A Fool Named Jinn

Verse I

The Fool climbed the last steps of the Tower and arrived at the final door. It loomed ominously at the end of a short passageway, beckoning him to take his last remaining steps forward into its gaping jaws. As if on cue with his arrival, the heavy stone door split in half and rumbled open, shaking off loose dirt and dust accumulated from nearly an eternity resting in its closed position. He stood still momentarily, one foot on the landing and one foot still on the last step of a grueling, twisting and turning staircase. A loud roar from inside the door reverberated through the hallway along with a powerful gust of wind and fog so thick he reflexively reached out to cover his eyes with his arm. Smoky tendrils in the shapes of disfigured looking hands and arms pulled at his ankles. His arms. His body. But they held no physical form and therefore applied no force in which to yank him through the door.

“Wellll—commeee. Wellll—commeee,” whispered a voice emanating from the place ahead.

The Fool remained steadfast in his composure despite barely being able to see his own hand a foot in front of his face. There was no turning back. Mysterious beings of incredible power dwelled in the uppermost recesses of the Tower. He wondered why anyone in their right mind would want to live in such a dank and decrepit place. After 44,019 steps, his knees ready to buckle and his lungs screaming for more oxygen, he willed himself to remain stoic.

He started walking a few paces forward until the voice returned, this time accompanied by creepy maniacal laughter.

“What’s your name, traveler?”

“Tell. What’s your name, traveler?”

The Fool stayed quiet, pale green eyes on the alert for any signs of motion coming from the door. A few more seconds passed as the fog slowly started to dissipate. There were no windows or doors outlining the corridor. No escape route. Throughout the climb and no different here, hook-shaped pieces of stone jutted directly out from the walls, equipped with small holders to house all the burning candles lighting the way.

“Name.”

“Name, tell.”

“Give us your name, traveler.”

“Yes. Give us your name, traveler.”

After dancing wildly to the tune of a powerful gust, the candles calmed to a rest at their former occasional flicker. Their light revealed nothing but plain gray stone throughout the ascent, but up here on the top floor, larger flames unveiled a break in the monotony with much more extravagant designs.

The Fool put one foot in front of the other and continued his walk towards the final door. He felt a dizzy spell coming on and stopped to lean against a wall for balance. Everything went dark inside his closed eyes while his brain seemed to pulsate in sync with his speeding heartbeat. Ten seconds later it was all over. He looked up and saw he was more than halfway to his destination. His most pressing matter was the voices he heard. It was difficult to tell if they were coming from his own head, or inside the door, or devised by some type of dark magic.

Undeterred, he responded to an invisible recipient. “Ben Dover.”

Whoosh!

The sound of an arrow passing right by his face caught him entirely off guard. He stumbled backwards and dropped to one knee, momentarily dazed.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

It wasn’t just a sound, it was the real thing, and the flying arrow nicked him straight across the cheek. Either the shooter possessed uncanny aim firing a warning shot or he was a dead man walking. Red droplets splattered on the ground in the same interval as a leaking faucet.

He wore a pair of gray-silver martial arts boots treated with a special concoction to prevent staining. A simple two-piece, form-fitting tunic of black was separated by a sheet of cloth acting as a stylish placeholder for a belt, tied in a simple cross over knot. It matched the same color as his boots and the ends waved slightly whenever he moved. Blood saturated the back of his hand after he wiped his cheek. A faint smirk appeared while he cleaned off the rest of his face with his freshly bloodstained belt. This hadn’t been the first time his clothes tasted blood. Far from it.

“Do not tell us lies, traveler.”

“Your jokes are not funny, traveler.”

Hearing this round of greeting confirmed to him there were two distinct voices talking to him. Both sounded feminine, but it was hard to be sure. One would speak and the other would follow like an echo. They weren’t whispering for the sake of being quiet. It was one of the oldest psychological tricks in the book, setting the mood and delivering an eerie introduction. They were in control and wanted him to know it.

Arms crossed, standing mere paces away from the entrance to the final room plunged in opaque darkness, the Fool countered, “If y’all knew my name already, then why did you bother asking, huh?”

“To test you,” said the first voice.

“We wanted to hear it from you,” said the second.

“Uh-huh,” said the Fool. “Sure.”

Almost all the fog was gone by now. The creepy tendrils went with it. Out of habit, he looked behind him, imagining the point of no return he had already crossed, knowing he would soon be one with the shadows. The stairs he came up on weren’t there anymore. Brief surprise made his eyes go wide, but he regathered himself quickly before anyone noticed. Exuding strength and showing no weakness was always his default plan. Feelings on the inside could never be allowed release.

