322 A.D. Age of the Drunken Monk, Middle Kingdom
Irmaril shone brightly that night, illuminating the unnamed planet, and providing gentle and affectionate (sometimes fierce and merciless) light to the billions of its inhabitants. Some of them dwelled in cities surrounded by high walls, others in villages, while some preferred the dusty roads and cheap taverns over a comfy bed free of bedbugs and a roof over their head. There were also those who lived in caves, huts by the lake, in the lakes themselves, in the sky, in the fiery embrace of the volcano, at the bottom of the ocean, in the forests, on top of pine needles, in the buds of flowers, and even in the wind itself.
But more about them later.
The wind of change had brought the young Ash to the Middle Kingdom, a great land ruled by the wise Garangan and his wife Alessia. Everything from the Rose Sea to the Forests of Armund, which included four cities, half a hundred villages, and countless farms, belonged to them.
And in the north, at the foot of the Mazurman mountains, was a field dotted with flowers. Lakes of buttercups, hills of roses, and rivers of tulips... Birds flying over this colorful ocean would sometimes stop in awe, risking colliding with the rocky hills because of their carelessness.
In the center of this field, not far from the lake in which various fish splashed merrily, was a small house. So small it was that it could barely be called a house. It looked like a cabin. Inside, save for a kitchen, was one small room in which the owner of this house lay. He was young, about twenty-three, with a lovely face and a body shaped by years of hard work. Opening his eyes, the young man sat up and gazed over at a little box with colored lenses on the table next to the bed. One was brown, the other blue. Having given it a thought, the young man chose the blue one. Today he wanted to look the world with eyes the color of the azure sea, and not those the color of fertilizer.
Stretching, he got up, scratched his head, and sniffed. Rolling out of bed, he gathered his clothes and got dressed: patched-up and well-worn trousers, a canvas shirt with ribbons on the chest, and a pair of sandals made of hemp and wood. The look was completed by a wooden staff that stood leaning against the wall. It looked like the most ordinary staff; so plain and mundane…
“Breakfast,” the man yawned and hit the floor with the staff.
The air rippled, walls shook, dishes rattled and windows covered by boards rather than glass quivered. The logs in the stove caught fire on their own and cracked cheerfully; drawers opened and utensils flew into the air. A knife twitched and started cutting the lettuce that had flown onto the chopping block from the wicker basket by the door. The kitchen, which was a couple of feet from the bedroom, seemed to come to life.
The water boiled in the kettle that had once been a soldier’s helmet. Leaves of tea flew from their box into the mug. Slices of fragrant bread landed into the breadbasket and were quickly covered with lovely, golden butter without any knife.
The young man was a wizard, you see, and not the kind you meet at the carnivals that coax you into spending your hard-earned coin to see their cheap tricks. Sure, he didn’t know how to turn stone into gold nor did he know the secret of eternal youth, but he was still a wizard. Sitting down on a stool that ran up to him, the young man rubbed his hands and began his meal. A black scarf flew over to him from one of the drawers and wrapped itself around his ashen hair.
As he chewed his bread with pleasure and ate his fried eggs, wagging his finger at the confused pan, it had gotten it wrong again), the young man thought about what he’d do today. It was about time to go to the market and sell herbs, as he needed coin to buy more food. He couldn’t live on roots and berries forever.
Having finished his breakfast, he got up and hit the floor with the staff once more. The dishes spun and leaped into a barrel full of water. The kitchen towel wiped them clean, and they settled to dry.
The door opened on their own, creaking with its hinges as if it to say “Good day!” to the young man. The moment he stepped foot on the green grass, the seemingly solid house wavered as if it were made of fog and disappeared. There was only a small grassy meadow.
The illusion left much to be desired, but who in their right mind would come all the way here looking for something? Here in the mountains, there were no dwarves with their eternal fairs and cheap metals or monsters to hunt or the gloomy drows, with their protruding fangs and skin the color of wet stone.
Who then was this young wizard that so carefully gathered herbs and plants into his satchel? No one knew the answer to this complicated question. Everyone thought he was just a Ternite, but he knew for sure that he wasn’t human Worst of all, he knew he wasn’t a Fae either. The only thing he did know was his name.
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“Ash!” squeaked something near his sandals.
The boy looked down and saw Maverie, a flower fairy, so tiny that she could fit comfortably in a teaspoon. Though, she insisted that she was just fine living in a tulip. Just like many other flower fairies.
