Chapter Four: Lord Orthridge

I gauged it was about mid-morning when I woke, and I was parched. The sun filtered down through a haze and the sky looked white with a tinge of pale blue near the center. Off to the west I saw my former home with the beginning of rolling hills covered in spring yellow-green, soon to be brown as summer approached. Somewhere a marsh bird squawked, and there were some insects buzzing around me in an irritating manner. I think they were gnats, but surely not mosquitoes, at this time of day. Then again, perhaps they were mosquitoes… horrible marsh mosquitoes.

The ordeal of this experience had cultivated in me a growing pessimism, as I was growing tired of the antics of this illusionist and my thirst was like a sharp stick being poked at my side in that it never stopped assailing me. In order to be doing something, I worked on the rope that bound my hands, first twisting it to try to free my wrists, and then rubbing it against the wall of the tower again. I don’t think I managed to do anything with the friction, but I did loosen the knot, however it wasn’t enough to give me the freedom I craved. My wrists grew raw and my throat sore, so I made it a point to sit in the shade of the tower while I worked against the rope in order to at least spare myself being further parched by the sun. This required moving from hour to hour as the tower was very narrow and the sun moved in a fiery arc across the sky. The day passed as an eternity, but once it was over, it appeared in retrospect to be only a drop of time. As the sun fell back against the rolling hills to the west and the sky grew pink, I lay back on the ground and gazed at the sky.

I was weary and perhaps hallucinatory from lack of water. It seemed, as I looked up at the sky, that I could stare at it until I fell upward and into it. I wanted to; I wanted to be released from my miserable existence and fall upward and away into sleep from which I would never wake. So sleep is what I did, gradually falling as I gazed up at the pale pink sky with slow blinks until it took me.

I awoke beside a river, lying upon grass a purer green than anything I had seen in the dry lands I grew up in. It was soft like a rug, yet smelled sweet, luring me to bury my face in it for a great, long sniff. Nearby a tiny stream bubbled to join the river, falling across round rocks as it went. It was beautiful, and although I was no longer thirsty, I felt a strong compulsion to cry over the presence of so much clean water. Again I was clean, and my clothes were not my own. I rose on an elbow to survey where I could be.

I was in the same landscape I saw before through the glass doors when I went to meet the illusionist in his breakfasting room. It was overflowing with bounty as trees grew unmolested by drought or want, water flowed freely, flowers grew in abundance, and birds sung with melodious variety. Small creatures chattered in the treetops and the air smelled of water, earth, and the perfume of blooming flowers. Looking behind me I saw the grass extend out in a great lawn until it reached the back of a genteel home built of stone and glass. It was a large place, perhaps better called a manor or an estate. Around it were trees, so it didn’t stick out like a box landed on the earth, like many other manors do, but it was situated with it, living in tandem with the world that surrounded it as if in agreement.

I sat up, feeling a bit dizzy with the movement, and was continuing to regard it when the illusionist approached me from the riverside. I had not been aware he was there.

“It is lovely here,” I told him, though my voice was not as agreeable at it might have been, considering he’d been toying with my life like I was an animal to be experimented with.

“It is,” he said. “But you have work to do. Get up.”

I gave him an unsavory look, but stood and he handed me the handkerchief and a letter.

“To Lord Orthridge of Midvale Hollow.”

Wondering if I was dead yet or not, I decided to try to sneeze into the handkerchief, regardless. I held the silk in my hand, rubbing it between my fingers. It was cool and I was transfixed by the colors along its surface, but sneezing wasn’t forthcoming, so I hazarded a guess and delivered a fake sneeze into the handkerchief.

No sooner had I done it than I was gone; sucked into an existence where the world spun and speared past me with lurching colors and lines, all unrecognizable and like a whirlwind. It was like a great whirlwind, one that lifted my weight, pulled my feet from solid ground, and buffeted me with a pummeling gale of wind and disorientation. I had enough time for my body to tense and to consider screaming, and then I was on solid ground again, my hair in my face, and the letter bent but still within my grasp.

I exhaled once, then twice, fell to my hands and knees, and took great gulping gasps of breath.

“What ho boy, have you something for me from that awful ills?” said a jolly voice from less than two feet away.

I looked up and saw I was kneeling in Lord Orthridge’s study, where a fire was crackling merrily and books lined the walls all around. Lord Orthridge himself was a rotund man, rosy in his obesity and cheerful at the moment, and he was sitting in a large comfy chair before the fire looking at me with bemusement.

“Y-yes, sir, I’ve a letter from Master Teitnl for you,” I said, holding out the crumpled missive and attempting to rise and push my hair from my face at the same time.

He took the letter from me, broke the seal and read it. I listened to the fire crackle and considered the extent of his books, wishing, in some other life, that I could read them all at my leisure. Lord Orthridge made one of those deep, rumbling “hrm” noises customary for older men, then stood, walked to his desk, and began to write. His quill made a scratching noise across the parchment and I studied the titles of books that were closest to me, trying to be subtle about doing so. I wasn’t subtle enough, though, because soon Lord Orthridge was standing before me, letter in hand, waiting for me to take it from him. I did.

“Do you read, son?” he asked me.

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you like to borrow a book?”

“Yes, I would.”

“I’ll pick one for you.”

He strode the shelf, took a book, and handed it to me. The Frozen North: Why It’s Impassable. It might have sounded dry, but the idea thrilled me. I could barely contain my enthusiasm.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Bring it back when you’re done.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Right-o, then. Carry on.”

“Yes, sir.”

