"Wishing Stones"

He didn’t rein in his horse’s gallop until he was out of town, past the last of the outlying farmhouses. Even then, he slowed only to a brisk trot, still a dangerous speed for a horse to take at night. There was no moon, but the stars were painfully sharp, staring daggers down at his back as he rode.

He stopped and dismounted stiffly at the top of a rise in the land over which the road continued to the west. As his mount cropped a few mouthfuls of dew-dampened grass at the side of the road, he looked back in the direction he’d come. Even in the deadest part of night, the castle glowed brilliantly, the yellows and oranges of watch-fires reflecting off its smooth white stone walls and towers. The upper levels’ windows also glowed, but in the softer hue of hearths burning low. The early spring air was cool, but not cold enough to produce frost.

The rider’s eyes picked out a single glowing spark high in the castle, the light in a place he knew all too well. “I’m sorry, love. I must know.” He whispered. The words condensed into a visible vapor in front of his lips, then dissipated, and the only ears that heard them belonged to the horse.

He gave his mount a few more minutes to chomp away at the grass, then led it back onto the road, mounted, and rode on. The castle vanished behind the terrain, and the man was alone with just his horse and the accusing stars for company.

=============== | ԹӦֆӇՈҸ ՅӦӃԶҀ | ===============

The queen woke with a start, trying to determine what had awakened her. The fire had burned low, and it barely gave off enough light to illuminate the tiles of the floor around it. The rest of the opulent room was swallowed in darkness.

She turned over, reaching across the expansive bed to where her husband should have been, but he wasn’t there. “Kade?” She whispered into the darkness, but she didn’t need to wait for the silence to respond to know she was alone.

Not to worry, she told herself. The king had trouble sleeping sometimes, and would usually wander about a bit to settle his nerves. Caused by stress, perhaps. He’d be back.

She drew her hand back toward herself, and it brushed something stuck between the silk sheets. Something stiff and dry - paper?

The queen, now fully awake, and pulled the object toward her, then got up and lit a taper from the embers of the fire. It was an envelope, addressed to her. She broke the seal with her long, thin fingers, and started to read.

=============== | ԹӦֆӇՈҸ ՅӦӃԶҀ | ===============

I saw the stranger standing at the edge of town, right in front of the old dolmen gate that’s always been there. He was looking up at the pair of words there engraved. A lot of travelers do that. People love mysteries.

I almost sidled up to him to distract him, get a chance to snag that fat-looking purse at his side, but as I approached he turned in my direction and I saw the sword. I sent quick thanks to God for small mercies - even if I were desperate I wouldn’t try to cut the purse of a nobleman. They can do whatever they want with us lowly commonfolk, and they could make you die really slowly.

“You there.” The nobleman called across the street. I saw that he was of perhaps early middle age, with graying temples and beard. He was dressed in a well-made but worn blue cloak, held in place with a gold chain at his breastbone.

I realized after watching for a second or so that he was calling to me. “Me, m’lord?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

“Aye. Come here a moment.” He beckoned in a friendly manner, but we both knew that was an order that could be enforced on pain of death. I trudged forward, keeping my head down, like we’re supposed to.

As soon as I got close, he pointed up to the words on the stone. “Tell me what they say about those runes.” He told me.

The man’s heavy purse swung within reach of my clasped hands, and though I knew it would be full of gold I dared not touch it. ”Many things, m’lord. There’s magic in the dolmen, to be sure. None have ever managed to break it, even with good tools. Some say it is a doorway to the fell realms, or to to lost Eden, or to another world, and the words are a spell of sealing.” I took a breath. Maybe if I gave him a good enough explanation I’d get a coin for my trouble, and if I cooperated he’d probably leave me alone, coin or no. “But others say it is an anti-spell, that the dolmen breaks all enchantments. It’s even said that our fair queen was under a terrible enchantment as a maiden, and that it was the power of this place that broke it. But I was only an infant at the time, m’lord.”

The man nodded. “Yes, I have heard that tale myself many times. But what do the runes mean?” He pressed.

I shrugged, keeping my eyes on the grassy space around the dolmen’s base. “I’m sorry, m’lord, I don’t know. Never heard anyone say they could read ‘em.”

He sighed. “All right.” His hand went into his pouch, and my heart leapt. He took out two coins - one silver, and one gold. The gold one would get me three weeks of good food and drink, at least, and the silver perhaps three or four days of the same. “For your trouble.” He tossed me the silver coin, and held up the gold one. “If you find me someone who claims to be able to read them by nightfall, I will be generous.”

I bowed several times and thanked him, backing away until he lost interest in me. That gold coin, still held loosely between his fingers, called to me. All I needed to do was find him some crazy old man, and he’d give that to me. Sure, noblemen are bad news, but I thought this was a simple matter. Get batty greybeard, get coin, get out of the vicinity. Eat for three weeks without working or cutting purses.

I darted around the bend and headed for the Three Timbers. The bar attracted plenty of crackpots and oddballs, I just needed to grab one and get him over to the dolmen by sundown. On the way there, though, I  heard hoofbeats approaching, and habitually dove out of the road and into a narrow alley - anyone on a horse was important enough not to stop to avoid trampling me.

The horses slowed and stopped not far from my alley, and I heard the clanking sounds of several mail-clad men dismounting. Probably not all knights - just one and his retainers. Though one is bad enough. A knight deprived of a war to go charging gloriously into is worse than said war, if he lives nearby.

“Gather them all.” A stern voice directed, and iron-shod feet stomped around to carry the orders out. What was it this time?

A few heads poked out of buildings, and at the direction of hostile voices people gathered. Probably an edict from on high to be told to the peasantfolk. Didn’t sound like they were being overly violent about it.

“Hear ye, hear ye, we bear a proclamation from the palace of His Imperial Magesty, Adonis the First!” The authoritative voice called out. “I regret to announce that his Imperial Majesty has disappeared! He vanished from his bed in the dead of night and has not been seen since! Since His Majesty is an accomplished warrior, it is likely that he left of his own accord, but none could be found who could explain his errand. Any peasant who brings to the court any news of his whereabouts will receive four coins of gold in payment, tripled if the information leads to the King’s return. Pray regularly for your monarch’s safety. That is all.” The knight fell silent, and the crowd began to murmur.

This was interesting. Missing king, reward for information. Why would a king run away? He lived a pampered life, married to a woman purported to be most beautiful in the realm, if not the world. He was wealthy beyond measure and literally owned not only the entire kingdom, but its inhabitants. Even the noblemen. I knew if I were in that position, I wouldn’t let anything take me away from it.

Then I remembered the strange nobleman by the old runed stones, and my heart leapt. Could I really be so fortunate?

As soon as I heard the knight and his retainers ride off, I snuck out of the alley and headed back to the dolmen. There was nobody there, of course. Probably off buying a house to spend the night in alone. I’d seen nobles do that before, and burn it to the ground when they were through. Strange people.

Still, I went back to the Three Timbers and ducked inside. I asked around a bit, broke my silver coin up into a nice pile of coppers and half-coppers and passed a few around to loosen tongues. Everyone knew a guy with “the real story” of the ancient dolmen, but I had a devil of a time finding anyone willing to claim to know the meaning of the runes. Even my usual go-to crackpots, Jorg Halfgait and Moris Blackeyes, didn’t want to go there. Moris told me that even he knew the runes were unknowable. That was strange, because the week before Moris had been telling me how his great-grandpappy had married a true-to-life witch and that the magic in his blood made him capable of great and terrible things.

Eventually, I settled down across a corner table from an old, gray-bearded man in a hood. Hoods indoors aren’t that strange, what with all the smallpox survivors hiding their scars, and the veterans hiding their gaping eye sockets, so I didn’t think too much of not being able to see his face. He had a gnarled cane leaning against the table, and at my offer of a half-copper he took a rattling breath and spoke. “Sure, I know what they say.” He wheezed. “Didn’t think anyone cared to anymore. Who’s askin’?”

I shrugged. “A curious nobleman handing out coins. He’ll probably have at least a silver in it for you.” I said, not mentioning my own gold. Best not to have to share.

“Nobleman.” The old man replied thoughtfully. “Hmph. Finally...” He muttered to himself. “I’ll come along, but not until near sunset. Damn heat’s no good for old folks like me.”

It wasn’t hot that day, but I didn’t press the issue. That gold coin was practically mine. “Done.” I agreed.

