The First Story

by C Bradley Owens

  She could feel his sadness, his guilt radiate from his body, so near and so warm in the cold stone room. Then she heard a sound that gave her pause. It was a kind of sigh married to a sob. The sound continued. It touched her as softly as his hands. She nearly turned to see the source of the sound, but she remembered where she was and how she had gotten there. She remained facing the wall.

  “You have beaten me,” he said. “I will release you, but would you grant me one wish?”

  Her heart nearly leaped from her chest. She had won her freedom. He was not the great evil that she supposed. He was not a stranger to mercy, to kindness. She would be free. The tears flowed even more as she nodded, still facing the wall.

  “I only ask for this,” he said. “One kiss. One taste of the joy I might have had were I a different person. Just one kiss as if you truly loved me, and I will release you.”

  Her mind reeled. One kiss? What was the harm? He was handsome. He had been kind during her imprisonment. What danger was there in one kiss? Her head turned, nearly without intent, followed by her shoulder, then her chest, heaving with anticipation. She faced him and nodded her acquiescence.

  He lowered his face toward her, and her heart beat faster. A tender touch of lips to lips shot electric sparks through her entire being. She fell into the kiss without meaning to and opened her mouth. His tongue began a cautious probing, and she allowed it, welcomed it. It was sweet, this kiss, filled with desire and truthfulness he had never shown her before. Then it was filled with something else. His tongue pushed further into her mouth, propelling something hard and far sweeter than the kiss.

  She gasped at the sudden invasion, and the thing leaped down her throat. She summoned every iota of strength left to her and pushed against him. He stood and stared at her as she swallowed against her will.

  “A seed,” he said. “You have eaten of the food here. You can never again leave.”

  His words, so callous, so cruel, slapped her from her stupor, propelled her from her utter all-consuming astonishment at his evil and gave her strength beyond strength. She sprang from the bed and stood in front of him. His eyes filled with tears; hers grew dry and fierce.

  “I’ll leave the rest of the food with you,” he said. “You must be hungry, and there is no reason to starve yourself any longer.”

  The door closed, and the tearstained bride sat on the soft bed alone in the small room. The plate of food beside her shifted, and her stomach tightened. She put her hand on an apple, lifted it to her lips, and bit. The skin broke satisfyingly, her teeth sliced through the meat of the fruit, and wetness flowed down her throat. She ate heartily, for she knew she would need her strength for the long difficult life ahead of her.

  Then, without intending to do anything, she left out a sigh. The air flowed, fully formed, and shaped itself around the word she whispered. It was a word she had not meant to utter, it was a word she didn’t like, and it was, suddenly, a word that became her name. She let the word wash over her, filling her with despair and anger and thoughts of revenge. The word died, and she could not bear its death. She said it more forcefully so that the room filled with the sound of her name, “Paroxysm!”

  Chapter 29

  Further Complications

  “Your story feels familiar,” Frau Iver said. “But it is strange too, and I’ve never heard of anyone named Paroxysm.”

  Paroxysm continued to weep in the middle of the path. Frau Iver looked around and tried desperately to recognize the area, the section of path, a tree, a patch of sky. Nothing was even the least bit familiar.

  “And your story is so similar to mine,” Paroxysm said through tears.

  Frau Iver’s eyes tightened, her head tilted, and she contemplated the pronouncement of the weeping woman. Their stories were very similarly focused on betrayal, but Frau Iver was the Aspect associated with betrayal. Why would Creativity need another such Aspect? Was she being replaced?

  “What do we do now?” Paroxysm asked.

  Frau Iver was pacing back and forth along the width of the path. She stopped before each turn and stared at the dense grouping of trees lining each side. There was perhaps enough of a clearing to—but to go off the path was dangerous, and this new person, this Paroxysm, was concerning.

  “Maybe we should go off the path?” Paroxysm asked, suddenly standing and looking over Frau Iver’s shoulder. She was no longer crying. She was no longer a fragile, broken thing. In fact, she looked like she could take on the entire world empty-handed.

