Chapter 2
«Have I gone insane?»
He'd asked himself that for the tenth time since leaving the hospital in that reeking Kuber, steeped in a garlic stench so thick it seemed to have seeped into the doors, the upholstery, the very soul of the vehicle.
The driver, hoarse and off-key, was belting out the first act of Pagliacci at full volume, as if he were performing at La Scala in Milan rather than driving a beat-up Fiat.
Giotto raised his hand. He studied it. Every hair on his forearm stood out with surgical clarity. In the blink of an eye.
Suddenly, everything came rushing back: a lecture on neural networks at the university. The sour smell of the substitute defender sitting next to him. The rough texture of the chair. The muffled voice of the professor. So precise, it almost felt fabricated.
"Pagliacci!" the driver shouted, tearing him out of the spiral.
"Here," Giotto said.
The car stopped two blocks from the square. He'd have to walk the rest of the way.
The clock read 12:30. The sun beat down on the cobblestones. People, shoving, voices. But Giotto floated. Not literally, but that's how it felt—light. He was breathing differently.
The fatigue was still there, but now something else pulsed with it. A state bordering on euphoria.
He stumbled into a passerby.
"Sorry."
The man shot him a look of death and rubbed his arm, as if he'd received a shock.
A mild tingling began on his left wrist, right where the mark was.
Giotto quickened his pace. His building was close. He turned down a grimy alley, climbed the stairs, and slid the key into the lock without effort. He went in.
The apartment was a pitiful room: a cramped kitchen in one corner, an unmade bed in the other, and a door leading to a narrow bathroom.
His body moved on its own, collapsing heavily onto the bed.
He gave silent thanks that work had given him the day off.
For a moment, in that garbage-scented apartment where the stench wafted in through the open window, staring at the gray, damp ceiling, he tried to close his eyes. But the dark had eyes.
Strangely, he didn't feel fear. It was something else—a sense of change. A restlessness, like the one he'd felt the day his dog died.
He got up and walked to the tiny bathroom. Turned on the tap and let the water run over his hands before splashing it onto his face.
The water spiraled down the drain, forming patterns that seemed to defy gravity. Giotto held his breath. Among the droplets, he saw the reflection of a city made of crystal, a violet sky...
"It's not real," he whispered.
He turned off the tap. The knob snapped in two.
In the mirror, his face was twisted in terror, while his own eyes stared back with something unfamiliar—bright, dilated. He punched the mirror.
The glass exploded. A shower of fragments rained to the floor.
But when he lowered his hand… there was no cut. Just unmarred skin, stained red.
He stumbled out of the bathroom. His head throbbed like a war drum. Everything was spinning. He grabbed his keys.
He bumped into a bookshelf he didn't remember owning. Notebooks and scrolls crashed onto his back.
He looked up. A gray room. No windows. No door. Just that massive bookshelf and, at the far end, a circle of light suspended in the air.
One of the tomes glowed faintly. Its spine was dark blue leather, bearing a symbol that pulsed like a heartbeat. Still disoriented, he picked it up.
It wouldn't open by force, but when he touched the symbol, an image seared through him like lightning: a pyramid of corpses under a violet moon, and he at the top—naked, smiling.
He slammed the book shut. His hands were shaking.
Nausea overtook him. The world warped into a kaleidoscope of colors.
The mark on his wrist burned. A stabbing pain straight to the brain. Images surged.
He felt blood trickle from his nose. He dropped to his knees. A spasm. Saliva mingled with blood. White foam coated his lips. Entire worlds marched through his mind. Centuries of alien knowledge. Unleashed power, moral decay, a life of unimaginable pleasures. And through it all, one constant: the same man he had tried to help the night before… the Traveler.
When he came to, the world was still, as if a storm had just passed. He coughed, spat dry blood. His breath still ragged. And then, laughter. Low, broken, then uncontrollable. He laughed until he couldn't breathe.
And then, just like that, silence.
Giotto wiped his face and sat up. He looked at the bookshelf. Dozens of ancient tomes, untitled codices, and journals of his own memories.
Among the codices, one seemed to pulse. Like a child's heart. Barely beating, as if watching him.
Another was bound in chains. One more bore a title that changed with every blink. In one of those moments, Giotto caught a glimpse: Ak'Bork'r, Lord of Ash.
All of it in his language.
Giotto wiped his mouth and spat.
"I need… proof."
He stood slowly, brushed off his clothes—though in that dimension not a single speck of dust existed—and walked toward the circular portal that served as the gateway to that pocket dimension.
He turned to the portal. Hesitated. But stepped forward. Then another. He crossed.
His apartment greeted him with its sour scent of dampness.
The portal closed behind him.
Without wasting a second, Giotto shut the door and drew the curtains, shielding himself from any prying eyes that might witness what was about to happen.
He took a deep breath.
"I need to know…"
His phone vibrated. It was his mother. He looked at it. Didn't open the message; he'd read it later.
He focused. Imagined the world tearing like fabric. And the world changed.
When he opened his eyes, he wasn't in his apartment.
The sun struck him hard. He looked around. Tall trees lined the horizon and birds shrieked in the branches above.
Giotto vomited his stomach's contents onto the dry earth.
It felt like someone had ripped out his stomach and returned it in pieces. His bones hummed as if he'd slammed metal against metal. For a split second, he almost thought he saw his shadow move without him.
He shut his eyes. He didn't want to feel like this again anytime soon.
"Shit…" he panted.
Just before he felt something sharp press against his back.
"Witcher!"
Giotto froze at the sound of the word. Slowly, carefully, he turned around, avoiding sudden movements.
Before him stood a bald man covered in scars—one eye clouded, almost blind—pointing a long sword directly at his chest. He wore a suit of metal armor. Behind him, a beautiful white horse grazed, tied to a tree beside a makeshift camp.
The man shifted the sword, now aimed directly at Giotto's throat. He was ready for a swift execution.
"You've got one second, witcher. Who are you? If you don't answer fast, you'll be explaining yourself to the crows."
Thankfully, the language wasn't unfamiliar—he had studied English at university and spoke it fluently enough, though the dialect felt strange.
"Excuse me, I…"
Giotto began, his English broken, heavy with accent, some words faltering like he was reaching for their meaning. But before he could go on, the vomit returned, silencing any attempt at speech.
"Where's that accent from, witcher?"
Giotto stared at him. He didn't know what to say, so he blurted the first thing that came to mind:
"Rome…"
"Rome?" The amusement in the man's voice was almost palpable as he pressed the sword closer. "Rome fell a long time ago."
His brows drew even tighter, if that were possible.
"Lie to me again, sorcerer, and I'll feed you to the bears."
A knot twisted in Giotto's gut.
"Where am I?"
The man snorted before replying, never once lowering the sword from his throat:
"Right now, sorcerer, you stand in the lands of Duke Oswald, in the north of Great Britain. And you… are coming with me."
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I've decided to republish this chapter, rewritten, because I wasn't satisfied with the previous version. I felt it had too many narrative flaws. I'll do my best to make sure this doesn't happen again.