Serpents and Stairways

Chapter V? - Part 3

"A briefing before we take off," Wolkov got more serious, and raised his thumb with its painted-black fingernail, "the world can be imagined as a sphere of three layers. Its outermost layer is inhabited by those who were born to the other side of the veil. They can only dream of wonders. The middle sphere, to this side of the veil, is where we are, and the core—the core is aether. It's where we come from, and where we all eventually return. That is where ancient spirits live, and where the true Gods are from. That's where we're going. Entering that innermost layer used to be simpler, so much so that the stories of such incidents had seeped their way into the oldest songs and legends, but these days... These days things go awry sometimes. But not today, not while I'm with you."

Dinah nodded, even if 'entering the aether' made no more sense to her than 'entering the sound.' She knew that aether wasn't some kind of a place—but simply energy. Almost something, like air, and present everywhere, too. Thanks to its power, sorcerers could do their tricks, and alchemists—extract gold. Sort of what gas is for gas lamps.

"Being in aether, structurally, is very similar to being in a text. A fairy tale, in our case," Wolkov continued, "and if we stick to the rules, it'll all go smoothly. So. The wizard's first rule is to never talk about...?"

He took a dramatic pause and looked at Dinah. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and stared back at him.

"It's fine, you'll live long enough to appreciate the joke," Wolkov continued, "The first rule, my young friend, is never be surprised. The second—be afraid of nothing. Protagonists are clad in plot armor, so nothing can happen to you."

Dinah had never heard of a 'plot armor', but instinctively understood what it meant.

"And the third?" She asked.

"Find your strength to break the rules you can break, courage to follow the ones you cannot, and wisdom to know the difference."

"Splendid, sir. It's not like I know any rules, and you're asking me to be a connoisseur."

"You knew enough to ask me for the third rule, didn't you? Which means you'll figure out the rest."

And Wolkov jumped, as if over a rope, into the mirror door without touching the handle. Dinah, after pausing at the threshold, stepped after him. To tell the truth, she had her expectations. She imagined the world to the other side to be a vast (white like Timur's hands) canvas, a fable wonderland of tiny houses, a ship headed towards the first star, then right, or a snow-covered forest and a lamppost. She'd be content with a mansion of uncountable passages taken by the sea, or a gray house, in which...

But the world to the other side looked the same—if one didn't count minor inconsistencies. Like, instead of jellyfish under the ceiling of the house were crystal whales, all sternly facing a doll of a captain dressed in a parade tunic, and where an elegant tentacled cabinet used to be on the familiar side of the mirror, there now stood a sarcophagus with an entombed mustached policeman—at least judging by the painting on the lid.

Dinah looked back into the mirror, where the chandelier and the cabinet were their old selves. Meaning... She snapped her fingers—not for herself, but for some unseen observer.

"I do know the rules," faithful to the covenant of never being surprised, the girl gave a defiant look to her reflection, "be careful with what you eat, ignore croquet, and remember that trials are an utter lie."

The mirror image gave no response, and Dinah looked around for her companion.

"Mr Wolkov?"

There was no answer—there was nobody else in the room. She then went down the, overgrown with roses, stairs that used to lead to the second floor. In fish's stead, hare and bear and birds now roamed down its carpet. Step after step, the stairs brought her to the dark edge of a birch forest—called bone woods in the Northern Empire.