All for a Lock of Hair

Day 1

Noldil blinked his blurry eyes. His head felt like a dragon was chewing on it, pounding with every bite. His eyes finally cleared. He was looking across a cobblestone floor to a cobblestone wall. He pushed himself up to sitting and adjusted his loose, brown robe so he was comfortable. He played with the brown cord at his waist while he looked around.

He was in a small, square room. It was lit, so he could see around, but there were no candles, lamps, or any source of light. The room was a perfect cube with no windows or doors. Just stone all around. 

Noldil stood up and stretched. He discovered he could put his palms on the ceiling. Then he rubbed the back of his head, and a lightning shock of pain made him withdraw his hand quickly. He must have hit his head when he had arrived here. Where was he? He tried to pull up his last memory, but it was difficult. 

“Princess Ermegart,” he suddenly said. He had been in the process of collecting a lock of her red hair. But what had happened? He needed it for a potion, but what potion had he been making? Was he successful? 

Noldil turned around to the wall behind him and pushed, just to test the stones. They held fast. He did a circuit of the room, testing the stones on the wall. They were all solid. How in the world did he get in here? If there was a way in, there had to be a way out, right? 

Maybe only someone outside could get him out. He pushed on the stones on the ceiling with no luck. He sat down with his back against one of the walls, and wrapped his arms around his knees, head pounding. He would wait to see what happened. Eventually someone would come and get him. Right? Maybe it would be Princess Ermegart. And she could remind him of what happened. 

Day 2

Noldil woke with a start. He had dozed off at some point. How long had he been asleep? Without any windows it was hard to distinguish the passage of time. He decided it must have become night, and he had slept through the night. Now it was morning. He stood and stretched. And he noticed he could not touch the ceiling. Wait a minute. 

He looked around at the room again. It was no longer a cube. The ceiling was much higher, and one wall stretched out before him for a while, and then it jogged into the room about three quarters of the way and then stretched out further some more. He couldn’t see the wall at the end, though. He knew waiting had been a good idea.

He quickly walked over to the thin corridor that had been created. It was just big enough for him to turn sideways and scoot down. Maybe there was a door at the end of this gap. His heart began to beat faster as he scooted. 

Finally he reached the end of the slim corridor. It was a dead end. No door. No window. He pushed on the stones of the wall, but nothing happened. He suddenly started to get claustrophobic. 

He turned his head, and scooted back out faster than he had entered. It still wasn’t fast enough. His palms were sweaty, it was getting hard to breathe. Was the corridor smaller now? He finally popped out into the larger space of the room, and fell to his hands and knees, panting frantically. 

Eventually his heart slowed, and he wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his robe. He crawled back over to the wall he had woken up next to, and he sat against it again. He stared at the skinny corridor. He would have to be extra careful investigating this room, he decided. 

As he sat there, he was struck with a strange thought. When was the last time he had eaten? It must have been before he had met up with Princess Ermegart. And if it truly was morning, why had he not needed to pee like he did every morning? He did a quick body scan and discovered there was no urge for either biological function. No hunger. No thirst. No waste. Hmmm. Fascinating. 

He stared at the skinny corridor for much longer than he really wanted to. He occasionally got up and walked around, just for something different. He changed which wall he sat against. 

He was staring at the wall across from him, imagining he was a little man running through a maze created by the grout between stones, and he was trying to get out. When suddenly another memory jumped to the front of his brain. It was more of just an image. Red wine in a golden goblet, spilled across a stone floor. Noldil blinked. Where was this spill? How had it gotten there? Noldil squinted, trying to remember more, with no luck. So he went back to his game in the grout between the stones. 

Day 3

Noldil yawned, stretched, scratched himself, and stood. He still wasn’t hungry and didn’t need to pee still. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked to see what things were like today. 

The room had changed again. Naturally. It was much larger now, and there was a huge chandelier sticking up from the floor. The candles were all lit and burning, but they were facing downward and the flames pointed towards the floor. Noldil walked around it. He pushed it, and it swayed back and forth from the floor. It was like it was a huge chandelier that was upside down. Noldil looked up at the ceiling.

The ceiling was much, much higher now. About midway up one wall, Noldil saw an upside down doorway and stone stairs leading from that doorway to the ceiling, ending at a second upside down doorway. Noldil began to feel a little vertigo as it appeared that he was now standing on the ceiling of the room, and everything was upside down for him. 

