by H A Tisdale
Meanwhile, the Master of Games capered about the trees, relishing every moment of his twisted, little game. Through the thickets, I watched his red pants pass by in a hurry, but for a moment, his legs lingered not too far from the bush, where I thought for sure he had spotted us.
“Ready or not, here I come!” the Master of Games teased in a high-pitched voice.
My body tightened, ready to spring out of the bush at a moment’s notice. But just before I made my move, Bill’s red pants veered off and meandered away in the opposite direction.
For a very long time, Reina and I waited. And when it seemed like the Master of Games had wandered far enough from our vicinity, we quietly crawled out from the bush. Reina put her finger to her mouth, again directing me to stay quiet, though I truly did not need the reminder. We tiptoed through the forest in complete silence, for the Master of Games had ceased his boisterous mocking.
We then came to a circular clearing in the woods surrounded by thick clusters of thorny vines. In this circular clearing, only two exits existed. Either we could return from where we had come, or we could crawl through a little opening underneath a patch of thorny vines. So we walked to the center of the open space to better determine if we could squeeze beneath the thorns.
“Peekaboo, I see you!” the Master of Games announced in a shrill voice as he emerged from where we had come. In great alarm, Reina and I twisted back to view the Master of Games who in that moment resembled a true fiend. “Like I said, I always win, and now, it’s time for you to lose.”
Immediately, the Master of Games charged toward us, lifting his hammer as he gained momentum. Without an alternative, Reina and I seized our only chance of escape and ran towards the tiny space beneath the patch of thorny vines. Hearing the encroaching footsteps of the Master of Games, we both dove under the thorny vines as if we were sliding into home base for the winning run of the World Series, and with barely enough space to slide, the sharp bristles ripped the skin on the back of my head, neck, and shoulders.
Just as Reina and I finished our successful slide, I felt the boom from the hammer hitting the ground right behind my feet. Simultaneously, I heard the Master of Games let out a bloodcurdling shriek that reverberated throughout the entire forest. Between the boom and the shriek, I impulsively crawled forward faster than a fleeing prairie dog until I emerged into another clearing up ahead.
Having lost my pajama shirt to the thorns, I quickly turned my bare chest and helped Reina to her feet as she finished her crawl through the vines. Behind us, the Master of Games continued screaming in agony from the thousands of thorns ripping into his flesh, drawing fresh vitalixir all over his body. I leaned on my knees in exhaustion, panting as I observed the hopeless predicament of our enemy before us, and Bill’s bloodshot eyes suddenly met mine.
“What are you looking at, you stupid wretch?” the Master of Games cursed violently. “You haven’t beaten me. You think a few thorns will stop me from winning this game. This game isn’t over until I say it’s over. And it’s over when I win. I always win!”
But the game was over, and the two of us stood there in the confidence of that knowledge. With his own merciless might, the Master of Games had lunged himself into this tangly trap and would likely never escape the thorny snare.
“Good havens, this isn’t a game, Bill,” Reina lamented with tears now swelling. “It never was! You killed Jake right in front of my eyes. You killed him right in front of our children’s eyes, and then you testified falsely before the whole town. You’re nothing but a liar and a murderer, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Reina choked up and said no more. Unable to look upon the villain any longer, she walked away without looking back. Floored by Reina’s words, I looked at Bill’s bloodshot eyes one last time, but this time I didn’t see Bill. I saw the Master of Games alone. I saw only a monster. So I too walked away without looking back.
“Come back here, you pathetic pebbles! This isn’t over,” the Master of Games screamed at the top of his lungs. “You won’t find the Glorious King out there. You won’t find him because it’s all a fairy tale to make stupid children feel good. But I will find you. Oh rest assured, I will find you.”
But Reina and I had no response for the Master of Games. We simply walked away, seeking to ignore the taunts of our defeated enemy. And as we wandered out of earshot, Reina allowed her tears to flow as she mourned for the memory of her beloved husband, whom the Master of Games had taken away.
