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never get the chance to know him, you dog!” said another man. There was a smile on his ugly face as he winked. “All you need to know is that there’s a price on your head. A contract for your life, and a generous one. We’re looking forward to collecting it.”
    “True,” said a fat man with a thick black beard. “And as you’ve been ill-bred enough to have dispatched several of our boys, there’ll be all the more for us.” He aimed a kick at the Norriel.
    Komir lost his knife with the impact of the kick on his face. Forgetting the pain in an unconscious gesture, he raised his hand to his neck, to the Ilenian medallion he had found in the tomb of the king of the Lost Civilization. He held it tightly, and at the contact with his hand the mysterious jewel seemed to come to life, waking from a long lethargy, as if it had been waiting to return from the far beyond. He felt the sweet tingling it had produced in him before, and again the mysterious, ethereal sensation enveloped him completely like a magic cloak. He experienced the bodiless feeling, the Ether, the Spirit. The beautiful, crystalline gem which formed the medallion began to feed on the blue energy accumulated in his being, creating a link between his own energy and the jewel.
    “Who’s put a price on my life? Who’s going to pay you for my death?” Komir asked, even while he struggled to make sense of what was going on inside him.
    “Only Lotas knows that, and it’s all the same to us who’s paying, just as long as we get paid,” said the leader of the band. He laughed loudly. “You’ll die without knowing who wants your head. Although what you don’t know, and you’re going to like this, is that it’s not just your head that has a price on it.”
    “What are you saying? I don’t…”
    “Your friends are surely dead by now. You might take that bit of information as a parting gift.”
    All the men laughed whole-heartedly.
    When Komir heard this, he realized he was not the only one to have fallen into a trap. His friends must have too, and the rage and fear he felt at that made the inner volcano of energy explode. He closed his eyes and felt the great jewel in the medallion fill with his energy and shine ardent-white. Unknown golden symbols formed in his mind. They seemed to flow from the gem itself, one after another, as if dancing in waves to form what looked like words. Then the words rearranged and formed a sentence, although he could not understand any of it.
    The gem seemed animated by an intellect of its own, it was dictating a message to his mind which he could not understand. It was not Komir who was controlling what was happening but the Ilenian medallion. But what were those enigmatic symbols? What did that obscure sentence mean? The medallion was using his inner energy and summoning a sentence, a Phrase of Power. Komir was finally aware of something so strange that it left him breathless: the medallion was casting a spell through his own energy.
    “I see you’ve got your eyes closed. Are you ready to face the journey of no return? Say your prayers, you’ll need them to cross hell,” said the leader of the band. He raised his sword ready to cut off his victim’s head with a single stroke.
    At that instant, all the energy which the strange jewel was channeling burst forth from the medallion in Komir’s hand in a devastating explosion. The loud blast was followed by a blinding light which lit up the dark street in all directions. It hit the leader first, as he was closer. Straight away it expanded to strike the other four attackers, overwhelming them with devastating strength.
    The power of the blast catapulted the five ruffians through the air. Their bodies broken by the brutal blow, they fell a few feet from Komir.
    The Norriel, still in shock, looked at the fallen men and made an effort to clear his mind. He stood up and gathered his weapons. He was not sure the five men were dead, although they certainly looked it. One of