I sneezed in the handkerchief and was whisked away, spun and blended and stirred for a few breathless, gasping seconds until I landed in the same spot I had previously inhabited beside the river. Teitnl was there, patient, yet pinched. I handed him the letter, and he took it, then he looked at the book in my hands.

“What is that?”

“It’s a book, sir.”

“Yes, of course it’s a book. What are you doing with it?”

“I’m going to read it, sir.”

“Where did it come from?” he demanded.

“Lord Orthridge let me borrow it.”

Teitnl’s eyes flew open wide, and he snatched it from me. Then, he threw it as hard as he could into the river. I thought that was very rude.

“You idiot!” he yelled at me.

“It’s a book!” was my reply.

“First rule of couriering!” he yelled, holding up a finger to further illustrate his point. “You never take anything back from Lord Orthridge!”

“It’s a book!” I rejoined again, frustrated I would never get to read The Frozen North: Why It’s Impassable, now. Not to mention Lord Orthridge would be wanting his book back, and now it was lost or at best, ruined. Sarcasm gripped me like a vice. “What’s it going to do, explode?”

Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion out in the river, where a geyser of water shot a tree’s height up into the air and splashed outward, showering Teitnl and I with impromptu rain. I can only assume the book exploded into a million pieces, and I felt somewhat offended that Lord Orthridge would seem so kind while planning my, and the illusionist’s, demise.

Teitnl was livid. He lifted his hand to snap me away, but was stopped by a yam that materialized in his hand. We both stared at it, and there were a few seconds of silence amidst staring. Teitnl looked at me in a whole different way, a calculating way. He turned, threw the yam in the river too, and then, with a blue-eyed glare in my direction, snapped.

It was night. I was bound, filthy, and in the marsh. A disgusting toad croaked nearby. I yelled at the sky.

Chapter Three: The Handkerchief

The night was quiet until a stray night bird made a few noises somewhere in the marshy brush. I could hear every movement it made: each rustle of a feather, and even the sound of its tiny feet skittering across the dirt once, then twice before taking wing. A breeze crept across my face, easing its fingers into my hair and cooling the sweat against my scalp until a chill ran across my head from front to back and I rolled over to stare up into the sky.

For a long time I laid there, gussied like a pig, wondering if he would come out for me, or if I could somehow loose myself on my own. I don’t know how long I was there, but it was all in the same night, so it couldn’t have been a tremendous span. I did grow thirsty and bored with only the lifeless yam for company, so eventually I began to devise a plan for freedom. I rolled to my side and hoisted myself up with much difficulty since my ankles were tied, then hopped to the side of the tower. It stuck out a bit more than the other sides, even though there were no true corners, but I supposed it would work as well as anything else near at hand for friction. Then I began to file the ropes behind my back (binding my wrists) with the rock of the tower in hopes that it would gradually wear the rope thin. It wasn’t a very good plan, but it was all I had. My choices were limited, consisting of such things as rolling into the marsh or getting stung by a lot of ants. Bound extremities make for a lowly existence.

After a while I got tired, very tired, and while I did want to be free of my bonds, I knew they would be there in the morning if I were to decide to lean against the tower and shut my eyes for a while. So that’s what I did. I fell asleep sitting beside the tower, although I kept seeing yam monsters and blue-haired mages and shiny floors as my overworked mind jerked to and fro between consciousness and slumber. In time, though, I did fall into a deep sleep.

I awoke in a comfortable bed, appointed like a cloud. Beneath my head was a down pillow, and all around me was a great white down blanket so soft I was struck with the sudden inclination never to move again. Above me the ceiling was made of fitted stone and polished crossbeams, and through the window came bright white sunlight, gregarious and swallowing. I sighed and shifted, settling myself more fully into my surroundings, and prepared to sleep again.

Right then there was a ringing nearby, cacophonous in its insistence that I regard it. I rose, and walked to the table where it rung, and I discovered a creation of very curious workmanship that must have been the product of gnomes. I picked it up and shook it, then hit it from various angles until it stopped ringing. Once docile, I placed it back on the table and looked around. It was a small room, but a large room by my standards. The walls were stone, but it was a comfortable room as a rug warmed the floor and the furniture was well situated, made of a rich hue of wood. Nearby was a washbasin, but I realized I was cleaner than I could ever remember being, and I had never before laid eyes upon the pale linen nightclothes I was wearing. As my mind began to wonder where my other clothes could be, I discovered a mirror on the wall and was compelled to approach it.

As I said before, I had never looked in a mirror, besides the hazy view that can be seen in a puddle or a barrel of water, and so this was one of my greatest moments of self-discovery as I beheld myself for the first time. I did not look at all like I had supposed, and in fact was perhaps enamored by what I saw. My hair was auburn in hue, like the color polished wood teases into from time to time when sojourning out of brown, and it had not curls, but waves, as it was short but long enough to fall in locks across my forehead. My complexion was somewhat fair but held the mark of a life in the sun; I had a smattering of light freckles across my nose and cheeks, as well as a glowing tan like the toasted tops of bread just fresh from the oven. I was young-looking and rosy, as I saw proof of in the tightness of my skin, the fullness of my red mouth, and the angle of my earthy brow. My brown eyes were what I had been told, but now I knew the full truth of it. They were brown, but a rich, deep brown that spoke of warmth and depth, and had a fertile brown-ness to them that I had rarely seen. They were not like the brown I had been surrounded by for all of my life. They were beautiful and compelling. Yes, I was indeed enamored with myself.