“I’m sorry about your husband,” I finally said when Reina’s tears seemed to dwindle a little.
“Thanks, Benjamin,” Reina sniffed. “It’s just that we never had a proper funeral for Jake, and sometimes that makes it even harder to let him go.” Reina’s voice shook as she spoke, the bitterness of her loss resonating within.
“I can’t imagine,” I answered truthfully, having never lost someone so precious to me.
“And you shouldn’t have to,” Reina stated, trying to swallow the pain. “And Jake wouldn’t want me to keep dwelling on it. So why don’t we just talk about something else?”
Easier said than done, the two of us walked through the woods without saying a word for a while, and the longer the silence lasted, the worse I felt about not saying anything. As a result, my mind raced through the alternatives until I finally landed on the most logical and neutral question I could concoct.
“So what do we do now?” I asked gently to accommodate Reina’s grief.
The question appeared to be a good distraction for Reina’s troubled thoughts as she wiped away the lingering tears. “First, we find my children. Then with your help, we find the Glorious King.”
“Because he shines like the sun?” I asked, making sure I remembered the detail right from my alcohol-impaired memory.
“Exactly, Benjamin. Whether it’s Zedd or someone else, the Glorious King is out there somewhere, and if you’ve seen the sun, we’re bound to have a better chance of finding him,” Reina theorized with her ruby eyes staring deeply into mine.
I tried to maintain her eye contact but ended up looking down at my feet. I truly wanted to help Reina and her family. With all of my heart, I desired to help them escape the Pit, but in this moment, I was seriously doubting my ability to offer that kind of unprecedented assistance. Having seen the sun just didn’t seem like much of a qualification in my mind.
“What if we don’t find him?” I threw out the bleak possibility. “What if we fail? You said it yourself that generation after generation has failed in the endeavor. What makes us any different?”
Reina stopped and looked up at the soft light shining down through the trees from the cavernous ceiling above. She really appeared to be considering my posited possibility. But after a few seconds passed, her eyes looked back at me fully resolved with peace.
“Those are valid questions, Benjamin,” Reina conceded. “We very well could fail just like those who have come before us. But I think something sets us apart. And I think that something that makes us different is you.”
I felt a wave of doubt fall upon me. It all seemed like a dream after all, and my dreams usually did not go the way I pleased. Even with some intense lucidity, I figured any liberating efforts on my part would simply pass in vain, for one day, I would wake up and forget all about this strange, underground world.
Reina sensed my unsettled reservations. “You don’t have to believe it just yet, Benjamin,” Reina assured me before explaining further, “but you see, people don’t just burst out of boulders fully grown, not in our world anyway. And in the same way you think it’s absurd that we come out of birthstones, well, I can’t begin to understand what to make of you coming out of the Ancient Boulder. You’re truly a mystery to me.”
I lifted my head to meet her gaze. Filled with wonder and love, her ruby eyes looked at me in the same way the eyes of a young mother would behold her newborn baby. For from the time I woke up on the shores of Come Play City unto this very moment, something inexplicable had
transpired between Reina and me, and I felt happy to be in the company of such tender affection.
“You look tired,” Reina remarked in a hush.
For some reason, this tickled me. “You could say that again,” I laughed. “It’s been a long day alright.”
“Let’s stop here for the night,” Reina gestured. “We’ve got a long road ahead of us.”
So Reina and I lay down in the soft grass with plenty of space in between us. Our paths in the Pit had crossed for a reason, but not for a romantic reason as one might expect after such a meet cute. For someone else lay in wait within the Pit, someone else who would soon seize my weak and unsuspecting heart, and this stranger would change my life for good.
