by M. Woodruff
“Well yes, he could have,” Casandra answered slowly, “but I think the point was to give everyone a solid foundation in which to start while the food provided the experience. A completely dark area would give one the feeling of absence, which could be unnerving. Instead he wanted everyone to feel a fundamental security while they ate, something about primitive desires that spring from the heart of the ground that then give us comfort in its very solidity.”
Nels couldn’t help but think of the Black Mountain and wonder if any of that was true. Was that why those men, who worked in the mines, never desiring to leave, actually stayed—because they were comforted, and not just trapped in the darkness, afraid of the light? Well, no matter, she still hadn’t answered his real question.
“Yes, yes, but, how did he get a cave in his house?”
“Ah, well, as to that…he put rocks around the perimeter of the original dining hall. It was early in his workings of the art—I’m not sure if he’d have to use the rocks now. But then, when he conceived of the idea he used the rocks as a material focus that then grew and multiplied, as the concept of the cave became clearer in his mind it took on the reality in the dining hall. And just like that—we’re dining in it! Isn’t it wonderful what this gift can do? Can’t you see how amazing the power is? That’s why I’m so excited to continue learning and growing in the art, and I want you to be too, Nels,” Casandra finished with an almost frantic look on her flushed face.
“I am, Casandra. I am.” He gave in with a weak smile. He was no match for her exuberance right now. In fact, he realized just how tired he really was, and his head was starting to hurt. Time to go to bed.
After shutting the door on a well-fed floating fish, Nels snuggled into the floral garden that was his bed for the night, and fell fast asleep.
It was at some point during the dark hours that he felt hot. Kicking off the coverlet, then the sheets, didn’t help to cool his perspiring flesh. So, he woke up.
And found he was staring into bright yellow eyes hovering inches above his own.
The eyes retreated slightly once Nels was aware of their presence. As his eyes adjusted to the wan moonlight filtering through the windows, the yellow eyes suddenly resolved into a vividly red fish. It didn’t try to kiss him on the cheek.
He knew instinctively this wasn’t a good-natured fish, like Bette or Ghostra, come for a midnight snuggle. He could feel that pervasive, cloying heaviness that always accompanied whatever came to remind him of the evil bargain struck on the Black Mountain. The embroidered serpent coming back to haunt him, no matter what form it decided to take.
And now, terror upon terror, it had found him here—a world away.
As if in response to his own dawning realization, the fish opened its mouth and bubbles of fire began floating towards the ceiling.
The heat.
Nels felt the skin on his nose began to blister even as his blood turned to ice. But before he could close his eyes to keep them from being seared in their sockets he saw an image imprinted in the flames—the Black Mountain.
Go home, Nels. You can never escape me. Go home.
6
Nels awoke to glorious sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows sure that someone had added more silken floral arrangements to the bedroom during the night.
And then he remembered.
Touching his nose, which didn’t hurt, he ran to the mirror in the bathing room and saw with relief that his face wasn’t burnt to a crisp. Had it all been a dream? He knew that was not so. It was all too real.
The embroidered serpent had found him here—in another world that was who-knows-where in the scheme of things. The serpent was right; he couldn’t escape no matter where he went. Should he just face the truth and go back to Black’s Hand? But a part of him said that if that was what the snake wanted so badly, it would be in Nels’ best interest not to comply. He had never been physically harmed—he would ask Casandra if Javin had a red fish. While he had felt he was being burned alive last night, there were no marks on his face.
It seemed more likely this evil just wanted to play mind games. Maybe it had no physical power to harm. Well, if that was the case, then Nels’ knew a thing or two about living with nightmares and he wasn’t going to let some decorated snake drive him to distraction. He knew how to content himself. And he would do just that by enjoying his visit in Sandrid with Casandra. He would learn what she and Javin wanted to teach him, and by the Black’s flame, he’d even put a colored-light show on around his head to make the ever-gaudy Javin jealous. In fact, now, he couldn’t wait to go visit the Upper tailor’s shop today. He was going to have the most ostentatious robes constructed that Sandrid had ever seen; if the wind was right, he might even have a wrap dress made, complete with a ridiculous hat. He would be a tailor’s dream.
