Chael’s Folly, by Michael Morrison

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The story is of a quest. The quest of a lone young man who believes himself a prince in a distant land of dream. Each time the Old Man came he told his story, each time the Old Man went, so too did many young men.

The Elders of Theris gave little thought to the Old Man’s story — they called it the Folly. No few of them once followed the seductive promise of the Old Man’s words. They too sought south with fervent hearts yearning to see the marble pillars and ivory fountains glowing in the radiance of two moons.

These elders of Theris gave little thought to the line of bright faced youths who rushed off in search of wonder, knowing too well how many would return, wiser by a share of the world they lived in — broken just a little for the dying of a dream. These youths would be the elders someday — when their children followed the call of an impossibly old dreamer.

Some few would not return. None ever believed that these few missing children ever found their city of dream. Some would die, some would live — finding new homes and loves in foreign lands, and these are many with subtle wonders of their own. Thus did Chael learn as he wandered the world on this ancient quest — guided on ly by the inner light of his longing for this antique city of possibility.

Chael made his way through the world with his words. A poet, he would sing his songs and spin his rhymes for a moment’s peace, for an evening meal. From the shattered deserts of Colos to the domes of Tere’nar he spread his word. Each night, as he ended his tales, he would tell of the city of his dreams — with gardens of fountains and roses so wide the whole of Theris could be encompassed in one great basin. He told of the statues, shaped of gods so old even they had died, and their dreams were all his his was and would ever be — a dream of gods, dreamt of by men.

Years passed on his journey. He met some of those who had passed with him from Theris — and other lands where he had told his tale. Each of these he would learn had abandoned the quest, grown tired of grasping only at dreams, needing more of the world.

In Mara-lai he spun his tales for Kings and Queens in halls hung with silk and gold. As he passed the walls of Kalar he heard ridicule from the guardsmen whose perverse nature led him to continue on and tell no stories that night. Finally, at the foot of the Mountain of Glass, called Lara-Salai, he found new hope.

Chael told his stories that night, composed of patrons and servants alike at the small roadside place where many dreamers had traveled before him — and many more would follow. As Chael spoke the words to paint a portrait of his dream hidden goal he thought he heard an Old Man’s laughter — laughter heard before, in Theris, when the story was new to him. His eyes sought through the crowd, but found no old dreamer. They found perhaps a new dream.

She was small and dark and quiet this woman, but her eyes were magic, still filled with an awestruck wonder as she listened, and as the Folly, the final tale came to an end, her eyes were wet with tears and glistened as dark as the black slopes of Lara-Salai, called also the Mountain of Glass.

An orphan, she was a child of low-birth thought sired by a moonstruck dreamer who passed this way before. This life was all she had known. Chael heard these things said by men who bought his dinner that night, who sought more stories. Chael had eyes and thoughts only for Ziyalle, but he knew that he must be away. Winter had passed, spring was in the air and the road, the dream still beckoned him on. He had come to this place to find the Watcher.

Ziyalle came to him that night, walking among the roses, trailing her fingertips in the crystal waters of the simple perfect fountains of his city. He had seen her tears, now he saw her smile… Chael awakened with a start to find her standing at his door, watching him sleep, watching him dream. She smiled and moved on.

He rose before dawn to make his plea to the Watcher. As the blue moon set and the white moon still shone brightly in its arc he called to the Watcher, the unknowable myth whose temple was this mountain, the greatest peak in all the world. Chael called the words into the crisp, still spring air. Mystic words, known to few, learned in pieces from travelers and sailors, and in the great stone libraries of Xaria, which having once burned held deep enchantments to never do so again.

These were the words he called, and the night grew silent around him — and a way was shown in the darkness, the silence and as he set foot upon the path to fulfill his dreams someone spoke just five words, a plea of her own… “Please. Take me with you.”

And so he did.

Thus as the two set forth to ask council in the Temple of the Great Golden Watcher they heard; again and for the first time, the laughter of a storyteller made immortal by his words…

…In latter days, in Theris, the people would take pride in knowing that Chael the Wanderer was once one of them. His first stories and songs traded around caravan campfires crossing the Rakasin Sea of Grass were those learned and composed in the fields and forests of Theris. No one ever knew his fate, and fewer still know of the servant girl, an orphan, he whisked away one night. The night the pair met Zevius. But for the two dreamers, on that night, future memories did not matter…

The path to the Temple wound long. Many questions, small doubts, great fears, discoveries and revelations whispered in their brains as they climbed. Chael was strong of body and firm of mind, guided by his dream, hardened by his travels. Ziyalle had no such experience — and the fleeting sight of the first of her unborn children gave her pause, held her still in the flow of time. Chael looked in her eyes and said her name. She took his hand and followed again.

Time for them last meaning as they traveled. Ziyalle and Chael held to one another, grasping each other’s hands, seeking the comfort of the living in a land of phantoms and futures. Without warning it was over. Without a breath’s space to seperate one moment from the next they stood in the presence of Zevius — the Lord of Lara-Salai, called the Watcher, the unknowable, by men.

None ever say what passed in that place, in the alien dark lit only by fantastic fires, burning golden, without fuel. Chale and Ziyalle came before Zevius, stood beneath his titanic girth as he lingered shining and strange on his golden pedestal in that chamber of secrets, full of odd angles and silent sounds.

Chael knew, and in her heart did Ziyalle as well. Once again returned to the lands of men they traveled together, season bled into season, and a full turning of the year passed them by. And again, as winter retreated and the first warm breath of spring came bearing the promise of summer’s fire, they found themselves beneath two moons, looking down upon a vast and swift moving river.

By night the waters formed a thunderous black line, broken only by the shining expanse of a bridge carved of black jade and moonstone, elegant as the city beyond. A city of quests, of dreams, of wonder and magic and fantasy. Chael heard Ziyalle begin to cry. The first quiet tears drew his eyes from his city, from a wonder that had filled his life since that first moment when he heard an Old Man cast a spell of mystery upon his youth. The land of dreams had caused this woman’s tears, and as he turned to her, to seek her eyes, he once more heard an old man’s laughter, full of mirth, and a joy not quite so secret anymore.

In that moment, that reaching of wisdom, the blue moon slipped below the edge of the world and the city of dreams vanished from his life.

And a woman, standing by a river, held out her hand to a man watching her, seeking her eyes as he had a hundred hundred times as they traveled together; as he told her stories made just for her on autumn nights.

And so Chael took her hand, with a dream, elusive, behind him, and a dream warm as life before him.