  “Don’t even think that,” Frau Iver chastised, even as she was contemplating the same thing. “If we leave the path, then we are in the Woods. The Deep Woods. The part of the Gloaming Woods that are not under our control.” As she spoke, she touched the bark of the nearest tree with her ghostly fingers. The heat of the wood sent electricity through her entire being. She jerked her hand back, holding it close to her chest. “It is too dangerous.”

  “So, what?” Paroxysm said, visibly trying to control the volume of her voice and spectacularly failing. “We just follow the path that, might I remind you, appeared just a little while ago. It is another effect of the First Story.”

  “How do you know that?” Frau Iver began to see Paroxysm in a new light, the light of familiarity, and it was not the least bit comforting. She eyed the woman up and down, and her demeanor, her defiant stance, and her fiery eyes spoke of power. Yet just moments before…

  “I am Paroxysm. I know betrayal. Stealing the First Story was an act of utter betrayal. How could I not know?”

  “Then, you must know who took it?”

  “I have no idea. We should go to the Inn at the Edge of the Woods and seek answers.”

  “You think I don’t know that!” Frau Iver shouted and then turned her face away and breathed heavily. Frost began to form on the trees, but then, as Frau Iver continued to breathe deeply, the frost subsided. “You’re right. We should get back to the Inn as soon as possible.”

  Paroxysm was in no condition to hear. She had crumbled back to the ground and was sobbing loudly into her knees.

  “What are you doing?” Frau Iver cocked her head and held out both hands in exasperation.

  Paroxysm turned her face to Frau Iver. Her eyes glistened in the twilight. Her features were sad yet fierce. She said in a strained, husky voice, “You won’t leave me here?”

  “No.” Confusion marked Frau Iver’s every utterance. “I was expecting you to come with me.”

  Then Paroxysm rose as gracefully as an early morning sunrise and stood tall and strong before Frau Iver. Her eyes suddenly turned red and defiant, fiery as a newly birthed sun. Her lips twisted into a tight sneer. “I am eager to leave this place.”

  Frau Iver quickly glanced at the powerful frame of the young woman in front of her. She nodded, and Paroxysm returned the nod.

  “You want to lead the way?” Frau Iver asked.

  Paroxysm stepped forward and headed down the path toward the horizon.

  “She is not consistent,” Frau Iver whispered as she fell into line behind Paroxysm. She pondered what Paroxysm could be. “She could be an Element.” But Elements weren’t so defined as Paroxysm appeared to be. “She could be a Construct.” But Constructs were constant. Paroxysm was not constant. “A Device?” It was becoming clear that Paroxysm was part of the higher order.

  “She can’t be an Aspect.” Frau Iver was staring at Paroxysm’s unrelenting silhouette as she spoke, puzzling through this new development with her new voice. “And what happened to the Dottore?”

  The Gloaming Wood dimmed even darker as Frau Iver hurried to catch up to the new…Aspect? Maybe, she thought. She doesn’t seem like an Element or a… The wind curled around the trunks and whistled through the branches. All else was silent. But seriously, what happened to the Dottore? She couldn’t have replaced him. That’s not possible. That would mean the Duality is vulnerable.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Paroxysm demanded as she turned and stared at Frau Iver. “I thought you wanted
to leave the Wood. Was that not what you said? Why are you dawdling?” Her voice had shifted so completely from the weeping woman Frau Iver had first met that she could barely recognize a hint of the original weak, fluttering voice. The woman standing defiantly in the path was angry, nearly seething, and completely forceful.

  “Maybe you could scout ahead?” Frau Iver suggested, her voice much more like the weak, sobbing Paroxysm of just moments before and far more feeble than she was comfortable with.

  “A fine idea!” Paroxysm shouted with unbridled glee, her voice consumed with lightness and laughter. She turned and nearly skipped along the path and around a bend.

  Frau Iver watched the scene, waiting to speak until she was sure that Paroxysm was out of earshot, “She has issues with her emotions, huh?”

