Five Stories Deep

Phillip Galleazzo, the Duke of Milan, was dreaming of a glass cage when he woke to the sound of pounding upon his bedroom door. “Your grace! Your grace!” It was Vincento, his guard captain, who suddenly burst in. 

“What is this about?” The Duke demanded of his most trusted subordinate. 

“Intruders, your grace!” Vincento gasped between hurried breaths. “Found in your storerooms. We think they’ve all fled… I chased one of them back over the wall myself.”

“Intruders! In my storerooms! Did they make off with anything?”

“We haven’t made a thorough check. I simply wanted to assure your safety. I’ll place double guard at your door, then-”

“I’ll not return to sleep until this matter is resolved,” and the duke grabbed his nightcloak and hat and hurried out into the midnight gloom. 

Flanked by Milanese sentries armed with halberds, Duke Phillip crossed his grand courtyard to the storage area. He passed the line of olive groves that had been his father’s passion. He crossed under the great marble arches his grandfather had spent a lifetime building. 

As they approached the scene of the crime, Duke Phillip ordered some of his guards to spread out and search, while others joined him in safeguarding his greatest treasure, his collection of books. Duke Phillip Galeazzo eschewed the silks and wines of his father, and the cathedral-building of his grandfather, for an obsession all his own: his library.

There, he met a custodian, a gnarled, greying man whose name he couldn’t immediately place. “You there,” he called awkwardly to the man “have you found anything missing?”

“Missing? No your grace. But they did take a book out, left it lying open and everything before they fled.”

The Duke surged past the old man, and soon enough the whole troop stood before the reading table of his library. The book in question lay open still, displaying a page featuring a colorful illustration of a great castle.

The duke didn’t recognize this book, which was not a surprise, as he had read only about half the works in his vast collection. He flipped the front cover up to reveal the title: Verschiedene Märchen, German for “Assorted Fairy Stories.”

He remembered the book now. He’d not read it, his German wasn’t the best, and he’d fathered no children who might have shown interest. He’d bought it up a decade ago on a youthful expedition to the dark forest, intrigued by the ornate binding and lack of listed author. It had languished in his library ever since. What had brought a burglar to pull it from the shelf?

He flipped back to the page with the castle and skimmed to find which story it was a part of. It was a tale entitled “Sleeping Kingdom” and without even consciously doing so, the Duke found himself seated where the burglar had been just half an hour before, reading the same words, seeking whatever the burglar had sought in those yellowed pages. It took him several seconds to parse each sentence given the language barrier, but the full color illustrations made it easy to follow the story.

He recognized many plot elements right away: it was the story of a powerful witch who’d vowed revenge upon a king and queen who’d spurned her offers of friendship. She would cast a curse upon their kingdom, a curse of eternal sleep.

“It’s Sleeping Beauty,” Duke Phillip muttered under his breath. But with one big difference: no princess. The King and Queen were described as having a huge family, which only fueled the witch’s envy, but none of those children even received a name in the narrative. Such a strange way to tell the story… by the third page, the witch had already placed her sleeping curse upon the kingdom.

The Duke yawned at this talk of slumber. He glanced about, Vincento stood at attention nearby, a look of apprehension on his face. “I shall take the book to bed with me,” the duke declared.

He read into the night, assuming that sleep would overcome him before he arrived at “happily ever after.” And what an odd story it became. The author described in considerable detail how the kingdom went to sleep, listing each inhabitant and where they fell: The baker went down with a pillow of fresh dough, the greengrocer settled on top of a tray of parsley, the milkmaid curled up with a cow, the tax collector continued to count money as he slumbered. 

It went on and on, and the Duke felt weariness drift into his eyes. But just as he turned what he assumed would be the last page he’d read, the narrative suddenly became far more interesting.

The story morphed into their collective dream. They crossed into a land of bliss… of love. It was just a feeling at first, a feeling of warmth and satisfaction they all shared: The king, queen, baker, greengrocer, milkmaid, tax collector… and the Duke of Milan. Then that feeling took on colors: white and greys swirling around them like a summer hailstorm.

Over many moments those swirling colors took on solid form. Silken bed sheets brushed against their skin. They were in a bedroom, a bedroom in which two young lovers were enjoying each other's company alone for the first time.

Now, these intruders: the king, queen, duke, etc, didn’t get to see anything. By the time their vision of the room came into focus, the two lovers were laying contentedly in bed, under those silken sheets, arms entangled but well-covered. 

As to those two young lovers: her name was Aleen and she was the daughter of a wealthy merchant. His name was Kirai and he was the son of a local magistrate. Both of their families were unpopular, but powerful. And both Aleen and Kirai knew the risks in finding a lover not approved by their influential parents. All this history passed within the viewers’ minds in a moment, for it was a dream after all. 