Silence descended eerily in the chamber. His left hand was subconsciously active, touching his thumb to each of his fingers in sequential order over and over to an imaginary beat. He had other nervous ticks, but this was his most prominent. He looked around. Wonderfully detailed engravings and paintings adorned the walls. The symbols and depictions were all random and foreign, but if someone (or something) took the time to create all this it must have had some importance. If imminent death was on the horizon and this art was the last thing he saw, it wasn’t a bad look.

Three steps ahead and the Fool would be in the final room on the top floor of the Tower. He slowly waved a hand in the air in front of him, mesmerized at what he saw. The place where he was standing compared to the darkness behind the door in the place ahead existed in two distinct dimensions. They were divided from one another by a perfect invisible straight line. On one side was shadow and on the other light. Crossing the threshold with his hand caused it to disappear. Fearing the worst, he immediately recoiled it back close to his body, rubbing it with the other to make sure it was still there. More confidently he reached out again, this time farther.

Someone grabbed his hand on the other side. They held it gently yet firmly, enough to let him know he wasn’t going anywhere unless they decided to let go. The hand was smaller than his and smoother than silk. Time slowed to a crawl. Gardenia scented perfume wafted through the air.

The Fool tried to speak confidently but his voice betrayed him. He barely managed to stutter. “Hello.”

“Hello back,” came a third voice. “My name is Cora. And you are?”

He contemplated how to answer. It couldn’t be possible for anyone here to know his true name. Touching his index and middle fingers to his cheek with his only free hand, he felt the gash gifted to him from an arrow. It was deeper than he thought and still leaking. Any random person didn’t have to think twice to know the name he gave before was total crap. He could lie again. But if he was wrong—if he lied again and they already knew—whoever was pulling the strings may not miss the next time.

He spoke true.

“Jinn. Pleased to meet you.”

With the initial pleasantries out of the way, Cora released her grip on his hand. From there his arm slumped down to the side of his body like it no longer held any tension. Right at that moment another blast of fog poured out of the doorway. The sheer force pushed Jinn back a couple of steps until he managed to dig his back foot in and hold his ground. Hand tendrils shot out to hunt their stunned victim and it was over before it even started. This time they weren’t empty figments of mist. Ten inches he was lifted above the ground, arms and legs pinned together. He tried shouting but nothing came out. The tendrils pulled him through the gateway and into the shadows, slamming the door shut behind him.

Verse II

Darkness engulfed Jinn like a sinking ship at sea. Falling was the closest similarity he could think of to how it felt traveling from one dimension to another. Except no comparison would be accurate enough to do the total one-of-a-kind experience justice. It was only similar in the same manner you compare a puddle and an ocean because they are both made up of water. The sensation was extremely overwhelming. There was no way to orient himself up, down, left, or right. He was both still and moving at the same time. Colors bombarded him like a kaleidoscope.

An unknown amount of time passed until he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Without exerting any force of his own an invisible current propelled him towards it. Not knowing what to expect, he kept his arms in close to his body even though he felt the tension release from the earlier pin, bracing for impact as his momentum hurled him out of the portal and into a new realm.

Of all the wonders and mystery waiting to be uncovered in this new land, grass was the first thing to grab his eye. Not dead and decayed yellow stuff, or overgrown and out of control marshy clumps, either. A field of the purest green stretched out in all directions under the bluest of partly clouded skies. He looked out farther and realized he was standing on an island in the sky. Behind him stood a massive oak tree reigning supreme in height to its brothers and sisters dispersed throughout the land.

Jinn landed front first and slowly pushed himself up, then patted his body down making sure nothing was broken or fractured. Everything checked out. He kept his eyes down until standing at his full height. The eyes of a woman stared straight back at him when he lifted his head up.

She was wearing brilliantly silver armor polished so immaculately it gave off a reflection. Greaves went up past her knees, ending just above there and below her thighs, revealing a tiny flash of skin where the lower armor ended and a crimson dress began. Her breastplate covered the top of her dress, Victorian in design and connected to a matching set of shoulder guards and bracers. Resting on her head gleamed a helmet with a line of feathers going from front to back. Long, silver hair cascaded from underneath it.

“I take it you don’t get visitors too often?” Jinn asked, breaking the silence.