Happy with his decision to stay put and leave all unpleasantness behind, he thought a refreshing bath would be the perfect way to celebrate his mental prowess in defeating the serpent’s lame attempt to exact its will on him. Go back to the Black Mountain, indeed!
Just as Nels was about to walk into the bathing room to see if Javin’s powers had expanded into him providing running water, there was a knock at the door as Luka entered bearing a tray.
“Breakfast in bed, sir,” Luka announced jovially. “Ah, but you’re not in bed,” he said, momentarily perplexed by the obvious. “Well, never mind, get back in bed. My orders are to serve you in bed.”
“Oh, of course, of course, Luka. As you say, we must obey your orders to the letter.”
Luka narrowed his eyes suspiciously as Nels pulled the covers over his bare legs and fluffed the pillows behind him. “Now, what will you be serving me on this fine morning? Slugs marinated in honey with a side of fish eggs, eh?”
“Ham prepared two ways, chicken eggs scrambled with potatoes and cheese, and a slice of toasted bread with butter and grape marmalade. The juice of an orange to drink, sir,” Luka recited drily.
“What, no Nectar of the Gods?”
“For breakfast?” Luka replied, aghast.
“No, I guess not, then. Well, thank you, Luka. Oh, and I would like a bath after my breakfast. Is hot water provided through a tap?”
“Yes, water is always readily available, sir; we recycle all of our water from the sewers. But, as it happens, the filter is broken today.”
“Excellent! Thank you once again, Luka,” Nels said around a mouthful of ham.
Casandra opened her door wearing a red silk wrap dress. It had no ornamentation on it—that, she was wearing all in gold jewels. Gold balls draped around her neck, hanging from her ears, wrapped around her wrists and an ankle—Nels couldn’t help but admire. Her long brown hair was piled on top of her head interwoven with more golden balls. Even her sandals had them layered on the straps. She looked lovely, even more exotic than yesterday, and that was hard to top.
“How do I look? Not too overdone, is it? I had Lera pick out what I should wear today since we’ll be visiting the Uppers.” She gave a twirl that let Nels know she knew exactly how wonderful she looked.
“Superb, my dear, superb. I feel downright a bore in this plain old robe, so the first place we must visit is the tailor’s. I insist. I can’t be seen with you looking like this, now can I?” Showcasing his own twirl for effect.
“No, I suppose not,” Casandra replied, very seriously Nels realized. Well, far be it from him to be an embarrassment in appearance or otherwise. He would show these Sandridians he was no back-world hayseed. He could sup, dance, snub, and feign intelligence with the best of them.
“Well then, shall we be off?” he asked, proffering his arm like a true gentlemen.
“Yes,” she replied, getting into the spirit by graciously taking his arm, “but first, we must speak with Javin about his plans for the day. Hopefully, he is awake and in his study.”
After leading them through even more twists and turns than Nels could even imagine—how Casandra could possibly remember the way was
beyond him—they entered into Javin’s study.
A virtual tower of books.
For as far up as he could see there were shelves upon shelves of books with balconies running the circumference at regular intervals. There was no stained glass at the top of the tower, only blackness that fed off of the dark paneled walls and floor. In the middle of the room was a mahogany-finished desk with a small glass lamp that focused light only onto the surface of the desk. What little light there was was provided for the rest of the room by iron globes hanging from underneath the balconies.
Javin was seated behind the desk, and gestured for Nels and Casandra to take seats in the black leather chairs facing him.
“Good sunrise! I trust you slept well?” Javin’s mood seemed to match Nels’ own jauntiness, but he couldn’t help feeling that Javin had given him an appraising look to measure his response to a rather innocently asked question.