“What’s your name, son?” He asked. I was twenty-four then, hardly a child, but one generally lets one’s elders use their own words for you.

“Bandt.” I replied. A lie. One never uses one’s own name in a town where one cuts purses.

“Good name, that. I’m Lifarne.”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Lifarne.”

“And with you, Bandt.” The old man agreed, and I thought I saw a shadow of a toothless smile under the hood.

=============== | ԹӦֆӇՈҸ ՅӦӃԶҀ | ===============

I helped the old man to the dolmen just as the sun began to kiss the top of the hills. He seemed to know the way, I was just there to speed up the process and give him someone to lean on. The nobleman wasn’t there, and I wondered if he’d be coming at all. It was the middle of autumn, so I hoped the old man would make this quick. No theatrics. The night would soon get cold.

A lantern bobbed around the corner. I saw a worn blue cloak, and looked down submissively, waiting for the man to address me. I snuck a glance at the old man, and noticed he was pointedly doing no such thing. I cringed, hoping the noble was in a charitable mood.

“Aha, you came through.” The nobleman said, as if there was never any doubt. I muttered an agreement and stepped aside. “Well, old man, can you read the letters on the stone?” The noble asked impatiently. There was a gleam of metal in the lamplight, and something small and round landed on the ground near my feet. My fingers recognized the gold immediately, and I bent down to grab it, then backed away a few steps. I had meant to leave, but I was curious, too - I wanted to know what the runes meant.

The old man set his cane against one of the great uprights and cast off his hood. I winced as soon as I saw his face, because his eyes were milky and should have been sightless. But he was looking right at the nobleman. “I cannot read them, but I need no sight to tell you their meaning.” He offered. “That should suffice.”

The nobleman’s hand went to his sword. “If you plan on deceiving me...”

“Such as I are not capable of raw deception, little knight.” The old man intoned, and in the moment he was speaking he seemed to loom over the man in blue, though in reality the “little knight” was the taller. I thought I saw a spark of greenish light worm its way up the stone, but reasoned that it must have been a firefly. “We may trick, but the trick is always in your interpretation, not in our words.”

I suddenly sensed that of the two, I should be more frightened of the blind old man. And from the body language of the noble, he understood that as well.

“Very well.” The nobleman nodded, as if understanding the meaning of the old man’s cryptic words. Perhaps he did. I don’t know what all nobles know, only that it’s more than the rest of us. “Proceed.”

“The words there engraved for the ages are spoken thus: Lifarnae Belisothiar.” The words, with their unfamiliar inflections, seemed to be echoed by a second, whispered voice as Lifarne spoke them. Again, I saw greenish motes of light rush up the sides of the dolmen stones - perhaps six or seven. They were gone too quickly to count. “The literal meaning of the phrase is difficult to translate into this small language, but ‘wish-granted becomes guardian’ is close enough.”

The noble nodded, as if this meant something to him.

“When first you came to this place, Kade Adonis, you were on a quest of great importance, and the least player in it. Your chances of coming home were small. You heard an old man speak of the power of wishing under the stones, so you stopped here and stood below the dolmen, and made a wish. Do you remember?”

The knight nodded. “I do. Twenty-five years ago.” I was busy thinking that the nobleman’s name was Adonis. As in, King Adonis. Could it really be?

“Twenty-five years ago to the day, in fact.” Lifarne wagged a bony finger at Sir Kade. “On the verge between equal day and night, you stood right there and wished to be the one to rescue the princess and break her curse, despite all the odds. Fate determined that you did. And fate has returned you here this night.”

“It has been nagging at me all these years.” Kade admitted. “Did I triumph because if the wish, or did I triumph because of my own skill?”

The old man chuckled. “No way to know, little knight.” As darkness grew, Lifarne seemed less and less frail. “But time is short, and you must know something else.”

“And what’s that?” Sir Kade asked impatiently.

“The cost of your wish, of your life these past years.” The old man exclaimed. “Wish-granted becomes guardian. The price is listed right there for all to see.” I saw a few more green sparks course along the stone, and this time Kade noticed it too.

The Knight backed away from the dolmen as a green spark made it all the way up to the runes, and stayed there.

“I am the guardian!” Lifarne exclaimed, tossing away his cane. “But not for much longer. You will take my place, and guard until another wishes, and returns. All who wish return in time.”

Kade tried to back away, but the old man cackled and made a tugging motion in the air, and the King fell to his knees. “You can’t leave now, little knight. It’s already begun.” More sparks coursed through the stones, not just green anymore - I saw yellows and whites and the occasional red. Most of them went up to the runes and stayed there, but a few popped out of the stone and drifted toward the knight.

I stood still, paralyzed by fear, just an observer. I didn’t want to call attention to myself.

“I have been the guardian for one hundred and twenty-two years and six months, little knight.” Lifarne said, and his voice cracked as he did. “I am long overdue my release.”

I looked over to Sir Kade in time to see two drifting white sparks approach him. He tried to cover his face, but they burrowed between his fingers and he fell writhing to the dirt, crying out in pain. “Your eyes will learn to see the strands of fate as they burn.” The Guardian intoned. I couldn’t think of him as Lifarne anymore.

The magic swirled so brightly it hurt my eyes, and I finally turned away, still hearing the agonized cries of the king. Then everything was black. I turned back around. The stones were dark, and Sir Kade was motionless on the ground. Lifarne, trembling, tried to lean against the stones, but missed and fell over into the grass. I rushed over to him.

“What are you?” I asked, kneeling down next to him. He was frail again, frailer perhaps than he was before, and I had a suspicion he wasn’t going to get back up.

“Nothing... anymore.” The Guardian gasped. “If you want...” I had to lean close to hear him. “There’s still... still time to wish tonight. You could be... anything. King... even. But I... don’t suggest... it. Price... is too...”

His head lolled to the side, and his breathing stopped. I stood, facing the stones. I could wish for something, and it would come true?

Despite everything in my rational mind screaming against it, I stepped forward, under the stones. As I did, Sir Kade Adonis stirred. I saw in his face unseeing, milky eyes, and wondered how long I could avoid the same.

“Don’t do it, man. That’s my life.” He called out, as if seeing into my very intentions. He tried to get up. “Don’t...”

I smiled wickedly. The man’s pleas had made up my mind for me. I imagined the queen of the kingdom, the most beautiful woman in all the world alone, weeping by herself in that giant palace, and something in me turned over. “But it looks like you’re going to be busy, Guardian.” I put a hand on each of the uprights. They felt warm to the touch. “I wish to be mistaken for King Adonis and take his place on the throne.” I said aloud.

The new Guardian, screamed in rage, and tried to get at me, but he was blind and still not even capable of standing. Laughing, I dodged past him and ran off into the night, somehow certain things were about to go my way.

This story written based on a prompt from Klazzform's Short Story Competition on rpgcrossing.com.

"The Once and the Future"

It was midnight on the summer solstice, and though there was much revelry going on, none of it was nearby. The rotunda in front of the gates to the fortress of Camelot was empty, though the sounds from the main square down the road suggested it was a good party.

The old man appeared in a flash of faint purplish light, transit leaving the faint smell of ozone in the air. He knew his opponent would try to sabotage the symbolic sword-drawing. He’d watched that take place months ago and tomorrow, but Morgana could well warp the timeline at this critical point. At noon, Lord Artur, a minor noble, would pull the sword from the anvil in front of Camelot’s gates, and become the first king of this land in a generation.

A quick inspection told Myrlin Ambrosius that the sword and anvil were bonded together by some sort of clear glue. The stuff was old, weathered smooth - he wondered how far back Morgana had gone to pull this off. Probably all the way.

A quick trip back to base got Myrlin a solvent, but he didn’t apply it at midnight. Rather, he skipped forward until the sky was graying and the town was beginning to stir before splashing the clear solvent all over the epoxied sword. A few seconds, he knew, and it would no longer be glued.

The old man waited those seconds then experimentally tugged the sword’s hilt slightly. It slid out a fraction of an inch quite smoothly before he let go. A child could pull the sword out now. Could he be sure Artur would get here first?

Wrinkling his brow as if getting a headache, Myrlin Ambrosius let the monument be and set the device on his left hand. One more button and he disappeared in another brief purplish flash, expression broadcasting the hope that he hadn’t made things worse rather than better.

