The Light of Day

On occasion, in the Realm of the Raisón, there are windows of time in which Goodman, otherwise formally known as Malvori di Athalos in some very small circles, and the Master, otherwise formally known as Amadeus of Montelaine in some only marginally larger circles, do not speak to or hear from one another at all, to the startling effect that they do not appear to even think of one another. In truth, during these intervals, which do rarely but can span several fortnights, the doings of each of these two characters are wholly unknown to the other, even though they both happen to dwell, and have dwelled, in the same castle on the same hill for the same last so many years. It is perplexing. It is baffling. But it does occur. It may also be frightening to some. But, before you are put ill at ease, dear Reader, this phenomenon, though it never goes unnoticed or unacknowledged, it has not managed—as of yet—to produce any particularly untoward effects in or around the castle, or in the heart of either Goodman or the Master, though it is well worth noting their minds are likely another matter…especially Goodman’s. But also especially the Master’s.

The first wintry dawn of Autumn arrives at the castle like it never left. The Master, having gone to sleep with his chamber window open last night, wakes to the blustery how-do-you-do of frigid would-be winter air pouring unabashed through the room. He rushes to close it, stumbling and shivering. He wraps himself with a blanket and his teeth chatter, head still a little wine-woozy. His hair is disheveled and he is three weeks unshaven. He looks out the window and fogs up the glass. Smirking, he thinks about tracing the shape of a phallus or a bird in the condensate, and is about to do so, when something, far out in the icy meadow, catches his eye. He wipes the glass and squints. Way out on the edge of the field where the forest begins stands the cloaked figure of Goodman.

The Master’s boots are dew-soaked by the time he makes it across the grassy meadow to where his familiar stands with arms akimbo next to a very strange contraption he hadn’t noticed from his chamber window. “What is all this, Goodman?” he says. “A new-fangled machine?” Before them, the item in question stands of a height with their shoulders and is made of wood. It has four long spindly legs of wood which appear to support a box that is also made of wood. One side of the box sports a very small, circular opening and from the other hangs a kind of woolen drape or shawl. Goodman doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look at the Master. The Master waves a hand in Goodman’s face. “Oy!” he says, but Goodman only blinks slowly in response. Eventually, he sighs, and turns to the Master.

Goodman's face is tired. His hair is disheveled like the Master’s and his chin is stubbly too, but his eyes are wild and stony like they haven’t seen sleep in far too long, even the wine-induced kind. The Master takes a step back with some alarm. “Goodman,” he says. “What happened? Are you well?” But Goodman doesn’t respond. Instead, he shrugs weakly like he couldn’t be bothered and his eyes return to the castle, which to the Master’s mild surprise is bright with morning glow. The walls and towers of stone stand beaming back the golden sunlight, soaking it in. “Goodman, I—“ he starts, but Goodman steps in front of him and quickly dips his head underneath the drape on the box. “Please step back,” he says, muffled, blindly gesturing as if to swat the Master away. “I’ve waited all summer for these conditions.” The Master obliges, and looks on as Goodman stands there with his head beneath a cloth and there comes a tiny ‘click’ from inside the wooden box.

Neither of them say another word until they’re walking back to the castle together, the lanky contraption folded up and greatly reduced in size under Goodman’s arm. “What was that sound inside the box?” the Master says, genuinely curious.

Goodman gives it eight or ten paces before answering with a sigh, his voice melancholic and full of strain. “I was capturing an image,” he says.

The Master nods. He senses that he should be impressed.

Goodman looks at him with a weak smile and gently taps the side of the wooden box. “This is something I’m calling a Recorder.”

“You invented it?”

“It is of my own design, yes, though I can hardly take credit for the the properties of light and color. I am their student, not the other way around.”

The Master raises his eyebrows at Goodman.

Goodman laughs lightly. Talking of science, especially with the Master, always seems to lift his spirits, even from their deepest points. “There is a plate of dried dyes in here that I have layered just so that if the right amount of light strikes it, I will be able to create an artificial image of whatever I have shown it.”

