“Hurray for the Wandman! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hurrah!” the crowd shouted.

  They were all jumping and clapping and dancing around one very tall man in a brown hooded robe. His hood was up, he bore a staff, and the diamond white gem that crowned it twinkled in the firelight, casting shapely light in all directions that danced with the fire as he spun this way to greet one child by name, that way to greet another. Windston watched with infectious laughter which he had picked up from not only the children, but their parents and grandparents and others who didn't appear to have any children at all. Everyone was gleeful and they all shouted his praises as he twirled his staff, tossed it, caught it, spun it overhead and let loose a handful of some sort of powder that caused the flames to leap up at the sky in shades of blue, green, purple and pink.

  Frem stood next to Windston, bumped him with his shoulder. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled, “Boo! Let's see some real magic!” as the Wandman raised his hands to the air to the cries of the crowd and then lowered them so that everyone hushed. With those same hands he pushed at the children nearest him, beckoning them to return to their fathers and mothers; and then he turned, letting his hood fall, freeing puffy white curls that fell about his shoulders. His robe fell next, revealing a velvety blue uniform of some sort, perhaps military; it was faded, navy blue and there were dressings on the shoulders that fell about like golden scrub brushes with limp tassels. Brass buttons lined the front of his fanciful jacket from top to bottom, and his pants, which were clean and free of holes, were also blue. More magnificent even than his attire was the puffy pure whiteness of his curly white beard, which hung just down to his collarbone. His eyes, too, were an unusual thing to see, all bright and green and with whites as clear and clean as a brand-new babe's; they were blanketed with puffy white brows that lay flush on them and hung down on the sides over what was smooth, clear skin where wrinkles should typically be on a man of his age.

  “Free peoples,” he said, his voice rising. As he said this a green glow came about him and grew brighter as Windston watched in awe; it was just like Clement the Heath's before it had turned yellow and then gold. “Young ones. Old ones. Those in between. I invite you once more to enjoy a flamboyant display of real live magic!” He bowed and his beard hung and his hair hung about it and he shook both so that they bounced healthily, shining, gleaming in the firelight.

  Bombo stepped up and settled next to Frem, who was so fascinated with the old man that he had even forgotten to give him his typical I-hate-Bombo scowl.

  “Behind me rises flame. It frees itself from the very wood within which it was once contained as energy, wood that grew by the light of the sun; from fire, to wood, to fire once more!”

  Whistles, cheers and claps.

  “Allow me to demonstrate that we too possess this fire.” As he said this the flames erupted so that they rose in high points without dancing but rather shooting embers upward, daggers of clear orange light. “We possess it; therefore, we control it,” he said, slowly raising his arms. The wood beneath the fire hissed and popped, whined and creaked. He spread his arms slowly wider and the flames spread flat until they meshed to form on one side a rectangular cube of flame. “Chisel here,” he said, clapping; a bit of the flame's upper right-side angle flattened and sparks flew from it. “Chisel there,” he said, clapping on the other side, mirroring the effect. “Flatten!” he cried and squashed an imaginary box between his hands, the flames replicating the action in real time. “Or give it room,” he said, lifting his top hand from the bottom so that the flames expanded again. “No matter what you do, you'd never expect…” Pause. “…a plump little bunny rabbit!” As he said this a flaming rabbit ran from the box as a fire bird swooped after it within and about the crowd, leaving a trail of smoke and cindering bits where it flew.

  The crowd exploded in cheering where the rabbit was not and excitement where it was.

  “Be careful, though,” the Wandman said. “For even bunnies can change.”

  Change it did, into a long, slender snake that reached up and snatched the bird in its mouth, swallowing it whole. It was more than twenty feet long, wrapping here, winding there, always smoking, burning trails in the grass.

  “Mister Snake?” he called.

  The snake stood upright before him and hissed, “Yesssssss?”

  The crowd laughed.

  “Would you be so kind as to lend me a hand?”

  The crowd laughed again as the snake lifted its coils and examined itself, nervous and anxious, unable to oblige.

  “How about… a wing?”