---

It was a pleasant, clear early fall evening, and the town was just beginning to grow quiet for the night. With her binoculars, Morgan watched the keep intently, focusing on the lights in the king’s bedroom. It was the spring equinox, and Morgan knew that the man wearing the crown would be returning to his bed, inebriated and exhausted. Ambrose was growing frustratingly good at catching up, and it was time to try a more indirect approach, one he’d never think of. Slip a knife in his ribs and Ambrose would come back and stop it, meaning she’d never get to actually sink the knife. No, it was time to be more... subtle. Do something Ambrose wouldn’t notice.

The light in the bedroom went out. Morgan shrugged off the thick cloak she was wearing, leaving her completely naked except for the timeslip handpiece and a thin, revealing thigh-length nightgown. She altered the device, and shifted herself in time and space again.

“Who’s there?” Whispered a worried Artur from behind her. It was dark, the faintest light leaking in through the curtains. Likely, he couldn’t see her, but had heard the timeslip.

“Only a dream.” Morgan whispered, stepping silently to the bedside, internally wondering if she was making the right move. But if not me, she thought, then who? No-one could be trusted. She knew it had to be her.

Artur either believed her, or didn’t care. When she slipped into the bed next to him, he gladly took her into his arms.

To his credit, the freshly-crowned king surprised Morgan with his skill and stamina. What do you know, the big oaf does something well, she thought, fighting against a lethargic desire to fall asleep right there.

As soon as she could tell he was asleep, Morgan, hoping she had what she needed, but not entirely fearing a second attempt, poked at the handpiece, and was gone.

---

 
“Master Ambrosius, you said your name was?” The newly crowned king asked after dinner, when he and Ambrose had retired to a sitting room in the keep.

“Yes. I’m a diviner of sorts.” Ambrose sipped the local liqueur carefully. ”A magician.” He wasn’t, but that explanation would satisfy the locals. ”I have received dire portents about attempts against your rule by another magician, a woman. Morgan is her name.” Ambrose had just come upstream from a falling-out with her, but this man didn’t need to know that.

“A magician. Black magic or white?” The king asked cautiously.

“White, liege.” Ambrose assured him. “Divining the future. Healing. Some personal travel magic. But it has its price even so. But as Morgan aims to misuse our shared craft, and so I will be here to counter her.”

The king nodded. “What proof do you have of these claims?”

Ambrose looked past the man. “I was there when you pulled the sword from the anvil, liege. So was she. There were only a few people there. Perhaps you remember us? We foretold a great event, and had come to observe.”

“Yes. I remember now. The woman next to you was stunning. I thought it was a pity that she was your wife.”

“I trained Morgan, but she is not my wife.” Ambrose corrected. ”And she is dangerous. As much ability as I, but no restraint.”

The king nodded sagely. “I will accept your service, magician Ambrosius. But I cannot make you one of my knight. You are not of any noble family of this land, even if your homeland pedigree is good.” He frowned. “My father once kept the counsel of a woad magician, Myrlin Wyllt, his closest advisor and physician. You, master Ambrosius, will be my Myrlin. Myrlin Ambrosius.”

“As you like, your majesty.” Ambrose nodded. A title wasn’t what he was here for, but if it made King Artur feel better, he would take it.

---

 
Morgan materialized a few hours upstream and a hundred miles from Ambrose, and sat down in the middle of the cold woods to think. She could outsmart the old man, she knew - he never saw the potential of the timeslip. Artur was a menace - he was slowly killing off all the skilled warriors his land possessed on fools’ errands. He was well into middle age, and had no children - whoever survived all the “chivalrous” quests would be left to fight over the scraps when Artur died. It was a mess.

To save the people of Camelot, Morgan knew she had much work to do, but at least all of time was her playground to do it.

Well, not all of time, she realized as she started punching coordinates into her timeslip. The words “UNIT ROGUE: RTB” appeared on the handpiece in red. Ambrose apparently could do that. Dammit. Obviously, a return to the base as requested would result in nothing beneficial, so she ignored the words. It did mean she would have to avoid any time close to modern, the timeslip nets extended well back into the seventeenth century, and they’d pull her back to base for sure.

First things first, she resolved, setting the device. Let’s try this the easy way.

---

  “Morgan, we can’t police Dark Ages warlords. Actually, as warlords goes, this guy’s not so bad.” Ambrose pointed out to his partner.

“Not so bad? You’re kidding, Ambrose.” Morgan spun on a heel and pointed to Ambrose. “We can’t sit idly by and let him destroy these people just because he had the muscles to pull apart that sculpture in the courtyard. You’ve talked to him. He’s a fool!” Morgan was pacing energetically across the stone-floored room, battling against agitation and pent-up energy. Her looks seemed to be unharmed by or even to benefit from the lack of electric lights and modern makeup.

Ambrose scratched at the two weeks of growth on his cheeks, surprised how fast his whiskers had taken advantage of their newfound freedom from razors. He knew his less impressive looks had fared worse than his junior partner’s. “He’s a hopeless romantic, and maybe a hair too trusting of old stories, but I rather like him. Had he been born 900 years from now he’d have become a famous writer or philosopher.” 400 years later still and he’d be doing what Ambrose and Morgan were doing now, for the same reasons Ambrose himself did them, but he didn’t want to say that. “Besides, it’s still not our place to police who they make their leader. Where’s that in the charter?”

“Ambrose, screw the charter. These people have bad enough lives as it is. How many of them will die in pursuit of a magic cup that doesn’t exist?” She flicked a derisive finger toward the crumpled parchment of the notice she had pulled from the town bulletin board. It called for brave men-at-arms to quest alongside the Circle of Knights in Gaul to search for the Holy Grail.

“Would you prefer he be like his predecessor, who tried to invade the next kingdom over?” Ambrose pointed out. “Look, Morgan, even if you don’t like it, we aren’t here to fix it. We’re here to look, not to touch.”

Rather than turning back toward him at the end of her pacing, Morgan hesitated, then dashed for the door.

“Dammit, Morgan.” Ambrose got up and ran out after her, but it was too late. The late fall air outside carried a whiff of ozone, and he knew she had gone. “You would be that foolish.” The new generation of ‘walkers didn’t ever seem to have any sense. History was their playground, they thought.

Ambrose, despite knowing the time was no issue, thought fast, and marked her in the timeslip grid as a rogue actor. That way she couldn’t go home without being held, and any other agents would refuse to help her. Rogues were rare, but they did happen occasionally. He just hadn’t expected it of Morgan.

“Dammit, dammit.” He continued under his breath, setting his timeslip handpiece to a date in the past. It was time to stop observing, and start damage control. 

---

  The new knight was young - maybe seventeen or eighteen, but his equipment spoke of a rich parentage. Ambrose stood behind Artur’s chair, leaning on the gnarled druidic staff Artur had given him, just watching the kid present himself. The other knights seemed to be impressed, for sure. But there was something off about him.

It had been three months for Ambrose since Morgan had lit off, and he’d been in Artur’s service about a “year”. He spent those months jumping around to try to find her. He’d foiled some minor sabotage, but mostly he cleaned up after her. She always ‘slipped away as soon as she saw he was around.

“What’s your name, sir knight?” Artur asked imperiously.

“Mordred, my liege.” The young man replied.

“From where do you hail?” Artur asked again.

“Nowhere, liege. My family’s lands in Brittany were lost three years ago.” The youth replied evenly. Ambrose noted that - not even a hint of frustration, anger, or regret over that loss. Strange. “I had hoped that through service in your court I might earn my family lands in your kingdom.”

“Who has tested this knight’s skill?” Artur asked.

“I, liege.” Gawain stood. The burly Welshman was almost seven feet tall, and towered over the newcomer. “He has much skill, but little strength of the arm. Even so, I vouch for his prowess.”

“Next to you, everyone is weak.” Artur pointed out, and the knights chuckled. Gawain smiled at the compliment. ”Sir Mordred, sit there.” Artur pointed to a seat only three away from his own. “I will have them etch your heraldry into a new chair this very night. Welcome to the Circle of Knights.”

“If I may, sir, Circles are for druids and witches.” Mordred said. Ambrose cringed - Artur was fond of his Circle.

”If that is so, young knight, what would you suggest?” Artur replied. Ambrose could tell from the tone of voice that the boy was on thin ice.

“Nothing drastic, liege, a simple change of name.” Mordred took his seat, seeming not to notice the peril of his words. “I would call this honored group the Knights of the Artur’s Table Round.”

