The Ageless One: Beginnings - The Ageless Author (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📗

said Doelan.
“Well it’s different from the source.”
They walked a little bit in silence. Doelan brought out the small hourglass again and looked at it. Liri didn’t notice this time but something was bothering him, the same thing that Doelan had been feeling lately. The same feeling that had been making him see things.
“Still flowing?” asked Liri.
“Yes it is,” said Doelan, watching the sand go from the top to the bottom.
“Let me see,” said Liri.
Doelan handed it to Liri who held it up. Immediately the sand inside stopped flowing.
“It’s working,” he said. “So, you ready for the big day?”
“And the big night when the hourglass will do that for me.”
“Then you’ll be a true gisler, and a man,” he handed the hourglass back to Doelan who put it away again. “Eternal youth at last.”
“Yes,” said Doelan, staring off into space. “Won’t that be strange?”
“What do you mean? Is this that same thing again?”
“Well...yes. Getting older and yet looking the same. It’s like how I look like the elders now but I’m really much younger than them.”
It was at that moment that Doelan started feeling like a parrot. Repeating the same things over and over. It was even starting to get on his own nerves, but he never had anything different to say on the matter.
“Doelan,” said Liri. “I’ve known you for a long time now, and you’re the only gisler I know who doesn’t understand eternal youth.”
Doelan laughed. “Some of the others at the orphanage used to joke that I’m not a gisler. It wasn’t really nice.”
“I remember, and I still think it’s silly. Why would you be left with us if you weren’t one?”
More silence. They were still walking through the field of flowers.
“Well,” said Doelan. “I don’t mean to say that I’m not a gisler but sometimes I don’t really think I belong here.”
Liri was a little confused. “What do you mean?”
Doelan hesitated, wondering if he should tell Liri his real problem. “Well, you are the only gisler I get along with.”
“That never bothered you before. If it did, then why wouldn’t you come with us on our trip? We’ll probably invite you every year at this point.”
“Well what if my parents come back? I don’t want to be away if it happens.”
“Oh. I remember. You said that before. I guess I know how you feel. I wouldn’t want to be separated from my parents either.”
They were nearing a little marble cottage in the distance. In front of the building stood large tree with red fruit and a large red flower the size of a bird bath. Next to that was a large vegetable garden. Doelan had told the truth, he did want to be there if his parents ever came back, but that wasn’t what was bothering him at the moment.
“There’s something else,” said Doelan, a little nervous. “Something I...” He hesitated.
“What?” asked Liri.
“I don’t really know,” said Doelan. “Things have been a little weird lately.”
“What do you mean?” asked Liri, a little confused. “Has something happened?”
“No it’s just...” he faltered again. “Things seem different. It’s almost as if I am looking at things from a different direction.”
“Which is?”
Doelan breathed out quickly. “I don’t know. I don’t know why this is but I can’t help but feel like...like...like nothing is real...”
He stopped talking. He could not believe how ridiculous he sounded. It all made so much more sense in his head, but he just couldn’t explain it. And then he looked at Liri, who seemed troubled. Deeply troubled.
“Like they’re lies.” said Liri. “Like you look at something and you feel that someone is lying to you but no one is talking. Except...except when talking to people. The other gislers I mean. Friends and family are the only things that seem real.”
Doelan thought for a minute. “Yes. I never thought of it that way but yes. That’s what it’s like.”
They stopped moving.
“Liri,” Doelan asked in a low voice. “Have you been...seeing things...too?”
Liri turned to watch his family, they were approaching but were still at a good distance away, so they couldn’t hear. He turned back to Doelan.
“Yes, yes I have.”
“Would they be...maybe...goblins?”
Liri sighed, seemingly relived, partly worried. “Yes.”
That confirmed it; the things he’d been seeing lately were seen by Liri as well. He hadn’t imagined it. He didn’t know how long Liri had been seeing things, but he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was something really wrong happening in Halhor.
He was a little scared.
Doelan glanced back towards Liri’s family and then back.
“They don’t know do they?” he asked.
“No,” said Liri, “I was afraid people would think I was odd, especially my family.”
“That didn’t bother me,” said Doelan, trying to put a brave face on things. “I wasn’t afraid people would think I was odd. I told you and all.”
“People already think you are odd.”
There was silence for a moment as they looked at each other, and then they started laughing.
“That’s true,” said Doelan. “That’s very true.”
Liri sighed as he finished laughing. “So what do you think it all means? Is it real or are we just imagining it?”
Doelan considered it for a moment and said, “I don’t know.”
“Well whatever it is, we’ll figure it out together. Friends?” He stuck out his hand.
Doelan took the hand and they shook. “Friends,” he said.
Then they turned and continued to walk.
****

