inexperienced mage—much about us spirits and our world… I also tried to communicate with you the first time you summoned me, but you could not withstand the spiritual connection and you collapsed…"
"You tried back then too? Why?"
"For now, keep copying my magical abilities so you can survive, and I will explain everything in due time!"
Thus, the young mage—despite his surprise and curiosity to learn more about Eskeinthos and the world of spirits—did not ask further and simply continued to crush the Ónia with the help of the shadow-spirit. In the end, Fóskar, his sister, and the mages prevailed against the fairies, and he found the opportunity to ask the dark demon to explain more.
"This is not the right moment to talk. Another time—when we are alone—will be better."
Without exchanging more words, Fóskar dispelled his summoning, and they agreed to communicate later, in peace, when no one else would be present to disturb them. Furthermore, this time Foskír realized that he felt far less mental exhaustion from summoning Eskeinthos compared to the first time, and it made an impression on him. He thought that perhaps he had become accustomed to summoning magic—perhaps he had grown stronger—or perhaps their communication had created some kind of improved spiritual connection between them.
Meanwhile, the two remaining mages who survived, along with the one skoditó, thanked Enáli and young Fóskar for saving them from the Ónia.
"Thank you very much for your help. If you hadn't appeared, we might have been killed as well, like our friends. Who are you, truly? And how did you end up here?"
Enáli and her brother, although they knew a little of the local language spoken by human mages, could not fully understand what they had said. So Fóskir took the initiative, and with poor pronunciation told them that they were out hunting and happened to come across them together with his sister.
The three survivors exchanged meaningful glances in silence and began asking them whether they knew anything about some mythical race of elves said to dwell somewhere near these forests.
The two mages and the skoditó began to grow suspicious because of their poor accent—and especially because of the dazzling beauty of the blonde Enáli. And despite the fact that her long golden hair covered her pointed ears, the surviving mages were almost certain that the beautiful girl was an elf. They suspected that she and the young mage beside her must have some connection to that legendary elven kingdom.
But Enáli avoided answering their questions. Trying her best to speak clearly in the local human tongue, she told them that they were in a hurry, and after bidding them farewell, they left.
Enáli grabbed Fóskar's hand, and at once they teleported before the secret passage of the great cliff that led to K nósaeon.
"We should not have shown ourselves to humans! What you did was foolish and reckless. They surely must have realized I'm an elf!"
"And what did you want us to do? Let them stand defenseless against the Ónia and die before our eyes without helping them? I certainly don't regret anything! We did the right thing!"
Enáli glared at her brother sternly, but had nothing sound to reply. So they opened the cliff passage and hurried inside, heading straight to their home to report everything that had happened in the forest to their parents.
When they arrived home and recounted all that had taken place, Oxydár and Lydía anxiously asked if they had suffered any injuries during their battle with the Ónia. The two siblings assured them that they were completely fine, and so their parents calmed down—though they had been terrified to hear their children had been caught in a fight with Ónia.
"You did very well to help the humans, although yes—what you did was indeed reckless and dangerous."
"That is exactly what I told Fóskar, father. Had I known he would run off from my side, I would have stopped him before he rushed into battle."
"Since you're unharmed, no matter. What matters now is that I inform my superiors in the royal army about the incident."
Oxydár went to a magical mirror and communicated through it with a superior, reporting everything he had learned from his two children regarding the human mages and the Ónia.
Meanwhile, Fóskar was thinking over everything that had happened in the battle and his conversation with the dark Eskeinthos. He also remembered the warnings of his wise teacher, Elanor, and he found himself torn—between summoning the dark demon again to learn more about summoning magic and satisfy his hunger for knowledge, and obeying Elanor's instructions by not taking further risks.
Hours passed, and in the end Fóskar could not restrain his curiosity. He gave in to the temptation to communicate with the shadow-spirit once more.
"Mother, I'm going out… I'm going to play ékavol with my friends. Bye, see you later—they're waiting for me."
"All right, my boy. Have fun! And be careful not to get hurt!"
"I'll be careful, don't worry! Bye!"
But instead of going to play ékavol, Fóskir took the secret path that led to a fountain deep within a grove, far from the inhabited part of Knóssaeon. Once he reached the fountain, he sat on the bench nearby and, after making sure he was completely alone, summoned the dark entity to speak with it.
Fóskar performed the summoning, and then a dark aura appeared in the air. From within it emerged the shadow-spirit, human-sized and human-shaped. The spirit wore a dark cloak and held a magical staff in its hand.
"So you summoned me after all, young mage."
"I want to know why the first time I fainted, while earlier with my sister nothing like that happened. Did I become stronger, or is it something else that made me more capable in summoning magic?"