Artur seemed to settle down. “A name change. I will consider this, sir Mordred. But now we have more pressing matters. This peasant revolt in the southern towns must be quelled, and swiftly. I suspect that the witch Morgana will be found at its root.”

Ambrose winced, but didn’t speak. Ever since he’d told Artur about Morgan, the king was seeing her influence in every nuisance and crisis. She had of course been involved once or twice, trying to get people to assassinate the king and such, but she was hardly the source of all of Camelot’s problems. Most of her subterfuge was in the past for Artur, where only Ambrose could undo it.

As Artur started giving out orders to the knights, Ambrose thought he saw Mordred glaring at him, but when he looked that way the boy was watching Artur intently. Perhaps he had a concealed dislike for Ambrose, or for magicians in general? Something to keep an eye on, for sure.

---

 
Mordred stood in his usual spot at the parapet, looking out over the town below. He knew that the kingdom was his by right, he only needed seize it from the idiot he was ashamed to call father.

“Your time will come soon, my child.” Mordred heard the familiar voice issue from behind him. He did not turn to look, because he knew eyes were on him, eyes that could not see his mother lurking there.

“My time is now, I think.” Mordred replied quietly, without moving his lips much. ”The king is in Gaul until Winter Solstice at least, and he left that dolt Lancelot in charge.”

“Lancelot is a womanizer and a fool.” Morgana whispered. ”Apply pressure, and he’s our man.” There was a rustle of cloth from Morgana’s robes as she set something down. ”This letter is signed by Gawain. It says that the king is dead. It is addressed to him, and it says that Artur spoke of you with his dying breath, recognizing you as his son. It also forgives him for sleeping with the queen.”

“False?” Mordred confirmed.

“Of course. The only person who might see through it is Ambrose. The Myrlin.” She scoffed the title, it was a joke to her.

“He has not been seen here in many years.” Mordred scoffed. “The old man probably crawled into some hole and died.”

“Make no mistake, he is still around.” Morgana corrected her son. “He is conserving his resources. Avoid him if you can. Try not to kill him if you can’t.”

“Not to kill him, mother?” Mordred asked. “He is your enemy.”

“I want him defeated, not killed. This is a time for finesse, my son, not bloodshed.”

“No.” Mordred whispered.

“What did you say to me!?” Morgana’s voice rose, building anger.

“I am going to be king. I will not be your pawn. I will kill who I please, and I will spare who I please.” Mordred’s smile vanished, then came back cruelly. “You can’t stop me.”

“You would reject all I’ve done for you!?” Morgana hissed.

“No, mother. I would do what needs to be done to realize it.” Mordred said. “I will not let your magician’s games get in the way. I will - ”

But a metallic smell drifted to him, and knew his mother was gone. Yes, she was the woman that bore him, the woman that paid for the finest tutors to look after him, to train him to be a king. But if even that family tie would keep Mordred from the throne, then it must be severed. It was his destiny to be king. He would be king.

Mordred lingered ten precise seconds, then walked away, ignoring his mother’s false letter. It was time to be King. Time to seize the moment. His way, not Morgana’s.

---

Ambrose appeared on the parapet, gnarled staff in hand, and saw the battlefield below, shadowed by a gloomy, overcast and smoke-tainted sky. What was left of the town was trampled to foundations and ashes, and littered with bodies. It looked fresh - hours old only. Two ragged, broken armies stood on either side of it - one in front of the gates, below him, and the other farther out. Between them, two mailed figures dueled, swords and shields ringing blows through the cold air. One of them was clearly Artur.

Ambrose was spotted in the army below, and the call went out. Belatedly, he realized that they weren’t Artur’s troops - they bore the colors of another. Black on Crimson. Mordred? He ducked in time to avoid the volley of arrows, and set his timeslip to take him back a few hours and out onto a nearby hill.

The battle was almost accidental. Artur’s army, returning early, saw the red flags on Camelot’s towers, and circled round, through the woods, right up to the town’s verge. As soon as the gate opened, they charged up toward it, not realizing that Mordred was impatiently leading his own army out to seek Artur’s force. Mordred had numbers and position, but Artur’s troops had surprise and experience.

Lancelot, still inside Camelot, had closed the gates behind the usurper, letting the armies decide who would be king. Ambrose respected that decision, though it would probably mean whoever won would exile him.

At last, the two armies drew back, and Artur and Mordred came to parley. Ambrose struggled to think of a way to even begin to roll this back. Could it be one of Morgan’s plots? And how could he even begin to unravel this one? How far back did it go?

“Yes that's me, and no, it's not.” Morgan, wearied-looking, was at Ambrose’s side. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. That’s my... my son.”

Ambrose’s guard rose, but as soon as he saw her wearied, defeated demeanour he relaxed some. “Mordred?” She didn’t look like she’d spent enough years here to raise a child to Mordred’s age. “Why, Morgan?”

“You were winning. I had to try something new.” She admitted. “But even he is against me now. Bloodthirsty.”

Below, the two men stepped back and took combat stances. Morgan gasped. “A duel! Disagreements aside, we’ve got to do something, Ambrose.”

“Morgan, you’ve done enough.” Ambrose waved his gnarled walking-stick in front of her.

“But he’s my son!” She started to claw at her timeslip. ”I have to do something!”

Ambrose waited until she was absorbed in her frantic struggle with the device, then hit her over the head with his heavy druidic staff. Morgan fell to the ground, out cold. “Sorry, Morgan. This one’s out of our hands now.” He muttered, picking her up.

Below, the fight raged on. Mordred was faster, but Artur was, even at sixty years of age, stronger and more skillful. It was an even match.

“I’m sorry, my liege. I cannot help you any longer.” Ambrose whispered as he set his own timeslip for home. He knew he wouldn’t be coming back. With one last look at the duel below, Ambrose activated the handpiece, and he and his errant junior partner vanished in a purple flash of light.

This story written based on a prompt from Klazzform's Short Story Competition on rpgcrossing.com.

"Hide and Seek" (Part 5 of ?)

Part 4 to this story posted previously (here)

“Carrie, you’re fourteen. This can’t go on for the rest of your life. You have to stand up to her eventually.” Mark said, just loud enough to carry through the bathroom door but not loud enough to carry downstairs to the kitchen. Carrie was in there, retching her guts out, the effects of Lauren’s latest set of “vitamins” for the teenaged girl. Mark hadn’t heard any sound for a few minutes, though, so he suspected that she’d already expelled everything she had in her system, hence his willingness to try to start a conversation.

“Of course it will last forever.” Came Carrie’s weak reply. “She’s going to try to keep her claws in me all my life.”“That’s my point!” 

Mark, encouraged by the reply, pressed on. “If you make a show of not taking the vitamins, she’ll have to stop.” Mark, eighteen, was starting his senior year of high school and in the process of looking for colleges, which made him keenly aware that he wouldn’t always be around to take Caroline’s side.

“Mark...” Carrie almost audibly shook her head from behind the door. “She’ll get me declared mentally unstable. You know she will.” Caroline coughed loudly, and Mark winced at the sound.

Mark considered this for a moment, remembering the few times in the last few years he’d tried to broach the topic of treatment of Carrie with his mother. He had to admit that his little sister was probably right - Lauren had lashed out verbally and physically at Mark for even taking Carrie’s side on many occasions. Of course, Mark’s growth spurt had ensured that he really wasn’t afraid of her anymore - Lauren, four inches shorter, thirty-two years older, and fifteen pounds lighter, couldn’t really hurt him even if she tried. “You might be right. But you shouldn’t take the pills.”

“You’re probably right.” Carrie agreed grudgingly. “Koffer doesn’t even look at me before he prescribes, how would he know?” Carrie was referring to the fourth doctor in as many years that she had regular appointments with - or rather, that their mother had appointments with to discuss everything she disliked about Caroline and how best to go about correcting these deficiencies. Halwicz, the first, had at one point suggested to Lauren that she explore non-pharmaceutical options, apparently, and the next two hadn’t seen anything in Caroline’s behavior that had suggested a need for medication. As far as Mark could tell indirectly, the current one, a self-described child behavioral specialist, was a quack, and Caroline had far less charitable words to say about the man.

“Exactly.” Mark encouraged. “I mean, you might have to fake it for Mom, but that’s better than the alternative, right?”

“Not much better.” Carrie sounded dejected. “Mark, some days I think I should just leave.”