I touched my jawline with my fingertips, watching and tracing its delicate angle in a joining of sight and touch I could not pull away from. On reaching my ear, my fingers traced downward, along the tendon I had never seen that moved diagonally across the side of my neck until it ended at my clavicle, in a hollow I at once found fascinating. I stopped but stayed still, mesmerized by the mirror until I was broken out of my thoughts by the sound of a bird slamming into the window.

I had been so lost that the sound forced a gasp from me, and as I turned to watch the bird fall from the window to unseen grounds below, I noticed a note was on the table beside the previously ringing contraption. Crossing the room, I took it in my hand. The script was odd, using triangles for A’s and three lines for E’s, but it was readable once I got used to it. I wondered how he knew I could read, for not many could.

HENRY-

ONCE YOU WAKE, I EXPECT YOU DOWNSTAIRS FORTHWITH.

TEITNL

So Teitnl is his name, I mused, at once tossing the letter aside and searching for something suitable to wear. A brief search of the room revealed a wardrobe, in which there were a number of coats far finer than anything I had ever touched, much less worn. I wondered if these were actually supposed to be for me, with the brief fear that I would overstep bounds and make someone angry by wearing clothes that did not belong to me. I realized, however, that I couldn’t go downstairs in nightclothes, and nothing else was forthcoming, so these clothes it would be. I quickly chose one made of fine wool in pale gray, added some trousers of charcoal, and a pale linen shirt to wear beneath. The clothes fit me as if a tailor had made them for me and me only and I felt as if I had become someone else. It made me embarrassed but it felt good, too, as if I were suddenly worth more than I’d ever realized and was painfully conscious of it. Another bird flew into the windowpane, this one with more force, and so I pulled on some black boots that came just below my knee and ran out the door.

The hallway stretched in either direction, the floor being a polished dark wood like the one I saw before during the first time I met the illusionist. I searched for the stairs, spied them at the end of the hallway and made for them, but on the way I noticed doors to either side of me, some open, some closed. I wondered what an illusionist would keep in rooms besides the ones used for obvious things, like sleeping or reading, and in fact wondered so acutely that I couldn’t stop myself from investigating the first open door I came to.

I poked my head around the corner of the doorframe and there I saw a room like any other room. It could have been mine, although it was different in ways like the shape of furniture and the color of bedcovering. The only large difference was that as soon as I stepped inside, about ten birds slammed into the windowpane, and I remembered my charge.

Instead of dallying any longer, I ran down the stairs, which curved in a long, wide slope down to a main room which couldn’t possibly have fit inside that skinny tower I had seen all of my life. There was a vast chandelier in the middle of it, sparkling and beautiful. The walls were covered mostly in mirrors, and I watched myself in them as I walked by. Through a large arch I came to a hallway with a red and golden carpet lining its length. There were doors to either side of it, four or six, I never counted, and at the end was a glass door leading to outside. The difference was “outside” wasn’t a marsh. It was beautiful, forested, and green, with a river, a fountain, and numerous flowers. I couldn’t smell it, but I anticipated that it smelled wonderful, and thus began to make for that door.

On my way, I noticed a sign in Teitnl’s large script posted upon a wooden door to my right.

IN HERE

I immediately went inside. Opening the door, I saw Teitnl sitting at a breakfasting table, his muffin scarcely touched, and his tea taken with copious amounts of lemon. He sat very neatly, perfectly even, and his coat, though different in small details, was the same color of magnificent blue and just as beautifully made as the last one I saw him wearing. His eyes were cast downward in the act of occupying himself with his breakfast, although he didn’t appear to be very interested in it. As I entered he didn’t move except for his eyes, which shifted in a balletic manner to regard me, and his eyebrows, which pinched together with miniscule precision.

“You’re late,” he said. I blinked.

“Am I?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, soothing a rising dragon, I suppose, although I wasn’t sure why he would be so angry this morning. He took a deep breath and then let it out, opening his eyes to look at a sealed letter that lay on the table next to a number of lemon rinds.

“Take that to Lord Orthridge in Midvale Hollow.”

“Yes, well…,” I began, having no idea who Lord Orthridge was or where Midvale Hollow was.

“Use that,” he said, pointing to a small, multicolored piece of silk folded on the table. I looked at the silk and felt very useless as he took another slice of lemon and began squeezing it into his tea. I crossed the room and picked up the letter, then the silk. It was smooth, light, and almost without substance in my hand. Colors played all across the fabric of it in a pattern I had never seen but found fascinating.

“How do I use this?”

“Sneeze into it.”

“Sneeze into it?”

“What did I just tell you?”

“To sneeze into it.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself!”

He ate another lemon slice, forgoing the tea altogether. I winced, looking at the silk, which seemed to be a handkerchief, and didn’t know how sneezing into a handkerchief was going to deliver a letter to Lord Orthridge in Midvale Hollow. I stared at it for a while, and then looked at the illusionist and asked the question foremost on my mind.

“But… what if I don’t feel like sneezing?”

He glared at me and his slender body was imposing as he stood, so much so that I stepped back, although I still held the handkerchief in my fist. I didn’t know what would happen, but I didn’t have long to wonder, for he gave me a dry look and snapped his fingers.

Once again I found myself outside, tied hand and foot, and leaning against the tower. Dirt was everywhere, and it had become morning in the meantime. Nothing had changed at all.

Chapter Two: The Lynch Mob

(Note: Chapter One was expanded by about 1000 words, so if you haven't read the additions yet, I would recommend doing so to avoid being lost!)