Nels could meet Javin’s bluster anytime, especially this morning. “Oh capital, I daresay! After a splendid night’s rest, a tasty breakfast, and a hot bath, I am ready for anything.” Nels smiled affably.
“Wonderful to hear. And you Casandra?”
“Oh yes, very nice, thank you,” she responded politely with a slight look of bewilderment at Nels’ newfound burst of enthusiasm this morning.
“I don’t suppose you’ve come to do some reading at this early hour?” Javin asked.
“No, we—“ Casandra began before Nels interrupted.
“How did you ever get so many books?”
“Truth be told, Nels, they’re not all real.”
Nels and Casandra both gaped.
“Oh, I do have a lot of books,” Javin continued, “but not as many as it would appear. Call it an affectation of mine. I do hope one day to have a library as large as this one appears, but in reality it only goes up two floors. The rest is, well…an illusion, you might say.
“We do have many books here in Sandrid—most attributed to the gods and their history of the land, but I prefer to collect ones of specific interest to me. The gods’ books can be found in the archives; they have a collection that is a lot larger and they are all real. I expect you will wish to visit there soon.”
Nels wasn’t so sure. He really wasn’t interested in what the gods had to say. He had to agree with Javin on that point.
“What do you collect, then?”
“Lore written by our own inhabitants, in their own words, not copies of what supposed gods had to say.”
Nels’ eyes felt suddenly drawn to the books. It was as if he had heard indistinct words coming from the shelves. It sounded like the books were whispering to him. Beckoning, pleading almost, to be opened. As he kept staring, he thought he could distinguish faint orbs of light swirling, hovering by each book. He had the impression of the authors being somehow trapped all these years by the very books they had written, and now, they were begging to be released.
Pulling his eyes away before Javin noticed—he had the feeling that Javin knew all too well about the books—Nels asked, “You don’t believe in the gods?”
Javin looked stricken for a moment as if he had just lost hold of some long-held precious memories, and sighed. “I used to. As a boy I was quite the devout follower of Stayk, the god of all young children. We were all given to learn about the god at a young age. Stayk would gift us with small gifts once a year if we were obedient to our elders and the god’s teachings. For learning manners and respect, we would receive simple things like a pet lizard or a doll. If children had not behaved throughout the year they might receive a dead baby bird or one of their own favorite toys given back to them destroyed.
“The gifts were always left outside of the tent pavilions we occupied in those days to be found by the children as the sun rose. One Stayk Night, I stayed awake hoping to catch a glimpse of the god, when who should I see, but one of the low-level priestesses placing the right hind leg of my beloved dog in the sand. Horrified, I shrieked. The priestess smiled and let it be known that I had now graduated to the true devotion of Stayk: the end of childish dreams and the folly of youth. I would progress further through knowing the reality of life. The harshness of sacrifice and the absence of rewards, coupled by injustice and pain. And she spoke truly, for every time I looked at my maimed dog hobbling beside me, my heart broke and bled.
“But alas, I continued to follow the gods as we all did. All children still follow Stayk today. Sworn in our secret savagery we allow such trusting innocence to be exploited for the sake of well-balanced adulthood. Or so Stayk teaches, and we all believe.” Javin smiled sardonically, lifting an eyebrow.
“But no, that is not the reason I stopped believing in the gods. That came from reading people’s accounts of their own personal experiences and piecing them all together. Once the gift awakened in me, it just solidified what I had already begun to understand from independent study apart from the gods.”
“What had you learned?” Nels whispered, his exuberance slightly less, but not gone. He felt a certain relief that he had not been the only one to have a less-than-perfect childhood, but he couldn’t decide which was worse—the deliberate cruelty of superimposed realism on starry-eyed youth or a life that was just plain cruel to begin with.