Mark started at this. His sister, running away? Things were bad sometimes, but he hadn’t thought they were unworkable at any point. After all, Carrie could easily outsmart Lauren even drugged halfway into a coma. Mark knew he wasn’t the mental star of the family, but even he had long since begun to feel like his mother was more to be pitied and outmaneuvered than directly opposed. “Carrie, that seems a little... extreme, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.” Carrie coughed again, and Mark was pretty sure that one was more chunky than the previous one. “Roz offered to give me a place to stay, if I can get there.”

Mark knew that Carrie’s ever-present imaginary companion could hardly shelter her. As far as Mark could tell, “Roz” existed only in Carrie’s head, a sort of semi-autonomous piece of her psyche that gave her advice and acted as a sort of peanut gallery to Carrie’s life. As far as he knew, he was the only one who knew this - and yes, it was bizarre, but Mark didn’t think it was bizarre enough to justify his mother’s actions. Caroline, after all, was a good student, was well-behaved, and didn’t bother anyone - a little bit of insanity now and then was well within her rights, in the older Farner’s mind. In addition, she had gotten good in recent years at keeping that insanity between herself and her brother. People still thought she was a little off, but she didn’t scare her classmates or teachers anymore.
 
“I’m not sure how you’d take her up on that, though.” Mark said, playing along reflexively. He’d grown up around Carrie, after all - playing along with the “Roz” game was second nature to him He didn’t doubt for a moment that there was a voice in Carrie’s head that she called “Roz”, but he didn’t really think, as he had years before, that this entity was an autonomous individual.

“Me neither.” Caroline grumbled. “Even I can’t go that far, but - ” Caroline broke off suddenly, as if interrupted.

“You okay, Carrie?” Mark inquired after a moment.

“Yeah. Roz just reminded me of something.” Came the reply. “What’s in those pills, truth serum? You very nearly got me talking beyond the Line.”

The Line again. Carrie’s word for the boundary between things she could tell Mark and things she couldn’t, for some undisclosed reason. Part of Mark wanted very much to know what secrets his sister kept, but they were hers and not his to ask for. “Want me to go away?” Mark asked hesitantly.

 There was a low, murmured sound from Carrie, which Mark didn’t quite make out, but before he could ask her to repeat that, the door opened, and a pale, disheveled Carrie poked her head out. If it weren’t for the fact that she still looked like death, Mark knew, Caroline would be a rather attractive girl - and she was at the age where boys were beginning to notice. That, combined with the fact that Mark would be leaving for college in less than a year, only strengthened his resolve to keep Carrie off anything that might cloud her judgement. Bitterly, he mentally fumed that Lauren would give her own daughter Roofies every day before school if she thought that would make Caroline move a little closer to the impossible daughter ideal.

“No, I don’t want you to go away.” Carrie replied to Mark’s earlier question, except Mark took it to have a second meaning. With a wince, Mark offered Carrie his arm, which she weakly accepted, and guided her down the hall toward her bedroom.

“You’re right.” She said again, as he opened the room door for her. “No more of those pills. Worst ones yet.” Carrie released Mark and leaned on the doorframe.

 “I’ll go get you some water.” Mark changed the subject. “Why don’t you lie down.”

Carrie nodded, and ducked into her room, so Mark went downstairs to the kitchen. He was dismayed, though, when he got there and his mother was sitting in front of the sink, fiddling with some new kitchen implement ordered from the 800 number in a loud commercial. She looked up as Mark entered, and rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Hungry again, Mark?” She shook her head. “Kitchen’s closed. You’re on your own.”

Mark shook his head. “Just want a glass of water.” He decided not to mention it was for Caroline - that would probably lead to a screed about how Mark “always took his sister’s side over the side of the woman who birthed him” or something like that.

Lauren seemed to buy it, returning her attention to the device in her hands, so Mark grabbed a glass and a few ice cubes, then went to fill it from the tap.

“Tap water, Mark?” Lauren shook her head, and gestured to the chrome machine next to the sink. “How many times do I have to tell you about all the things in that that are bad for you? Get it out of the filter.”

Mark grudgingly obeyed, letting the machine fill the glass at a slow trickle, while Lauren rambled on about the health benefits of pH balance and microclustering and a pile of other stuff that Mark knew from basic high school chemistry was pseudoscience at best and a hoax at worst. He was pretty sure that Lauren didn’t even notice when he retreated, water in hand, and headed back upstairs - she was still talking along that line of thought.

Carrie, curled up on her bed, looked half-asleep when Mark peeked her door open, but she waved him in and sat up enough to accept the water. One sip of it, though, and she made a face. “This is from that machine, isn’t it?” She asked.

“Yeah.” Mark shrugged. “How can you tell? I can never taste a difference.”

“Always tastes... sharp. I dunno.” Carrie, despite her protest, drained the glass. “It’s annoying is all.” She muttered as she set it down, returning to her previous curled-up state. “Thanks though.”

Mark turned to leave, but Carrie reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him. “Mark, close the door.” She asked, and her older brother could not but do as was requested.

As soon as Mark had closed the door, he felt a sort of chill, of the kind he associated with Carrie at her most unnerving. It was that feeling that he, years before, had associated with “Roz”, when he was still childlike enough to believe that that alleged entity was more than just one symptom of Carrie’s endearing (to Mark, anyway) disregard for notions of sanity. “What is it?” Mark prompted quietly as soon as the door was shut.

“I know I’ve made your life trouble, since Dad died.” Carrie sighed. “You’re always looking out for me, even when that gets you in trouble with Mom.”

“Carrie, all the crap Mom’s put me through on your account is her fault, not yours.” Mark interrupted. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Let me finish.” Carrie’s tired, nauseated expression melted away into one of fierce frustration for a moment, and Mark nearly stepped back in surprise. Carrie was hard to rile, most of the time. “I think there’s a time coming where you won’t be able to do that anymore.”

Mark had already been thinking about the fact that he was college-bound in less than a year, so took that to be what she meant. Before he could respond, though, Carrie continued. “But Mark, I want you to promise me something.”

“What’s that?” Mark queried, expecting that she was going to elicit a promise to visit, or to call regularly, or something, all of which Mark knew he’d be doing after he left for college anyway.

“Don’t you ever start thinking I’m just your crazy sister.” Carrie said, which matched nothing that Mark was expecting. “Promise me that you won’t start dismissing what I say and do as crazy just because you don’t understand it.”

Mark nodded, frowning. “I haven’t yet, and I won’t, I promise. Though I can’t promise I’ll understand. I don’t think I ever have.”

Carrie gave a single-breath chuckle. “That may change, Mark. Roz and I both think you could see the world my way, if you took the time to learn how.”

Mark shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t have my own Roz yet.” He intended this to be sort of light-hearted, but it was clear his sister didn’t take it that way.

“Roz told me this a long time ago - she’s not like others. You don’t want your own.” Carrie replied, seemingly reflexively, then jumped a little as if poked with a needle and looked away. “Apparently I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.” She admitted, sitting up a little and leaning against the headboard. “That’s a subject beyond the Line, sorry Mark.”

Mark frowned a little, not immediately replying. He was genuinely unsure how to make sense of any of that. Part of him wanted to abuse the mind-numbing effects of the drug that had made Carrie feel so ill, but the rest of him hated the thought of taking advantage. Yes, he could learn something about what was beyond her Line, what was inside her skull that had never gotten out, but Mark knew that that would violate her trust. “Should I go then? That’s the second time since you took the pills that you’ve said too much.”

Carrie shrugged. “I think I just need to sleep it off.”

Mark turned to leave, but as his sister laid back down in the bed she spoke once more.. “Remember, Mark. You promised.” She said seriously.

Mark turned back, and acknowledged with a nod and a thin smile, then left Carrie to sleep off the effects of the new medication.

---

The translations had slowly become routine, and Mark soon lost count of the number of times he had pushed the limit of the strange, springy translation boundary. His first run of the evening resulted in only fifteen translations, but in the first ten he’d beaten his prior record with a chain of twenty that turned his face red and sweaty with effort. It was a strange feeling, the exertion - not a muscle in his body was being strained, but he regularly had to forcibly relax his tense shoulders and arms - they seemed to sympathetically want to share the strain of the higher-order translations, as if doing so would take the effort off of his brain.

