“Reralt!” he finally yelled, barely keeping up as the silver-haired lunatic cut a straight line through the wilderness. “Reralt, stop!”
Exhaustion pulled at him. He slowed down, ready to collapse. It took ten whole minutes before Reralt noticed and circled back.
“Narro, get on your horse. We’re going to see Mat.” Reralt rode a tight circle around him. One. Two. Three times.
“I am sitting down,” Narro said, crabby. “I am drinking water. I am eating something.”
It turned out that, when you were tired enough—pushed far enough—you stood up to Reralt much more easily. He saw the puzzled look on Reralt’s face and pressed on.
“And you too. Off the horse. Eat something. You need your energy.”
He hoped it worked.
Muttering all the way, Reralt dismounted, snatched some dried meat from Narro, and sat down. “Quick then. We ride on soon. We need to see Mat—preferably before tea time.”
He glanced at his arms, the skin still flayed. His face still blistered from the well. He nodded solemnly.
***
“So…” Narro couldn’t control his curiosity any longer. “What happened, Reralt? Where are my wife and child?”
Reralt shook his head. His face twisted like he was chewing something disgusting—or worse, something healthy.
“They are trapped in the well,” he admitted. His voice cracked. “I trapped them in the well.”
A tear threatened. He sighed. “Now we need to do the stupid prophecy, to bring them back again.”
“The… well?” Narro frowned. “You mean the Well of All? The one from the prophecy? With the whole—” He waved vaguely. “—god-stuff?”
“Yes,” Reralt said, as if that explained everything. “I went in. It burned. I came out. They didn’t.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Exactly!” Reralt brightened, then slumped again. “That’s why we need the Hat.”
For once, the shame looked real on him. Reralt sucked in three huge breaths, one after the other, stood up as if to speak, but nothing came out. Instead he took a swig of wine, walked over, and fell to his knees before Narro.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Narro froze. Never in his life had he expected this. His throat locked up, only snapping free when a piece of food lodged in it forced a violent cough. He looked at Reralt—should he comfort him, pat his shoulder… or let him wallow in guilt that was, frankly, his own fault?
He sat pondering a long minute. Then he stood and hugged Reralt.
Nothing happened at first. Just silence. Then, with sudden force, Reralt stood, lifted Narro clean off his feet, and hugged him back.
***
“So we go. Next city.” Reralt sighed deeply. “Of course, just around tea time.” He shook his head and exhaled. “I hate tea time with Mat.”
Narro sighed. He really didn’t want to ask. But better to be prepared.
“Why?”
Reralt swallowed the last of the dried meat, stole a piece of fruit from Narro’s pack—ignoring the protest of get your own, completely—and spoke through his chewing.
“Well, it’s tea for starters.” His face twisted. “But more than that… I don’t get the whole thing.”
He looked at Narro and smirked. “Perhaps you should do the talking.”
Narro blinked. For a moment, he thought grief had broken Reralt. Had he really lost all confidence? If not for the smirk, he might have believed it.
“You know what?” Narro said, with a misplaced sense of heroism. “I will do the talking.”
They mounted up again, ready for the last push to the city.
“Wait!” Narro shouted suddenly.
Reralt looked back, puzzled.
“What must I ask?” Narro said, his brief heroism evaporating almost as fast as his common sense.
“Well…” Reralt smirked again. “Ask him where the Hat is.”
Before Narro could reply, he was already back on the road—riding in a perfect straight line, as always.
Narro followed as best he could. “This is not going to be fun, is it?” he shouted, fairly certain Reralt could hear him.
***
The birds sang a cheery tune when they rode into town. The melody stopped the minute they passed the archway that served as the town’s gate. Silence echoed on the other side—a strange welcome for those already lost.
“What is this place called?” Narro asked. He didn’t remember seeing it on any map.
“Well, ‘town’ is maybe not completely covering the load here.” Reralt smirked. “But the ‘inhabitants’—” he made air quotes, to the amusement of the Void—“they call it Arc Hymn.”
Narro expected walls and towers, maybe something gloomy. Instead, rows of low wooden barracks stretched out neatly, like huts on a parade ground. Colorful pennants hung between them, fluttering weakly in the still air. At the center stood a large hall, the kind of place you’d expect to find mess trays and camp songs.