He quickly looked away from the ceiling before he fell over. He walked around the chandelier once again, and suddenly another memory jumped out at him, without him even trying. 

“I’m a wizard!” he exclaimed to the empty room. “I’m a very powerful wizard, who has defeated everyone who has dared challenge me.” He smiled at this realization. So, all he had to do, then, was use his magic and he could get to those doorways on the ceiling. Or better yet, maybe he could transport himself out of this cursed room altogether! He began pacing as he tried to think of the kind of magic he had done and what might be the most appropriate for this situation. 

Yes, he was powerful. That is how he was able to sneak into the palace to get a lock of Princess Ermagart’s hair. In fact, he had transported himself to her room, or outside her bedroom door? It was still a little fuzzy, but he thought he remembered the spell he had used. 

He closed his eyes, planted his feet, pushed up his sleeves, and concentrated on the princess’s room again. He began muttering the incantation, and then he clapped his hands together. There was a feeling of a shock wave going out of his hands, and then reverberating back towards him. Like a pebble thrown into a lake and the ripples hit the bank and return to the rock. 

When he opened his eyes he was still in the room.

“Ok, so maybe I can’t transport out,” he said to the chandelier again. “Perhaps other spells will work.” He focused on the door halfway up the wall, and he began muttering again. Then he jumped into the air. Once again he felt the shock wave returning toward him, and he landed right back next to the chandelier. He sighed. 

He spent the next many hours casting spell after spell to see if anything would work. One after another they all went outward and bounced right back toward him harmlessly. He got to a point where he was simply casting spells because it was something to do. At least he could keep the memories of the incantations fresh so he could use them when he got out.

Day 4 or still 3?

Noldil finally got bored with his spells, but he didn’t feel tired. Without a window or certain biological processes, it was hard to tell how time was moving. He didn’t feel tired yet, so he got up and stretched. That’s when he noticed a door on his plain of existence. It was on the other side of the chandelier from him. He ran over to it. 

“Escape can’t be this easy, right?” he asked himself. He looked around the room and saw the topsy turvy layout still, with the chandelier hanging up from what he felt like was the floor and the stairs connecting two doorways, one of which was on the ceiling. The doorway in front of him was completely dark. Maybe all his spell casting had unlocked some secret.

Noldil stepped through the doorway.

And he stepped out onto a landing at the top of a stone stairway. And there was a door at the bottom of the steps. His heart began to race. This was a different room! He was getting somewhere. He took the steps two at a time, and ran through the doorway at the bottom of the stairs. He popped out to see the chandelier hanging up from the floor, and he stopped. 

“What?” he said out loud. “No,no,no,no.” He turned and ran back through the doorway and found himself at the top of the stair again. He looked up, and he saw a beautiful chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a doorway on the wall near the ceiling. He stuck his hand through the doorway nearest him, and suddenly his hand appeared out of the door on the ceiling. His shoulders dropped and he sat down on the stairs with a heavy sigh.

He thought of casting spells again, but he decided against that. Then another memory popped up. Örtel, he was another wizard. Noldil got a nasty taste in his mouth just thinking of Örtel. He could remember exactly why, though. 

His walk down memory lane was interrupted by a low growl from behind him. He jumped to his feet and spun around, peering into the dark of the doorway behind him. Then he looked to the ceiling. There was nothing there, but he definitely heard a low growl. Or maybe not. He walked down the stairs to the doorway there and walked through. Now he was with the chandelier again. He walked across the room to the wall and sat down, where he could keep an eye on all three doorways.

Day 7...9...6...2?

Noldil had nodded off again. He snapped awake suddenly. He definitely heard a low growl. This time it seemed to come from the other side of the wall he was leaning against. Then he heard a terrified scream that was suddenly cut off. 

Noldil jumped to his feet and ran to the other side of the room. He stared across the room where the noises were coming from. He was definitely not alone in this place.

He finally looked around to see how the room had changed today. The room was different again. The chandelier was gone, and there was a doorway to his left and one to his right. He looked up. He saw another doorway in the wall near the ceiling, but it was right side up this time, and it had a small landing jutting out into the room. 

Across from this doorway was a window. His heart leapt with joy. A window! He ran through the doorway to his left, and he came out of the doorway that had been on his right. Back where he had started. 

