"When Myth Incarnates in the Waking World"
the golden city
this is the beginning of the Golden City, a story I wrote
The traveler watched from the wildly tilting deck of the ship as storm driven waves mounted higher and dashed like thunder against the creaking timbers of the tattered wooden vessel that he traveled in. The howling wind drove curtains of rain and piled wave after wave upon the heaving ship, threatening to sink it at last after such a long and costly voyage.
He scanned the rainy night through storm stung eyes, seeking for a spark of light, as all around him weary seafarers clung to rigging ropes and the drifting ship groaned in the raging sea.
The sailors had recently given up any attempt at controlling the hopelessly tossed ship, though the grim captain still shouted unheard commands through the screaming winds. The brass buttons of his sea soaked jacket glinting brightly in the intermittent lightning flashes were the only sign marking his authority over the other sailors, all dark and soaked alike in the endless spray of sea and storm.
Clinging to a wet rope the traveler reflected how, days before, all of the crew had been men of their various homelands, clustering together at mealtimes and night watches into small bands of countrymen, recreating their port nations in miniature, complete with borders, trade, and language. Those from tropical climes gathered together and ate the foods of their distant homes, while those from colder places stood in haggard groups telling jokes in their own provincial tongues.
The traveler sat alone, having journeyed so far that no kinsmen shared his voyage, and none of these sailors had even heard the name of his homeland.
Now all were the same. The cold and rain had driven from them any difference, and all together they clung mutely to the rigging, similarly battered by the storm.
Then, through the crashing waves and wind blown rain he saw what he had come so far to find. A glinting light shone through the storm, though only a pinprick. He glanced back once at his ragged pile of provisions, roped to the soaked deck, looked at the torn sails of the ship and the weary seawashed sailors, and released his cold and clamped fingers from the rigging he clung to.
Without another look back he walked the length of the tilting deck to its edge, and jumped boldly into the sea.
He awoke to the sound of seagulls and sunlight burned his eyes too brightly to see. He felt the gritty sand beneath him, and tasted it mixed with the sea in his mouth, which to him was indistinguishable from the seashore.
Stumbling, he arose and rubbed the ocean grit from his eyes. He saw seagulls wheeling overhead, and a bright and sunny seashore spread before him.
Nearly too tired to stand, a smile cracked his broken lips as his eyes followed a ridge of tall cliffs to the slim silhouette of a lighthouse.
He laughed deliriously as he noted a piercing white light crowning the tall tower’s uppermost parapet, and then he began a determined plodding, footstep after footstep towards the shell white lighthouse.
When he reached the cliff face directly below the tower he nearly fell dead with despair and exhaustion, for a steep and irregular staircase carved into the raw cliff side was his only path to the lighthouse, but he looked to the intricate tattoos covering his chest and arms, and with one indrawn breath bravely mounted the interminable stair.
Then his world shrunk to one step, and then another. All the way up the steep stone staircase he walked, one step at a time, his mind and body empty when he staggered at last across the last step and onto the stone porch of the gleaming white tower.
There he rested, regaining his ragged breath. He noted distantly that he was very hungry, and bled from many wounds. Then he continued along the sun-bright path around to the back side of the tower, leaving scarlet footprints on the gleaming white stones.
About ten paces before him he saw through blurring vision the iron gate to a garden, and felt a great triumph, for ten generations of his lineage had sought the white tower with the perfect light at it’s top, but before he took another step his frail body relented and he stumbled, drew one last hoarse breath, and died.
He awoke to the sound of boisterous singing and sunlight burned his eyes too brightly to see. His vision cleared somewhat and he beheld the face of a young girl. She smiled knowingly and said:
“It is very bad manners to show up dead at a birthday party.”
He lifted his head and spoke:
“I am sorry, I assure you it was not my intention.”
He looked about through clearing vision and saw a colorful spectacle around him. Huge bouquets of exotic flowers boldly decorated long and garish tables set with all manner of food and drink, and candles of rainbow colored flames burned in shifting candelabras of fire and ice.
He rose up onto his elbows, startled as he noted animals dressed in garish clothes sitting and speaking with people of every country and era of history at table after table.
The young girl spoke again.
“Be not afraid traveler. None will harm you at this feast. It is my brother’s birthday.” and she gestured grandly as a golden and glittering parade approached.
Brass trumpets announced the procession as aristocrats and royalty of every color and description blithely rode past them on incomprehensible machines and beasts of burden.
In the center of this bright menagerie sat a boy upon a throne. All seemed to address their music and applause to him and the traveler guessed that he was the young girl’s brother, whose birthday party this strange spectacle must be.
“I must be dead.” said the traveler, “Though I suspected the afterlife to be more restful.”
The young girl laughed lightly and said, “No, you were dead when I found you, but no longer. Would you rather I left you dead and resting?”
“No” spoke the traveler, “Weary as I am I have come a long way, but with purpose. I seek the white tower, and the brother and sister who keep it.
They are called Nima and Neok. Nima is said to be a wise sorceress, and Neok a brave warrior. For ten generations the line of my forefathers has sought them, and the white tower they keep. There is a great light atop it. I seek the Everstone.”
“You have found it” said the young girl. “Neok will want to hear about this”
“Neok! Neok!” she shouted over the mad din.
“In a moment” said the boy, “It is time to for my birthday wish.”
He smiled like the sun as the huge crowd gathered around, and a seven tiered cake carried by lions approached the boy’s throne.
“How old is your brother?” asked the traveler, dazzled by a forest of small candles covering the architectural cake.
“It depends how you count it,” shouted the girl over the loud party, “but to he and I, and if you counted the candles, today he is 2,012.”
The traveler’s jaw dropped.
“How old are you?” he said.
“2013” said the girl.
Then all together, in a hundred languages the myriad crowd sang the birthday song, and a great silence fell over the throng as the boy’s eyes seemed to scan the clouds. Then he closed his eyes and blew out all 2012 candles, and the world changed.
Suddenly the traveler sat in a quiet meadow. The sun shone on green grass and daisies, and he heard only seagulls and the faraway surf.
The girl and the boy were there, and their eyes fell upon him. Though they seemed to be only children, they looked at him with eyes made wise through long ages of being, and the boy spoke.
“You look terrible.” He said, reclining into a comfortable chair that was set just so upon the green lawn.
“Please, sit with us and refresh yourself. You have the look of a man with a story to tell.”
The traveler sat in a woven chair and found a cold tea at his elbow, and for once he relaxed.
“My journey has been longer than I myself have traveled, and who I am has more to do with you, I think, than with me.” said the traveler to the children, and sipped his tea.
“My homeland is so distant that even I have never been there, and I bring to you a message so old that I cannot read it, its language having passed from the earth long ago.
I have lost all my possessions, yet still I bear the message.”
The children looked at each other and smiled.
“This man is a better riddle than I have heard in a thousand years.” said the girl to the boy.
“Please, unravel your tale.” said the boy to the traveler.
“My father was a traveler,” he began, “and his father before him. I was made to memorize the history of my lineage, but much of the story has been lost over time.
Ten generations ago my forefather left our homeland, the Golden City. Though it was the best city ever built its doom came at last. The first traveler of my line left before that doom arrived, bearing a message for the two of you, to come and aid the Golden City. He hoped that the legends of your power were true, for the Golden City preserved the record of your doings in the distant past. It was said that the Everstone which you keep had saved the fallen city before, and that it could do so again.
Though he knew not where you dwelt or how far a journey it would be, my forefather set out to seek you.
His name was Hermes, and all that is remembered in the lore my father passed to me of him is that he did three great things. The first was to wisely foresee the coming fall of the Golden City. The second was to bravely leave his homeland to seek for the Everstone.
His third act was, when he realized how large the world was and how far away must be the Everstone, to resolve to teach the message to his children, that they might continue after time had claimed him. To this end he had three sons, teaching them all the message he bore, and sent them in different directions, charging them to pass the message down the line of generations until it arrived at the white tower.
One of his sons went north. This son’s name was Pythagoras, and he was my forefather. He had many children but realized that it might take generations to find the stone, and worried that the message could be slowly changed by error over such vast stretches of years and so undo the whole enterprise, but he devised an ingenious solution.
He had learned from his father the written language of the Golden City, and transcribed the memorized words into a fixed document. This he passed copies of to his many children.
One of his children was called Plato. Plato begat Aristotle.
Aristotle begat Alexander, who traveled far and wide to seek for the stone, but never found it, being easily distracted.
Alexander had many children. The one who was my forefather was called Plotinus.
Plotinus, at the house of his father, Alexander, met with other descendents of Hermes, for they had preserved the message in writing as well, for some few still remembered the tongue of the Golden City and had found each other and gathered together.
But then a great catastrophe befell. As these grandchildren of Hermes recopied the message and read it, they became afraid, for the message told that the Golden City had fallen in antiquity because a mighty and wicked dragon called Sulfurion had attacked the city, and Hermes warned that Sulfurion would seek to bar the message from ever reaching the white tower, for the dragon knew of the Everstone as well as the message.
They were right to be afraid, for at last Sulfurion found the house of Alexander with the messengers inside, and burned it to the ground, killing most of the children of Hermes and destroying almost all copies of the message.
At least one messenger escaped, and he was my forefather. He brought with him into hiding a copy of the message.
Remembering the ingenuity of his ancestors he tattooed the entire message onto his body in the language of the Golden City, though he could not read it. This way, he reasoned, as long as he lived the message would remain.
The message did remain, but he never found the stone, and so he begat a son, my grandfather.
From that time my line has been in hiding, secretly seeking the stone, my father receiving the tattooed and indecipherable message from my grandfather, and I from my father.
