VIII; A Good Night's Rest

  For the first time since I awoke magic—and for what felt like the first time in my life—I dreamed a dream so pure and happy it made me gag in jubilee. I dreamed I was back in the village with a blonde girl as my wife and a couple kids to help around the hut.

  The blonde girl was Alice, naturally. Who else would I want? She didn’t have red eyes anymore, though. Oddly enough, she had green eyes—which I found particularly weird because I’d never known her before she had red eyes.

  Red… there was something bad about red. But the dread of that word, that colour, that being, was nothing more than a passing fancy come once or twice through a long and livid life of love.

  Speaking of which, since when did I know I was dreaming? I can’t remember any dreams but even then, I doubt I ever knew I was dreaming. Really knew, I mean, like I do now.

  Somewhere along the line, long after I realised it was a dream and long after I’d forgotten when I realised it was a dream, I grew to love my dreaming wife and darling sons. It was a fine family. A family my mother would’ve been proud of. A family my father… probably would’ve been proud of.

  Every now and again, I’d go outside to hear the good news. My neighbours would greet me, with a smirk and a laugh and a cheerful breath of warmth—and I’d greet them back, smiling. Waving, throwing my head back and taking in the mirth.

  I knew it wasn’t real. I knew Alice wasn’t my wife—that’s the painful one, really - and I knew my sons weren’t real. But I didn’t care. I really didn’t care. It was such a happy dream. My sons were Cliff, Griflet and … and the last one. The youngest boy—with a head full of red hair, like my mother. He is named after my father. A strong name, he would’ve thought so. I think so, and he was me. Wasn’t he? The older me, and I the younger.

  I really, really hope he would’ve—and just like that, the dream ended and I awoke on the cold, wooden floor of a room.

  The air was damp and drowning, my lungs heavily out of breath as I crawled to the wall under the window. Looking up, I saw a dark sky tainted with a hint of light. The sun was rising soon.

  And soon enough, we would be off on our little adventure.

  Looking around the room, bereft of anything but a crate by the door, I scrunched my face in confusement. Where am I? This isn’t my room… my room has a bed—and a cabinet…

  This room has nothing. Nothing but dreadful air and the aura of terrible things.

  Where I had slept, there was the pick from yesterday. There was the pick… that caused that horrid nightmare. I remember now. Gods, I remember. What was that? That waking nightmare that was so real? So … dreadful…

  Rising from the wall, I grabbed the pick and tucked it under the rope that was around my waist. Walking over to the door and opening it, I picked up the crate, walked out into the hall, kicked the door shut with my feet and looked up. VI. Room Six. The cursed room.

  What the fuck did I sleep in this for?

  Shaking my head, I walked past Room Seven and twisted my door open with a free hand. I placed the crate down on the floor and sighed, lifting off the top.

  Right as I was about to change, I smelled my armpits. Gods, how long has it been since I’ve washed myself? It smelt like sickness, like that rotten smell you get when you’ve been bedridden for a week.

  Leaving the crate, I left the dorm as the sun still rested behind the confines of the walls and made my way through the dark, into the woods, and to the magical stream I’d been the morning before.

  Stripping myself of everything, my tunic, my underwear, my—I forgot my sandals again…

  Damn it all. Regardless, I stripped myself naked and walked into the river, its cold touch chilling my nerves. It’s been a while since I’ve shat, now that I think on it. It’s been too long since I’ve eaten, as well. Not since waking, actually. How the fuck did they feed me while I slept in the Tower? I’ll have to get some food back at the dorm.

  Shivering, I submerged myself in the river, scrubbing my hair with my fingers. As I shuddered, my body adjusting to the cold, I was reminded of when I looked at Professor Riscard.

  And my face—or, at least, how my face felt. Gods, the shame. Everlasting shame…

  I scrubbed my face, I scrubbed it so hard I hoped it would fall off. But alas, this was not such a happy tale. After cleaning my arms and my legs, my chest and my groyne, I figured it was a job well done and left the stream, putting back on my dirty clothes and heading back to the dorm.

  No one had awoken yet—and funnily enough, the sun had only just begun to break over the walls, turning the sky from grey to pink. Like my eyes.