Soon twenty was surpassed, then thirty, and after what seemed like a herculean effort to break thirty-seven Mark broke off to get a drink, not remembering to snap himself back first. The apartment outside the mirror looked slightly dim and grayish, almost grainy. He attributed this at first to poor lighting - the hundred-watt incandescent bulb over the bar, the only light on outside the bathroom, seemed to be faint, like it was only putting out twenty watts’ worth of light.

He knew something was off, though, when the refrigerator didn’t open with his first tug. Trying again, with both hands, he managed to open it, but the force required was closer to that he would expect to move the refrigerator than to open it. It wasn’t that the door was stuck - every inch he pulled the handle back was as hard as the previous, like the hinges had been filled with thick tar or the door had been replaced with a slab of solid lead. The light inside also seemed wan, distant, and pale.

Carefully, Mark tried to lift a can of soda from inside the door. it seemed to weigh as much as a whole twenty-four pack case, if not more, and he had to navigate it out of its shelf with both hands. Setting the soda on the counter, he thought better of trying to pull the tab to open it. He knew immediately what was causing the strangeness, and, without bothering to return to the mirror, started another translation. Rather than pushing the boundaries with intent to break through, he pushed only until he felt resistance and then stopped.

The unmistakable settling sensation came back, far stronger this time than it had before, and Mark shook off a light feeling of vertigo that came with it. Almost immediately the light in the overhead bulb brightened back to its full hundred-watt yellow-white cheeriness. Experimentally, Mark picked up the can of soda - it was back to normal weight.

Mark drank the soda slowly, considering the implications. The world faded out when one accomplished enough steps in Carrie’s process - did that mean that he, too, would appear to fade out? Carrie had always been good at hiding herself - was this her secret? Could she simply step away from things, fading into almost nothing?

His eyes fell on the book, and Mark remembered that it was supposed to have a title. He hadn’t been paying attention to it moments before, but he wondered if thirty-seven was enough to see the writing that was mentioned inside.

Finishing his drink, Mark picked up Carrie’s instruction manual and carried it into the bathroom, and started another set. At twenty, he looked over to the book - nothing. At thirty, nothing. At thirty-five, the cover was grainy and hazy, but then everything besides his reflection looked a little grainy and dull. After the thirty-eighth, Mark thought he saw something, a discoloration on the book’s cover. Heartened, he pushed against the resistance to the next translation, and broke thirty-nine. The smudgy discoloration resolved itself into letters that swam into unreadability when he looked directly at them, but the dullness of the rest of his world made it clear to Mark that he was close. Turning back to the mirror, he pushed against the fortieth, expecting it to be the last keeping him from reading the title of Carrie’s book, wondering how many of the questions he’d always had about his little sister he’d have answered if he broke past.

But the resisting force, like a metaphysical trampoline, stymied his efforts again, and Mark did not just settle back - as if the enthusiasm for moving beyond forty was countered by enthusiasm for sending him back, Mark felt not settling but wrenching. His stomach turned, and he was immediately grateful that he had been practicing in the bathroom, as his dinner, now thoroughly mixed with the can of soda from moments prior, made a break for the exit.

Deciding after his insides had stopped heaving that that was perhaps enough translation for one night, Mark cleaned himself off and got into bed. Until now he hadn’t considered that the translations were anything but harmless, but between the dulling of his senses and the snap-back being able to make him sick (even though Mark was historically resistant to motion sickness of the usual types) Mark could no longer assume that the trick Carrie’s little book had taught him was harmless. How many translations before an incautious snap-back caused Mark permanent damage, or killed him? A hundred? Sixty?

As he lay thinking in the darkness, the cold feeling darted down his spine, and he had another, far more disturbing thought - if the translations were not harmless, what about the repetitive cold feeling, that Carrie seemed to imply was the result of contact with an invisible, intangible being, as Mark remembered from her childhood games? Supposing that entity did indeed exist, being associated somehow with the translation trick, he had to assume that it too could harm him. And if the cold feeling could be trusted, that meant it was close, perhaps seated at his bedside, or crouched over him, waiting for its unlucky victim to fall asleep...

No, Mark forcibly discarded that childish line of thought. Supposing the existence of such an entity (Mark still wasn’t sure he could believe it, even after Carrie’s first several instructions), it had had the run of his apartment for two days and had not yet caused him harm. Carrie’s invisible companion had always been a source of observations and aid, at least to Carrie herself - Mark couldn’t recall any times he saw Carrie berate or disagree with her “imaginary” companion.

Still, the possibility bothered him, and eventually, with a groan, Mark rolled out of bed and opened the bedroom door, feeling stupid for even considering what he was about to do. “Look.” He said quietly into the darkness. “I know you’re in here, when you get close I get a feeling. Always have. I’m not going to get any sleep unless you leave me alone... I’d appreciate it if you weren’t in here, okay?”

Mark’s words were met by silence. Even the light hissing sound of the traffic on the road didn’t penetrate this far into the building. He realized all the things he might have done wrong. what if the entity was more a pet than a person, trained by his sister? What if it didn’t understand English?

As Mark’s mind tried to compile a full list of all the reasons he was an idiot, it was interrupted by another cold feeling. This one was different - it was stronger, localized, not trickling in from all his extremities and then wriggling up his spine but centered on one side of his face. Had he not been paying attention it might have been dismissed as a draft at first, but it lasted a full two seconds, growing, before vanishing suddenly.

Shaking his head and not fully understanding what had just happened, Mark shut the door and walked around the room, unsuccessfully searching for the cold feeling. Reasonably certain that it had left him alone for the time being, Mark got back into bed, no less confused but slightly less fearful. It had listened to him, whatever it was, which suggested to him that it wasn’t dangerous.

At least, he decided, not for now, and not to him.

"Hide and Seek" (Part 4 of ?)

Part 3 to this story posted previously (here)

The events of the previous evening far from his mind,  Mark pulled into the apartment complex’s lot around five forty-five. It was raining again, a slow, misty drizzle that wasn’t falling so much as permeating the air. He dashed into the building and took the elevator up, and only when the doors closed did he really remember what the previous night’s little road trip had wrought. Five hours, he remembered the book saying. Well, five hours starting then, he realized, was wide open - why not see what it was that Carrie had for him next? Given the weather, he certainly didn’t have any particular desire to go out again.

His apartment looked as it had when he’d left that morning, with Carrie’s notebook laying closed on the countertop. Mark locked the door, and after heating up a can of soup in the microwave, he turned to page seven.

First, Mark, turn on a TV or a radio and find a station with nothing but static. There’s nothing special about the static, but you’ll need the white noise. It doesn’t need to be particularly loud, just audible. Let it run for a minute or so, then you can go on to the next page.

White noise? Mark read the paragraph, the only one on the page, again to be sure. Not really seeing the harm in white noise, Mark flipped on his countertop radio, tuned it to a dead band, and dialed it up to a reasonable volume. The hissing sounded no different from any other static, but why should it? Even Carrie’s book had said there’s nothing special about it. Mark counted to sixty, then read the next page, the hissing sound already part of the background, beyond notice.

Now  turn out all the lights in your place and close the blinds. If  you’re getting white noise from a radio, I suggest a flashlight - you’re going to need to read the next page with the lights off.

Mark, still trying to figure out what this was for, nevertheless finished his soup, then set about doing what she asked, using his cell phone’s screen as a flashlight after all the lights were out and the blinds were closed against the evening’s damp gray light. Besides the shifting triangles of light that seeped between the still-shifting blinds at the window, everything else was swallowed in the sudden gloom. Holding his cellular light source close to Caroline’s little book, Mark turned to the next page.

Before he could read a word of it, though, a tiny noise behind him made Mark whirl on the stool chair, peering into the darkness beyond which the apartment’s bathroom lay. He saw nothing there, though - only shadows. The musings of the previous night’s drive came to mind - what, Mark supposed, if he wasn’t alone in his apartment? What if some mysterious, ghostly being had been the purpose of the bizarre antics Carrie had proscribed, and that entity was now invisibly lurking in the darkness?

Expecting that unsettling cold feeling Mark had known on and off all his life to come back, Mark stepped out of the chair and toward the bathroom, cell phone held ahead of his face to light the way. By the time he got to the bathroom doorway, though, the feeling had not struck him - perhaps the sound was just the building settling, or came from the apartment below?
    
Shaking his head, Mark went back to the counter and to Carrie’s book.
   
Mark, imagine that that static isn’t the radio, it’s something else. Something you remember from years ago.
    
