The Stair Of Time (Book 2)

by William Woodward

  Soon after the aforementioned tragedies, the mine was sealed by the Minderian government, never to be opened again. Unfortunately, in spite of my VERY vocal protestations, rather than being burned, as they should have been, the scrolls were then locked away in our most secure museum vault for future “study”, no more than twenty feet from where I now sit—not a comforting thought, I assure you.

  The immoral manifesto by which the monks apparently lived is recorded below, but I warn you, read on at your peril. While theoretically safe, even a transcription of the original text is not for the faint of heart. Truth be told, I have not felt like myself since their arrival. My nerves are strung as tight as piano wires, and I am so tired that I can scarcely keep my eyes open. It is, in all probability, nothing more than stress. After all, I am an old man, and this has been very taxing. Herein lies the dilemma: something deep down in my subconscious disagrees, imploring me to flee this place and seek refuge in the nearest chapel. What is more, even as I write this, I am wearing a twice blessed talisman of warding around my neck that, for good measure, has also been dipped in holy water. I can not quite make myself leave. I wish I could. Whether it be from an overdeveloped sense of duty, denial, or both, I do not know. Either way, I have made my choice, and now it is time for you to make yours.

  Whatever you decide, and I cannot emphasize this enough, do NOT read the text aloud, do not read it at night, and do not read it alone. Likely nothing untoward will occur, but if there is even the slightest possibility of invoking the dark forces bound to the scrolls, it is simply not worth the risk. And, of course, if at any point while you are reading, should you start to feel ill, close this registry IMMEDIATELY and seek medical attention. Or even better, close it now and never open it again. Please! I beseech you. I cannot imagine a need great enough to justify the risk.

  Should the wrong person read what I have written here today, these pages will be stricken from this record and replaced with something less inflammatory, and I will likely be left to rot in a cell until my death. It is my fervent hope that this will adequately illustrate the seriousness of the situation and impel you to do the right thing.

  Sincerely,

  Herman Shudenbacher

  At this point, if you are still reading, then clearly I can do nothing more to dissuade you. I have gone to considerable trouble, risking my family’s good name and perhaps even my freedom, to keep you from harm. My conscience is clear. But if you MUST read on, please at least heed what I have said: do not read it aloud, do not read it at night, and do not read it alone. May Rodan bless you and keep you from harm.

  This pact you make with your new God.

  Now bow and recite the unholy commandments:

  I shall do Thy will, and Thy will alone.

  I shall kill or be killed.

  I shall eat the flesh and blood of man.

  I shall think only of Your glory.

  I shall pillage and burn the land.

  I shall expel Thy filth.

  I shall spread Thy disease.

  I shall corrupt the innocent.

  I shall befuddle the wise.

  I shall kill all who oppose Thee.

  Book of Shadows: Danutritis 5:10

  Neverending Tapestry

  Feeling like a character in a book that had once been reputable but had since become too ridiculous for words, Andaris reached up and rang the little brass bell. It made a tinkling sound that set his teeth on edge, echoing around him for a surprisingly long time, flitting here and there like some crazed hummingbird.

  When there was no response, he paused for what he deemed to be the appropriate, or rather respectful, interval—nothing quite so annoying as someone hanging on the bell when you’re moving as fast as you can—and rang it again. The note on the door seemed innocuous enough. But what if, in fact, it was some sort of warning. What if, for instance, instead of saying, “Popped out for some milk, be back in a jiff,” it said, “All who have the unmitigated gall to ring the little brass bell shall be beheaded in an immediate and altogether unexpected fashion.”

  Andaris suppressed another titter and, with his hand halfway to the bell, tried the handle instead. To his relief and immense distress, the slender brass handle turned. He opened the door a crack, just to confirm that he could, and then closed it again, making as little noise as possible

  Now he had no choice. There was nothing he could do but go in. If no one had answered and the door had been barred, he could have gone back down to the platform with dignity intact. His skin broke out in gooseflesh. There was something beyond this door that he wasn’t sure he was ready for. He had the sense that if he entered, he would come out a changed man—if he came out at all—and maybe not changed for the better.

  Nevertheless, he’d painted himself into a corner, and now his dignity, pride, and self-respect were on the line. Thus, once again, he reached for the handle, turned the handle, and cracked open the door, perking his ears to what sounded like, of all things, the faint strains of harpsichord music drifting from the other side.

  Where there’s music, there’s people, he reasoned. Which would probably be either a very good or a very bad thing. Stealing himself for whatever lay beyond, he pushed the door wide.

  It turned out that what lay beyond was as different from the door in personality and style, as he was different from a hippopotamus. The interior glittered so brightly that, for a moment, he had to shield his eyes. Even so, he smiled, basking in the warmth of the firelight. It was so much more wholesome than the diffused glow to which he’d become accustomed.

  Every six feet or so, the walls were decorated with golden sconces—lantern-shaped devices with glass faces and sharply pointed tops, each housing a large white pillar candle.

  When his vision cleared, he could see that he stood before an immense ballroom of most extravagant design. The wooden floor reflected almost as well as a mirror, center boasting a highly polished mosaic, depicting, in varying shapes and shades, a circle within a circle bisected by a vertical line.

