A-1 Assignments

Wizard 2

I stood up on the gallows, gagged and bound, watching the people below watch me. The king gave his speech, going on and on about my supposed murder and how I would hang for my crimes. Crimes, of course, that I did not commit.

It's funny, really, how it all came about, but I've already written my confession of innocence to the king, the king's advisors, my fellow prisoners, and on the wall of my solitary jail cell. I have no real desire to do so again.

For nearly half an hour, the king ranted and raved about how awful I was and how I would be punished and so on and so forth. I spent my time imagining myself somewhere else, on a secluded beach where reality and the things behind it couldn't find me. The waves were crashing on the shore; the sand glittered like diamonds. It was a warm, sunny day and I'd left the gallows far, far away in another country. It was so divine; I thought I could taste the salt in the air and feel the cool spray misting my face.

I was yanked back into the moment when a hand wrapped a coarse rope around my neck, leaving it just loose enough to crack my neck if I fell just right. Normally, I would be asked to say my final words, but no one trusted a wizard enough to remove his gag before they executed him. No point in getting the whole crowd cursed.

I stood on the fall-away platform, trying to muster up some kind of emotion: anger, sadness, relief, fear, anything. I felt absolutely nothing, even as the masked executioner stepped toward the wooden bar that would release me from life. I did feel something, though, when a disembodied voice whispered in my ear.

"You'll not die," it whispered, and I couldn't tell if it was male or female or both. "Not today."

The platform gave just as I was beginning to be afraid, and I plunged down through a tear in reality that had just opened up beneath me.

I closed my eyes as I sank in, fearful of what I might find. But soon my eyelids began twitching, pulling open on their own accord. My eyes flew open as something wet and scaled slithered past my face and I finally looked at my surroundings.

The world beyond reality was reddish orange, the air as thick and heavy as molasses. I could breathe surprisingly fine, but my movements were slow and cumbersome as I attempted to swim in the thick air. I turned and watched creatures of enormous size claw, slither and swim past. One creature, its catfish body undulating in the thick mass of air, paused before my face, its features waving in the unreality currents. It opened its large maw and said in a gravely voice, “Seek the tornado dancer,” before swimming away.

For a few moments, I tried to digest what he’d said, but then felt a suction pulling my body down into darker depths. The air became too thick to breathe and soon my lungs began to hurt and throb. The suction came faster and my body slid down in increasing speeds before I popped back into reality.

I didn't have time to look around me as I slid out, because no sooner had I fallen out of the tear than I tumbled onto a beach with crisp white sand and clear, blue water. I was surprised when I didn't feel the noose tighten around my throat and even more surprised by the severed rope end that dangled at the end of the noose. It was cleanly cut, sliced as though cut off by scissors. I carefully pulled the noose from my neck, tossing it aside and standing up from the diamond-like sand.

I began dusting myself off, examining the pristine beach and the baby bluish water just beyond. Except for darkening skies and the water tornado dancing on the water about a mile off shore, the beach was beautiful.