"The reason you fainted earlier is because during a summoning a spiritual bond is created between the mage and the spirit. You collapsed from that spiritual pressure when you became mentally exhausted. But you already know this—your teacher, Elanor, has told you so, hasn't he?"
"Indeed, my professor mentioned that to me."
"Of course, that would not have happened if your professor understood better the mechanism behind summoning magic."
"What do you mean?!"
"During a summoning, a mental connection is required between the mage and the magical being. The better this connection, the easier and stronger the summoning spell becomes."
"And how does one achieve that?"
"Through telepathic communication, of course—just as you managed during our battle earlier, and so you didn't collapse from spiritual pressure like you did back in the forest. And just as your teacher Elanor told you, Foskar, summoning magic is a superior type of magic and requires strong souls and minds to be performed successfully and safely."
"How do you know my name and my teacher's name?"
"Naturally I know them. I know many things—such as your real name, Nofivos… I know much, and I can teach you much about magic, and not only that, if you so desire."
"You even know the name I had before the elves found me? The name my real parents gave me?"
"As I told you earlier, I can teach you many things—such as powerful and rare spells through which you can become an extraordinarily powerful mage. And to prove my good intentions, I will reveal to you the secret of summoning magic, with which you will succeed every summoning with tremendous ease."
"What secret?"
"The trick is to increase your spiritual connection with the magical beast, which you achieve through mental telepathy. In this way, you will have absolute control over magical beings and will never be in danger from them—and at the same time you will be able to summon the strongest of these creatures without any problem whatsoever!"
"And why didn't my professor mention this method to me, then?"
"My young friend, your professors may be capable and wise mages, but what makes you believe they know everything about magic?"
"So you claim you know everything?"
"I wouldn't want to boast and say everything, but we magical spirits certainly possess far greater knowledge than you mortals—about magic and much more… You should also know that I am impressed you have the ability to communicate with me at all."
"Why is that?"
"It is not common for a mortal mage to have the power to communicate with us magical beings—either telepathically or otherwise. Long ago, centuries past, it was more common, though even then only the strongest mages could achieve it."
"And why can't mages communicate with you today?"
"I am not certain of the exact reason, but in ancient times many mages possessed the ability and the knowledge to communicate with us and draw magical power from our spirit-world. When a mage attempts a summoning, a kind of gateway is created between our worlds, allowing us to appear in yours under the mage's control. However, for us to remain here and not vanish, the mage must provide the necessary amount of spiritual energy to the summoned spirit—otherwise the summoning will fail."
"So, if from now on we remain mentally connected during your summoning, then we'll be less spiritually drained, and it will be easier for me to keep you under control?"
"Exactly! You will still be mentally and spiritually exhausted, of course, but far less than if you didn't establish such a connection—or if you failed to do so with some magical creature when you summon it."
The dark spirit began to sense Nofivo's spiritual fatigue, and so, before the summoning was dismissed, it asked him for a favor.
"Before you cancel my summons, I would like to ask you something, if it is not a problem."
"Tell me what you want."
"Nofivos, I would like you to summon me every day, at least once. In return, I shall grant you knowledge of magic beyond your imagination. With my help and my teachings, you can become an all-powerful mage!"
"I'll think about it… you see, it's not easy to come out here to the wilderness every day…"
"That is not necessary. You can summon a spirit mentally and speak with it without it appearing before you—just like during battles. And the stronger your spiritual connection with a magical being becomes, the stronger and easier your summoning will be in combat."
"I'll think about it. For now, farewell, Eskeinthos."
"Since I know your true name, Nofivos, I consider it my duty to reveal mine as well. My true name is Xodeinos. That is the name by which the ancient mages once called me—mages far stronger than those of today, stronger even than the elves…"
"Thank you, Xodeinos. I'd like to talk a little more, but I'm starting to feel exhausted, and to be honest, it's getting dark."
They bid farewell, and the young mage dispelled the summoning spell. He took the path back home and, as he walked with the beautiful sunset before him, he pondered all that he had discussed with the shadow-spirit, Xodeinos. When he finally reached home, he ate something light and went to sleep, after saying goodnight to his sister and parents.
Thus, days passed, and although Eskeinthos had asked to be summoned daily, Nofivos chose to keep some distance, considering what his wise professor, Ethamon, had once told him. He remembered that if for any reason he lost control of the summoned creature, his life could be in danger—so he had decided not to take the risk too often. Yet he had not forgotten what Xodeinos had taught him about controlling spirits, and perhaps the ancient being was right after all. Perhaps his professors did not know everything about the spirit-realm, just as Eskeinthos had claimed.