  In my room, I opened the crate and pulled everything out. The long sleeved tunic the professor mentioned was practically exactly the same as the one I wore currently—only, unlike mine, this one actually had sleeves.

  I’d assume, in my ignorance, that the sleeves are for the chain shirt. Surely you can just wear a chain shirt without something underneath, right?

  What the fuck would I know, truly? Taking off my clothes, I strapped the leather greaves to my legs and tightened them. They only went up to my thighs, which makes me wonder if we were denied a codpiece or something of the sort. Throwing the long-sleeved tunic on, I let it drape to my thighs and threw the chain shirt over it, which too draped just a little above the tunic.

  Next, I grabbed the girdle with the sheathed sword and tightened it around my waist - it was incredibly fucking hard to do, mind you. What an odd design. I wedged my pick in the girdle opposite the sword, on my dominant side. Tightening the leather vambrace on both my arms, I finally draped a green cloak over my shoulders.

  And then I took it straight off. I’m not a fan of cloaks. Throwing the satchel over my left shoulder, I thought to myself a moment: what would I even put in this?

  Ah, that’s right. The only thing I can. Walking over to my cabinet, I crouched and retrieved the black ruby ring of my father, placing it inside the satchel and buttoning it up.

  With that—and the bundled cloak in my arm, I left my room and went down to the lower floor, where the dining table was.

  Where do you get food, I wonder?

  “It’s in the backrooms,” a sweet voice called out.

  Turning back to the stairs, I saw Alice—still in her tunic—leaning on the wall. Her hair was rather messy, knotted and tangled, like she hadn’t had time to straighten it—however you do straighten hair. My… you know, she used to use twigs bundled together. But she was an odd one, and I’m doubtful many girls do such a primitive thing.

  Kind of odd, to see her here. Not really odd, I suppose—we sleep in the same building, after all, but odd here. Right here. For half a moment, I feared I was still in the nightmare.

  “What’s in there?” I asked, placing my cloak on the table and walking over to the door beside the stairs. I could only assume this was the ‘backrooms’.

  “Rice, frozen meat, somewhat fresh vegetables,” she half-heartedly chuckled, “and noodles. They’re the only ones you could cook in time.”

  Scoffing, I opened the door and entered the backroom.

  There were three freezers—no doubt containing the meat—a couple dozen bags of rice, and two cabinets.

  “What are noodles,” I called out, walking over to the cabinets and opening them. Inside, there were bundles of vegetables, fruits, seasonings and a dozen wrapped balls of cloth. They’re probably noodles, I’d imagine.

  “You’d be correct,” she told me.

  Looking back to her, I lowered my brow. “Can you read my mind?”

  “Simply all-knowing,” she giggled, standing by the door.

  “Presumptuous, more like.”

  “Presuming,” she replied, bobbling her head as she walked over to me. “Presumptuous doesn’t work… I think, but presuming is the word you’re looking for.”

  Chuckling, I retrieved a wrapped cloth and closed the cabinet. “Presuming, intricacies—you’re very good with words.”

  “I’m as good as my tutors’ made me,” Alice sighed, leading me over to a black fireplace on the other side of the room. There, she stoked the burned coals with a metal rod, poured in another score of coals, and leaned on the side of the fireplace facing me, waiting for the flames to start. “You slept in Room Six, right?”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I did, although I don’t know why. I don’t remember much of the walk back to the dorm. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  Shrugging my shoulders, I opened the cabinet next to the fireplace. As I expected, there were a bunch of pots in there. “Felt like it, I suppose.”

  Rolling her eyes, she crossed her arms. “Good a reason as any, I suppose.”

  I scoffed as I grabbed a pot. “Suppose I suppose you supposed to my supposing, what would that say?”

  Alice laughed to the roof. “I’d suppose you supposed.”

  Red. “Say, why don’t I feel hungry?”

  “Because Magi don’t have to eat,” Alice said. “Not really, at least. Once you awake to magic, your body lives off the fabric of existence.”

  “Then why the fuck do we have food?” I asked her, filling the pot with a jug of water.

  “Because eating’s nice,” she smirked. “And it takes a bit to adjust to not eating.”

  Tilting my head, I nodded and crossed my arms. “Good a reason as any, I suppose.”

  “Oh?” she questioned, her mouth like a circle. “You’re mocking me now?”

