Uriel's Machine Part 8

by Mitzi Danielsonkaslik

spring water 

I ushered Gillidore through the door and we both stared at the scene before us. Lush green grassed banks rose high against the wall intermingled with the delicate brightly coloured wild flowers with tiny thin petals lightly fluttering like butterflies in the subtle evening breeze. Tall thin willowy trunks shot up from the grass and branched out into trees with lush forest green leaves protecting and coveting delicate blossoms which grew from a light blushing pink epicenter and then stretched out until the blush faded and became pure ivory, the cheeks of a porcelain doll.

Below, a thin twisting pathway with dry brown mud lay, undisturbed by foot print. Small pebbles in shades of black and grey lined the track creating a thick boarder, a divide, barricading the thick grass that grew around from mud of the path. The track wound up to the edges of the four banks against the four high stone walls that encased the garden until it reached a huge concrete structure in the middle of the sanctuary with streams of gold intermingled with the cold stone running as rivers up to a cold still body of water in a strange translucent shade of blue lay corrupted by thick waxy green lily pads floating upon its calm surface. Ripples, like the blossoms upon the trees, began at a light pinprick and spread out into huge tidal waves in the pond. A stone structure at the center of the lake stood proudly with a tall sweeping crest, heralding the heavens, its strange symmetry seemed unnatural in this place. The water was sucked up by the structure and spirted out of its peak with an odd luminance, a blue glow. The water then pattered down to join its fellows.

Wonder struck by the beauty of this place we stepped lightly over the path and followed it around. It was then that we heard it. A soft music. It was the music of the night played by a harp. It was beautiful and pure and seemed to sum up the enchanted forest perfectly. But where was it coming from? Was it played sweetly by the roses or hummed by the buzzing bees? No, it was coming from the center of the walled garden. A person sat alone. Playing the harp with both willowy hands. A long crimson robe swayed with the subtle breeze at their feet and black hair blew in the wind. Gillidore and I approached anxiously, perplexed at the apparition. The harpist did not look up. They continued playing softly. 

“Can I help you?” they muttered. 

“I don’t know…,” I whispered, mesmerized by the melody. 

“You seek The Shadow Master, ” they continued. 

“How do you know that?” I whispered. 

“I can see it in your eyes. You are one who seeks everything in life yet never stops to look at what has been accomplished. You are one who does not see what is around them, only what is ahead.”

 Their words rung around my head “Do you know where I can find him?” 

“Yes, as night comes this, my realm – The Nightshade Realm – becomes The Garden of Shadows. Each night I do find myself there and this world becomes his and I am forced to play so all the mortals in this forest do sleep. It is simple, tonight you must wait and believe it shall work. Believe you will be taken to The Garden of Shadows. There you will find The Shadow Master.”

What could this mean? I had seen many bizarre things in my travels but none so strange as a walled garden transforming into a different place all together as night comes. The conversation with The Nameless One continued for a short while an insignificant trail I will not bore my reader with. It was insignificant until I noticed Gillidore, uneasy with the place, had decided to leave the garden. As the water of the lake behind The Nameless One filled with pure deafening blue light, a shadow began to form upon the floor and floated lightly for a few seconds cast by a blossom tree. The shadows grew in number until they lay all over the land. The fountain within the lake was swallowed up by the water and then the water itself vanished from view. The blossom trees deceased back into the ground and the lily pads faded into the air. The path gently diffused into the earth and the grass until it was no more. The oaken door snapped shut at a push. We were trapped.

“It is time.”

The night had come.

I Dream of Life

by Mitzi Danielson-Kaslik  

blueberry Martini  

I dream of a life of adventure,

Peace, love and happiness

Where home is always far behind

And death is forever far ahead.

I dream of a life where I shall always

Be free.