The two sentences were alone at the top of the page, and below that Carrie had drawn a little curved arrow. Mark took the arrow to be an instruction to turn the page again, and did so.
    
 Don’t think, just imagine, and read. It’s not static, it’s the hiss of a fountain. After that, another “next page” arrow.
    
Mark stopped. A fountain? What was Carrie doing? He sat back on the stool. What could be the purpose of these pages? He wondered what these “instructions” were intended to accomplish.
   
Unless, Mark realized, Carrie was trying to lead him to something, something he already knew. But what was the point in that when the same goal would be achieved by simply reminding him?
    
With a sigh, Mark bent over the book and read the page again.
     
Don’t think, just imagine, and read. It’s not static, it’s the hiss of a fountain.
    
Mark turned the page, trying to picture a fountain.
    
The whole family is there on the lawn, in white plastic chairs and nice clothes. The grass is almost too green to be real, but you aren’t paying attention to it.
    
Flip. Mark’s mind pictured green, tended grass, chairs. A wedding? No. Mark had never been to an outdoor wedding. The only outdoor ceremony he’d been to was -
    
They gave you a seat in the front row, right between Mom and me, and everyone can see you crying but you can’t help it. You don’t want to be crying, why are you crying? You have to be strong.
    
Flip. Mark’s eyes burned with remembered tears as the memory played just as Carrie described it. His mind had caught hold of the scene.
     
The casket behind the man at the podium is closed. Mom hadn’t wanted to have an open casket, you know. She’s in the same state you are, but it’s expected that she cries.
    
Dad’s funeral, Mark thought vaguely as he flipped to the next page. It was a memory he didn’t like to recall, why was Carrie dredging it up? Their father had died when Mark was a teenager.
    
He could see the fountain now. It was the kind where the water spills down evenly over an artificial cataract, not the kind with water jets spraying into the air. That kind was too lively for a cemetery - the one they had was quiet, soothing. Peaceful. It was background noise for the solemn goings-on that surrounded it. Mark had forgotten the fountain until now.
    
Jack Lynch, Dad’s old friend, is speaking. You remember him from years ago, when he was fit and lively, but he’s pale and thin now, wasting away, but you can’t see him through the tears and your mind puts the old “Uncle Jack” in his place.
    
Mark might have wondered how Carrie knew all this, but he was beyond that now, fully caught up in a memory both painful and compelling.
    
You wouldn’t look at me, you didn’t want me to see your grief. You wanted to be the strong older brother you thought I needed. So you kept your face turned to the podium and concentrated on Jack’s retelling of some of his best memories of his buddy.
    
 Mom had been squeezing Mark’s hand so hard that he wondered if he’d have broken fingers lately, but at the time he hadn’t minded. His father was dead, and he would have gladly sacrificed all of his almost-fourteen-year-old fingers to have his old man back.
    
He wondered how Carrie was holding up, in that abstracted part of his mind where he could think clearly despite his emotional state. He couldn’t hear her, but Carrie had always been one to cry silently, not to weep openly, so there were not as many eyes on her.
    
That part of Mark’s mind was acutely aware of the eyes on him. He was the man of the house now, right? Sure, the twins were technically older, but they lived in different states. How could they look after Mom and Carrie from that distance? He felt their eyes on him head the most heavily, from their seats on the other side of Mom. And what was he doing? He was crying like an infant in front of over a hundred people.
     
Jack finishes. It looked like he was going to say more, but he choked up and surrendered the stage, and another man came up. You vaguely recognized him, but that’s all - maybe a man Dad worked with.
    
 Mark clenched his free hand to try to get control of himself, to try to stop crying. Everyone else here had the luxury of mourning openly, so why was he the only one who couldn’t help but do so when he was the one who needed to be strong? Was he the only person there (besides his mother, that was) that felt the need to weep as the realization that George Farner was dead set in?
    
Mark wished hard to stop crying. He wished that his father wasn’t dead. He even tried wishing he wasn’t there, at the funeral.
     
You did something then, you’ve never done before. You put all your mind and all your heart into something impossible, and with all the willpower you could muster, you pushed against the world.
     
Mark latched onto the wish that he wasn’t at the funeral. He bent his head down and clenched the fist that wasn’t being crushed by Lauren Farner’s grief-stricken grip, and he squeezed his eyes shut, and he tried to will himself away, to somewhere he could grieve for his father alone. To anywhere else. Anywhere but there, in that hard plastic chair on the lawn of a cemetery in May. He put all his mind into it, and then more he didn’t know he had, all of it into the same thing, imagining himself farther from the place he was.
     
I saw you do it, Mark. You did it. You pushed hard enough, in that moment, and you got through just a little. Mom didn’t notice, she couldn’t. But someone besides me did.
    
Mark opened his eyes, and the grass between his well-dressed knees was still there. Nothing had changed, despite all his best efforts he was still weeping his eyes out in front of his extended family and pretty much every family friend his parents had in a cemetery, twenty feet from the casket containing his father’s lifeless body.
    
He looked up, and the vaguely-familiar man at the podium was stepping down. Beyond him, Mark saw a girl of about his age who he did not recognize standing beside the casket, her hand resting on the side of the wooden box. Mark was stunned - who was this girl who had wandered into a private funeral? His first instinct was to be angry. Why was no-one doing anything about her?
    
She was dressed in black, and her head was turned toward the casket, bent low as if in mourning. She had an unruly mess of straight but mussed and tangled red hair, and she was built like Carrie - thin, giving the impression of frailty that Mark knew was only an illusion in Carrie’s case.
    
As Mark sat wondering why none of the grown-ups about had moved to guide the girl away and debating if he should say something, she turned to look in his direction, and their gazes locked. From where Mark was sitting, her eyes looked green - not the standard eye-color green, but a color so bright and vibrantly green that in comparison to it the lawn, itself far too green, looked pale and brown. He knew immediately that there was something not right about those eyes.

At first she didn’t believe you saw her, just as you couldn’t believe someone would let their kid just wander up to a stranger’s funeral and get right up to the casket. She had had fleeting moments several times before where she thought you might have glimpsed her, but this time she knew it.
     
The girl bowed her head and dashed around behind the bier, and still no-one went after her. By the time the next speaker got up to the podium, she had not come back out. She was probably still hiding there, Mark realized - maybe he’d been the only one to see her, but how was that possible, that is, unless everyone had been staring at him rather than at the podium or the casket?
    
Carrie nudged her brother in the ribs then, and he turned to look at her. He almost jumped out of his seat when he turned and saw her eyes lit up with the same vibrant green as the mystery girl’s -

But that must have been a trick of the light. No, he realized, with a settling feeling, they were their normal grayish color.

Carrie gave a wincing, reassuring smile, and patted Mark’s arm, saying without words that they’d get through this. Together.
    
The phone’s screen had gone out, and Mark didn’t know how long it had been out. He became immediately conscious of the static playing in the radio - no longer gently cascading water, it was merely static again. Mark’s cheeks were tight from drying tears, a sensation he hadn’t felt in a decade. He’d gone that long without thinking of that day for a reason - it was the most painful day of his life to date. At George Farner’s death, Mark’s childhood had ended abruptly, and at his funeral, the rest of Mark’s life had begun on a very undignified note.
    
Mark tapped his phone’s “power” button so the screen came back on, and re-read the page it was open to. Who was “she”? Presumably, the young girl with the intense green eyes and the red hair.
    
He set the phone down, screen-up, and as he did the shadow of something darted back from the counter at his side as the light spread. Mark scrambled to pick it back up and point it in that direction, but the phone’s pale illumination revealed nothing there.
    
Mark sighed shakily and mentally chalked his jumpiness up to the fact that he was just prodded into remembering with near-perfect clarity  some of the worst minutes of his life. Underneath that last paragraph, presumably about the green-eyed girl, there was another turn-the-page arrow, this time near the bottom of the page rather than right below the text.

He hesitated, though, before turning the page, wondering if the rest of Carrie’s steps would be as... powerful. Mark had always had a good memory of events, but for reading a few words to bring up old memories like that was without precedent.

With a shrug, he flipped the page, at least wanting to see what came next. He’d by this point lost count of the pages he’d gone through, and decided that it didn’t matter - Caroline hadn’t numbered them. 

While what you did then is fresh in your mind, do it again. I can’t really say more than that. Do it in front of a mirror, if one’s handy, and you’ll begin to see where all this is leading. You’ll know when you’ve succeeded, and then come back and turn the page. 

