***
Andaris dreamt that he was lying beside a thrice-divided river of red, green, and silver, a river that looked suspiciously like the twisting band within his favorite marble, Ol’ Blue. He grinned and leaned his head back against a spongy mound of blue grass, breathing deep of the blue air, staring up at the blue clouds passing across the blue sky.
Ol’ Blue, he thought, heart full of contentment, ears perked to the sweet sound of the red, green, and silver water rushing past. “After all these years, I finally made it inside!”
Sooner rather than later, however, as always seemed to be the case with him, his contentment began to fade. He began to tire of simply lounging beside the stream, whimsically enchanting though it may be, watching the colors swirl past, red, green, and silver fish leaping into the air, winking at him. It was all becoming a bit “too” idyllic.
Fortunately, this was almost certainly a dream, and the entirety of this blue wonderland was his to explore—not just this one little patch. And, since Ashel had recently taught him how to control and interpret flights of fancy such as this,” he was excited rather than frightened by the prospect, anxious to see what wonders his subconscious would create next. It was the perfect opportunity to flex his newfound abilities.
With this in mind, he rose, stretched, and—bumped his knuckles against something hard. He drew back, watching in wonder as the sky rippled and then calmed, returning to its previous state.
Tentatively, he reached up to see if he could do it again. The tips of his fingers came into contact with something hard and smooth. And again, like a stone cast into still water, the sky rippled. But the analogy was imperfect, for it was thicker than water, moving with exaggerated indolence. He peered at the spot, brow furrowing in concentration as he tried to look through to the other side.
Ignoring the vertigo this caused him, he decided to up the stakes, as it were, rubbing his palms against the surface of…what? Why, the inside of the marble, of course. He grinned again, rubbing his hands all over the inside of Ol’ Blue’s outer shell, delighting in its smoothness, in its concave perfection. He’d always wanted to touch the sky, and now he was! Never mind that the inside of the marble should be static. This was his dream. He could do whatever he wanted. So why not explore a marble? He realized some might deem it a strange choice. But strange or not, it was better than waiting for the confounded stair to return!
Everywhere he rubbed, the sky swirled, here and there emitting sparks of light. The sensible part of his mind told him that this might be a good time to stop. But he just kept on a-rubbin’, endlessly fascinated by the ever-changing patterns, expression that of a child reveling in his first experience with finger paints.
There was a blinding flash of light. He looked away and shut his eyes. When he looked back, the sky and clouds had cleared, the area beneath his palms wholly transparent, affording him a spyglass view of the world beyond. His eyes widened and he drew back, resisting the urge to fully recoil only by the narrowest of margins—quite a feat considering that he and Ol’ Blue appeared to be sitting on some sort of endless mahogany shelf. And there were other marbles, as well—as far as the eye could see, each cradled in a brass stand, each filled with varying skyscapes.
How terribly odd, he thought, both proud and unsettled by his brain’s seemingly endless inventiveness when concocting such things. In another flash that dwarfed the first—this time he did fully recoil—Ol’ Blue’s entire outer shell became transparent.
Beyond the shelf, which had only seemed endless from his limited purview, he now glimpsed a cozy little study with a low ceiling and built-in bookshelves. The concavity of the shell created a partial funhouse effect, causing the outer edges of the room to appear warped.
So…all these worlds just sitting on someone’s shelf like…decoration? For what purpose? To what end?
The study boasted mahogany walls and was furnished only by a claw-foot desk and wing-backed chair—a padded, red leather number that looked a lot like Uncle Del’s. A robed figure sat in said chair, hooded countenance bent over a stack of papers. Andaris could see nothing of his face, but somehow knew that he was looking at a gaunt old man with silver hair.
“The Keeper,” he whispered.
As though summoned, the man sprung to his feet and, quick as a fox chased by hounds, dashed to the shelf. Andaris scarcely had time to properly cower before an enormous, distorted eyeball eclipsed his world, pupil contracting with frightening rapidity, peering into the glass, examining him with excruciating intensity. The man said something that was as gruff as it was unintelligible, his voice loud enough to make the blue ground upon which Andaris so meekly stood tremble. Then he held the marble at arm’s length and, in rather violent fashion, began to shake.
Andaris fell backwards into the blue grass as the ground shattered and fell away, red, green, and silver fish swimming around him in a panic, wide eyes pleading for salvation.
“I’m sorry!” he yelled. “I can’t help you! I seem to have lost all control of this dream!” The fish nodded their understanding and then did him the courtesy of blinking out of existence.
And so Andaris fell…and fell…and fell some more. It went on for so long, in fact, that he began to wonder if he might not fall forever, perhaps as punishment for some wrongdoing or another.
Weren’t people supposed to wake up in these situations?
And then he saw it—ocean and continents spinning below, making him want to retch. As he drew near, he realized he was seeing them as if they were on a map or, in this case, a globe. There was writing on the valleys, mountains, and seas. He could even begin to make out some brightly colored illustrations.