  “Shh!” Frau Iver hissed and covered her mouth. Her breath was cold, conspiratorial. She thought the words she wanted to say, and the words were vague, faint, difficult. She wanted to use her voice. She gathered her thoughts and pointed toward the bend in the path. “And I think—that is, I believe that she has taken the place of the Dottore.”

  The words circulated through the silent wood, much louder than they should have been. Frau Iver’s eyes grew large as the words continued to reverberate. She stared at the bend and saw no sign of Paroxysm. “I should visit Droll Mary,” she said and began to turn but remembered that the path had changed.

  “I need to get out of the Gloaming Woods before I can do anything else.” Frau Iver stood in the path and searched for anything familiar.

  “Hey,” Paroxysm called from the bend. “I found something.”

  Frau Iver hesitated; then she shrugged before joining Paroxysm, who was facing toward a particularly thick clump of bushes. “There, do you see it?” Paroxysm announced and pointed directly to the bushes.

  “They’re bushes,” Frau Iver observed confusedly, sincerely, remembering how frightening the Dottore could be when angered. If Paroxysm had his power, then she needed to tread softly.

  “No, not the bushes,” Paroxysm said, jabbing her finger further up toward the sky. “Beyond the bushes.”

  Frau Iver turned her face upward and spied the stone tower rising ever so slightly above the treetops. She turned her thoughts inward, attempting to identify the strange edifice to no avail. She was forced to ask, “What is it?”

  “It’s the Tower,” Paroxysm announced as if she had revealed some great secret. Frau Iver felt compelled to comment on the absurdity of the pronouncement. Of course, it was a tower; any fool could see that. The problem was that there was no memory of a tower in this spot, in these woods, yet there was a tower. She wanted to rail and scream and freeze the entire world; instead, she simply nodded her agreement that the tower rising above the treetops was most definitely a tower rising above the treetops.

  “I can see it’s a tower,” Frau Iver said, her voice dripping with cold disdain yet calm, considered.

  “Not a tower,” Paroxysm said even more happily than before. “The tower. My tower. The Tower of Destiny.”

  “The Tower of Destiny?” Frau Iver asked, allowing an exasperated breath of air to escape her lips. “I’ve never heard of the Tower of Destiny.”

  Chapter 30

  The Tower of Destiny

  She sat. She sewed. She spun cloth. She gazed out the window. It was a brilliantly blue day. The clouds were rare and jolly. The river, full of liveliness, flowed clear and bright. She was happy, and so she continued her work.

  The tapestry grew longer with each new day. It was full of figures she had conceived, scenes she had dreamed, people she had never met. It told stories that she loved to see, again and again. The stories repeated in a never-ending procession throughout the cloth; only the players changed. Here the spurned lover was a redhead; there he was tow-haired. Here the woman killed herself, consumed with heartache; there she killed her lover, consumed with hatred, and over there, she grew from the experience and lived far more happily than before. There the woman was free to roam the countryside, frolic in the warm breeze, dance in the river, and pick wildflowers; here she was chained to the Tower, destined to spin the stories she was cursed to never play a part in.

  But today, with the sun high and the air warm, she was happy in her burden. The work came easily; the patterns formed a story. It was familiar yet different, like all of the stories, except perhaps the First Story, but she had not been part of that one’s creation. Her fingers glided over the cloth, the needle slipped through and out again with ease, and the story took shape. There was a knight in a boat, accompanied by other knights, heading down the river past the— Her hand worked feverishly as her heart beat faster than she ever remembered it beating before. The river, she recognized the river she had just created. It was just outside the window.

  Her eyes grew large, and her breath came in rapid pulses as her hands threaded a new needle. She continued her work. The gray thread began to build, it shifted colors, ever so slightly, as she progressed. It took form, a tower beside the river. She could barely contain her excitement. The image shifted. Near the center mass of gray thread, a darker shade appeared, then a lighter, then lighter still, a shock of red, a fleeting bit of… It was her. She had woven herself into the tapestry. Her thread-created image stood at the window, gazing at the man on a day very much like… She stopped sewing. She stood and walked to the window.

