It took me a couple of seconds to read the aura of the Fortemin who had tumbled out of the portal.

  “Felicia!” I gasped, running to the gates and dropping to my knees before the wounded Fortemin.

  “Gods, sis, what happened to you?”

  Felicia is my older sister. A twilight wanderer who left Armarillis long ago and finished her additional training at the academy of dreamwalkers ages ago. Twilight wanderers protected worlds from dark creatures in dreams. Yes, some dark creatures roam not in the real world, but exclusively in the ethereal fabric of dreams. I had no talent for this magic, no gift for sensitive dreamwalking. But one of my sisters was a true master in this field.

  Felicia rarely appeared in the real world. She had long ago gone to live in dreams — completely, fully, with her whole body, her entire being, like all professional twilight wanderers. Felicia even visited us in our dreams, and our whole family only gathered around one big table once a year, usually during Christmas. I hadn’t seen Felicia since Christmas, actually. Since then, she’d only visited me in my dreams a couple of times. We got along well but rarely talked. Rarely but memorably. Always calm and composed — even cold and distant — Felicia was outwardly sparing with her emotions, and in this she was very much like our brother Eric.

  She had long, platinum-blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She wore the twilight wanderer uniform — a dark blue hooded robe with a distinctive runic emblem on the chest. But now the emblem was smeared with blood, the robe torn to shreds. The bright blue blazing sword of the twilight wanderers was broken — only a pathetic fragment remained in Felicia’s hands. Judging by the horrific bloodstains, my sister’s head had taken a brutal hit… Blood was also seeping from her side. Gods, what had happened to her?

  The Rodinger brothers and I carefully turned Felicia onto her back, administering first aid with healing charms. Meanwhile, Calypso immediately contacted the Mentor and our healers through his artifact bracelet.

  Ilforte appeared beside us very quickly, not even a minute later. Along with a couple of healers who immediately rushed to help without a word. Delson, Dayon, and I crawled back a bit to stay out of the healers’ way, but we kept watching Felicia anxiously.

  “Felicia!” Ilforte gasped, kneeling beside her and taking the mage’s hand, pouring some of his own power into her with the gesture to speed her recovery.

  “My dear, what happened?”

  Felicia couldn’t answer right away; only rasps escaped her throat. The healers focused first on her throat and lungs, and after a minute Felicia was able to take a shuddering breath and wheeze:

  “He… Got out… of his cage…”

  “Who escaped? From what cage?” Calypso asked, also sitting down on the grass beside me and watching Felicia with concern.

  But she seemed not to hear him. Her gaze was unfocused, her expression absent. But not the absent and calm look she usually had — more like she had barely escaped a meat grinder. She seemed badly shell-shocked and barely aware of what was happening.

  “He was… helped… Released…” her voice was very weak.

  “Almost my entire team… died… I alone… made it through… And Rayes… He went to General Staff… I came here… We split up… To warn… Everyone… That he escaped…”

  “Who are we talking about?” Calypso asked tensely.

  But the Mentor didn’t ask anything. And from his pursed lips, I got the impression that he already suspected what he was about to hear. Suspected and really didn’t want to hear it.

  “Ef-fu…” Felicia exhaled in a tone that suggested this explained everything.

  And fell silent, closing her eyes, apparently deciding she had said everything she needed to.

  I looked in confusion from the deathly frightened Felicia to the Mentor’s face, white as chalk.

  “Who escaped from the cage?” I asked, turning to the grim Calypso, whose face had also gone pale.

  “Who is Effu?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  No one hurried to answer me. Dayon and Delson were also watching the Mentor anxiously, waiting for his explanation, but he remained silent. Calypso spoke first:

  “Effu… That’s the name of a primordial spirit of chaos.”

  “And where did he escape from?”

  “From a trap in the dreamscape where the Ancients once drove him. The Ancients powerful mages who inhabited Forland at that time couldn’t defeat Effu, but they managed to trick him and drive him into some kind of trap somewhere on the third level of dreams. Effu was imprisoned there for thousands of years. Sometimes he made attempts to break into the real world, but all his attempts so far had come to nothing, fortunately for us.”

