Orville Mouse and the Puzzle of the Capricious Shadows (Orville Wellington Mouse Book 3)

by Tom Hoffman

  “Follow me, if you would.” Mendacium strolled across the vast hall to a set of elaborately engraved bronze doors. He waved his arm and the doors swung open.

  Orville stepped cautiously into the room. “Whoa!” The breadth of Mendacium’s library was staggering. Two wide wooden walkways circled the room, connected by a series of sliding ladders. Bookshelves lined every inch of the walls. Orville could not begin to guess how many books were in Mendacium’s library.

  “As of yesterday there were seven hundred twenty-nine thousand and seventeen volumes, and I have read them all.”

  Sophia looked at Mendacium in disbelief. “That’s not possible. No one could read that many books.” She stopped. “There is no time here. You just read.”

  “I just read.”

  Orville walked over to one of the shelves, studying the myriad of titles. “What language is this? I’ve never seen characters like this. Are they hieroglyphs? The book next to it is in a different language.”

  “The seven hundred thousand books you see here are written in over three thousand separate ancient archaic languages.”

  Orville gave a snort. “Now I know you didn’t read them. No mouse alive could understand that many languages.”

  Mendacium focused his gaze on Orville. It was the same look the Thirteenth Monk used to give him. It felt like a gentle breeze was rustling through his thoughts and memories.

  “Let me ask you this, Orville Wellington Mouse. Have you ever heard the expression, ‘putting your thoughts to paper’?”

  “Of course I have, it means you write your thoughts down on paper. My teachers used to say that all the time.”

  “So the words you write down are…”

  “They’re my thoughts. I write them down. On paper.”

  “So your thoughts are on the paper?”

  Orville was beginning to think Mendacium was not quite as clever as he first appeared to be. Orville smiled politely. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand the point you’re trying to make.”

  “When you are reading the words in a book, you are essentially hearing the thoughts of the writer in your mind, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I think we’ve already made that very clear.” Orville glanced over at Sophia. Her eyes had narrowed slightly.

  “Indeed you have. Now, suppose when those thoughts were put to paper, the thoughts really were ‘put to paper’. Suppose somehow those thoughts were embedded in the written words, and suppose there was a very clever mouse who could see through the words to the pure formless ideas held within them? Wouldn’t this clever mouse be able to know the thoughts of the writer without having to interpret the words, without having to understand the language used to put them to paper? A mouse who could do that would certainly be able to read seven hundred thousand books in a world without time.”

  “You can do that? I’ve never heard of anything like that, and I know a lot about shaping. You’re a shaper, right?”

  Mendacium did not reply, his gaze moving from Orville to Sophia and back to Orville. A smile flickered across his face. “I see you found my hat.”

  Orville glared at Mendacium. “Your hat? I found it, and besides it’s not yours, it belongs to… to… Haukesworth Mouse.” Orville’s eyes grew very wide.

  Mendacium took a deep bow. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Although I have temporarily adopted the pseudonym of Mendacium the Dark Wizard, a notable character from one of my favorite old books, I am none other than Haukesworth Mouse, Metaphysical Adventurer. I welcome you to the land of the dead.”

  Chapter 32

  Mendacium’s Tale

  Orville and Sophia were stunned by Mendacium’s revelation. It strained credulity, and yet after some thought it became quite plausible. Because Haukesworth had spent the last three hundred years in a world without time, he had not aged a day since his arrival. A hundred questions filled Sophia’s head. Orville, however, had only one question.

  “I guess you’ll be wanting your hat back? It got kind of mashed when we were riding a big bowl down a giant aqueduct. It’s not an aqua duck, by the way, in case that’s what you were thinking. Water splashed all over your hat when we went around this really sharp turn and I–“

  “The hat is yours. It suits you, and I no longer have a need for it.”

  Orville grinned. “Really? Thanks, it’s the nicest hat I’ve ever owned. I promise I’ll take better care of it. Um… should we call you Haukesworth or Mendacium?”

