“What do you mean, Jason?” The tone was so icy that it made me shiver.

I scolded myself for being an idiot, doubly so, in fact. One, I should have checked the creature right away with the Magic Gaze, two, I wasn’t allowed to show that the game was up. But it was so unreal! Nobody ever seriously believes that the friendly neighbor from across the street, who is standing in front of your door and wants to borrow your toolbox for a moment, can suddenly turn into a vampire and attack you. Just as little was it conceivable that the - admittedly somewhat exalted - young lady was in reality THAT.

In magical vision, Annabel looked like a seething mass of red, yellow, blue, and brown lumps, constantly mixing and glowing with varying intensity. Even though the whole thing had human outlines, it couldn’t possibly be a person. The image was so bizarre that I deactivated Magic Gaze again, just so I wouldn’t have to endure it any longer.

I became aware of the ominous silence that reigned in the room and remembered the question that had been asked. “Um... let’s talk about your desires.” I tried to limit the damage by changing the subject. “They are simple, you said.”

“They are indeed.” the answer still sounded very reserved, but at least I managed to steer the conversation in the desired direction.

“I’ll be happy to help you with what you want, but shouldn’t we first get to know each other a little better? Would you like to maybe show me around the house or do you want to sit down somewhere so you can tell me more? Maybe in the library?"

“The library?” shrieked Annabel hysterically. “Why the library, of all places?”

Oh man, this conversation was a minefield. “Well look, I’m a mage after all, and we’re very interested in books. If I were a knight, I’d probably ask about the armory. We can also go for a walk in the courtyard, if you’d prefer.”

“No,” she said gloomily. “I can’t leave the house.”

Really? I glanced over my shoulder. The double door behind me was still open. Should I just run out of the house? At that moment, the door slammed shut. Bummer. “Annabel...” I searched for appropriate words.

“Alright,” she seemed to have made a decision. “Let’s go to the library!”

She floated towards the stairs, and I had no choice but to follow her. We climbed the stairs to the top floor and entered a long hallway lit by magical lamps with doors on either side. In front of the second door on the left side, Annabel stopped briefly and turned to me as if she wanted to say something, but then she didn’t and pushed the door open.

I glanced at her and when she made no move to enter the room, I walked in and stopped, shocked by what I saw. It was undoubtedly a library, and a beautiful one at that. Ceiling-high bookshelves of polished, beautifully grained fine wood were mounted on each wall, a massive study table stood in one corner of the room with an armchair behind it, and in the center was a comfortable-looking settee consisting of a sofa and three armchairs arranged in a semicircle in front of it. But the books! What had happened here? There didn’t seem to be a single intact book left in the entire room. They lay on the shelves and on the floor, some burned, others torn to shreds or swollen as if they had been in water for days. And that one? I walked over to a shelf and reached out for a book that was...made of stone? Or petrified? I turned to Annabel.

“I know I wasn’t allowed to get to the books,” she said in the defiant voice of a little girl. “But it was so boring! Nothing happened... Years turned into decades, decades into centuries, and no one came around. I kept the house in order, and the library too, and the many stories that waited for me in here lured me. The fair knights that Orlanda, the magister’s granddaughter, raved about, called to me from every shelf, and one day I gave in to temptation. It’s not my fault that I have to penetrate the books with my elements in order to read them! It’s so stupid that they get broken in the process!”

“What are you, Annabel?”, I asked cautiously.

“I’m an elemental,” she said proudly. “A four-element elemental, the Magister’s masterpiece. In that respect, you were right, I’m not a real woman. But technically, I’m a maiden, since I’ve never known a man.”

I winced at these words. Hopefully, one of the simple wishes wasn’t that... I shooed the thought away. An elemental obsessed with chivalric novels, imagine that!

“And what would you like me to do for you?”

“Oh, that’s easy!” the voice fluted again. “I need you to get me more books!”

I gulped. “You know, I was on the road for quite a while before I got here, but I hadn’t seen a single bookstore on the way.”

“Well, who’s talking about stores?” she asked playfully. “You just go through the portal into the magister’s residence and get me the books from the library there!”

“Annabel... You said it yourself, a lot of time has passed. The magister must be dead by now. There was a war...”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“So?” she interrupted me impatiently. “I don’t want anything from the Magister, it’s just about the books! You sure have a lot of excuses for a knight! Do you want to be of service to me or not?” Her voice took on a threatening undertone.

I reminded myself to be careful, I didn’t want to mess with an elemental. “It’s all right, I want to help you. But such a mission must be well prepared. You know how many dangers lurk for a knight as soon as he goes on a journey on behalf of a maiden!”

“Oh yes, I know that very well!” she took up the subject enthusiastically. “When Lar Cedric was sent to get the first mage’s casket for Princess Alhande...”

Oh dear, I knew that fanatical pitch all too well from my buddy Jerry, who was a comic book fan. You had to intervene quickly or it would inevitably get out of hand. “See, and I didn’t even bring a gun!”

“What?” she snapped from her dream world. “A weapon? Aren’t you a mage and don’t you fight with magic?”

