Before I set off, our Eldest gave me a warning.
She told me some who have traveled along the crevice for their coming-of-age have found more than just gold rocks. I asked her what she meant and she said that my Special Work might even now be ahead of me. “There’s a rare chance,” she said. “But I’ve been thinking for some time that this might be your real work. And I’m sorry if it is.”
It was possible, she told me, that I might meet someone on my journey. Someone from the Other Place.
Times have happened that young ones on their coming-of-age journey have encountered such ones. But they never speak about it. They come back and it’s like they’re closed in a cloud of their own air—everything about them dims. They are quiet, sad.
I thought to myself that Eldest had that sort of look about her. Closed up. Muffled in sadness. I always thought it was because she was so much older than any of the rest of us. But now I wonder.
Eldest told me that if I should encounter one of the inhabitants of the Other Place, I would have a choice to make. “I can’t tell you what that choice is,” Eldest said to me. “All I can tell you is the choice is yours alone and you are never to speak of it to anyone.
“But you must be careful—the evil mages are always on the prowl, hoping to find a way to destroy the Other Place, and they can take the disguise of nobler forms, true citizens of that magical land.”
“How do you know all of this if no one has ever spoken of it?” I asked. “How do you know I will be given some choice to make?”
“Because I was one of those who met someone from the Other Place.” The haze of summer heat went heavy around us, like it wanted to close me in her small, sad world. “I made my choice. And I have never been sure since then if it was the right choice to make.”
The Second Day
DYLAN
You have told your story, and now I will tell mine.
I am Dylan of the famous tales, who first found the Other Place long ago.
My first visit there was a tour of wonders. I feasted in the golden rooms of the elven palace, explored jewel-crusted caverns, steered a ship with dragon-wing sails to the misty islands. Every corner of the land holds some puzzle or prize: a ruby lodged in the heart of a ghostly tree, an elixir made from ancient salt dried on moonlit banks, a silver scepter held captive by a sphinx. It broke my heart to return home that first time.
But the queen of the Other Place had given me a golden bracelet that would enable me to find her again, and so I soon went back. On my second trip to that realm, I brought my brother, Hunter. He loved the golden palace, the hidden treasures. He wished to win the Girl Queen’s favor, so he vowed to rid her land of the evil mages who so often caused chaos there, draining magic from fairy coves, muddying crystal streams, and bringing sickness wherever they walked.
First, Hunter and I ventured to the sphinx’s lair to win a silver scepter of great power. Then we chased the mages all the way to a distant place called the Wasted Wood, where we battled with them and finally used the magical silver scepter to banish them from the land.
The longer we stayed in the Other Place, the more we loved it. Hunter loved the riches of the palace, the thrill of heroic quests.
I loved the Girl Queen.
We soon went home, but I couldn’t help returning again and again. I would think of the Girl Queen and suddenly step right into the woods behind her palace. Then Hunter asked to return, and so I took him with me. But when he realized how many times I’d gone there without him, when he saw how the Girl Queen preferred my company and how I had learned the secrets to unlocking the land’s hidden wonders—he grew bitter. He lost heart for our adventures and went home.
But I loved the Other Place more than I loved my own world, and I chose to remain in the enchanted realm and never to leave. I made my home in the palace and every morning asked the queen how I could increase her happiness. Her younger brother became like my own brother and wrote tales of my adventures. I quested for treasure, recorded lore, passed judgments, made decrees. I forgot the world I had come from. And I was happy.
Until I realized that some malaise had struck the Other Place.