Once we left the warmth and firelight of the village and hit the path in the march proper, the energy that had pushed us into this pursuit began to flag. Darkness fell around us as it was the middle of the night, and only our few torches lit the way. To either side of me I could hear a few sounds; the murmurs of men, some purposeful strides, and the sound of a shovel or rake touching the ground in passing. The marsh had it’s own particular smell. It was rancid to a degree, but not offensively so. It was wetter in atmosphere. The torchlight reflected off of black stagnant pools broken by chokes of thick grasses that were only a lighter degree of black. The sky was the lightest thing around, being charcoal and pricked by light. Ahead was the tower, but it was impossible to discern as the brightness of the torchlight swallowed our sight as we walked. The long, dull walk gave anyone who had misgivings time to reconsider this particular path, and foremost of those was I.

I began to slow, and Resh took my arm.

“What the matter, Henry?”

“I’m just not… really sure this is what we should do.”

“You heard the hag!”

“Well, yes, that’s true. I did hear the hag.”

“What, Henry, you don’t want to come?” asked one of the middle-aged villagers, a planter who evidently had been eavesdropping. I gave a delicate cough.

“I didn’t quite say that…”

“Good,” said the man, then he clapped me on the back far too heartily. “Because there’s the tower!”

Indeed the tower was there, looming up into the sky, moody black against charcoal, silhouetted and strange. It was weird and curved, and seemed unsuited for habitation. I, and I don’t think I was alone, wondered if anyone lived there in actuality. As they prepared to storm the front door, I don’t know what came over me, but it was lousy.

“Where’s the ram? Who has the ram?” said a voice.

Imagine my surprise that they did, in fact, produce some sort of battering ram. To this day I don’t know where they acquired it. They were readying it to ram down the arched wooden front door of the tower when I spoke.

“Um…” I protested. The effect was the same as if I had screamed like a lunatic, however, for they all turned in a creepy sort of unison towards me, their faces full of inquisitive outrage.

“Are we sure about this?” I ventured.

The head man in this lynch mob, who happened to be a somewhat rash fellow as rashness goes, eyed me. “Of course we’re sure.”

“Why shouldn’t we be?” asked another fellow, one of the blacksmith’s apprentices.

“Aye, what’ve you got to say about it, Henry?” said a third man, and at that moment, I could have sworn one of his eyes was much larger than the other.

“Well, it’s just that illusionists, by default, can’t actually cause droughts or plagues, and-“

“What?” shrieked the blacksmith apprentice, who I think was horrified at my reply.

In fact, everyone gasped at me. I was nonplussed.

“It’s illusion, which means he can’t really cause it not to rain, can he? Or make someone sick? I mean, sure, he can make someone think he’s sick, but he can’t really do it, or else that would be some other kind of magic, wouldn’t it?” I asked them.

“You certainly know a lot about illusion magic, boy,” said the head man.

I heard someone mutter that I always was a weird boy, and I didn’t appreciate the sentiment at all, but ignored it anyway.

“It only makes sense.”

“The only thing that’s making sense to me is it seems you’re sympathetic towards this illusionist,” growled the man with the extra big eye. “Too sympathetic, methinks.”

“I’m just trying to be logical. I don’t think he’s ever done anything to harm anyone, if you ask me.”

They all gasped again. I, unlike the hag, did not enjoy the theatrics of serf reactions.

“Think about it!” I implored the crowd. “In all of our lives there is no proof that this illusionist has ever done anything untoward to us! We’ve never even seen him, for that matter!”

“Aye… that’s true,” said head man as he peered at me. He looked around at the other serfs and said, “He could look like anything for all we know.” Then he looked straight at me, in that way that isn’t just looking, but dead looking. “Or like anyone.”

I heard again the murmurs of how I had always been weird, and just groaned.

“Oh come on,” I replied. “If I were that illusionist, why on earth, of all things I could do, would I choose to farm yams?”

The next serf-gasp was filled with outrage. I had said the absolute worst thing you can say to a lynch mob full of dedicated yam farmers. Big-eye-man turned that staring eye on me and rasped, his voice simmering with rising fury.

“You don’t like farmin’ yams, boy?”

“It’s proof,” said somebody nearby, and I could feel the world closing in on me as I tried to move backward in time and spread the surrounding fury thin with my reason.

“No… no! Yams are great,” I managed to stammer out, but it was too late.

“That’s it,” said head man. “He’s been with us all along! Take him!”

Perhaps it was because their incense was something that had to be spent that night no matter what the cause (and I was a convenient one), or perhaps it was my lousy attempts at sounding convincing regarding my pure love of yam farming, but I was suddenly taken into custody by this pile of villagers and the rope was mine to enjoy in very tight close quarters, at least until I was to be burned at the stake. I did object with all my heart, but peasants in a rage cannot be reasoned with. Somewhere vague I wondered where Resh had gone.

Once they’d tied me sufficiently so they were certain I wouldn’t accost them all with my horrible, horrible magic, they began to drag me away from the tower, and that’s when the truly extraordinary began to occur.

“Hey!” yelled somebody. “Has anyone seen my yam?”

A couple of people inquired what it looked like. A small group had formed, causing a distraction, to discuss the lumps particular to this fellow’s personal yam when there was a girlish shriek no one would admit to but which turned everyone’s attention to something lying on the ground in our midst.

