By Joseph Sullivan

Reltanna Lirane, wayward wizard, came to be known in whatever town she stayed in as a local nuisance. Her arcane experiments often brought bizarre complications, her somewhat errant behaviour had given her something of a reputation, and her inability to stop herself from saying whatever was on her mind had caused a great deal of irritation.

This time, however, the cause of her notoriety was none of these things. A whole week had gone by with virtually no interruption from her in the day-to-day lives of the townsfolk. There were some who say they saw her wander the streets briefly, drifting through them as though she was a ghost, before returning to her inn room that she barely ever left.

Gelvan Thorndike, himself a travelling priest who was aware of the challenges of dealing with her, had been asked to her room by the innkeeper. Some of the townsfolk had begun to suspect that Reltanna’s work dealing with otherworldly forces had finally gotten to her, and that she may have been the victim of demonic possession.

He walked up the creaky wooden stairs and knocked on her dark door.

There was no answer.

“Reltanna?” he called out.

Once again, no answer.

“Reltanna, it’s me, Gelvan,” he said, louder this time.

“I heard you the first time!” she shouted back. “I’m a little busy right now!”

“Doing what?”

“None of your business!” she snapped back.

“Reltanna, this isn’t funny.” He rolled his eyes. “Some of the other people here have been saying you’re possessed or something.”

“Well, then that’s their problem, isn’t it? I can tell you right now that that’s not the case, and that people are making up stories about me…again, I might add!”

“Whatever the case, there’s been a lot of concern around here. What’s going on?”

“Like I said, none of your business!”

Gelvan sighed. “Look, Reltanna, the innkeeper gave me an extra key to this room. Now, I’m coming inside in a minute. You can have some time to stop whatever it is you’re doing—”

He was interrupted by an angry, exasperated-sounding growl on the other side of the door, followed by a rush of cluttered footsteps towards the door. It swung open to reveal Reltanna Lirane, although she looked slightly different than the last time Gelvan saw her. She stood with a slight hunch, her face was pale, and her hair was even messier than it usually was.

“What? What? You want proof I’m not possessed?” she said, noticeably very irritably.

“Reltanna,” Gelvan replied calmly. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Ugh!” Reltanna threw her hands up in the air. “It’s really very simple. Look, I can at least trust you not to go full burn-at-the-stake, so…”

Reltanna shambled across the room, directing Gelvan over to a small table. There was one chair next to it, thrown aside, and on it stood something covered by a thin piece of fabric. The wizard eagerly lifted the fabric to reveal a luminescent ball of crystal beneath, that seemed to light up the whole dark room.

“You got a crystal ball?”

“I know, right?!” Reltanna giggled as though in triumph. “I got a fantastic deal for it and everything. Not every day you find your own crystal ball! A proper one, mind you, one that works, not something peddled by a charlatan…”

“Is this what you’ve been doing all week?”

“Well, yeah!” Reltanna retorted, hurrying over to the chair, pulling it back towards the table and sitting down. “What else would I be doing once I got one?”

Gelvan paused, considering his next words very carefully. “Reltanna, that’s all well and good, but you retreated away so much everyone started to think you were possessed.”

“Then that’s their problem!” she snapped. Turning back to the crystal ball, her irritated face seemed to grow calmer. “It makes my life so much easier. How many times have I recklessly endangered my life in the pursuit of knowledge, when I could have everything I wanted available to me at a moment’s thought? I’m a very, very lucky wizard…”

“Can it really tell you everything?”

“Well, it has its limitations,” Reltanna shrugged. “It’s much easier to see what I already know, like where I left something or something I read ages ago and forgot. What I don’t know is a little more difficult, but I’ve already learned a lot. If I want to know the location of a legendary battle, or who really won, or what happened afterwards, I can! History is much easier without having to rely on digging through old records…”

There’s an opportunity, thought Gelvan. “But you haven’t actually gotten access to any records, have you?”

“Well, no…”

“So how much can you really learn from the crystal ball, aside from what’s on the surface?”

Reltanna looked up from the crystal ball, and to him, glaring. “I can do that on my own time,” she said, slower than before.

“And where’s your own time? Because from what the townspeople have said, you’ve been spending all of your own time gazing into the crystal ball. Or possessed by a demon, to hear them tell it…”

Reltanna looked annoyed at him for a few seconds, then sighed and slumped back in her chair.

“Fine, fine,” Reltanna said, sounding both defeated and still determined. “I may have been doing nothing else for the past week.” She looked to the door. “I guess I’d better go make nice and explain that I’m not possessed, huh?”

“I’d recommend it.”

“Ugh.” Reltanna got up, and slowly walked over to the door.

As they went to leave, Gelvan glanced over at the crystal ball. A thought occurred to him of just how much certainty he himself had craved in life, and what answers a priest like him might be able to know if granted access to—

“Whoops, before I forget…”

Reltanna went back over to the table and threw the fabric back over the crystal ball, making the whole room a lot dimmer.

Probably for the best, thought Gelvan, as he considered his momentary thought while following Reltanna out the door and closing it behind him.

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