Prologue

The Quandary

The sun had just set.

Darkness was descending.

The Magician enters the darkened bed chamber.

His wife lay ever sleeping.

Just like she was for decades.

He gently parts her lips and pours yet another potion.

She lay there sleeping, still he detects no motion.

Her blue/green changing eyes lay hidden behind her lids.

Her skin was still cold, chest barely moving.

At the edge of the bed, he sits, while his heart sank.

Slowly reluctantly, he leaves the bed chamber.

He remembers the king and the queen.

They are hosting a grand masquerade ball tonight.

He decides he needs a break from his labors.

He donned his cloak and raises the hood over his head.

He enters the well lite castle.

He hears the gay music coming from the grand hall.

As he enters, he cast spells of happiness, incantations of fun and joy for all.

Most of all a spell that all would see him as he wants them to see him.

In the distance, on the far side of the masked throng,

On the edge of the frolicking dancers, he spies a lone figure.

Her mask was in place, and yet he senses something.

He is not sure what.

He approaches her, and they dance and talk.

Behind her mask, he sees her ever-changing eyes' dance.

He feels she wants to engage him, to learn more about him.

He does something he has never done he tells her,

Things he has told no one,

Thoughts that he feels no one would ever understand.

To his amazement, she does understand.

This frightens him.

He casts a spell to try to stop what he is feeling towards her.

However, then he faces her.

He throws back his hood revealing himself.

It is then he realizes he's been bewitched by her.

He does not run.

He cannot run.

Frightened by it all,

However, he stays and tells her more.

She listens and gently prompts.

She spies the torc around his neck.

It is three bands of metal twisting around each other.

One band silver/one band gold/one band bronze

At each end is a green translucent gem.

She tells him it looks familiar.

Ah she says I have seen it on the masked druid knight.

He hesitates but cannot resist her.

In truth, he says that is also I.

She sees his soul for what it really is.

She takes him by the hand.

She leads him to a spot in the palace he has never seen.

Nearby, he can hear a barely seen waterfall.

She sits very close to him.

She holds his hand as she pulls back her hood,

Upon her head a jeweled crown he sees.

She is the queen.

His thoughts explode.

His mind goes in a thousand different directions at once.

Again, he thinks he should run.

He has revealed too much.

He should not have burdened her.

Nevertheless, then he thinks,

She sees me as I truly am.

However, she did not turn away.

She could have slipped away into the crowd.

She might have never revealed herself to him.

She was risking much on his behalf.

To him, who's very name means servant.

By revealing she was the queen.

She is putting her trust in him,

As he already put his trust in her.

He feels great joy.

Yet confusion,

However, an overwhelming sense that all is right.

He has found his mo anamchara.

He will be her steadfast warrior.

The poet drops his pen.

He sighs a deep body trembling lament.

The end he knows not.

What a mess I have left these two in.

He feels contentment, joy, fulfillment, sadness and fear.

He tries to peer into the future.

His dark-brown eyes can see nothing in the murky distance.

He stands up and walks back into his darkened cold bed chamber.

The poet awakes.

The sun pierces the cloud strewn sky.

He says what a beautiful day.

The earth smells fresh from the night rain.

He is ready.

He must continue for the magician's and the queen's sake.

To leave them in such a state would not do.

He smiles and picks up his pen.

They sit below the falls in their secret place.

The magician can now see the falls that he only heard the other night.

Tha e latha brèagha, he says.

Yes, it is a beautiful day says the queen.

He smiles, you know Gaelic.

Yes and like you, I possess magic.

She goes on to say I know of your wife's condition.

I know you have tried all manners of potions and spells.

You have spent many years' toiling with no reward.

I am almost reluctant to tell you what I know.

Please go on he softly almost inaudibly sighs.

Magic is not to blame for her sleep.

Neither is it a poison that she has been given.

It is a self-imposed sleep.

She must choose to awake and may never.

The magician sits quietly.

Deep down, he knew/knows this.

He just refuses to believe it.

His eyes swell with tears.

His vision becomes blurry.

A single tear rolls down his check.

The queen tenderly wipes it from his face.

She touches the wetness to her lips and tastes it.

She leans in, and they kiss a long warm kiss.

She says we have found each other.

Our souls are meant/were meant to meet.

We fill voids in each other.

One I did not know I had.

A void you have felt for a long time.

Together our souls create a brilliant white light.

We shine with every hue of the universe.

We saturate it with so much color it drips.

She says all these things quietly, wetly into his ear.

She leans back and says I have a plan.

The poet's hand is shaking so bad he drops his pen.

What can she mean?

He stands up to walk.

His knees give out.

His mind is energized as if hit by lightning.

He reels in body, mind, heart, soul.

He thinks back to all the queen has told the magician/knight.

Something there must hold the clue to her plan.

The magician knows she will not betray the king.

That she knows he will not forsake his wife.

That the magician would not want her to betray the king.

As he would not betray the king or his wife.

What then is the plan.

Ah the poet thinks; I might know.

However, he decides to let the queen tell the magician.

The queen continues.

Our magic combined can accomplish great things.

I can create objects/worlds.

You can see worlds that others do not.

You can see spirits others cannot.

You have created spirits that almost have flesh.

You find it hard sometimes to tell, which is real they are so vivid to you.

We can use our power together to create a world so tangible it is real.

However, I do not see how that helps the magician says.

We will not stop there/here.

We will create a Doppelganger of ourselves.

They will be us.

They will have same soul/mind/heart.

We will put them in a world.

They will be able to stay there or create what worlds they want.

They craft a world, one very similar to their own world.

They take a piece of themselves.

They nurture it/craft it/mold it until it is then.

They will start off as gypsies.

The magician/knight will be the writer/creator of great poems.

The queen/creator will be the music writer who puts the poems in song.

They will travel together by day and sing their songs.

And under the dark starry night, they will make love.

Love, like no one has seen before.

They will shine brighter at night than the milky itself.

The stars across the sky will look down upon them; they be jealous.

The two will cling together like no others.

They will have created a new world order for themselves.

Finally, the work is done.

At the shimmering boundary of this world and the new world, they gather.

One of each must go through.

The poet watches this all from afar.

His eyes get bleary again.

He is having a hard time seeing.

He sees that one magician, and one queen went through the boundary.

The doorway seals.

Even so, he cannot know for sure,

Which went through the real or the Doppelganger.

The poet smiles/cries and says his work is done

It seemed so long ago this happened the poet thought. If he knew, then what he knows now he would have tried to warn them or tell them they must come up with a different plan. Instead, he was as blind as they were about how the universes work. To be so bold to think that they, or he could transition between the infinite universes without a price, to become a god of their own destiny. They set their limited souls free in a limitless expanse. The only thing they would be able to cling to, to hold onto would be each other. That is if they found each other in each new reality, and he was not sure that would always be the case.