In which Megan trips over an unexpected stranger

Chapter 2 of The Time-Teller

Chapter 2

In which Megan trips over an unexpected stranger

 

“Well, you had better take me back right now!” Megan cried angrily.

 

“I can’t do that,” Pyralis said calmly. “The crystal only works for two teleportations. I would have to dip it in the paragrian potion again, and that is in my workshop in Karnell. I was expecting to take a two or three year nap here, but now, it seams there are strange things happening, and it’s not good for a wizard to take a nap like that when strange things are happening because he might wake up to an entirely different civilization.”

 

“Two or three year nap? You really are crazy!” Megan said as anger and hopelessness began to fill her like poisoned wine might fill the goblet of someone’s enemy.

 

“Of course I’m crazy!” Pyralis retorted. “To be a wizard, you need a certain sort of imbalance, a certain spark that charges your powers and kindles your abilities.”

 

“Wait, I thought you were looking for an apprentice.” Megan was trying to somehow make sense out of the whole situation. “Maybe, you kidnapped me to force me into servitude.” That thought made her shudder.

 

“I was looking for an apprentice. I had some difficulty in convincing the boy that the best decision was to go with me. He called me some things that I would rather not repeat and threw something rather odorous at me. I don’t think he liked the idea of apprenticeship to a wizard, and no, I would not force someone like you into servitude without first cutting out that vexatious tongue. Then, how would I understand you? As you can see, though I am a powerful wizard, I cannot remove the darkness that veils my vision.”

 

“You’re not a wizard!” Megan shouted. “Wizards don’t exist! This isn’t some fairytale where wizards and fairies and unicorns run about freely. This is the real world.”

 

“Yes, I am a wizard,” Pyralis replied in his lazy sounding drawl. “And I’m sorry to tell you this, but you are no longer in your so-called ‘real’ world.”

 

“Prove it,” Megan said.

 

“That would be a waste of power, insolent little girl. My powers are not some sort of show that you can see, have a good laugh, then leave.”

 

“Fine,” Megan said. “I’m better off alone than with a crazy man.” She stormed away. There were tree branches and puddles at every turn. Megan’s sneakers were soon soaked through. Her feet were so caked with mud that she barely felt like she had any shoes on at all.

 

“Ouch!” Megan yelled. Her left foot flew up and splattered her face with muddy water. She felt her right ankle twist around the wrong way as she tripped over herself. Her ankle began to swell painfully. She bit her lip, and it started to bleed.

 

“Well, it’s a wonder you didn’t trip sooner,” Megan heard a soft female voice. “I was sure the way you were storming, you would trip before you even got two feet away from Pyralis. You have quite a temper, little maiden.”

 

“Quite a temper?” Megan said in anguish. “Quite a temper! One minute I’m sweeping a sidewalk, and the next thing I know, I’m in a muddy forest with a lunatic, who thinks he’s a wizard of all things!”

 

“Calm yourself,” the soft voice whispered gently. “My name is Ayla, and what’s yours.”

 

“What do you mean? Don’t you know there’s a lunatic on the loose? He could have some crazy fit and kill everything or something!” Megan yelled, beginning to hyperventilate.

 

“Slow deep breaths,” Ayla said smoothly. “In and out, in and out.”

 

“Have you even heard what I’ve been saying?” Megan shrieked.

 

“Of course I have, little girl, I heard every word. That’s all I can do, listen.”

 

“Ah!” Megan moved her ankle the wrong way and felt something tear. She moaned softly squeezing her knee tight. She tried to move her ankle into an elevated position, but it was trapped under a tree root.

 

“Let me help you,” Ayla spoke up. Megan felt the tree branch lift away slowly. She looked around and saw no one there. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest.

 

“I must be imagining things,” Megan murmured. “I’m hearing voices in my head. This can’t be happening.”

 

“Of course you are,” Ayla declared. “All the sounds you hear are in your head. That’s what your temporal lobe is for.”

 

“I’m going crazy,” Megan uttered between groans.

 

“If you mean that I am a figment of your imagination, then you are mistaken,” Ayla said firmly. “I am as real as any other oak.”

 

“Oak?” Megan asked.

 

“Any tree or shrub belonging to the genus Quercus, of the beech family, bearing the acorn as fruit,” Ayla recited.

 

“You’re a tree,” Megan stammered. “You have got to be kidding me.”

 

“Calm yourself. You are breathing much too hard. If you do that too much, you’ll end up with heart problems and never get past your seventies.”

 

“How would you know,” Megan cried. “You’re a tree.”

 

“I may be a tree,” Ayla said strongly. “But, that doesn’t mean I haven’t had my education.”

 

“How can a tree be educated?” Megan retorted rudely.

 

“By listening of course,” Ayla announced. “After all, that’s all I can do, listen.” Megan felt a nagging pain in her ankle. She lifted it up, and took her shoe off. The whole forest woke up to the shriek that followed.

 

“What are those?” Megan began breathing more heavily than she had been before and choked as she struggled for the air that didn’t seem to want to enter her tense throat. Her foot was not only caked with mud, but there were tiny creatures sprawled all over it. They appeared to be some sorts of miniscule leeches. They had little yellow dots all over them, and many were half embedded in her skin.

 

“Calm yourself,” Ayla snapped. “You just woke half my siblings. Have you any idea what bad tempers most oaks have?” Megan was too busy hyperventilating to listen to Ayla. She watched as the little leeches begin to go further and further into her skin.