Chapter Five
His Confession

Doelan took a deep breath as he held the hourglass up, glowing in the light of the bonfire under a bright moon. At midnight, precisely, it stopped flowing. Doelan was now fifteen years old, and was no longer ageing. He would be locked at that age for the rest of his life; an eternity if he was lucky. In gisler society he was a man, but the words of Erid, the head of the orphanage that Doelan had lived in for so long, came back to him.
You’ll always be that strange, funny, special little child to me, he had said.
Doelan didn’t consider Erid a father figure. Not really. But he was an important figure in Doelan’s life all the same. He was kind to Doelan, like he was kind to all the orphans. His attention was just divided. At that moment, looking at Erid clap with the rest of the gislers, he thought of him as one hundredth of a father, because he had to be father to one hundred children. Still, Doelan couldn’t blame Erid for thinking of him as a child.
It didn’t make what Doelan had to do any easier.
Outside the marble cottages of Halhor, in the grass field, Doelan looked at Liri, smiling and clapping for him along with all the others. Liri was his only friend, but at least no one teased him anymore. Now many clapped for him, encouraging his ascent from boy to man.
And he knew that if he said what he and Liri needed to say, then he would lose what little respect they had for him.
But Doelan and Liri had agreed. They would wait until after his birthday, once Doelan was a man. Then they would be on equal ground, but Doelan knew better. Doelan couldn’t tell his elders apart, and as far as he could tell he was the same age as they were. He was their equal, but he knew they wouldn’t see it that way.
You’ll always be that strange, funny, special little child to me. He would be that strange, funny little child to them forever.
Maybe Liri would have more clout but how were they supposed to say it? How were they supposed to say that they had been seeing goblins in the village from time to time? How could they explain about those creatures, the animal skins they saw people wear, or the pickaxes and other tools they carried? The cave walls?
Who would believe them if they said what they thought, that all the gislers were in an illusion? That the goblins were using them to work, and they didn’t even know it. Another thing Doelan didn’t know is what exactly they were being used for, aside from digging as the tools suggested. Even so, he didn’t want to know, and figured that whatever it was it couldn’t be good.
He remembered when the two of them had figured it out. Liri, said Doelan. I honestly think we’re the goblins’ prisoners. Kept in some sort of illusion so we don’t run away. Everything we see is false, and I think we’ve all been in goblin caves our whole lives.
I think you’re right, said Liri. Other people are the only thing that’s real. We have to tell them, Doelan.
They did have to tell them. Doelan didn’t feel any particular connection to any gisler apart from Liri, but Liri felt every bond possible. Besides, no one deserved this fate any more than the two of them did. Yes, they had to tell. He looked at Liri smiling, but behind that smile he saw nervousness. Both of them knew it would not be easy.
Still, Doelan smiled, doing his best to enjoy his coming of age. Things were about to change, as everyone knew. Doelan just wasn’t certain how much.
As he thought these thoughts, a mind that had watched him for so long, also had thoughts.
So this is it. She thought. He’s actually going to do this. I’ll have to be clever to keep the rest from breaking out of the illusion. First he sees my goblins, then he forgets them, only to see them again, and then that other boy starts seeing goblins too. This has to end. They can leave my illusion if they wish, but I won’t let them take the rest with them.
…
“You can do it Doelan,” said Liri, pushing him towards Erid.
“I’ll do it when you start walking towards your parents,” Doelan replied.
They were standing just outside the orphanage. That large stone building cast a shadow over them. Erid was leading a young troop of children. Liri’s family was nowhere in sight.
“I’ll tell my family, I promise,” said Liri. “It will be okay. Just remember how we agreed to do this. Tell them about the goblins. If we can get them to see goblins then we can explain our theory about the illusion.”
“I know the plan.” Doelan took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, marching directly towards Erid, who was just leading the children inside, handing them over to another gisler attendant.
“Alright, in you go,” he said. “Onward. Oh, hello Doelan.”
“Hello sir,” said Doelan shakily.
“So, a man now. Have you found work?”
“Not yet,” said Doelan, wishing he could just spit it out. Unfortunately, Erid seemed more interested in making small talk.
“Hmm…I see. Where are you staying then?”
“I’m staying with Liri and his family until I make ends meet.” This dragging on was almost a relief to Doelan, not having to actually say anything, but it was also annoying.
And Erid noticed. “Is everything alright Doelan?”
Doelan hesitated for just a moment, but said, “No. There is something wrong.