The Covenant of Miraval

The Covenant of Miraval

Raed did not believe in myths.

He believed in order, in clear maps, and in roads that start at one point and end at another.

But that night was unlike anything in his former life.

He returned to his family home after a long absence, his features bearing the sternness of the years he had spent in service, dragging behind him a weariness he had admitted to no one.

The house was strangely still, as if the walls were holding ancient breaths.

On the upper floor, where his late father's library was,

rows of ancient books stretched like silent soldiers.

He moved slowly among them until a book he had never seen before stopped him.

A leather cover in a dark purple hue.

Cold, unlike books usually are.

He sat by the window and opened it with little interest.

The pages were written in an old, eloquent language, unlike the history books he was used to reading.

And when he reached the last page, he stopped.

There was no ending.

But a single sentence in a different, sharp-angled hand:

"When the text is opened... the way is opened."

Raed frowned, thinking it an old joke.

Yet suddenly the wind fell still.

And the sound of the city outside the window disappeared.

And he felt the air around him grow heavier, as if the room were closing in on him.

The edges of the page faded before his eyes.

And the ink turned into purple threads stretching beyond the paper.

He tried to stand, but the ground was no longer ground.

Then...

Silence fell.

And when he opened his eyes,

he was no longer in his family home.

The sky above him was a color between dusk and night,

and before his eyes rose a towering stone city,

as if carved from a great purple rock.

A high gate topped by an engraved circle.

Two lines intersecting at its center,

and a point glowing with a strange dim light.

Raed did not understand then

that the city was not his destination...

but had been waiting for him.