It Stared Back

On the border of the school, brushing against the stones of the wizard's sanctum was a forest. Older than the school, it had magic of its own. You could smell it in the air, dense with near-stagnant, eternal life. You would feel it as the mildew from times gone lingered long enough to drench the shoes of the today.

Walk into the forest, travel far enough, and it will become clear it is not a place for man. Foliage with minds of their own grab at your clothes to keep you from sinking deeper. Plentiful roots breach the soil to wear away at your feet leaving only bruises. Stand still and songs from creatures barely out of sight will put you into a deep slumber.

But walk into the forest, travel far enough, and you will reach its heart. A clearing in the forest, bare of life. No trees own the sky. No grass grows alongside the dirt. No creature dared walk here.

For at the center of the forest was a pit. Peer over the edge and your eyes would struggle to find an end. Impossibly deep, light came to die here.

And yet, there were stairs. Circling downward along the walls of the pit, an invitation into its maw, there were stairs.

And standing at the edge of the pit, heel on the dirt and toes over the edge, was Barth. He stared into the pit and when his eyes could stand the abyss no longer they traveled along the stairs. He could not take his eyes off them, they called to him.

He picked the muck out of his hair, he wasn’t sentimental but he’d rather the forest not have stolen it.

The steps seemed made of marble. 

He played with the cuts the forest made in his clothes. Barth’s robe was a wonderfully deep navy before coming here, and now it was dirty and through the holes, you’d see a plain brown tunic.

The steps weren't formed by wandering men but cut cleanly with intent. 

Barth scratched his chin as he always did. He could never grow a long beard worth stroking like the others, he had to settle for tickling follicles. 

What would he find down there, the faint idea he had was a whisper now.

He took a step. A faint echo came with it. Another step. His sole screamed as his blisters pressed against the marble. His mind begged to go up, to go back, to come home. And another. Yet something within wished to sink.

And so he sank.

---

After fifty steps or so, deep enough that there was a wall for Barth's hand to slide along to maintain a sense of direction, Barth's mind began to wander. It was only natural. In the unknown, memories become a comfortable anchor. As skin rubs against the darkness and melds into it, the whos and whys are everything in protecting the self.

Barth was a student at Stangbrohm's School of Magic. He'd been since he was sixteen and spent a long four years there. He couldn't lie and claim that he'd come here bright-eyed. In his hometown, he had little talent in regard to calming beasts, mastering birdsong, and ensuring good harvest with a dance. Those were enough for his family to send him off with the first seer who recognized the smell of magic on him.

He wasn't jumping to go but anywhere was better than nowhere he supposed. Barth thought he would arrive, learn a trade or some other, and come home to maybe get paid when he performed his talents this time. 

Easy work.

Barth rubbed his ear which had been turned corkscrew many times in his first year. 

Music was serious business at Stangbrohm’s he found out.

As Barth made his way down he could feel something sticking to his worn-down boots. His feet peeled away from the floor as he went further down. In the back of Barth’s mind, he worried the darkness was taking on a physicality. 

In the back of his mind, he worried of the thing he’d been warned of down here.

---

Two hundred steps or so down, Barth’s eyes had still not accustomed to the darkness. If not for the wall and how evenly spaced the steps were, he was sure he would’ve misplaced a foot and fallen. 

The dark, Barth thought. How to describe it?

A blanket. A suffocating, damp blanket.

That sounds right. Though, why damp?

Warm reminds me of home, of rest. Dying peacefully.

Morbid. Was I always so morbid?

…

And the damp blanket, it clings to me I suppose. Trying to escape only wraps me tighter in it.

A different death.

Wading slowly through life, like molasses…

Barth hung on that thought for a while. It wasn’t often he found the right words for his feelings. Or even a word. And that voice, it was like his but…

Richer?

Can voices be rich?

No need for words to make sense.

Only to sound right.

Madam Berrywelt was rather adamant about that Barth recalled. She was also adamant that Barth was the most dull student she’d ever taught.

…

Wading…

Wading…

Barth stuck onto those words.

The walking was monotonous now, even the shock of pain in his cracked heels every few steps was humdrum. Barth was wading mindlessly in the dark.

A poem, he could make a poem about wading. Had he not always been wading?

In school, I waded / In woods, I waded-

No no! Repeating yourself isn’t poetry.

Is it not?

…not GOOD poetry. Don’t take the easy route. Wrap the meaning in ultimately revealing details.

In hallways, they make no space for me, unwanted and drowning

…

…

And?

…

In woods, all things have their place but me, so I struggle forward

And in the dark, I’m pulled deeper and deeper, submerged in blackness

I have waded through all my life, clung to not held; forward then, to nowhere.