“Looks like a summer camp,” Narro muttered.
“Exactly,” Reralt said with a nod, though he didn’t sound remotely reassured.
They reached the main building, a wooden structure near the gate. A sign above the door read in neat, cheery letters: Patients/Visitors, Please Report Here.
“Patients?” Narro squinted. He looked back at the gate just as the heavy doors slammed shut behind them with a metallic clang. He swallowed. “This is an asylum, isn’t it?”
Reralt nodded, dismounted, and addressed the Void in a stern voice. “Don’t wander too far. Some crazy people will want to snuggle you.”
The Void looked unimpressed and wandered off anyway, pausing only to glare back at Reralt as if to say: You know nothing, Reralt-man.
***
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Reralt opened the door and gestured for Narro to go first. Narro looked at him like a betrayed child tricked into going to the dentist. He went in anyway.
A large woman in pristine white clothes sat behind a desk. She looked more warrior than nurse: long blonde hair braided into two massive ropes, a horned helmet perched on top, and muscles to rival Reralt’s—twice the size of Narro’s.
She fixed her gaze on Narro, rose to her full height, and slammed a notepad down on the table with such force that the table cracked straight down the middle. “SIT,” she roared. Narro’s hair flew in every direction.
He wavered, looked back for support.
No Reralt. He was already standing a safe distance away, waving cheerfully.
“So I can catch you!” he yelled.
Narro’s gaze went back inside.
Shaking, he sat down before the grotesque woman. She shoved the notepad toward him.
“NAME.” She jabbed at the dotted line. “PATIENT?” she added.
Narro stayed quiet too long. He had to say something, or she’d assume the worst.
“Hunghhh…” he managed. He blinked a few times, straightened his thoughts. “Visitor,” he said at last, scrawling his name onto the paper. “Here to see Mat?” He hesitated. “A well, uhh… hatter?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. She inhaled sharply, sucking the air out of the room, then bellowed with volcanic force:
“MATT. THERE!” She stabbed a finger at a wall-mounted map.
Narro followed her gesture. The map was so dented and battered it looked more like an abstract painting than a guide. Apparently, this woman didn’t point at it often. Or they replaced it daily. Along with the tables.
“Thank you, my fair lady,” Narro said quickly, just relieved he could leave without being crushed.
The woman’s face turned crimson. For a split second, Narro thought he’d made a terrible mistake. But then—she blushed deeper, smiled shyly, and gave him a little wave.
Narro bolted for the door.
***
White as snow, Narro walked briskly—fast and far—away from the main building, where the large woman now stood in the doorway blinking and blowing kisses.
Reralt frowned. “Did you tell her you’re married?”
Narro caught the grin on his face. “Perhaps not wise to do so. I may have said you were still single. She was very impressed by all the heroics.”
Reralt stopped in his tracks. That was unusual. People usually didn’t make jokes about him. When they did, either he didn’t get them—and that made him angry—or he did get them, and that made him angry.
“Very funny,” he said at last, satisfied with his snappy reply.
They stopped before the last barrack in the second circle. From inside came a shout:
“Change places!”
This was immediately followed by the crash of chairs being thrown, porcelain shattering, and the accompanying screams of chair targets and porcelain headers.
Reralt pushed Narro toward the door. “Ask where Hat is.”
Before Narro could protest, Reralt had already found the Void and was loudly discussing a juicy mouse he claimed to have spotted just over there. The sideways glances he kept sneaking at Narro made it obvious: this was a terrible diversion.
Narro puffed out his chest, breathed in some smoke courage, jumped twice on the spot, and stepped through the door.
***
“Auw!”
The first thing Narro saw was a teacup flying straight at him with surprising speed. He couldn’t dodge. It cracked against his nose with a sharp pain, followed by something warm dripping down his lip.
His senses returned one by one, as if rebooting. Sight first: a large room, a massive table in the middle, a dozen—or so—people running around it, some clearly not human. Chairs scraped, cups flew, and bodies collided in frantic patterns.
Smell followed: tea, blood, and the sour tang of raw insanity. Stronger than Reralt’s aura, which was saying something.
