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 toward 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.

  Made of stout wood and banded in three places with iron, it proved quite solid. When it turned out to be locked, he was hardly surprised. After all, why should his madness make things easier for him?

  “Now what?”

  Mumbling to himself, he wandered back to the window and stared out. “Hello?” he shouted. When no answer returned, he wondered if he would have been more surprised had he received a reply.

  He stood at the window staring out at the unchanging waters for what seemed hours. When the sky began to lighten, he came to realize that the windows looked westward, though he doubted if such information would prove useful in his present condition. With the onset of dawn, the added light enabled him to better inspect his new prison, for prison was how he had come to think of this place. Locked door, iron barred windows, if it wasn’t a prison, it was close.

  His newly brightened world revealed four wall sconces set about the room. Three were empty while the fourth held a two and a half foot haft of wood. As the light grew in intensity, he discovered it to be a torch, unused by the looks of it. Reaching up, he pulled it from the sconce and held it in his hand. For madness, his world sure had the heft and feel of reality.

  Clasping the torch gave him a sense of comfort. Why, he wasn’t sure, but just having it did much for his morale. Most of his equipment had been lost during the flight through The Devil’s Kiln. Other than a belt pouch wherein he kept his most basic requirements for survival such as his flint stone and a handful of coins, everything else but the clothes on his back had been discarded. Even the blanket with which he had covered himself during the oppressive heat of the Kiln was gone. At least with the torch, he would have light for a short duration once the sun went down. After that…?

  Wondering what ravages the Kiln’s oppressive heat may have wrought upon him, Holk moved to the mirror. In the burgeoning light, he found it to be medium-sized and rectangular. The outer frame looked to be gold with fancy filigree worked into all four corners. Turning his attention to the image in the mirror, he saw how his skin had turned very dark, his lips and the area around his nostrils showed moderate crackage. What a sight his visage had become. It would take some time before healing erased the damage.

  Running his fingers over his face, he traced the outline of a scar upon his jaw line, one that he couldn’t recall having acquired. Most likely it had happened during, or subsequently after, the disastrous siege.

  His mind wandered back, trying to place the precise point in time. Minutes passed as he wandered along memory’s byways, moving from the siege, to times before the siege, and to other instances captured from a lifetime of experiences, as one’s mind tended to do when not micro-managed.

  During an episodic recollection of his youth, Holk realized that his complexion in the mirror had altered slightly. Snapping back to the present, he discovered the face in the mirror looked subtly different than it had but a few moments ago. The sun-fried cracks seemed less pronounced, and the redness of his skin had lightened a shade.

  Reaching fingers to again tactilely inspect the damage, they told him the damage remained despite the evidence reflected in the mirror. He closed his eyes, and shook his head. When he looked again, the face in the mirror had returned to normal.

  It must be the madness. Madness, after all, often played tricks on the mind. Wasn’t that the basic definition of madness? Grinning, he returned his gaze to the mirror to see if the madness would repeat itself. Sure enough, his reflected image began altering after but a few minutes of unrelenting watching.

  Holk continued to gaze at his reflection, fascinated as to how far his mind would take this. He tried moving his head to see if the image would follow suit, and it did. After a bit, he began to grow tired of this game. About to turn away, he saw the barest shadows of vertical lines appear in the mirror, beyond the image. Running the height of the mirror, they remained out of focus, looking almost like trunks of trees as seen through a dense fog, only without the fog.

  Reaching out his hand to touch the image, he was again engulfed in total darkness.

  He groaned. “Not again.”

  To his surprise, the wall which had stood before him but a moment ago had vanished. Stretching his arms out to the sides and behind him as far as they would reach, he encountered only empty air. The air however, felt different. Slightly warmer and carrying an undertone of something unfamiliar, it didn’t elicit feelings of danger, or unpleasantness. Actually, it reminded him of nature, just not anything he recognized.

