Of Words and Wishes
The First Wish
Introduction

The world was a downpour. Dark skies blurred reality and occulted the heavens while lashing out with rain and thunder. The birch trees bent almost horizontal with the strength of the wind and the pines rained down their needles and cones. There was no safe place from the scouring winds and no dry place to retreat to.

An old manor stood atop a steep hill, precariously old and adamant. It refused to give way to the elements. It was dark and brooding as it sat there, hunched like a prowling cat. Light spilled from one of the windows giving it the look of a monster with one golden eye cracked, ever open, as it lay dormant.

Lightning flickered.

Neil Graves closed the ancient book that rested on his lap. He slipped his legs over the edge of the oaken bed and his bare feet hit the cool floor. He set the leather bound book on the silken sheets beside him and stared down at the lettering on the front.

I wish I wasn’t so bored, he grumbled in his head.

Candlelight mixed oddly with his own battery-powered lantern. He would have brought a lamp with him on this trip but there were no outlets. Here there was nothing but an ancient manor and his gentle grandfather. He was miles away from any sort of civilization.

The Seven Voyages gleamed in golden tooling and he found himself desperately bored. The rain outside drummed against the old roof, the sound muffled by the space of the attic between. The house did not groan as the wind battered against it. It growled. How he wished this visit to his grandfather’s house could have been avoided.

A boom of thunder followed another flicker of lightning.

Neil slowly got up and yawned, a tanned hand covering his mouth. His gray-blue eyes blinked, unfocused, and settled on the small door to the side of his room. His pupils dilated and constricted, slowly getting used to focusing on something farther away. It led to the attic, he knew, though how he knew this he did not have the slightest clue.

He turned his eyes away and grabbed the massive book by the binding. He swung it precariously, back and forth, as he stepped over to a looming bookcase. He neatly returned it to the dusty shelves and scanned them for an interesting title.

There was another flicker of lightning.

With an unexplainable start Neil found himself staring again at the simple attic door, out of place in the ornate room. He found it odd. Perhaps it was the lack of other stimulus and perhaps it was the abundance of ennui that caused his heart to beat faster as he took a step toward the door.

Perhaps it was something more.

He was drawn to the ornate knob that depicted a tiger eating its own tail surrounded by a serpent that did the same. His fingers began to itch. They writhed against one another in anticipation as he reached out to touch…

“No,” a raspy voice breathed and Neil jumped back as though burned. A violent flash of lightning turned the window into evanescent blinding light. His grandfather’s wide eyes were wild and his hair in disarray. The boy’s heart hammered and he backed away from his grandfather. A boom of thunder rolled across the house, charging the air with something that tingled against Neil’s skin.

“No!” the elder man said with more strength this time though dread was still thick in his voice. His feral eyes were not the gentle ones that Neil had known.

“It’s okay gramps,” he said, though his voice wavered, and took a tentative step toward his grandfather. The old man shook his head and stared that the door with something akin to terror.

Neil reached him and took the wrinkled elbow into his hand. He was surprised when the old man began to tremble violently.

“He must stay safe!” It was a sobbing noise that almost broke Neil’s heart to hear and he tightened his hold on his grandfather’s arm. This contact turned the man’s sob to hysterical ranting. “He must stay safe! If he is released the tiger will take him and the serpent will take the tiger! Then we will be doomed! There is no Champion this time! The Sins will take him! He must stay safe! The Champion is dead! The Champion is dead!” he screamed with the bitter mourning of something once loved that had been lost.

Neil tried to restrain the man but when those wild eyes turned on him they saw something and began to fill with tears. “No, no, no,” he began to chant as tears slipped down his ancient cheeks.

Neil was at a loss. He was numb as he held his frail grandfather in his arms. He could feel nothing but the steady rhythm of something deep inside him. It was something that had not been there before.

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I give you all permission and I even URGE you to annoy the shit out of me to update this story.