 

“A-bes!” Megan heard Pyralis’ familiar voice. Suddenly, all the little creatures on her foot began to shimmer and glow. Then, she felt a terrible pain in her foot as all the little creatures pulled themselves out of her skin and crawled into a puddle. She noticed the little leech-like creatures crawling out of her other shoe and into the ground. Megan couldn’t take it any more, any of it. She felt quite dizzy and a little nauseous. Finally, she fainted.

 

She woke up on a rather hard and lumpy bed. Her ankle was being held up by a ropelike vine tied to the ceiling, which was made out of wood, appeared to be over a hundred years old, and was probably about ready to fall down. She realized that she was in some sort of makeshift shack. There were only three pieces of furniture in the room, the bed, a stool upon which Pyralis was sitting, and a table covered with gross looking plants and dishes that had numerous unidentifiable things growing in them. Megan noticed that she wasn’t wearing any shoes. Her feet were no longer caked with mud, but her ankle had a leaf with many foul looking things oozing out from under it.

 

“Yuck,” Megan remarked.

 

“You’re awake,” Pyralis stated in his horrible drawl that Megan had come to hate. “I have decided that I did not make a mistake. Have you finished with your tantrum?” Megan looked angrily at Pyralis. This was, after all, his fault, and she hated him for it, but she couldn’t say anything for fear of crying out in pain from her aching ankle.

 

“The pain should subside in a few hours,” Pyralis voiced as though he knew what her lack of an answer had been concealing.

 

“If you’re a wizard,” Megan managed to say. “Then, why don’t you just heal my ankle?”

 

“Because if I did that, you would be under the impression that magic can solve all your problems, and you would have learned nothing from your experience. Besides, aren’t you going to thank me for getting rid of the spotted skin crawlers and carrying you all the way here?”

 

“It’s your fault I twisted my ankle and was covered in those spotted skin crawlers because if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here. You should be apologizing to me!”

 

“You are supposed to be here,” Pyralis explained in his usual drawl. “If I had not been there, someone else would have brought you here. A trained wizard does not make mistakes. Therefore, someone else must have tampered with my teleportation spell in order to get you here.”

 

“What if whoever tampered with your… your spell, accidentally got the wrong person,” Megan stammered through her teeth.

 

“Impossible,” Pyralis stated simply. “There are few people who can tamper with wizard magic, and those who can know what they’re doing.”

 

“I must be dreaming,” Megan said. “Wizards and magic aren’t real.”

 

“Nonsense. You’re lucky you tripped over Ayla. Some of the other trees would have pulled you under them to shut your screams off.”

 

“You mean killed me?” Megan whispered.

 

“Finally,” Pyralis said. “I was beginning to think there was no hope for you. Yes, they would have killed you. Trees are not happily awoken from their slumbers.” Megan rolled her eyes in annoyance. She did not believe any of it. She longed for her soft bed and her normal life and even her homework, which was probably still on the living room floor.

 

“So,” Pyralis spoke. “I’m going to wait for your ankle to heal. Then, you and I are going to leave the forest. I will take you to the palace… or perhaps to my old friend. Either way.”

 

“I want to go home,” Megan stated firmly.

 

“I’m afraid I don’t have a way to get you home. If I did, I would surely let you go home. I would much rather be meditating than listening to your obnoxious prattle.” Megan stared at Pyralis. How could he be so incredibly awful to her? How dare he insult her when she was wounded and had no knowledge of how his fantasies worked.

 

“You’re insane,” Megan said angrily and began to sob.

 

“Yes, I am,” Pyralis responded. “Only those who see things can see beyond things, beyond reality. Only those who hear things can hear more things, hear beyond the sounds of nature and man and into other realms. Only those who sense odd happenings can hope to sense and wield the awesome power that is magic.”

 

“You need to be in some sort of mental hospital,” Megan said.

 

“Oh, I have been,” Pyralis replied. “The service there was quite nice. There was one young girl there that was very pretty and had slight insights into the future. She had real potential.” Megan shrank back. She was very frightened of Pyralis. Who knew what he was capable of thinking? She gulped helplessly.

 

“Don’t be frightened,” Pyralis said. “Illogical fear is the basis for stupidity. Would you like something to eat?” Megan shook her head ‘no,’ forgetting that Pyralis couldn’t see her, but apparently, he understood her answer.

 

“Hmm,” Pyralis muttered. “I shall have to feed you anyway. You’ll be no use if you’re starving. You’ll only slow me down.” Pyralis walked over to the disgusting table and picked up a bowl. He rubbed all the plants and things out of the inside of the bowl with his sleeve and took some sort of fruit out of the mess of roots and leaves. He squeezed it over the bowl and juice sprayed everywhere. He dropped the squishy mess into the bowl and peeled something out of the cracks in the table. That too, he put in the bowl. Megan could have sworn she saw something crawling in it. Pyralis handed it to her.

 

“No thank you,” Megan said looking at the repulsive mess in the bowl.

 

“This will help your ankle,” Pyralis replied.

 

“I’d rather die than eat that,” Megan said honestly.

 

“It isn’t that bad,” Pyralis looked hurt.

 

“Yes,” Megan retorted. “It is.”

 

“I think you would be better off eating this. It will help your ankle.”

 

“You just scraped a whole bunch of rot off that decaying table!”

 

“That ‘decaying table’ is my work table, where I brewed many of my best potions.”

 

“Well, I don’t want your fake potions,” Megan said. “You can keep your mad fantasies to yourself! I want to go home!”