The 4 Mirrors

There was once a wealthy merchant of Lovingia who owned a fleet of trading ships and used them to transport fine fabrics and spices and other exotic goods from far and wide. He had always had a fascination with old magical or new scientific wonders and when news came to him of a man in West Nesten who claimed to be a wizard and who owned four magical mirrors, he was intrigued.

“What is magical about them?”, he inquired.

“They reflect the four aspects of the soul”, he was told.

“I must own them”, he decided, “They will go very well within my new mansion”.

And so the rich man sent word to the wizard who lived in Nesten that he would pay up to 4000 golden etchens for the four mirrors but the Wizard sent word back to the rich man that he would not sell the mirrors at any price.

“What an insult!”, said the rich man, “No one refuses me”, and he decided then that he would go and see the wizard in person and use his forceful personality and enormous business brain to wrestle the magic mirrors from their foolish owner.

When the rich man came to west Nesten he was told that the Wizard lived in a moderately sized house at the top of a hill, called Lonely hill, and that to get to him he would have to take the winding path up the hill and so, irritably, the rich merchant set out up the winding path.

When he was a quarter of the way up the hill the rich man saw a beggar on the path who pleaded with him for a few coins to buy food, “I have not eaten in four days”, said the beggar. The rich man pretended that he could not hear the beggar and kept walking but something about the beggar seemed frighteningly familiar to the rich man and it made him shudder.

When he was half way up the hill he bumped
into a blind man and accidentally knocked
the cane out of the blind man’s hand but,
while the blind man was on his hands and knees trying to find his cane, the wealthy merchant neither helped nor apologized but merely snorted
gruffly, “You should watch where you’re going!", and walked on up the hill.

When he was three quarters up the hill he was approached by a terrifying looking bandit with a long dagger and was frightened at first but was determined not to part with any of his money and so lashed out at the bandit with his gilded walking stick who suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a pile of glass shards. “This must be the Wizards doing”, he said, “I will have him thrown in jail once I get hold of his mirrors!”.

When he finally reached the top of the hill he saw a young boy, “Are you the wizards son?”, he asked but the boy did not answer and only echoed the rich mans question tauntingly, “Are you the wizards son? Are you the wizards son?”, said the boy, laughing and sticking his tongue out at the rich man.

“Why you little-”, snarled the rich man, chasing after the boy with his walking stick but never catching him and only tripping and falling flat upon his face.

Suddenly the Wizard appeared; an old man in white robes with a shaven head and a long white beard. “I believe that I am the man whom you seek”, said the Wizard,helping the rich man back to his feet.

“You!”, snarled the rich man, “You are the wizard! I will have you arrested for what you have put me through”.

“Put you through? I do not understand.”, said the Wizard.

“Do not try and lie to me!”, said the rich man, “First you stick a beggar on the path to harass me with pleading, then some blind fool bumped into me and almost knocked me down, then some robber approached me with a knife and almost killed me and then your impudent boy stuck his tongue out at me!”

“But sir”, explained the wizard, “I have no boy and there is no blind man or bandit or beggar on the path. What you saw were the 4 magic mirrors. The beggar that you saw was your own spiritual impoverishment, the blind man that you bumped into was your own spiritual blindness, the bandit that you saw was the bandit in you that robs and cheats others and the rude little boy was the childishness in you that has not been replaced by maturity and wisdom”.