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  Sighing for things that could never be, he watched the stars. Before even realizing it, the black thief of fatigue came and scampered away with his consciousness.

  Cracking open eyes red as the fires of hell, and drier than the sands of the Kiln, Holk returned to the world. No longer shrouded in cool darkness, he found night having fled and that dawn had come.

  Rays from the tormenting sun penetrated his bastion. Already, the temperature within the cave had increased twenty degrees. Not exactly hot as yet, the air retained only the faintest memory of coolness remembered from before.

  At least the position of the sun in relation to that of the cave entrance had prevented the rays from falling directly upon him. Holk could feel the heat radiating outward from where they did land, less than a foot away. He knew it wanted him, could see it in the way it maliciously inched its way closer to him with the rising of the sun.

  “You’ll not have me,” he croaked. Throat parched beyond belief, he laughed. Not the normal laughter one would find at the local tavern, or perhaps the sort that bubbled forth when the person you despised the most acted in an embarrassing, and much ridiculed manner. No, this laughter boiled forth from another source. Holk wished to believe it came from the fact that he lived, but feared it may be the beginning of madness.

  As the sun crept closer across the floor of the cave, the laughter continued, only winding down when his stomach cramped and seized up on him in a most painful spasm. Doubling over, Holk wrapped his arms around his middle, fell to the side, and writhed in agony. By the time the pain had stopped, the sun peeked around the edge of the opening and fell upon him.

  His eyes flashed with hate toward the burning orb, and he rolled deeper within the cave, away from its murderous clutch. Coming up against the other side of his small enclosure, Holk came to a stop. Eyes focused upon the light that could no longer reach him, he felt the return of the laughter. Fearing to allow it free reign once more, Holk balled his hand into a fist, and struck his leg a painful blow. The interjection of pain halted the laughter, and he grew calm once more.

  Hoping that if he ceased gazing toward the sunlight, the laughter would remain in its lair, Holk, turned to take in his surroundings. Last night, the cave had been steeped too deeply in darkness to make out more than vague outlines. Now that the sun had infiltrated his refuge, he could see its every detail.

  Small would be the best description of the cave. If he and three other men laid down head to foot, the line thus formed would be hard pressed not to touch the walls. The entrance through which the bright invader shone proved to be the only way out. Above, the ceiling rose to twice his height before tapering to a close. Around him, the walls formed a ragged excuse for a circle.

  No water. Not even the barest hint of a drip cascaded down the sides. His hope of a wet sanctuary had been dashed upon the dry rocks of despair. The one consolation he had was that he remained out of the sun, and the rock protecting him drew coolness up from the depths below as a man would water in a well.

  Not a bad place to spend one’s final hours, especially considering the alternative. Glancing once again to the patch of sunlight spread across the cave’s floor, he tried spitting contemptuously at the light, but his mouth held no saliva.

  Sighing, he laid his head back against the rock and closed his eyes.

  Take me.

  But death turned a deaf ear to his plea and left him to suffer a few moments longer. Moments turned into minutes, minutes passed into hours, and the sun marched in steady progression across the floor. As time passed and the sun rose to its zenith, the amount of sunlight entering the cave diminished until naught but a small sliver remained.

  Holk watched that sliver during its last moments of life. Ever smaller it became, thinning and shortening until it was but the width and length of a man’s finger. Just before vanishing altogether, a strange thing occurred; an iridescent refraction. Lasting no more than the flutter of a raven’s wings, a miniscule explosion of light blossomed forth.

  So quick, and lasting such a short time, Holk hadn’t thought much about it at first. Minutes passed, and he found his mind returning to the starburst of light. Maybe due to the isolation of the cave, or perhaps because boredom had set in, his mind continued replaying the flash of light. Finally, he roused himself sufficiently to crawl over and see what it could be, if for no other reason than to quell the insistent obsession his mind had with it.

  The temperature rose dramatically as he neared the cave’s entrance. Perspiration would have formed, had his body held a sufficient quantity of water. He wanted to quickly satiate his curiosity and return to the cooler, inner confines of the cave. The air had already increased fifteen degrees in such a short span of distance.

  As he neared the area whereupon the sun had shone, Holk found the stone floor to be heated to an unpleasant state. Testing indentations and raised, sand dusted imperfections scoring the floor, he found placements for his hands that didn’t burn as much, and came to the source of the flash.

  Blowing away a thin layer of sand, he discovered something shiny encased within the stone of the floor. Intrigued, he tried using a fingernail to pry it loose to no effect. Next, he tried using the tip of his belt knife. But that too failed to produce results.

  Being unable to win its release from the stone only piqued his interest all the more. Turning his attention to the area encompassing the shiny object, he began chipping away at the stone. He found a hand-sized rock and used it as a hammer to drive the knife-point into surrounding imperfections.

  Chips flew. Small though they may be, he gradually made progress and soon, a cavity began to form around what turned out to be a many faceted stone. Unlike any stone he had ever seen before, it was clear, translucent, and incredibly small. The skill involved in its construction had to have been of the highest kind.