“Oh? What could possibly make you think that?” jested Cora.

A full-grown male lion gazed hungrily at Jinn while perched on its hind legs, mane perfectly groomed. Cora reached out her left hand and scratched the creature behind its ears. In her other hand she held a menacing scythe, the blade revealing the trademark signature of Damascus steel.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“You first. Why did you enter through our front door?”

Cora spoke in an even tone, assertive but not aggressive. She could be the leader of this place. When she said ‘our,’ he didn’t think she was referring to just the lion.

“I didn’t exactly walk through the final door of my own accord.”

“Oh?” she asked, feigning surprise.

“Yes. Someone yanked me through with some creepy ghost hands. Rather impolite if you ask me.”

Behind Cora raged a waterfall amongst several mountains of varying sizes. It plummeted down on several embankments at different levels on its journey from the top of the cliff to the bottom. A pool of crisp blue water so clear you could see the bottom lazily caught the downpour. A pathway from the pond ran to the east into a densely packed forest, its inner secrets hidden away by the trees. Before Jinn glanced to the west to survey the rest of the island, he heard the same maniacal laughter from the Tower piercing his ears.

“A traveler starts a journey. On the first path he goes North. The second he goes all directions. The third he flies up in the sky. In the fourth he comes back down. Who is the traveler?”

A second woman appeared magically out of thin air. Her arrival was silent. Jinn would have seen her in his peripherals if she’d been standing there the whole time. The first sweat trickled down his back. This new arrival frightened him down to his very core. He thought back a few seconds to when Cora was petting the lion and his heartbeat immediately picked up steam. That move was calculated. It forced his attention in her direction while the new arrival surreptitiously entered the scene.

“When— Who— What?” he stammered, unable to fully process the situation and keep his wits about him.

Cora interjected, filling in the blanks. “Meet my sister, Aurelia. She’s quite the handful.”

Trees in the backdrop behind Aurelia came alive with a gentle breeze. Fall-colored leaves fell gracefully in the air, arcing in several directions and coming to a rest near her feet. She was dressed solely in white and covered entirely except for an area from the middle of her nose down to her chest. Atop her head sat a golden crown, perched over the hood of her form-fitting robe that covered half the front of her face, including her eyes. An emblem sat attached to the hood on her forehead. Designed in the resemblance of a human eye, it contained an indigo jewel where the iris would normally be. Its realism was uncanny, looking just like a real, functioning eye. She could not see with the hood doubling as a blindfold, but there was no telling what she could see with that 3rd eye. In her hands she held a perfectly spherical object known as wizard’s glass. Other worlds called it a crystal ball. It appeared too heavy to hold in one hand, and so she placed one hand on top with the other underneath, caressing it close to her body. But she showed no outward strain from the weight, so it just as well could have been lighter than a feather. The same ghostly hands he encountered earlier were writhing around inside the transparent glass.

Jinn was willing to risk his life undertaking the dangerous journey here because of how powerful his emotions drove him into action rather than wallowing in despair. Life was hard. He was on the verge of giving up.

A recent memory came rushing up to the surface.

He was standing at the front gate of the tower. Rain was pouring down all around him. Thunder boomed in the distant sky. Lightning struck the top of the tower and ricocheted off like a bullet. In his left fist he carried an amulet belonging to a long-lost friend. A friend that never got the chance to be something more. Before the end, he made a promise to move on. He didn’t like it, but he would keep it, nonetheless. He opened his hand and the amulet came tumbling out, landing in the mud; a sacrifice he needed to make to find closure.

Jinn opened his eyes and found renewed strength in his voice. He decided it was time to put everything on the table.

“I have come here in search of guidance. My spirit is broken. My soul is lost. My heart is empty. Need I say more?”

Another torrent of wind whipped through the field. The kind of wind that makes noise as it rushes past your ears, chilling your spine. Up above the lone cloud in the sky moved in front of the sun, swallowing the island in shade. The lion bellowed out a giant yawn and settled into a resting position like the Egyptian sphinx.

Cora looked to her sister. The scythe she held disappeared with the snap of a finger. She looked back at Jinn, revealing nothing.

Aurelia studied him until the sun shone down once again and the wind went back to sleep. Jinn was close enough to make out her neutral expression when she first arrived. Now it twisted into a wry smile.

“The more you take, the more you leave behind. Especially for you, traveler.”

Jinn frowned. “I don’t understand.”