  A portentous gust of air greeted her. She pulled back the curtains and leaned over the sill. There was nothing. No unfolding story that included her. There was just the day, the sun, the lonely clouds, the fields of wildflowers, the river…and a boat, emerging just now from around the bend, out of sight, save for the prow. She leaned forward, risking a deadly fall, and she saw him.

  Dressed in armor that glinted brightly in the happy sunlight, his hair the very essence of gold, his face…his face… Her heart nearly burst from her chest. She leaned further still, her hair now fully released to the day, her trembling hands gripping the cold stone with such force that they nearly broke under the weight of her desire. Still, the boat floated slowly, inexorably in front of the Tower with him standing as tall and beautiful as any flower she had ever conjured. He turned just before the river sped him out of sight, and for the first time, she saw a new story.

  She stared down the river, hoping, praying, demanding just one more glimpse, but night fell too quickly. She sighed more wearily than anyone had ever sighed before, and slumped into her bed. The dream came fully formed. She was in her own boat, free and happy, floating toward him, her knight, her love, her destiny.

  She woke with a new purpose—freedom. Taking nothing except a bit of work to pass the time, she shot from the room. Down the winding steps she had never thought to descend, she hurried, pausing briefly at the door before leaping into the crisp river-scented air. She breathed her first breath of freedom, and a tightness formed in her throat. She ignored the pain and lifted herself onto the boards of the small dock jutting into the river. The boat, which had always awaited her, lifted ever so slightly, and fell just as slightly as the river flowed underneath. She thrust her foot inside.

  Lowering her shaking body into the interior, planks encircling her, she undid the tether and pushed. She never even turned, nor was she tempted to look one final time in the direction of the Tower. Instead, she focused on the river ahead. The tightness in her throat fell to her chest, but she ignored the pain. The world opened in front of her.

  The day passed as the scenery wafted by. She saw cozy houses in the distance and farmlands stretching to the water’s edge; she even saw children playing in open fields. Her heart was so full that it ached, but she ignored the pain. Instead, she turned to her work. One last bit of cloth to give her knight. Perhaps she would create a favor to give him as a token of her love and—Her breath stopped. She struggled to take in the air that was so prevalently around her. Time passed, and the air returned to her lungs, which burned with the effort of maintaining life, but she ignored the pain.

  A
moment later, the pain, the attack, was a distant memory. She began her work. The scene began. It was herself, in the boat she now occupied. She marveled at her own image, finally coming to life in the tapestry. Her heart was so full it ached again, but she ignored the pain. The scene shifted as she sewed. The thread, constantly changing hues, formed a story; it was a new story but still a familiar one. She sewed until her fingers ached from the effort. She ignored the pain.

  The day dawned cloudy and threatening. The Knight walked to the river’s edge, pulled there by forces he could not identify. He stood, gazing at the deep, dark waters until he saw it—the prow of a small boat. The waters carried it directly to the dock. He had only to reach out to keep it from moving further down river. Inside was a young woman, so beautiful that his heart ached to see her. She was grasping a bit of cloth embroidered with a scene of an empty boat.

  He touched her face, cold as death, and he tried to rouse her from her eternal sleep, an effort that had always been met with disappointment. Then he instructed his men to take her and give her a proper burial—a grand one, in fact, for such a beautiful woman deserved nothing less.

  Chapter 31

  Leaving the Path

  “That is the most depressing thing I have ever heard,” Frau Iver said as she stood with Paroxysm and gazed at the Tower of Destiny.

  “It is one of my stories,” Paroxysm clarified.

  “It’s very…tragic,” Frau Iver observed, eyeing the woman carefully, looking for any indication of the Duality within her. “And what about the Tower? Are we going to it, or what? Because it would mean leaving the path.”

  “Why not leave the path?” Paroxysm’s voice was suddenly full of force rather than happiness. “Did my story teach you nothing?”

  “Didn’t you die in the story?” Frau Iver asked.

  “Fah!” Paroxysm exclaimed and headed into the bushes that were barring entrance to the deeper parts of the Gloaming Woods. She tore at the leaves and bramble in front of her.