There was a man perching on the ledge of the window, and when he saw him there, on opening the door, Van Salazar de Fanel snatched out his sword and brought it into a high guard. "Who are you?!" he snapped. "How did you get into this part of the palace?!"
The man looked at his host and, for a wonder, did not smile at being threatened by a thirteen year old boy. "The man in the wind and the west moon," he said, and then did laugh at Van's expression. "More seriously, neither of those things matter. I'm just a messenger; here to deliver something into your hands. This."
It glittered in the palm of his open hand, flashing in the sunbeams from the window and with a radiance of its own, small enough to fit easily in its nest yet somehow impossible to assign exact dimensions to. Van's eyes widened as he took in its faceted glory. "What kind of a gem," he breathed, almost against his will, "is that?"
"Not a gem," the intruder told him, with something in his tone that hinted mischief lay in the same direction as duty, then tossed the thing to the young prince in an easy underhand motion.
He caught it automatically, and was transported into a nightmare.
Much later, when he came back to the waking world, he looked up at his... visitor's... concerned eyes and croaked, "Why?"
"Ask him yourself," the mysterious man replied, and then leaned back to fall out the window and out of sight.
By the time Van had recovered enough to rush over and look out after him, the only sign of his presence was the gem-not-gem the young prince held tightly in his fist. "Ask who?" he asked the sunset across the courtyard.
purpose
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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"