The Year One,
When the fisherman arrived at the forest he had still not located the river. And yet, the river was not his ultimate goal—any body of water would do. If he found so much as a babbling brook or a small pond his beloved would be waiting for him; it did not matter where.
The forest floor was matted in thick fog. The fisherman wandered among the trees like a ghost in the gray mist, listening for the sound of whistling, which he knew would lead him to water. At last he heard it, a song consisting of three pitches. He followed the tune on the wind until it led him to a clearing. He glanced around in surprise—he had not expected to find this place again so soon. The river was but a moment away, he knew, but the clearing would serve his goal much better, if what his beloved had told him about the forest was true.
In the center of the clearing was a stone tower, thirty fins tall. He indulged himself to a rare smile—he would be able to change everything, after all. He would be able to see his beloved again and be with her always, forever.
The fisherman dashed to the tower and vaulted to the top. But for a narrow catwalk around the edge there was no ceiling, only a pool of dark, mystical water. He stared at his reflection—this was not a place where she could meet him, he knew at once; this was no ordinary well. The surface was the face of midnight, a mirror, or perhaps a doorway. The fisherman took a meditative moment to arrange his thoughts and then leaned over the well and made one simple wish.
He was no longer alone. Three fat, green frogs sat around the edge of the wall. One of them grinned, most hideous. “You would Be with her? Did you really need to waste a wish on such a simple thing? Will she not love you without our help?”
The middle frog licked its lips. “Always and forever, stranger? I didn’t know you were the sentimental type. But we can’t give you eternity. Are a thousand years not enough? There are laws, you see.”
The fisherman heard the whistling in the forest abruptly stop. He knew the sudden silence meant the tree that sang had been unmade. His suspicion was confirmed when he looked up to the second frog and saw in its webbed hands a most unusual key. That could only mean one thing: the river was closed again, shut off from the rest of the Land of Lin. There would be no escaping the forest, not without his friends. His friends had all been washed away.
The third frog nodded to the water—the last answer to the fisherman’s wish would be the most cruel. The fisherman looked down in the well. What he saw drove him mad.
In the water was a vision of his beloved. She was waiting for him, as she had promised, on both sides of the forest. She was looking for him, she was straining to see any sign of him near the river. But the forest was now closed, the fisherman knew. He would not be able to leave. His beloved would wait for him until her eyes bored holes in the river itself like screws into wood.
Much to the delight of the three frogs, the fisherman keeled over. A single drop fell from the small hole in his forehead and landed in the water; through the mystic well, his beloved felt his pain. Her face appeared on the surface for a flickering instant and the fisherman saw her heart break as neatly as an icicle snapping off a roof.
He felt water leaking down his face, though he never wept. The shell he had made for his heart fell apart like shattered glass and he collapsed. At the very instant that his dark mask melted away like ice held over a fire, his lips touched the mystic water, a kiss for the vision of his beloved, a vision which rippled at once into his own reflection, midnight water flowing upwards, coalescing, melting ice in reverse.
When he pulled away, the dark mask was forged anew, hard as ice though never frozen, strong as iron.
The three frogs jumped off the tower.
The Spirit of the Sea had been right all along—the fisherman could not change anything. There is hope, his beloved had told him not so long ago. It was a lie.