The Sorcerer

It was at this point in his recitation that a sudden jolt caused the railcar, which my compatriot and I were occupying, to experience some sort of electrical fault. The lights in the car flickered violently, and for a brief moment, everything went pitch black. The sudden jolt sent my pipe clattering to the floor, and I reached instinctively to steady myself against the bench. My companion, Mr. Wells, seemed unfazed by the commotion. Eventually, the lights settled and I composed myself enough to recover my articles.

“Ah, there it is,” he said, straightening his waistcoat. “A crack in the fabric of reality. Happens more often than you’d think on railways. All that motion—terribly destabilizing.”

“Fabric of reality?” I asked—and for the life of me I could not understand it—but my voice trembled with a hint of legitimate panic as if I actually believed this ridiculous man. “I—I thought it was just these damned finicky electrics.”

“No, no,” he replied, peering out the now-darkened window. “You see, sir, you’ve stumbled into rather unusual company. Unusual company tends to attract unusual phenomena. And here we are.”

“Here we are?” I repeated, glancing around the railcar, which still seemed, for all its flickering lights and occasional groans, firmly rooted on the tracks. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Mr. Wells, leaning back against the seat and folding his hands neatly in his lap. “You’re mortal. Mortals, bless our earnest little hearts, are hardly equipped to grasp the nuances of interdimensional turbulence. But not to worry! I shall endeavor to explain it in terms you might understand.”

Despite the rather blunt wording of the previous statement, I was altogether certain that Mr. Wells meant not to insult my perspicacity. On the contrary, I ardently believe that he enjoyed the prospect of enlightening me on the subject of his nonsense, though his tone was maddeningly condescending.

“You see, sir,” he began, leaning forward slightly, “ the material world in which you and I and most others plod about in is but a single layer of reality—imagine if you will a million interconnected but separate planes all converging in upon a single infinitesimal but always shrinking point. Now the turbulence occurs when two individuals of sufficient gravity of personality meet. This convergence of—chasimatic energy is what I call it, causes a rift.”

My blank stare must have queued him as to my incomprehension as he then stated quickly, “take this croissant,” he then reached for one of the many pastries he had piled on a plate before him.

I suppose it must be explained that a hostess had come through with a cart of refreshments earlier in the journey, and Mr Wells, with an enthusiasm that bordered on gluttony, had availed himself of an alarming number of baked goods. The croissant in question was half-eaten and had also fallen to the floor during the initial “interdimensional turbulence.”

“Now,” he said, gesturing with the pastry, “imagine this croissant is the universe. Each layer of flaky, buttery goodness represents a different plane of existence, separate yet intrinsically linked to the whole. The layers converge at the tip of the croissant, that is where we are in the equation”—he pointed dramatically at the narrow end—“but the layers spread outward infinitely as you move toward the base. And at this convergence point, where we are, a sort of—how do I put this—a portal, yes a portal is formed for a fraction of a fraction of a second.”

He paused, allowing this metaphorical brilliance to sink in, though the crumbs tumbling from his fingers somewhat undermined the gravity of his explanation.

“You’re saying reality is… a croissant?” I ventured.

“Precisely!” he declared, taking a triumphant bite of the croissant.

I turned back to Mr. Wells, who was still holding the mangled croissant aloft like some culinary philosopher-king. “So then once you open the portal and then—what? Jump in?”

He regarded me with a look of mock horror, as though I’d just suggested using the Mona Lisa as a dartboard. “Jump in? Sir, portals are not trampolines to be flung into with reckless abandon! No, no. Entering a portal requires delicacy, preparation, and, above all, intent. Without proper intent, you might very well find yourself spat out into some half-formed dimension where everything tastes like turnips and time flows backward. Dreadful places, really.”

With an arched brow, I finally said to the man, “And this relates to your story how, exactly?”

Mr Wells then froze mid-bite, chewed thoughtfully a moment, swallowed, and then placed the remains of the pastry on his plate with great deliberation. “Ah, a fair question,” he said, brushing his fingers free of crumbs. “Allow me to connect the dots, as it were. You see, the convergence of personalities I mentioned earlier—this ‘charismatic energy’—well, that’s precisely what happened to me on the day my life changed forever.”

I arched my brow somehow higher and gestured for him to continue.

“It was a Tuesday, a perfectly ordinary Tuesday, or so I thought. I had just opened my shop—did I mention I own a shop? A rather peculiar establishment, dealing in all manner of magical oddities and arcane curiosities. Anyway, I was dusting off the counter when—”

“Yes—yes you've said this all before,” I said, for the first time becoming exacerbated with the fellow. “You had just gotten to the part when Death himself had banished you to another realm or some such.”

Mr. Wells blinked, startled by my interruption. For a moment, he looked genuinely affronted. Then, with a theatrical sigh, he settled back in his seat, folding his arms across his chest.

“Well, if you’re so eager to skip the preamble,” he said, “I suppose I shall oblige. Yes, Death himself had just informed me that my time had come, and after some rather spirited negotiations—which I must say were entirely one-sided—I found myself being ‘banished,’ as you so succinctly put it, to another realm.”

“And this other realm,” I prompted, “what was it like?”

“Ah,” he said, “now that is a question worthy of my answer.”

And so he began the story once again: