by Kyle Belote
She left through the front doors and walked down the road under a twilight sky. As she walked past rows of buildings and small homes, she noted some were one story and others two, rarely did she see a three-story building. Most one-story housed two businesses, which seemed to split the renting and the right to own the place.
As her watchful eye drifted from one building to the other, she observed the names on the signs. Every once in a while, she would see a general goods store, a bookshop, blacksmith, barber, or a clothing store, but the predominant focus of this town was the magic shops. She saw sign after sign advertising more and more of the same, though they looked more like joke shops, full of tricks and mirrors and smoke rather than the genuine article.
By the time the sun went down and the street lamps had been lit by the sentries, she had toured the whole village and chosen three stores she would return to: the Sleight of Hand Society, the Conjurer’s Accord, and the Enchanted Allure Guild. Each had caught her eye for various reasons.
By looks, the Sleight of Hand Society seemed more than just magic, she thought. The windows had heavy curtains and appeared permanently drawn, as if they didn’t want the outside world to know what they taught their students and steal their tricks. She had the impression it was more tricks than actual art, but it couldn’t hurt to learn a few tricks; she might need them to stay alive.
The Conjurer’s Accord, a well-placed establishment near the center of town, maintained a prestigious look. Whoever owned the place invested a lot of money into the building. The doors were high and thick, crafted out of the darkest brown wood that Julie had ever seen. Curtains tied open with gold lace graced the windows which were tall and wide, forming an arch at the top. The interior burned brightly from the candles in the gold chandeliers. From the road, Julie could see winding staircases on either side of the greeting room.
The Enchanted Allure Guild also enticed her eye, but for different reasons. This building was worn and run down but not dilapidated. This was one of the few establishments that boasted three stories. Perhaps in the past it rivaled all others as the most beautiful building in the entire town, but not anymore. In the short time Julie watched the building, the people of the town moved in their nightly routines and skirted the building by a wide margin. They blatantly avoided it, but the why intrigued her most.
Something must have happened here for all the people to avoid it so much. Something has happened in the building or to the person who owns it.
Whatever paint graced the building wore away years prior; now it was gray and splintered from age.
Her mind made up, she advanced to the building and went up its small flight of stairs to the porch. She placed her hand on the doorknob. From the glass in the door, she could see the interior faintly lit by a few glowing candles. A deep breath steadied her nerves, giving herself a pause, an opportunity to back down and go somewhere else.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a conscious thought brushed the edge of her mind. It was malevolent and directed at her. Her head swiveled around, scrutinizing the buildings around her, the guards and people bustling about, all completely oblivious to her or the building. Nothing out of the ordinary snared her attention.
Her nerve resolved, she twisted the knob and stepped inside.
***
Chapter 45 : Harold The Hermit
Julie entered the dim greeting room. The wood creaked underneath her weight. The air was thick and warm, a faint scent of vanilla tobacco curled through the air. A red and gold rug covered the center, muffling her footfalls and obscuring half-rotted wood. Padding deeper into the building, she worked around the corner to the left and spotted the fireplace ablaze.
Old furniture graced the sitting room, a long chair of forest green color, and two high-back chairs sheathed in brown, tan, and forest green cloth. The latter had high backs facing her and the fabric was ripped and torn from years of use. The room appeared void of occupants. She went to the fire and knelt, warming her hands against the dancing flames.
The sound of a book closing behind her made her jump, her hands struggling into the folds of her robes to grasp her wand. She withdrew it in haste and almost lost her grip. An elderly man sat in one of the chairs. Although he sat, Julie surmised his towering height. His head, bald on top, with shaggy hair around the sides growing down to his shoulders. The white hair held streaks of its original black and brown shot through it. A potbelly bulged beneath his robes, showing he had weight to him, but not overly fat.
His relaxed composure with his wide chin and broad nose gave kindness to his face. Warm, deep-set eyes were inviting, despite their chilly, pale blue-gray. With legs crossed, right heel to left knee, a huge book propped against the leg as an impromptu desk. His left hand rested on the book’s thick, worn and frayed cover; in his right was the pipe she detected earlier. A faint, expectant smile graced his face, waiting for her to break the silence.
“Sorry,” Julie stammered, feeling embarrassed. “I saw the place outside and the sign, The Enchanted Allure Guild. I was hoping you had something to teach me,” she said meekly. With each passing heartbeat, she withered in her foolishness, waiting for the elderly man to speak. Lowering her wand, she tucked it away in her robes.
He’s about Judas’ age, perhaps a little older. Maybe six Ages?
The man stirred in his seat but remained silent.
“I am interested in learning anything about magic,” she continued. “I have a condition, and I forgot everything … well, everything before I woke up. I only remember my name and the past few days or weeks. It’s kind of a blur, to be honest. There are other, various things that I can remember but not much.”
The old man rose slowly and walked away with a hobble, favoring his left leg. Perplexed, Julie followed as he worked his way behind the counter in the main foyer and opened a door into a huge room with hundreds of books lining the extensive shelving. From the doorway, she watched him gingerly climb a ladder. From the eighth shelf, he tugged on a massive book. Book in hand, he returned to the dusty counter and Julie retreated to the other side.