  Just then the snake sprouted wings. It sprouted wings and then legs; it grew broader and taller, but not as long. When it was finished it was a winged unicorn and it flew up in the air and darted about higher and higher until it was an orange halo of light moving about behind the clouds.

  The Wandman kicked up his staff, which few had probably noticed had been lying across his feet throughout most of the show. He raised it up above his head and from it shot forth a bright silver beam that he used to search here and there in the clouds. Finally, he found the fire beast; it was galloping higher toward the moons. “We cannot see you!” he called out; the horse grew larger and larger. Soon, it was as big as a cloud and it skated across the moons as if it had touched them with its hooves. It continued forward toward the brightest of bright stars – the new star, the red star, which seemed to twinkle wildly in response.

  Windston's eyes went wide as the unicorn stopped just before it and sniffed it. It looked back down at the crowd and held its head low before standing on its hind legs while its torso shrunk, its forelegs spread, its hooves separated into fingers. It became a man, a muscular man without features, only a bald head. It turned its head so that it looked at the star and then it moved forward so that it should have covered the star, only it didn't; the star shone through as brightly as ever, only now it was the fireman's eye and it gazed down at them and burst alight even brighter in what looked like a controlled explosion.

  “Whatever are you doing up there, oh man of fire? Do you mean to head this way?”

  There was no response but the eye that was the star had separated into two. The head that was at first a profile looked at them dead on now. It held out a hand and pointed a finger at them. Without warning fire from the finger crashed down on the Wandman in a terrible explosion of furious flames. Like in the field his wand leaked sparks of light that cascaded over the village. No one was harmed, no home, no animal. Even the birds that flew about in the sky with the bats were protected from the flame, which still bore down against the field of white light sparks.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Oh, red flames,” the Wandman said. “You send your message clear to me. But I have said before what I'll say again; I am fire just as you; you will burn me not, but rather fill me with more fire so that I might grow and grow and grow!”

  As he said these words the fire was sucked into the gem atop his staff. His hair and beard shot out in points as if he had been electrified and his eyes, which were still green, glowed brightly like green stars.

  When the flame disappeared into his staff the fire on the pyre went out too. The remaining wood was orange and smoldering where it wasn't charred black, and smoke filled the air where the flames had been. The Wandman was doubled over now, his hair hanging over his face.

  “For a time,” he seemed to mumble, though he was easily understood. “Even the powerful rest. But behold!” he said, standing upright again as the flames shot forth from the pyre. “What are ashes can again become flame! What dies can be born anew! And though we may be dwindled, we are not doused until we ourselves decide to droop beneath black skies, twinkling stars, and the moons our fathers once beheld – under the eternal sun within the eternal sky!”

  A ball of light no one had noticed had risen behind the mountains and it shone down on them so that it was like day but gradually darker as it rose higher and higher and higher and higher until it faded from sight as less than an orange blink of blotched vision and was gone.

  A great applause broke out. The Wandman bowed this way and that way as coins of brass, copper and even silver splashed all about him and fell at his feet. Like birds to worms, his hands pecked at the grass until all the coins were gone. Still shouting. Still cheering. Muffins flew. Cakes. And others came by to set drinks at his feet which he gladly accepted and overturned in his mouth.

  “More!” cried a man in the crowd throwing brass coins. “More, more, more!” he shouted. Others joined him. “More, more, more, more, more, more, more!”

  The Wandman accepted what they gave to him with bows. He stood tall, slowly, and the fire rose higher. It changed color from orange, to red, to purple, to blue. It stayed blue and grew taller and taller, wider and wider. The flames finally rose up from the pyre and drifted overhead like a triangular prism of dazzling blue in the sky among the clouds. Higher it rose, and then some of it poured out from it, spreading at its foot like a great ocean far and wide. The peak was white and a tower rose on the western side.

  “It's Ice Mountain!” someone shouted.

  “It's Ice Mountain and the great tower of ice!”

  The mountain grew larger and tipped over so that staring up at it was staring at it straight ahead. It grew closer, fitted within the borders of an invisible rectangle so that parts of it, as it grew larger, were cut off as if the crowd were zooming in on it.

  The tower zoomed closer.

  There was a hole in the tower.

  In the tower was a man walking back and forth.