  The room was a hundred yards across if it was an inch, its tri-arched ceiling almost too beautiful to behold—exquisitely bejeweled by a mosaic which was much more involved than the one below.

  The hands of many skilled artisans had affixed thousands of multicolored glass shards, each piece, no matter how insignificant, set lovingly into place to create images of unparalleled realism. In this case, the whole was definitely greater than the sum of its parts. Andaris could see the workers in his mind’s eye, standing atop towering scaffolding to reach their masterpiece, their life’s ambition, every shard handled and affixed with a reverence that few would ever know.

  The candle flames danced amongst the glass with unabashed glee, refracting the colors to the eye with a species of beauty that was, in its own way, as breathtaking as anything he’d ever seen. In the center of the center arch was a glass dragon, red eyes blazing, talons outstretched, wings frozen in mid-flap. In the center of the arches to either side, were round shields bearing the now all-too-familiar emblem of a circle within a circle bisected by a vertical line.

  When Andaris was able to pull his eyes away from the dragon, he turned his attention to the rest of the room, the walls of which were constructed of large slabs of sandstone, stagger-stacked atop one another to add strength as well as visual interest.

  Twenty-foot tall doors loomed directly ahead, silver rectangles adorned with white horses rearing in defiance, nostrils flaring, eyes wild, each set in bold relief against a field of brushed gold.

  The wall to his right was interrupted every few feet or so by a window—three in all, two of the three sporting the ever-popular half-moon top, strongly reminiscent of the one in Ashel’s tower, the one through which Andaris had so blithely peered. These, however, were screened by gossamer thin lattice that had been fashioned into elaborate floral patterns, and they didn’t, at least as far as he could tell, look out upon the product of one’s demented imagination.

  Last, but certainly not le
ast, the wall to his left was covered entirely by a plush tapestry of fine and intricate design. The Lenoy were apparently very fond of such visual foolery, for like the chessboard entrance above, the tapestry was a perfect copy of the room in which he now stood, every detail painstakingly stitched, including another tapestry within the tapestry—and another, and another, and another, telescoping into infinity. It was enough to make his head spin.

  A perfect copy except for one thing: the woven versions had something the real one did not—people. It was a costume party, a masquerade, and everyone was dancing, figures locked in a rigid waltz, every step precisely coordinated.

  The women wore colorful dresses with bell-shaped skirts, figures ringing from side to side, faces covered by feathered masks painted with loud, garish expressions.

  The men wore black suits, pants pinstriped with silk, jackets wagging cotton tails as their owners spun about, shirts blooming with white lace cravats which grew in width from chest to chin, adding flair to what might have otherwise been mundane—compared to the women, at least, whose rainbow silks glistened in the firelight like springtime at dawn, reminiscent of all that is fresh and clean and pure. Only their masks hinted at what might lurk beneath. Something unseemly, no doubt—women, or rather sweetly scented wolves, crouching in the brush of that perfect dawn, waiting to strike.

  The longer Andaris stared at the scene, the more realistic it became. He was now standing before the tapestry’s center, only inches from the fabric, marveling at the phenomenal depth of detail. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there. Indeed, at present, he was so enthralled he scarcely cared.

  When last he’d been aware of himself, he’d been staring at the tapestry from the end of the room, and now he was here…in the middle. He supposed he must have walked…. Or waltzed.

  It was an odd sensation, to say the least, to find oneself in an empty ballroom, staring at folks dancing in a copy of the ballroom in which one stood. He suddenly longed to join in. Which also was odd. He’d always dreaded the annual barn dances back home, but something about this called to him. He perked his ears, listening once again to what sounded like faint strains of harpsichord music. His focus sharpened, drawing a bead on the face of the man nearest him.

  He had thought man, but that wasn’t quite right, was it? These people weren’t exactly people, now were they? Weren’t exactly human. It was something in the way they held themselves, in their bearing. They were tall and graceful, possessed of high, noble foreheads, much like his own—though he’d never thought of his like that—widow peaks accentuated by slicked black hair, sapphire eyes twinkling in the firelight.

  This must be the Lenoy, he realized, rubbing his right temple, annoyed that, at a time like this, another headache was coming on. And even if you allow for certain…embellishments by the artists, how regal they must have been in life. How beautiful.

  Despite his growing discomfort, his concentration focused to a white-hot point. He imagined what it would feel like to be inside the tapestry, walking amongst these majestic creatures of style and grace. The music grew louder, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. His headache began to keep the beat, as it were, pounding in time. One, two, three, back and spin. One, two, three, back and spin. And so on.

  And then a most curious thing began to happen, had been happening, in fact. The most curious thing about this curious thing—beyond, of course, it happening at all—was that he was just now becoming aware of it.

  Aware of the fact that the figures in the tapestry were actually dancing, stopping and starting with brief, jerky movements, bodies outlined by bright auras, shifting from one color to the next, changing with the music.

  The longer he watched, the smoother the dance became, until eventually they twirled about the floor like gods with unparalleled poise, the fluidity of their steps broken only by the occasional streamer of light. Apart from this, which he had decided was merely an interruption in his ability to perceive them, the dance was flawless. Now his feet, as well as his head and heart, began to keep time with the music.