  At least he still held the torch, and in his pouch rested his flint. Now, if he could find a stone to use in conjunction with the flint, he could light the torch and see just what sort of environs his madness had constructed for him this time. A quick search of the earthen floor located a suitable specimen adequate for spark production.

  Schtk…schtk.

  Twice he struck the flint to the rock, each time generating a bounty of sparks. On the second try, the torch’s flammable material began smoldering. A couple soft breaths encouraged the embers to life. As they caught and the fire spread to engulf the torch’s head, Holk slipped the flint back into his pouch, took the torch, and stood.

  What met his eyes caused him to blink several times as he couldn’t believe what they saw. Before him rose a mushroom stalk to a towering elevation twice his height. Atop the stalk, the cap spread wide in a bright red display. Other mushrooms, some even taller, spread out like a forest in all direction. There were a multitude of smaller varieties consisting of the very small, to those that equaled him in height.

  Their plethora of stature was equally matched by their kaleidoscopic array of colors. Varying degrees of reds such as the giant one before him, purples, gray, green, and still more; it was as if a maddened painter had been let loose with an endless palette.

  “Wow.”

  Taking in the scene, Holk was suitably impressed by the world his mind had crafted. He reached out to test the reality and found the giant stalk quite solid. Stepping forward, he thumped it, producing a deep tone indicating a dense core. Yes, quite solid indeed. Solider, in fact, than what he had expected.

  The mushrooms grew in an underground cavern. Overhead, the ceiling arched to a height well over fifty feet. Dirt covered most of a floor that undulated throughout like a hillside in miniature. Rocks were very few, poking from the dirt in isolated communities.

  He held the torch high as he took in this latest environment his mind had crafted. Turning to the right, a flash of light drew his attention to the cavern wall beyond the forest of stalks. Intrigued, he moved closer only to find the flash had come from another mirror. Round, small, and most likely made of brass, it felt completely out of place in keeping with the room’s mushroom motif. The brass frame held subtle undertones of oceanic waves coursing along the edge. Holk admired the craftsmanship that had gone into its construction.

  Unconsciously, he reached out to give the mirror a tactile inspection. Holk abruptly yanked his hand back before it could come into contact with the border. Something wasn’t quite right. Hadn’t the last thing he did in the previous room was touch the mirror?

  Holk nodded. “Yes, it was.”

  Come to think of it, back in the cave among the monoliths, after escaping the early morning sun of the Kiln, he had dug stone from around a mirror too. Dragging memories of a watery room to the surface, he remembered the last thing he did, after swimming across to dry land, was to touch a smooth surface. Another mirror? Perhaps. The result of touching that mirror, had delivered him to the room where he found the torch. From there, another mirrored encounter brought him to this room of mammoth fungal growths. Perhaps there was a method to his madness, or at least an underlying theme…the mirrors.

  There was really only one way to test his theory. He had to touch the mirror. But dare he? Just because previous encounters had turned out benign, could he afford to assume another would? His hand hovered before the mirrored surface as indecision warred with curiosity. Finally, Holk determined he had nothing to lose. He was mad anyway, right? Moving his hand forward, he felt his fingers touch the mirrored surface.

  Instantly, the world about him changed and he stood upon a knoll surrounded by a wide expanse of water. He couldn’t help but laugh, for this had to be the same room he had been in earlier.

  “Hello!” A familiar echo reverberated back. Holk turned to gaze at the room now revealed in his torch’s light. As he had earlier figured, it was an underground cavern. Remembering the area of dry land beyond the water’s edge, he sought, and found, where he had emerged from the water.

  There loomed the outcropping of rock he had maneuvered around during his spate of blind groping. Not far past that protrusion stood the mirror. Its dimensions matched what he recalled from his earlier experience. “If I touch you, will I be returned to the room with the twin windows overlooking the ocean?” Such had been what happened the last time.

  Turning his attention from what he knew, he began scanning the rest of the outer fringe of the underground lake. Could there be more than one mirror? Sure enough, on the cavern wall abutting another area of dry land, stood a second one. It had a silver, oval frame and was much smaller.

 

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