At last I reached a port where an old man in a pub told a seaman’s yarn about a white tower with a shining stone at its top, and I braved the stormy sea to find it.
Have I truly found the Everstone at last?”
“Brave traveler I solute you and your noble line,” said Neok the warrior, and stood to formally bow.
“The courage of your forefathers was formidable, and I am glad that you had the strength to finish what they started.”
The traveler lowered his eyes and said, “I did not have the strength, if you will recall, but died short of the goal.”
“Yes, well, you came as far as humanly possible. Close enough.” Neok said.
“Indeed that was a long journey,” said Nima,
“And yes, we are Nima and Neok. And that,” she said, pointing to the shimmering light atop the tower which rose upon a hillcrest in the distance, “Is the Everstone. It grants wishes and I’m sure that we can rectify whatever has befallen the Golden City. It was the stone that raised you from the dead.”
“I had rather wondered about that…” said the traveler, “and can you read this ancient message? Do you know the language of the Golden City?”
He pulled off his crumbling shirt to reveal an intricate tapestry of inked tattoos covering much of his body. Pictures of strange plants and animals and indistinguishable things slurred into letters and signs in the unknown language of the Golden City.
“We can read the language of the Golden City as easily as any other, for long ago we wished upon the Everstone to know all tongues.” said Nima.
“This is a longer message than it seems, for one letter in the language of the Golden City has more meaning than most words in other languages, and a word in that ancient tongue carries more than many books that have been written.”
“This could take a while to tell in your language, traveler, but I will recite for us three the message you have carried so far.”
Nima began to read from the travelers tattoos:
“To Nima and Neok, the keepers of the stone,
This message is addressed to you and you alone.”
“It rhymes?” spoke the traveler, “That’s funny. What are the odds that it would rhyme in translation?”
“Poetry is as close as most languages can get to the tongue of the Golden City, and so it would rhyme in any language it was spoken in. Or be some artistic metaphor or something.” Said Nima, and continued.
“Only in antiquity
Has been such dread iniquity,
Incurable ubiquity,
As my eyes have seen.
Forlorn is now the City Gold
And cast into unseemly mold,
The torch of learning dead and cold,
The fields no longer green.”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Neok, “that’s pretty clumsy Nima…”
“I’m not composing here, I’m translating!” she said, indignant.
“Let me try,” said Neok, and studied the cryptic glyph in question upon the traveler’s shoulder blade.
“Ahem.
Since ages past has never been,
Such scourge upon the race of men,
Joy and wisdom turned to dread,
What once was living now is dead.”
Neok smiled proudly. Nima rolled her eyes.
“Very nice. Please continue.”
“I shall indeed,” said Neok,
“My tale begins where yours has ended,
And in the end they will be blended,
With the Everstone was the city mended
But it again the dragon rended.”
“Stop right there,” said Nima, “That’s terrible. Rended isn’t even a word. It’s ‘rent’. My turn, lets try that verse again…”
Neok looked at the traveler.
“What says the world these days, do warriors or bookworms make better poets?”
The traveler thought for a moment and replied, “They have not considered it. They wonder only whether poets make better bookworms or better warriors.”
“Sad times.” said Neok.
“Ahem,” spoke Nima, “Let me try now in earnest, I think I have resolved this dialect.
I remember you from ages past,
More than a lifetime since I saw you last.
Tis I, the high priest of the temple,
Whom you redeemed with wishes simple.
Remember you the City Gold?
That you rescued and remade of old?
The Emperor and I both returned,
And the ancient lore we soon relearned.
We ruled the perfect city long,
Unmarred by any fault or wrong.
The city grew to unheard of size
It dwarfed the seas and touched the skies
The numbers of its citizens mounted
Till they could no longer be counted.”
“Wait.” Neok interrupted, “I’ve got this one.”
“Like every tree in every wood
Added to every blade of grass,
And every creature bad or good
That has ever come to pass”
“Wow.” said Neok, “That’s a lot of people.”
“The Emperor exhausted was from ruling such a crowd,
He ceased to sleep, resolving as he stood up tall and proud,
To rule the kingdom night and day and never rest again.
This feat could not be done and soon the truth was plain.
To rule the Golden City alone, though he do all he can,
Is far beyond the heart and mind of any single man.
So he and I concluded that a broader scheme was due,
And in our minds invented a grander plan, and new.
We would make of one man two great beasts, one of silver the other gold.
We would turn him into dragons, one hot the other cold.
So the king and I split him in two,
Each half a different thing to do.
One half to plant the field the other half to reap it,
One half to make the peace, the other half to keep it
These two dragons, so we thought,
Would rule forever, as they ought.
For a time they ruled and all was well and all throughout the land
Everyone agreed that two mighty dragons was a most ingenious plan
Then one half unto the other said,
I could not live if you were dead,
But all that I resolve to knowing,
You change again, forever growing.
If I try to tie a knot in a thing,
You unravel the cord and unbraid the string.
Said the second to the other one:
And all I grow you rend undone,
You question the light of the moon and the sun
You uproot the seeds before they’ve even begun
Can we these tendencies amend?
And work us both unto one end?”
Nima and Neok paused and waited as the traveler turned around, and Nima began to read where Neok had left off.
“Traveler,” she said “I’m afraid the next part is on top of your head. To read it we will have to shave off your hair.”
“That’s alright” said the traveler “I grew it by accident.”
Neok went and fetched a razor and they shaved the traveler’s ragged mane, revealing the next section of text.
“The Golden dragon, fierce as fire
Drove the silver one away.
He seized the throne and tyrant dire
Was born that wicked day
He named himself Sulfurion,
And crowned himself the king
Unleashing his full fury on
One and all and everything.
With the silver dragon gone,
And none to check his wrath
None could stop Sulfurion
And he killed all in his path
His wings became a bellows,
And everywhere we turned,
The sky became a whirlwind
And all he saw he burned.
Sulfurion is king now
And the Silver Dragon is lost
There is not a thing now
To be done at any cost.
I can think of no redemption,
Can conceive no plot or plan.
I cannot kill the dragon,
But I’m hoping that you can.
Save us with your wisdom,
But careful with the Everstone.
Sulfurion knows about it,
And wants it for his own.”
Nima and Neok looked at each other, and then at the traveler.
“It is unlikely that the message is a fake.” said Neok.
Nima looked thoughtful, and then spoke.
“The message is doubtless authentic. So much time has passed. Ten generations must be at least two hundred years. At least.”
The messenger replaced his tattered shirt and bowed.
“On behalf of the Golden City, please, come and help.”
Then for a time there was only the sound of seagulls and the faraway surf. Then Neok stood, speaking,
“Nima and I learned long ago not to wish about things we do not understand, and so we must go and see for ourselves what is afoot in the Golden city.
I will go and get my finest sword and armor, then go before the Everstone and wish to be impervious to all bodily harm. Perhaps you should as well, Nima, for I believe we should leave the stone on the tower, and not risk Sulfurion seizing it somehow, if this is a trap. Or if he is very clever.
We can enter the Golden City secretly from beneath, the passage under the tower still goes through, as far as I know, though it has been long ages since we tread that path.”
“Yes,” said Nima, “I will make many wishes before we go, for the stone should remain atop the lighthouse to guide travelers.”
“What of me?” asked the traveler.
Nima and Neok reflected that the entire purpose of this mans life was now fulfilled. What to do with him, indeed.
“You, of all people, are perhaps best prepared to guard the stone in our absence.” Said Neok, “And so you shall stay here while we return to the Golden City and see what is afoot. Guard the stone with your life, and on no account allow it to leave the tower top. Can you do this?”
The traveler stood up tall in his tattered rags, “Upon my life it shall not leave the tower top until you return. What if I… That is...”
“Make wishes if you like, but I warn you to be careful and wise if you can manage.” Said Neok, and strode across the meadow and toward the tower to prepare himself.
“You should be very careful, traveler,” said Nima, slowly. “It would be better if I had more time to advise you on guarding the stone, but though much time has passed since the message was sent, still we must move quickly, and so you must rely on whatever wisdom is yours already.” And she turned and strode toward the tower.
The traveler looked at the white tower and his eyes rested on the piercing, starry light at its very top. Through the brightness of it he could discern no object, only an iridescent light, almost too sharp to look into. The Everstone, he thought.
Nima, Neok, and the traveler all stood around the shining Everstone upon the tower top. Neok wore a radiant golden helm with a magnificent red crest, much of his body covered in polished plates of steel. Still he moved about easily enough, having no trouble bearing the weight of his many weapons and armor.
Strapped to his back were his mighty broadsword, much preferred by swordsmen for fighting larger beasts like dragons, his trusty longsword for battling swordsmen, fighting armies, and duels primarily, and a small crossbow, just in case.
By now, he reasoned, Sulfurion may have amassed an entire army.
Nima was unarmed and wore only a simple dress and hooded travel cloak, her arsenal hidden within her heart and mind.
She looked at Neok’s cumbersome armor and smiled to herself that she had, over the years, stopped more swords with her eyes than he had with his armor, and her voice had overcome more shields and pierced more armor than his sword.
The traveler marveled at the shimmering streamers of pearly light that continually radiated from the opalescent Everstone in the center of the tower top.
“Neok,” said Nima, “did you not wish to be impervious to physical harm?”
“Of course I did, why?” he sneered.
“Then why bother with the armor? Vanity.” Nima said.
“Half the use of being invulnerable is that it’s secret. Tactics.” Neok said “Don’t you even want a knife or something?”
Nima only smiled.
