In the bright morning, a figure strolls into the courtyard, flanked by guards on each side. He wears layers and layers of fine clothing in bright fabrics. And he wears a large, trailing fur robe with brightly coloured fur, studded with a line of gems. His boots are polished and made of the finest leather. On his head is an intricate crown. He must be the lord. I stand up straighter and look him dead in his hard, cruel eyes.

"So you're the witch." His voice is smug and haughty.

"So you're the lord," I spit back.

"Why do you cause trouble, trying to use magic? We all know that the common people are weak and pathetic in magic. We all know that only the lords can wield magic strongly."

"Magic isn't just for you and your people," I reply. "Magic is for everyone. And anyone brave enough to disobey your unreasonable laws can wield magic. They can wield it stronger and better than you or even the Queen ever could.

"You are delusional. You are delusional and you don't know your place." His voice has hints of frustration to it. Am I already getting to him? Good. I must keep going at this.

"The magic of the common people is stronger than your magic ever will be. You use your magic and your power to keep all the resources from us. You use your magic to hoard everything and keep it from us. We use our magic to create healing in our communities. You don't know anything."

"It is you who does not know anything," he snarls at me. "I will show you how vastly superior my magic is from your weak and feeble magic."

"You want a bet?" I keep the fear out of my voice. I am not afraid that he might win. He won't. But I am afraid that he will hurt me. But I cannot let him know this.

"A tournament, then. Between you and me. To see who is the better mage."

"You're on." I keep looking into his eyes. "You'll have to untie me though."

And so he does, with a silver glinting knife from his gilded belt.

"Follow me." I follow him into the castle proper, surrounded by guards on each side.

The inside of the castle stretches vast on either side of me. There are so very many rooms. So many objects and idols and statues and furniture and tapestries and rugs and chandeliers and things I cannot even name, stretching out through all sides of me. The colours are so bright, are colours that I have never seen before in my life. There are wide, clear windows surrounded by thick silken curtains. There are paintings in golden frames adorning the walls. And there are doors. So, so many different doors. And each door leads to another vast room. There are also flowers everywhere. But these are not wildflowers growing free. These are carefully-cultivated garden flowers growing in vases.

I am astounded by the beauty but at the same time I am deeply unnerved and put out by the hollowness of this beauty. By the twistedness of it. Everything is meant to appeal to the senses. But there is no soul in any of the rich surroundings around me. There is nothing intangible, untouchable. It merely all looks good. It is a false sort of beauty.

I am lead to a door engraved in gold, softly glowing in the light, intricately carved.

"Here is where I create all my spells," the lord declares, leading me in.

Inside the room are thousands of jars and cases and chalices containing every sort of expensive material imaginable. It's suffocating in here.

"I'm not impressed," I tell him.

"Oh, you will be. I will show you. I will create the most powerful beast in the kingdom. And then you will see."

He calls his servants to bring forth a chalice filled with the purest of wines. And he pours the deep red liquid onto a twisted set of crystal spires. The wine collects in the platinum bowl at the bottom of the spires. And he has his servants lift up the bowl. In dark, black ink he writes something in the fine parchment in front of him. I do not know what he wrote, because I cannot read or write. But I see him soak the parchment in the bowl of wine. The next thing I see is him using a gem-encrusted mortar and pellet to crush pearls that look more expensive than our entire village. He plays a strange string instrument.

And there is a swirling, glowing flow of gold dancing through the air. It forms the shape of a cougar, and starts glowing brighter than ever before. The petals of the rose come falling from the roof. And there is a strange warmth emanating throughout the entire room. I look at the lord, who is still playing his instrument.

I look back, and see a large cougar made of gold, with sharp, snarling teeth and rubies for eyes. I gasp slightly, afraid of the unnatural creature as it prowls up and down the room, growling and snapping, moving as fluidly as it would if it were real.

"Do you see this beast?" He declares grandly to me. "It will be able to kill any animal. None will be able to hold up against it!"

"I can create a creature with more power." My words are soft and solemn, strong and unshaking.

"I would like to see you try."

"Then just watch." I do not even hesitate for a second to reply to him.

I make my way out of the castle, towards the village. At the edge of the village, beside the forest, I kneel down.

"Mother earth, please build for me a life," I whisper, kneeling down on both knees, hands flat against the earth.

I rise, and find a patch of dirt that is uncovered by vegetation. I lay my hands on this earth and let it stick onto my fingers. I then stroke the blades of grass underneath me, starting at their bases and slowly working my way up, letting the earth coat them lightly. I raise my hands up to the sky and look up.

"Father sky, please build for me a life," I whisper. And I hold my hands up in contact with the air.

I go to the stream, and bring both of my hands down gently, at the stream's side, each hand soaked on one half by the water.

"Parent water, please build for me a life."

I walk in a circle. There is a gust of wind. And all at once, in the middle of the circle stands a baby wood bison, with thick brown fur and blunt teeth.

"Your creature is weak and pathetic," the lord tells me from atop his horse. "My beast could kill it easily."

"Do you want to see?" I ask him. "Let me up on your horse."

"A commoner, on a horse? That is absolutely preposterous!"

"It sounds to me like you're just scared," I taunt.

"Okay, fine."