The feeling was sublime, the sort that many experience only once in their lives, and others never at all. But just as that feeling subsumed all those who dreamed it, it receded, replaced by a feeling just as nice, serenity. The serenity of spending a morning with the one you love.

The two lovers soaked in that feeling. They didn’t need to speak. But that moment couldn’t last, as moments never do. And while our two lovers spent hours in this bliss together, staring lovingly into each other’s eyes, eventually Kirai spoke.

“I'm growing hungry.”

Aleen looked at him with comic eyes.

“I didn’t mean for that,” he chuckled.

“We’ll both need more energy soon.”

“What is near to hand?”

“The tavern down the road offers hearty meals, if you’ve the courage for a public appearance.”

“I’m not afraid of our love. Better people know now, and if our parents take issue-”

“Then we’ll stand strong together.”

The scene fades, and in an instant we are in that tavern, called The Brass Griffin. The lovers are chatting with a waitress and holding their heads high. They’ve already recognized some of the other guests, including the local cooper (who returns their smiles) and the matchmaker, who appears sly but pleased.

They order eggs and porridge. Aleen runs her hand through Kirai’s thick brown hair which the waitress pretends not to notice. They are as comfortable as they’ve ever been.

But this appears to be a story without conflict. Surely someone must intrude upon this happy scene. And so it happens: the door to the tavern bursts open, and a mysterious set of strangers pour in. 

It is a troupe of entertainers, an extended family clad in red and brown. They dance and spin fiery ropes to the thrill of their audience. One charming dancer approaches the lovers and makes eyes with each in turn as her hips move to the beat of finger drums. Aleen and Kirai exchange a playful glance, confident in their love.

After half an hour of boisterous entertainment, the dancers move to take seats at the periphery of the tavern. Everyone grows quiet. And the leader of the troop, mother or grandmother to most of the rest, assumes a central position and speaks. No one in the audience, either in the tavern or in the dream, suspects they are about to be trapped.

The old woman’s small frame hides a grand alto voice: “I shall now tell you a story, not from time gone by, but from time yet to come.” And she pauses dramatically before continuing.

“Perhaps you’ve heard of the factories of foreign lands, where men and women stand in lines beside machines. They craft lamps, carpets, and silverware, all identical, all according to the designs of the machine. Soon enough these factories will be everywhere!”

The storyteller slashes the air with a pale hand to underline the threat about which she speaks.

“We’ll use machines to make our food. We’ll use machines to create birds and beasts. We’ll even use machines to make men and women! Think of what that would mean. Think of how you would feel if some strange automaton came into your home? What would they be like? How would they think and move?”

And the storyteller met the eyes of the young lovers. And for the first time they felt apprehensive, like perhaps their love wasn’t the mightiest force in the world.

“I shall tell you the story of one such creation! Imagine a man with arms of iron, a heart pumping steam, and a mind of clockwork. What would this man be like? What would his dreams be? What would he desire?”

“I’ll tell you what that mechanical man will want! He will want the same things as any other man. He will desire respect, a good job, someone to love him and to be loved by him.

“But people of flesh-and-blood will inevitably hate him. They will hate him for all the ways in which he is different. They will hate how he never sleeps, never gets tired, and feeds on coal and peat to fuel his veins of steam. But more than that they will hate him for his similarity to them. They will hate how he dreams of love and acceptance, so they will deny it to him.

“So the first of these artificial men will also be the last. His makers will see how all humanity despises their creation, so they will destroy him… or try anyway. They underestimate their own handiwork! He listens with his ears of ceramic, and hears that they plan to toss him in the furnace. 

“He flees! Makes his home in the wilderness. Spends his years swiping coal and digging up peat to fuel the fire within him. But just as we need more than food to live, so too he needs companionship, love. But every time he encounters one of us, they sneer at him, or cast stones at him, or chase him with dogs and rifles! All who know of him refer to him as “The Fake Man.”

“He is a recluse. He lives in the woods. He steals from us to feed his body and spies upon us to maintain his soul. One family comes to hold a fascination for him. They live at the edge of the forest where he lives. They are farmers who grow carrots, mushrooms, and soybeans. They are prosperous enough to buy a special mirror…

“That mirror is a wonder of the future, for it shows them theatrical plays and majestic landscapes from around the world. Most evenings, the family gathers around this mirror and watches whatever wonders it presents to them.

