Hall of Infinite Doors
You expect that you'll have fewer people looking for you the farther you run from your land. So, after gathering a couple days of food from your house you take off toward the hills--on foot. You had to sell your horse three months ago in order to eat.
The sun is hot and you're not making good time. Your sandals are worn from working in the field, and you're exhausted from the eighteen hour days you've worked to get by.
By now they have probably raised the hue and cry and have set a posse on your trail. You cross a stream several times to throw off any dogs that may be chasing you. You're glad you didn't sit in your woods to be captured or killed.
Then, through the trees up ahead, you hear a woman's laughter. By now the sun has begun its gradual descent and you are sweating profusely. You lay down on the ground to catch your breath and crawl forward through the underbrush. There beside the stream's bank, and not ten feet from you, is a picnic blanket and basket laid out with all sorts of food and drink. The laughter you heard comes from some young maid in a long silken dress as she is being escorted along the stream's bank by the scion of a wealthy local landowner--one who didn't go to war. They are walking arm in arm away from you.
You glance both ways. Up the hill is a carriage drawn by two finely groomed white horses. Not far from it is a well dressed coachman laying face up on the grass. Sweat drips from your brow. Off in the distance you hear the barking of dogs.
The sun is hot and you're not making good time. Your sandals are worn from working in the field, and you're exhausted from the eighteen hour days you've worked to get by.
By now they have probably raised the hue and cry and have set a posse on your trail. You cross a stream several times to throw off any dogs that may be chasing you. You're glad you didn't sit in your woods to be captured or killed.
Then, through the trees up ahead, you hear a woman's laughter. By now the sun has begun its gradual descent and you are sweating profusely. You lay down on the ground to catch your breath and crawl forward through the underbrush. There beside the stream's bank, and not ten feet from you, is a picnic blanket and basket laid out with all sorts of food and drink. The laughter you heard comes from some young maid in a long silken dress as she is being escorted along the stream's bank by the scion of a wealthy local landowner--one who didn't go to war. They are walking arm in arm away from you.
You glance both ways. Up the hill is a carriage drawn by two finely groomed white horses. Not far from it is a well dressed coachman laying face up on the grass. Sweat drips from your brow. Off in the distance you hear the barking of dogs.