Doubtless he was as strong as a bull in his youth, she mused to herself, noting his height and broad shoulders.
The book clattered on the counter top with a loud thud; the weighty tome sat between them. Julie considered the dust-ridden book and torn cover, then the silent man.
“What’s this?” she queried, fingering the book’s binding. It seemed worse than the building, ready to fall apart if the breeze blew too hard. “I’m not sure I can read it. My condition–.”
“You don’t have a condition,” the man purred with a soft, deep voice. “It is normal for you not to remember how to read this language. One of the side effects.”
Surprised he finally spoke, yet perplexed at his declaration, Julie took a few moments to collect herself. “What are you talking about?”
“Harold,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Harold,” he repeated, extending his large, meaty hand.
Julie blushed, then reached out to grasp his hand. “Hello, Harold, I’m Julie.”
“How is it, Julie, that you remember a greeting but you can’t remember anything else?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“No. A curious thought, though, isn’t it? You say you don’t remember anything, yet something as simple as a greeting you remember.” He smiled more to himself than to her. “This is what you want.” He pointed to the book.
“What is it?”
“Everything you would want to know about the Realm, and probably many things you don’t,” he explained. “But, to be fair, this only covers from Ralloc to the Melodic Mountains, the upper part of the continent Ernrul. But the southern continent or any of the three continents across the Golden Sea isn’t within, things like the Kran Empire and the Ebbins.” He waved it away. “You can read up on that stuff at your leisure. This,” he articulated, tapping the book for emphasis, “is for what is right outside the door.”
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br /> She nodded to him and thumbed through the book for a few moments before closing it again. “Wouldn’t it be quicker if I just asked you what I want to learn?”
“Now that’s more like it! You aren’t lazy, just efficient. Efficiency is severely underrated, in my opinion,” he smiled and limped back to his chair in the sitting room. Julie followed on his heels and seated herself in the chair beside him, the table holding his pipe and book between them. Snatching up the former, he stuffed tobacco in the bowl, and pulling his wand from the tabletop, a small flame flared, and a curl of smoke rose into the air.
“You can do spells without the use of words, too?” she asked, intrigued.
“Is that one of your questions about the Realm you intended to ask?” he countered.
“No, not really, I was told once by my … this man, that most people can’t do spells without the use of words or incantations.”
“A valid assessment that is not completely accurate,” he said after a long draw. “Some people can do small and simple spells which require no special incantations, but … for the majority of the time, I can’t. So, yes, he was right and wrong.”
With a nod, she filed that information away for later; she posed her next question. “Who are you?”
“I already told you.”
“No, you told me your name, Harold, but not who you are.”
“One begets another,” he assured quietly. “I am a shut-in, recluse, antisocial, whatever you wish to call me. I have lived here for the four Ages. You are the first person I have talked to in three. Quite a long time, eh?”
“Yes,” Julie said, thinking about what it would be like not to talk to someone in three thousand years. “Very long time.”
“Which brings me to my next question, how did you see it?” Harold inquired, his brow arched in interest.
“See what?” she asked, puzzled.
“The building, of course. Did you consider why the people skirt past? I put up an illusion of a graveyard. But a normal graveyard will bring curious people to investigate the interred. No, no, not mine. This cemetery is for the cursed and the damned. No one dares set foot here, which is how I have lived for several Ages.”
“Don’t you ever go out to the town?” asked Julie, almost horrified by this man’s life style.
“Yes, once a month during the full moon.”
“You mean the day of the full moon, right?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. He puffed his embers back to life. “At night.”
“Why at night?”
“Part of my bargain for being here. Please, no more questions about me. What do you wish to learn about this Realm?”
Julie was silent for a while, contemplating this new mystery. Mysteries, to her, were meant to be solved and quickly. She switched directions. “Do you know anything about a man name Fife Doole?” It was a safe question; one that could be passed off from a book, and it wouldn’t lead to where she had been or who sent her.
“Fife Doole, yes, I recognize the name. But he is no man.”
“What do you mean he is no man?”
“He is dead for starters. Surely you read a history book where you got his name from. He died three Ages and an Era ago. You just missed him, huh?” he chortled, finding humor in it. Julie, at best guess, was about two Ages old, missing Fife by fifteen-hundred years.
Julie, stumped on the answer, posed another question. “What do you know about Xilor?”
Harold stopped in mid-puff. “I do not talk about that monster, not here, not anywhere. He is an abomination and should not exist!” His voice was low, grating.
Julie nodded and thought of another question. “What can you tell me about the Sleight of Hand Society and the Conjurer’s Accord?”
“Both are nonsense,” he dispelled her allusion, waving his right hand, the pipe still cradled. “The Sleight of Hand is a Thieves Guild that uses magic to amplify their skills. The Conjurer’s Accord is a band of scholar-like minds, the childhood weirdo’s you would have grown up with at school. They get together and think of new illusions to perform or spirits to summon or souls to torment because they were harassed when they were young. Bah! What a waste of space.”
