A Kingdom for a Soul

It had been a strange journey, the man thought as he approached the path into the mountains that ascended steeply. Strange and cold.  

    He had followed the signs as he had been bidden. Crossed the oak tree with a branch of yew. Blinked twice at the Pool of the Fallen Faeries. Chanted the Poem of the Wandering Lost in the Cave of Being.

    Yet, none of it had restored what he had lost.
    It had happened long ago, when life appeared less sweet. When the world seemed as though it had nothing to offer. And when ego said it did not matter if one possessed a soul in exchange for all the power and riches one could imagine.  
    In exchange, the man received a kingdom.
    An unfair exchange, he realized over time
   And so, he had given away his kingdom and gone to the wizard at the edge of the wood, who looked him up and down, first kindly, then sadly, lastly with a gaze that made the man feel small—and then sent the man on a quest that might, perhaps, restore his soul to him.
    He had done all that the wizard asked of him, save one. Only the Lake of Glass remained. The place, the wizard said, where discarded souls were kept. The man must look within the darkness of the ice until he found what it was he sought.
    The man shivered as the air around him glittered with cold from the frozen lake before him.
    He leaned over and saw his reflection as clear as if he looked upon a mirror. He saw all of its ragged edges against the darkness of the ice, and all the bottomless depths of its self that lead to choices both good and bad.
    And then, he saw something else, in the depths that only exist in the worlds within ice.  
    The merest hint, a shadow, a tiny flickering. Not outside his person, but within it. 
    The man knew it for his soul.
     He went back by way of the wizard, and as he stepped inside the old man’s home, he said, ‘Your plan succeeded, sir. I have found my soul.’
    ‘Of course you did,’ said the wizard, a twinkle in his eye. ‘I sent you on a quest where chants and branches and waters did nothing. And magic lakes still less. A soul, as it truly is, can never truly be sold. Belief, on the other hand; that has powers of persuasion of which magic cannot dream. You believe you have your soul, and so you have it.’
     The man stared at the Wizard and pondered all that he had done to retrieve his soul. His kingdom gone, his wealth diminished, and with it his person no more than a shallow drop in the bucket of humanity. It was then that he noticed something else—something so strong it caught him by surprise. He was at peace.
    He nodded his thanks to the wizard, who smiled after one no longer lost, and went on his different way.

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