He helps me up, and we watch as he calls his cougar to us. The snarling beast takes one look at the baby wood bison and starts running towards it, greedy for meat to feast upon. The bison runs towards the forest, and we follow.

For many minutes, the cougar gives chase to the baby bison. And truly, there are certain moments in which I worry that maybe it will kill the baby after all. But the baby bison stays strong and runs through the forest, knowing exactly where to go. And it makes me proud. It makes me so very proud.

It starts to look as if the cougar is catching up to the bison. But just as it's getting close, the bison finds the herd of other wood bison that live in this forest. The baby melts into the herd, rushing into its safety. And the adults all gather together in front of the cougar, protecting the young and weak members of the herd from its teeth and claws.

The cougar stops dead in its tracks, obviously afraid at the numerous bison with their sharp horns. But before it can run away, all the bison charge together, piercing its golden fur with their horns. The cougar sprawls out on the ground, crying in agony, as deep red wine bleeds from its insides.

"What did I tell you?" I ask the lord.

He is too astounded to answer.

"Well, you may have won this round," he finally concedes, "but that was only through cunning and trickery. The next challenge I am sure you will concede on."

"Oh yeah?" I ask, still looking at the carcass of the golden cougar. "Bring it on."

"I challenge you to find the most precious thing in the kingdom. If you can find something more precious than I do, then you will have won."

"Okay." I keep my voice calm and cool and slightly ired. I cannot let him know the fear I am feeling deep within my heart. Though, the fear is less than it used to be before.

"I will find the most precious thing. And if you can find anything more precious, you will win."

"Okay."

He brings us back to the castle, and to his magic room. There, he rubs the hilts of two sharp swords against each other and lays them on his grand mahogany table. Upon the swords, he places a dainty ivory spyglass. I have never seen a spyglass in real life before, I have only heard about them in stories. He gathers a chalice full of precious gems and gold and silver nuggets. And, chanting some words, he pours them onto the spyglass and the swords. He then empties a chalice of some dark liquid onto the pile. And once again, he plays his instrument.

A ribbon of flowing, glowing silver manifests in the air above us, and he takes me by the wrist as we follow it out the door.

He gathers a fleet of his knights to go out with him. He attractes a knife to his boot. I hang on to him as he rides his horse, too close for either of our comforts. We ride for two days and two nights, stopping at different villages to eat. It is an exhausting journey. A tense journey. A difficult journey. We exchange no more words than necessary. At least he is giving me food.

He follows a stream of silver that dances and glows above our heads, glinting in the sunlight. This strange air he had manifested by once again playing his strange stringed instrument and doing his elaborate rituals.

Finally, we come upon a meadow near a village.

"Here," he pronounces, "lies the most precious thing in the kingdom.

He calls the village folk and commands them to dig. And so they do. For many days and nights they dig, the hole getting deeper and deeper. Finally, someone hits something hard. At first we all think it is just a rock. But it turns out to be an unpolished hunk of diamond, as big as my torso. There is a great effort to mine it out.

"I would like to see you top that," he gloats.

"Alright," I reply, letting the sneakiness inside me show.

I get off the horse and start walking to the forest. The lord and his men follow.

"Please show me the way, forest," I beseech.

Inside the forest, there is a pull in my heart, secret and untraceable, showing me where to go. It pulls me this way and that, through stretches of forest that I am altogether unfamiliar with. I walk and I walk, for days on end, eating berries I find and drinking from rivers and streams. The men follow me, and they grumble about how exhausted they are, about how this journey is taking forever.

The forest leads me to the mountains. And I climb the mountains. I climb the mountains for days on end, not keeping track of how much time has passed. The knights complain that I am wasting their time. And the lord tells me that if this turns out to be for nothing, he will have my head.

I know that he will have my head anyways.

I keep on following the tug in my heart as it leads me through the forest. I finally get near the summit of a mountain, and I point up to the rain clouds forming above us.

"This," I tell everyone, "is the most precious thing in the kingdom. The rain on the mountains which fill all of our rivers and streams with water."

"What nonsense!" The lord exclaims. "How can simple water be precious?"

"You have never known thirst," I explain to him, "you would never understand."

We exchange no words during the long trek back.

When the lord is at his beloved castle, he sinks down upon his large, plush bed with sheer curtains hanging from a frame surrounding it. I sit down beside him, and he is too exhausted to tell me anything.

"I won both rounds," I state.

"No you did not," he retorts.

"Yes I did," I reply back.

"I found a diamond. What you found was some simple water. Mine was far more precious."

I laugh at this, an ugly, unseemly laugh, and he gets very agitated.

"I will have your head!" He shouts at me.

"If you want my head then take it," I quip. "I do not care much for something as fleeting as a head."

At this, he gets even more agitated, which makes me just laugh louder.

"Anyways," I tell him, "Even if you did win this round, which you didn't, we would still be tied one to one."

"Fine. You're right. We should do one more challenge to set the record straight once and for all."

"What challenge do you want to do? You've chosen all the other challenges thus far." I lie down onto the plush softness of the bed. I lie down beside the lord. And he does not even do anything to stop me. This bed is far softer than anything I have ever experienced in my life. I like it. Though I know it was made with the blood of my people.

"I will let you know," he replies, "just give me a few days of rest."