The globe began to rotate faster as he picked up speed. The word “ROGAR” appeared, written in big bold letters with an illustration of a mountain, a castle, and eight walls. Beyond that lay “The Great Waste.” And then forested mountains…. Just before he hit, in not so big and bold letters, he glimpsed the word “Fairhaven.”
Little Brass Bell
Andaris awoke with a cry, coming to a sitting position as a staircase, this one his staircase, judging by the green arrow drawn onto the grating, locked into place.
About time! he thought, too irritable to be relieved.
The fact is, it was more than a little disconcerting to have his subconscious so utterly turn on him, grasping control of the dream with such frightening suddenness, changing it from idyllic to horrific in an instant, making him feel like he had when he was a boy, when his sleep had been plagued by nightmares—by tall, shadowy figures that haunted his every step, calling to him in a language he recognized but could not quite comprehend.
The worst part was how real it had seemed to his young mind. So much so, that most nights he wouldn’t even know he was dreaming until he awoke drenched in sweat, heart galloping in his breast. He thought he’d left all that behind, along with blemishes and a cracking voice, nothing more than a fading memory filed under “Adolescent Angst.”
Obviously, he was wrong. Obviously, something about this place had reawakened something about him that, like as not, would have been better off left alone.
“They’re just night terrors,” his mother had assured him, sighting elder bark tea and bedtime stories as a sure cure. “They’re not real.” She had had night terrors when she was little, too, so she understood, unlike his father and brothers, who had teased him relentlessly. Unfortunately, he had neglected to pack any elder bark tea, much less any bedtime stories.
Andaris had all but forgotten about the “Tall Men” until now. The tea had done its job, putting him under for the duration of the night, leaving him refreshed and, most importantly, unaware of what twisting, sinister paths his mind had trod.
In spite of the very recent evidence to the contrary, Ashel had clearly believed that Andaris possessed a particular talent for navigating the turbulent seas of his imagination, going so far as to say that one day he might be able to find, hidden amongst the complex quilt of shifting imagery and sound, the
occasional bit of insight into current, or even future, events.
And now, in this place, for better or worse, he felt closer to something of…great power, more connected somehow, both to this power and to certain aspects of himself, as though one depended on the other. This was new territory for him, undiscovered country that he had not even suspected might exist. To find his way, he would need to be intuitive as well as logical.
Basically, a gut check was in order. He had to make sure his internal compass was working properly if he hoped to find true north, the direction he must travel in order to determine the truth about not only this place, but also himself.
Okay, he thought, let’s assume for the moment that I’ve had some sort of vision. It wouldn’t be the first time. The question then becomes what to glean from what I’ve been shown. What, for instance, did all the marbles on the mahogany shelf mean? And what about the continents—Rogar and Fairhaven written on the same globe?
Was it conceivable that instead of being transported through time and space, as he’d always supposed, that he’d been transported over land and sea, from one point to another on the same world?
His mind spun with the possibilities. If he’d been on the same world this entire time, perhaps he could make his way back via conventional means, by way of ship or horse. As daunting a task as that would no doubt be, he would definitely prefer it to his present predicament.
Just think of it. What a relief to no longer suffer at the whims of Ashel and his ilk, dependent on finding his way by magic alone. How glorious. His heart soared at the mere thought, taking wing on a sudden updraft of hope, the likes of which he hadn’t experienced for months, not since before he’d begun his fruitless search in the godforsaken archives.
But wait. That can’t be, he realized, hurtling right back down to good ol’ terra firma. If I’m on the same planet, the stars should be the same. Shouldn’t they?
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling another headache coming on. That’s something else, beyond bad dreams, which had reasserted itself since he’d left home. It wasn’t, however, until entering this place, that the headaches had grown so pronounced as to rival the attacks he’d experienced during parts of his, shall we say, less than robust childhood.
Until around the age of ten, he’d been so frail, even sickly, plagued by nightmares and headaches that sometimes lasted for days, curled in his bed with the shades drawn, reading by the flame of a single, flickering candle.
Enough thinking! he scolded. Just more for the list. Have to actually make a list at some point, I suppose. Write it all down before I forget. But not now. Now, it’s up these stairs before they move again!
Responding to a sense of renewed urgency, Andaris got to his feet with a groan, gathered his things, and began scurrying up the stairs, adrenaline-filled heart keeping time with his steps, spurred by the crack of the whip at his heels, by the knowledge that, at any moment, the staircase could detach and spin away, dooming him to the same fate as old Gaven, sending him shrieking into the abyss with death as his only escape.
Seven hundred and fifty-nine steps later, and Andaris had yet to find any visible end to the staircase—nor, fortunately, to himself. His legs ached from the exertion, sweat poured from his brow, and still he climbed. He had gotten back into pretty decent shape since his sedentary stint in the archives, but knew he couldn’t keep up this pace.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to. He had been weighing the pros and cons of taking a brief respite, his aching calves presenting a persuasive argument, when the mist cleared and he came to an abrupt halt. Listing to the left a bit, he grabbed onto the railing for support. The reason for his sudden loss of agility rose before him like a mountain. At last, he had come to the end of his stairway, only to be confronted by a colossal wall of doors—a great stone wall that stretched as far as he could see, disappearing into the inky boundaries with the sort of unreality that one expects to find only when immersed in either deep slumber, or deep inebriation.