Then came sound. Narro immediately regretted it. A dozen voices shrieking, shouting, and chanting all at once. The entire thing was chaos reincarnated as a tea party.
Narro lingered at the back, trying to spot Mat. His first guess was the man at the head of the table: a huge purple hat sat crooked on his head, clutched in place as though it might escape. The man shouted his mantra like a prayer:
“Change places! Change seats! Change cups! Hold feet!”
Narro nodded. Yes, that seemed like Mat.
He stepped forward just in time to duck a wooden chair, hurled by what he hoped was a man in a bear suit. The bear blinked at him. Either it was a very good suit… or it wasn’t a suit at all.
“You have to throw something back!” the bear yelled.
Narro, confused, grabbed the nearest object—a beanbag—and hurled it over the table. It smacked the bear square in the face. The bear toppled to the floor and stuck a triumphant thumbs-up in the air.
Narro froze. Then, slowly, he looked at the chaos again. He thought he saw it now. The rules of a game.
***
Narro ducked another flying saucer and slid into the nearest chair. The bear clapped its paws together.
“Good! You’re in now!” it roared. “But listen—there are rules!”
“Rules?” Narro croaked, shielding his head with a plate.
“Yes!” the bear bellowed, dodging a sugar bowl. “You can only change seats if there’s a cup of tea in front of it. But the cup must be one you’ve thrown yourself!”
“What?” Narro shouted back.
“And not from the last three cycles!” the bear added helpfully, before being brained with a chair leg.
Narro blinked. The chaos suddenly had a twisted order to it: teacups arced through the air like artillery fire, each one a claim on a chair. The players weren’t throwing at random—they were throwing at the places they wanted to sit next.
“Once the cup lands, you can swap with whoever’s there!” another voice screamed, a man vaulting over the table with sugar in his hair. “But not the same seat you already had. Not the one you threw to last round. And not if you’ve been there in the last three!”
“This is insane!” Narro yelled.
“Exactly!” everyone around him shouted back.
Matt slammed his fist on the head of the table, purple hat wobbling. “CHANGE PLACES! CHANGE SEATS! THROW CUPS! HOLD FEET!”
As if on cue, half the players grabbed ankles at random. The other half hurled teacups like mortars. Narro instinctively snatched one, lobbed it at a chair three places closer to Mat, and ducked as someone traded places with him.
“Good!” the bear wheezed from the floor, thumbs up again. “That’s how you get closer! First one who takes the purple hat wins!”
Narro swallowed. He suddenly realized he was in a deadly serious, porcelain-based strategy game.
And somehow, he was playing. On the edge of his mind, guilt flickered that he enjoyed this. He pushed it away after all, every chair was one chair closer to Syril.
He gripped the edge of his chair as another round started, cups flying, chairs screeching, players screaming like banshees. The purple-hatted man roared his mantra again, and the sound shook the rafters:
“CHANGE PLACES! CHANGE SEATS! THROW CUPS! HOLD FEET!”
Narro ducked, heart hammering. He wasn’t sure how, but he could see it now—if he kept his head down, played smart, and maybe didn’t get killed by crockery, he could actually win this.
One seat at a time.
One cup at a time.
Closer. Closer to the hat.
The bear, already sporting three new bruises, gave him another battered thumbs-up.
Narro took a breath. He was in the game now.
***
(as recorded by the Order of Spilled Tea, Last Revision: never)
- Seat Validity:
You may only move into a seat if there is a cup of tea in front of it.
That cup must be your own. Borrowed cups, stolen cups, or cups offered politely are encouraged.
- Temporal Restrictions:
You may not move into:
- the seat you just vacated,
- the seat you threw, in the last three cycles,
- or any place you have already occupied in the last three cycles.
- Throwing Etiquette:
Cups must be airborne before placement is valid.
Underarm throws are discouraged but not prohibited.
Teapots are strictly forbidden (see: Incident 14, The Flooding).
- Feet Clause:
At any point, on Mat’s command, participants must seize the nearest available ankles.
Points are neither awarded nor deducted; this is simply tradition.
- Victory Condition:
First to sit in the seat of the purple-hatted man claims the hat.
Victory is absolute, eternal, and usually very short-lived.