  “Apparently, it’s his followers who have been performing rituals to break the Seal of Creation,” Ilforte said, not taking his tense gaze from the wounded Felicia.

  “And the ritual is aimed at returning a body to the primordial spirit of chaos…”

  “He has problems with his body?” Delson asked tensely.

  Calypso nodded.

  “The Ancients once managed to strip him of the corporeal form in which Effu had been wreaking all kinds of havoc in the world. Stripping him of corporeality is precisely what allowed them to hide the spirit in the far reaches of the dreamscape. I can’t even imagine what could have happened for him to escape from that dream-trap of his… He definitely had help from the outside. And they probably helped him with those very void pentagrams that were somehow channeling energy from the world of the living, feeding Effu with power…”

  “And who was behind it?” Dayon asked grimly.

  “I’m afraid that doesn’t matter for now,” Calypso sighed, clasping his hands together in front of him and frowning deeply.

  “What matters more is that Effu has already escaped, and that spells big trouble.”

  “So… What does all this mean?” I asked cautiously, also nervously clasping my hands together.

  “That dark times have come,” Ilforte said quietly.

  “Can you imagine the power contained in a primordial spirit of chaos? By the way, besides his chaotic nature, he also possesses enormous mental power… He can infiltrate consciousness, infiltrate bodies, and feed on others’ magic, burning out their magical Spark… He can do a lot of things… It’s not for nothing that he’s a spirit of chaos, and a primordial one at that. If Effu regains his primordial body, it will be the end of Forland,” Ilforte added very quietly.

  “And not just Forland. All the nearby worlds will suffer, without exception.”

  Not a great prospect, to put it mildly.

  “How do we stop him for good?” Calypso asked.

  “Not just lock him away somewhere, but destroy him once and for all?”

  Ilforte shook his head.

  “This is a primordial spirit of chaos; such beings have the energy status of a deity. And primordial spirits cannot be destroyed. There is no force capable of destroying Effu once and for all. There is no mind capable of defeating him. No one is capable of stopping Effu forever.”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” I whispered.

  Ilforte sighed heavily and rubbed his temples, remaining silent for a while as he gathered his thoughts. Then he spoke quietly, and it was clear that every word came with difficulty.

  “Right now our task is to prevent Effu from regaining his primordial body… That would be catastrophic. We need to urgently find whoever was drawing those cursed pentagrams and shake their soul out of them… We can’t allow even a fourth pentagram to appear, let alone a fifth. We need to strengthen Forland’s defensive positions… An attack could come at any time from anywhere. For now, Effu doesn’t have his body and, consequently, has no access to the Armarillis dimension.”

  “And if he regains his primordial body, then what? He’ll have access to Armarillis?” Delson asked warily.

  “Yes,” Ilforte said curtly.

  “And it will be easier for him to operate here.”

  I don’t know about the others, but a chill ran down my spine.

  No one said it aloud, but everyone understood that if Effu took control of any Fortemin’s consciousness, Armarillis wouldn’t hold out long after such an assault.

  “From today, Armarillis Academy and General Staff are going into a state of emergency,” Ilforte announced loudly, rising to his feet and ordering the healers to carry Felicia to the infirmary.

  “Dayon, Delson, your departure from Armarillis is postponed indefinitely. All adepts are strictly forbidden from leaving the Armarillis dimension.”

  “But…” Calypso began.

  “Everyone is forbidden,” Ilforte said harshly, turning and striding quickly toward the castle.

  “No exceptions. Your training sessions with Lorelei outside the academy are also banned. You will train intensively exclusively within Armarillis.”

  “But Father!” Calypso protested, keeping pace with the Mentor, and I rushed after them too.

  “I’m perfectly capable of protecting both myself and Lori!”

  “You don’t know what kind of power we’re dealing with.”

  “I know perfectly well,” Calypso waved dismissively.

  “And Lori and I need to…”

  “You and Lorelei need to follow the Mentor’s orders,” Ilforte cut him off in a harsh tone, not slowing his pace.

  “And I’m ordering you, along with all other adepts, to remain within the walls of Armarillis and not leave without my permission. There can be no exceptions. And specifically for you and Lorelei, I’m imposing a total ban on being outside Armarillis walls, for an indefinite period.”