What I Saw

I felt it before I saw it. With the barest glimmer of golden light through the basket weave all that I could see, Evermeet took my breath way. Coiled in the basket like a snake, with cramps in every limb, I was desperate not to give myself away, yet I could feel the magic of Evermeet seep through my body, soothing aching limbs and easing guilty conscience. When I could breathe again, I gasped. And that was how the elf discovered me.





The blind elf, whose beloved treasures I’d displaced to take my journey, pulled me from his basket, and when he did so, his eyes were clear as diamonds and just as hard. I thought for sure that I was dead, and on seeing my surroundings, I can say with all my heart that I didn’t care. Had the elf killed me on the spot, my soul would have gone to Garl and demanded a ship so that I could sail right back to Evermeet. My dumb wonderment caused the elf to turn and look, and he too was enraptured.

As to what we beheld, well, imagine a place of staggering natural beauty and impossible elven artifice, an alien realm as distant and beautiful as the stars, but as much a part of you as your own dreams — part heaven, part home.

I’d like to say we shared a moment there, the elf and I. Perhaps in recognition of that, he didn’t kill me.

It was over all too soon. I was put back on the boat, returned to the world, and warned never to try anything so foolish again — on pain of death. And I don’t think I will — at least not until I’m getting up there in years. Then I’ll keep my eyes peeled for elves with cloudy eyes looking west!

Now, see? Wouldn’t you have liked to have been a gnome’s boots and touched Evermeet, even for just a few beats of the heart?