The human city that had been given my name did not change too much while we were away. There were a few more houses, a few more pathways, and a few more children, but even from a distance, I could tell most of their time had been spent gathering resources and preparing for the winter. A crowd of young men and women were standing in a field, practicing magic. As we approached, their instructor noticed our arrival and called out.
Kelser and I rested for an entire day after we returned. The journey had been grueling enough, but the stuff we'd had to do in the kingdom had been draining as well. I remarked to myself that it felt like I'd been using magic almost continuously for months now. On the bright side, my 'wisdom' had improved even further. Silver linings, I thought to myself, as I collapsed on a soft bed of leaves in my own little hut, and fell asleep.
---
A mirror. Surface wet. Ripples, waves, thunderous applause when I walk in front and bow, low. From behind the curtain, crescendo. Crescendo of drops, to rain, to lightning bolts. Crescendo from new, to crescent, to full, and back again. Back again to the mirror on all sides, up top, down below, in front of my eyes, inside my head, cold to the touch, hot to the feel.
Hot to the feel, it singed my hand, and I sang. I sang to the merry melodies of screams and cackling laughter. Laughter that bounced from note to note like a ballerina on her tippy toes, pirouette to the mirror, letting me see my reflection, I am not a ballerina, a disembodied voice, or an elf with pointy ears sleeping on a bed of leaves in a mud covered, wooden hut on the banks of a river in another world.
In the mirror, it is my face. The one I've known the longest. The one I thought I'd lost in the Charles to a strange summons, a ridiculous fate, a series of events that were still progressing, and to remember that they were still progressing was also to remember how strange it was to be dreaming of a face that nobody in this world should know. A face that even the immortals, one or more of whom were no doubt dictating this dream, should not know.
A bird flew by, I did not glance at it. I felt it was an illusion. It had red eyes, but I did not meet them. This chaos. This randomness. This fixture on absurdity, movement, and relentless imagery was a bigger marker than any bird or the color red. Madness. This was madness. And besides, I was assured in my supposition, for the mirror staring at me was, at the end of the day, silver.
The silver mirror calmed the scene. It lost my old reflection, letting me see myself as an elf once again, but then it lost all reflection entirely, and became empty. But a mirror cannot be empty. And so it showed me something else. It showed the world around my body, which should have been sleeping quietly in the hut.
Around my body, there was a red glow. A burning, surging tidal wave of deepest red, that threatened to engulf me entirely. I shuddered, which in my dream, made the whole empty whiteness tremble. The mirror beckoned. I was confused. What did it want me to do? Apparently annoyed by my hesitation, the mirror rushed forward and swallowed me in its frame.
It had no teeth, but I felt it chewing my skin. Its tongue rolled around my head. Its throat pushed me down. And a burning light pricked my eyeballs, making them burst like a ripe grape. I yelled, but my mouth was filled with tangible light, and I was pushed out to the red glow like a grenade with its pin pulled out. The red glow noticed me too late, and as it tried to scurry away, I exploded. I exploded like a star on its last legs, or a firefly pressed between a thumb trying to give off one final burst of light as it was squished by the fingers of a being whose scale and power was beyond its tiny bug brain.
---
I woke up in a cold sweat. I put my hand on my forehead. There was a sound. Like shards of glass clinking against each other. I looked under my body and found red stones. I'd taken these from starred monsters during my journey in the Izlandi Kingdom. I must have fallen asleep holding onto them, even though I usually made sure to keep them away from my body as much as possible. I suppose I had learned a lesson tonight. Man, my head hurt. And what was with that dream? I could still remember it clearly. There was no doubt in my mind that had been the Immortal of Madness' handiwork, but what did that mean? Was he protecting me? Did he just want to slight the Immortal of Evil? Or did he want me to be indebted to him?
I threw the shards of red stars somewhere far from the city, in a deep ditch where nobody would ever find them again. As I did that, I remarked to myself just how much the Immortal of Evil must hate me. I'd messed up his plans in the Plains of Serenity and now I'd eliminated the influence he'd had over the demons in the Izlandi Kingdom. No wonder he'd try to come after me in my sleep.
It was dawn once again. I settled against a tree, taking a deep breath. Something about seeing the sun in this world always calmed my nerves. I mused to myself, how terrible it would be, if even the sun had an immortal behind it. Sunlight glared in the corner of my eye. I looked over.
There was a small, still pond a few steps from where I was sitting. It's surface was clear and reflective. Like a mirror. I stared at it for a long time. Until the sun had cleared the horizon and was spewing a burning glow around the pond's surface. I stood up and walked over. I couldn't see anything in the water, so I got closer. And closer. And closer still.
With my face right up next to the water, I saw only myself. My face in this world, surprisingly still unfamiliar despite how long I'd spent with it. Though it made sense, since I hadn't invented mirrors yet.
My eyes widened.
I hadn't invented mirrors yet.
---
"They said these must be sown in the winter," I said as I handed over some seeds to Elder Konri.
"And is there a special way to store them?" she asked.
"Just keep them in a dark, dry place. They should last long enough to be sown. Make sure they don't get any mold, though. The demon farmers said the seeds can grow a strange mold, seemingly at random. Just throw out the ones that have that, and sow the ones that don't, and we should be fine," I said.
"Understood," said the elder as she directed some of the tribesmen to begin sowing the seeds that were to be planted in this season. It was still spring, so the crops we were planting now had to be harvested right before the winter rolled in.
Paris came up next to me and rubbed her tusk against my head. I laughed and pet her large head. Apparently she'd missed me a lot more than I'd expected. Were Fil Tusker's nearly sentient monsters? It certainly felt that way, judging by the intelligence Paris had been showing. After showing some affection, Paris walked back over to the fields and a human put a light harness on her, which was connected to a wooden contraption held together by little bits of iron. It was a rudimentary animal-based plow, and Paris had been pulling it across the ground since the morning.
Rows of humans walked up behind her, taking out weeds and planting little seeds in the plowed land. Most of the seeds were ones I had brought back from the Izlandi Kingdom, but a few were of the kind we'd been cultivating before. The ones from the demon kingdom should be more reliable, however, since a lot of our seeds just wouldn't sprout at all, as we'd learned last year. Perhaps I had been underestimating just how important millennia of selective breeding had been for crops back on my Earth.
One of the seeds was for the plant the demons used to make their clothes, so I was especially looking forward to not having to wear monster hide anymore. This stuff was always uncomfortably itchy, and would smell a lot if I was out in the sun for too long. It was also a pain to wash, and really hard to manipulate into something that looked good.
I looked over the fields, and smiled. I knew it would take a while, but the lives of all the humans in the double river basin would improve dramatically now that we had access to reliable crops and a trade partner to the north. Things, I remarked to myself, were looking up!