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

It’s…Liri’s been having this problem too…we…” Erid was getting confused, which made Doelan more nervous. “It’s a real problem and…Liri has the same problem…”
“Doelan…”
“We’ve been seeing goblins in Halhor!”
That took Erid by surprise, which, ironically, Doelan didn’t find surprising. The same could be said about Erid’s response.
“Doelan, that’s very serious, but don’t you think that if there were goblins in Halhor we’d be seeing signs?”
Not if were in an illusion, Doelan thought, they wouldn’t want us to see signs of them. However he only said part of that thought. “Well, maybe they don’t want anyone to see them.”
“And you say Liri’s been seeing goblins too?”
“Yes sir.” Normally, Doelan found that adult words like sir were hard to use for a person who looked only fifteen. However, this time he swallowed his feelings on the matter and did what any ‘sensible’ gisler would do.
“Wow,” said Erid. “You called me sir. I thought we looked the same age.”
“Erid, please. Liri and I are really scared.” That was true. That was so true, and that made Erid’s response hurt all the more.
“Doelan, you’re probably imagining things. I’ve seen you two, always talking about the stuff Liri brings back from his family’s vacations. You’ve got your head in the clouds all the time, instead of here, in Halhor. Now Doelan, please, just try and concentrate on what’s real.”
As Erid walked back into the orphanidge Doealn felt like screaming, THAT’S WHAT I’M TRYING TO GET YOU TO DO! But of course he didn’t. He turned back, feeling worse than before.
…
“It didn’t go well with Erid did it?” asked Liri as Doelan entered the room.
“It is that obvious?” asked Doelan, plopping down on a chair.
They were inside one of the marble cottages, Liri’s to be exact. Inside were more of the same marble columns from outside, wooden furniture, woolen rugs, and bright candles. It was all somehow rich looking, like nobility housing, and yet accessible, like a commoner’s home, and all Doelan could think about was how none of it was real.
“How did it go with your parents?” Doelan asked, but one look from Liri told him that it hadn’t gone any better. No one was going to believe them.
“You know,” said Liri. “Not long after telling them about goblins they talked about leaving me behind on their next vacation.”
This surprised Doelan. “Why?”
“They think I’m getting too many ideas. All the tales of battles from other nations are going to my head.”
“If only it were that simple.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve heard the stories. The cyclops sorcerer who shot lightning from his eye, the eagle man and goblin wars, the slefah invasion of the Ciniceros empire, even some of the older stories about the Twyla. The difference is those stories didn’t scare me. This does.”
Doelan knew exactly what Liri was talking about. The old legends seemed so distant that no matter what happened in them they weren’t too frightening. Stories where the ancient Twyla trapped a sorcerer and cast every dark spell he had cast back into himself was less frightening than goblins in the village.
Because that wasn’t an ancient legend. It was real, and it was happening right then and there.
“It doesn’t really matter,” said Liri. “It’s not like anything I saw on those vacations was real. Eagle men, cyclopses, none of them really exist. At least…I think they don’t. I’m not sure anymore."
Doelan didn’t answer. He hadn’t really thought about exactly how much was real. It was as frightening an idea as anything. However, he knew he would have to consider it. Something told him that even though they were surrounded by an illusion, some things were real, or at least it was based on reality. But he would figure it out later.
“Well,” he said. “Our guardians didn’t help. We’ll keep trying. We’ll tell anyone who will listen.”
He knew that would be harder.
…
It was.
Liri tried to tell the rest of his family about the goblins, while Doelan tried talking to anyone he could. He remembered walking up to the first random stranger he could find; a brown haired gisler boy just strolling through town on a bright sunny day. For all Doelan knew he could be thirty or forty. Doelan walked right up him in the town square, right next to the central fountain and said, “Excuse me sir.”
“Oh, there’s no need to call me sir,” said the other gisler. “I’m only sixteen.”
Not that much older than Doelan, who felt a little embarrassed. There’s no need to describe the painful scene of Doelan trying to get the worlds out. Suffice it to say the conversation didn’t end well.
“Oh please. I stopped telling stories like that when I was ten,” the other gisler said before walking off.
Doelan sighed, but he wasn’t going to give up that easily.
He tried gisler after gisler with no success. Apparently Liri hadn’t had any progress with his family because he eventually joined him. They told everyone they could find about the goblins, but no one believed them. They didn’t mention the illusion. People were already calling them crazy, so they didn’t want to push it.
Later that evening they stopped and played a game of chess underneath the oak tree outside the village. The twilight was gloomy, much like their moods.
