Prince Leander rode Foronath, his horse, down the tortuous dirt path in search of an inn. He was sticky with dust and sweat, his normally hardy body ached, he was hungry and out of food, and he wanted a bath. The sky was closing in on twilight, and soon he wouldn't be able to see a thing. Night after night he had wished for a torch - he could have used the Magic, but using it every night for who knew how many hours to light his way would drain his strength. If he could just find an inn, he and Foronath could take a long rest and replenish their supplies before continuing the journey to Prince Amir.
During the four days since he had run away from his palace home, Leander often thought about turning back, but that would mean his father, the king, would make him marry Princess Varla. Ugh, even her name hinted at her disgusting nature. He wouldn't marry her for all the riches in the Saxu Mines; he'd rather marry one of the servants in his father's palace. At least they were witty, clean, and weren't reminiscent of the bovine species!
The main problem was that the law of Gelfaar, Leander's kingdom, stated that the Crown Prince(ss) must marry by his/her eighteenth birthday to ensure that royal progeny were available should the Prince(ss) die. Therefore the law obviously meant that the seventeen-year-old Leander, against his nature and in order to get a child of royal blood, would soon have to marry someone of the opposite sex; however, Leander was in love with Prince Amir of Tabara.
While Tabara's laws let all her subjects, as well as royalty, to choose what mates they wished, Gelfaar's laws only gave that right to the non-royal, lest the royal line die out. Yet the thing that bugged Leander the most was that he had three younger sisters; surely at least one of them would have a child, which he, as Crown Prince and future King of Gelfaar, could train to be his successor. Who had the right to say that he should raise only a son or daughter, not a niece or nephew, to be his successor, especially when some of Gelfaar's previous rulers had been mere cousins? And it wasn't like he was an only child! The law was absolutely detrimental to him and Amir, and completely useless in his unique situation! But no, his father still would not change the law to exempt him from marrying a woman just for the sake of having offspring; his father did have that sort of legislative power, but would not use it to help him!
Thus Leander was running away to Tabara to live with Amir and show his father the strength of his convictions. Hopefully his father would not do something stupid like declare war on Tabara just because his son was taking refuge in that kingdom, especially considering the greater strength of Tabara's army. And Leander smirked as he rode, Foronath moving at a fast trot under his legs, for the strength of Tabara's army was reputed to be the result of its practice of recruiting men who were already paired up as lovers.
And if his father disowned him, that was that. The numb-witted, pompous freak could marry Varla himself if she was such a "good match, higher ranked than that Hamir boy." As if rank would matter to him.
After reminding his father that the name was Amir if you please, Leander had packed and set out. He had been pleased to hear the far-off, startled cries of his father - who was probably reading the explanatory note Leander had left in his room - as in the dead of night he directed Foronath over the castle drawbridge and onto the smaller trail leading to Tabara and Amir.
Leander's grin of sheer malice, in remembrance of that night, abruptly disappeared as he remembered that the king's troops were after him: another reason to quickly find an inn. He doubted that the soldiers, who like the subjects of Gelfaar were more loyal to him than his father, would really bring him back to his palace home, but one could never know; and in response to a slight panic, Leander sped Foronath up to a quick gallop.
Leander went over his plan in his mind. As he knew that Amir's father was agreeable, he would marry Amir and become the future co-King of Tabara. If for some reason the King of Tabara reneged and did not allow the union, then Leander and Amir would run off somewhere. He was a hundred-and-one percent sure that Amir had no objections, and neither of them were not resourceful, so...
A fork in the road appeared, and Foronath slowed to a stop as he waited for his rider's direction.
Which way now?
Hell and damnation! He'd lose precious time making a decision, as well as crucial traveling days if he went on the trail leading to the dangerous cave systems. He was already in the Tabaran kingdom but he wanted to get to the Palace of Tabara where Amir waited and he couldn't remember which fork led there. If only he could send someone ahead and have them come back to show the right way...
"By the Mother, that's it!" he cried, causing Foronath to neigh and cavort wildly in protest at the abrupt barrage of sound. Placatingly pulling on the reins with his left hand, Leander raised his right to the sky and thought hard of an inn.