Andaris could scarcely believe his eyes. He had beheld many strange and wondrous things in his time. But this topped them all. The eyes were not meant to behold such things. He was sure of it. After all, what could be more improbable, more utterly preposterous, than a colossal wall of doors?
Look at them all! he thought, reeling at the spectacle.
Indeed, they must easily number in the hundreds, if not thousands. And those were just the ones he could see. For all he knew, there were millions. It staggered the imagination. Millions upon millions of doors—each of varying shape, color, and size, some of wood, some of stone, and even some of metal.
Why build such a thing? he asked the ether. For what purpose? But it gave him no more satisfactory an answer than it had when he’d asked about the stairs.
As soon as Andaris regained a modicum of something resembling composure, he sprinted for the top, fearing again that the stairway would spin away at the last moment, his near success making his death that much more tragic.
As he stepped onto the landing, he was greeted by a bright green door with a little brass bell. Tacked to the wooden slats of this door in rather haphazard fashion was a note, a smallish piece of parchment on which alien, probably Lenoy, characters were hastily scrawled. It looked so ordinary, other than the words being written in a foreign language, of course. As if it read: “Popped out to get some milk. Be back in a jiff.”
Andaris didn’t know what he had expected, but certainly not this. Standing there, gasping for breath, he began to laugh. It was even more a titter than before. The difference was, this time he didn’t care. It was just over-the-top absurd to find such an ordinary thing in such an extraordinary place. What else, when faced with such lunacy, could one do but laugh?
The Registry
Herman Shudenbacher,
Chief Museum Curator and Record Keeper.
The 12th day of January, 1838, “Year of the Bull.”
Book #27. Entry #536.
Tinar, Capital City of Mindere.
It being the first day of winter is fitting enough, for that which I am about to catalogue chills me to the bone. The following pages contain word-for-word transcripts of two idolatrous scrolls unearthed beneath the ruins of a monastery deep within the salt mines along Mindere’s Eastern border. The parchment of the originals are believed to have been made of human flesh and inked in human blood—a repugnant practice, to say the least. No doubt, in the name of procuring the necessary components, some poor vagabond lost his or her life in a ceremonial sacrifice. It is an abomination which defies comprehension, enough to make one question one’s faith. It is beyond puzzling how a benevolent God can allow such evil to flourish. Fortunately, understanding and belief are not mutually exclusive. That is, after all, the very foundation of faith. But I digress.
Little is known of this order’s ancient and secretive sect beyond that the Lectavian Monks were said to have been terribly cruel and to have practiced the darkest of magic. Scrawled upon one of the two scrolls is a kind of perverse poem. It is my opinion that its author was not very skilled in the art of rhyme and meter. Even so, it does possess a certain vile candor which I suppose will appeal to some.
Written upon the other scroll is a set of laws which obviously were intended to govern the monks, a mandate of singular corruption, its unholy commandments clear, concise, and absolutely ghastly. Both are unlike anything I have had the misfortune of reading before. To be sure, in the twenty-eight years since I was appointed head curator, nothing even remotely like this has crossed my desk. I would greatly prefer to not soil the sanctity of this register with such filth, but have been ordered by the king’s personal secretary, and thus am duty-bound.
My sincerest apologies go out to all who, like myself, have the misfortune of reading these words. The less offensive of the two scrolls contains the poem, so I will begin with that. Again, I am deeply saddened that I was not able to prevail upon the powers that be, and am now forced to record something which is so utterly reprehensi
ble.
Into The Waste he doth ride,
Fiery haired and fiery eyed,
A lost soul bearing a torch,
A grievous heart born to scorch.
Grief and pestilence will fill his wake,
Clad in doom for The Lost One’s sake,
Before, behind, to the left and right,
The land will cry and wither from sight.
The center cannot hold, it never could,
All that was and will is lost for good,
Foolish children with their heads in the sand,
Gracious master with powers so grand.
“Life is not for the living!” he says with a grin.
“It is for the ruination of all without sin!”
A painting on a wall,
A portal unto a place,
Come hither my children,
Grasp hands and say grace:
I promise to spoil the land,
And take the souls that I must,
I promise to devour the flesh,
And leave the bones for dust,
I promise to drink the blood,
Before the altar of tears,
I promise to heave my bile,
Across the span of years!”
Following this loathsome poem, is the list of commandments I expounded upon above, the lines of which made one archeologist so sick that he was unable to continue with the excavation. In fact, he left that very day, never to return. And it was quite fortunate for him that he did, for within six months of discovering the ruins, all five of his colleagues were dead, afflicted by a wasting illness that caused high fever and delusions of demonic creatures visiting them in the night.
Indeed, not even he escaped the ordeal unscathed. Once a hale and hearty man of thirty-two, he soon grew weak, melancholic, and reclusive to the extreme. It is said that he now keeps thick drapes on his windows as he, in addition to his other many ailments, has developed a particular sensitivity to light.
The Stair Of Time (Book 2) Page 19
