The Rise Of The Saviour - 12 In search of Morpheous

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Balthazaar stormed out of the Royal Chamber holding his arm which was pulsating with pain right now. He crossed the corridor lined with the guards who gave him a gentle bow, but he was in no mood to respond. The flickering lights from the torches were casting humungous shadows that made the corridors look ghastly.

But his mind was occupied with thoughts of his own.

Crossing the third corridor, he came out of the gold-domed tower where his master dwelled in the Iridium Palace. From the corner of his eyes, he quickly glanced at the guards standing outside the main entrance to see if they were suspicious of him.

But it was dead in the night and all the four sentries were somehow managing to keep themselves awake and standing and since he was wearing the purple robe, which meant he was from the general council, so they didn’t even dare to check on him.

He walked for quite some time along the path lined with wild lilies and reached the south side of the palace where the horse pastures were. He turned back again to check again if someone was following him and when he ascertained the fact, he entered the pastures and went directly to the second stable and knocked on the door as gently as possible.

“Nicholas !!!”

“Nicholas !!!”

His voice was softer than a whisper as he was afraid to wake up the horses. He didn’t want any of the guards on the south-side to hear any noise as he wanted his job to be done as discreetly as possible.

“Nicholas !!!”

He called again and knocked on the door slightly.

It was dead in the night and Nicholas was fast asleep, so without having any other option Balthazaar closed his eyes and said,

“Nicholas !!!”

‘Thud !!!’

Nicholas was startled to hear the voice and woke up frantically.

“It’s me, Nicholas. Come open the door,” Balthazaar said with his eyes still closed.

A groggy and grumpy Nicholas got down from the cot and opened the door. He was too familiar with that voice, so while rubbing his eyes which were still trying to shut themselves down, he said,

“Come on in !!!”

Hearing his voice, Balthazaar opened his eyes and asked,

“Were you asleep?”

The question was quite obvious one given the state of Nicholas but that was how good Balthazaar was with his small talk.

Ignoring his weird attempt of conversation, Nicholas went inside the stable and came back carrying a container with some slimy translucent frothy liquid. Then coming close to Balthazaar who had already made himself comfortable in his bed, he said,

“Remove your cloak.”

And Balthazaar listened to the words of the young horse keeper without saying a word. Removing the cloak was extremely difficult this time for him and he winced a couple of times while doing so. Seeing that Nicholas asked,

“How bad is it this time?”

“I am not sure,” said Balthazaar and finally pulled the robe out to reveal his necrotic right arm. The necrosis in his hand last time was till his elbow joint, but today it had reached up to his shoulder. It looked as if the roots of a black tree had started growing on his arm.

“Aaahhhh…. it looks bad,” said Nicholas and scrunched his face a bit. He wasn’t disgusted, but this was his usual way of expressing apathy. He was a weird little man.

“You think?”, asked Balthazaar and tried to rotate his arm a bit to see if it had spread to his back but that attempt itself tired him so much that he stopped looking. Then he shot up a look at Nicholas who was staring at his arm like he was trying to count the number of darkened lines on his skin. The old necrosis was a dark blackish-grey color that marked the death of his tissues. The new one was still blue, like the color of the vein.

Letting out a gasp of air, Balthazaar asked,

“Would you mind?”

“Aah yes !!!”, uttered a half-dazed Nicholas and then started applying the saliva collected from his finest horses on his newly created necrosis. With the first bit of application itself, came in a sudden feeling of relief. Balthazaar closed his eyes and leaned back a bit.

The saliva of the horse was the only thing in the world that lessened the burning sensation that came with the necrosis. After the first coat had dried out, Nicholas applied another layer of the saliva and then went inside to wash his hands.

After he came back, he saw that the old man had his eyes still closed. Probably he had fallen asleep. Assuming that Nicholas retired from the room and went to the tiny kitchen room to prepare something for that old man.

They shared a weird unspoken relationship. Even though Balthazaar was the head of the general council and this boy was a mere horse keeper, Nicholas was never afraid of him. He treated him like a friend who was just older than him.

He warmed up the leftover loaf from yesterday and started to roast some meat.

Balthazaar had slipped inside the world of sleep but suddenly he caught a whiff of the burning meat and he opened his eyes all of a sudden.

“What time is it?” he asked in panic and opened the window to see how far the sun had risen.

“It is still pretty early in the morning Balthazaar,” said Nicholas and brought the food on a plate and placed on the bed.

“Eat, you look pretty frail.”

But Balthazaar didn’t even bother to look at the plate of food in front of him. Becasue right now his mind was populated with thoughts of what and how. He looked at Nicholas, who looked perfectly woke now and said,

“I need your help with something.”

“Noooooo…..” groaned Nicholas because he knew that Balthazaar was up to something. And his something was never a simple task.