Julie leaned forward, pondering Harold’s words on Fife. “You said Fife Doole is no man, which implies that he is something else, regardless if he is dead. Can you elaborate?”
Harold eyed her over his pipe. “You’re a bright one, more than I gave you credit for. You are right; Fife is not a man. Man implies wizardkind when, in fact, he is not. He is the son of a halfling, and his mother is a gnome. What would you call that? A half-gnome? Maybe a gnomling?” He chuckled at his joke. His gray-blue eyes flickered back to Julie again and saw the joke was either not funny or lost on her completely.
Julie contemplated her next question. She sought a great answer and though seemingly knowledgeable, Harold didn’t give straight answers. In some ways, he reminded her of Judas. She desired her memories back and to know why she felt a connection to Xilor while she endured Mr. Pleasure’s tortures. What she didn’t want was a semblance of sympathy or an inkling of a connection between them, her and Xilor. The shocking thought unsettled her. She understood him and his desire for power. He craved it, just as she did. But the most disturbing aspect, she accepted that part of him, even if she detested the rest of him. To accept herself, she had to. She compared their likeness and found what she searched for: a way they were starkly different. Xilor forged his destiny by the blood of others. What was hers?
“What is my destiny?” she pondered.
“Destiny?” Harold imitated after a moment of consideration. “That is a very good question. What do you think the meaning is?”
Julie shook her head minutely and shrugged. “It is something that you were born for.”
“No, child, that is Fate. Fate is predetermined. Destiny is something you have to choose. So, it is what you decide. What are you going to do?” Harold let his sentence hang between them as he reclined back in his chair.
It’s a good question, Julie mused.
She knew the answer almost immediately after Harold queried: Xilor. To fulfill a prophecy, she must destroy the Dark Lord. She remembered Judas’ words as they echoed in her head, ‘A powerful mage coming from beyond the Realm of magic … a perfect balance of light and dark.’
Their stillness was punctured only when Harold puffed on his pipe every few seconds as she dwelt on the path before her. But a part of her did not yearn for it.
“There is something I wish to teach you,” Harold interrupted Julie’s thoughts. “It will serve you well.”
“What is that?”
“The ability to perceive events that have either already happened, may happen, would have happened, or is happening. To be fair, anything you glimpse may not come to pass. The possibility of what you are seeing may change the outcome. One event begets another, and will always, unless affected by an outside source. You must be a shadow when foreseeing these events, present, yet not part of the world which you see.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense! One event begets another….” Julie’s brow frowned in contemplation.
“In other words, what is meant to happen will happen unless you change the outcome by interfering.”
“Oh, I get that. Why didn’t you just say that?”
“I did.”
“What is it called?”
“Shadowcasting.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
He grinned. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
Harold lurched from his chair to the floor and crossed his legs with some difficulty. She mirrored him, and when he reached for her hands, she placed them in his. His hands were massive, calloused and warm. She looked into his face, but his eyes were closed, so she followed suit.
“This will require concentration and discipline, one of the hardest things that you will ever do,” Harold instructed. “When you first begin, with your lack of control, you only see what it wants you t
o observe. The Shadowcast is the coach driver while you are the passenger. Later, with practice, you will be able to determine the when, where, and what, at your inclination.
“It is best to visualize time as a breeze. The present ebbs and flows: a faintest of whispers of the wind, almost not moving. The future: a gust rushing towards you, the past: a breeze moving steadily away. The flow and ebb of time change constantly though not perceived by the inhabitants of the present. Let your mind empty of thought and stretch out, touch the flow of time.”
Julie did as instructed but when she reached out, nothing changed. Their breathing filled her ears. At first, she thought she heard it, but the longer dwelled, she realized she perceived it.
“Further,” he whispered the instructions.
She stretched her essence, beyond them. She faintly perceived the small life forms, insects hidden in dark recesses of the house as they skittered silently between the walls and under the floor.
“Further,” Harold muttered.
Pushing beyond, she felt other small lifeforms, mice and other insects outside the house. A bead of sweat formed on her forehead from exertion. Tress brushed the edge of her concentration, the dirt surrounding them, bedding the roots. Water and nutrients flowed the expanse of veins, nurturing the large oak. The wind tickled the leaves, slithered through the breaks in the bark.
“Good,” Harold’s warm voice approved. “The tree. Notice how the tree is different than the crickets and termites, the mice and lizards. Can you distinguish the difference?”
“Yes,” Julie breathed back. She visualized it in her mind’s eye.
“Now, feel how they are the same.” The last statement partly shocked Julie and nearly broke her concentration. She never thought of trees, crickets, and mice having anything in common. Julie searched again for the insects until she found them, then the mice, and lastly the tree. In her mind, she moved the small lights representing the different lifeforms. She manipulated them, moving them one over the other, turning and twisting them until she found the faintest trace of resemblance.