"So do you have a name by any chance?"
"Do you seriously think my name is just the slave in the mirror? Of course I have a name it's just nobody calls me by it at least not anymore.
I mean I used to be called by it all the time but that was before I came here and I was trapped inside this mirror."
The mirror paused for a moment for all the centuries of being a nameless slave had taken it's toll on his memory.
"My name was Jasper... Jasper Ganzbara.".
Those words lost him for a moment as he remembered what life had been before the mirror.
Had he been happy as he claimed?
Had he actually been human?
What was more had there been love in his life?
What of a wife and children?
The memories of his life were misted over by magic.
There had been no wife and no child, in fact there had been very little love in his life.
He had been a selfish man full of ambition, hungering for power and knowledge.
Was he some sort of dark wizard?
There was magic but no official title of wizardry.
He'd learned the art of magic all by himself in the comfort of his home.
Oh yes he was a Lord, he remembered that now.
He had great wealth and had acquired a vast amount of land from the family legacy.
His family was responsible for opening several museums and various book shops each of which he had inherited after the death of his father.
He had used some of the money he acquired from these establishments to purchase a strange antique shop that only collected and sold magical artifacts some of which were quite cursed.
It was not uncommon for him to sell a item that had a few ghosts attached.
The thing that fascinated him the most were the rare books that were shipped in to the family book shops.
He spent a great deal of his time taking these rare books to his study and absorbing every word they contained.
He put this knowledge from his books to good use, examining the cursed objects eventually he found out a way to remove these curses. Although he found it amusing to give haunted or cursed objects to people in his shop he did not think it was right to allow such misfortune to befall his customers.
He was reluctant at first to use magic but the more knowledge he acquired the bolder he became and he eventually had the courage to say what he had read aloud.
He read about both dark and white magic, but the magic he used the most was the white kind. There were some books he never read out loud under any circumstances for the words had the ability to summon evil spirits and even in some cases raise the dead.
Although Necromancy and other dark arts greatly fascinated him he was a sensible man that is until he started making his own magical artifacts himself.
He found however that his greatest passion was the art of Alchemy.
However a certain brew is what sent him over the edge of reason.
Something went terribly wrong with the potion he had made.
His sensibility faded and his noble character with all it's good virtues began to grow thin.
He no longer saw the boundaries of safety, these lines of protection blurred and he began to turn to the works of dark magic.
He never summoned any evil spirits nor had he ever raised anyone from the dead but he instead began to create certain curses of his own.
He learned how to construct magical objects of his own, he'd place certain invisible symbols on these objects and he'd weave the dark magic into the object itself so that it would forever be bound to it.
Many had known him to be a rather devious man so people didn't notice the change that had occurred within him.
People had grown accustomed to his deceptive nature and they assumed that was the way he had always been. my
It wasn't until he began to be late to certain business meetings that people actually started to notice something wasn't quite right.
Eventually he was no longer late but he was completely absent to every business meeting that occured.
Then there came a day where he disappeared entirely.
There was no trace of him but all they found was a beautifully ornate mirror that had not been there before.
He tried to remember if he had created that mirror.
No he hadn't created it. He had found it in his antique shop in a abandoned corner shining like newly found gem.
His mind was all jumbled.
Had he found the mirror before concocting that dreadful brew?
Yes the mirror came first.
The mirror had shown him a great deal. The mirror promised him tremendous power and unlimited knowledge.
The more he spent looking upon this mirror the more it showed him.
"I will give you unlimited power and knowledge. Leave this world behind and I will reveal all realms beyond this one. Bind yourself to me and I will give you power and knowledge eternal. Your understanding shall be infinite and you shall see all truth and all the secrets of the universe. Bind yourself to me and my power and knowledge shall be your own".
The mirror had tempted him in a softly serene voice.
The mirror instructed him on what he must do.
It was then he made the potion.
After drinking the potion he became one with the mirror.
He indeed became more powerful and his knowledge was greatly increased.
His knowledge and power grew everyday but the price was the loss of his virtues, his common sense and in some ways he lost his very sanity.
There was no sensibility, no kindness and no compassion.
The mirror gave him access to other worlds and he delighted in all he saw and in all he learned.
Yet what the mirror did not tell him is the ultimate price for all of this power and knowledge was imprisonment forever.
He had not comprehended what it truly meant to be bound to the mirror.
He had unknowingly enslaved himself.
His greed had lead him to this eternal servitude.
He had lost all humanity and when all humanity was lost the mirror trapped his soul within the glass prison of cursed magic.
It was not just his soul that was taken there but his body was taken as well. His body went through a extraordinary transformation.
His skin became thin and transparent until his flesh was nothing but smoke and mist.
He was nothing but a ghost and a phantom now devoid of all flesh, blood and bone.
The mirror had robbed him of everything good and noble about his character.
How was it that this girl could sense goodness in him if there was none left to spare?
Surely there was some good still left in him.