It was a yam, but something about it was just wrong. For one thing, it was moving, and for another, it was growing. Everyone backed away from it, creating a circle as it bulged and shuddered and became more than a yam. It was the size of a watermelon, and then it was the size of a bale of hay, but lumpy, as something was trying to sprout life and almost succeeding with globules testing the skin of it from the insides that had somehow become pliant with gelatinous fluidity. At last, out of the skin tore two muscular yam-arms, and two, in retrospect, proportionally skinny legs. Its head was the great turn of the yam-end; lifeless yet captured the imagination like a face upon a rock. The imagination here was quite terrified, and then at last, like a punctuation mark upon the forming of this yam beast, it threw its yam head back and a jagged maw tore where a maw should be, and it roared. It was a sound I will never forget, for there are few in history who can claim to have heard a yam roar, and in this case, with fervor.

The circle of peasants surrounding it had pulled back far, but at its roar the circle shifted and broke, spinning away in fearful directions and becoming chaos. I was lost and forgotten in the chaos, and found myself lying on my side upon the ground with the pungent smell of dirt, defenseless, my breath coming in short, hard pants, and I remember fear and feet. I watched a lot of feet, hoping not the see those horrible, skinny yam legs ending in flat, round clay-colored feet, although on reflection I’m not sure what a yam could have done to me anyway. It was just so surreal we went mad with fright.

They all ran, every last one. If I could have, I would have run, too, even if it meant getting burned at the stake instead. At least with getting burned at the stake you know what you’re in for. With a freakish monster the mind loses all cohesion and a blind terror takes over, and so at length I was alone. Except, the yam monster was there with me, strangely quiet, with its feet shifting about ten feet away from me, as if it was awaiting command. I awaited my death, whatever that could be, at the hands of this monster, and closed my eyes tightly, hoping it would be swift. I could not bear to look at it.

Suddenly I felt strong yam hands on me, grasping me, hefting me into its great arms. It knocked the breath out of me to be thrown over the shoulder of the yam monster, and it began the steady sway of walking while the blood rushed into my head. I’d like to say I was man enough not to scream, but the truth of it is I didn’t even think to scream. I thought if this was going to be it, this would be it, and though I was afraid, screaming didn’t seem like it would matter. I am certain if my instincts had told me there was a remote chance that screaming could save me somehow, I would have been screaming my head off the entire time.

It opened the door to the tower, and I felt myself jostled with the action. I was aware of every nuance of activity the monster undertook, and it gave me a sort of intimacy with this terrifying creature that felt at once familiar and alien, and for the combination, nauseating. At last, after closing the door and walking up a very long flight of narrow stairs, it dropped me mechanically upon the floor. The first thing I noticed was the floor, as it was wood and polished to a remarkable shine. It was true that I had never beheld anything so beautiful in my life as this floor, which goes to show how deprived my life had been thus far. The ropes that bound my wrists and ankles slacked, and my hands were released. I pressed the scraped heels of my hands to the cool, smooth surface of the floor and looked behind me.

There was a man, who I suspected was an elf, for his ears were pointed. His hair was long and blue; a deep, rich blue; a color that never occurs naturally and possibly shouldn’t occur unnaturally, but regardless it was his. His skin was pale, like alabaster, and his features were a culmination of masculine sinew and delicate grace, yet were pinched somehow, as if what he saw was unpleasant. He wore a dark blue coat made of the finest woven wool I had ever seen or imagined, and he regarded me with impassiveness. Behind his left shoulder stood the yam monster, still and docile like a pet.

I trembled with fear, uncertainty, and the beauty of the floor and this man combined. I knew not what to say, but I recall feeling far too filthy to be there, and I turned my body, still being mostly on the floor, to face them and looked up to them both, the cool of the floor soaking up into me, relieving me, and bringing me some strange sense of solace. The man with blue hair was still regarding me, the yam monster was still docile, and somewhere a clock ticked, although I suddenly realized there were no walls, nor ceiling above us, and I couldn’t imagine where a clock could be. I looked around me with a critical eye and then knew this man was probably the illusionist everyone had come to burn at the stake, and at almost the same time knew the serfs had had no idea what it was they were dealing with. He was far more powerful than any of us had assumed. I exhaled, and my breath was ragged.

“Why have you brought me here?” I asked, my voice sounding dry and exposed as if in a cavern. I didn’t like the sound of it.

“Where else do you have to go?” he replied.

Upon thought, I realized his question was very appropriate. Having been labeled as a witch by the villagers of my home, going back there would only mean my death, and possibly the deaths of those who would protect me. I thought of Cherry, and didn’t want to cause her to come under suspicion, neither did I like the idea of her turning against me in the face of superstition. There was no pleasant alternative regarding my previous life, and so I would have to leave, although I didn’t know where I would go.

“South, I suppose,” was my lame reply.

“You would die in the desert.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes… I do.”

He offered no more explanation about the desert or why within it lay my certain death, but my imagination was piqued by his apparent knowledge of new horizons.

“Then I would go north,” I said.

“Impassable mountains.”

“East,” I continued, at once curious and challenging.

“A swamp so horrible, it makes this marsh look like a pleasant glade.”

“West!”

He hesitated and his weight shifted as he thought.

“It’s possible,” he ventured. “But I wouldn’t recommend it. Not for someone as inexperienced as you.”

“What do you know about me?”

“Enough,” he said without explanation.

“Where am I?”

“Where do you think you are?”

“I think I am inside of your tower, but it seems far too spacious… and strange.”

“Then we must be somewhere else.”

“You’re confusing me.”