Uriel's Machine Part 2

By Mitzi Danielson-Kaslik

sparkling spring water

A strange brown surface emerged straight ahead of me and Uriel’s Machine. An odd smell circulated in the air around me; a conspiracy of wood, spring dew and ink. I looked around and realized I was inside the large trunk of a willow tree. Could I be inside the tree in the book? If I was, then I’d be able to find the door out of the tree. It sounded bizarre even saying it inside my head. But I looked around and sure enough there was a door. Picking up the book and checking the pen and compass were still safely ensconced in my pocket, I pushed the door open and fell out of the tree and onto the leafy bark covered woodland floor of The Enchanted Forest. Above me, there was a leafy canopy fluttering with the subtle breeze like butterflies on a summers’ evening, with brightly coloured flora peeking out from the gaps. Shaking my head, I brushed the hair from my eyes and stood up. The EnchantedForest was beautiful. Bright rays of sunlight twinkling down to the earth through the trees; gentle blossoms which grew from a brightly coloured epicenter and spread out to become purest white; and dragonflies. Remembering my task, I removed the copper compass from my pocket and it opened unaided with a sharp click. It had three hands; one silver one showing usual compass directions; one bronze which didn’t seem to stay still for long that I could grasp the use of; and a gold one which gleamed in the light and seemed to show where I should go, like a map.

I walked slowly in the direction the gold needle was indicating and soon found my ears met with the soft babbling of a stream. As I continued along my course, the noise grew louder and I soon found the source; a large river tripping over grey and brown pebbles, rubbed smooth by the current. The soft tweeting of birds accompanied the water and beautiful dragonflies in more colours than I will bore my reader with danced and flittered above in the dewy air, their reflections lingering only for a moment upon the surface. As I stopped at the mossy bank of the river, I noticed the golden needle had begun pointing down the river, but there was no way through as the towering trees which stooped over the water and tickled at facet had trunks like columns which created a wall, blocking me from walking any deeper in to the forest. The compass must be mistaken. It was at this point that I decided to sit down. This quest wasn’t going anywhere and the rays of sun poking through the canopy above were dying away and soon the woodland floor would be in complete darkness. Sitting down on the river bank, I opened The Enchanted Forest book to see if anything had changed. To my surprise, I saw myself in inky black pen sitting down upon the papery riverbank. How could this be? I was not in the book. I had never even heard of this book until a few hours ago, or days, I forget. And there I was; in the book, the only readable part of the text: And she sat there staring blankly into the book, awaiting an answer that would never come, for she had forgotten the rule of The Imagination. This annoyed me. No one had told me this rule. What was The Rule? And how on Earth had I ended up written and draw inside a book? Then it dawned on me, perhaps it works both ways; if I could come up with a solution to get myself down the river, past the wall and wrote it in the book, would it appear before me? Taking out the pen Uriel had stuffed into my pocket alongside the compass I started to write in a shaky, scrawled hand: She began to write in the book of how she would proceed on her journey; would she fly over the leaves into the beyond or would she grow gills and plunge herself into the freezing depths of the river and swim along her course? No, she would retrieve a raft with leaves for a sail and wooden planked tied together for the body and a lantern because that would be require, as night would fall upon The Enchanted Forest and herself soon enough.

Sure enough, a raft precisely like the one I had just described appeared on the surface of the cool river. This was impossible. Or certainly improbable. But it was somehow true. Standing up, I stepped carefully onto the raft and it did not move. Itilted a little to the side and it still did not move. Testing the theory again, I opened the book once more and wrote leaning against the mast: She stepped on the raft but it would not move so she wrote in her book of the subtle wind that would bare the scent of spring and the joys of movement to the raft and would carry her and the raft onward in her journey. And once again, a breeze did come, fragranced with honey and flowers and the soft dew in the air which blew the raft onward with me clinging tentatively to the mast. The scenery began to change, the forest became much darker and the trees thickened and had hardly any gap between, but there was now a tiny thin winding path of mud lined with cobblestones leading away from the opposite riverbank. Upon the darkened bank, a majestic stag stood and stared at the raft eagerly. The compass in my pocket rattled in its shell once more. Could the stag be a harbinger of The Shadow Master?