The Master thinks on it. Now he is impressed. “Was that what we were doing back there? Capturing an image?”

Goodman nods.

“What of?” the Master says. “The castle?”

At this, Goodman smiles a little less weakly. “We will soon see,” he says, picking up his pace.

The Master quickens his step to follow him. “Where are we going?” he says.

Goodman grins and puts a finger in the air. “To the dungeon.”

Some darknesses are more than the mind can prepare itself for, but the darkness at the bottommost level of the Castle of the Raisón is not one of them. The original owners who built the castle hadn’t the budget. Nevertheless, Goodman and the Master are struck dumb by the impressive lack of light that is, fortunately for Goodman, an industry standard, even in your most basic dungeon packages.

It is like they are falling but not falling, so untethered they instantly are from any reference point. In his apparent excitement, Goodman closed the dungeon door behind them before setting his Recorder down and looking for a match; he fumbles a great deal before finding one. When he finally is able to strike a light, both he and the Master are grateful and their hearts pound a little slower. Neither of them have ever been afraid of the dark but that’s most likely because they’ve been able to avoid it most their lives. Goodman takes a fresh candlestick from the wall and sets the wick to flame. He looks around. “Now where is the…” Goodman says.

The Master points to the Recorder but Goodman shakes his head.

“Ah. There you are,” Goodman says, and from a small table by the door picks up what appears to be a little house of dark glass panes held together by a metal frame. He brings it to his face and inspects it.

“What is that?” the Master says. It looks like a miniature birdhouse of stained glass.

Goodman’s eyes widen. “It’s my favorite part,” he says, and without further explanation, gently lowers the little glass housing over the lighted candle, down to the base of the candlestick. As he does, the meager light in the dungeon anteroom turns a deep and threatening red. In seconds, the walls, floor, and ceiling alike, which before might have been considered friendly, have all become menacing players in the scene. They glow with a look of evil, like they are made of anger. The Master is made quite nervous by it, but Goodman looks around the room in wonder. “Feels so sinister,” he says, shuddering, more to himself than to the Master. “I love it.”

The Master nods, still a little frightened. No part of today has made any sense to him so far but he is nonetheless, again, impressed.

The two of them stand in silence for several seconds, taking it in.

“So what is next?” the Master says. “I’ll be honest. I haven’t nary a clue what any of this is about but I am happy to be along for the ride, Goodman.”

The Master smiles, but the question gives Goodman pause and he doesn’t immediately answer. Instead, he lowers the lantern-from-hell as if that will help him think more clearly. He hadn’t planned on having company today. He clears his throat. “Next, actually, Master, is that I need you to leave.”

“What?”

Goodman goes to the dungeon door and disengages the latch. “Yes.” With some effort, he pulls the door open and the redness of the room, like it were afraid of itself, flees through the opening and is immediately replaced with the ordinary light from before.

“But…why?” the Master says, mindlessly going to the door despite his reluctance and surprise.

Goodman steps aside, and for a moment it looks like he is going to say something but appears to change his mind. He shakes his head.

The Master stops at the threshold. “Goodman? Why do you need me to leave?”

Goodman looks at his familiar and then at the floor. At length, he responds. “The remainder of this process is highly dangerous.” He pauses. “Also, I would like to keep it secret until I have perfected it.”

The Master scrutinizes Goodman’s face, unbelieving. When he finally does get some eye contact, brief though it is when it comes, he exits the dungeon anteroom and begins the climb back up the spiral stairs towards the light of day, alone.

Goodman closes the dungeon door behind him without another word. The sound of it rattles up the stairway ahead of the Master’s footfalls.

Feeling rather let down, the Master heads to the galley to make himself some much-needed breakfast, but it is a challenge for him. He is able to light the stove and heat the cast iron, but from there everything else becomes exceedingly difficult. The bacon burns. Egg shells fall into the pan. The bread just doesn’t toast right, and the salt dish tips into the jam jar. It is a mess and the Master knows why. He is distracted. So, abandoning his meal, he decides to go to the only place in the castle he’s likely to get any answers. Goodman’s quarters.