“It’s a talent,” he said, and the clock began to tick louder. He turned to the side and the yam monster began to shrink, and though it was me the illusionist watched, the monster seemed to shrink at his bidding until it became only a yam in his long fingers. He dropped it upon the floor with a thud between us. “I wonder if that peasant will come back for his property?”

I stared at the yam from my vantage point on the floor. I had nowhere to go. It was true. I had never felt without a place in my life and the excitement of the night hadn’t let it strike me until now. There were times when I wished, without letting myself be too conscious of it, to leave my village and find something else. I had always wanted to learn more than what had been available to me, and the illusionist was both compelling and terrifying, but more the former than the latter. My curious mind drew me in and I went out on a limb due to both desperation and desire for knowledge.

“You wouldn’t happen to need someone to dig holes for you, would you?” I asked with hesitation, staring at the floor as it shone.

“No.”

I felt something like humiliation and shored myself up under the circumstances.

“West it is, then,” I said, and began to rise. It occurred to me that I had no idea how to exit this place, as there were no walls.

“However,” he said. I looked at him. He sighed. “I could use a courier.”

He looked up at the nonexistent ceiling and seemed a bit put out, but I found myself pleased at his concession for my survival. There was one problem, though.

“I have no experience couriering, sir.”

“Please,” he said to me. “Don’t ever say ‘couriering’ again.”

“Er… yes, sir.”

“Why are you calling me ‘sir’?”

“It’s just an honorific,” I explained, although he began to look very impatient. “ I thought, since I’m going to be in your service, that I should-“

He rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers once.

I was outside of the tower, lying upon my side, still tied with the rope, with the pungent smell of dirt in my face. The yam was nearby, harmless and normal.

Chapter One: Yams

It was in my sixteenth year that I saw the illusionist for the first time, little knowing how his existence would alter the course of my life forever. Long before seeing him, though, I’d heard about him. We all had heard about the Evil Illusionist that lived in the plains near the foothills I grew up on from birth, spoken of by hags near fires in rasping voices broken by the gasps of children, or the nervous laughter of older ones.

Being a serf was never easy, but especially so for me. I’m of a mind to think I wasn’t meant to “serf”, as it were, although I did it and had planned to pursue my serfdom faithfully regardless of what inclinations I had otherwise. My father was a yam farmer and was his father before him, and this chain of subsequent yam farming moved back in time as far as anyone living knew like a rope stretching beyond sight into a chasm of fog. There was no reason to think I would do anything else.

The foothills stretched far, but we only lived on a small part of them. They were treeless except for a few scrub oaks that would somehow scratch out a life in the ravines, but they never thrived. The ravines were sometimes filled with small streams, in the autumns or springs, and they twisted and wove their way to the plains to the north, turning them to sponge in wet seasons that only dried in the most arid weeks of the year. The plains were a marshy waste most of the time, one in which no one cared to set foot. It was in this plain that the illusionist’s tower sat, curling upward as if it had grown out of the head of the earth like a great horn. There were dots where windows were set within the tower lending at least some semblance to more familiar habitations, but it was peculiar nonetheless, as it never seemed wider around than four men standing side-by side. No one could imagine how anyone could live in such a place, and that convinced everyone that he who could was very suspicious.

The most suspicious thing about the man who inhabited that tower, however, was that no one ever saw him. It seemed, at least to those who watched, that nothing ever happened there, and they would have supposed him to be long dead if there wasn’t the occasional delivery from time to time. Sometimes it was a cart that would pass the village, then wind its way through the marsh along the one solid and thin pathway that led to his front door. Sometimes, arousing ever more suspicion, the couriers would seem to appear out of nowhere, for one would be watching and perceiving nothing one moment, then blink and see a fellow by the door. Nothing was ever explained, and thus the serfs became more and more embittered as the years passed with lack of information. Besides this, he never bought yams from us, and I am certain that went a long way towards cementing the serfs I knew into regarding his existence with both fear and loathing.

My home was brown, fashioned of a type of cement we made using cut grass and clay, and the roof was brown, too, although a lighter brown as it was made of bundled grasses only. The fence that bordered it was brown, the chickens in my yard were brown and auburn and brown again, the dirt in the gardens was brown, my clothes were brown, the wooden handle of my hoe, polished by my hands and my father’s hands rubbing across its surface, was brown. We lived in brown, grew in brown, and my eyes reflected that as, like they had been drawn straight from the earth, they were brown as anything in my world could hope to be. Even so, I’d never really seen them. Serfs didn’t own mirrors, but I was told about it, as if brown could be special in this brown land. Sometimes the sky seemed to take on a brown cast even, the clouds hazing above us into a stagnant miasma that would seem to stand still for days. Pink and orange would blush the surface and the wind went away for a time.

I was told somewhere to the south the brown faded slowly to yellow, then white as a vast desert stretched through the south and southeast. I’d never been that way, and most people didn’t care to talk about it. Our village wasn’t large; there were perhaps forty huts bearing all the things necessary to eek out survival. We had a rudimentary blacksmith, a small store, two women who did most of the baking, and some hags who were self-proclaimed healers but tended to be better for telling stories. It was a small village, but we grew the yams for most of the eastern world, for brown might be dreary but it grows great yams.

Every year in April and October, the carts came from far away to take the harvest to the rest of the world, and it was always an exciting time, for this was the time we met people from outside. People from outside brought stories, and most of them touched us in a vague way that didn’t seem like it could be our world at all, but something written in a book and truly only may or may not have happened, for all it affected us. We were removed, like all serfs are. Dirt was what we knew.