  Giggling—I didn’t know I could giggle—I pointed to the fire, sufficiently blazing at this point. “Ready to put the pot on?”

  “How’d you know you boil noodles if you didn’t know what they were?”

  “Took a guess,” I told her, taking another guess and hanging the pot full of water over the fire. Surprisingly, it took quite a while for the water to even begin to resemble bubbling. What a paltry fire this is.

  Soon enough, the water boiled and Alice poured the noodles into the pot. They were hard and crumbly at first, but within the span of a minute they became soft and broke apart.

  “They became soft rather quickly.”

  “That’s because they’re already cooked,” Alice told me, stirring the noodles with a wooden spoon. “We’re just heating them back up.”

  Huh. That’s nice.

  With the noodles done, Alice took the liberty of serving them into two wooden bowls and handed one to me, along with a fork. We walked out of the backroom and sat down at the dinner table.

  I stuck the fork into the noodles, marvelling at how easy they were caught by and wrapped around the fork. Shoving flaming hot noodles into my mouth, I gagged. “They’ve got no taste to them!”

  “We ran out of seasoning a couple days ago,” Alice chuckled, eating the noodles. “We’ve got to wait for the Meldane merchants to come through.”

  “Meldane?”

  “It’s a Raeladite town not too far from here—I’m surprised you’ve never heard of it?”

  Shoving another filling of noodles into my mouth, I scratched my nose. “We didn’t know much of the world back in my village.”

  “And what village is that?” she asked, tilting her head and smirking—as if she’s caught me. I watched her hair, tangled and knotty, fall in a straight line from the side of her head and dangle atop the table.

  “Talbot.” I lied. It didn’t feel very good… really lying, that is. “What about you, huh? Where are you from?”

  “You already asked me the night before last.”

  “No, I asked you what your home was like.”

  “Is it not the same thing?” she questioned.

  Bobbing my head, I smiled. “If you had answered the question then, I suppose.”

  Sighing, Alice left her fork in the bowl and looked into my eyes. “Fine… I’m from Angles—from the capital, a city called—”

  “—Norfelk,” I cut her off whilst swallowing a gulp of noodles. “I’m aware of it.”

  “What?” Alice sneered in amazement. “How is it, pray tell, that someone who can barely speak our language and didn’t even know what noodles were—which the people of Norfelk created, mind you—how is it that you know what Norfelk is?”

  “My mother was from there.” Red. “Although I don’t recall her ever mentioning noodles.”

  Her eyes wide, Alice threw her fork at me. “Your mother’s from Angles?”

  That wasn’t very nice. Picking up her fork from my lap, I flicked it back at her face, which she caught quite dexterously. “Yep.”

  “And your father? He was a Raeladite?”

  “Yeah.” By now, there wasn’t much noodles left.

  “Quite odd, considering our countries’ hate against one another—must’ve been quite the romance.”

  It’s not odd if you knew how he got her—and it certainly wasn’t a fucking romance. “So you were born in a city. What’s that like?”

  “Oh … this and that - and something in-between.” Alice stabbed her noodles a couple times, then dropped the fork into the bowl. “I must admit, I didn’t see much of the city very often. I was cooped up in the house for most of my life.”

  “That must’ve—”

  “—oh, look!” she cut me off, again. Again and again and again. Usually I’d find it quite annoying, but with her it was… something.

  Following her line of sight, I saw the sun finally crack the walls of Sigel. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

  “Yes.” Rising from the table, she flicked her hair and began to walk away.

  I watched her figure as she went, my eyes drawn to her curves… I’m a bit of a pervert, aren’t I? Then my eyes rose to hers, staring back at me…

  “I’ve got to go … stand outside or something.” With that, I steadily walked outside, opening the doors of the dorm to an pinkish-orange world speckled atop a fleeing night.

  Taking in a breath of the crisp morning air, I sighed as I watched the rising sun. Soon enough, that sigh became a paltry effort to gasp more air. Red. My knees began to shake violently, buckling on the stairs of the veranda and plummeting me to the dirt below.

  Weezing frail gasps, I spasmed on the floor. Red. Red. Red. Stop it. Gods. What’s happening to me? What has magic done to me? Damn it all. Fucking damn it all.