“So,” said Doelan, making his move. “How many people called us mad?”
“I counted seventeen,” said Liri. “This was not our day. So…now what do we do?”
“We keep trying.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“But what if no one ever listens? Doelan…what if it’s impossible to get them to see the truth…what if we have to leave without them? ”
Doelan didn’t answer at first. He didn’t want to leave anyone, but he would if he had to. He wasn’t sure if Liri could. For his sake, they had to keep trying.
“Liri, anything is possible. I once thought it impossible that I’d ever have a friend. I once thought it impossible that anyone else could see things the way I do. Okay, maybe both of us seeing goblins isn’t so great, but you get my point. And I also thought it impossible to beat you at chess once. Let alone three times in a row. Seriously, my winning streak proves anything is possible.”
Liri looked at him grimly. “Except winning four times in a row.”
“What?”
Liri moved a piece and said, “Checkmate.”
Doelan stared at it, and sure enough it was checkmate. Liri’s win. It was at that moment that they both burst out laughing!
“Alright! Maybe not everything is possible! But Liri, we figured out the truth, and so can they. That’s possible. We’re not giving up.”
“Okay Doelan. Okay. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. That’s what friends are for.
They set up for another game, not sure how they were going to convince people of the truth.
…
Something was different that morning amid all the marble building and cottages. Doelan could feel it. No one was out. Everyone was inside. As the sun hid behind a layer of clouds, everyone else hid in their homes. Something was different.
Were they hiding from him? He looked and saw a window close, right before he looked at it. Yes, they were avoiding him. No one was going to listen. No one.
This was probably it. He and Liri would have to leave without the rest of them. He knew it would break Liri’s heart. And besides, they would be alone facing…what exactly? Was Liri right, and the whole world was fabricated? Was there a real Ciniceros Empire? Eagle men’s nest? A real Halhor?
Could the goblins have created a whole world from their imaginations? Doelan thought of how hard it was just to come up with a new chess strategy. A whole world would have been maddening!
He thought about it, and then he realized perhaps there was a real Halhor, and everything else…and he knew why. He was just about to tell Liri, to soften the blow of this news, when…
“Doelan.”
He spun around to face the last person he expected. Neron. He looked at Doelan stoically.
“I suppose you’ve heard about what I’ve been saying,” said Doelan. “And you have something to say about it?”
“Nothing mean or hurtful if that’s what you’re expecting.”
It was what Doelan expected, “Why did you stop teasing me anyway?”
“Ailean. Apparently she had been teased about her voice. It used to be a bit…goofier…before I met her. Left a bad taste in her mouth when she saw me doing something similar.”
“But why…”
“Because I found I liked her company more than I liked teasing you.”
And Doelan was grateful for that, but he wasn’t sure.
“I’m not here to tease you about this,” said Neron. “I admit, I had thought of some things to say in that regard, but I keep those to myself these days.”
If Doelan had though it strange to watch Erid act like an adult when looked fifteen, it was something else entirely to watch Neron do it now. Neron had always been the most childish person around him, and seeing him act like this when Doelan had given him every opportunity to jibe with this goblin issue…
“So what are you here to say?” asked Doelan.
“I’m here to say that your stories have gotten to people. There’s been talk and…people have started seeing things.”
It couldn’t be. “Goblins?” asked Doelan.
“Yes. I thought I saw some to.”
“Do you think they’re real?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
It wasn’t a ‘no.’ And a ‘not a no’ from Neron could almost mean a yes from anyone else. Things were looking up. Maybe they could bring the other gislers along after all? Maybe they wouldn’t face the outside of the illusion alone!
…
And then they were brought to court.
Made of cold marble, the courthouse of Halhor was set up like an amphitheater, with seats in a semicircle around the judge’s podium, also made of marble like the columns around the room. The mayor, Aralor, stood where the judge usually did. Despite looking like a child in his teen years he had a commanding presence, but that just added to the hopelessness that Doelan and Liri were feeling. As it turns out people had been seeing goblins, but then this meeting was called to discuss it. It had been ruled that the goblins had been imagined by people who got scared by a tall tale. This was the final decree on that issue.
“This is a very serious matter,” said mayor Aralor. “Two gislers, one of them just reaching the age of a man, spreading this kind of rumor. People afraid to come out of their homes, whispers that this might be real, and all because of these two making up wild stories.”
Doelan and Liri would have objected, but with one glance at each other they knew it would only get them in more trouble.
“It pains me to do this,” the mayor went on. “But I can’t have panicked citizens hiding from shadows. Life must go on. Therefore, if these stories of