A ball of light coalesced at each of Leander's fingertips; the resultant five lights detached from his fingertips to arrange themselves into a small circle, and they pulsed with Power as they hovered in the growing darkness in front of Leander's face. Foronath, used to Leander's antics, merely snorted and twitched his ears at the Magic as Leander mentally asked the lights to lead the way.
Astonishingly, the lights glided ten meters backwards and stopped.
Leander's surprise turned to delight when he saw that the lights had led him to another, even smaller trail which was hidden by the darkness and the heavy growth. He turned onto the path; after riding a few moments he spotted in the distance a cheerfully lit, whitewashed inn.
Suppressing an overwhelming surge of relief, Leander dismounted to lead Foronath the rest of the way, and tied him to a sign that read BLUE LAKE INN; he then backtracked to the main trail. Once there, he rearranged the foliage and dirt so that it wouldn't seem like anyone had ever turned onto this trail from the main trail, and this time, as he created this deception, Leander did not hesitate to use strength-taxing Magic to assist his work and to light the area as he worked with it; after all, he was at a rest stop.
But what about the hoof marks? It could plainly be seen by the marks that Leander had turned backwards onto the newly rehidden path.
Standing at the junction of the two paths, Leander frowned and concentrated; the dirt quickly shifted and resettled, so that now it looked like Foronath had stopped at the fork and then flown away with Leander.
Pleased with his solution, Leander turned back, retrieved his packs from Foronath's back to strap them onto his own, and opened the inn's front door to see an empty, large dining room furnished completely with Tabaran redwoods. Behind the bar to the left sat a lone, bleary-eyed, grey-haired Troll whose apple green eyes narrowed in annoyance, then widened in fear as he realized who stood before him.
"You're... You're..."
"Yes, I'm Prince Leander." Leander put his packs down onto the clean wooden floor.
"Bu- But, Your Majesty, why are you here?" Frightened, the Troll rose with age-belying swiftness, came around the counter, and knelt in front of the Prince, bowing his head as he did so. "I've done no wrong, I..."
"It's alright, my good man, do get up. As to why I'm here, you probably know that I do not wish to marry Princess Varla of Wogerin."
The Troll grimaced, disgust overpowering fear as he rose; he kept his head slightly bent down in respect, however. "That Varla. If you'll excuse me, even her brains are ninety-percent lard."
Leander grinned broadly but he had been trained to keep his tone dignified/formal since he was four years old: "And so I've decided to seek refuge with Prince Amir here in Tabara." There was no point in keeping that a secret, as word of his disappearance would have fast spread throughout Gelfaar by now and would soon advance here into Tabara.
The Troll looked up sharply, and abruptly started to laugh. "And you want me to hide you and let you rest, is that it, my lord? Sure I will, I respect the king but I don't think your father is doing a good thing for you or for Gelfaar. You're all every traveler from Gelfaar talks about; they all support you. Course, the travelers I've met don't know yet that you've left Gelfaar, but they've all been predicting that it'd happen, what with you showing your initiative with that Unity Campaign for the farmers in Gelfaar and all, and they've all been hoping that you would leave, for your own sake." Surprised that his problems were so public and that so many people sympathized with him, Leander merely smiled and nodded as the other man continued: "Of course, there's no charge, my lord, and you can stay as long as you like. No, please don't protest, my lord. Besides, your room's gonna be a little shabbier than the others: it's my 'refugee's room' that's hidden underground. Soon as I get you in, I'll hide your horse in the underground stable." The Troll winked and walked away, motioning for Leander to follow.
His curiosity piqued, Leander asked, "What's with all this underground stuff?"
The Troll bent down to pick up Leander's packs, grabbed a torch from a brace in the wall using a free hand, and started to walk. "When a previous king of Tabara started persecuting Magic users, my grandfather built an underground floor in the inn where people traveling from Tabara to your kingdom could hide and stay for a while. You aren't the first person of royal blood my line has been proud to shelter. By the way, my name's Doreel, Your Majesty," and Doreel looked back at Leander to see his reaction to this disclosure.
