The Sour Chord

In his idyllic prison, Kaelen heard the question as a discordant note in a perfect melody, a single, sour chord that spoiled the harmony. It was a question that had no place in his world of simple answers, and it was the first thing he had heard in a long time that sounded real. For the Anchorite, the question was a logical impossibility, a variable in an equation that was supposed to be closed. He had been given a task, a purpose, but the question implied that the task was meaningless, a placeholder in a story that was waiting for its next chapter. The seed in his hand suddenly felt very small, and the garden around him felt very, very large.