Forest Mage

I thought the man a fool when he reached for Sirlofty’s headstall to hold my horse while I dismounted. Didn’t he recognize a cavalla steed when he saw one? Sirlofty, long schooled against such a tactic, reared and wheeled in one smooth motion. As he came down, he plunged half a dozen steps forward to be clear of the “enemy.” I pulled him in quickly before he could launch a savage kick at the man. Dismounting, I dropped his reins and he stood in obedient stillness. I looked back at the half-breed, expecting him to be shaken by the experience.

Instead, he was grinning obsequiously. He shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hands in an exaggerated gesture of astonishment. “Ah, such a mount, such a proud creature! I am full of envy at your fortune in possessing him.”

“Thank you,” I replied stiffly. The man made me uneasy, and I wished to be away from him. His Gernian features contrasted with his Plainsman mannerisms. His choice of words and vocabulary were those of an educated man, the guttural notes of a Plains accent almost completely suppressed, and yet he stood before me in his worn sandals, his clothes little better than rags, while his Plains wife peered out at both of us from the shadowed doorway of their hovel. The contrast made me uncomfortable. He drew closer to me, and launched into a rehearsed monologue.

“No doubt you have heard of the fabled Dancing Spindle, the most enigmatic of the five great monuments of the Midlands! And at last you have come to behold for yourself this marvel of ancient stonework. How, you must wonder, did the forerunners of the Plainspeople, with their simple tools, create such a wonder? How does it balance and never fall? How does it create an illusion of motion when seen from a distance? And what, I am sure you ask yourself, did such an amazing creation signify to those who wrought it?

“Well, you are not alone in asking these questions, sir! Learned scholars and philosophers and engineers have all, in their turns, ruminated upon these mysteries. From as far as Skay and Burry they have come, and I who share the heritage of both the Plains and Gernia have been pleased to assist them, just as I will gladly enlighten you, for the modest sum of one hector!”

His glib pitch reminded of the singsong cant of the freak show barkers on Dark Evening in Old Thares. The memory of that evening and all that followed flooded through me. I pushed aside his pleading palm with the back of my hand and stepped away from him. He flinched at my touch, although I was not rough.

“I’ve come to see a rock formation that was doubtless mostly carved by the forces of nature, and only embellished by your people. I do not need to pay you to see what is right before my eyes! Please stay out of my way.”

For an instant, his eyes narrowed and I thought he would snarl at me. Then his eyes widened, and to my surprise, he mimed another of his elaborate shrugs. He gestured toward the towering stone, making a small bow as he did so. “Do as you will, sir,” he said. Then he bowed again and backed away from me. I stared after him, puzzled, for I had detected no sarcasm or rudeness in his words.

But as he turned away from me, I lifted my eyes and perceived the real reason for his sudden loss of interest. Creaking down the steep trail was a team and wagon. The open wagon had been decked out as if for a holiday outing. A sunshade of bright yellow was suspended over its passengers. A banner painted on the side of the wagon proclaimed, “SEE THE WONDROUS SPINDLE!” Within, a dozen passengers of all ages sat on cushioned benches, the ladies holding parasols against the spring sunshine. As my erstwhile guide hastened toward them, I saw my error. I had stumbled into his commercial endeavor unawares. Now that his true prey had arrived, he was forsaking me for a richer prize. That was as well with me. I turned my back on the tourists’ arrival and set my attention on the Spindle.

It was taller than the tallest building I’d ever seen, and far more massive. My eyes traveled to the towering tip, and then down the rod. It appeared to dwindle to a single sharp point touching the ground. I walked to the edge of the depression that cupped it and looked down. The sides of the bowl sloped steeply down, and the narrow point of the Spindle was lost in deep shadow, like a giant pen plunged into an inkwell. The whole structure leaned at a sharp angle, not touching the sides of the well, apparently supported by a small joining hidden within the well. That ran counter to my engineer’s instincts. How could such a small anchorage of rock support that weight? Even at this closer perspective, it still maintained its illusion of motion.

For a time I stood there, my neck craned, staring down at the Spindle’s tip in the deeply shadowed bowl. What had seemed when viewed from a distance a fine point in proportion to the gargantuan spindle was in fact a substantial girth of stone. Where it disappeared from sight in the depths of the hole it had seemingly drilled in the earth, the cylinder’s girth was still as wide as a watchtower’s base. It must have been still. If it hadn’t been still, the grinding of the stone tip against the depths would have been deafening, as if a giant mortar and pestle were at work. But my gullible eyes still insisted that the Spindle spun. I shook my head to clear it of the optical illusion and tried to focus my mind on the real puzzle: What kept it in place? Given its mass and how it leaned, why hadn’t it fallen ages ago?