Goodman’s private living space might more appropriately be termed a Tomb, because the Door to Goodman’s bedchamber is impressive and impressively large, hewn like granite out of a once-leviathan redwood, ornately carved and engraved with one word: MALVORI, a strong and foreboding name decidedly appropriate for its placement on such a heavy portal. The locking mechanism and hinges had to be made special, fortified with extra layers of fused iron and bolted into place with veritable pistons of alloyed metal. It is quite a door. Thus, as any might expect, opening it requires substantial and sustained effort, and that’s with a key, an impressive specimen in its own right. Without a key, take a hike. Better luck summoning an earthquake to get into Goodman’s chamber than by dealing with the Door.

The Master is therefore particularly lucky, then, to find that Goodman’s door has been removed and is missing entirely. He gains a very quick and effortless entry by simply walking through the threshold.

Goodman’s room is a marvel to behold. In truth, it more closely resembles a laboratory. There is a large bed to one side, but the remainder of the space is taken up by bookshelves, apparatuses, contraptions, new-fangled machines, you name it. There are peculiar objects hanging from the ceiling, taxidermic creatures perched in corners, and boxes upon boxes of papers and other goods. Couched around an unlit fireplace is a choir of metal stands with glass bulbs containing liquids of various colours and appearances. The rugs around them sport no small number of burnt spots.

And the books.

There is an infinite number of books, mostly on the shelves, but some set out for hands-free reading and inscribing, quills at the ready beside them like little foot-soldiers, ink-pots at their posts nearby. The Master has never seen such a wonder, and so he moves slowly through the room, to avoid colliding with anything but also because he is amazed. When he makes it to the window on the far wall, he stands before a great desk that must be Goodman’s primary place of writing and pondering. The Master gets goosebumps at the sight of it, as if he has stepped too close to a holy place. He is, of truth, at the center of Goodman’s private sanctum, where all of his ideas and plans are most carefully entertained and developed.

The Master does not think to read any of the papers on the desk for they are apparently innumerable. Instead, he surveys the desk for anything that jumps out at him, glossing over lists and scribbles and letters. Unsatisfied, he steps away and there is a rustling sound at his feet. He looks down and sees what is probably the strangest thing in Goodman’s chamber yet: a piece of parchment that has not been folded neatly like the rest, but clumped into a paper ball, as if in anger or in haste. He picks it up, intrigued. It is not like Goodman to do anything in anger or in haste. Perplexed, the Master flattens the note onto his thigh and reads.

When he is finished, his face is wet with tears through which he can barely see. He wipes his eyes and stows the note in his trouser pocket, folding it with shaky hands.

The Master spends the rest of the day in the galley, preparing a very hearty supper with far fewer fiascos than before. He opens all the windows, letting the crisp Autumn air in and the heat of the kitchen out. But he doesn’t cook alone. Every hour or so, he goes into the dry storage and sticks his head inside the dumbwaiter to listen for the sound of Goodman’s tinkering, far below him in the dungeon. Each time he does, he is relieved to hear his familiar’s busy bustle and the occasional exclamation of ‘huzzah’ when, presumably, some point of the science has been achieved. Laboring, he sears chunks of beef in the cast iron, chops up a horde of fresh vegetables, and simmers it all in Siren’s Wine, tasting as he goes. A flake of salt here, a crack of pepper there. He also bakes a preposterously large loaf of sourdough, nearly burning it but nearly not, a true feat of engineering but also luck.

Eventually, Afternoon tuckers itself out and lets Evening take over, and the Master is seated at the table all set, deciding whether to continue to wait for Goodman or go knock on the dungeon door when he hears a loud cry from outside. He goes to the window. Goodman is out on the lawn again, this time gesturing wildly for the Master to come. The Master throws on a large coat and steps outside in his slippers, a terrible mistake. “What is it!” he shouts. Everything around him is awash in the golden light of just-before-sunset.