  He called and cried out and tore at his hair and stomped his feet and fell to the ground wailing and moaning. The fire was more than blue but colored as if true to life. There were trinkets and books on shelves around a great table of chairs and food and wine and treats and goodies. The man paced back and forth, sometimes on the table, sometimes over it. He levitated in a flying lotus upside-down. The walls swirled and faces popped in and out of it. Inanimate objects formed faces themselves as a collective singular and they spoke as well. They spoke of many things that made no sense and other things that almost did. They spoke of a man in the dark, the one that comes as an impending doom unstoppable. They blamed him, and only him, and he blamed himself.

  The crowd watched mesmerized.

  In an instant it was gone and all at once realized they had seen not only a fire display, but something else; a glimpse, perhaps, into the actual tower of ice where a madman supposedly lived.

  Finally, when all had become normal and still, the sky lit orange again as a giant stemmed ball with green leaves. It was a tangerine and it fell square on the crowd without burning them, sparks flying everywhere. Windston caught a glimpse of the Wandman and watched him recoil briefly from the cool flames, his actions all but admitting he wasn’t expecting that to happen.

  All was still again.

  Bombo clapped before anyone else. Everyone else clapped after him.

  Windston, however, had to pee. He left to do so behind the inn, where he had peed several times already. As he was peeing and the world seemed lighter and the darkness thicker and the singing and cheering and merrymaking that had resumed seemed like a pleasant backdrop that should always be present in what should forever be a pleasant world, he thought about the feathered drakul stampede and the man who had saved them and it dawned on him that that man had been the Wandman.

  What dream had he been in that made him forget to notice such obvious things? Was the world as blurry as it seemed right now? Would it stay so?

  Finished peeing, he stumbled around the inn, smiling at nothing, at everything, as he passed smokers smoking rolled cigarettes of tobacco and other things; drinkers drinking ale, liquor, wine and brandy; lovers kissing and feeling one another in the dark, away from others; and the moons' light rained down on everyone, bathing them faintly where planted torches' fire couldn’t and the pyre didn't. He squeezed through crowds and gave an excuse me when he had to; he smiled at some and nodded at others; he watched for others' shoes and made sure not to step on toes.

  In the inn, where he expected to find Bombo or Frem, he found another band playing, full tables of card players, dice rollers, and a nearly full bar with two empty stools; one at one end, beside the not cute waitress, who must have been on break; one at the other end, a ways apart from the closest, which was occupied by the Wandman.

  He smiled and teetered his way over to the empty spot beside the Wandman. He was noticed by the bartender. The Wandman didn't look up at him but rather looked up at a clock as it ticked ticked the minute hand a notch past midnight.

  Windston looked over at the Wandman and thought about saying something. But he lay his head down on the bar instead and fell asleep.

  He awoke early the next morning on silk sheets wrapped around a linen mattress stuffed with goose feathers. The pillows were stuffed with down as well, and there was a thick blanket spread about him.

  Bombo was snoring in the next room over, in the same suite he must have paid for. Frem was in yet a third room but he wasn't alone. He was still awake and saying something Windston could barely hear to some giggling lady – probably the cuter waitress.

  The room was spinning and Windston got up just in time to find a good bucket to puke in.

  He drank water from a pitcher on the table. It was clear and cool.

  After that, he went back to bed. He dreamed dreams that made no sense, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, in spurts all day. He stayed in bed all day. By the time he was fully awake it was nighttime and he found that he was alone.

  He found Bombo and Frem downstairs in the bar. They had just finished eating.

  Windston ate as well. And then they drank a little, much less than the night before.

  The Wandman was nowhere to be found, though he was mentioned quite a bit. Apparently, he was a wanderer who came and went randomly. He hadn't been there all the time but had only just started appearing earlier that year.

  Some said he was from somewhere way out west while others said he was from the south and west in Galsia. He was supposedly heading north next, though there isn't anywhere north to go if money is what one is after.

  One man, a mercenary guildsman, said he was headed up to the great drop. He had seen him go there once and had seen him return from that way several weeks later. What he was doing there nobody could guess. The only thing north of that drop was the frozen swamp and, beyond it, the unclimbable Ice Mountain.