The Lost Crown

A Visit To Penelope

Walliam was desperate for a nap as the day wore on.  He had not slept much and he found his attention wandering during the group discussions he was engaged in.  His fencing practice with master Olivier was dreadful and he had to tell the Magian that he had had little sleep but that he would do better the next day.

Master Trumble held a lecture on Boddwhin the Noble and Walliam had to fight to keep his head from nodding.  Half way through the lecture Warren made a joke about keeping Walliam from his beauty sleep and everyone in the room laughed.

He was able to sneak off to his dormitory after lunch and he fell into a dreamless sleep that lasted several hours.  He jerked awake and sat up and realized that in an hour it would be sundown, and he had to meet with Penelope.  He wanted to talk to someone and tried to find Chase, but again the young man was nowhere to be found.  He wondered if his newfound friend was avoiding him.  He felt unhappy at that thought and made his way slowly up the stairs of the Archon.  He passed the Great Hall and saw Chase, through the window, sitting with several of the Magians and Walliam’s gloom deepened.

He went up the stairs to the next level and down the hall, searching for the door to Penelope’s chamber.  When he raised his hand to knock the door swung open and he saw the Magian sitting on a wide lounge, an ornate, low table in front of her.  There was a small chair placed across form her and she waved Walliam towards that.

He turned to close the door and found it was already shut.  His anxiety climbed as he crossed the room and sat down at the low table.  He looked around and saw that the room had dark, silk drapes covering the windows.  There were many large, glass jars on the shelves around the walls of the room, and some of them contained strange things.  In one of them it appeared as though a red smoke were swirling around inside the jar.  Another one was stuffed with flowers of every kind.  He didn’t know why, but he had to avert his eyes from that one.  He felt strangely uncomfortable whenever his eyes touched that jar.

“Tell me again about your adventure in the hidden world,” Penelope said.  “What happened before you met this Annabeth.  Where were you and what were you doing?”

He slowly told her about going up to where the city wall ran past Wilding Manor.  He said nothing about what he had seen, only saying that he wandered in a daze and then came to the cliff and began climbing down the stairs.  At that moment Penelope waved him to silence.

“That’s impossible.  There are no stairs on the cliff below Wilding Manor,” she said.

He felt confused.  He wanted to say “So?” but thought that would be rude.

She gave him a sad look.  “You are so new to this.  Young man, the hidden world is a reflection of this world.  If you see something in the hidden world that doesn’t exist in this world, then it means someone put it there, in the hidden world.  Which raises even more questions, when we think about it.”

“But the stairs were there, mistress.  Really, they were.  I didn’t put them there.”

She nodded.  “You don’t know how to change the hidden world yet, unless you are doing it instinctively.  But if that were the case you would have more power.  I doubt you can open a doorway into the hidden world, so that means it would be nearly impossible for you to create those stairs.  It takes power to change the hidden world in any way, especially to create something that stays in the hidden world and does not bleed through into the physical world.  If you created something in the hidden world it would emerge in this world.  There are no stairs on that cliff, so whoever put them there in your dream did it in such a way that they stayed in the hidden world.”  She paused for a moment and looked at him.  “That takes considerable power.  This Annabeth, she must have manipulated where you were so that you fell into Qwuorik Zohogel.  Then she could visit you and not break Annapraxsis’ law.”