  Further excavation revealed the stone to be part of a larger, silvery object lined with other, similar stones. Intrigued, he continued widening the hole. Even though his efforts pitted the blade and warped it out of shape, still he kept pounding away.

  The silvery object turned out to be rounded, a corner of something larger perhaps? With the hole now four inches deep, he chipped away another piece that revealed a shiny surface, one as smooth as glass. Clearing away the debris and blowing away the dust his efforts had created, he realized it was glass, a mirror in fact.

  Such a realization shocked him. A mirror? Buried in stone in the middle of the Kiln? How could it have survived? Assuredly, time spent thus entombed should have seen the glass shattered, or at the very least, cracked, long ago.

  Tapping ever so gently with his stone and knife, he carefully chipped away more of the cave floor from in front of the glass. If the dimensions of what had thus far been revealed gave any indication, the mirror had to be quite sizeable. Once his excavation exposed another three inches of the mirror’s surface, he removed as much of the debris from the hole as he could. Then, after a short period of blowing away the finer particles, he could better see the reflective surface.

  Dust clung to the glass like honey on a child’s hand. Reaching out with his fingers, he began wiping the surface clean. No sooner had his finger touched the glass, than sight left him and darkness consumed him, or so it felt.

  Death had come!

  Overcome by a feeling of weightlessness, Holk cried out. For the first time since coming of age, fear overcame him and forced a sound from him he never thought to utter. So primal was its intensity, that it felt as if it would tear asunder his already parched and ill-used throat.

  A sudden plunge into ice-cold water cut his cry short as his feet, followed by the rest of him, went under. The unexpected submerging in frigid temperature shocked him back to his senses. At first flailing about in disorientation, he quickly brought his actions under control and kicked for the surface. When his head broke the water, he sputtered and coughed, expelling a lung full of water.

  Not a light could be seen. No shades of gray or deeper shadows c
ould be discerned. The darkness was absolute. Holk didn’t care, he had water! Precious, life-saving water. Crisp, cool, and wonderful, he kept himself afloat while drinking his fill. Tempted to fill his entire being with the wonderful liquid, he brought his urge under control after the fifteenth swallow. No need to get sick by ingesting too much, too soon.

  The uncontrollable laughter returned. He splashed. He played. He laughed with complete, unrestrained giddiness. On the brink of madness, he didn’t know if he were alive or dead. Did it matter?

  Chapter 2

  Giddy euphoria only lasts so long. For Holk, it had lasted long enough that a shiver, produced by heat loss due to his continued immersion in cold water, coursed through his body. What an odd feeling. He was cold!

  When another shiver prompted a brief period of teeth chattering, he came to the realization that he may not have expired. Unless of course, this really was the Realm of the Dead. He gave the idea little credence since in all the stories heard throughout his life, never had death’s realm been described as never-ending water devoid of light.

  Sipping more of the water in which he treaded, he came to the conclusion that if he weren’t dead, he had to be somewhere. How he came to be there, or where this somewhere was, were questions in need of answering.

  “Hello?”

  Shouting, he listened for a reply. All that returned were echoes of his own voice.

  “Anyone there?”

  Again, no reply other than a rapidly diminishing, echoing refrain.

  A mental picture emerged based on the echoing replies. Could he be underground? An underground lake, perhaps? The way his voice reverberated back to him made such a theory plausible, however unlikely it might be.

  I’ve gone mad. That was the only explanation that seemed to fit. He had heard of people undergoing terrible situations who lost their minds. And if what he had experienced in the last weeks couldn’t be termed, “terrible,” then what could?

  This would be the sort of place a sun-maddened man’s mind would create for itself, a suitable refuge from the heat. Splashing, he thought it a rather vivid dream world. Thinking perhaps his mind may have stocked this land with more than just water, he began swimming to set out in search of it.

  Using lazy strokes, Holk made slow progress. He had been at it several minutes when one of his feet encountered something solid and unyielding. Being rather firm and encompassing a wide area, Holk attempted to stand. Coming upright, he found the water to be waist high.

  It turned out to be the beginnings of a knoll rising from the surface. Small, with a diameter slightly less than six paces in width, it at least afforded him freedom from the frigid water. He cleared a spot of loose rubble and lay down as fatigue still plagued him. It would take a long period of recuperation before he would ever again feel rested.

  Minutes passed as he lay upon the rocky knoll. The circumstances of his situation gnawed at him. Shouldn’t madness introduce other elements of a more odd and unbelievable nature than water and rock? Where were the fantastic beasts, the glowing swords, maidens with three breasts?

  Sleep remained unattainable despite gnawing fatigue. He sat up and again tried to pierce the darkness surrounding him. There was not even the barest softening of the stygian blackness. He wouldn’t mind so much being in a world created by his madness if he could but see his environment.

  Maybe, if my mind created this world, I could use my mind to change it?

  With that thought urging him into action, he formed a vision of a lamp sitting upon the knoll next to him. “Let it be!” Using every bit of concentration and forced thought at his disposal, he willed the lantern to be. All he received for his effort was disappointment. No lamp materialized.

