Opening
It began when the hero approached the mysterious book and opened it, white pages spilling through fingertips, countless characters crashing and resolving into a neat stack. Finally, the leaves of paper settled upon a page near the front, filled with alien symbols arranged into mesmerizing rows. The figure leaned in, examining the letters, watching as they warbled and shifted, skittering across the page, jumping into the air, swirling about in a maelstrom above the now-blank pages. They collided, condensed into the shape of a human face with a thin moustache. Huge, froglike eyes blinked once and jowls quivered under pinched cheeks.
“Who are you?”
The hero stepped back. The face shifted like a sand dune of letters in order to peer directly at the person. It squinted through the reddish darkness and smiled an eerie grin.
“A most excellent question, young one,” the face answered. It was crisp but airy, as though the wind had stolen most of its volume long ago. “And a sheer delight to answer.”
The tree stump that the book stood on peeled and split into two skeletal arms and the lower half of a body. Drawing itself up to its full height, the hero could see that there once had been a skeleton resting there that had been overgrown by wood and moss. Where a ribcage should have been, there were layers of bony white pages. A bird chirped in alarm and sped away as the treelike skeleton animated itself.
“However, you did not come here to ask questions,” the letter-head said, hovering above the book-torso. “You came here to get answers.”
“I suppose so. But I’m not sure what answers I want.”
“Fortunately for you, that’s also answered for you.” An ‘I’ winked, and a wooden claw rose up and began flipping through pages, pausing on such unlikely subjects as “How to Host Dinner Parties” and “Dodging Giants.” Finally, it came to rest on a blank page.
“Oh dear,” the thing said, stroking its thin mustache. “This is very nearly no good. Very nearly.”
“Where are the words?”
“In my head, naturally,” it cried, shaking an ear and dumping a splash of letters onto the page. Its nimble fingers rearranged them into bunches, then rows.
“Otherwise it would be too easy for a passersby to read someone else’s destiny. Naturally.” It coughed.
“Are you sure you put it together correctly?”
“Of course! Word for word.” It spread its fingers invitingly toward the page. The hero leaned in close. The symbols were incomprehensible.
“Oh, forgive me! I forget that few remember the old language. May I? It’s been so long since I’ve had a chance to read anything.”
The hero nodded. The face cleared its throat, raising an hand to cover its “mouth.” It paused dramatically, then enunciated,
“ONE CANNOT GO ALONE.
SEVEN CLOSE THE DOOR.
THE HARP WILL PLAY BOTH MELODY AND HARMONY.
SHIP IN A BOTTLE IN THE OCEAN. TAKE THESE WORDS WITH YOU.”
The hero thought for a little while.
“Well, there’s only one thing that was actually clear about that Heralding.”
“Really? Which part? The whole thing seemed clear to me.”
“‘Take these words with you.’”
“Oh? Oh, no no no no, you’ve misinterpreted it completely. It truly means--”
The hero wrenched the book out of its stumpy pedestal as bony hands scrabbled uselessly against solid flesh. The head bobbed along like a cloud tied to a string.
“How dare you? This violates everything! The next hero will have you to thank for his failure!”
“The next hero,” the person said slowly, “will be someone I choose.”
“How can you choose a hero??”
Almond eyes flashed and the figure threw back its hood, revealing dark skin, darker hair, and sharp-pointed ears. “Because I’m not the hero. I’m the princess. And I’m taking the story into my own hands.”
The book slammed shut, the words vanished, and the story began.