“So I can just wish for anything?” said the traveler.
“If the Everstone is within your sight it will grant any wish that you speak to it.” Nima said.
“I used to try to imagine it,” said the traveler, “I would lie at night, in whatever pub room or forest grove might be my bed, and imagine the Everstone. I would make wishes, but they never came true…”
“Of course not,” said Neok. “Anyway be mindful that the queen of faerie and her folk come to wish upon the stone often. Do not hinder them. They will help you to protect the stone.”
The traveler noted that Nima and Neok both seemed to be older, both around eighteen years old, by his reckoning.
“Why have you chosen this age?” he asked.
Nima and Neok looked at each other and Nima spoke to the traveler.
“I would think the advantages would be obvious, but suffice it to say that we are old enough to be capable and young enough to be underestimated.”
“Let’s go, Nima,” said Neok, “I’m more than a little curious about all of this.”
And the pair left the traveler on the tower top, descending the stone stairs to the tower’s lowest chamber.
“If the dragon knew about our secret door into the Golden City surely he would have used it by now.” said Neok.
“Yes,” said Nima,” and so we should go carefully and keep its location secret on the other side, lest Sulfurion come through and seize the stone.
Just imagine, that traveler’s forefathers journeyed for hundreds of years to get all the way from the Golden City, and we can be there in no time at all.”
The pair remembered long ago when the Everstone had grown dim through their lack of wishing, and had toppled down the stairs and broken the lowest stone in the tower in two and, through the crack they had followed it into a huge and impossible labyrinth beneath the tower. The labyrinth had become the Golden City with their help, but after they had left they had never again returned.
They remembered back even farther to the old man who had lived in the tower when they had first arrived, long ages ago. He had been cast into the sea by an enemy, and his Everstone with him, and Nima and Neok had fetched another. The old man had always said that there is only one Everstone, though it is powerful enough to exist in more than one place at a time. Often they remembered him, wishing in the ocean depths.
“I wonder how this path under the stone ever came to lead to the Golden City.” said Neok.
“It was the old man who made the tower, and so who could say but he?” answered Nima.
They had reached the cracked stone, and Neok again wrenched the pieces apart, and they descended into darkness.
Nima and Neok had no trouble traversing the pitch black corridors and caves, for they had wished to see in the dark long ago.
Eventually they came to a great door. It was firmly bolted closed from their side with great iron bars, and as He unbolted the door Neok spoke these words:
“Doubtless this door has held at bay any searchings Sulfurion has made for our passage, if he even knows it exists. Who bolted it I wonder. When we returned last we just wished ourselves back.”
But Nima had no answer, and they went through.
Beyond the door was a steep and narrow stair. Nima and Neok climbed it until they reached a wooden hatch overhead. Neok pushed against it with his armored shoulder.
“It’s stuck,” he grunted, and gave it a great shove, sending the wooden door open with a loud bang.
The pair were quiet for a moment, listening, and then walked up the stairs and through the hatch, emerging in what seemed to be a darkened storeroom.
Where the stairway ended at the lip of the hatch was a drop of about two feet, and then dark stone floor. Nima and Neok stepped down and turned to see that many wooden crates were neatly stacked along a wall, with one being awry upon the ground beside the hatch, which seemed to have been knocked away when Neok pushed open the wooden doorway.
“The staircase looks like one of the crates!” Neok exclaimed, “Brilliant hiding place for a stair. It just looks like a wooden box. Especially with another stacked on top.”
Neok closed the hatch over the stairway, and then stacked the fallen crate he had dislodged back on top. He stood back, surveying an unbroken wall of old stacked crates.
“Let’s count rows of boxes as we go,” whispered Nima, “To remember which one it is.”
They counted rows of crates as they walked to the door of the small dark storeroom, finding it locked from the other side, of course.
“There is dust here on everything,” said Neok, “No one has been here for a long time.
If I kick the door open, it will be plain where we came from, and we must cover our tracks for Sulfurion, lest he find the passage to the tower.”
Nima pulled a pin from her hair and carefully picked the lock of the storeroom door, and the pair left the dark chamber, locking the door again behind them.
They crept down a hall, counting doors to remember the one they had come from, finally reaching another stair up.
“Unless Sulfurion is a very small dragon he could never make it down that stairway.” said Neok.
“He may be in league with people,” said Nima, “or find some other way.”
The staircase led up into an extraordinary room. Their eyes were dazzled by many burning oil lamps, all emitting a strange and silvery light. This glistening silver light played over many odd instruments and unusual objects.
Nima and Neok slowly walked about, inspecting bookshelves lined in ancient tomes and bound volumes and strange jars of unidentifiable content. Many complex looking brass instruments lay strewn across a tabletop, and parchment in stacks and sheets was scattered about, much of it covered in intricate drawings and mechanical diagrams. In a corner was a rack of swords, and Neok approached it.
“These are fine blades.” He said, “Look Nima!”, and he drew one sword from off the rack and from its sheath.
“It is my own fine sword, over again!”, for he brandished in his hand an exact replica of his own ancient sword. He pulled his longsword from off his back and compared them. A perfect duplicate.
“And look here.” Pointed Nima, for along a wall was a grand forge for the making of steel.
“This must be the house of Anard.” Nima said.
“Yes,” nodded Neok,” for who else could have forged this blade? Perhaps he is still alive after all these years. How long lived are Minotaurs, Nima?”
“Let us see,” Nima said, lifting and opening a dust covered book from the mantle.
“A journal.”
The traveler gazed awestruck down the starry rays of the Everstone as they passed across the horizon. Such were the brightness of its beams that one could stand beside the Everstone and look far out upon its light, seeing distant things, farther and farther away the longer one stood gazing.
The scope of the vistas he beheld dizzied the traveler, and he sat upon the white stone of the tower top to rest for a moment.
He looked at the Everstone.
“I wish I had a glass of water. To cool me.”
No sooner had he finished saying it than it was so. A glass of clear water sat before him upon the white stones.
He reached forth tentatively and picked up the glass, then drank a sip. It was cool and refreshing.
“Thanks, Everstone.” He said, but the Everstone only sparkled.
He looked out at the horizon, as he had devised, to scan for the approach of Sulfurion or some other enemy, but saw only seagulls.
He passed a time in idle revelry, and was startled by the sound of a voice.
“Have you made any wishes yet?” came an unexpected question from behind him.
He turned to see a small woman fluttering by butterfly wings eyeing him curiously.
“I am the queen of the faeries, and these are a few of my kindred.” said the tiny figure, pointing to others of her kind hovering nearby.
“We have come to make wishes,” and the tiny flying forms gathered around the Everstone and joined into a ring. Then they all began to sing a wordless melody, changing and shifting in volume and tone, yet always harmonized and very beautiful.
At this performance the Everstone blazed up brightly like a stoked ember, and the near audible intensity of its rays seemed to increase somewhat.
Then the circle flew happily away.
“Wait!” cried the traveler, “Where you just wishing? I thought you had to speak a wish out loud. Was that singing in another language?”
The Queen halted and returned as the other faeries flew away.
“Wishing is a fine art among us.” She said, “Have you made any wishes yet?”
The traveler thought for a moment.
“I wished for a glass of water. I was thirsty.” He said warily.
“You have stood upon the tower top all day long and wished only for a glass of water?” said the Queen, “I had come to urge you to caution, but I see that you are very careful.”
“I was looking out. For enemies.” said the traveler, returning his eyes to the far horizon.
“I see.” said the Queen. “There is much of interest in the vast world to be glimpsed by the light of the Everstone.
Whenever you do get around to wishing, just remember this: If you lose sight of the stone, it cannot grant your wishes. Also, if you cannot speak you cannot wish, and so you must never turn yourself into anything or go anywhere that you cannot both see the stone and speak.
Good luck traveler.” And she flew to join her kindred.
Nima and Neok had found a couple of ancient and largish chairs to settle into, and Nima quickly scanned the pages of the dusty journal.
“This handwriting isn’t all the same,” she observed, “looks like a journal passed down through many hands. Yes. See here, the first part was Anard.”
She reached for one of the strange oil lamps for more light, and drew her hand back, surprised, for the lamp and the silvery flame upon it were both a chilly cold. She looked at Neok and passed her hand through the flame.
“No heat at all.” She said, and returned her eyes to the journal for a time, as Neok examined another of the oil lamps.
“This one is cold too, though it puts out enough light.” He said, sloshing the lamp and hearing oil within.
“What does the book say?”
“Let me read.” said Nima, without looking up from the journal. “We may discover what befell the Golden City after the messenger left, so long ago.”
“Or we could just go and see out of a window or a door.” said Neok.
“Go, then. I will read the journal all the same. Do not be gone long, brother.” said Nima over the book.
Neok turned and walked up a stairway. He wandered for a time through magnificent rooms scattered with fine furniture, noting gold nails and fixtures upon the chairs, tables, and walls. Even the doorknobs were of solid gold. While finely made and ornamented in golden splendor, the sumptuous rooms were ancient beyond knowing, and crumbled slowly into ruin and decay.
In a sunlit room he found a window. Approaching nearer he noted that it was broken, and through it he saw sunshine upon a paved street beyond. He broke the last of the shattered glass from the frame as he leaned out of the window to see the morning sun rising over a lovely white paved road passing between rows of tall and elegant houses.
As he looked closer it was clear that the houses were all in ruins and had been abandoned long ago, for he saw no people at all, and an air of desolation and loneliness clung to the empty neighborhood. The vacant doorways and broken windows sagged under once beautiful architecture, though he noted golden ornaments on many buildings and fallen into the overgrown gardens and street.
