Real madness

This same stranger who had, at first sight, guessed his deepest torments came to visit him a few days at the company and proposed him a mission in the ice city of Korodos.

"Why me?"

Was the first question that Udariv asked him when he had revealed his name to him and that he exposed him the details of the mission that he had just submitted to him.

The visiting wizard shrugged, his hands still crossed on his knee with his legs crossed as well.

"Well, isn't the answer obvious? Because you are the best, and who better than the best could ever accomplish such a difficult and time-consuming task with perfection."

"I don't know if I'm really the best," Udariv replied rhetorically, and surprise overcame him when he heard the rest.

"Yes, you are right. You are not the best. And you probably never will be. But for your happiness and especially for your misfortune, some people very close to you, if we can call them that considering what they did, did everything to make you believe the contrary."

"What are you talking about!"

"About something you already know. But you are too afraid to admit it."

This time Udariv couldn't take it anymore and jumped up from his director's chair.

"Very well, I think you've said enough. You know the way out and I assume I don't have to be violent to get you out of here."

A new shrug of the shoulders greeted this order soaked with anger and revulsion. Then, without Udariv's knowledge, his unwanted visitor glowed and a demented magical pressure fell on him and on the whole building of the Golos company, a mass of power so imposing that it made all the people inside scream in pain and broke every window into a thousand pieces.

Udariv was overwhelmed and could only stare at his terrifying visitor, who finally decided to take his leave after this show of force, and who gave him an impassive and dominating smile.

"If you ever change your mind about this mission in Korodos, you'll know where to find me. You may not be the best, but you're still very good."

The first condition Udariv demanded of the mage who became his boss for a while when he joined him on this complex mission to the ice kingdom, was that he stop his annoying insinuations about himself and his weaknesses as well as any cryptic remarks about people. But of course, as Udariv expected, this never happened. But at least he would have tried.

The ice kingdom deserved its name because as far as the eye could see, everything was ice and cold. Really cold. But when Udariv helped his boss to recover this magic jewel that he said had been stolen by mercenaries who had settled in Korodos for a while, decimating them with an ease that showed perfectly that he had not usurped his title of prodigy of Dirius, he soon understood that this jewel that the wizard had claimed was so important to his heart was only a pretext to lead him into a bigger and more dangerous operation. So much more dangerous and incomprehensible.

What his boss really wanted was the destruction of the crown prince of Korodos bearing the illustrious name of Aiiley and who happened to be ... a Zeog. The absolute rulers of the magical world. So powerful that they were able to create a world of their own, inviolable, impenetrable, infinite.

"Why?" asked Udariv, not understanding this visceral and desperate desire to destroy such an extraordinary and primordial being. But in fact the answer was just that.

"Because I myself have long understood that despite all my knowledge and extraordinary abilities, I will never reach the incomparable height of the Zeog. So, if in my despair that has become madness, I can never achieve this beautiful and heartbreaking dream, then no one will.

"But this being already is, and why he more than the others!"

The mage turned to the prodigy and revealed through his crystal eyes the truth.

"You are a native of this realm.

"Yes. And, I was so adored, so influential, so loved by this people who only know coldness, and more. Even more than you are by yours. And yet, in spite of all this, I simply did not exist in the eyes of my ruler who moved in the inaccessible spheres of the magical world."

The Korodian wizard shook his head.

"I will never forgive him."

And afterwards when Udariv asked the reason, the real reason, why he chose him over the others, he simply answered that only a being of darkness would ever understand his soul.

"But I am not!

"Of course you are, but you just have to find the strength to admit it, just as I have come to accept that I will never be a like of the ruler Aiiley. That's all."

"That much!" exclaimed the Diruen with eloquent gestures.

"Yes." The boss simply admitted without hiding anything. "And I needed such a considerable power as yours to succeed in this dark purpose. Mine alone, even more fantastic, would never have been enough. Because I am not a Zeog and I never will be."

Everything was planned in advance with a perfection, a determination that aroused horror. Udariv almost felt pity for the Zeog who would become the target of this nameless malevolence. The Korodian found his ultimate instrument of vengeful annihilation in the person of a noble but lowborn witch who bore the name of Kriniela, and who happened to be one of the ladies-in-waiting of the queen, the mother of the sovereign Aiiley. She was a woman of astonishing whiteness, whose interior was nothing but sickening blackness. She shared with the sorcerer common and abominable traits such as an inordinate ambition, a sickly jealousy towards all that was stronger than them, a visceral and unfounded hatred towards their spectacular sovereign, and finally an incomparable, imperishable wish to be Zeog but never to be.

The Kodorian sorcerer revealed to Udariv that at the very moment he laid eyes on her, he was certain that only she would be able to be this formidable and infallible weapon that would lead him to this personal satisfaction of the collapse of this prince with inconceivable power, reinforced by the fact that it took him only a few minutes to convince her to do so.

And Kriniela also asked him for the form the question that always hovered over all of them who were chosen for a mission without common measure.

"Why me?"

And the sorcerer answered with sincerity because in certain special moments, only the truth could exist.

"Because I am probably the only person who wants this more than you."

"I see. So for you too, you simply don't exist for this person, in spite of all that you are."

"Yes. That's why I'm going to make sure that changes. And when it all ends, I'd made sure that he knows it's me. As well as the entire magical universe. And then, in his memory so vast and full of wonders, I could never be erased again. I remained as vivid and painful as I was at the first moment, and even if by the greatest of miracles he would find again his statue of Zeog, he would never forget me."

And everything happened as the dowser had planned. At least the first few times. Coupled with Udariv's magnificent magic, the two wizards of Korodos felt that they finally had enough power to reach this being and drag him down in an unprecedented and irreversible fall. This should have been the case. However, he had never imagined the immeasurable, inconceivable, unspeakable power of the being that they envied so much and that they wanted more than anything to demolish. And they soon realized that with the amount of magic they had in their possession, it would take them at least another half-century to finally accomplish this hideous revenge that was so necessary to them and that was gnawing at their bodies and minds indefinitely.