Linestrider

You stand at a closed metal gate in a still crowd. Pale leaves drift in the chill breeze, the Autumn air seeping into your bones. Whispers and mutterings are the only things that join the sound of leaflitter. It is dusk, only just nearing the night. Some have been waiting for hours. Others, minutes. Beyond the spires of the coal-black gate sits a curious instrument, a structure, a towering statue that ticks away those minutes. It echoes across the field. You squint against the low light--it is, in fact, a clock, if you can call such an obscure, uncertain shape a clock. Glistening white orbs juggle in a slowly progressing circle, a checkered jester twisting beneath. It seems to be the only movement, but every few moments, you glance back, and the structure in another position. Every hour, it becomes something slightly different.

The crowd becomes slightly restless, rustling like so many leaves that, somehow, someone had painted white and black. The grass is similarly painted black, the peeling bark of the trees white, revealing black beneath. It is a monochromatic world that wakes when the sky finally grows completely dark, and those that have waited hours are about to leave, tired of waiting.

Finally, the clock booms ten seconds to the hour.

Chime one, lights come to life, revealing a string of rope-walkers painted as perfectly as the scenery.

Chime two, they raise strung bows and arrows to the crowd. Now, it is an audience.

Chime three, a flaming arrow shoots across their bows, lighting every one. The crowd gasps as they shoot a volley of red, which arcs down into a giant brazier just beyond the gate. It lights with a furious ruby bonfire.

Four, the line-walkers fire a string of orange flames.

Five, yellow. Six, green. Seven, blue. Eight, indigo. Nine, violet.

On the tenth stroke, the rope-walkers shoot one last volley of into the chasm, causing the fire to erupt into a bright, perfect white.

The captive audience claps before they are abruptly cut off by the line-striders diving into the burning metal pit. They disappear in a flurry of colorless sparks. Hushed in horror, the crowd waits. They are awake.

Finally, the gate silently swings open. The circus, too, is awake. Stirred to life, the crowd surges calmly forward.

The Faerie Carnival is ready for you.

You wander the spiraling paths, winding ever forward, without end. Tents shrouded in black wait along each side, every tent and accompanying sign vastly different. On a whim, you decide to walk off the path and into a waist-wide alley between two tents. It's a tight fit, and with some wiggling and shimmying, you stumble out into an open dais of pure white snow. In the middle of this new, small space sits the smallest tent yet. You hurry forward, then stop short.

There is no entrance.

Casting your eyes about, you find nothing else but a wooden sign staked into the dirt.

The Linestrider
Enter Only the Curious

Well, you suppose, it must be some sort of test. Or a puzzle. You would certainly call yourself curious. But are you curious enough?

Scuffing the snow, you circle the tent, leaving black prints in your own confused path. More signs litter the fabric of the marquee. Some signs are wooden, some torn from the same fabric it hangs on, and still others fashioned from stone. Those seem weightless and empty, but when you rub your palm across them, they feel exactly like the stone steps from your garden at home.

No matter the material, every sign reads something different, all directions. "Climb here." "Turn around." "Look behind you." "Lift me." "Drink me." "Turn left." "The sign beside me is lying." "The sign beside me is telling the truth."

There is something untrue in every direction; it hangs in the air, that untruth. So you ignore every one.

Every one but the strangest. Lying behind a concrete sign about clouds is a strip of simple, white cotton cloth no larger than your fingernail. Rather than words, it displays a small drawing of a child sleeping on the rain. You think it reads, "Don't trust me. Trust yourself."

Your nail catches on a flap of fabric just behind the child, and you pull. The flap reveals darkness behind it: the darkness of space lit with a faraway, faint purple glow. It's the first touch of color you've seen since leaving home.

You've found the entrance. Now, you must find the Linestrider.

You enter.