He heard no sound but the sly footfalls of Nima as she tried to creep up on him from behind.
“Many of my reflexes are quite dangerous when I am surprised.” He said.
“You’re no fun at all. Besides, you cannot harm me.” Said Nima, and Neok turned to see her open the dusty journal.
“It looks like Minotaurs grow old and die the same as humans, Neok, for Anard’s section of the journal ends in his old age and death, though he led a goodly life, and his progeny continued the journal after his passing. I haven’t read the whole thing but listen to this.
‘I have perfected the everburning lamp, finally solving the riddle of its strange oil. Gold rendered liquid at room temperature. The type of combustion involved in the silver flame is not the same as fire as we know it, and it is almost impossible to get the reaction started, though once accomplished the silver fire emits only light and no heat, allowing even a meager fuel supply to last for hundreds of years. Liquid gold it burns slowly, using a wick, whereas solid gold it devours immediately with furious light.
The flame, though silvery, burns only gold for fuel, and once reduced to a liquid state even an ounce of gold could make a flame to last centuries. I never could have started the reaction without the Silver Dragon’s fire. Just as Sulfurion’s fire burns anything save gold, her fire burns gold alone.
“Fascinating” Said Nima,” It seems Anard invented these lamps, and many other marvels as well.”
“And he knew the Silver Dragon. Before or after it was banished I wonder. But look,” said Neok, turning to the sunlit window, “The city is abandoned.”
They looked out at the morning sun on the crumbling mansions, and suddenly they both stopped moving and listened, for a noise approached from down the street. A great clanking and creaking sound grew slowly louder and heralded the approach of a band of many hunched figures gathered haphazardly around a tattered wagon as it slowly made its way up the white paved road.
Some of the weary figures dragged the wagon along on irregular wheels as it groaned, full nearly to its broken top with golden objects. The men seemed to labor under a great weight of what looked like chains.
Nima and Neok ducked behind the window and watched, hidden, as the clanking, chainbound laborers drew nearer, plodding down the road noisily, stopping occasionally to stoop and grasp a piece of glinting gold lying upon the stones and toss it into the wagon.
“Not really armed,” whispered Neok, “They look like slaves with all those chains.”
“Let’s go speak to them,” said Nima, walking into the next room and opening the golden front door.
‘I should wish upon the Everstone to speak to the spirits of my forefathers,” thought the traveler.
‘To tell them that we have all succeeded at last and the message is delivered.’
But he spoke not a word, silently watching the Everstone as it glowed.
‘What if I accidentally fetched back their spirits from some paradise and returned them unwholesomely to earth? No. That is not a careful wish.’
He paced across the sparkling marble of the tower top, pondering.
‘Perhaps I should wish to be immortal, immune to death.’ He considered, listening to the seagulls. ‘No. What if I accidentally fetched back my spirit from some paradise and returned it unwholesomely to earth? Not a careful wish either.’
For a time he watched the horizon and the sea, and listened to the surf and the cries of gulls.
‘Some say there is no afterlife. I was not dead long enough, perhaps, for I have no recollection. I would wish to know for certain but the Everstone would doubtless kill me.’ And he sat upon the flagstones to think.
“These could be slaves of Sulfurion,” Nima whispered to Neok as they crossed the broad white paved street toward the shambling cluster of chained figures.
“We must not let them discover the doorway to the tower, or who we are. But we must learn who they are, and what has befallen the Golden City.”
Neok nodded grimly and the stooped figures slowly rose from their gathering of golden trinkets and turned toward them as they came nearer to the wagon.
The stooped figures were dressed in dirty and coarse spun clothes, the cloth nearly invisible under the many chains they bore, hanging in disarray, and it seemed some carried more chains than others. The ones with fewer chains seemed to forage for gold on the street farther out from the wagon, and the one figure riding atop it was almost burried under a pile of iron chain links.
None appeared to be chained to anything, and their hands and feet were unbound, the main encumbrance being the heavy weight of the chain links themselves, hanging down in long trailing lengths of iron.
They had all stopped moving by the time Nima and Neok approached, and stared vacantly at the pair, the house they had come from, and back at the golden objects in the street.
“Greetings, fellows,” quoth Nima, in the tongue of the Golden City,
“We have no ill intent.
Tell us your names and titles,
If you can consent.”
The figures shifted nervously in their chains, rustling noisily. They looked at each another and one of them who stood beside the wagon spoke.
“You sound like a dang crow squawking in a flock of sparrows.”
“That didn’t rhyme.” whispered Neok to Nima.
“I know,” she said, “But it was the tongue of the Golden City all the same. A very obscure dialect. Let me try to figure it out.”
The figure drew nearer, dragging a few links of rusty chain behind him.
“You two stick out like a couple a gold nails on a peasant’s fencepost.” Spoke the dirty, hobbling man.
“Odd form of poetry,” whispered Nima, “But I think I can do it.”
“We are like birds from the south that have traveled to northern woods,” spoke Nima to the figure, and mumbled to Neok, “Trying to tell him we’re not from around here.”
“If the whole city was the size of this nail head,” Nima said to the doubtful figure, “Then we have come from farther away than the boundaries of the city itself.”
“I aint no baby lyin in the street looking at my first sunrise.” said the man suspiciously.
“Guess he wasn’t born yesterday.” whispered Neok.
The man continued. “I never seen a deer chase no tiger, so why would a southland crow come so dang far to roost in a cold tree, and be a rabbit in Sulfurion’s trap? I’m a monkey tryin to make fire.”
Nima and Neok looked at each other.
“Are we all a flock of birds caught in the same net?” Nima said to the hunched figure.
“Well, I recon you’re a fish up a tree, so I’ll tell ya.” said the chained figure conspiratorially.
The other figures shifted about anxiously, looking fearfully to the sky.
“Stop talkin and start walkin.” said the heavily chained man atop the wagon from beneath his pile of iron. He spoke in an ancient dialect similar to what Nima had used when they had first approached, and Nima spoke it again, looking at the man atop the wagon.
“We are from outside your countries borders,
why does the one with the most chains give the orders?”
The man beside the wagon spoke again, “Talkin to you is like sittin in a tree in a lightning storm.”
Then from atop the wagon they heard the other man’s voice.
“I don’t wear this chain cause it flashes,
if I took it off I’d be smoke and ashes
If you live in the houses you’re dead anyway,
No chains can save you in Sulfurion’s way.
He burns all the houses and takes all the gold,
kills everyone indoors, chains or not, young and old.
But us on the street we got a deal
We bring him all the gold we can steal.
Aint really theft.
Aint no one left.
We give him the gold and he gives us the chains,
And the one with the most heavy chains remains
Those with no chains are slain
I got more chains so I give the orders.
If I was you, I’d get back over the borders.”
Nima spoke again,
“He burns all the houses, what does he do with the gold?
And the gold he gets from you, when the chain links are sold?”
“Don’t nobody know,” said the man, nervously scanning the skies,
“We better go.”
“They say when he roars the gold sings
He can hear from the sky how it rings
Hear a whisper in a house from above,
From ten miles discern a hawk from a dove
His fire can burn stone and turns iron into mist
His wings are a storm and a thunderbolt his fist.
Anyway.
That’s what they say.”
And the ragged band slowly trudged away.
The traveler scanned the horizon, watching for the approach of Sulfurion.
‘What,’ he thought to himself, ‘Will I wish if I do see him?’, but then a small moving mote upon the sea caught his eye. The sail of a ship, far down the coast.
He looked closer at it, watching upon the rays of the Everstone, and saw that many sailors were busy about the rigging, and the ship made good headway.
Though it was night he could see them clearly down the starlight cast by the stone, and a bright moon hung in the sky, and he saw some sailors navigating by the stars upon the deck of the ship.
The lookout had just spotted the lighthouse, and the navigator told the pilot to change course around the jagged shoals and reefs that radiated far out to sea from the rough shoreline surrounding the white tower.
The traveler saw that it was wise of Nima and Neok to have left the stone, or the ship would surely have perished.
“I’m about ready to turn around and get the Everstone.” said Neok, “this town has gone downhill. Sulfurion is still terrorizing them and we should go on back and wish things better. I have seen enough.”
Nima was silent as they walked absently down the street, not far from Anard’s house. They had strolled past the remains of many fine mansions, and seen a tall and skeletal church spire across the street from Anard’s house. The ancient church was crumbling and fallen in, extending rib like spires of broken architecture into the sky.
They walked about for a long while, passing by houses in varied states of decay, and the one they passed by currently was almost well preserved enough to lend an air of normalcy to that stretch of street, and they walked slowly, lingering in the tranquil shade.
“It must have been beautiful…” said Nima.
“There!” said Neok suddenly, putting a hand on the hilt of his sword and with the other pointing into the neat garden of the house beside them.
They saw a figure crouching in the turf, hiding below a row of bushes, and both silently took cover in the underbrush. They carefully crept closer, keeping always hidden.
As they approached the figure from behind they could see that it still knelt in the shadow of the shrubbery, and Neok saw from a flash of sun on steel in the figure’s hand that it was armed.
Neok drew his crossbow from off his back and loaded it, giving a silent nod to Nima to go out and speak; he would stay behind hidden in the bushes with the crossbow.
She nodded and walked casually across the short green grass until she was directly behind the figure. Then she began to laugh.
Neok emerged from cover and looked down his crossbow at an old woman tending a flower bed. He lowered his weapon. What he had taken for a knife in her hand was a garden trowel and she looked crossly at Neok. Then she slowly stood and spoke.
“Well aint you two just a couple of chess pieces on a checkerboard?”