  He tried again with food, with a woman of exaggerated proportions, with a single blade of grass. Yet each attempt met with failure. If his mind was the true creator of this realm, he couldn’t do anything to change its aspect.

  “Hey!”

  Shouting once again, he willed for there to be an answer. None came. Frustration! Taking a rock from off the knoll, he vented his aggravation by giving out with an inarticulate cry and throwing it as hard as he could. About to break into a steady stream of expletives, he was shocked into silence when the rock, launched so angrily into the air, struck something. The crack of its impact echoed repeatedly until finally dying out.

  Holk stood perfectly still until the last echo faded away. The sound of impact jarred his thinking from that of this being a realm of madness to one where his situation may be a bit more real. Picking up another rock, he hurled it in the opposite direction.

  Silence hung in the air as he waited for the expected crack. Instead, he heard a plunk as the rock impacted the surface of the water a fair distance from the knoll. Excited by the disparity in the two results, he gathered more rocks.

  One by one, he began sending them out over the water. Alternating between those that plunked, and those that cracked, he built a mental image as to the dimensions of this reality. In short order, he soon had a good idea in which direction the closest “wall” lay. Of course, he couldn’t be certain the rock had in fact hit any kind of wall, but could come up with no other rationalization.

  Perhaps he was within an enclosure of some kind? He no longer worried about the incredulity of such incongruous happenings, like his being where logic assured he could never be. The rocks were hitting something, and that something was different from the knoll. Different enough, perhaps, to offer the prospect for a change?

  Stepping to the water’s edge, he readied himself to return to the cool water. With no light to guide him, he waded out until the water reached a little above his waist, then dove forward.

  He had always been a good swimmer. Days spent as a youth along the Catalyst’s Stream, supplied enough experience for him to easily make this swim. Taking long strokes, he felt his body course through the water at a respectable speed.

  …seven…eight…nine…

  Counting each stroke, he waited until reaching twenty before pausing to see if he could touch the bottom. When his first attempt proved premature, he counted another ten strokes before trying again. This time, his toes touched the bottom, barely. A few more strokes brought him to a depth whereby he could walk with relative ease.

  Holk streamed water as he carefully made his way up the slope to dry land. Still unable to see even the most miniscule spec of shadowing, he held his hands out before him and took small, searching steps.

  His feet encountered a beach equally as rocky as the knoll had been. The loose rubble shifted beneath his feet, but considering how slow he moved, it caused him little trouble.

  As he had with the strokes through the water, so too did he count his steps across the dry land. At seventeen, his hands encountered rock, a rock wall as it turned out. Moving his hands along the surface, he discovered it rose higher than he could reach, and extended outward to either side. He shuffled first one way, then the other without encountering an end. In his mind’s eye, he came to think of himself being within some kind of cavern. One way being as good as another, Holk decided to try his luck to the left.

  Sidestepping along the wall, he kept his hands in constant contact with the stony surface. The feel of its rough, irregular texture helped cement this into reality, as well as giving him something to focus upon.

  He thought about how real all this felt; the wall’s rough surface, the shallow depressions, even an abrupt outcropping three paces in length he had to maneuver around in order to continue. Holk had truly become a believer in the reality of this place, up until the moment his hand passed onto an area smooth to the touch. The unexpectedness of the encounter brought his exploration to a sudden halt.

  Smooth and cool, cooler than the rock to which it was attached, this new surface protruded an inch from the wall. Holk used a finger to trace the outer circumference and discovered it to be oval, roughly two feet tall and a foot and a half wide. Unsure exactly what he had come across, he began working his finger to
ward the object’s center. Two inches in from the outer edge, the surface dropped a quarter of an inch. Then it was gone, and so too was the stygian absoluteness of this newfound dark world.

  No longer in contact with the object, Holk now stood in a dimly lit room. Two narrow windows in the wall before him, one to his right and the other to his left, allowed moonlight to filter in.

  Apparently, his madness was not done with him. Trying to resolve the incongruities of the sudden shift in surroundings, Holk remained still as he took in his new environs.

  The room, for room it definitely was, complete with the pair of windows already noted and a door to his right, had been constructed with blocks of stone set one atop another in an alternating pattern.

  To his left was perhaps the most incongruous thing of all. An upright, rectangular field of shadow bordered by a golden area, stood at roughly eye level. Such was its out-of-placeness, that he took three steps toward the object before even realizing it.

  It was a mirror. The rectangular field of shadow turned out to be the mirror’s reflective surface. Holk’s mind tried to grasp what he saw. Nothing made sense, the madness seemed to be spiraling out of all control.

  Now that his curiosity over the field of shadow had been satisfied, he turned his attention to the two narrow windows. Each bore a pair of thick bars, effectively keeping anyone from passing through. As he approached, he caught the scent of salt upon the slight breeze wafting in. Placing his face between the bars, he saw moonlight reflected off a great expanse of water beginning some hundred feet below where waves crashed upon rock.

  From desert, to a world of water, and now this. Holk shook his head. At least his madness wouldn’t bore him while it ravaged his mind. After staring at what he believed to be an ocean for an extended period of disbelief, he turned his attention to the only possible way from the room; the door.