Chapter 5
Kisscelia
Fully expecting to be back in my dinky apartment’s uncomfortable bed, my ears and eyelids instead awakened to the birds’ medley of chirps outside in the late morning warmth. As my eyes opened to the blinding light of the day, my body experienced an abrupt invigoration, wholly refreshed in the dew’s saturation. And when the pleasant eye-adjusting moments passed, I again beheld the extraordinary sight of the cavernous ceiling. Its marvelous light shined red, orange, and yellow through the trees’ canopy of leaves, where I curiously noticed a pair of yellow wings shimmering in the warm rays of light.
A beautiful butterfly was fluttering about between the branches, and as I observed its delightful flight, I strangely began to ponder the secret nature of the trees. Even though these living entities towered far above me, I was somehow hardly aware of their subtle presence. Hidden in plain sight amongst each other’s humility, these oxygenating organisms existed so gently while bringing forth abundant life to the natural world. Satisfied simply by water and light, the harmonious trees stood securely rooted in their rich kingdom of soil, waiting patiently for the intermittent enjoyment of the bountiful breeze.
Desiring to share these thoughts with my companion, I quickly arose from my bed of grass as I called out for my ruby-eyed friend, “Reina, I…Reina?” My eyes searched rapidly through the thick trunks of the forest, but Reina lay nowhere in sight. Immediately, I feared the worst, imagining the Master of Games had broken through the thorns and had taken her captive. Deeply afraid for her life, I walked forward briskly as my heart pounded in my chest.
“Reina?” I cried out fearfully but once again received no response.
My horrific thoughts for her escalated more and more, and just as I began picturing Reina’s lifeless corpse, I heard the faint sound of a woman whimpering in the distance. So I hurried in the unhappy noise’s direction with the hope that Reina would be there, still weeping for the loss of her husband, and after circumnavigating a very large bush, I stumbled upon the source of the sorrow.
“Ohh, hello,” said an amber-eyed woman, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees in front of the most fruitful of trees.
“Oh, hey,” I panted in shock. “You’re not who I was looking for.”
“Who were you looking for?” the woman inquired as she wiped away the residual tears.
“A woman with ruby eyes?” I started out my description with Reina’s most striking feature, thinking it would be enough to identify her, but the woman just stared back at me blankly. “Blonde, braided hair?”
“Oh yes,” the woman responded to the more mundane characteristic, “I saw her walking into the valley this morning.”
“You did? Is she okay?” I breathed anxiously.
“She looked fine to me, quite chipper in fact,” the woman added as she tucked her dark hair behind one of her ears.
“Phew, what a relief!” I exhaled, feeling a weight lift off my shoulders. “I thought something bad might have happened to her.”
“Your wife, I presume?” the woman asked with a curious glance at my torso.
“What…no,” I reacted, suddenly conscious of my bare chest out in the open for the woman to see. “No, we aren’t married or anything like that. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”
“Oh, gotcha,” the woman smiled, cocking her shoulders back while lifting her frame. “I’m Kecelia by the way.”
“Well, it’s been lovely meeting you, Kecelia,” I smiled back, admiring the fresh fruit in the shade of the forest, “and I’m terribly sorry for disturbing your private time back here. I suppose I should go find my friend and let you get back to your peace and quiet.” I turned to walk away, secretly hoping she would invite me to stay.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” Kecelia called sweetly from behind.
I stopped in my tracks, my heart beating faster than the wings of a hummingbird. “My name’s Benjamin,” I answered as I turned to meet her affectionate amber gaze.
“Nice to meet you, Benjamin,” Kecelia replied with a soft and smooth voice as she stood up from the ground to reveal the torn flaps of her green dress. “And you don’t have to apologize. I’ve found it to be a very pleasant interruption.”
My heart surged as Kecelia clung to her final words. She had a certain electric look in her eyes, and I perceived she saw something she liked. So having been informed of Reina’s safety, I figured I could linger among the blooms of the bushes for just a bit longer.
“Do you mind if I ask what you were crying about?” I asked in a guise of compassion, taking a few steps in her direction.
“Oh, you don’t want to hear about my troubles,” Kecelia insisted, looking down coyly.
“No, I do,” I rebutted firmly, stepping even closer now. “Trust me, I’m a good listener.”