I was born with an inquisitive mind, and even though there was nothing to encourage it, a creative mind as well. I looked for that which was different. The scattered greens, or blues, or reds in this brown landscape intrigued me. In the spring, pale pink flowers would dot the hills that sloped like the backs of reclining dogs. It grew wetter, and there was green. The sky opened grey and misty, and fed the world for a time in a generous way not to be seen at any other time of the year. After these times would end, I would wonder if they ended so we could appreciate them when they came again.

As far as appreciation goes, I was often confused by those who surrounded me. Perhaps a better way to state it would be to say I was exasperated. It was rare that anything I wanted to talk about was accepted as normal conversation. My friends who worked with me either didn’t understand or found my ruminations extremely dull, and even strange. In order to fit in as well as I could, I would pretend not to have them. They preferred low humor and the discussion of everyday, present things. I can’t fault them for that; everyday, present things were all around us, and to ignore them would be ridiculous. However, along that same vein, I recognized those things, but only lived among them. I did not live with them. That is the distinction between my friends and I.

Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself, or waxing philosophical where there is no cause to do so, nor reason behind it, but I found the everyday to be the necessary, and I refused to devote more than the least of my mind I could to them, and instead spent my thoughts on what I saw beyond them. I saw the general form, but instead I looked for what cannot be seen. This is what I wanted to know; all things that are not readily apparent. I never cared for the idea of adventure or travel, but I desired to know the hidden parts of that which surrounded me already. I felt that if I were to travel all I would find is more of the same, for wherever one goes the everyday and mundane is there. Perhaps the mundane takes on a different shape elsewhere, but to someone, it is plain and ordinary. If I could understand what makes the ordinary extraordinary, however, then I would have something special and compelling no matter where I went.

During that April, the one where everything started, the hills bristled with green grasses and the spring crop was being washed in the ravines. I was digging holes with my friends, preparing the soil for the next planting, for there was always another planting as soon as the last one ended. We grew yams at all times of the year because the seasons barely changed in temperature. The only thing that changed from season to season was the rain. The carts came, and the people came with it, their clothes different from ours, and often finer. The fabrics they wove were of different stuff than what we had to work with, and the dyes they used made colors we saw as extravagant. They treated us well, however, and with what we made off of the yams we were able to purchase for our village that which would get us through the next six months. Times weren’t often lean, but they were never generous.

On this day, we were the last to know the carts had come, as two of my friends and I were in the field farthest from the road that led out, and closest to the marsh where the great tower sat. I had been looking over my shoulder time and again in the process of digging holes, since, even though I was intrigued by the tower, I never let anyone catch me looking at it for too long. Observing the tower with too much interest had ruined more than one man in our village, which was wracked with superstition, and I chose not to find myself in such a fate. Even though I was with friends I still knew they might talk to parents, and that would lead to questions. I was already peculiar enough as it was; I didn’t want to become suspiciously peculiar.

So, as a result I was sly about it.

“Oy, the carts!” called Resh from across the field. He was near the fence, and he pointed. That call was like a siren, as we dropped everything and began to run though the thick dirt, scrambling over fences and around troughs that might be in our way. Our enthusiasm was youthful, and it was at these moments when I had much in common with my peers.

The carts were the same as usual except for one difference. It was a very large difference. As I’ve mentioned before we were serfs, and being a serf means we owe fealty to a vassal. That vassal was Lord Mortimer, who wasn’t a bad sort regardless of what the name portends. On this day he came, whether it was to view his serfs or to understand what goes on in his lands wasn’t clear, but he was there and his entourage would be legendary.

Never in my life had Lord Mortimer come to our village, but I was only sixteen years old. The older ones spoke of the last time he came, how there was pomp and circumstance, how he had three handmaids for each of his seven butlers, but none for himself. How his flags flew midnight blue with golden ribbons against the brown of the land, throwing hope into the hearts of serfs who didn’t know they needed hope until they felt it. Today there were the flags, the handmaidens, and the butlers. There were also mages with spells, musicians with instruments, and animals of which I didn’t know names, and all of these trod through the street with light step after light step until the road had been churned to chocolate butter. It was as if there were a carnival, but I could only guess because I’d only heard of carnivals from people who had also never seen one. I wondered why Lord Mortimer should show this outpouring of generosity for us, but that didn’t appear to be on the mind of anyone else.

“Oh, Henry! Look how magical it all is!” This exclamation came from a girly voice behind me that I could not mistake. I was probably going to marry her, after all. Her name was Cherry, and she was pretty like a peasant who blooms, then fades, but always would retain something of happiness about her. I liked her well enough, although I knew she would never understand me.

Her face was round, her hair dark, being near to something like sable, and her eyes matched her hair. The most remarkable thing about Cherry, though, was her ready smile, and how it relieved me on so many occasions. Although I had trepidations about marrying someone that I could never really talk to in any depth, I knew her disposition would never depress me. It gave me some solace. At this time, she was giddy, it seemed, at the appearance of Lord Mortimer, and I was able to enjoy the event more because of her positive reaction to it. I smiled at her.

“Cherry, it is magical,” I said. “But why do you think the Lord is doing this?”

Cherry laughed at me as if I were a crazy man, and so I was left alone with my thoughts.