“That the gods were just the superstitions of ignorant people trying to explain the unexplainable, oftentimes abused by power-hungry people, taking advantage to advance their own goals. When the true power awakened in me, and it had nothing to do with the gods, I knew I was right—there is a greater power out there, but it is no god like those worshipped in Sandrid—and we have it within us, my friends. It has given its very essence to us.” Javin leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking in the silence.
“But why us? And is it really just us? Maybe there are more…” Nels questioned, leaning back in his chair, trying to make it creak.
Javin sat forward shrugging his shoulders. His robes were all black again today making it look like, in the low light, a disembodied head floating above the desk. “Maybe. That is not the important issue right now, though. What is important is that we learn all we can about how this gift works and how it desires to be used. Surely, there is a purpose to all of this, yes? It is a gift for a reason, and it is our responsibility to use it wisely and appropriately.”
Nels felt slightly disappointed at the sound of that. He was looking forward to fun and frivolity with his newfound outlook, even if it was coupled with some learning thrown in for good measure—wisely and appropriately sounded to be the antithesis of that. Even so, deciding to humor Javin, Nels replied, “Of course, of course, Javin. You make good sense. So, where do we start finding out about what we should be doing?”
Javin smiled. “Why, at the tailor’s, of course.”
Nels hopped onto the old flying rug like a champ; he even impressed Casandra by standing up during the whole ride, instead of hunkering down in the center like he did last time. He couldn’t quite bring himself to peek over the edge, though, just in case the carpet decided to deploy one of its standard safety features.
It was a surreal feeling being whisked through the air by an automatic floor covering. It apparently responded to voice controls, because as soon as Nels made the comment, they were going a little too fast to see anything properly, the rug had slowed down to a strolling speed.
And what a vista it was! To be up in the open air, almost able to touch the clouds. The buildings were all spaced apart giving plenty of room, compared to the cramped conditions of the Lowers. There were few enough fellow travelers that everyone flowing in random directions caused no traffic problems or crash-ups. Maybe Javin had been right, the rugs did seem very safe, guiding the way, and being very polite to one another—yielding and keeping a courteous following distance.
The multi-colored sand below took on a surprisingly un-solid look that Nels wouldn’t have expected. He imagined from a distance all the different colored grains of sand would merge to look like one big gray mass, but instead he could see patterns of
all colors, just like a patchwork quilt. If he squinted, in the distance there appeared to be a rainbow river running over faraway dunes, its movement swift and purposeful, propelled by the winds.
“Anything beyond those dunes out there?” he asked Casandra.
“The pasture and farm land; where all the food is grown or raised. There’s no sand over there, only lush fertile grasses and trees. Plenty of orchards.” Nels was surprised. He hadn’t given any thought to where all the food came from in the midst of all this sand. “If you look out to your right you can even see the sea.”
“The sea?! I had no idea Sandrid even had a sea,” Nels exclaimed, while leaning perilously close to the edge of the carpet trying to see the sea.
“It’s fairly recently discovered. It started out as what appeared to be just a lake, but instead of a far shore it had a warped-air barrier. No one could see or cross through it to the other side on boats or even by swimming—it was impenetrable. People tried to walk around it, on land, with no luck; they always seemed to end up back where they first started, with no explanation.”
Nels understood that feeling all too well, and wondered if Javin had had anything to do with this lake mystery.
“Slowly, the lake began growing outward, until no land could be seen around it and even the warped-air barrier was placed farther and farther out on the horizon. It is still there, though. But now the people can harvest seafood and underwater pearls and other treasures. You can even visit the underwater gardens—there’s some beautiful plant life to see.
“That gives me an idea: I’m going to request seafood for dinner. You haven’t had any before, have you, besides lake fish, I mean?” Casandra asked.
“No, can’t say that I have,” Nels answered slowly, unsure of what other sea creatures she might have in mind. He’d heard talk in The Rickety Inn before about all kinds of disgusting things that would wash up on The Kingdom’s shoreline. He couldn’t imagine any food tasting good that was made up of sea jelly and slime.