She spoke truth and he would know if she had lied to him.
It was his business to know all truth after all.
"That means treasure. Jasper means treasure i believe".
Amber spoke rather dreamily.
Her voice was soft and thoughtful, as if she were lost in a dream.
Her eyes shone a bedazzling gold.
"You have the sight I see.
You are not only a bard but a seer. That's very rare nowadays.
Many of the seers have either died or have hidden themselves away in the hills. There was a time that seers were hunted by a great and terrible queen. It was the same queen that lived here in fact."
"For what reason did she hunt them?"
"It was not for sport but for a purpose. At first she merely brought them to the palace for their insight and their guidance but there was one young girl that revealed her a truth she did not like so she ordered all the seers to be dragged to the palace and executed.
There were a great many seers that were slaughtered because of her rage yet her rage was than appeased when she found me.
So she gave up her hunt for seers and she instead became occupied consulting me for truth and reason."
"How did she kill them?"
"Their eyes were branded shut with hot irons and their hearts were torn out.
She read somewhere that the hearts of seers can give you strength so the hearts of the seers were thrown into a stew and she claimed that she would get new strength from it.i
It is also written that you can be given the gift of sight by eating the heart of a seer.
However the effects are only temporary.
The only way to truly absorb the gift of sight from a seer is to drain them of all their life force.
This is not to be confused with the soul. The soul is something that cannot be removed by anyone except by the person it belongs to."
"That's absolutely horrible.
Why then did she remove her own heart and soul?"
"Oh she removed her heart long before she ever met me. It was some nonsense that her mother taught her. Her mother had told her that a queen rules with her mind and not her heart so she placed her heart in a box and hid that box in somewhere within this castle.
She then removed her soul after she found me.
She asked me how such a thing was done and I told her.
I guided her through all the steps and she was successful.
Yet since the heart is what makes one human and it is the soul that grounds us down in this humanity, she then lost her foothold on reality.
You see the soul is responsible for a great deal of your sanity not to mention your common sense and your logic.
The brain cannot exist without the soul. She was existing but only by magic and magic can be very unhealthy if you are completely dependent upon it.
Her soul still resides here, trapped within a box that was buried out on the castle grounds.
No doubt that is the evil you sense here.
Evil has made this place desolate and her hateful curse has kept this place abandoned, overthrown by thorns and briars and stricken by dry ground and harsh air thick with dust and decay.
The earth here is devoid of all life, there are no animals that come here, even the birds refuse to hover over this castle.
It is not a very inhabitable place but then again you're here and you don't seem in the least bit phased by the dark atmosphere this place provides.
Tell me why did you come here in the first place?"
"I came here to escape. I enjoy the quiet and the isolation here. It's so exclusive and solitary.
I could stay here forever but I probably won't. I never stay in one place too long".
Jasper nearly gasped at the thought of having her stay here forever.
There was something so deliciously sweet about hearing the word forever.
"Forever is a awfully long time.
believe me I've lived it.
I've been here for forever and I'd probably have been stuck here forever if it weren't for your arrival. Tell me how do you intend to free me?"
"Is the mirror in which you live cursed?"
"Yes it is indeed".
"Then I'll just have to unbind that curse from the mirror".
"Curses don't just unbind for anyone you know. It's a very complicated process."
"I once removed a curse from someone once. There was a little girl that was dying from a curse.
I sang to her and the curse lifted."
"What you did was very foolish.
A curse can lift but it still has to be destroyed. So all you did was release the curse into the world."
"No I did something even better".
Amber bent her arm and lifted up her hand slightly to expose a strange rune etched on the inside of her wrist.
"Is that what I think it is?
Dear me you didn't destroy the curse you absorbed it!
You are more foolish than I thought.
You cursed yourself just for the sake of some pitiful child.
You should of left her to die, then the curse would relinquish and it would not be able to harm another soul."
"Kindness is not foolishness.
She was a child, a child is innocent and should never be left to die.
Curses are something that should never put upon a child.
It is unfair and unjust to place such a great burden on one that is so young.
Everyone said I was cursed and now that's just what I am.
Anyway I just feel fine.
I've never had any adverse effect from taking on any of these curses.
I believe I'm completely healthy My mind is clear, open and sane, my body is strong and my strength and my energy rarely fails me. I sleep well without any night terrors and my spirits are usually always hopeful.
See for yourself I'm completely unharmed.
I haven't suffered anything except of course the sadness and sorrow of being alone."
"Extraordinary. You must have some strange immunity to these dark forces that live within these curses. I see no dark energy, I sense no darkness,there are no traces of dark magic present.
Are you sure that what you actually encountered was a curse?"
"Yes I'm sure of it. I could prove it to you if you'd like."
"You'd need a cursed object to do that."
"Do you have one on hand?"
"Not on hand exactly but i do know where one is."
"Is it nearby?"
"Oh yes it's very near, in fact it's not too far away. Here let me show you".