Kecelia batted her eyelashes as she looked back up at me. “It’s just hard to feel rejected all the time,” she groaned.
“I know exactly how you feel,” I voiced passionately, now standing directly in front of her as my enticed heart raced ecstatically. I had seen something I liked too. Kecelia’s dark hair fell like a waterfall upon the white cliffs of her soft shoulders, and precariously perched upon her busty neckline, a silver necklace with a diamond gem glistened beneath the mood lit trees.
Caught up in her stunning beauty, I could not control my wandering eyes from the lure of her jewel as I glanced downward for a prolonged moment. When I finally looked back up, her sparkling eyes issued a welcoming approval. So I smiled, and when she smiled back, I inched my face forward, focusing in on her luscious lips, super charged to make intimate contact with my foreign friend in the forest.
“Wait,” Kecelia whispered, pressing her two fingers against my lips with a static spark of electricity, “not here.”
“What?” I exhaled rather shocked. “But why not?”
“Because,” Kecelia teased with a playful look, “I want you tonight.”
“Why wait?” I pushed as pleasingly as I could, uninterested in waiting a second longer.
“Because the Festival of Masks is about to begin,” Kecelia explained as she rubbed my bare skin, inducing the hairs on my chest to rise, “and I’m going to look so good for you.”
I found myself unable to argue with her poignant proposition and willfully accepted my deferred desire in exchange for her alluring promise of pleasure. “How will I find you?” I chimed in delight.
Kecelia wrapped her arms around me and pulled my ear to her lips. While the flowery fragrance of honey invaded my nostrils, she smoothly whispered, “Don’t worry, Benjamin. I will find you. I will seek you eagerly, and when I find you, I will bring you back to my tent. There, soaked in the aroma of my oils, we will have our fill of love ‘til morning. There, saturated in the sweet scent of my perfume, we will embrace in the silk of my sheets.”
With her seductive speech sprinkled in my ear and sown in my heart, Kecelia released me and sauntered away. I turned to watch her depart, appreciating her breathtaking form as she went. When she looked back for a moment, her cheeks blushed before she smiled with a wink. And as she turned on her way, I could not believe my eyes, for from that current perspective, my dream had certainly taken a delightful twist.
Chapter 6
The Wi
ndless Valley
Just as Kecelia turned the corner, Reina came around the bushes and gave me a quizzical look. “Who was that?” she questioned playfully as she threw an apple in my direction.
My reflexes caught the apple as a wave of embarrassment rushed over me. “Oh, that was uhh, that was Kecelia,” I finally managed to utter. “She was helping me find you.”
“I’m sure she was,” Reina teased with her eyebrows raised, “so when’s the wedding?”
“Jiminy Willers, Reina,” I remarked, desperately desiring to change the subject. “She was just helping me out because someone decided to abandon me in the woods this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Reina laughed. “I’m just giving you a hard time like I would with my sons. Speaking of whom, I found them, Benjamin! That’s why I left you out here this morning. I had a feeling they were nearby, and I actually found them.”
“You already found them?” I breathed incredulously, ecstatic to see Reina beaming with such happiness.
“Yes, Benjamin, yes, and you must come meet them. I’ve already told them all about you,” Reina shared with joy. “Now put this shirt on and come see!”
After putting on the plain, white shirt, Reina grabbed my hand and led me vigorously through the forest as giddy as a child on her birthday, and I myself felt extremely excited at the prospect of meeting her family of ten. We soon came to the end of the Winner Woods where I witnessed quite the spectacle below. Down the hillside lay a green valley filled with thousands of tents, and at least twice as many people as tents were bustling about the vast campsite, fervently toiling in preparation for some grand event.
“Good havens!” I exclaimed, overwhelmed by the busyness before me. “Who are all these people?”
“Come on! We’ll walk and talk,” Reina replied, pulling at my arm to start us down the hill. “This is the campsite of the wind followers.”