So, he turned around and ran through the doorway he had just come out of, and now he stepped out onto the landing. He nearly lost his balance and fell off the landing, but he caught himself. He stared across the room at the glass window with a wooden pane. He could see the sun bright outside and the sky was clear and blue. He even saw birds flying in the distance. Freedom!

He looked down and saw the two doorways below him. The distance to them seemed much greater up here. He looked across at the window again, judging the distance. Too far to jump just standing here, but if he got a running start, he might be able to make it across and smash through the window. 

He walked back through the doorway behind him and came out from what he was calling the left doorway. In front of him was the doorway that had taken him to the top of the room, so he pushed up the sleeves of his robe and ran across the room as fast as he could. He jumped through the doorway as far as he could and he popped out of the left doorway again, landing on the floor. He looked around, confused. He turned around, walked through the left door again, and stepped out onto the landing. 

He rubbed his chin, and stared out the window at the cloudless sky. Boy it was a beautiful day outside. That’s when he heard the low growl again. He nearly jumped off the landing. Ok, he needed to get out of there before that monster found its way to Noldil’s room. He looked at the doors again, and thought about what he had done to get up here.

“Aw!” he said to himself. “I have to go through one doorway, then turn around, and the second doorway will take me up here.” 

So he turned around and walked through the doorway behind him. He came out  of the right doorway this time. Okay, so he kept walking and stepped through the left doorway. Sure enough, he popped out of the right doorway. Then he walked across the room and stopped in front of the left doorway. He turned around again, facing the right doorway. He pushed up his sleeves, and took off running again. He stepped through the right doorway and jumped as far as he could.

In an instant he found himself flying above the ground, far above the ground, towards the window. He put his arms in front of his face just before he crashed through the window, shattering the glass, splintering the wood. He hit something hard and rolled a couple times before he came to a stop. 

He jumped to his feet, throwing glass from his robe skittering across the stone floor, and he realized he was looking at a chandelier sticking up from the ground. 

What!? He looked around. The chandelier was sticking up from the floor, two doorways were upside down at the ceiling. There was a stone staircase that led from the ceiling to another doorway in front of Noldil. Somehow, the stairs were right side up for both doorways, even though the doorways were oriented oppositely. There were no windows in this room, but glass and wood splinters were strewn about the floor. 

“No!” he yelled. “No!” How? Where? Then the low growl came from behind one of the walls. In his confusion, Noldil didn’t care where the sound came from, he just started running.

He ran through the doorway near him, came out of another doorway, ran into another doorway, came out somewhere else, ran down the stairs, through another doorway, up the stairs, through another doorway, then right into a wall with no doorways, and he fell backwards, flat on his back staring up, or down, he wasn’t sure any more. 

As he laid there trying to comprehend what was going on, he suddenly remembered why he hated Örtel! That blasted court magician! And like a gust of wind through a broken window, Noldil recalled it all.

He had managed to make it past all of Örtel’s spells protecting the castle, and he had transported himself just outside of Princess Ermagart’s room, disguised as a servant. He had offered the princess a goblet of wine after a long day. She had taken it happily, and the sleeping potion kicked in quickly. The princess fell to the floor, asleep, and spilled the wine. 

Noldil was then able to get a lock of her red hair, the final ingredient for his potion. And the hair needed to still be warm from her body heat, so he finished the potion right there in her room, and he drank it. 

While Noldil was transforming, Örtel burst into the room with a roar. Seeing the wine and the princess on the floor, he must have assumed Noldil had killed her. So, he cast a spell on Noldil. But it didn’t work. Noldil remembered that. Why? 

His eyes lit up. Because Noldil had finished his transformation and was now immortal! The potion had worked! While Noldil had laughed at Örtel, the royal wizard rushed over and used his staff to bash Noldil on the back of his head. 

That must have been part of some spell or something because the next thing Noldil remembers is waking up in this room! This wizard’s prison--always changing, but never letting go of the prisoner for eternity. 

Briefly Noldil thought of the monster prowling. Maybe he could track it down and it could eat him. No, that wouldn’t work. Noldil was immortal now. Then a certainty grew within him. Somehow he knew that monster would never find him. It would be always on the other side of the wall, taunting and haunting, but never killing.

Noldil was an eternal being in an eternal prison.