Smiling, Ash squatted and held out his little finger. Maverie fluttered over to him, flapping her tiny little wings. Landing on his finger, she dusted her dress sewn out of blades of grass and petals so thin and delicate that a harder wind could tear them, and so valuable that any alchemist would gladly give a gold coin for a single petal. But Ash didn’t seem to care that he was holding a fortune in his hands.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”
“You woke everyone up stomping around like that!” she said, voice sounding more normal now as Ash had brought her closer to his ear.
“Sorry, sorry, I forgot that you sleep till noon.”
Maverie snorted and puffed her cheeks. Fairies, which many thought were a figment of the imagination of Ternites and those that had had one too many mugs of mead to drink, woke up only when the flower buds opened, which was usually at noon. “Where are you going?”
“To the village. I’m going to sell some herbs and flowers in the market.”
“Take me with you!”
Ash smiled. A couple of times of a week, Maverie would ask him to bring her with him, but he always refused. It wasn’t because she was a flower princess, the daughter of the fairy queen, but because his adventures were always dangerous and he’d hate it if something happened to his friend.
“And what does a pretty little girl like you have to do in a village?”
“I’m not a little girl!” she exclaimed and stomped her foot, poking his finger. “I’m an adult! I can travel!”
Ash nodded. “Of course, of course... And get lost in the vast spaces of a leather bag.”
Maverie instantly fell silent and flushed, remembering the incident when all the fairies were looking for her in Ash’s bag.
“I’ll collect the best flowers for you!” she said. “All the girls will want to buy your bouquets!”
Ash didn’t want to tell her that girls lined up in front of his stall regardless of what herbs he brought.
“As lovely as your offer is, dear Maverie, someone will ask me who had helped me make those lovely bouquets, and when word spreads of your talent and beauty some handsome prince will come looking for you. And when he learns that you’re a little fairy, he’ll do all he can to turn you into a human, or himself into a fairy, so that you two can live happily ever after.”
Maverie’s blush grew more and more prominent the longer his story went on. Her gaze became dreamy and her wings fluttered so quickly that she flew up.
“And when your mother learns of all this, she’ll turn me into a sheep and feed me to the wolves.”
The fairy flopped back down on his finger, realizing that he was joking.
“Then don’t accept my help!” she said and stuck her tongue out. Acting like a child rather than a princess, she, pouting, kicked a nearby bud in protest. The tulip opened, revealing a small bag made of fabric that shimmered faintly on the sun. “Oberon asked to give this to you, just in case.”
“Tell him I said t―”
Maverie faded away in the ocean of flowers before he could finish. Sighing, Ash shook his head and moved the staff away. In his opinion, the queen should teach her daughter some manners. He wouldn’t have to keep inventing stories and jokes just to keep Maverie from following him around.
Picking up the little bag, Ash looked into it. Whistling, he clutched it to his chest and looked around as if he was afraid that someone might be spying on him. Pollen! And not the cheap kind that was sold by the pound on the markets, but the priced fairy pollen from which he could learn powerful magic.
There were all kinds of ways for one to induce the meditative state needed to unlock one’s magic potential: by using a potion or a crystal, by receiving a prayer (if a priest was close at hand), ingesting a concoction or a mushroom, or even meat of a magical beast. But out of all the options, fairy pollen was the best one. They said that just one grain of it could restore the Strength of an experienced magician.
Hiding the bag with seven grains of fairy pollen, Ash continued gathering flowers in a basket that he had brought with him. It was so big that he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to carry it back alone.
Luckily, he knew how to make this task easier for himself. By simply saying the right Word, the basket, at his request, became lighter. Even the novice magicians knew this simple trick.
On his belt was a rather small satchel, but those who knew what he was capable of were ready to give their hand for the right to peek into it and their soul for the right to get it. All of them, for some reason, believed that Ash (though they knew him by a different name) kept unspeakable treasures in the little satchel.
Having collected enough flowers to earn a couple of silver coins, Ash rose to his feet and, putting his thumb and forefinger to his mouth, whistled. The house emerged again in the center of the meadow, from the open door of which flew out a gray cloak and settled on the young man’s shoulders.
“Almost forgot you... Again,” Ash muttered in displeasure. He was of the kind that kept forgetting this or that all the time.
With his trusty patched-up cloak on his shoulders and basket in his hand, Ash headed toward the road. It’d take him five days to get to it and then if he doesn’t find a mount, half a day from it to the village. He lived in the middle of nowhere, after all. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the army that might come knocking on his door and demanding his head, it’s just that he didn’t want the flowers to be trampled on! The queen and the rest of the fairies would be very upset.
But little did he know that he wouldn’t be returning home anytime soon because on that very day, somewhere out there a mysterious tavern named D.H. opened.