  “Haukesworth will do nicely. Using Mendacium was simply a tool which provided me some much needed solitude. The villagers stayed out of the castle because they were terrified of Mendacium the Dark Wizard, and they had no desire to cause me harm because of our agreement regarding plague and pestilence. Twice a week they left their offerings in the gatehouse. That’s where this library came from, and all the gold.”

  Orville’s eyebrows jumped up. “Gold?”

  Haukesworth shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea when I arrived, but I have come to realize how superficial my thinking was back then. I have a room filled with gold coins, but I seldom even open the door. You can’t eat gold, you can’t read gold, you can’t sleep on a pile of gold, you can’t talk to gold, and gold doesn’t comfort you when you are lonely.”

  “You could buy stuff with it. You know, stuff you wanted.”

  “I have everything I need.”

  Sophia asked, “Why were you looking for solitude?”

  Haukesworth smiled. “A simple question, but one deserving of a rather complex answer. To be honest, I have no idea how long I have been here. I have read over seven hundred thousand books, but I could not tell you if that took ten minutes or ten thousand years. Within these walls it is impossible to gauge the passage of time in the outside world.”

  “Over three hundred years have passed since you left Muridaan Falls. It was your journal that led us here, through the gateway on the Isle of the Serpent.”

  “Three hundred years…”

  Sophia felt a deep sadness coming from Haukesworth. “All your friends, all the Metaphysical Adventurers you once knew, they’re all…”

  “Gone, all of them. It is a great and terrible sacrifice I have made, trading love for knowledge. I would not do it again, but it is done and cannot be undone.”

  “I don’t understand. Trading love for knowledge?”

  Haukesworth motioned them toward a cozy sitting area in the corner of his grand library. He slid into a soft padded sofa with a sigh. “Sit, I will tell you my story, then you will tell me what has brought you to this distant castle, though I suspect I already know the reason. Perhaps the story of my encounter with the Others will answer some of your questions.”

  Orville’s anxiety spiked sharply. “The Others? Who are the Others? They live here in the castle?”

  Haukesworth leaned back, his eyes half closed.

  “When I was a young mouse, life was far simpler, my purpose in this world abundantly clear. I was a powerful shaper, an esteemed member of the Metaphysical Adventurers, a mouse destined to save the world time and time again, a mouse ordained to a life of great adventure. You have read my journal, so you know in these endeavors I was successful, saving this dear world of ours on numerous occasions, all the while being fortunate enough not to lose my life.

  “On my eighth year as a Metaphysical Adventurer, two seemingly unrelated events occurred within a few weeks of each other.

  “The first event was a question put to me by my inner self. As the great questions of life usually are, it was deceptively simple, and yet it proved to be a query which haunted my thoughts for years to come.

  ‘When you save the world, what is it you are saving?’

  “A simple enough question, which at first blush appeared to have a simple answer. I was saving the world. What else would I be saving? Months passed, but the question perpetually nagged at me. Perhaps there was more to it, the question went deeper than I had originally thought. Perhaps it was asking me to define more clearly t
he true nature of the world I was saving.

  “The second event to occur was my discovery of a tattered journal in a subterranean cavern on a planet called Periculum.”

  Orville let out a yelp. “We’ve been to Periculum! They have those creepy giant centipedes there. So scary!”

  Haukesworth made no reply, his thoughts a lifetime away. “I found myself in an eerie cavern illuminated solely by a deadly form of bioluminescent moss, face to face with a colony of angry spiral headed Montrovian poker worms. With my life in dire jeopardy, a curious thought came to me. If I died before discovering the answer to my question, would my life have been for naught, my daring adventures held meaningless?