“What?” Goodman shouts back.

“I said what is it! Another go of the contraption?” he shouts. He really does not want to traipse through the meadow without proper footwear.

“Come and look!” Goodman says. “We’re running out of time!”

Begrudgingly, the Master lumbers over to him, trying to take as few steps as possible, but he is cold to the bone by the time gets near, feet all wet. “Goodman it is unforgivably cold. Can the science not wait?”

“No it cannot wait!” Goodman says, chattering. “Ah!” He points to the castle. “It’s perfect,” he says, ducking and draping the cloth on the contraption over his head like he did earlier, and there is a light ‘click’ sound from inside the wooden box.

The Master looks at the castle and appraises it with more reverence. Goodman is right. It is perfect.

Silently, Goodman collapses his Recorder down and hikes it up under his arm, wasting no time before marching back to the castle. It takes the Master a couple of seconds to notice that he has been left in the meadow. “Hey! Wait!” he says, leaping to catch up with his familiar, still trying to make as little contact with the tall grass as possible. “Were you successful today?” the Master says. “With the image from this morning?”

Goodman bobs his head left and right with each step, thinking. “Yes and no,” he says.

“You were in the dungeon for several hours today. It must have been marginally successful.”

“Perhaps…in part. Not entirely but in part.” Goodman says.

The Master nods. He’ll take it. When they get inside, they rip off their boots, shivering.

Suddenly, Goodman bolts up and looks around like he’s heard a ghost. He eyes the Master. “Did you make supper?”

When they have eaten all they can, they sit at the table, drowsy with satiety, and an overwhelming sensation of guilty dread comes over the Master. Beneath his cloak, Goodman’s paper note crinkles inside his pocket. He looks at Goodman, feeling a somber weight he’s never felt before. His eyes water but he does not let fall a tear. He takes in a preparatory breath to speak but Goodman interrupts him, tears in his own eyes. “Master, I—“ he begins. He clears his throat. “I have been plagued, as of late.”

“Plagued?”

Goodman nods, then screws up his face, appearing unsure how to continue. The Master cannot see, but under the table, Goodman is wringing his hands. “I have been plagued with a gloom that has…” He takes a deep breath. “I have been plagued with a gloom that, if I am honest, led me to consider killing myself."

The Master’s breathing catches. He has no words to say.

“My object this morning...." He pauses, and reaches into the breast pocket of his cloak, producing a worn out envelope with what the Master can only assume is a more refined draft of the note inside his own pocket. He sets it down on by his empty dinner plate and looks at the Master. "My object was to take an image of the castle for you. As a parting gift.”

A tremendous damn breaks inside Goodman. His face falls into his hands and he begins to sob.

The Master, his heart broke wide open, cries too. He gets up from his chair and seats himself next to Goodman and embraces him. They hold each other for a space of time that feels endless because it has the two of them in it.

That evening they sleep in the Master’s bedchamber because it just doesn’t feel right to sleep in a room with no door. Besides, the light of day is so much brighter when you wake up with the one you love.

~

The Master gasps himself awake at near three in the morning. Rolling over, he jostles his familiar. “Goodman,” he whispers harshly.

Goodman groans. “What.”

“Where did your door go?”

“What?”

“I am worried that certain readers might fixate on what happened to your door.”

“Oh.” Goodman laughs tiredly. “Let them fixate.”

“No!” The Master says, sighing. “Fine. I’m fixated. What happened to your door?”

Goodman sort of smirks. “I used the wood to construct my Recorder. I needed high quality wood. It was unfortunate, but that’s science.”

The Master furrows his brow.

“Happy?” Goodman says.

The Master flops back down and sighs. “I suppose.”

~

Author's Note: If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, please talk to someone. Help is available. https://988lifeline.org