" "I've come to pay you, my lord!" Bloody bruises appeared on the steward's face. "For my wife and daughter! For how diligently you took care of them!
" "You're drunk, you fool!" Odrzywół shouted, his face pale. "Leave before my patience runs out!
" "No, my lord!" Sil stood firmly on his feet, but an astonishing transformation was taking place in his body. Slowly, his gangly figure shrank, taking on the slightly barrel-shaped shape of a corpulent man with gray hair.
"Do you recognize me now, Prince?" he hissed through the remnants of his yellowed teeth.
"Gam from the Severed Part!" Odrzywół groaned drawlingly.
"Yes! The same! Gam, whom you hunted for his magic and whose wife and daughter you kidnapped to your princely brothel!" Anger flashed in the man's eyes. Stogniew leaped from the bench, finally realizing that the intruder could threaten his precious guest. However, a gesture from the Prince stopped him from calling the guards.
"So you want to ransom them?!" Odrzywół asked, sneering. "But what will you pay me with, poor fool?
" "This!" The magician's hand extended to the Prince. "Whoever possesses this Stone may fear no one! It is the Stone of the Depths! All the Middle Lands will pay homage to its possessor!" Thanks to it, you will create an empire that no one and nothing can resist!
"The Stone of Dali!" whispered the prince's plump lips, unconsciously licking them. "The Stone of Power! I'll give you my wife and daughter! Give it!" The man pushed the chatelaine, who was still giggling foolishly, off his lap.
"Take it!" The man dropped the Stone onto the prince's bare hand.
Immediately, the gray stone glowed with an inner glow, turning greenish. At the same time, something strange began to happen to the prince himself. First, his massive chest collapsed. Before he realized something was wrong, he lost both his arms and legs, which were sucked into his body. It seemed as if the prince was shrinking at an alarming rate.
"Take it!" the prince managed to scream before his mouth collapsed into his face.
"It's yours!" the mage growled and laughed shrilly. "You fool, you thought I didn't know that my Alisa and poor Recza are long dead! You'll be paid for this!"
When he finished speaking, Prince Odrzywoł was reduced to a pile of rotten rags. Jolanda recoiled in disgust from the spot where the powerful man had stood a moment ago.
"Traitor!" roared the suddenly sober Count Stogniew. "Guards! Take him!"
However, no one was willing to obey his order. A terrible silence fell in the hall, broken by the voice of a gray-haired man.
"People of Dali! I, Gam of the Severed Part, have never betrayed anyone! This man"—he pointed to the smoking remains—"wanted me to give him the Stone! You saw it with your own eyes! This Stone is truly capable of giving power over Zagórze to whoever picks it up! But one must possess the Power! Otherwise, the Stone will swallow the brave! That's what happened to Odrzywoł!" The mage fell silent, carefully observing the reaction of those gathered, and then thundered again. "Do any of you, people of Dali, wish to take up this Stone? Perhaps you, esteemed Count?" Stogniew recoiled as if from the attack of a poisonous snake. "Perhaps you, madam?" The old man's hand pointed at Yolanda, who merely hid her face in her folded hands.
"So there are no longer any people in Dali endowed with the Power!" the gray-haired man wrung his hands. "I, Gam of the Severed Part, tell you that the rightful ruler of the Stone is among you!" the mage paused to call out in a strong voice. "Brag! Come to me, cavalier!" the old man waved his hand encouragingly.
All eyes turned to the slight, bent figure of the hunchback, crouching where the man had left him. Now fearfully, pursued by surprised glances, he approached the table.
"Go ahead, boy!" the mage encouraged again. "Lift the Stone!
" Brag's small hand tightened on the gray surface. The shouts that echoed through the hall no longer frightened the hunchback. He looked straight into the chatelaine's brown eyes.
"People of Dali!" the mage's voice thundered in the meantime. "Most of you probably didn't realize that this humble boy, whom many of you humiliated beyond measure, possesses such immense Power that the might of all the armies of Zagórz pales in comparison. This boy is a HUNCHBUN!!!
For a long time, no one could silence the crowd! Many who had previously been completely oblivious to the hunchback's existence now demanded that he be given full control of the castle! Stogniew himself fell to his knees before him and begged for protection, offering to place his hands in his.
Brag, however, only looked into Jolanda's shimmering eyes, and when he finally saw a glimmer of encouragement in them, he turned away.
"Let's go!" he said to Gam from the Torn-Off Part.
The chill of the night restored his clarity of thought. He peered, trying to penetrate the darkness.
Behind him was a growing hum of noise, and before him...
And before him, a whole world opened!
THE END
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