Once upon a time there was a young prince named Serhu.
He was the son of a king who found himself without a kingdom, following a revolt of his people.
The prince was born when the kingdom of Retinitis was at the height of its splendor, but a few years after his birth, a severe famine had brought misery among the people, so that it looked like a blanket of darkness had enveloped all spirits and all things.
The prince grew up without knowing the noble blood flowing through his veins, that nothing made him think of being different from his other friends, who, like him, had to struggle for survival, trying to earn every day something to eat and a few pieces of wood to warm the winter nights.
Although Serhu did not know that his fate could be that of a prince, his character was that of a man, however brave and combative, and soon distinguished himself from all others for some unusual magical power.
One day he picked up a branch of a tree, perfectly straight, with no blemishes or other ramifications. He liked the precision of that piece of wood, its lightness, and decided to keep it. Almost as a game he had it hovering in the air by drawing irregular shapes in the sky, as if fighting an imaginary duel. After some of those gestures in the air he realized that where he had lashed those shots remained a clear halo, a faint cloud of light.
Initially did not pay much attention, but continuing to play at being a warrior, he realized that he was the creator of the trail of light he saw behind him.
Obviously he could not explain the phenomenon, much less he could imagine the astonishing consequences.
He began to use the stick to hit things, like a magic wand that can transform them. When touching things, returned a vibration that allowed him to know them differently. The stick was like a thread-like extension of his own skin with which to amplify details up beyond measure.
He tried to touch the trunk of a tree and did not recognize the roughness of the bark, but each turn, each node, each branch
All that had always seemed inert, lifeless and shrouded in the shadows, took a new form that he had reconstructed in his mind. He was not sure if the light that he saw around the signs he drew in the air, was visible only to him or any other inhabitants of the town and the countryside.
In a way, he did not care. He learned to build within himself the visual map of a world of forms touched with the tip of his stick and every bump was playing notes inside of him, like those of a string under tension.
If he passed the tip of the stick on a soft surface, a carpet, a moss, he felt something liquid, something that softened the precise sound of what the cane had touched earlier.
Serhu had learned to see again the beauty of the kingdom of Retinitis and without ceremony or consecration was proclaimed King.
He should be king by descent, but because he created the throne he was even more convinced that this was really his place. He was the King of Retinitis and everyone called him, the Prince with the White Cane.