Leander grinned back in gratitude. "Calling me Leander is fine, Doreel, and thanks for your help. Still, rank aside, why are you helping me?"
"Like I said, I'm one of the many people who object to your planned marriage to that excrescence. I always try to do what I think's right. Besides, an alliance to the Woger Clan isn't needed; Gelfaar hasn't been to war with them for over thirty years. And don't you have three sisters? That's enough to keep the royal line going without your help."
The two walked on in silence; Doreel was taking Leander through a maze of tunnels. They reached what appeared to be a dead end, but an oak door appeared in the tunnel's brickwork when Doreel snapped his fingers. The Troll smiled ruefully at Leander's astonishment.
"My Magic allows me to help refugees like you. Keep the door open for air unless you're going to sleep; don't worry, you'll be able to hear anyone coming because sound travels far in these tunnels, so just close the door when you hear footsteps." He was right: his whispers lingered in the passages for eternities. "If it's me I'll knock twice, then three times, then once. Got that? Okay. If you want to come out, you must close the door behind you, and then take the passages in a right-left-right-left pattern. I don't anticipate any danger, but if there is or if I want you to stay in your room, I'll use my magic to change the color of the woodwork in your room to a dark red color. If that happens, close the door and it will look like the rest of the brickwork again from the outside. Okay? Good. Soon as I get your horse in the stable, I'll bring you some food." Doreel grinned in a conspiratorial/friendly manner.
Leander smiled back, partly in response to Doreel, but mostly in relief at his good fortune. What luck that he had found an ally with illusion Magic! Although Leander had stronger Magic than Doreel's and like all those of royal blood commanded much more Power than commonfolk (Amir's Magic lay in controlling water), Doreel's was a lot more helpful to him at the moment.
"Who's watching the inn right now?"
Doreel snapped again and the door became brick. "Well, as you can see, my Magic strength is illusion. Right now the inn looks like a huge rock pile; I usually don't get customers at this time of night anyways, and the only people who ever come here are almost all regular, trusted travelers who know my secrets and who'll know to wait at the rock pile till it turns back into an inn," Doreel winked at Leander again, "and everyone else who's staying here have already gone to their rooms for the night. You must have talent in seeking to have found the inn in this darkness." He snapped again - the door came back - and said, "Brace yourself: the room is wallpapered. An odd curiosity my father installed after buying some during a trip into the Dalcin." Doreel put down the packs and walked away, his footsteps fairly booming in the dark passage.
Curious to see the wallpaper, for wallpaper was something almost never seen unless one went to the Horak Region or the Dalcin Plains, Leander entered, leaving the door open, and set his packs on a desk by the door. He saw some sparking rocks on the desk but he lit the room's oil lamps with his Magic.
The room was furnished in a hurried style: the bed and dresser were not even parallel to their respective walls. Leander, not caring, dropped onto the bed in fatigue and was about to take off his heavy brown riding cloak when he sprang to his feet after taking one good look at the wallpaper.
It was exactly like the old one at home. Colored in sickly shades of satiny, shiny olive green, the wallpaper was ribbed very finely; its design was an odd, brocade-like psychedelic floral pattern that was made by changing the direction of the ribbing here and there; each different direction caused the light to reflect with a unique amount of intensity and this was what caused the shades of olive to differ.
Abruptly, the memories came back.

Leander was a little boy of five who had finally gotten his own room; he did not have to sleep in his mother the Queen's room anymore, or even with a nurse. He was so proud when his parents let him go to the door to his new room and open it to see the surprises; but delight turned to fear as the boy saw the wallpaper on the far wall to his room stare back at him.
Then he was crying in fright, and the Queen was holding him saying that the one-eyed feather women in the paper on the wall would not harm him, nor were the hideous lionflowers mocking him with their green grin. Mother had held him close while explaining this, exuding a clean, soft smell. His father was shouting in anger at the nearby workers who had put up this monstrosity which had scared the Crown Prince into screaming loud enough so that his baby sisters were wailing. Then the King had turned to him to give him a hug, had asked in a concerned voice if he was okay, and then told him that he would have the paper removed at once.
How loving his parents had been! How they had spoiled him and tended to him!