The suspense was beginning to take its toll on him. Time passed according to its own unique schedule here. Far away on the horizon the sun was setting, heading off to bed. It blended the sky into the most beautiful of colors. In its place on the opposite side of the island rose the moon, crescent shaped but still reflecting an abnormal amount of light to nullify the typical blanketing darkness of night.

Cora said something indiscernible under her breath. The lion got up from his spot and trotted over to the pond for a drink, then retreated into the forest. Aurelia moved closer to her sister yet left no footprints. The way she moved made it seem like she was floating across the ground.

Once in her new location, she whispered just barely loud enough to hear. “You cannot understand. You will never understand. Not until your fate has run its course.”

“Yes. Until your fate has run its course,” echoed a voice from one of the oak tree’s branches.

A third woman leapt from up above and landed on the other side of Cora where the lion once laid. Despite being high enough to kill any mere mortal, she landed effortlessly at the same moment the last remnants of the sun vanished from sight. Her lighthearted personality was a departure from the other two, exaggerating her mannerisms as she talked.

“We haven’t had a guest in ages! Sorry about that arrow from earlier! I might have taken things a teensy bit too far. Gee is it ever boring living here. ‘Specially with these two.”

After all the strangeness packed into such a small amount of time, Jinn forgot all about the wound on his cheek that had finally stopped bleeding. He brought his hand to his face again and felt how deep the gash was. It would definitely scar.

He finally gained control from the nerves that were plaguing him earlier and rolled his eyes, surprised this newcomer was on the verge of making him laugh.

“How long have you been up there?”

“I dunno. A while,” she shrugged. “It’s my favorite spot to hangout. You can call me Sarah, by the way. Nice to meet ya.”

Of the three sisters, Sarah looked to be the youngest by far, judging by her appearance and her behavior. Jinn knew looks could be deceiving and kept an open mind. The normal means to characterize a person probably didn’t apply here. Her attire was much simpler than the others. Blonde hair was tied behind her in a loose ponytail, supported by a green headband. It matched the color of her pants, and a sleeveless black tunic completed the casual aesthetic she favored.

Jinn tried keeping his guard up, not wanting to be fooled or lulled into a false sense of security. He couldn’t help but take a liking already to her friendly demeanor, even despite the fact she almost killed him. From left to right, starting with Aurelia and ending with Sarah, he looked at each one of them. They matched his gaze.

“I know my life has meaning somewhere. I know I can change the world for the better. But is this truly how things are supposed to be? Shrouded in suffering and hate and desperation? What can I do? At the very least, how can I find happiness?”

“There is a way, but you may not like it,” replied Cora.

Surprised by his own confidence, he answered right away.

“Whatever it takes, I’ll do anything.”

“Many worlds exist in the planes of life, death, and beyond. This island exists in a place between them. We are called the Three Fates. Our task is to oversee the lives of souls who incarnate in a special place. A place called Gaia. It is there you will encounter more suffering. More hate. And more desperation. But in the end, you may find what you are looking for.”

Jinn let it all sink in for a moment. He didn’t know how he came to be, where he came from, or why he was created. During the night, his metaphorical demons came to haunt him in his dreams. During the day, literal demons pursued him throughout the forlorn world they all lived in.

The Three Fates were making him an offer he couldn’t refuse—the chance at exploring a new world and fulfilling a grand destiny. He took a deep breath and accepted.

“I will go,” he paused, breaking eye contact to steal a quick look at the sky. “Can you take me there?”

Aurelia cackled wildly and then vanished, her laughter echoing in his head and slowly diminishing like it was getting farther and farther away until it was gone completely.

Sarah leapt back up into the oak tree, hopping gracefully from branch to branch while yelling “Good luck! You’re gonna need it!”

With no words or gestures, Cora turned around and headed towards the pond. Jinn followed behind a few paces as they completed their short journey in silence. She paused momentarily at the water’s edge, briefly glancing back at him before her footsteps went into the shallow water. They stopped after reaching a steep drop off where the depths reached an unknown bottom. Gesturing upwards with her hand, earth and stone and rock magically shot out of the water. When the deed was done, five steps led up to a mysterious door.

Jinn looked over at her, but she said nothing. He knew what needed to be done. Up the stairs he went, fingers lingering on the handle momentarily as the inevitable second thoughts stormed into his mind. He shook them off. As with most things in his life, unfortunately there was no going back. He opened the door, and then—

A fool named Jinn stepped into the gateway.