That sounded right. True.

Could be better.

Certainly but it sounded right for once.

The stickiness at his feet had vanished now. His steps were clear. And they echoed.

They weren’t echoing before but they echoed now.

---

Barth had lost count of the steps he had taken. Instinctively, he paused and looked upwards. A fruitless effort, he knew we would not see the surface. The sun was a distant memory.

How far he’d come.

Down here, in the pit’s depth.

Up there, all those years in school.

Not spent particularly well.

Mayhaps. In part, Barth wanted to blame that on not being the right fit.

Being lazy didn’t help.

As it were, he had spent the years there. One or two friends.

Acquaintances.

Friends. None of the teachers cared for him much, though. Madam Berrywelt least of all. Barth wondered if she sent him here to die.

“You’ve done…well enough that by the end of the year, we can make you a real Songsage.” She had told him. Berrywelt played with a pipe a little, as she always did for pauses. “Only.”

There was always only.

“Only, for you to really pass, you need to create a swansong. A composition of melodies and magic to present the culmination of all your efforts here at Stangbrohm’s.”

“I know. I think I’ve been making good progress on mine.”

“A good swansong.” She smiled. Thinking back, Barth was sure it didn’t reach her eyes. Her words stung and hung in the air. Barth didn’t say anything for a long while then. He thought of asking if he was capable. If, maybe, by digging deep enough, he’d find something worth making. So many days holding so many hours in these last few days, all he had to do was search, no? To make the years here worth it.

But he knew her, and she had said all she could about him. There’d be no point in asking.

Finally, “So, is there a way for me?”

Another pause as Berrywelt played with her pipe. “You’re not the first to struggle here. Lack of talent is very common. Though-” She could not hide the venom in her voice, “-most know to give up before making it this far. For you stubborn few there is a method to find that special inner talent Stangbrohm believed was in everyone.”

Berrywelt told Barth of the forest, of the clearing, of the pit.

She told him that the magically inept were sent down there to find themselves. The specifics were unknown but they would come out able to connect the dots like weren’t before. Imagination was now their calling.

Only.

There was always only.

Only, some came out worse than they went in, the years they spent learning gone in a moment. Some came out with lightning and rhymes on their tongue but their minds were different. Some never came out at all.

Barth felt a draft on his neck.

Berrywelt had given one clear warning, besides the danger of coming down here. Don’t look behind yourself, no matter what.

Barth felt a breath at his neck.

---

Barth stumbled. There was no next step. He felt the wall and slid down until he could touch the floor. There was a floor now. He looked to his sides to gain a sense of place. No such luck. Barth looked forward and squinted. 

Ahead was a wall that had a shine. He looked up again, no light had come down. Barth walked to it and placed his hand on it. It felt like obsidian, smoothly cut. Looking deeper into the wall he could see his reflection. And two bright yellow circles looking back at him. They were at his eyes level and beside the reflection.

The breathing on his neck couldn’t be denied now. It was rhythmic, alive.

Barth wet his mouth, flared his nose, and stared forward. “Hello?” Was all he could muster.

Hello? Really now? Hello is all you have?

Barth didn’t say anything. The voice was…

More real now?

And more invasive, echoing in his head.

Rude.

“So.”

What am I?

“Will you kill me?”

Don’t know.

“To which?”

Either.

As it were.

“Can I look at you now?”

I don’t think I’m the type to pounce when you do.

Barth turned and found himself staring back. Well, himself if he was covered in shadow and had piercing yellow eyes. His heart didn’t calm at seeing a familiar face.

“You think Berrywelt warned me so I didn’t trip over myself in shock?”

Must’ve been what did everyone else in.

As it were.

Barth looked his shadow over once more. “Here’s an idea.”

I’m the culmination of your latent creativity?

“Or some such. You don’t seem to struggle saying what you mean or want. I’d like that.”

Whole reason you came down here after all.

“So, how does it work?”

I’m as lost as you. Maybe we, touch? And? Fuse?

Barth rubbed his chin again. He thought of the others Berrywelt had mentioned.

Think it’ll kill you?

“Or you.”

Awww.

“...is it weird that you have a sense of being? Self?”

Somewhat. …you think people get to the bottom and fight their shadow, creativity, ego, person, doppelganger?

“About what?”

Being trapped in a dunce’s head for years is as good a reason as any.

Barth laughed at that. His shadow joined him. Talking to himself was novel.

“How about this? We both go up and we ask Berrywelt what was supposed to happen.”

Do we rub our survival in her face a bit?

“I’ll do a little jig if you bring enough wit for it.”

Deal. And after?

“We have a song to write.”

I have a song to write.

Barth rolled his eyes.

As it were.