Hmph, she thought I was a knight, but when it came down to it, she remembered I wasn’t. “Not every opponent can be defeated with magic.” I said in a serious voice.

“How true!” she agreed. “When Lar Invar fought the evil archmage Ghulku...”

“Yes-yes, then you understand what I mean. And some rations would be quite good, too.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you here,” Annabel said. “There have been no supplies for the last 869 years. But the Magister’s residence is known for its fine cuisine!”

Well, that was to be expected, but worth a try anyway. What else could I knock out? I looked down at myself. The simple shirt I took off the dead robber ages ago (was it really only four days ago?) was definitely past its best days, and my pants looked pretty worn out, too.

“Now that you mention it... I can’t go to such a posh house dressed like this. Would you have any other clothes for me?”

“Indeed.” she looked at me critically. “We’ll find something. Anything else?” Her voice sounded impatient.

“One more thing,” I added hastily. “You’d probably like a lot of new books, wouldn’t you?” When she nodded, I continued, “I can’t hold that many in my hands, though. I need something to carry more with.”

“Oh, that’s an excellent point, Jason, very good. I already know how we’re going to solve that problem, too. Follow me, please.”

Purposefully, she led me to a dressing room where I picked out a pair of black pants, a blue shirt, and a dark gray cloth jacket that fit me reasonably well. I even found socks and a pair of underpants that were not very different from my boxers. You could tell the clothes were good quality, the fabrics felt high quality and the workmanship was solid. With the clothes in my hands, I looked around indecisively. Dirty as I was, I was reluctant to put on these nice clothes.

“Um, do you mind if I wash first?” I asked timidly.

Annabel huffed, but then took me into a spacious marble bathroom. She floated over to the large bathtub, which stood on a pedestal in the middle of the room. No sooner had I batted an eyelash than the tub was filled with hot water. I liked that kind of magic!

“Hurry up!” she threw at me and disappeared behind the door.

The hot bath was delightful and I took some time to enjoy it, anyway. Afterwards I put on the new clothes, which felt very good on my skin. I left the old clothes on the floor, taking only my belt with the quiver and the monster core of the fish in my pants pocket. I looked skeptically at my dusty, bruised sneakers and unceremoniously returned to the dressing room, where I rummaged through the shoe rack and found mid-height, dark brown leather boots in my size. No sooner had I put them on than Annabel stood before me again. She handed me a long dagger in a jeweled scabbard, which I immediately hung on my belt, and a massive ring of some unknown metal.

With the ring in my hand, I looked at her. “What do I need this for?”

“So you can bring me lots of books. It’s a storage ring.”

I looked at her uncomprehendingly.

“Channel some magic into it and you’ll see.”

I did as instructed and a strange feeling came over me. I knew there was a chamber next to me where I could place objects, but I saw nothing. As if in a trance, I bent down, took the first pair of shoes off of the shelf and pushed them into the void. They simply disappeared into thin air before my eyes. I let go of them and looked at the empty hand. Then I reached out my hand again and thought about the shoes. Something touched my hand, I reached for it and held the shoes again.

“Wow, that’s pretty cool!” I put the shoes back in the chamber, broke the connection to the ring and put it on my finger. “How much room is in there?”

“Enough to fit the books from several shelves. But make sure you take the right ones. No boring magic books, just exciting chivalry novels, got it?”

“Yup!” A thought flashed through my mind. “Annabel...” I said ingratiatingly, “were there any of the boring books in the local library? Could I possibly see them? Pretty-please?”

“I guess there are a few left.” She said reluctantly. “All right, but this is definitely the last delay, Jason!”

Sure enough, in one corner of the library, there were half a dozen intact books, which I quickly disappeared into the storage ring.

After that, Annabel led me down to the basement, where a portal was waiting for us in one room. Unlike the portals I had seen so far, it had a massive setting of polished black stone. The mirror like surface of the portal flickered in pale red hues. Somehow, it looked disturbing.

“Is that normal?” I pointed to the portal.

“Yes-yes,” came the indifferent reply. “It’s always been like that.”

I stood in front of the portal and looked at the being. “Lariss Annabel... I promise to do everything in my power to get you as many Knight novels as I can. But I want you to promise me something too...”

“Lar Jason,” she interrupted me in a solemn voice. “I pledge to wait for you and to be eternally faithful to you!”

I nearly choked. “And for that, I thank you! But please promise me that you’ll let me go when I come back, with or without books.”

“Oh, that...” she sounded a little disappointed. “All right, I promise. Now go on!”

“Stay away from portals,” Orthok’s admonition ran through my head as I took the step into the portal.

This time, the journey didn’t last just a moment. I seemed to be stuck in nowhere and had the indefinable feeling of being in several places at once. My body (or mind?) was properly shaken, then I was pressed against something hard that seemed to give way gradually as the pressure increased, and when I was already expecting to be swatted like a fly, the barrier suddenly yielded. I had arrived somewhere! Following the impulse, my body flew a bit through the air and landed hard on the ground.