“The Fake Man finds a spot by a hill where he can peer through a back window and watch the mirror with the family. He can’t hear anything going on inside, can’t hear the family discuss how their days went, or the narration and music coming from the mirror, but he’s come to love that family like they were his own. 

He watches how the family responds to the drama within the mirror and reacts in kind. So he leaps in horror or cries in sadness or pumps his fist in triumph or throws his hands up in joy when they do.”

Then the storyteller gestures to the great front window of the tavern.

“Look! See our artificial man! Imagine looking over his shoulder, watching along with him, watching the closest thing to family he’ll ever know. Imagine their bird’s-eye view of war or love or grand adventure on a magic mirror. Imagine!”

And so the two lovers did, as did the dreamers in the fairytale kingdom, and the Duke of Milan asleep in his bed. And they were no longer dreaming but viewing, focused straight ahead, out the window to which the performer beckoned. 

They could feel the love and envy of the artificial man. They could see the magic mirror, and on that mirror they didn’t see themselves reflected back, but a fantastic scene of another time from the other side of the world. And the voice of the storyteller grew faint as she introduced what they all witnessed.

“See the drama before you. Look to the horizon! Mountains higher than you’ve ever witnessed! And to those mountains march a stoic troop bearing ropes and hooks. They march to the highest mountain.”

And the old woman’s voice trails away. The mirror they are watching expands ‘til it covers their full vision. All of them: the artificial man, the lovers, the fairytale villagers, the duke, all watch this expedition from a viewpoint up close. They can even feel the chill wind as they all approach the tallest mountain together.

The team of climbers bear grim expressions. They are men and women with a purpose. They glance at each other, expressing tactics and troubles through shrugs and nods. They are dressed in dull greys and browns, though several bear markers of distinction: a colorful pin or a bright hat, some token given by a family member to help ensure their loved-one’s safe return. 

Up-tempo violin music plays as the troupe approaches the tallest mountain. The slope proves moderate at first, but as the grade grows sharper, they unspool their ropes and steal their brows. Glances are furtive, their resolve palpable. The music shifts to a minor key as they begin the difficult climb, scaling walls of sheer shock and traversing menacing inclines of sleek granite.

A climber falls… a man bearing a purple sash. He places one foot wrong and slips backwards, the chain that bound him to his nearest ally fails. Moments of panic. The man doesn’t even scream as he tumbles over a cliff. The observers do not see the broken body, but can read the results on the shocked faces of the remaining climbers. They say nothing and trudge on.

More climbers fall as they reach the heights of the mountain. Some stumble and sink into the snow and move no more. Others lose their footing and slide into the fog further down. Those that remain trudge on without them, they lack the energy needed to help their friends… and they can’t turn back.

At last they approach the summit, where a lean-to is built into the side of the mountain. An old man sits, his legs dangling over the cliffside like wind chimes. He bears a coy smile as the remaining climbers, just three of them, approach.

The leader of the group steps forward. She stands just a few feet down the slope from the old hermit. When she speaks, her voice appears to echo endlessly in the ears of all the listeners, the first human voice any of them have heard in hours.

“Help us,” she gasps. “Our people are starving. Bands of mercenaries burn our fields. You are said to see all possible futures. What path is available to us?”

“No path is available to you,” the old man whispers. Yet the whispers echo such that all can hear clearly.

Groans from the other climbers, but their leader's voice doesn’t quaver: “Another option then? Can we flee? Can we travel to other lands?”

“No options remain to you. There is no future.”

“What do you mean?” There are tears in her eyes.

The old man sighs, but his coy smile remains. “Time is a circle. You are trapped. There is no village to return to.”

Many moments pass. The wind whips around the mountain. The violin music stops. The three climbers appear dumbfounded. “Look at the clouds behind you.” The wise old seer says. Slowly the three of them turn, and the perspective of all those watching turns with them.

The massive cumulus before them is warped by shadows. It appears to grow and shrink like the beating of a chaotic heart. But as they watch, the shadows align, and an image comes into focus: a man, asleep in bed, his aquiline features only just revealed by candlelight. A storybook lies on his chest.

The duke shudders at seeing himself, and shudders a second time from watching himself shudder. But he doesn’t wake up. He can’t feel his arms to pinch himself. He can’t get back inside his own head. His mind floats free. 

So the duke watches himself sleeping. And the fairytale kingdom dreams about the curse that entraps them. And the young lovers look with envy on their doppelgangers cuddling in the tavern. And the Fake Man peeks over his own shoulder at the magic mirror. And the climbing team views themselves, appearing as ants, on a mountain superimposed on the clouds.

They are all stuck watching each other, and themselves. They are trapped in a narrative circle, broad as the world, and five stories deep.