  After what felt an eternity, my breath returned to me—and so too did my body. Crawling back to the right of the stairs, I leaned on the side of the veranda and watched the rising sun once again. Red, huh?

  The pick… the nightmare… the dream… the dreams…

  I closed my eyes and saw the dark, awaiting me. Beckoning me forth. It wants me to return to it. It’s waiting. It’s been waiting so long.

  “What’re you doing on the floor?” Alice’s voice called out to me.

  I opened my eyes and saw the sun, well above the wall by now. Not only that, but I could hear the faint sounds of horses trotting along cobblestone from the woods nearby.

  Turning to my left, I saw Alice standing on the top step of the stairs, dressed in the same gear I was. Unlike me, however, she was wearing her cloak—and she had another one in her hand.

  Throwing it into my lap, she lightly stepped down the stairs. “You forgot it inside.”

  I shuffled the cloak and wrapped it around me. “Thanks.”

  From the woods to the tower, two horse-drawn carriages strolled out. The first was ridden by an aged man with a straw hat, beside him Professor Riscard, whilst the latter was ridden alone by a young girl in a rough-spun tunic with brown hair.

  Circling around the lawn of the dorm to face the way they had come, the carriages stopped a bit in front of us.

  Instantly, Professor Riscard—garbed in his brown robes - jumped from the carriage and walked over to us. “Are the rest of you up?”

  “I woke them a bit ago,” Alice told him, sitting on the ledge of the veranda to the right of me.

  It’s times like this where I must resist the urge to look at her legs—wrapped in leather, as they are. “It’s three days’ travel to Duke Giscon’s keep, right?”

  “Aye,” Professor Riscard answered. “We travel along the road of Talbot, which is two days’ from here, and press on through the Estain Woods.”

  “Talbot?” Alice chuckled. “What a coincidence.”

  Yes… I obviously knew Talbot was on the way to Castle Kettel—why the fuck did I say I was from there… well… it is the only other village I know of—I can’t be blamed for ignorance.

  “Why’s it a coincidence?” the professor asked, looking at me. I slyly winked at him. “Ah, yes. I’d forgotten you were from there. Unfortunately, Talbot is too big of a deviation for us to visit - and I’d rather not have to sleep in the Estain Woods, as you well know.”

  “What’s the matter with the woods?” Alice questioned.

  Tilting my head slightly towards her—with my eyes conveniently nestled atop her legs, I giggled. “It’s haunted—or so they say—although I’ve never had a problem there.”

  The Estain Woods. On the east side, you have Talbot. On the west side, you have Sandel. And, at the very south, you have Castle Kettel. A perfect triangle, really. I was always cautioned never to venture south, towards the keep, but I made the journey through there to Talbot a dozen times—and each time, I never caught much of a whiff of any ‘ghosts’ of the sort.

  “Lord Father never paid the rumours any heed either,” Gett said, walking out of the dorm and down the stairs. Following him were Isla, Fedwin and Medlyn. “But my uncle swears black and blue he saw a witch there—with the most red of heads.”

  Ha. “Yes, the Wicked Witch of Estain.” Now that’s a coincidence. “She’s not real, I can assure you.” Not anymore, at least.

  Professor Riscard glared at me, before looking to Gett. “You’re all ready, then?”

  “What about Ran?” Alice questioned.

  “He’s not coming. Arcanist Eldric has need of him.”

  Medlyn, steadily tightening the girdle around her waist, tilted her head. “The blue-robed Magi from yesterday?”

  “The very one.”

  It would seem the House of Bren met a couple magi yesterday… shame. “Was that old fool there?”

  “Yes,” Professor Riscard laughed—which was quite odd, for he didn’t laugh much. “Yes, he was. Regardless of that,” he turned to Alice, “we’re not to be off for a few hours or so. Inform your peers and be ready to leave at any moment… also, have one of you prepare some food for our drivers.”

  “How come?” Alice questioned.

  “Yeah,” Gett added on. “I thought you said we leave at first light.”

  Nodding, Professor Riscard looked to the sky. “Aye, I did. We’d hoped it’d be a while longer before we had to do this—alas. Gram, come with me.”

  Rising from the dirt, I stretched my arms and went to his side. “Do what?”

  “You’ll see,” he told me, walking towards the tower. “With haste.”