The Gaze of Unfathomable Evil

"Fausskolen, you get up this instant!"

My eyelids fluttered open to a bright stream of morning sunlight illuminating my room.

"I'm waiting, Fausskolen!"

My ears slowly began to pick up the sounds of birds singing in the trees; of the water mill making its rounds under the gently flowing stream.

"Fausskolen!"

"All right, all right. I'm coming," I shouted in reply to the incessant voice. Stretching my arms as if to embrace the new day, I jumped from my bed and slipped on my old leather sandals. I scampered to the door, pulling back the creaky wooden thing. After flying into the hallway, I ran to the nearest entry to the living room.

"Come here right now, young man!"

"Just a second," I wailed, my fingers striking like a viper at the wooden sphere protruding form the door. No response. I strengthened my grip, the enraged shouts of the Master urging me on.

"Dratted door!" I spat at last, abandoning the locked entrance; and instead deciding to take the long way. I flew down the narrow corridor, whipping round the corner of the hallway and past the workshop. Momentarily glancing at the half-done oak desk inside the vacant room, I ran on toward the end of the passage. I sighed in relief as the door gave way to my grip. So it was that I sprang into the living room of the Master's cottage, and froze dead in my tracks.

Master Pyalouz stood erect in the center of the room, his menacing stance radiating what not even the most fluent of oaths could. Even so, the curses that ensued came close.

"To the spirits!" the man exclaimed, shaking his head in wonderment. "I've been calling your cursed name for nigh an hour and you just now got over here! I ought to hit you upside the head!"

"I?I'm sorry, Master," I replied with mock trepidation. "I just n-now woke up."

"Hmph," replied the man, as a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek to be swallowed in a field of royal blue cotton. The Master suddenly plunged his boney right arm into his breech pocket, his dexterous fingers searching for the circular bulge in the corduroy. Seizing it, the man's hand reemerged and he flipped open his pocket-watch. His brow tensed in apparent dissatisfaction at what the numbers read, and in the next second the man snapped shut his pocket watch, hurled it back into his pocket, and sprinted to within inches of my face.

"Boy," he shouted, "you sure are lucky I have to catch the Rider to market. I swear I would have boxed your ears off if the gods had given me the time. Ah well, this'll suffice to teach you to come quicker when I call you!" With that, he swiped a folded piece of parchment from his shirt-pocket and flung it in my direction. Opening the paper while under Pyalouz's impatient stare, I found it to be a list of chores.