The traveler watched from the wildly tilting deck of the ship as storm driven waves mounted higher and dashed like thunder against the creaking timbers of the tattered wooden vessel that he traveled in. The howling wind drove curtains of rain and piled wave after wave upon the heaving ship, threatening to sink it at last after such a long and costly voyage.
He scanned the rainy night through storm stung eyes, seeking for a spark of light, as all around him weary seafarers clung to rigging ropes and the drifting ship groaned in the raging sea.
The sailors had recently given up any attempt at controlling the hopelessly tossed ship, though the grim captain still shouted unheard commands through the screaming winds. The brass buttons of his sea soaked jacket glinting brightly in the intermittent lightning flashes were the only sign marking his authority over the other sailors, all dark and soaked alike in the endless spray of sea and storm.
Clinging to a wet rope the traveler reflected how, days before, all of the crew had been men of their various homelands, clustering together at mealtimes and night watches into small bands of countrymen, recreating their port nations in miniature, complete with borders, trade, and language. Those from tropical climes gathered together and ate the foods of their distant homes, while those from colder places stood in haggard groups telling jokes in their own provincial tongues.
The traveler sat alone, having journeyed so far that no kinsmen shared his voyage, and none of these sailors had even heard the name of his homeland.
Now all were the same. The cold and rain had driven from them any difference, and all together they clung mutely to the rigging, similarly battered by the storm.
Then, through the crashing waves and wind blown rain he saw what he had come so far to find. A glinting light shone through the storm, though only a pinprick. He glanced back once at his ragged pile of provisions, roped to the soaked deck, looked at the torn sails of the ship and the weary seawashed sailors, and released his cold and clamped fingers from the rigging he clung to.
Without another look back he walked the length of the tilting deck to its edge, and jumped boldly into the sea.
He awoke to the sound of seagulls and sunlight burned his eyes too brightly to see. He felt the gritty sand beneath him, and tasted it mixed with the sea in his mouth, which to him was indistinguishable from the seashore.
Stumbling, he arose and rubbed the ocean grit from his eyes. He saw seagulls wheeling overhead, and a bright and sunny seashore spread before him.
Nearly too tired to stand, a smile cracked his broken lips as his eyes followed a ridge of tall cliffs to the slim silhouette of a lighthouse.
He laughed deliriously as he noted a piercing white light crowning the tall tower’s uppermost parapet, and then he began a determined plodding, footstep after footstep towards the shell white lighthouse.
When he reached the cliff face directly below the tower he nearly fell dead with despair and exhaustion, for a steep and irregular staircase carved into the raw cliff side was his only path to the lighthouse, but he looked to the intricate tattoos covering his chest and arms, and with one indrawn breath bravely mounted the interminable stair.
Then his world shrunk to one step, and then another. All the way up the steep stone staircase he walked, one step at a time, his mind and body empty when he staggered at last across the last step and onto the stone porch of the gleaming white tower.
There he rested, regaining his ragged breath. He noted distantly that he was very hungry, and bled from many wounds. Then he continued along the sun-bright path around to the back side of the tower, leaving scarlet footprints on the gleaming white stones.
About ten paces before him he saw through blurring vision the iron gate to a garden, and felt a great triumph, for ten generations of his lineage had sought the white tower with the perfect light at it’s top, but before he took another step his frail body relented and he stumbled, drew one last hoarse breath, and died.
He awoke to the sound of boisterous singing and sunlight burned his eyes too brightly to see. His vision cleared somewhat and he beheld the face of a young girl. She smiled knowingly and said:
“It is very bad manners to show up dead at a birthday party.”
He lifted his head and spoke:
“I am sorry, I assure you it was not my intention.”
He looked about through clearing vision and saw a colorful spectacle around him. Huge bouquets of exotic flowers boldly decorated long and garish tables set with all manner of food and drink, and candles of rainbow colored flames burned in shifting candelabras of fire and ice.
He rose up onto his elbows, startled as he noted animals dressed in garish clothes sitting and speaking with people of every country and era of history at table after table.
The young girl spoke again.
“Be not afraid traveler. None will harm you at this feast. It is my brother’s birthday.” and she gestured grandly as a golden and glittering parade approached.
Brass trumpets announced the procession as aristocrats and royalty of every color and description blithely rode past them on incomprehensible machines and beasts of burden.
In the center of this bright menagerie sat a boy upon a throne. All seemed to address their music and applause to him and the traveler guessed that he was the young girl’s brother, whose birthday party this strange spectacle must be.
“I must be dead.” said the traveler, “Though I suspected the afterlife to be more restful.”
The young girl laughed lightly and said, “No, you were dead when I found you, but no longer. Would you rather I left you dead and resting?”
“No” spoke the traveler, “Weary as I am I have come a long way, but with purpose. I seek the white tower, and the brother and sister who keep it.
They are called Nima and Neok. Nima is said to be a wise sorceress, and Neok a brave warrior. For ten generations the line of my forefathers has sought them, and the white tower they keep. There is a great light atop it. I seek the Everstone.”
“You have found it” said the young girl. “Neok will want to hear about this”
“Neok! Neok!” she shouted over the mad din.
“In a moment” said the boy, “It is time to for my birthday wish.”
He smiled like the sun as the huge crowd gathered around, and a seven tiered cake carried by lions approached the boy’s throne.
“How old is your brother?” asked the traveler, dazzled by a forest of small candles covering the architectural cake.
“It depends how you count it,” shouted the girl over the loud party, “but to he and I, and if you counted the candles, today he is 2,012.”
The traveler’s jaw dropped.
“How old are you?” he said.
“2013” said the girl.
Then all together, in a hundred languages the myriad crowd sang the birthday song, and a great silence fell over the throng as the boy’s eyes seemed to scan the clouds. Then he closed his eyes and blew out all 2012 candles, and the world changed.
Suddenly the traveler sat in a quiet meadow. The sun shone on green grass and daisies, and he heard only seagulls and the faraway surf.
The girl and the boy were there, and their eyes fell upon him. Though they seemed to be only children, they looked at him with eyes made wise through long ages of being, and the boy spoke.
“You look terrible.” He said, reclining into a comfortable chair that was set just so upon the green lawn.
“Please, sit with us and refresh yourself. You have the look of a man with a story to tell.”
The traveler sat in a woven chair and found a cold tea at his elbow, and for once he relaxed.
“My journey has been longer than I myself have traveled, and who I am has more to do with you, I think, than with me.” said the traveler to the children, and sipped his tea.
“My homeland is so distant that even I have never been there, and I bring to you a message so old that I cannot read it, its language having passed from the earth long ago.
I have lost all my possessions, yet still I bear the message.”
The children looked at each other and smiled.
“This man is a better riddle than I have heard in a thousand years.” said the girl to the boy.
“Please, unravel your tale.” said the boy to the traveler.
“My father was a traveler,” he began, “and his father before him. I was made to memorize the history of my lineage, but much of the story has been lost over time.
Ten generations ago my forefather left our homeland, the Golden City. Though it was the best city ever built its doom came at last. The first traveler of my line left before that doom arrived, bearing a message for the two of you, to come and aid the Golden City. He hoped that the legends of your power were true, for the Golden City preserved the record of your doings in the distant past. It was said that the Everstone which you keep had saved the fallen city before, and that it could do so again.
Though he knew not where you dwelt or how far a journey it would be, my forefather set out to seek you.
His name was Hermes, and all that is remembered in the lore my father passed to me of him is that he did three great things. The first was to wisely foresee the coming fall of the Golden City. The second was to bravely leave his homeland to seek for the Everstone.
His third act was, when he realized how large the world was and how far away must be the Everstone, to resolve to teach the message to his children, that they might continue after time had claimed him. To this end he had three sons, teaching them all the message he bore, and sent them in different directions, charging them to pass the message down the line of generations until it arrived at the white tower.
One of his sons went north. This son’s name was Pythagoras, and he was my forefather. He had many children but realized that it might take generations to find the stone, and worried that the message could be slowly changed by error over such vast stretches of years and so undo the whole enterprise, but he devised an ingenious solution.
He had learned from his father the written language of the Golden City, and transcribed the memorized words into a fixed document. This he passed copies of to his many children.
One of his children was called Plato. Plato begat Aristotle.
Aristotle begat Alexander, who traveled far and wide to seek for the stone, but never found it, being easily distracted.
Alexander had many children. The one who was my forefather was called Plotinus.
Plotinus, at the house of his father, Alexander, met with other descendents of Hermes, for they had preserved the message in writing as well, for some few still remembered the tongue of the Golden City and had found each other and gathered together.
But then a great catastrophe befell. As these grandchildren of Hermes recopied the message and read it, they became afraid, for the message told that the Golden City had fallen in antiquity because a mighty and wicked dragon called Sulfurion had attacked the city, and Hermes warned that Sulfurion would seek to bar the message from ever reaching the white tower, for the dragon knew of the Everstone as well as the message.
They were right to be afraid, for at last Sulfurion found the house of Alexander with the messengers inside, and burned it to the ground, killing most of the children of Hermes and destroying almost all copies of the message.
At least one messenger escaped, and he was my forefather. He brought with him into hiding a copy of the message.
Remembering the ingenuity of his ancestors he tattooed the entire message onto his body in the language of the Golden City, though he could not read it. This way, he reasoned, as long as he lived the message would remain.
The message did remain, but he never found the stone, and so he begat a son, my grandfather.
From that time my line has been in hiding, secretly seeking the stone, my father receiving the tattooed and indecipherable message from my grandfather, and I from my father.
At last I reached a port where an old man in a pub told a seaman’s yarn about a white tower with a shining stone at its top, and I braved the stormy sea to find it.
Have I truly found the Everstone at last?”
“Brave traveler I solute you and your noble line,” said Neok the warrior, and stood to formally bow.
“The courage of your forefathers was formidable, and I am glad that you had the strength to finish what they started.”
The traveler lowered his eyes and said, “I did not have the strength, if you will recall, but died short of the goal.”
“Yes, well, you came as far as humanly possible. Close enough.” Neok said.
“Indeed that was a long journey,” said Nima,
“And yes, we are Nima and Neok. And that,” she said, pointing to the shimmering light atop the tower which rose upon a hillcrest in the distance, “Is the Everstone. It grants wishes and I’m sure that we can rectify whatever has befallen the Golden City. It was the stone that raised you from the dead.”
“I had rather wondered about that…” said the traveler, “and can you read this ancient message? Do you know the language of the Golden City?”
He pulled off his crumbling shirt to reveal an intricate tapestry of inked tattoos covering much of his body. Pictures of strange plants and animals and indistinguishable things slurred into letters and signs in the unknown language of the Golden City.
“We can read the language of the Golden City as easily as any other, for long ago we wished upon the Everstone to know all tongues.” said Nima.
“This is a longer message than it seems, for one letter in the language of the Golden City has more meaning than most words in other languages, and a word in that ancient tongue carries more than many books that have been written.”
“This could take a while to tell in your language, traveler, but I will recite for us three the message you have carried so far.”
Nima began to read from the travelers tattoos:
“To Nima and Neok, the keepers of the stone,
This message is addressed to you and you alone.”
“It rhymes?” spoke the traveler, “That’s funny. What are the odds that it would rhyme in translation?”
“Poetry is as close as most languages can get to the tongue of the Golden City, and so it would rhyme in any language it was spoken in. Or be some artistic metaphor or something.” Said Nima, and continued.
“Only in antiquity
Has been such dread iniquity,
Incurable ubiquity,
As my eyes have seen.
Forlorn is now the City Gold
And cast into unseemly mold,
The torch of learning dead and cold,
The fields no longer green.”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Neok, “that’s pretty clumsy Nima…”
“I’m not composing here, I’m translating!” she said, indignant.
“Let me try,” said Neok, and studied the cryptic glyph in question upon the traveler’s shoulder blade.
“Ahem.
Since ages past has never been,
Such scourge upon the race of men,
Joy and wisdom turned to dread,
What once was living now is dead.”
Neok smiled proudly. Nima rolled her eyes.
“Very nice. Please continue.”
“I shall indeed,” said Neok,
“My tale begins where yours has ended,
And in the end they will be blended,
With the Everstone was the city mended
But it again the dragon rended.”
“Stop right there,” said Nima, “That’s terrible. Rended isn’t even a word. It’s ‘rent’. My turn, lets try that verse again…”
Neok looked at the traveler.
“What says the world these days, do warriors or bookworms make better poets?”
The traveler thought for a moment and replied, “They have not considered it. They wonder only whether poets make better bookworms or better warriors.”
“Sad times.” said Neok.
“Ahem,” spoke Nima, “Let me try now in earnest, I think I have resolved this dialect.
I remember you from ages past,
More than a lifetime since I saw you last.
Tis I, the high priest of the temple,
Whom you redeemed with wishes simple.
Remember you the City Gold?
That you rescued and remade of old?
The Emperor and I both returned,
And the ancient lore we soon relearned.
We ruled the perfect city long,
Unmarred by any fault or wrong.
The city grew to unheard of size
It dwarfed the seas and touched the skies
The numbers of its citizens mounted
Till they could no longer be counted.”
“Wait.” Neok interrupted, “I’ve got this one.”
“Like every tree in every wood
Added to every blade of grass,
And every creature bad or good
That has ever come to pass”
“Wow.” said Neok, “That’s a lot of people.”
“The Emperor exhausted was from ruling such a crowd,
He ceased to sleep, resolving as he stood up tall and proud,
To rule the kingdom night and day and never rest again.
This feat could not be done and soon the truth was plain.
To rule the Golden City alone, though he do all he can,
Is far beyond the heart and mind of any single man.
So he and I concluded that a broader scheme was due,
And in our minds invented a grander plan, and new.
We would make of one man two great beasts, one of silver the other gold.
We would turn him into dragons, one hot the other cold.
So the king and I split him in two,
Each half a different thing to do.
One half to plant the field the other half to reap it,
One half to make the peace, the other half to keep it
These two dragons, so we thought,
Would rule forever, as they ought.
For a time they ruled and all was well and all throughout the land
Everyone agreed that two mighty dragons was a most ingenious plan
Then one half unto the other said,
I could not live if you were dead,
But all that I resolve to knowing,
You change again, forever growing.
If I try to tie a knot in a thing,
You unravel the cord and unbraid the string.
Said the second to the other one:
And all I grow you rend undone,
You question the light of the moon and the sun
You uproot the seeds before they’ve even begun
Can we these tendencies amend?
And work us both unto one end?”
Nima and Neok paused and waited as the traveler turned around, and Nima began to read where Neok had left off.
“Traveler,” she said “I’m afraid the next part is on top of your head. To read it we will have to shave off your hair.”
“That’s alright” said the traveler “I grew it by accident.”
Neok went and fetched a razor and they shaved the traveler’s ragged mane, revealing the next section of text.
“The Golden dragon, fierce as fire
Drove the silver one away.
He seized the throne and tyrant dire
Was born that wicked day
He named himself Sulfurion,
And crowned himself the king
Unleashing his full fury on
One and all and everything.
With the silver dragon gone,
And none to check his wrath
None could stop Sulfurion
And he killed all in his path
His wings became a bellows,
And everywhere we turned,
The sky became a whirlwind
And all he saw he burned.
Sulfurion is king now
And the Silver Dragon is lost
There is not a thing now
To be done at any cost.
I can think of no redemption,
Can conceive no plot or plan.
I cannot kill the dragon,
But I’m hoping that you can.
Save us with your wisdom,
But careful with the Everstone.
Sulfurion knows about it,
And wants it for his own.”
Nima and Neok looked at each other, and then at the traveler.
“It is unlikely that the message is a fake.” said Neok.
Nima looked thoughtful, and then spoke.
“The message is doubtless authentic. So much time has passed. Ten generations must be at least two hundred years. At least.”
The messenger replaced his tattered shirt and bowed.
“On behalf of the Golden City, please, come and help.”
Then for a time there was only the sound of seagulls and the faraway surf. Then Neok stood, speaking,
“Nima and I learned long ago not to wish about things we do not understand, and so we must go and see for ourselves what is afoot in the Golden city.
I will go and get my finest sword and armor, then go before the Everstone and wish to be impervious to all bodily harm. Perhaps you should as well, Nima, for I believe we should leave the stone on the tower, and not risk Sulfurion seizing it somehow, if this is a trap. Or if he is very clever.
We can enter the Golden City secretly from beneath, the passage under the tower still goes through, as far as I know, though it has been long ages since we tread that path.”
“Yes,” said Nima, “I will make many wishes before we go, for the stone should remain atop the lighthouse to guide travelers.”
“What of me?” asked the traveler.
Nima and Neok reflected that the entire purpose of this mans life was now fulfilled. What to do with him, indeed.
“You, of all people, are perhaps best prepared to guard the stone in our absence.” Said Neok, “And so you shall stay here while we return to the Golden City and see what is afoot. Guard the stone with your life, and on no account allow it to leave the tower top. Can you do this?”
The traveler stood up tall in his tattered rags, “Upon my life it shall not leave the tower top until you return. What if I… That is...”
“Make wishes if you like, but I warn you to be careful and wise if you can manage.” Said Neok, and strode across the meadow and toward the tower to prepare himself.
“You should be very careful, traveler,” said Nima, slowly. “It would be better if I had more time to advise you on guarding the stone, but though much time has passed since the message was sent, still we must move quickly, and so you must rely on whatever wisdom is yours already.” And she turned and strode toward the tower.
The traveler looked at the white tower and his eyes rested on the piercing, starry light at its very top. Through the brightness of it he could discern no object, only an iridescent light, almost too sharp to look into. The Everstone, he thought.
Nima, Neok, and the traveler all stood around the shining Everstone upon the tower top. Neok wore a radiant golden helm with a magnificent red crest, much of his body covered in polished plates of steel. Still he moved about easily enough, having no trouble bearing the weight of his many weapons and armor.
Strapped to his back were his mighty broadsword, much preferred by swordsmen for fighting larger beasts like dragons, his trusty longsword for battling swordsmen, fighting armies, and duels primarily, and a small crossbow, just in case.
By now, he reasoned, Sulfurion may have amassed an entire army.
Nima was unarmed and wore only a simple dress and hooded travel cloak, her arsenal hidden within her heart and mind.
She looked at Neok’s cumbersome armor and smiled to herself that she had, over the years, stopped more swords with her eyes than he had with his armor, and her voice had overcome more shields and pierced more armor than his sword.
The traveler marveled at the shimmering streamers of pearly light that continually radiated from the opalescent Everstone in the center of the tower top.
“Neok,” said Nima, “did you not wish to be impervious to physical harm?”
“Of course I did, why?” he sneered.
“Then why bother with the armor? Vanity.” Nima said.
“Half the use of being invulnerable is that it’s secret. Tactics.” Neok said “Don’t you even want a knife or something?”
Nima only smiled.
“So I can just wish for anything?” said the traveler.
“If the Everstone is within your sight it will grant any wish that you speak to it.” Nima said.