  “That was the day I found Parzifal Mouse’s journal, and within its pages his reference to a mysterious ‘land of the dead’, a world without time, a world existing within a dark castle on a lost planet called Tectar. I repeated the phrase over and over, ‘a world without time’. I could think of nothing else. In such a place I would find the solitude I so longed for. In such a place I could contemplate my question for as long as I wished. When I had found the answer, I would pack up my belongings and leave the world of the dead behind, returning to the world of the living.

  “The path to Tectar was revealed to me in Parzifal’s journal, a gateway to be found on the Isle of the Serpent. Twice I journeyed to Tectar and twice I returned, vanquished by its unfathomable mystery. A few of its secrets were revealed to me, one of them being its connection to the ancient Thaumatarians. Still, I had failed to locate the dark castle and the timeless world within it.

  “I would make one last attempt. As I stepped through the Tectarian gateway for the third and final time, I vowed I would not return to Earth without the castle’s location. Seven grueling months later I was having a quiet meal in a small village tavern when I chanced to overhear a pair of traveling merchants discussing a castle they had passed on their journey to the inn. I remember it as if it were yesterday. They were brothers, their last name being Skeezle. An odd name, but they proved to be congenial and informative, taking the time to draw a map marking the castle’s location. Four days later I stood before the gates of Castle Caligari.

  “Were you scared?”

  “I was not. My inner voice assured me this was where I needed to be. This was where I would find the answer I was seeking. What it failed to mention was this was also the place where I would meet the Others.”

  Orville glanced nervously at Sophia, then back to Haukesworth. “Um, these Others, the ones you met, they live here in the castle? Would you say they’re scary?”

  “I moved into the castle the day I arrived. It was dark, gloomy, cold, ominous, and generally uninviting, but it was now my home. As fate would have it, a few of the local villagers spotted me entering the gatehouse and came to investigate. When I heard them moving about, I knew they would find me if I didn’t act quickly, and I craved solitude, not the company of others.

  “Acting on impulse, I let out a terrible wailing moan followed by a bloodcurdling scream, then listened to the scrambling footsteps as the villagers fled the castle. It was then that I decided to adopt the persona of Mendacium the Dark Wizard. He was the most fearful character I could recall, plucked from a frightening book I had read as a mouseling. On several occasions I purposefully allowed the villagers to catch sight of me disguised as Mendacium, proof positive of my dark and dreadful presence within the castle. I delivered a letter to them during a magnificent display of my terrifying dark powers, a proposed contract for my services in the prevention of plague and pestilence. A few days later I received their reply. They agreed to my terms and would provide the items I had requested.

  “I am uncertain where the villagers acquired all the books they delivered, but I would suppose they came from some dusty Thaumatarian library deep within the planet. In any event, twice a week they left dozens of volumes in the gatehouse. Many of the books I was unable to decipher, and those I set aside, hoping one day to understand the language in which they were written. I lost track of day and night in my dreamlike timeless world. I read, I ate, I slept, I thought, my awareness of the world around me steadily increasing. The more books I read, the more I thought, and the deeper those thoughts became. At times I was able to merge with my inner self, able to access information existing outside of space and time.

  “I roamed the castle day and night, exploring every nook and cranny, coming to believe it no longer held any secrets for me. I was wrong, of course. I had not yet encountered the Others.

  “There is a vast room on the first sub level of the castle which I called the Machine Room. You must have heard the great pounding engine on your way to the dungeons. The first time I dared enter the room I was completely baffled by what I saw. Pushing up through the stone floor was a silver machine of gargantuan proportions. The sound from the mechanical behemoth was deafening, and yet I could see no moving parts, could discern no purpose for this monolithic metallic creation. More perplexing and concerning than the machine was the fearsome swirling blackness behind it, terrifying to behold. I had not the slightest understanding of its nature or purpose.