Mark read the short paragraph carefully. What he’d done, that must mean the wishing - Carrie’s text had focused on it specifically. But he hadn’t gone anywhere - the wishing had been an abject failure of a childish hope then, and there was precious little chance of that being any different now. Mark, after all, was a grown man now, and was hardly going to expect that sort of childish wishing to change reality.
    \
But it was in the instruction book, and Mark was still curious, if now a bit annoyed with Caroline for making him remember Dad’s funeral like that.
    
With a resigned sigh, Mark flipped on the overhead light and went into the bathroom, leaning his palms against the sink. His reflection in the mirror was a sorry sight, but that wasn’t what he was here to see. Why wishing oneself away would have a visible effect in a mirror Mark could not even guess, but he discovered a curious thing: he no longer felt the desire to question Carrie’s little book. Deciding that he had used up all his energy for questioning suffering through the recollection of his father’s funeral, Mark closed his eyes, dropped his head, and devoted every shred of his mind and will to wishing that he was not in his apartment, that he was somewhere else. Anywhere else. He held that in his mind for a long moment, but didn’t feel any different.
    
Opening his eyes, Mart saw nothing had changed - it hadn’t worked, whatever it was supposed to do. Nothing was different - he was still leaning on his bathroom sink, looking haggard, in his work shirt.
    
Mark gripped the edge of the counter and lowered his head in frustration. Carrie had been wrong. Whatever it was she wanted him to do, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t just close his eyes and leave his drab, lonely apartment at will.
    
All of a sudden, Mark realized how much he very much he’d wanted this whole thing to be going somewhere. A part of him had, upon asking himself if the whole thing was ridiculous, hoped beyond hope that there was more to it than a joke, or the product of a crazy sibling gone off the meds. Carrie had for years been simultaneously Mark’s closest companion and the greatest enigma he knew, and this from the beginning had implied to him that completing the book’s instructions might teach something about Carrie herself. Something to prove what Mark had believed since childhood - that Carrie was not insane, or incomprehensible.
    
If the book’s instructions were nothing but memory prompts, tricks, and meaningless dictates, Mark realized, he could no longer believe that Carrie was sane. He could no longer defend her to his mother. He couldn’t even defend his sister’s sanity in his own mind.
    
Mark wanted very much to be somewhere else, if only to prove that there was something coherent in the head of his younger sister, the person who’d been his childhood companion and closest friend. He wanted to find the secret that proved Carrie sane, to himself if to no-one else. For a second time, he wished, put all his mind and heart into wishing, that he was anywhere else, or barring that, that he could see the world like Carrie saw it.
    
Something in Mark’s mind clicked, like a tumbler siding into place, but Mark didn’t feel any different after. The feeling, though, was alien and unmistakable. His heart leaped - had he done it?
    
When he opened his eyes, Mark was still standing in his bathroom, looking down into the sink. Deciding that he had imagined the feeling of something happening, Mark raised his eyes to his own reflection with a resigned sigh, and jumped back in shock.
    
In his reflected face, Mark’s usually clear, dark-brown irises glowed a neon green, impossibly bright. As he watched, the glow flickered and faded, and his eyes returned to normal. Not that Mark felt anything - without the mirror, he wouldn’t have noticed anything different.
    
Remembering what the book had said, Mark dutifully went back to the counter and flipped to the next page.
    
What you more than likely just saw is not a transformation of you or anything else, but a translation - a movement along an axis you cannot perceive. It probably only lasted a second or two before stopping - think of it as analogous to a step. You have to learn to take steps effortlessly before I can teach you to run or dance, so right now just concentrate on practice.
    
I’ll explain what the translation does later, but for now, trigger as many as you can. Each will become successively harder, but it’s like doing pushups, Mark - you can do more with practice. When you can see the title on this book’s cover, turn to the next page.
    
Vague as always, Mark mentally remarked about his sister’s instructions. Maybe he’d get his wish after all, to see the world the way Caroline did. The alternative, that Caroline had managed to unmoor Mark from sanity, briefly crossed his mind as he returned to the mirror, but he discarded the possibility.
    
Marking his page and closing the book, Mark examined the cover. It was soft false leather, with no brand name, and no title - probably a journal Carrie had gotten at a bookstore. Mark didn’t see any depressions where there’d be letters or words, but Carrie said that he’d be able to see a title with enough of the green-eye-flash trick. Not thinking about it too hard (he was certain that there would be no benefit in doing so), Mark returned to the mirror and attempted Carrie’s little exercise again.

   
Ten “translations” in, Mark was able to make his reflection’s eyes green without an emotion-soaked force of all his will, but it still took a good deal of effort and required him to close his eyes for several seconds. It was only then that he wondered fleetingly how one “un-translated” - but given that none of the supposed “movements on axes” had seemed to do anything, Mark tossed the thought aside, expecting it to be answered in a subsequent step in the book once he needed it.
    
 At number thirteen, he encountered the resistance first. It was strange, like something dragging his thoughts back from that thing so near a wish that triggered Carrie’s “translation” effect. But he beat it. Fourteen was harder still, but Mark managed - barely - to complete the trick - with about the same amount of effort as his first few translations had taken. At fifteen, he gripped the counter with white-knuckled hands, gritting his teeth and forcing his thoughts and emotional energy to go where he wanted them, struggling against inexplicable forces. Eventually, he yielded to the resisting force, and nearly collapsed in shock at the sensation of settling, at the impression that the air around him wavered slightly. He knew without the book telling him that failing the trick had put him all the way back to square one, and knew with a bit of mild satisfaction that that meant he knew how to reverse the trick in a pinch - by taking it as far as he could go and letting it “snap back”.
    
Two hours of on-and-off practice later, Mark, with increasing ease and decreasing discomfort at the alien green glow, turned in for the night. It was steadily getting easier both to “translate” (Carrie’s term for the bizarre glowing-eyes trick, which Mark had adopted), but each push still took several seconds, and his best count all night was seventeen - the second to last set.
    
 As he got into bed, Mark wondered what the little trick, Carrie’s “translation”, was really for. In itself, it was something novel, but maybe, just maybe, Mark hoped, it was a bit of what made Carrie who she was. A dozen conversations or more between pre-teen Carrie and Mark’s own teenaged self would have made a lot more sense in light of this development, he realized - but he failed to determine the logical conclusion of this context before he drifted off to sleep.

Mark’s alarm went off the next morning, and he grudgingly rolled out of bed to deactivate it. The previous night’s discovery seemed far off to his morning-hazed mind, replaced by the concerns of work. As he went through his routine, he even wondered if the whole bit had been a dream, if he would slowly come to remember that as sleep became a more remote prospect in his mind

As he left the apartment, though, that had not yet happened, so he determined that he had indeed learned a new trick from Carrie’s book. Still not satisfied, Mark went into the office bathroom as soon as he got to work to perform the “translation” trick. He half-expected it not to work, but work it did - Mark looked up to see the green glow he remembered lighting his irises, and did not leave the bathroom until it had faded.

After that, Mark coasted through the day as much as he was able, the book that still sat on his apartment countertop being foremost in his mind. Mark had spent all his early life trying to see the world like his little sister did, and had years ago given up hoping that one day he might learn how she worked. The book could only be her way of beginning to show him - why now, Mark wondered? What had changed? And Why had Carrie not elected to do this in person?

Despite not having enough information, Mark tried out, and discarded, several theories over the course of his day. His work suffered - the only thing he managed to get done was the monthly network security report - but not so much, he suspected, that his boss would be able to tell that something was up. Mark felt an irrational desire to keep Carrie’s book and its contents secret - he thought it was irrational, anyway. He knew that Carrie hadn’t told him in the book to keep anything secret, but that didn’t stop him from feeling reflexively that it should be.

 After seemingly the longest work-day in months, Mark was relieved to return home and again tackle the mystery in the notebook, remembering only belatedly to stop on the way to get something to eat. When you can see the title on this book’s cover, turn to the next page. Mark read again, as he distractedly ate his Chinese take-out. How many translations would it take to do that? He remembered doing fourteen successfully, but he hadn’t checked to see if that was enough - but he doubted it would be.

As soon as he was done disposing of the empty styrofoam cartons that had contained his meal, Mark returned to the bathroom mirror, and started doing more translations.

Story continues in part 5 (here).