The day was filled with song, dance, and performances. Lord Mortimer sat at the head of it all, shaded from the light by a dark blue over-covering, and cloaked in the same color, only richer, and trimmed with golden yellow ribbons and embroidery. His hair was black, his skin pale, and he had a neatly trimmed black beard to match it. He was a handsome man of indeterminate age who didn’t look to be old enough to visit our village at twenty-year distances. On either side of him were servants in matching livery who stood silently and still, knowing each thing the Lord should need as if precognizant. We watched and cheered and reveled in the excitement, and I knew quite well the story would be told again and again for twenty years, or until the day Lord Mortimer came once more. Through it all, it wasn’t possible for me to discern what might be going on in Lord Mortimer’s mind; he was a flint who laughed when necessary and sighed when appropriate.

At the end of that night, as everyone was weary but hardly ready for the day to end, Lord Mortimer sent forth his storyteller, who was The Storyteller, for from this wizened hag came the stuff of most of our own stories. There was a fire and near it she stood, her rags, doubtless left ragged for effect seeing how she worked for such a rich patron, flapped around her though there was no breeze, and the fire whipped into the sky, grasping the air and devouring it around us. The drama of the moment caught even me, and I breathed in the air as if it would be my last breath.

“There you see it, children!” she rasped, her voice raking us all with claws, leaving burning lesions of curiosity, fear, and wonder. Her arm bowed straight at the elbow, her hand crooked, and a single finger pointed with shaking passion at the tower behind us within the marshland. Gasps were around me as everyone realized it was the mysterious tower of which she spoke. “There he lives! He who is evil incarnate! Do not go there, ye curious, for that will be the last thing you ever do!”

She seemed very intent on frightening us. Oddly so. Suspiciously so. I wondered if I was to blame for such suspicion because of my mind, which had never been in the same place as all of my friends, and if it was only a figment in my already overactive imagination that this old woman seemed to be frightening us purposefully for an unseen reason. For all of my life I had lived near the tower, and never had anything untoward happen to me. I had never seen anything come out of it, except for the stray deliveryman or such, and so I wondered why it was to be feared to such an extent as this old wretch demanded of us. I did not regard the tower with fear myself, because of what observing it had proven to me. Still, she went on.

“If there is a dearth, ye can be sure it is his doing! If there is plague, ye can know it was him, for he delights in misery given to those around him!” Her voice lowered into an ominous rasp in the flickering firelight, and even though her words were soft, they were crystal clear to all. Brimstone glowed in the fire and crusts of spark and flame flittered up, up into the crisp night sky, dimming all stars and elsewise light, lowering a blanket of confidence and fear around the sum of us. “He is so inhuman as to not even have a name!”

Everyone gasped in simultaneous shock, although I suspected it was the intense atmosphere that made it seem worse than it was. If the fellow didn’t have a name, then he didn’t have a name. That didn’t mean he was evil incarnate. Cherry touched my arm, then grasped it, which I didn’t mind. I looked at Lord Mortimer. He was watching the proceeds impassively. I was certain Lord Mortimer was not afraid of the illusionist without a name by looking at his face. Then, I wondered, why should we?

The old hag launched into a specific tale of the illusionist’s cruelty, having something to do with a village like ours (but not ours) which was struck with drought and the illusionist laughing over their failed crop and subsequent deprivation. I thought to myself it would be much more rewarding to let the crop grow, then profit from it, but it was her story, which I more rapidly realized was playing on the deepest fears of my kinsmen. I had fallen to disbelief, and now felt certainty the hag was lying, although the reason wasn’t clear.

From the crowd a voice cried, “Can he not be stopped, old marm?”

She appeared to be surprised by this interruption to her monologue, but also expecting it, as if feigned and schooled in acting and behavior. She looked at the man who spoke, then looked over the rest of us, as if gauging our worth, then, crooking one eye, and pointing one gnarl, said, “There is, son, only one way… Only one way to defeat that horrible illusionist!”

Several voices fell out of the crowd in wonder, imploring the hag for the answer to all of their now-present woes in the personage of this illusionist. The hag sighed, perhaps sighing for the loss of innocence in these poor, sweet villagers, perhaps sighing to put across the effect, but she sighed nonetheless as I was pondering the fact that an illusionist, by definition, would not be capable of creating a drought, as it was technically impossible without the use of-

“He must be burned!” she cried. “Burned at the stake!” She pointed suddenly, like a pouncing cat, with force and anguish, her rags flapping, her body stiff and anxious, at a post nearby. “Like that one!”

I didn’t remember that post being there before. They all cried a cheer for the hag, who was brilliant, but not for the reasons they seemed to think.

“He must be tied to the like and burned! Then you will never be accosted by his horrors again!” Her voice began to be swallowed to her pleasure by the voices of the villagers around me. They had become incensed, and had that sharp action about them that meant anything could happen.

“We’ll do it now!” came a yell from a brave, foolish soul near the far side of the crowd. To my chagrin a number of voices cried out in reply, and in fact, like fire, it burned through everyone like a sensation. I myself was effected, even though my rational mind knew it was all a farce, it had to be a farce, but to feel the energy around me made me want to be swept into it and ride through its waters with everyone else. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in my lifetime, and many of the lives around me. Cherry looked afraid and also thrilled. She turned to me, and I to her, and her breath was quick, and I found her arousing in that state, even though I knew it was all wrong.

“Oh, Henry!” she cried, then kissed my cheek with as much passion as can be put into a cheek-kissing, which is actually a lot, when done right. “Be safe!”

My eyes opened wide at her last words, as I wasn’t aware I was going anywhere, until I looked around me and saw some rope being gathered, rakes, torches, even pitchforks being hefted as weapons, and men bidding goodbye to women all around. Resh pulled me along, and some others, and suddenly I was in a great crowd that was off to kill the illusionist, even though he was probably very benign, as far as I could tell.