Given to Glass
Brian S. Wheeler
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Copyright © 2013 by Brian S. Wheeler
Given to Glass
We stared at each other through the thick glass. Neither one of us spoke. He only held up his hand.
A Regent answered my calling. I had ignored for weeks the minor ground-lings, courtesans and advisers the barrow court sent to my glass to learn who among man once again knocked upon the doors to the faerie realm. I had sneered at all those previously sent to my mirror, and I had prayed that my voice was strong though my knees trembled. I risked everything when opening the portal I knew hidden beneath the reflection. I could not settle for anything less than a Regent's royal blood.
I regarded the Regent as he regarded me. He was a splendid being. Though mankind would regard him as short in stature, the Regent's slim build and easy posture whispered agility and grace. Silken robes accentuated by threaded, golden filigree complimented the Regent's fair skin. Pearl and silver beads decorated locks of white hair that fell past the Regent's shoulders. Rings adorned every finger. Necklaces woven from ivy and flowers circled his neck. But his eyes sparkled and turned even his raiment dull. His eyes sparkled in shades of green that shifted to pools of blue. His eyes glistened as they regarded me.
I am no fool in the protocol the summoning of a Regent requires. I am not so naive as to be unaware of the cost such calling would demand of me. The faerie folk, especially those of royal blood, are petty and vain. A Regent answered my summoning, and a Regent would demand I show my subservience through scarring and pain.
The pains of my preparation reverberated through my skull. Using course thread, I had sewn my mouth shut, so that the scabbing lips proved I understood how my low station owned no right to speak to a barrow court's Regent. I wore nothing to conceal my bald head, having shaved off all wisps of my auburn hair to prove I did not seek to compete with a Regent's beauty. Without beard, eyebrow or eyelash, I presented a naked, humble face to my mirror. I had smashed my face against the wall until my slender, noble nose broke into a flat and crooked appendage surrounded by bruising. My eyes nearly swelled shut. Though my fingers shook for fear and pain, I cut notches from my ears with the sharpest knife my cabin owned, an ancient sign of reverence my research uncovered.
The face I presented to my side of the mirror was a pained and ugly one. Yet I regarded it a small cost in comparison with what waited for me once I was invited to step through the glass. A scarred face was not such a burden when surrounded by the barrow court's riches.
The Regent's eyes shifted from blue to brown, deepened from brown to black, and then faded, once more, to an emerald green as he regarded me in the glass.
"Goodman Asher!"
My cabin door shuddered beneath a pounding assault. I heard the shatter of glass from the outer sides of my boarded windows. The thud of axes struck my walls.
"Goodman Asher!" thundered again the village magistrate's voice. "You invite the devil into our homes! Leave that cabin before you go too far!"
Quickly, I cast my gaze downward so that the Regent did not see any fear should I blink in the assaulting din. I was prepared. I built my cabin door to be thick. I designed its bolt to be strong. My walls would not be opened by hammer nor axe. But still I looked downward, my knees trembling, afraid that the noise would offend the Regent I summoned to my mirror, afraid that such enmity would deny me invitation to the barrow court. I risked everything when opening the mirror. I could not turn back from the faerie world now reflected in the glass.
I did not know if the Regent would consider that hatred thrown against my home another sign of my sacrifice in his honor, or if he would see it as a sign of weakness.
"Father!" a new voice cried into my home. "You are only bewitched by that mirror. I know father. I know how easy it is to lose one's way while looking into reflection. Come out and repent. The magistrate knows you can still be saved."
At the sound of my daughter’s voice, the Regent's eyes brightened. Smiling, the Regent displayed his ivory white, sharpened teeth. Did my pain please him? Did my suffering make him proud?
"Father! Let them in so they can break that glass!"
My heart raced. My head throbbed from the pain I etched upon my face. Though I kept my eyes open lest I show fatal weakness before the Regent standing in the glass, I failed to defend against my memories. How often had I regarded my daughter Leah as she stood before that mirror? How often had I listened while Leah sang as she looked into that polished glass while combing tangles out of her long, auburn hair? How often did I notice Leah timidly smile at her own reflection? Our village was somber. Pleasure and beauty were forced to be hidden within cabin walls. But how often did Leah find a little of both while she stood and marveled at that mirror's glass? Only after I had wrought such affliction upon myself, did I first wonder if I craved the wrong splendor possibly offered by such a surface of reflection.
The magistrate's voice once more boomed into my cabin. "You have been warned Goodman Asher! I ask you a final time to open your door so that we may destroy the glass!"
I looked back upon the regent, whose smile glistened with sharp teeth as he regarded me. Though I chased away the mirror's reflection in the glass when I opened the portal to the barrow, I knew the terror I had scarred upon my face. The world outside my cabin would not accept a man who had sewn closed his own lips, who had so broken his face, who had carved such notches from his ears. The magistrates would recognize how much I sacrificed in my worship of the faerie folk. They would never forgive the reverence I had so horribly given to creatures not of God.
I summoned a Regent to my glass, and I could not turn back.
The magistrate's voice shouted one more time. "You forswear the salvation we offer you!"
Though my nose was broken and swollen, it was not long before I sensed the smoke seeping through my boarded windows. Soon, my notched ears heard the cackling of fire as flame jumped upon my outer walls and expanded upon my thatched roof. Though my head and face throbbed, it was not long before I felt the touch of heat upon my skin. I built my cabin to be strong. I built my cabin to hold against whatever onslaught could be leveled against it as I opened my mirror. The magistrates chose to burn it down upon me. They let fire complete what their hammers and axes could not.
Still, the Regent silently regarded me in the glass. I wished I had not sewn my mouth shut so that I could ask him why he waited to invite me into the barrow court. I wished to know what more he needed after seeing all I had sacrificed. I despaired. I moaned in pain and disappointment, and it was a pathetic groan that seeped out between my sewn lips.
The Regent's splendor faded as his head tilted and his eyes squinted. The Regent's expression appeared to read my thoughts.
"You think I came to this glass on account of your summons?" The Regent's smile twisted and exposed even more pointed, ivory teeth. "Man's hubris knows no bounds. Why would I answer you? Your smile is a scabbed and ugly thing. I doubt I would hear
sweet song coming from your sewn lips. It's evident that it was not your locks of golden hair that glowed in my mirror's polished glass. I would not waste my treasured diamonds and pearls to adorn your clipped ears. Yet you thought I came to answer you?"
Pieces of the roof fell from my ceiling, flaming motes that singed as they dropped upon my skin. My knees abandoned me. I slumped upon the floor. My sewn lips muffled my sobs as the Regent, that fairy of royal blood from which I so craved an invitation to the barrow court, laughed. I was foolish and naive. I had such little concept of the pain the opening of my mirror might bring me. The hurts I had afflicted upon myself were but splinters of the anguish that washed over me as I listened to that Regent laugh.
"You have no luster to bring to the barrow court," the Regent's voice hissed. "I came for her. A shame that you misread my intentions."
I watched the Regent turn and step away from the glass before the portal closed in a flash. For a moment, I gazed into my own, horrible reflection. I hardly recognized what I had become. Mercifully, my cabin shuddered and collapsed. The flames engulfed me and my pain screamed. Then, my anguish silenced as my reflection burned to ash.