“I used to try to imagine it,” said the traveler, “I would lie at night, in whatever pub room or forest grove might be my bed, and imagine the Everstone. I would make wishes, but they never came true…”
“Of course not,” said Neok. “Anyway be mindful that the queen of faerie and her folk come to wish upon the stone often. Do not hinder them. They will help you to protect the stone.”
The traveler noted that Nima and Neok both seemed to be older, both around eighteen years old, by his reckoning.
“Why have you chosen this age?” he asked.
Nima and Neok looked at each other and Nima spoke to the traveler.
“I would think the advantages would be obvious, but suffice it to say that we are old enough to be capable and young enough to be underestimated.”
“Let’s go, Nima,” said Neok, “I’m more than a little curious about all of this.”
And the pair left the traveler on the tower top, descending the stone stairs to the tower’s lowest chamber.
“If the dragon knew about our secret door into the Golden City surely he would have used it by now.” said Neok.
“Yes,” said Nima,” and so we should go carefully and keep its location secret on the other side, lest Sulfurion come through and seize the stone.
Just imagine, that traveler’s forefathers journeyed for hundreds of years to get all the way from the Golden City, and we can be there in no time at all.”
The pair remembered long ago when the Everstone had grown dim through their lack of wishing, and had toppled down the stairs and broken the lowest stone in the tower in two and, through the crack they had followed it into a huge and impossible labyrinth beneath the tower. The labyrinth had become the Golden City with their help, but after they had left they had never again returned.
They remembered back even farther to the old man who had lived in the tower when they had first arrived, long ages ago. He had been cast into the sea by an enemy, and his Everstone with him, and Nima and Neok had fetched another. The old man had always said that there is only one Everstone, though it is powerful enough to exist in more than one place at a time. Often they remembered him, wishing in the ocean depths.
“I wonder how this path under the stone ever came to lead to the Golden City.” said Neok.
“It was the old man who made the tower, and so who could say but he?” answered Nima.
They had reached the cracked stone, and Neok again wrenched the pieces apart, and they descended into darkness.
Nima and Neok had no trouble traversing the pitch black corridors and caves, for they had wished to see in the dark long ago.
Eventually they came to a great door. It was firmly bolted closed from their side with great iron bars, and as He unbolted the door Neok spoke these words:
“Doubtless this door has held at bay any searchings Sulfurion has made for our passage, if he even knows it exists. Who bolted it I wonder. When we returned last we just wished ourselves back.”
But Nima had no answer, and they went through.
Beyond the door was a steep and narrow stair. Nima and Neok climbed it until they reached a wooden hatch overhead. Neok pushed against it with his armored shoulder.
“It’s stuck,” he grunted, and gave it a great shove, sending the wooden door open with a loud bang.
The pair were quiet for a moment, listening, and then walked up the stairs and through the hatch, emerging in what seemed to be a darkened storeroom.
Where the stairway ended at the lip of the hatch was a drop of about two feet, and then dark stone floor. Nima and Neok stepped down and turned to see that many wooden crates were neatly stacked along a wall, with one being awry upon the ground beside the hatch, which seemed to have been knocked away when Neok pushed open the wooden doorway.
“The staircase looks like one of the crates!” Neok exclaimed, “Brilliant hiding place for a stair. It just looks like a wooden box. Especially with another stacked on top.”
Neok closed the hatch over the stairway, and then stacked the fallen crate he had dislodged back on top. He stood back, surveying an unbroken wall of old stacked crates.
“Let’s count rows of boxes as we go,” whispered Nima, “To remember which one it is.”
They counted rows of crates as they walked to the door of the small dark storeroom, finding it locked from the other side, of course.
“There is dust here on everything,” said Neok, “No one has been here for a long time.
If I kick the door open, it will be plain where we came from, and we must cover our tracks for Sulfurion, lest he find the passage to the tower.”
Nima pulled a pin from her hair and carefully picked the lock of the storeroom door, and the pair left the dark chamber, locking the door again behind them.
They crept down a hall, counting doors to remember the one they had come from, finally reaching another stair up.
“Unless Sulfurion is a very small dragon he could never make it down that stairway.” said Neok.
“He may be in league with people,” said Nima, “or find some other way.”
The staircase led up into an extraordinary room. Their eyes were dazzled by many burning oil lamps, all emitting a strange and silvery light. This glistening silver light played over many odd instruments and unusual objects.
Nima and Neok slowly walked about, inspecting bookshelves lined in ancient tomes and bound volumes and strange jars of unidentifiable content. Many complex looking brass instruments lay strewn across a tabletop, and parchment in stacks and sheets was scattered about, much of it covered in intricate drawings and mechanical diagrams. In a corner was a rack of swords, and Neok approached it.
“These are fine blades.” He said, “Look Nima!”, and he drew one sword from off the rack and from its sheath.
“It is my own fine sword, over again!”, for he brandished in his hand an exact replica of his own ancient sword. He pulled his longsword from off his back and compared them. A perfect duplicate.
“And look here.” Pointed Nima, for along a wall was a grand forge for the making of steel.
“This must be the house of Anard.” Nima said.
“Yes,” nodded Neok,” for who else could have forged this blade? Perhaps he is still alive after all these years. How long lived are Minotaurs, Nima?”
“Let us see,” Nima said, lifting and opening a dust covered book from the mantle.
“A journal.”
The traveler gazed awestruck down the starry rays of the Everstone as they passed across the horizon. Such were the brightness of its beams that one could stand beside the Everstone and look far out upon its light, seeing distant things, farther and farther away the longer one stood gazing.
The scope of the vistas he beheld dizzied the traveler, and he sat upon the white stone of the tower top to rest for a moment.
He looked at the Everstone.
“I wish I had a glass of water. To cool me.”
No sooner had he finished saying it than it was so. A glass of clear water sat before him upon the white stones.
He reached forth tentatively and picked up the glass, then drank a sip. It was cool and refreshing.
“Thanks, Everstone.” He said, but the Everstone only sparkled.
He looked out at the horizon, as he had devised, to scan for the approach of Sulfurion or some other enemy, but saw only seagulls.
He passed a time in idle revelry, and was startled by the sound of a voice.
“Have you made any wishes yet?” came an unexpected question from behind him.
He turned to see a small woman fluttering by butterfly wings eyeing him curiously.
“I am the queen of the faeries, and these are a few of my kindred.” said the tiny figure, pointing to others of her kind hovering nearby.
“We have come to make wishes,” and the tiny flying forms gathered around the Everstone and joined into a ring. Then they all began to sing a wordless melody, changing and shifting in volume and tone, yet always harmonized and very beautiful.
At this performance the Everstone blazed up brightly like a stoked ember, and the near audible intensity of its rays seemed to increase somewhat.
Then the circle flew happily away.
“Wait!” cried the traveler, “Where you just wishing? I thought you had to speak a wish out loud. Was that singing in another language?”
The Queen halted and returned as the other faeries flew away.
“Wishing is a fine art among us.” She said, “Have you made any wishes yet?”
The traveler thought for a moment.
“I wished for a glass of water. I was thirsty.” He said warily.
“You have stood upon the tower top all day long and wished only for a glass of water?” said the Queen, “I had come to urge you to caution, but I see that you are very careful.”
“I was looking out. For enemies.” said the traveler, returning his eyes to the far horizon.
“I see.” said the Queen. “There is much of interest in the vast world to be glimpsed by the light of the Everstone.
Whenever you do get around to wishing, just remember this: If you lose sight of the stone, it cannot grant your wishes. Also, if you cannot speak you cannot wish, and so you must never turn yourself into anything or go anywhere that you cannot both see the stone and speak.
Good luck traveler.” And she flew to join her kindred.
Nima and Neok had found a couple of ancient and largish chairs to settle into, and Nima quickly scanned the pages of the dusty journal.
“This handwriting isn’t all the same,” she observed, “looks like a journal passed down through many hands. Yes. See here, the first part was Anard.”
She reached for one of the strange oil lamps for more light, and drew her hand back, surprised, for the lamp and the silvery flame upon it were both a chilly cold. She looked at Neok and passed her hand through the flame.
“No heat at all.” She said, and returned her eyes to the journal for a time, as Neok examined another of the oil lamps.
“This one is cold too, though it puts out enough light.” He said, sloshing the lamp and hearing oil within.
“What does the book say?”
“Let me read.” said Nima, without looking up from the journal. “We may discover what befell the Golden City after the messenger left, so long ago.”
“Or we could just go and see out of a window or a door.” said Neok.
“Go, then. I will read the journal all the same. Do not be gone long, brother.” said Nima over the book.
Neok turned and walked up a stairway. He wandered for a time through magnificent rooms scattered with fine furniture, noting gold nails and fixtures upon the chairs, tables, and walls. Even the doorknobs were of solid gold. While finely made and ornamented in golden splendor, the sumptuous rooms were ancient beyond knowing, and crumbled slowly into ruin and decay.
In a sunlit room he found a window. Approaching nearer he noted that it was broken, and through it he saw sunshine upon a paved street beyond. He broke the last of the shattered glass from the frame as he leaned out of the window to see the morning sun rising over a lovely white paved road passing between rows of tall and elegant houses.
As he looked closer it was clear that the houses were all in ruins and had been abandoned long ago, for he saw no people at all, and an air of desolation and loneliness clung to the empty neighborhood. The vacant doorways and broken windows sagged under once beautiful architecture, though he noted golden ornaments on many buildings and fallen into the overgrown gardens and street.
He heard no sound but the sly footfalls of Nima as she tried to creep up on him from behind.
“Many of my reflexes are quite dangerous when I am surprised.” He said.
