To Be Saved

To Be Saved is a short story I wrote in over the course of 2019; the long lull in-between works came about due to educational and occupational obligations. Unlike most of my previous works, this story takes place in a fantasy setting loosely inspired by the Hungarian culture, featuring diviners who can cast magic to help others in need. To Be Saved focuses on Bartalan, a young man whose past causes him to seek out the help of the only person in the land whom he believes can help him. As Bartalan visits his quarters, he speaks with some students to learn about them, the Hermit Diviner known as Zoltan, and more about himself.

To Be Saved can be downloaded as a PDF right here. It's about 6050 words. All constructive criticism is welcome.

The above image was drawn by Marco Gorlei.
My initial draft for this short story was considerably longer, and would've featured Bartalan speaking with two characters who were excised from this work. Ultimately, I removed their scenes as I felt it made the work drag on for too long, though it did prevent me from including a scene with messenger pigeons...

Some of these characters, or, at the very least, this setting may reappear in future works. Stay tuned.

As an aside note, Zoltan is based on my step-grandfather of the same name. The real-life Zoltan, born in 1936, emigrated to Austria and, later, the United States following his involvement in the Hungarian Revolution. Zoltan unfortunately passed away in 2004 before I could ever meet him, and I guess this story can be seen as a small tribute to him.