  At which point, enthralled though he was, he bore witness to something that replaced the eager smile on his face with a frown. On the far side of the room, or rather tapestry, beyond the dancers, he saw a man with his back turned toward him, staring at the first tapestry within the tapestry, tapping his foot in time to the music, just as Andaris was. The man had long brown hair and a pack-of-everholding, just as Andaris did.

  It’s me, he thought with sudden, albeit belated, inspiration, headache intensifying at the sight of his woven doppelganger telescoping into infinity. At this juncture, Andaris did as any quasi-sane person in his position would have—he turned to see if he was still alone…and breathed an immense sigh of relief.

  He was alone. The room was empty. He was not staring at himself from the far wall of the actual room. Neither was he, as much as a part of him wanted to be, inside the tapestry. Thank Rodan.

  The dance going on behind him was merely a bit of ancient magic leftover by the Lenoy, something he had inadvertently triggered upon entering the room. It was either this, or he had finally gone from quasi-sane to completely and irretrievably insane. For the present he chose to believe the former—as a man thinketh in his heart so is he, and all that.

  The annoying thing was, just as he was turning back around to the tapestry, he saw, highlighted by bright auras of light, ghostly figures…dancing. In the real room—his room.

  Instead of crying out in panic and sprinting for the door, Andaris did as any quasi-sane person in his position would not have done, which forced him to reevaluate his previous assessment. Responding to some inner compulsion over which, for the moment, he had no control, he ignored the figures dancing all around, and finished turning back to the tapestry.

  As ludicrous as it was, more than ever he wanted to join in, to initiate himself into this strange and beautiful dance that was somehow so familiar. One, two, three, back and spin. One, two, three, back and spin. One, two, three, back and spin….

  Convolutions

  As with the inside of the house, everything on and around the covered porch was as Eli remembered. There were two wooden rocking chairs and a long bench, the latter of which had spent many a faithful year in service to the Creator as a church pew, bearing the burden of countless behinds with nary a creak of complaint.

  Yellow roses—his grandmother’s pride—climbed the lattice to the left and right of the windows, the openings barred by heavy oak shutters, centers engraved with a round shield bearing crossed hammers against a field of rye.

  It was strange to see everything from such a low height, to once again be walking so near to the ground, but…becoming less strange with every step. Unlike him, spring had reached its full stride, caressing his unlined face with the occasional warm breeze, carrying the heady aroma of flowering rhododendron plants from the gloom of the surrounding wood, the heart of which, as he recalled, was filled with endless mystery—a tantalizing wonderland that was more than enough to keep a young boy awake far past his bedtime, fantasizing about what might be, listening to the sound of the cicadae in the trees, their rhythmic buzzing both alien and routine, augmented, if he was fortunate, by the not-so-distant howls of timber wolves.

  Said to live in the caves along the eastern rim of a nearby gulch, these gray-furred giants were only satisfied when their bellies were stuffed with the sweet meats of young children—a not-so-old wives’ tale he suspected his grandmother had concocted to keep him from wandering off.

  “You gots the worst wanderlust I ever seen,” she’d told him one bright spring day. “Next to you, your father was a momma’s boy, tremblin’ behin’ me skirts for protection, and before you, he was the worst I’d ever seen!” She shook her head at him, admonishing his dirty fingernails and wild hair with her eyes. “That’s why they howl, ya know, in longin’ to eats a young’n’ just like yerself!”

  Elishivered and, following Sarilla’s bidding, sat in the larger of the two ro
cking chairs, the one with the stylizedEDJ carved into its top,E for Eli of course, Eli Dreyer Johansen—his grandfather.

  Once he was properly situated, having drawn up his legs beneath him so as not to feel so utterly dwarfed, he turned to the witch and, with as much dignity as he could muster said, “So, what happens now?”

  Sarilla stared at him a moment, struggling to speak from behind her hand, sudden mirth dancing in her eyes.

  “I’m glad the plight of me and mine is so damned funny to you, lady,” he said from behind clenched teeth—perfect little boy teeth.

  Sarilla’s face darkened—his grandmother’s tanned and wrinkled face. She cleared her throat and placed her strong, thin hands in her lap, fingers steepled above her faded blue dress, just as he’d seen his real grandmamma do hundreds of times before. “You’re absolutely right, Eli. I’m terribly sorry, my dear. You see, between the fondness Izabell Johansen had for you and…her wry sense of humor and…the way you look and sound contrasting so dramatically with your expression and words I—”

  “You’re one to talk,” Eli growled, or at least tried to. “My grandmamma never sounded like that!” He grimaced. “Why people go around usin’ twenty big words when five small ones will do was as beyond her as it is me.”

  Sarilla nodded, looking sufficiently contrite, long gray hair done up neatly into a bun. “Again, you’re absolutely right. I can only imagine how difficult this must be for you. If you’ll just give me a chance, I’ll try to explain things as well as I can. There are threads woven into the greater pattern that even I, thus far, have been unable to unravel.”

  Eli hesitated, this time weighing her with his eyes.