  “The answer was revealed to me in a volume chronicling the design and construction of Tectar, a dense and technical tome penned by one of the original Thaumatarian engineers. I learned the silver device I had seen in the Machine Room was one of the six massive Mark XVII Distortion Thrusters which propelled Tectar through dark space on its interstellar journey from Thaumatar. Some cataclysmic force had driven the engine up through the castle floor from the interior of the planet, and in the process had activated the machine. What this meant for the future of Castle Caligari I could not fathom, and consequently I made no attempt to interfere with it, fearful I might inadvertently cause the destruction of my timeless haven.”

  Orville leaned forward, his eyes wide. “When did you meet the Others?”

  Haukesworth gave a curious smile. “You don’t meet the Others, they meet you.”

  “But you saw them?”

  “I did. Numerous times I entered the Machine Room during my stay in the castle, gazing upon this magnificent engine. The sound of its rhythmic pounding became a source of comfort to me, the steady heartbeat of the castle. In my mind the castle had become almost a living thing, an entity within which I existed. Perhaps I was going mad, perhaps not. In any event, when the heartbeat of the castle changed, so did my life.

  “The rhythmic beating of the great machine diminished, becoming slower, quieter. I panicked, fearing for my personal safety and the safety of the castle, my refuge from the vagaries of time. Racing through the stone corridors to the Machine Room, I swung the doors open and was stunned by the sight which lay before me. The familiar stone chamber was gone, transformed into a vast sunlit pasture extending out for miles, rivers of soft green grass waving gently in a warm breeze, swaths of glorious wildflowers blooming in radiant golden sunlight.

  “Whoa, where did the meadow come from?”

  “I had no idea, and strangely enough, it did not matter. The meadow was the most profoundly beautiful vision I had ever encountered, filling me with a deep and infinite joy. I stepped into the pasture and sat on the soft grass, finding it to be more comforting than my own feather bed. I have no concept of how long I sat in the meadow – days, months, years. My thoughts came and went, my dreams came and went. My consciousness deepened, spurred on by the beauty and depth of that enchanting otherworldly meadow. I was close to finding my answer. I could feel it, almost touch it, taste it. That was the moment four distant white forms blinked into the meadow. I was looking at vaporous white clouds, yet the mere sight of them filled me with an inexplicable, unfathomable joy.

  “I jumped to my feet and raced toward these shifting clouds of white. I ran until I could not, collapsing to the ground, realizing the glowing white phantasms were no closer to me than when I had started. I was brought to tears, I wanted to be near to these creatures. My inner voice spoke to me. Sit. Listen. Do not chase after such things, fo
r they will come to you in time.”

  “I obeyed my inner voice, sitting in the midst of a thousand glorious blossoms, their colors swirling and changing with my every thought. My eyes grew heavy. I may have slept, or may not, I could no longer distinguish between dreaming and wakefulness. When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by the Others.”

  Chapter 33

  The Others

  Orville almost slid out of his seat. “What were they?”

  Haukesworth paused, attempting to frame his answer. “It was not their appearance which stunned me, it was their presence, it was how I felt when I stood before them, feelings which defy all attempt at description, much like describing colors to a blind mouse. When I opened my eyes and saw them, I was immersed in an ocean of love, I was there, I was not there, I was part of the ocean, I was all of the ocean, I was seeing the Others, I was the Others, I was lost, I was found. To be in their presence is simply indescribable. You asked about their appearance. At times they were with form, at times without, at times they had wings, and yet they floated above the ground, their wings silent, motionless. Their faces were fluid, ever changing, one moment resembling mice, the next rabbits, then muroidians, then a hundred forms unfamiliar to me. They are not like us, they are ethereal, more thought than physical in nature, not confined to a single shape as we are. The power they have at their command is beyond comprehension.”

  “Why did they come here?”

  “Their presence shall restore balance to the infinite chain of events which is our existence. They are here because of the great machine, they are here to see me, they are here to see you, to see Sophia, to see your friend Proto.”

  Orville stared in horror at Haukesworth. He didn’t want to be one of the reasons the Others had appeared in Castle Caligari. “How do you know the Others want to see me? I just got here.”

  “They told me this moment, as you were asking the question.”