“You’re no fun at all. Besides, you cannot harm me.” Said Nima, and Neok turned to see her open the dusty journal.
“It looks like Minotaurs grow old and die the same as humans, Neok, for Anard’s section of the journal ends in his old age and death, though he led a goodly life, and his progeny continued the journal after his passing. I haven’t read the whole thing but listen to this.
‘I have perfected the everburning lamp, finally solving the riddle of its strange oil. Gold rendered liquid at room temperature. The type of combustion involved in the silver flame is not the same as fire as we know it, and it is almost impossible to get the reaction started, though once accomplished the silver fire emits only light and no heat, allowing even a meager fuel supply to last for hundreds of years. Liquid gold it burns slowly, using a wick, whereas solid gold it devours immediately with furious light.
The flame, though silvery, burns only gold for fuel, and once reduced to a liquid state even an ounce of gold could make a flame to last centuries. I never could have started the reaction without the Silver Dragon’s fire. Just as Sulfurion’s fire burns anything save gold, her fire burns gold alone.
“Fascinating” Said Nima,” It seems Anard invented these lamps, and many other marvels as well.”
“And he knew the Silver Dragon. Before or after it was banished I wonder. But look,” said Neok, turning to the sunlit window, “The city is abandoned.”
They looked out at the morning sun on the crumbling mansions, and suddenly they both stopped moving and listened, for a noise approached from down the street. A great clanking and creaking sound grew slowly louder and heralded the approach of a band of many hunched figures gathered haphazardly around a tattered wagon as it slowly made its way up the white paved road.
Some of the weary figures dragged the wagon along on irregular wheels as it groaned, full nearly to its broken top with golden objects. The men seemed to labor under a great weight of what looked like chains.
Nima and Neok ducked behind the window and watched, hidden, as the clanking, chainbound laborers drew nearer, plodding down the road noisily, stopping occasionally to stoop and grasp a piece of glinting gold lying upon the stones and toss it into the wagon.
“Not really armed,” whispered Neok, “They look like slaves with all those chains.”
“Let’s go speak to them,” said Nima, walking into the next room and opening the golden front door.
‘I should wish upon the Everstone to speak to the spirits of my forefathers,” thought the traveler.
‘To tell them that we have all succeeded at last and the message is delivered.’
But he spoke not a word, silently watching the Everstone as it glowed.
‘What if I accidentally fetched back their spirits from some paradise and returned them unwholesomely to earth? No. That is not a careful wish.’
He paced across the sparkling marble of the tower top, pondering.
‘Perhaps I should wish to be immortal, immune to death.’ He considered, listening to the seagulls. ‘No. What if I accidentally fetched back my spirit from some paradise and returned it unwholesomely to earth? Not a careful wish either.’
For a time he watched the horizon and the sea, and listened to the surf and the cries of gulls.
‘Some say there is no afterlife. I was not dead long enough, perhaps, for I have no recollection. I would wish to know for certain but the Everstone would doubtless kill me.’ And he sat upon the flagstones to think.
“These could be slaves of Sulfurion,” Nima whispered to Neok as they crossed the broad white paved street toward the shambling cluster of chained figures.
“We must not let them discover the doorway to the tower, or who we are. But we must learn who they are, and what has befallen the Golden City.”
Neok nodded grimly and the stooped figures slowly rose from their gathering of golden trinkets and turned toward them as they came nearer to the wagon.
The stooped figures were dressed in dirty and coarse spun clothes, the cloth nearly invisible under the many chains they bore, hanging in disarray, and it seemed some carried more chains than others. The ones with fewer chains seemed to forage for gold on the street farther out from the wagon, and the one figure riding atop it was almost burried under a pile of iron chain links.
None appeared to be chained to anything, and their hands and feet were unbound, the main encumbrance being the heavy weight of the chain links themselves, hanging down in long trailing lengths of iron.
They had all stopped moving by the time Nima and Neok approached, and stared vacantly at the pair, the house they had come from, and back at the golden objects in the street.
“Greetings, fellows,” quoth Nima, in the tongue of the Golden City,
“We have no ill intent.
Tell us your names and titles,
If you can consent.”
The figures shifted nervously in their chains, rustling noisily. They looked at each another and one of them who stood beside the wagon spoke.
“You sound like a dang crow squawking in a flock of sparrows.”
“That didn’t rhyme.” whispered Neok to Nima.
“I know,” she said, “But it was the tongue of the Golden City all the same. A very obscure dialect. Let me try to figure it out.”
The figure drew nearer, dragging a few links of rusty chain behind him.
“You two stick out like a couple a gold nails on a peasant’s fencepost.” Spoke the dirty, hobbling man.
“Odd form of poetry,” whispered Nima, “But I think I can do it.”
“We are like birds from the south that have traveled to northern woods,” spoke Nima to the figure, and mumbled to Neok, “Trying to tell him we’re not from around here.”
“If the whole city was the size of this nail head,” Nima said to the doubtful figure, “Then we have come from farther away than the boundaries of the city itself.”
“I aint no baby lyin in the street looking at my first sunrise.” said the man suspiciously.
“Guess he wasn’t born yesterday.” whispered Neok.
The man continued. “I never seen a deer chase no tiger, so why would a southland crow come so dang far to roost in a cold tree, and be a rabbit in Sulfurion’s trap? I’m a monkey tryin to make fire.”
Nima and Neok looked at each other.
“Are we all a flock of birds caught in the same net?” Nima said to the hunched figure.
“Well, I recon you’re a fish up a tree, so I’ll tell ya.” said the chained figure conspiratorially.
The other figures shifted about anxiously, looking fearfully to the sky.
“Stop talkin and start walkin.” said the heavily chained man atop the wagon from beneath his pile of iron. He spoke in an ancient dialect similar to what Nima had used when they had first approached, and Nima spoke it again, looking at the man atop the wagon.
“We are from outside your countries borders,
why does the one with the most chains give the orders?”
The man beside the wagon spoke again, “Talkin to you is like sittin in a tree in a lightning storm.”
Then from atop the wagon they heard the other man’s voice.
“I don’t wear this chain cause it flashes,
if I took it off I’d be smoke and ashes
If you live in the houses you’re dead anyway,
No chains can save you in Sulfurion’s way.
He burns all the houses and takes all the gold,
kills everyone indoors, chains or not, young and old.
But us on the street we got a deal
We bring him all the gold we can steal.
Aint really theft.
Aint no one left.
We give him the gold and he gives us the chains,
And the one with the most heavy chains remains
Those with no chains are slain
I got more chains so I give the orders.
If I was you, I’d get back over the borders.”
Nima spoke again,
“He burns all the houses, what does he do with the gold?
And the gold he gets from you, when the chain links are sold?”
“Don’t nobody know,” said the man, nervously scanning the skies,
“We better go.”
“They say when he roars the gold sings
He can hear from the sky how it rings
Hear a whisper in a house from above,
From ten miles discern a hawk from a dove
His fire can burn stone and turns iron into mist
His wings are a storm and a thunderbolt his fist.
Anyway.
That’s what they say.”
And the ragged band slowly trudged away.
The traveler scanned the horizon, watching for the approach of Sulfurion.
‘What,’ he thought to himself, ‘Will I wish if I do see him?’, but then a small moving mote upon the sea caught his eye. The sail of a ship, far down the coast.
He looked closer at it, watching upon the rays of the Everstone, and saw that many sailors were busy about the rigging, and the ship made good headway.
Though it was night he could see them clearly down the starlight cast by the stone, and a bright moon hung in the sky, and he saw some sailors navigating by the stars upon the deck of the ship.
The lookout had just spotted the lighthouse, and the navigator told the pilot to change course around the jagged shoals and reefs that radiated far out to sea from the rough shoreline surrounding the white tower.
The traveler saw that it was wise of Nima and Neok to have left the stone, or the ship would surely have perished.
“I’m about ready to turn around and get the Everstone.” said Neok, “this town has gone downhill. Sulfurion is still terrorizing them and we should go on back and wish things better. I have seen enough.”
Nima was silent as they walked absently down the street, not far from Anard’s house. They had strolled past the remains of many fine mansions, and seen a tall and skeletal church spire across the street from Anard’s house. The ancient church was crumbling and fallen in, extending rib like spires of broken architecture into the sky.
They walked about for a long while, passing by houses in varied states of decay, and the one they passed by currently was almost well preserved enough to lend an air of normalcy to that stretch of street, and they walked slowly, lingering in the tranquil shade.
“It must have been beautiful…” said Nima.
“There!” said Neok suddenly, putting a hand on the hilt of his sword and with the other pointing into the neat garden of the house beside them.
They saw a figure crouching in the turf, hiding below a row of bushes, and both silently took cover in the underbrush. They carefully crept closer, keeping always hidden.
As they approached the figure from behind they could see that it still knelt in the shadow of the shrubbery, and Neok saw from a flash of sun on steel in the figure’s hand that it was armed.
Neok drew his crossbow from off his back and loaded it, giving a silent nod to Nima to go out and speak; he would stay behind hidden in the bushes with the crossbow.
She nodded and walked casually across the short green grass until she was directly behind the figure. Then she began to laugh.
Neok emerged from cover and looked down his crossbow at an old woman tending a flower bed. He lowered his weapon. What he had taken for a knife in her hand was a garden trowel and she looked crossly at Neok. Then she slowly stood and spoke.
“Well aint you two just a couple of chess pieces on a checkerboard?”
Add a Comment
© 2009 Created by CS Thompson on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
You need to be a member of Mythorealism to add comments!
Join this Ning Network