Then it was gone. No, not gone. It was there. I simply could no longer see it.

“You cannot control me, Nick,” the King whispered to me. “But you can learn to trust me, even when events are too big and your mind is too small. Live each day as if it were your last day there. One of them will be. I’ll be on the other side, waiting for you. And then at last, I will give you joy unsheathed—Charis the unfathomable,

Charis the unbridled, Charis the boundless adventure.”

“But … I want to enter Charis now, my King.”

“Soon, but not now. You have your orders—I send you to battle. You are a soldier, and I would not promise a soldier ease. I promise you difficulty but with it resources and purpose and joy. Go back now to where men die of thirst a stone’s throw from pure water … go back as my water-bearer.”

Marcus appeared beside me, dressed in full battle armor, bowing his knees before the King. When the King took his hand and gave him leave to rise, Marcus grabbed my arm, a portal appeared, and he led me through it. Behind us I heard barking, then singing, then nothing.

For a moment I thought I was floating over someone wearing my hunting jacket, then I felt like liquid being poured into a container. The next thing I knew I was sitting on an old stump outside a familiar mountain cabin, dripping wet, eyes blinking at the light of a yellow sun peeking through the clouds.

I looked for Marcus but couldn’t see him. For an instant I thought I might have imagined him, until I saw large footsteps in the mud beside me. Rainwater filled the prints, the mud rose, and I watched the impressions dissolve into nothingness.

The pressure against my temple came back with a vengeance. My right arm felt tense and fatigued, as if I’d held it up for hours. I started to move my hand, began to peek at it out of the corner of my right eye, but stopped, afraid to see what was there.

I stood slowly, knees creaking, arm still in the air, and walked to the cabin window only ten feet from me. I looked at the table inside. On it I saw a picture. Staring at me were the faces of a woman I had betrayed and a daughter and son who no longer trusted me.

Through blurry eyes, I saw beside the picture a scrawled note. I recognized the handwriting—my own. But I was too far away to read the words.

Then, finally daring to look, I stepped back and saw in the window my grotesque reflection. My spine tingled, and I held my breath. I hesitated, then moved my eyes to the right, toward my frozen arm. I strained to focus.