The Mountain

I had been told since I was a child that there was a wizard living at the top of the mountain.1

�You must never go up there,� my parents would say, �for the wizard will steal your soul and enlist you in his marionette army.� They were scared stiff of the wizard, and so were most of the other people in town. I seemed to be the only one who doubted the wizard even existed.2

�The wizard is not the first to live on that mountain,� the elder once said. �Others have come before him, but none have replaced him in a very long time. Some say he is dead, but lives on as part of the palace. You must never go there, it is a most cursed place.� He would speak no more of the wizard to me, after that.3

I heard rumors about the wizard from the other adults, horrible things. They said that he had sold his heart to a demon for black magic, or that he never had one to begin with. Some even said that he was building an army of puppets crafted from those who came to the mountain, and would eventually seize control of the world. I simply listened and analyzed, waiting for the day that I could go to the mountain and prove them all wrong.4

�I am going to the mountain,� I told the people of my village one day. They begged me not to go, said it was too dangerous, and that the wizard would get me. But I went on.5

I climbed and climbed until I reached the palace. It was a shining golden spire, twisting up to touch the heavens like the horn on a mythical beast. I was awed by the sight. The wizard must indeed be a great man to live in a palace such as this, I thought. Then I shook my head, reminding myself that the wizard had never been, and never would be. The spire seemed to flicker, and I thought for an instant that it disappeared. But it was only for an instant6

�I must touch the palace walls, only once, before I enter it,� I told myself. �I must feel it, just once.�7

I was greeted by a wooden man as I entered, and invited to sit down. I was served wonderful food and drink, and told that I would meet the wizard shortly.8

Then I felt something at my side, clawing at me. I felt the puppet with razor hands draw blood from me, rip my tunic, pull me down. I saw more of them, more and more, ever marching on and on towards town. I would be turned into one of them.9

Frantically, I though as hard as I could. This is not happening, I thought. There is no wizard, there is no army of marionettes. There never was.10

When I opened my eyes, I was lying on my back on a large, flat rock on the mountain. The spire was nowhere to be seen. The invading army had gone, too. My stomach was empty again, my clothes were as they had been made.11

None of it had been real, I thought to myself. It was never real.12

Then I remembered a phrase I had heard the elder use. �Seeing is believing,� he used to say. I know now that he had it backwards. The town believed in the wizard, his army, the fantastic palace, and I had too, though I didn�t realize it. The force of my sudden doubt had shattered years of beliefs, passed down through the generations, in a fraction of a second.13

I swore to myself to never be that fragile, and turned to head back down the mountain.14